Bristlecone Forest, November 2015
Photo by Tim Giller
Resilience is a good word. A strength in the absence of arrogance. Not so much oppositional as it is an integrated reality. The inherent power in the universe for finding a way through struggle, or perhaps embracing struggle as what shapes what it is we are to become. Such as rock resisting water as it slowly shaped into lyrical forms. The water buffeting through seemingly implacable stone, ever seeking downward in compelling cascades. Two partners in a dance, beautiful on their own but exquisite together.
The oldest known living tree, nearly 5000 years old, invites us into a paradox. Hardy, grotesquely shaped by living in unforgiving soils, dry air, sun baked. They live the longest when found in the harshest places. Sacrificing limbs, whole trunks, weathered into sculptural lines, golden and red, stripes densely modeled against the brilliant blue high desert sky. Growth rings resinous, tightly packed wood grain more impervious than organic. A type of determined graceful modesty, not just surviving in locales inhospitable to most but making an artistry of it.
It is easy to mistake this as a story of existing despite the hardships. Not some sort of victim of uncomfortable circumstances, this is an elegant type of thriving, that these difficult circumstances are part of the beautiful being that they become, at home where they find themselves.