Crux of the matter

Crux, from Latin for cross, seems to be the right word to use on this occasion. In front of the university’s music auditorium, a tree that I had frequently parked my car under had been cut. Most of the branches were removed two weekends ago, and last weekend the tree was reduced to a stump.

I think I must have been influenced by the symbolic forms of protest described in David Shulman’s essay “On Being Unfree,” because this time I decided to do something to express my feelings of loss and anger. Here is the first of four crosses that I made over the course of two evenings; I cut a chopstick in two to form the crossbar and used twine to bind the pieces together. Having just received some Tibetan prayer flags in the mail, I decided to put them on the front of the crosses. Each flag showed a horse surrounded by what I assume are Tibetan or Sanskrit characters.

This morning around 7 a.m., I drove to the university campus to put my crosses in the stump. Here is a picture showing them planted in the soft debris that had accumulated where the major branches intersected.

This shows the crosses with Tibetan prayer flags on the front. Hanging from the cross with the yellow flag is a satin ribbon with a token at each end.

This shot shows the cross covered with hearts and tied with a heart-decorated ribbon. Next to it is the cross with the green prayer flag, which I made for my friend Alan.

I had two prayer flags left. These I put on the face of one of the cuts.

Before I left, I stopped in front of the tree. What will be done with the area on which it stood, I don’t know. For now, this place is barren: devoid not only of the tree and a companion that had grown nearby but also of many ground plants. I wonder how the music students feel about this. Is one of them trying to compose music that will express the loss of these muses?