In "Religion & Ecology" today we had a visitor, an alumna involved with an organization called the Church of the Woods. To welcome her, and also to acknowledge that we are now spread out all across the United States, I asked students to take (or find) a picture of a tree or other plant near where they are. Whether it made us feel more connected or disconnected I can't say - a bit of both, I suppose - but seeing and hearing about plant people in California, Colorado, Maryland, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Texas, Virginia, Washington DC, Utah as well as 
New York was somehow quite lovely. All the photos were taken in the last days, except the blooming buckeye (from the student in Ohio, of course), and near where our fellow class members are now staying. That magnificent cedar at upper left, by the way, is behind the house in Washington State where our visitor visited us from. I've tried to put the pictures in something vaguely like geographical location above. It's not very artfully jumbled, but it didn't make sense to tilt photos of trees and I had to do something to break the homogenizing grid of zoom.
New York was somehow quite lovely. All the photos were taken in the last days, except the blooming buckeye (from the student in Ohio, of course), and near where our fellow class members are now staying. That magnificent cedar at upper left, by the way, is behind the house in Washington State where our visitor visited us from. I've tried to put the pictures in something vaguely like geographical location above. It's not very artfully jumbled, but it didn't make sense to tilt photos of trees and I had to do something to break the homogenizing grid of zoom.