Before going deep in the mountains, I would not have expected what I would see or what made me extra surprise. The deep mountains give people a lot of unexpected joy. For example, a huge honeycomb is hung on a 30-meter-high tallow tree, squirrels are playing in the forest, a tree that has been smashed by thunder has new green branches, the standing rock flows out of a gurgling spring, and jays nest in a group. The twittering bird…it makes me obsessed.
I have collected a lot of things from deep mountains, such as leaves and flowers, such as animal feces, such as feathers, such as plant seeds, such as soil. Wrap the collected items with film and put them on wooden shelves. Araki’s rotten pieces are the most placed on the wooden shelf.
Before, I never thought about collecting rot. I went to the canyon north of Mount Ronghua several times. Every time I saw a huge tree, falling by the edge of the stream, quietly rotting, there was something indescribable, hitting it. I. Where there is a tree, there is a tree death. Birth is close to the beginning of death. Once, Master Cao, who sold sacrificial offerings on the street, and I went to find August Gua, and we found two cols, but we didn’t find it. Master Cao said, go to the Beishan Mountain by the Nanpu Stream. There may be a deep canyon over there. We tied the waist basket and crossed the river.
After the beginning of winter, many fully saccharified wild fruits were hidden in the deep canyon. Kiwi, August melon, Ficus pumila, Diren, Hanberry, and Castanopsis sclerophylla, these wild fruits withered and rotted after the light snow. Master Cao and I walked along the gorge, staring at the woods on both sides. “How did such a thick tree fall here?” Master Cao said, pointing to the deep pool. I pushed aside the bushes and saw a huge tree lying slanted on the black rock by the pool.
This is a Cryptomeria cedar, the spike-like needles withered, the bark of the thick fiber cracked, and part of the bark fell off. I said to Master Cao: Cryptomeria fortunei grows on sand, under the sand is a rock, the roots can’t go deep, can’t bear the strength, the crown weighs a few tons, just fell, its death originated from the body load exceeding the load bearing. The cedar has fallen for less than half a year, its brown tree body has not turned black, and it has not experienced the long rainy season.
When the rainy season comes, the tree body will be full of rain, and the bark will gradually fade, turn color, blacken, and fall off. After another fall, the air in the wood will drain the water and the tree will begin to rot. I took out the hatchet from the waist basket, split the wood chips, and said while splitting: Falling on the edge of the stream, the cedar has become a natural single-plank bridge, which can be walked for more than 20 years.
How many years does it take for Araki to rot before it becomes a humus layer? I have no idea. The paulownia has been corrupted for five years without musculoskeletal existence. Camellia wood is still like new wood after 20 years of decay. Lorops decayed only a layer of skin after fifty years of decay. The coarsely crushed Liquidambar tree only needs ten years to turn into soil. The more fragrant the wood is, the more perishable it is-termites and bacteria will eat into the heart of the wood in a year, and they will multiply and swallow indefinitely. Termites and bacteria are the digestive organs that circulate in nature. The thousand-year-old sweetgum tree, sawn into boards, can be used to build the floor of a large house, and eventually becomes the belly of the smallest organism.
The best trees are in the old dead mountain, Shoujin Nanshan.
Falling down is a state of sound sleep, across the canyon, across the bushes, across the grassland, quietly, without turning the body, without opening branches and growing leaves. It doesn’t need to breathe anymore. It opened its limbs naked, waiting for insects, birds, and moss. The tree is dead, but it does not mean that it is dead. Death is not a disappearance, but a fragmentation. Divide the past, and divide the future. Death is a pause. Araki uses rain and sunlight as a catalyst to enter a long period of decomposing. This is an even more thrilling journey, and every season shakes people’s hearts.
For the rotten wood, the world is extremely desolate, leaving only decomposition and looting. For nature, this is an important part of the life cycle.
All this makes me in awe. It’s like the world behind you.
