I might be getting a bit ahead of myself here but I woke up in the night with "Ban-yan" in my head, so got up and did a bit of research - I've been thinking of a tree, a large spreading tree, like a banyan, that sends down new roots from its branches . . thinking of internally lit pillars of cut boxes for the trunks, hanging white leaf skeletons . . anyway my imagination is off and running, like the sourdough starter on the top of my fridge, all bubbling and fermenting furiously!
Today I've been reading about significant trees - the Great Banyan in India, a banyan that covers 4 acres; Yggdrasil, the great tree of Norse mythology; Celtic stories of the branch of white blossoms given to Bran on his voyage; Tolkien's Trees of Valinor (Telperion and Laurelin) and the White Tree of Gondor, decended from the White Tree of Numinor, which was saved from Telperion; the Biblical Tree of Life . . . many many trees . .
And the sad remains of the avenue of glorious figs near Pleystowe, and the strange desire of people to cut down trees for no apparent reason . . . in Celtic culture a large tree would be kept when land was cleared, and the greatest outrage you could perform against your enemies was to cut down their mother tree (echoes of all this in Avatar as well - lots of archetypal references in there.)
I need to to go the Botanic Gardens and have a look at the Banyan tree there, and find out about other significant trees in Mackay.
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