Hug a Tree, yo!

This evening begins the holiday Tu b'Shevat (the 15th of the Hebrew month of Shevat) when Jews commemorate the new year for trees and the beginning of the next agriculture cycle in Eretz Yisrael! It's like the Israeli Arbor Day. Surprised? Don't be. Our people have always been left of center. Give it up for the environment!!! The conservatives have Confederate Heroes Day (the patron saints of lynching, I'm assuming) and we have Tu b'Shevat. Go figure.

Jasmine was my tree de l'année passée. I checked on it this weekend and, after a year, it's still alive. This damned Texas weather! My roses was in foo bloom on New Year's Eve. I guess I shouldn't bitch; I keep a great tan. This year, I's too broke to plant anything tomorrow. I gotsta wait until the Sunday. I feel bad. Instead, I will ponder the deeper meaning of the festival.

There's the ever-mystical etz chayim (Tree of Life) from the Kabbalah, originally found in the pre-fallen Garden of Eden. According to Madonna's last album, she's already climbed it. "And that is why [she's] no longer scared if [she] falls."

I learned in my plant class, which began last Tuesday, that trees store up lots of starchy shtuff so's they can survive during the winter when they have no leaves and can't do that photosynthesis stuff that feeds them. It's the same starch in potatoes that keeps big ass trees alive for months. Maybe that's why I can't lose weight but am sill very much alive. Anyway, this is my fifth science and the last class that I need in order to graduate this semester.

I think that it's important for us to remember our connection with the earth. We receive much from the presence of trees! I love nature! I have an "air hugger" sticker on the back of my car ... yada yada.

Cedric Wright wrote of trees in the work "Words of the Earth" of 1960:

"From their mute forms there flows a poise, in silence,
a lovely sound and motion in response to wind.
What peace comes to those aware of the voice and bearing of trees!
Trees do not scream for attention...
A tree retains serenity...
Sometimes one may sense a glisten
of that consciousness, and with such perspective,
feel that man is not necessarily the highest form of life."

Right on, man.