Ooooh! Great imagery. My initial answer is TREEHOUSE! Oh yeah, Baby! I love trees. I love climbing them, I love treehouses. We saw a bunny in a treehouse in Portland not too long ago.
But this question makes me think a lot. I often find that I see myself as I wish to be, not necessarily as I am. So perhaps a treehouse is symbolic for where I want to be.
I feel like I live in a cave right now: The Uncles’ basement apartment. Which does have some light, luckily, because the house is on a slope, so there are windows on one wall.
And I also realize that when I am wounded and need to heal, I crawl into a self-constructed cave. That might be the INTJ in me. When I need to recharge my batteries, a dark quiet stone cave with moss-covered, slightly damp walls sounds ideal. I could commiserate with the bats. I am aware of this tendency because I’m pretty much there right now: standing in the doorway of the cave getting fresh air and sunshine, but ready to duck back inside anytime something spooks me. I feel like I need to overcome this position maybe, and take the chance to start tree-climbing.
I’m thinking of James Taylor too. From New Moon Shine, the song Down In The Hole. “I’m in a hole, since I lost my Baby.” Welcome down underground.
then the Swiss Family Robinson – those great adventurers of faith, expressing fully the meaning of serendipity when finding everything they could possibly need on the island where they were shipwrecked.
and Julia Butterfly Hill. Having lived in Humboldt County while the most famous tree-sitter was living in her own tree house… it’s hard to forget that. I was at Reggae on the River in 1999 when Julia spoke to the crowd from her tree via cellphone. It was an awesome experience to be sharing that moment. A year after she came down, she spoke at the college I was attending, and read a chapter from her book called The Storm. She tells probably the truest story ever about living in a treehouse: in the top of a redwood during one of those Pacific Storms that hits the King Mountain Range out there on Cape Mendocino. She said she knew the storm was going to kill her if she didn’t come up with a plan. So instead of fighting the storm with tensed muscles, she did what the trees do: let the storm push her around and bend her. So she let the storm rage around her – and lived. I feel like that’s a good lesson.
Ok, well, that was a fun little mental jaunt. Thanks, Siona, for the opportunity to pull all those disjointed ideas together in such a fun way.
Conscious Engagement 