Tree Ghosts

somewhere in Yellowstone

In my favorite film, Solaris, by the phenomenal sculptor of time Andrei Tarkovsky, an alien planet is sentient. More than that, it reads the psychology of anyone who crosses its threshold and has the power to make clones from whoever the person is fixated on. When I take exposures of nature, I often think of Earth in this way (are we not its DNA clones in a sense?). That it is a sentient planet experiencing itself through me. That I am its witness. That any image I expose of it is the image it projects. And through the fog of my consciousness, its primal forms emerge like these ghostly trees.

My favorite quote from the book: “Are we to grow used to the idea that every man relives ancient torments, which are all the more profound because they grow comic with repetition?  That human existence should repeat itself, well and good, but that it should report itself like a hackneyed tune, or a record a drunkard keeps playing as he feeds coins into the jukebox…”

6 thoughts on “Tree Ghosts”

  1. A planetary sentience would be a huge, largely incomprehensible thing. I wonder what would motivate it. In any case, I found “Solaris” to be a bit disturbing, but I wholly enjoyed “Avatar” and it’s message. Love the photo. Very ethereal.

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  2. I rarely watch movies, but Tarkovsky’s Solaris was totally hypnotic for me. I think I saw it when I was too young to understand the nuances you describe – so this is like an “aha, was it about that?” … about stuff I can only understand as an adult. Thanks for filling me in after 20 years 😀

    I was more taken by the moods and visual patterns. I later tracked down other Tarkovsky movies in weird corners of the world, because they spoke to me on a sensory level. And I have a thing for old Soviet cinema generally.

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