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The gardener invited me to his private bonsai nursery,
showing me specimens 4" to 7" tall. He immediately began
playing with pill-bugs while pointed to the roots of the trees.
He explained: "These roll up when you touch them. Try!
They are very gentle creatures."
I caressed their backs; they looked like grey armors and fitted
perfectly against the trunk of the miniature fig tree. I felt
delighted. I wondered how they benefited the trees. Maybe
they ate smaller insects. I did not know.
The man explained that it was hard to grow trees with big roots
because it took years of constant care.
"You see, bonsais need a lot of love, a lot of consideration.
You have to establish a spiritual relationship with them if you
want them to be happy. They respond to you as human beings
do. But you need to change your habits. At least it is like that
for me. When I take care of them, I have to forget about my
laziness. I have to wake up early and watch out for any
problem. But sometimes it is not enough."
I looked at one maple tree. I immediately noticed dark areas
around the leaves:
"Does the cutting of roots hurt the trees?"
"At the beginning, yes. It takes time for trees to get
accustomed to privation, but they get around it. You have to
keep them moist even if they sometimes appreciate periods of
drought. See the moss? It constitutes a reserve of water that
does not evaporate as fast as plain soil. Roots need more
water."
Photo courtesy of: http://www.usda.gov
I could not stop looking at the small trees, imagining
how they would be in normal size, probably not much
different; straighter, maybe. I thought about the destiny as I
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inspected the beautiful shape of the roots rolling out of the soil
like white cobras.
There was one thing impossible to know on earth and that was
destiny. Were we also twisted by destiny? Did we have a
choice, at one time, either to be like a bonsai or like a fully
developed tree? Were there decisions to be made?
Whether we grew up in a rough terrain or in a perfect setting,
choices always came to test our strength.
Japanese liked bonsais because they could understand and see
life better through the miniature trees. Not only nature's ways,
but also our choices as cultivators. The tree's health reflected
our ability to take care of them, our way of life, the quality of
the water we used, our tolerance for pollution, etc. No wonder
the gardeners used the term "educating trees." I stared at the
Japanese maples. I loved them because I could see the
changing of the seasons in their leaves. For a long time I had
asked myself why leaves turned the colors of the rainbow
before falling down. Leaves were like us: with the time, they
lost some chemical elements as our hair gradually changes
color to white or grey. As the red chemicals are used up, other
chemicals signaled by different colors (red, yellow, brown, etc)
begin to emerge from down under the original green, until cut
from the stem.
Are we also cut from a stem? I pondered.
Photo courtesy of: http://www.usda.gov
Age probably revealed our true colors like time did for trees.
I suddenly thought how foreign I was, cut from the roots --
growing new roots. In a way, I was twice a foreigner. I was a
foreigner by my religion and I was a foreigner by my origins.
Even in my country, I had felt like a foreigner, living a culture
inside another culture, nurturing a world inside an opposite
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