Shadow Trees

Once upon a time, for six months, I lived alone in a bare, second-story, 2-bedroom apartment in North Carolina: a yoga mat and blanket instead of bed and chairs, no table, no television, and so on. But one of the living room “walls” was all glass with a door opening out onto a deck, and beyond stood several large, long-needle pine trees.

Late at night, a full moon behind the pines would project a shadowy, surreal panorama onto the opposite wall - a kaleidoscopic, phantasmagoric ballet of boughs and needles, constrained yet swaying together in the wind, conflating into weird arabesque constellations for a few seconds, then separating as the branches sprang back, only to reconfigure into alternate but equally surreal gestalts... Intriguing, fascinating, movements.

What might it all mean, or at least signify?

Seated on my meditation cushion, I would gaze for an hour or more.

Even today, years later, 

now and then I watch daytime and nighttime shadow trees,

 thanks to a large Japanese maple partially obstructing a window 

and the strong light of a southern exposure, 

or the moon when it is bright and full.

Stephen Rowe welcomes correspondence of all sort at StephenRowe.OriGraphics@yahoo.com (watch for the period between Rowe and OriGraphics), and can be found on Facebook by typing ArtMissionary  (all one word) into its “Search for people” form.