"Hello everyone.... I don't know if this really qualifies as a "Forum Topic", and I know many would say "it was only a tree", but sharing does help to soothe the pain of ones loss, and is enormously therapeutic....
I lost you, my old friend, a few days ago. For thirty-five years we together unfailingly marked the glorious changing of the seasons, and you kindly shaded the backside of my building during the heat of many a summer. You were the picture of health towering seventy feet high, about the same age as me (85) from what I have been told. Numberless generations of squirrels and birds had called you home. So many happy memories.... the squirrels scurrying and leaping about.... the raccoons and possums that once found rest among your inviting branches.... all the birds nests that erupted with the delightful chorus of baby birds each year.... and all the fascinatingly intricate freshly spun spider webs, glistening with morning dew, among your limbs in the light of the rising sun! I loved you so very, very much.... Oh! My dear beloved old Mapple Tree, how I wish I could have saved you!
You my old friend.... who brought such joy into my life, and the lives of so many others for so many years.... are gone."
A couple of days after I posted that little eulogy showing a picture of the tree that had been cut down, it was suggested (by a member calling herself "Crystal") that some part of my old friend should be preserved and that perhaps a staff, a bowl or a pendant could be made. Since my youngest son (Emile, here known as Aemilius) is an artist and former wood worker, he volunteered and began the search for just the right piece of wood. He found one that he liked but I rejected it because it didn't "feel" right. He continued to search and as he did he noticed a hollow near the center of the tree trunk that was exposed when it was cut down. It must have formed many, many years ago, probably seventy or eighty, while I was still only a child.
Clearly two tree trunks, once close together, had merged becoming one. Being the curious sort, he cleared it of saw dust and made the most remarkable discovery! Within the tree all these many years had been hidden a secret! He said it was wedged in very tightly, and I watched from the second floor walkway as he used a hammer and a long screwdriver to carefully and patiently chisel it loose. When he brought it in I could hardly believe my eyes.... it was like a dream.
It's about two inches across at the widest point and has all the subtle beauty of a great Emerald, my fovorite gem! I would not even hazard a guess as to what it's really made of, nor have I any intention of finding out, but I will say that when I held it to my chest I immediately burst into tears with such joy as I have never felt before.... it rests upon my Altar for now, but soon, in a very special ritual, I will consecrate it my self and have it made (no cutting or faceting) into a most glorious and powerful Amulet.
It's amazing! One reads of various things being found in very strange places but, really, this "takes the cake" as they say! I remember now, many years ago in California, seeing a tree where a brick had been lodged in the crotch of a tree and the same process was under way. It could no longer be removed and only the two ends of it were still visible from either side of the tree.
Here are better shots of the hollow where he discovered it.... Love and Light to all of you, Guenn
I wonder if you could have a jeweler look at it and give you an idea of what it is made of. Not that it matters, what a beauty!
