a tree in my livingroom

Friday they trimmed the branches by the powerlines. I found a magnificent vinemaple, as large as a small tree. Its trunk is the girth of a flagpole, spreading gracefully into 4 or 5 branches of delicate small Japanese-maple-like leaves, reaching 15 feet high and 18 feet wide.

I have been having this vision lately that my inner self -- whom I often visualize as a house -- has sprouted a tree from its floor, is peeling its roof back, and is growing the tree up through the center of the house toward the sky.

I couldn't wait to try it out.

I brought the tree inside, and did slowtens carrying it for two hours.

I felt like Dunsinane woods incarnate. When I moved, the whole tree moved with me, leaves trembling. Looking up, I gazed through a crown of leaves. Tadashi Suzuki says, When you turn, turn the whole world with your spine. I turned like a flower opening, mesmerized, watching the tree wheel above me, my house insubstantial behind it, for the length of a CD.

After a while I stood the tree in a bowl of water, standing upright against the cathedral windows. It is almost two stories high. Then I did slowtens inside it looking out; entwining between its branches; lowering until I was lying on the floor gazing up through its leaves. I saw:

- two leafy branches in the foreground; beyond them, dappled with leaves, my wall of theatre books. The tree looked real, the books looked like a dream. Like standing in green Narnia, looking back through the wardrobe
- a tree inside a window inside more trees
- a tree more real than my house, bursting with life inside the house
- a tree more real than my art table, standing stiff & pale beyond the leaves

It was the first theatre I have made in a long time. How do I put the spectator inside a tree? Can the spectators be Dunsinane? From which vantages does a tree retain this incredible impact? What would be better than a tree? How could I imperil a greek chorus?

A day later, the leaves had lost their fragrance. Two days later, they crisp and droop.

Last night I made art for hours, listening to U2's Rattle & Hum video over and over, drawing myself as a flowering tree.

I am working at the meta level almost constantly. Work projects and home ones look translucent, as if they are part of a play I don't realize I am creating, but which is shimmering into being.