I call them ghost trees. Scattered throughout the gray of Osage Orange, Maple, Oak and a host of other trees, they look like ghosts…especially in the winter. Always curious, I sought to understand their white bark and the way their trunks peel off in sheets. Curiosity, as it often does, led to more. Their bark peels because unlike other trees, their bark is so rigid it cannot expand.

Metaphors and analogies could run like a beagle on a new found scent with that image. If one is rigid shedding is the gift of growing. Yet the rigid have been given the gift of expansion. The touch of the unexpandable trunk is soft. The touch of the expanding trunk is hard.

And then the chuckling prod of the whisper. No judgement. No labeling. Simply stand in awe of the ghost trees and the ancient ones with bark intact. Breathing beauty and the oneness of diversity.