busy
elfinecstasy was asking about bonding with trees. This is what I wrote:My favorite tree is Home Base. I have known him all my life. His name comes from the fact that we used to play "Hide and Seek" when I was little, and we always used him as Home Base.
He is an ancient mulberry tree near one corner of the house. Like most mulberries, he has lost parts of his trunk and branches over the years. There is one partly rotted stump section extending out from the base, indicating that his girth was once about twice its current (very large) circumference.
Where the branches sprout from the main trunk, there is an old rusted scythe blade buried deep in the wood. When I was very young, the long wooden handle was still attached, and I used it to pull myself up into the branches. Now the handle has long since rotted away, but the blade remains, just the two ends barely visible. My mother says that this is "the one that got away," the tree that not even Death could kill.
A part of my heart will always reside in Home Base. He reminds me of endurance and protection. He is a guardian and an anchor. He taught me that home isn't a place that belongs to you, but a place to which you belong.
