The Beauty of Ruin

When I saw the devastation along the Conifer Path after last month’s wind and rain, the reality of loss was strong and clear. It’s something I’ve felt for people, even animals, but rarely so deeply for trees. That has shifted the more time I spend among them. I’m as grateful for this taste of the depth of feeling that’s possible for other life-forms as I am bereft by the magnitude of the loss.

I walked among the up-ended trees last week as a sort of pilgrimage, an opportunity to notice the ruin, even as the living green world continued to thrive. There’s always injury and death among the living. It was just easier to notice both in this place, such a mix of living and dying and everything in between.

I brought my camera, thinking to memorialize the loss. But I found little that appealed to me to shoot. The best of what I found was this raw, recently exposed root-landscape. It’s not composed; it’s just what was – colors and textures from an intimate environment we rarely see. Here it is, exposed for us. Perhaps we can learn to love the hidden and find its beauty, alongside the familiar trees and leaves.