Bonsai! or, Seeking the Good, the True, and the Beautiful

Okay, so: storytime. But at the risk of killing the story, let me give you some background.

What I have discovered while training with the Army is that structures that the Army builds are uses are very functional, but seldom are pretty. In fact, there are very few beautiful things when one is training with the Army. Things tend towards function and uniformity, which makes sense, because it's the Army and that's kinda what we do most of the time. When you go downrange and into the trees, maybe you could look toward the foliage for something beautiful, but more than likely you will be counseled to smell the roses later, if any drill sergeant finds out what you are doing.

However, during training last summer, there was one jarringly beautiful thing that I remember. At Fort Leonard Wood, in the Central Iowa Chapel, there were huge stained glass windows in the worship space. I wish that I could find pictures of that stained glass, because it made me stop and catch my breath after all the camouflage and foliage that I had been looking at...

Here's where the story starts:

I don’t remember how far into training I was that I finally wrote to my wife and told her that we were going to go look at beautiful things when I got home. But I did write that and we did go find beautiful things when I was done. We went to the Como Conservatory in St. Paul. Took plenty of time in the greenhouse, and the zen garden, we walked through the Como Zoo that day, too. But what especially held my attention that day was looking at the bonsai trees.

I'm fairly confident that most folks are familiar with bonsai. If nothing else, most are aware that it is a process of training vegetation over the course of years. Many people think it's just the tiny trees, but in the picture above, the tree was about as tall as I was. In many bonsai, the training may be conducted by using wires and bamboo frames, in addition to the trimming. I think that the Como Conservatory has a really great representation of the art form. So what struck me with this one particularly was that part of the tree that had died was being used as a frame to support the rest of the tree's training.

This coin is actually available from the Daily Stoic

What I anticipate is that, since this is bonsai and a part of the Japanese Garden at Como Conservatory, there was no small measure of yin and yang intended with this. But more of what I was struck by was the Western concept of momento mori, or "Remember your death." I think momento mori is something used by teenagers when they're trying to be edgy and goth, but more to my point, I think it is better suited to remind us that none of us gets out of this life alive. And, at times, it may be the case that you carry around a totem to remind yourself of this idea. And in fact, whomever began training this tree decided that the tree would be wound around the sign of its death.

I had something of a visceral reaction to this tree. The placard said that it's and Eastern White Cedar, which I like (cedar always seems to have some kind of gravitas to it). But more specifically, bonsai is always intentional. And so when someone decided to build new life on a previous death experience, that's resurrection if I've ever heard of it.

There was another tree in the bonsai display that I also want to tell you about, dear readers. I don't know whether this one was actually in training as a bonsai, but it was in with all the other bonsais, so therefor I'm going to tell you about it. This one seemed to do nothing but proclaim death and resurrection, on more than one level.

This tree was never supposed to grow. I mean, that's what usually happens when something is irradiated. The camphor tree that gave the seed that this one sprouted from stood about a half a mile from ground zero in Nagasaki on 9 August 1945. I can't imagine what kind of obliteration that tree was surrounded by. And really, the fact that the tree gave viable seeds after that is astounding enough. But as if to make death and resurrection all the more real, there are seeds of friendship and cooperation between Nagasaki and Saint Paul; they are sister cities.

I mean, why should any city in Japan work with another in the US? Obliterating someone with nuclear weapons has the ability to drive a wedge between people. But nonetheless, here in front of me, was a tree that's parent should have died, in a city where it's seed should never have been given as a gift. And yet. 

Resurrection is a beautiful thing. I'm grateful when I get to experience it.