Isn’t the photograph gorgeous? How could anyone hate such a beautiful thing?
I hate them because bonsai are produced by snipping and clipping and binding and confining what nature would have grow glorious and luxuriant.
They seem to me a perfect metaphor for our humanity. We allow ourselves to live small lives. Thoreau famously wrote that we live lives of quiet desperation. They often look like such special lives from the outside: perfectly formed and artfully displayed. But such shallow roots.
Today’s Gospel reading was the Transfiguration:
…he took Peter, John, and James and went up the mountain to pray. While he was praying his face changed in appearance and his clothing became dazzling white…Peter and his companions had been overcome by sleep, but becoming fully awake, they saw his glory…
Luke 9:28-36
Just imagine the lives we could live if we were to become fully awake to glory. Our roots would shatter those decorative pots and sink deep into the good earth, while our branches would stretch to the sun.
Image by cliff1066
Elsewhere:
Christine’s post about the Transfiguration gives us the transformation of the disciples who witnessed it, while Claire, in Transfigured, shares a beautiful and very personal meditation.
And thanks to everyone who spoke up last week for one or more of my books – I’ll be in touch with you very soon.
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{ 9 comments… read them below or add one }
Tess
I agree with your dislike of bonsai. They are all about the external impression. Trees (and humans) should be magnificent – growing to our full potential, bursting with life, with deep roots seeking the best nutrients and providing us with proper anchors for when the wind blows.
roots shattering decorative pots
oh I love this post Tess
i’m currently dealing with the fallout of living in a small town, where they like everyone to live small, think small … and if you don’t want to play that game, they do everything in their power to keep you small
it’s a town full of bonsai lovers
i too am learning to hate bonsai !
my lectio this morning landed me to ponder the same words:
“just imagine the lives we could live if we were to become fully awake to glory.” amen and may it be so! xoxo
I am not fond of bonsai either. They take much work to maintain and remind me of the bound feet on Chinese women generations ago. However, I feel I must explain that the Japanese interfere with the natural growth of trees quite a bit. They seek to improve the way a tree grows by pruning and tying, in effect, disciplining its branches into certain shapes to bring out its soul, the god within. At least that is what I remember learning. We in the West enjoy the amazing wildness of nature, but I think it frightens the Japanese a bit.
That said, I really liked what you wrote about being fully awake to the glory. We miss so much of reality because we doze off.
Beautiful post Tess. I understand the concept so well that you’ve outlined about the restriction, pruning, etc. I’ve always loved the Bonsai products but always fearful to own them as though I would bring their death knoll by not following the rules perfectly……….oh this post opens up a lot of avenues for my mind to spin out on and for me that means I loved it! xo
I am totally with you…I actually find Bonai disturbing and so I could easily use the word hate. At the same time I’ve tried to distance myself as I acknowledge that there might be cultural elements which I am not aware of or understand…and yet I wonder what culture created such an idea?…we think we are like Demiurges rather than connecting with what is truly Divine…true power…
Yes, bonsai indeed reminds me as well of the bound feet of Chinese women. Mind you, I often think that a certain variety of men in Rome are doing the very best they can to bind women’s minds… I have been fighting that for a long time now. Maybe on the urn of my ashes it will be written: she has forever been fighting off the clipping and snipping of her Godde-given wings by men who did not how to fly…
))))
Claire I thought of bound feet of Chinese women too…
Thank you all for your responses – my apologies for being a bad hostess and not responding before now, it’s been one of those weeks!
I’m glad this struck a chord with many of you, and I like the bound feet analogy. Of course I’m being a little disingenuous here, because we tame nature all over the place in all kinds of circumstances. Your response, Barbara, made me think of the espaliered fruit trees that are popular in Europe, and all our pruning and shaping in agriculture.