Society depends on symbols. Symbols are used to keep us safe on the road where they direct us which way to go, where people might be crossing, or deer or where road crews might be working. They tell us where it is safe to park and where handicapped people can park to make it easier for them to navigate on our streets. Symbols are used by professions to indicate their purposes. We know there is a pharmacy when we see the mortar and pestle, a restaurant when we see a fork and spoon, the caduceus to indicate a doctor’s office. Even in athletics, symbols are used to identify the different teams. We use symbols on our clothing to indicate different organizations we belong to or different causes we support. We even use symbols to locate rest rooms or to tell us when it is safe to cross a street. The upright red hand means don’t cross and the green silhouette of a person tells us it is safe. Most major organizations use symbols for their advertising. Symbols are easier to understand than words and even people who don’t speak the language can identify the meaning of such symbols.
I have a few symbols, one in particular that is meaningful to me and that I have carried around with me my entire life. My family left New York City when I was 5 years old. They didn’t want me to start school there and have to pay 25 cents a week to the local gang on the lower East Side to guarantee my safety back and forth from school. My folks decided to move to the country, which back then was Flushing, Queens.We moved into a big old house with 4 bedrooms and a backyard that had trees and grass and bushes. From the very beginning before I developed any friendships with the neighborhood kids I found a huge old maple tree in the corner of our yard. The roots stuck out of the ground in a circular pattern and I found l could sit with my back against the trunk and color in my coloring books or draw, even draw patterns in the earth with an old broken off twig. I loved it there, I felt safe and comfortable. I didn’t know it at the time but our street was lined with maple trees. Coming from the Lower East Side of NYC, trees were few and far between and I didn’t know there were different kinds of trees. That maple in my backyard became my friend. There was something about the shape of the leaf that I thought was beautiful. I can remember plucking a leaf off a low branch and twirling it in my fingers, studying each side, following each vein and tracing the shape of the leaf with my finger. For a little kid, I was enamored with that tree in my yard, As I got older I would go there to escape arguments inside the house or times of sadness, The tree never failed me.
Entertainment wise, maples always afforded us kids on the block with a lot of fun. In the Fall, you could look up and down the block and see kids with their dads raking the dead leaves into piles on the curb. Then the kids would go from house to house and take running leaps into the heaping piles of dried crunchy leaves. I can feel the crunchy scratching of the leaves that wound up going down the back of my shirts, but the fun wasn’t over yet. Around late afternoon, just before it would get dark, the dads did the unthinkable thing that dads of today can no longer do. They would strike matches and those leaf piles became alive with orange and yellow flames and the incredible smell of autumn leaves burning could be smelled throughout the block. and the kids would stand around with the flames reflecting off their faces while their outstretched hands could feel the comforting warmth of the fire. We always stayed til the last of the embers had cooled and the fire was just a puddle of ashes until the next raking session in a few days,
But the Fall wasn’t the only time we were entertained by the many talents of maple trees.’ When they went to seed the trees would shed their seed pods and we would catch them as they twirled their way to the ground like tiny helicopters They looked like old men’s mustaches and by puckering your top lip you could hold one between your nose and lip and talk like we thought old men used to talk. And better yet, if you broke the seed pod in half, and separated the actual covering of the seed, there was a sticky substance that allowed you to stick it to the tip of your nose and walk around like that until the stickiness wore off and it fell to the ground. The seed pod of the maple I came to discover was called a samara.
As I got older, I began to appreciate the beauty of the maple leaf and discovered the many varieties of maples that exist. I loved the shape of the leaf, the points and valleys between them. I loved how the veins brought nourishment to the foliage. They would branch out toward each of those points assuring me that life can be fulfilling and sustaining. And then the added bonus of the changes in colors as the seasons changed and they could produce brilliant reds and yellows depending on the variety of the maple. Sometime in my teens I saw a copy of Vermont Life magazine and it was all about maple syrup and I actually bought a subscription to the magazine. Vermont seemed like a wonderland of nature, and I wanted at some time to live there with all the maples and syrup I could stand. The maple leaf became my symbol! I would draw a maple leaf on my schoolbooks that we all covered with brown paper bags from the supermarket. To this day I still enjoy the beauty of that simple pattern of nature. I always imagined getting a tattoo of a maple leaf on my arm but never was brave enough to actually do it. The closest I came to it is putting a maple leaf decal on both sides of my Jeep hood to keep the memory alive. I did fulfill my dream of living in Vermont after I retired from teaching. I owned and operated a Bed and Breakfast in a beautiful Vermont town and Vermont proved to be that amazing place where maple trees thrived, and life just seemed simpler!
Reverence for Trees
Don’t get me started on trees! The Ents were my favorite characters in JRR Tolkien stories. To me, those large, slow moving, ancient tree creatures represent the power of stewardship. It’s no wonder that people have such strong attachment to the mighty entities we call trees. Once I was called to evaluate the fallen carcass of a beloved tree, in order to judge whether the wood was viable for a sculpture. The owners grew up with that tree (as George did with his maple); had named it; climbed it as kids; and wanted the memory of their tree-friend to be showcased in a sculpture. They felt so strongly that they engaged a wood artist from Ireland to create life-size ballerina figures from their maple.
Actually, I’m doing something similar: making a series of twenty ‘steeple’ pens from pine used in an 1853 construction (as a result of some remodeling of our church’s steeple). When you consider that the 16” boards that came out of the steeple were likely from a 200 year-old pine, this tree was a youngster in 1650!
