The Ganesha Tree

A few days ago, Tanner and I struck out for our usual evening walk. We strolled downtown till we came to the steps of the beautiful Mission San Rafael, then turned west.

For no reason I can name, whenever we take this route I usually walk on the north side of the street. Perhaps it’s because Tanner is trained to walk at my left side, and there are fewer distractions for him nearest the curb. On this evening, however, I decided to shake things up and walk on the south side of the street. 

We crossed over at the library and continued west, falling in behind two women on a walk with their children. The willowy blond was pushing a stroller. The shorter brunette had a small girl by the hand. The girl was maybe two and a half, with a tiara sparkling from her dark wavy hair. She was wearing a shiny pale blue satin princess dress and tennis shoes with some sort of bling that glinted in the street lights. Unable to pass them on the narrow sidewalk, I slowed my pace.

The street dipped down a slight grade. Near the bottom of the hill, a tall sixty-ish man with white hair and beard was doing something in front of his house that involved a ladder. The ladder partially blocked the sidewalk. As we approached, he greeted the women and stepped over to move his ladder. 

I held back so the women could maneuver stroller and toddler through the gap he created. That gave me an opportunity to look up, and notice that the tree under which he’d place his ladder appeared to be shaped like - no, it couldn’t be - an elephant. 

But yes, it was shaped like an elephant.

The tree stood in the front corner of the man's front yard. Perhaps once upon a time the branches of the tree had reached across the sidewalk, almost to the curb. Now, the main part of the tree was sculpted to resemble the body and head of an elephant. A single long branch was trained in such a way that it stretched out overhead, curling upwards at the end. A silver ornament was placed near the end of the long branch, to give the impression that the elephant was holding the ornament with its trunk. On the tree itself, the man had placed a random assortment of hubcaps and old clocks, all silver, along with other shiny round metallic objects.

Once the group ahead of me passed by, I stopped to complement the man on his topiary art. He thanked me, pleased I’d noticed, and told me that that day was Ganesha’s birthday. ‘See the arm?’ he asked. Sure enough, a mannequin arm was sticking out of the tree from a place that roughly equated to where an elephant’s ear would be. I was thoroughly delighted and told him so.

Lord Ganesha is a Hindu god known for having a human body and the head of an elephant. In each of his four hands he holds a different object, each object symbolizing an aspect of his domain as remover of obstacles from the lives of his devotees. This Ganesha presides over a shop in downtown San Rafael.

After this brief exchange I continued my walk with Tanner. Later, headed home, I backtracked and went past the Ganesha Tree again. I saw the man had placed red and white garlands along the shrubs at the front gate as final touches.

Returning home, I quickly searched online for Ganesha’s birthday and found that it was, indeed, the date attributed to the birth of the deity. The beginning of September also marks the advent of a ten-day holiday, called Ganesh Chaturthi, that is celebrated by Hindus around the world, particularly in India. The celebration features colorful clay models of Ganesha, prayers, chanting, and singing. Tributes are made, special sweets consumed. The festival culminates with dancing and a procession to a local body of water or to the sea, where Ganesha statues are immersed as a way of sending him home. Ganesha is said to take all the misfortunes of man along with him when he leaves.    

Photo of a Ganesh Chaturthi procession, courtesy of celebrateindia.com

One of the best things about my passage through this life has been the exposure I’ve had to all types of people, cultures, ethnicities and religions. Seeing how others, like the creator of the Ganesha Tree, express their lives and beliefs brings me a joy I am hard pressed to describe, one that deepens my own connection to the life and beliefs I have. 

The Ganesha Tree

PS, I also might be a little in love with the Ganesha Tree because in its vine-covered state, it reminds me of The Tree that lived in my parents' back yard for so long.

Opposite view of the Ganesha Tree

Crossroads

Recently I read an article in which the word ‘crossroads’ was mentioned in passing. That one little ten-letter word stuck out from all the other words on the page like it was made of flashing neon. It unleashed an avalanche of images, times I’ve been at physical, mental or emotional crossroads in my life. 

I put down the article, gave those images a bit of time to settle, and hurried over to my laptop, excited by a new topic to write about. 

Half a dozen attempts at a first draft were begun and abandoned before I switched to ink and paper. Another half dozen drafts, a cramped hand and one dead pen later, I needed to step away. 

I didn’t quite know what I was trying to say, and it was obvious I knew less how to say it. Until I’d meditated on the topic more, and why the word and concept of ‘crossroads’ struck me as it did, I’d never be satisfied with what I’d written.  

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Stumped, I embarked on a mental journey to unpack and define what meaning I can take from ‘crossroads’ at this point in my life. A week or two of sifting through the detritus of old memories brought me to this:

When I was in college, I worked one summer at a historic site. It was based around ‘living history’ of 1850s rural Illinois. We dressed up in approximations of prairie-settler garb, cooked pies in cast iron Dutch ovens over a fire, churned butter by hand, and tended gardens on the property to show the public what life may have been like during that time. The site included a house and several outbuildings, among which were a typesetter’s shop, a barn and a potter’s workshop.

A woman who lived nearby used the potter’s workshop to create and sell her wares. She was friendly but quiet, and kept to herself. We mostly interacted with her in passing. 

She made an impression on me nonetheless. She was independent. She had a big dog that went everywhere with her, usually riding in the back of the small pickup truck she drove. 

Watching her made me realize I wanted something similar for my life. A measure of independence. A truck of some sort. A big dog, definitely. And since I’d grown up in the flatlands of the midwest, I wanted to live in the mountains as well. 

After I left college and moved to Chicago, I rarely gave any conscious thought to my brief wish list. 

However, within two years of that college summer job, a client at the grooming shop I owned left his eleven-month-old German Shepherd with me. I was supposed to dog-sit for a few weeks…but the client never returned. I had my big dog - Shuby was sidekick and road trip companion for the fourteen years I was fortunate enough to have him in my life. 

Later I bought a used Chevy Blazer that was, well, not the most dependable vehicle ever. Once I traded the Blazer for Albert the Jeep I finally found the measure of independence I'd been searching for. 

I moved to the mountains of Northern Arizona. Shuby died of old age. Albert and I logged 214,000 miles together. 

A couple months ago, I gave Albert up because it was no longer economical to keep him. He was the last vestige of an era that began over twenty years ago, in the (fake) 1850s. 

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Still: Where does the notion of ‘crossroads’ fit in with all this? 

I suppose in any pilgrimage there comes a time when you stand at a crossroads, scratching your head and wondering whether to turn off down an unknown path or continue forward. 

I’ve achieved the things my college-age self wanted most - and then some. The mode of transport that helped propel me down the path I’ve been on is gone. The changes in my life, the changes to who I am as a person, make progress down the same road, in the same way, no longer an option. 

So perhaps I’ve reached a T intersection instead: still a crossroads, just a slightly different configuration. It’s time to decide a direction, or series of directions, that will take me into the new phase of life that’s forming right now. 

It’s exciting. A little daunting. I just hope that in twenty-some years I can look back at this version of myself, this person who is at this crossroads, and say ‘Wow! If you only knew!’ - like I am saying to my college self from this vantage point.

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I'll leave you with some ear candy, from a man who knew all about the crossroads.
Reposted from Classicmoodexp on youtube.com