We paid our admission fee at the Santa Barbara botanical gardens, and strolled down a manicured pathway through tableaus of native plants. We gawked at a stand of redwoods, squeezed into its square footage of natural habitat like a tower of giraffes at the zoo.
Later we pulled off Pacific Coast Highway to worship in the shade of another grove of the California giants. Massive trunks loomed skyward, blocking out all but a pinpoint of blue. A stream gurgled past our feet, the sound a hymn that barely broke the sacred quiet.
In Napa Valley, a tour guide informed us the Korbel brothers cleared redwood forest and planted grape vines. Stumps clung to the ground for decades, impossible to remove. When the television show Combat requested use of the vineyard for a location shoot––to film explosions, the Korbels answered "sure," as long as they blew up those darn redwood stumps.
I wanted to make the redwood something mystical, but now I wonder how best to describe it.
Zoo animal?
Temple god?
Canon fodder?
Or simply tree?
Later we pulled off Pacific Coast Highway to worship in the shade of another grove of the California giants. Massive trunks loomed skyward, blocking out all but a pinpoint of blue. A stream gurgled past our feet, the sound a hymn that barely broke the sacred quiet.
In Napa Valley, a tour guide informed us the Korbel brothers cleared redwood forest and planted grape vines. Stumps clung to the ground for decades, impossible to remove. When the television show Combat requested use of the vineyard for a location shoot––to film explosions, the Korbels answered "sure," as long as they blew up those darn redwood stumps.
I wanted to make the redwood something mystical, but now I wonder how best to describe it.
Zoo animal?
Temple god?
Canon fodder?
Or simply tree?