The Russian Doll that is life

Tis the season for cutting trees down, felling perfectly healthy trees for the sake of it. Sadly, many a tree surgeon is dishonest to the core often preying on townies who do not know their beech from their oak, and convincing them that a tree is diseased and needs to be felled. Bringing a magnificent tree down can earn a tree surgeon upwards of £2,000- a very good living indeed.

So all around me I am encountering the formerly proud sentinels of the natural world sawn in half and condemned forever more as stumps on a grassy verge.

These  photos are of two such stumps- one shows the regular pattern of rings that would indicate the age of the tree- in this case a Scots Fir- and the other is of separate tree- and also a Scots Fir. The rings in the second photograph are unusual and show rings within rings. I am experiencing a similar phenomenon in my own life: rather than accepting the face value of a certain situation, I am being guided to uncover the story within the story. And believe me, there is always more than meets the eye.

Photos copyright SvD.