#tree wizards

[shapeofmetal]

Life and Death

[g2web]

From my neighborhood:  https://nextdoor.com/p/mdrzQr8ff8Jj/c/741042349?utm_source=share ✨✨✨✨✨Karon C. from Casa View Haven says: White Rock Tree Wizards takes care of my 40’ and 50’ live oaks. I recommend them highly and enthusiastically.✨✨✨✨✨

@whiterocktreewizards

[g2web]

7 Tree Maintenance Tips for Fall (see original article on Angie's List) Deciduous trees are already changing colors in preparation for the loss of their leaves.

7 Tree Maintenance Tips for Fall (see original article on Angie's List) Deciduous trees are already changing colors in preparation for the loss of their leaves. @whiterocktreewizards

[treewizards-blog]

The first shock for me was realizing this wasn't Cee Lo Green / Gnarls Barkley.

The second shock came at 0:12 of this video. 

[alternapaloooza]

found this in a bathroom

[warmsummersun]

I want to be a Tree Wizard

On my break at work, I noticed the book Gentle Willow: A Story for Children About Dying by Joyce C Mills in our hospice library. The introduction notes that the book is to help children understand death, whether it is themselves or someone else who is terminally ill. So, I decided to flip through it.

It starts out with Amanda the squirrel playing with Little Tree and Gentle Willow in the forest. Amanda notices some funky looking growths on Gentle Willow, who isn't feeling great, so Amanda calls in the Tree Wizards to fix her friend.

(Mental note: look into the qualifications for becoming a tree wizard.)

The Tree Wizards come and tell Amanda that they can't fix Gentle Willow (because some things can't be fixed), but they will keep her comfortable. I am totally with this book up to this point. It's a nice little lead in to palliative care, right? Keeping people comfortable after curative medicine is no longer an option. The book deals nicely with Amanda's feelings of anger and sadness about her friend being sick, and how she and Little Tree have great memories of Gentle Willow after she's gone.

Before that happens, there's this. One day, Amanda notices that Gentle Willow is sad, so Amanda tells her a story. It's about this caterpillar who gets very tired, so he makes himself a cocoon to rest and . . .

And you see where this is going, right? Metamorphosis. Change. Rebirth. Continuing on in a different form. Gentle Willow smiles knowingly at the end of Amanda's story.

I suppose I could interpret it as an allegory about changing forms of energy - that my body, when I die, will decompose and that energy will be released back into the environment in a different form than it was before. That requires ignoring the last part of the story that suggests dying is a transformation into some still living, thinking being. A soul or consciousness that persists after death. It's very reminiscent of The Dragonfly Story. It could be construed as building and finding hope, but it's a story that doesn't speak to atheists.

So how do atheists find hope in the face of death? I suspect the answers are as varied as the individuals themselves. Personally, I have hope that I will have made a difference in this world, even if it was just for a few people. That I will be someone people looked up to and learned from, and my teachings will get passed down through my family and friends. That my death will have meaning even though it doesn't include butterflies or dragonflies. One does not need life after death to make sense of what death is, why it occurs or why people don't come back.