If you’ve kept up with current events, no doubt you’re aware of the recent outrage over the felling of the Sycamore Gap tree which stood by Hadrian’s wall in Britain. The logger initially (falsely) accused of the illegal cutting said, “If I’d have done a murder, I’d be getting less hassle, you know that?” – and now wears a wig to disguise himself. People have a connection with trees!
The connection is so strong that many animistic religions claim a self-aware life force – a consciousness — in trees. From the sacred ash tree in Norse cosmology (Yggdrasil) to the shinboku trees of the Shinto belief, trees have been used since early times as a means of approaching the divine, particularly through specimens which have lived for many human generations. Some tree populations – especially clonal forests – are estimated to be among the world’s oldest living entities (The Pando Aspen Grove in Utah is said to be between 14,000 and 83,000 years old, connected by a common root system). Some communities respect their elder-trees by taking their name, e.g., Elmsford, named after the 300-year-old Elm used as a landmark by George Washington. George’s maple tree may have been over 100 years old.
And trees communicate. Some call the interconnectivity of the root system the “wood-wide web”, due to the ability of trees to send chemical messages to other trees through mycorrhizal network – an interaction of root and fungi. German author and forest steward Peter Wohlleben described tree interactions in his book, The Hidden Life of Trees (a great book btw).
All that said, I’m totally on the same wavelength as George! And while I love the many varieties of acer, my strongest association with a tree symbol is quercus, the strong and enduring oak. In fact, I use the oak leaf symbol – a sigil, really – for my woodturning venture: Lost Leaf Turning.
The use of the oak leaf comes from a very intense dream that I had as an adolescent. No doubt it was influenced by the 1954 movie, Prince Valiant. I used to read the comic strip as well, but the movie made an impression. Specifically, Valiant wore a sigil of a horse on his attire, including his over-tunic. In my dream, I was fighting evil-doers and had the pointy red oak leaf on my chest. Very specifically, my over-tunic was white, with a cutout in the shape of the leaf – and the under tunic was forest green, showing through the negative space – producing a green leaf on white background. In a way, it’s kind of reminiscent of George’s green maple leaf on his white jeep.
Of course, I was fascinated with knights and at the right age for such fantasies. However, the image in the dream persists, even sixty-plus years later. The symbolism of the oak for me represents the ability to hold strong to purpose and to live with honor, participating in the mysteries that the ancient celts used to call ‘oak-knowledge’.
This sense of endurance and resilience is found in the poem The Oak Tree, by Johnny Ray Rider Jr.
A mighty wind blew night and day
It stole the oak tree’s leaves away
Then snapped its boughs and pulled its bark
Until the oak was tired and stark
But still the oak tree held its ground
While other trees fell all around
The weary wind gave up and spoke,
“How can you still be standing Oak?”
The oak tree said, “I know that you
Can break each branch of mine in two
Carry every leaf away
Shake my limbs, and make me sway.
But I have roots stretched in the earth
Growing stronger since my birth
You’ll never touch them, for you see
They are the deepest part of me.
Until today, I wasn’t sure
Of just how much I could endure
But now I’ve found, with thanks to you
I’m stronger than I ever knew.”
I Am Phoenix!
The legendary Phoenix is my symbol! I didn’t meet this noble creature until I was in my early forties. It began in the best darn elementary school east of the Mississippi! (Actually west too but I love the phrase so why not?) I don’t remember how I came upon the book but loved reading it aloud on Friday afternoons to all the fifth graders. Each of the many mythical characters who came in contact with the Phoenix was unique and I was able to formulate a different voice for each. For years I took these ten and eleven year olds on one adventure after another as the Phoenix attempted to teach David the “important and meaningful” lessons of life. At the time, it was a great way for me to connect to the students while being appropriately childlike along the way.
Years later, I found myself drawn to the symbol of the Phoenix as well as the traits (admittedly they were embellished in the story) affixed to this creature. In time, it became somewhat of a representation of both who I am and who I aspired to be — rebirth, passion, tenacity, courage, flight, wisdom, common sense, kindness, competitive, love of sweets, friendship, mentor/coach, love of outdoors, and a playful sense of humor.
The book, written by Edward Ormondroyd, follows the adventures of a young boy named David, who stumbles upon a mythical creature, the Phoenix, in the woods near his home. The Phoenix is a majestic bird with brilliant plumage and the ability to be reborn from its ashes. The two of them quickly become friends, and the Phoenix takes David on a series of magical journeys.Throughout their adventures, David and the Phoenix encounter a variety of mythical creatures and engage in various challenges. The Phoenix imparts wisdom to David and teaches him about courage, friendship, and the importance of kindness. The story is not only a tale of magical adventures but also a coming-of-age narrative, as David learns important life lessons from his extraordinary friend.
At various times in my life I considered getting a tattoo. The Phoenix, of course, would have been displayed on my forearm. The tattoo will likely never happen, but if it does there is no other symbol I would choose.
My experiences in Temagami, in the Canadian wilderness created lasting changes in how I saw myself and who I was. And while I didn’t have to enter a funeral pyre and arise from the ashes as did the Phoenix, my fire walk and related encounters provided the ingredients necessary for me to significantly change the course of my life — a rebirth if you will.
At times I am an idealist, a dreamer, and a believer in mind over matter. And while I am also realistic and relatively grounded in a scientific belief system, I know there is more than meets the eye, more than we can prove, and there are things that defy logic and human understanding. And in that space between reality and fantasy lies possibilities…maybe even a Phoenix!
“I have been sent to you to see that you get into some trouble. People who never get into any trouble are usually very sad and lonely people.”
– The Phoenix
Three Old Guys Walked Into A Bar 