Dancing on the Brink of the World
A MULTIMEDIA SHOWCASE OF THE MONTEREY CYPRESS
As the signature species of Cypress Lawn Arboretum, Hesperocyparis macrocarpa has graced the landscape of our storied Memorial Park since its founding in the late 1800s. Century-old specimens may be found on each campus across our acreage, and this one tree will likely define the cemeteries of Cypress Lawn for all eternity.
The tale of the Monterey Cypress, though, branches out far beyond the grounds of our cherished Arboretum, originating on a lonely rocky outcropping of the California coastline and today reaching by sea and by seed to every habitable continent on Earth. My dear friend, Old Hespero, lives a grand global narrative of kinship shared between people and trees, spanning across generations, and spreading to the distant corners of our planet, along the way fostering a cultural connection with humanity that grows on as an anecdote of our deeply rooted relationship with all of nature.
The stories, photographs, paintings, and poems of this virtual exhibit will share this ongoing message with you, one volume at a time over the seasons to come. As is often true in the interwoven tapestry of life, one string stitches to another, and yet another, perhaps in unforeseen ways, leading in time to a vast work of art with meaning and beauty beyond the intention of any one thread. Such is true of the growing saga of the Monterey cypress, continuing here in these words and ever dancing on the brink of the world.
Featured Post – Volume XVIII – Seedling
The journey I’m on is one to take a lifetime. If a tree is the grand metaphor of my human experience, right now I feel that I am just a seedling. I have found the spark of germination; I’ve sent down those nascent exploratory roots; I’ve raised my delicate cotyledons into the casting rays of the sun, life-giving it does shine on my first few leaves. I am growing. But the path before me, if I am to put on rings and become a true wooden one, is long and winding yet.
This volume of our story, of the wonderment of the Monterey cypress, is one of reflection, of where we are together, Old Hespero and I, where we’ve come from, and where we may go next. When I think back on the past five years of my life, in this chapter of embracing identity as an arborist, as a man of the trees, my gratitude for their silent, standing company grows high above the forest. I know not what my life would be without them.
