I’m sure the metaphor of man-as-tree is old as the hills, and we all talk about having roots, but Robertson Davies takes it further. It’s a major theme throughout his work, particularly in the Cornish trilogy. In The Rebel Angels Parlabane tells Maria:

I have thought a good deal about trees; I like them. They speak eloquently of the balanced dubiety which I told you was the sceptical attitude. No splendid crown without the strong root that works in the dark, drawing its nourishment among the rocks, the soil, hidden waters, and all the little, burrowing things. A man is like that; his splendours and his fruits are to be seen, to win him love and admiration. But what about the root?

Have you ever seen a bulldozer clearing land? It advances upon a great tree and shoves and pushes inexorably until the tree is down and thrust out of the way, and all of that effort is accompanied by a screaming and wrenching sound from the tree as the great roots are torn from the ground. It is a particularly distressing kind of death. And when the tree is upturned, the root proves to be as big as the crown.

What is the root of man? All sorts of things that nourish his visible part, but the deepest root of all, the tap-root, is that child he once was… That is the root which goes deepest because it is reaching downward toward the ancestors.

The ancestors — how grand it sounds! But the root does not go back to those old stuffed shirts with white wigs whose portraits people display so proudly, but to our unseen depths — which means the messy stuff of life from which the real creation and achievement takes its nourishment. The root is far more like a large placenta than it is like those family trees that are all branches.

…

My advice to you, my dear, is to let your root feed your crown.

I haven’t paid much attention to my root lately. I’ve been very much caught up with the stuff of daily life: taking kids places, working on various projects, dealing with the diabetic cat, and so forth. I’ve also been in full-time daughter-in-law mode, especially since we received some distressing news about a terminally-ill family member. When I spend time with my own family it’s all about the present: how are the kids, what are you working on, how about that middle east situation, etc.

I didn’t even know I was missing anything, until last weekend when my root got a huge watering, so to speak. You may remember the chili recipe I posted when my parents’ friend Pat passed away? Her husband died about six months after she did, and last weekend we had the memorial service here in town. I was reunited not only with Cool Older Girl Who Read Catcher In The Rye Out Loud To Me, but also her younger sister and quite a few others I hadn’t seen since elementary school, including, believe it or not, my second grade teacher. What a trip that was!

This family goes back very far into my tap-root. As we realized over the weekend, there are pictures of them in just about every single one of our photo albums. And it’s more than just shared history and reminiscences, though that is a big part of it. We also share a certain… how shall I put it? A certain style of discourse, perhaps. There’s nothing like the bond between those who’ve experienced the burden joy of having a parent who’s a professor of Freudian clinical psychology. Yeah, a double whammy. Either one, professor or Freudian clinical psychologist, would have been bad enough, but both? Oh ha ha! My husband’s family are all political activists, and I’m sure there’s a burden joy associated with that, too, but it’s a very different thing.

Anyway, despite the sadness of the occasion, I had a wonderful weekend. My root has fed my crown and I feel refreshed, rejuvenated, and ready for anything.