Friday, May 18, 2007

The secret life of roots


By ashen roots the (fire pinks) blow


Tough roots among the rocks


The parable of the sower


The (gradual) disintegration of the persistence of memory


The dim tangled roots of things


Erosion, so they say, is the root of all evil today. (This is often misquoted.)

15 comments:

meresy_g said...

great post and photos. It is really amazing what trees in the wild will do to 'hang on' and survive. I especially love the curtains of roots that form on a tree that is overhanging a creek bank.

DeeMom said...

Nature never ceases to amaze me.

Cathy said...

Whoa! It is amazing the way nature's forms coalesce in our brains as philosophy and wisdom.

Carolyn H said...

What a great series of photos and a great idea for a post. Thanks!

Carolyn H.
www.roundtoprumings.blogspot.com

kris said...

Cool photos.

Anonymous said...

Good Festival of the Trees material!

lime said...

fabulous pics and caption. i especially love that last one. it looks like the trees are holding hands.

R.Powers said...

This post was positively gravitropic!

Rurality said...

Thanks y'all.

By the way, just in case anyone thought I came up with those lovely phrases... no, I stole them. From Tennyson, Nietzsche, Octavia Butler (or the Bible?), Dalí, Cézanne, and Pink Floyd, respectively.

And yes I had to look up gravitropic! :)

Linda said...

This was a wonderful post.

lisa said...

Nice post! I always imagine trolls living amongst tree roots...creeps me out just a little.

KFarmer said...

I love those pictures- Don't know why but tree roots exposed have always been interesting to me. Fire pinks? I tried to get a closer look at them but no go. Could they be what we call here Indian Paintbrush?

Rurality said...

Thanks Linda!

Lisa, now you're going to have me thinking that too!

KF, no it's different. Look at this post and you can see one close up. They're called pinks because of the pinked edge of the flower (like it was cut with pinking shears).

KFarmer said...

Gotcha! Thanks :)

Maureen said...

what a cool, well-thought out post for the Festival of Trees -- roots are fascinating to me, and even more so because the bulk of a tree's roots are invisible to us. Love the quotes, too.