Leavetaking

Last meeting of this year's iteration of "Religion of Trees"! After the last four final projects (a script for an online horror game, a zine, an illustrated essay, and a flip movie about tree climbing) and a final drawing, we moved down to the chilly courtyard. We huddled in this space, sharing final thoughts as our maple kin stood by. The maples' last leaves have succumbed to the leaf blower but a few leaves awaited us from a neighboring spindle tree.

The drawing prompt was - of course - "religion of trees," and the drawings show a nice range of arboreal, anthropomorphic and human interactions. (458 was the number of our classroom.) Final thoughts were mostly expressions of gratitude for new or deepened awareness of these interactions, as well as for the fellowship of the class. I'm confident the relationships forged in the class, with trees and other human tree devotés, will endure (at least some of them). Shared attention to tree kin allows different kinds of human availability too.