Rowan trees outside Loyola Chapel, Concordia University, November 2010

Trees at Montreal West Train Station

First day of spring in Montreal

Trees on UBC Campus (3)

Trees on UBC Campus (2)

More rowan trees...

The rowan tree tells us to embrace the future and our vision of life

Rowan trees in Vancouver

You don't see many rowan trees in Montreal but they are common in Vancouver. The abundance of the rowan berries and their deep orange colour make it a particularly visible tree, it stands out among all of the other trees. And it must have always stood out from other trees, it was important to the Celts who gave it added significance as a source of divination. The rowan also suggested to the Celts the presence of the divine in the mundane.

Often, when the unconscious mind makes itself heard, it is when we have passed through a significant time in one's life, a time of change, or insight, or struggle. This may happen when we become aware of messages from dreams, or some other experience occurs, a series of synchronistic experiences, a period of creativity, or an experience of the divine, of God communicating to us. Perhaps we are not aware of the significance of what is happening when it is happening, but it is clear later on that one has passed through a important event in one's life. This is what the rowan tree suggests to me when I place it in the context of what I have written and done this summer, it confirms to me the psychic importance of this summer.

Despite even my own expectations and idea of myself, I have always embraced the future, believed in the future and believed in going where life may take me. I may seem fairly conservative but that's my persona; in fact, I have not really lived a conservative life at all. I have had an introverted and mental life, a life of creativity and deeply felt emotions, a life of poetry, teaching, partnership with my wife, family, and a lifelong relationship with God. The rowan tree, whether fully grown on a residential street in Vancouver, or not much bigger than a shrub on Spanish Bank Beach also here in Vancouver, reminds me of this lesson in life: we need to embrace the future and speak our vision of life no matter how few people agree with us. This is what life is all about if you want to live fully.

Trees on UBC Campus (1)

Apple Tree on Belmore

My interest in trees as an archetype goes back at least to my first book, The Trees of Unknowing (Vehicule Press, 1978), and probably before. The obvious allusion in the title of my book is to The Cloud of Unknowing that I first read in the early-1970s. While in Mexico in 1984 I found a copy of The Cloud of Unknowing and read it again with great interest. Just a few months ago I returned to this book, and read it with even greater interest than the other two times. It is a part of the via negativa , with (curiously) some suggestions of Krishnamurti's philosophy.

Trees. Roots; earth. Branches; sky. Union. The mundane unites with the divine, and mundane, coming from mundo, world, earth, is the appropriate word. And then the discussion of the divine. What seems lacking in contemporary poetry is a discussion of the divine, of God, and our relationship with the Divine. It seems to be totally absent from the discussion of poetry by poets. No wonder the soul of the poet is never discussed, but without a poet's soul how can we have poetry?

These photographs (and many others that I have taken) of this apple tree in our backyard remind me of the many hours of pleasure I have had sitting looking out at this tree. In the evenings I can see neighbours' lights through the trees. Seeing these things is a pleasurable activity, it is a feeling of being in the country in the city, a feeling of calm and, oddly enough, of transcending time.

Trees in Vancouver (two)

Taken as one approaches the Student Union building at UBC.

Trees in Vancouver (one)

Trees on the UBC campus.

Bonsai at the Montreal Botanical Gardens

Where The Bonsai Are

Bonsai at the Montreal Botanical Gardens.