Weili Nature tells the story of a pine tree's own shadow

Xu Hao bonsai work "Clouds Rise, Dragon Soars" (Japanese red pine, tree height 78cm)

Weili Nature: A pine tree's "own shadow"

- Reading Xu Hao's Japanese red pine bonsai "Clouds Rise, Dragon Soars"

Original author | Ke Xiaoren

If everything has a spirit, then what first awakened the spirit of this pine tree must be the roots arching toward the ground, and next the branches and needles growing ever stronger and more luxuriant despite frost and snow.

Wisdom, passion, faith, and the roots that, after accepting all of life's pain, assist the trunk's growth with a noble yet tolerant and compassionate dignity of life and a yearning for spiritual self-strengthening, generously fulfilling the irresistible course of the sturdy trunk amid interwoven, dazzling, unrestrained and surging time - the "soaring" dragon, letting another kind of madness be transplanted by dreams within its body, shifting and "rising" through pain and joy that are both near and far: merging into "mighty thunder"?? Yet, as this "dragon's" possessed body - the tortoiseshell-like bark, in its waves of vicissitude, helplessness and sorrow born from being unable to hold back fleeting time, is entirely extravagant and reclusive, drawing together like to like.

The clusters of needles in the crown, rising and falling in cadence, vary with their forms, leveraging momentum: turbulent, surging, with the force of clouds sweeping mountains and seas - as if another greatness: letting an inner spirit (green flame) find its way of expression. Yet this wild "nature" leaves that nerve reaching into the heavens endlessly silent. Alas! Could the footfalls beyond this life - the trembling that reaches deep into the "world" - truly be so simple.

After reading this work, one realizes the author excels at managing imagery and mood, letting the plain title effectively enrich the work's connotations and charm, greatly enhancing the work's aesthetic "density," returning nature's growth force to its original being, to the reality of existence, opening the reader's insight and experience as well as metaphysical philosophical reflection.

(This article is an original submission by Ke Xiaoren)

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[Bonsai practitioner's reflections]

Text | Xiamen, Fujian @Zhou Yingzhi

The benefactor in your life is not necessarily your best friend, nor necessarily family you live with day and night.

Instead, it is a person with positive energy and vision!

He gives you a brand-new message, and perhaps it rewrites the trajectory of your life; all you need is to choose to believe!

Though the rain from heaven is heavy, it does not nourish grass without roots.

Though the Dharma is vast, it does not save those without affinity.

Every opportunity begins with believing!

This is the benefactor in your life, someone worth being grateful to for a lifetime!

Liu Chuangang Bauhinia bonsai work

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