How an Artist is Like a Tree: Paul Klee on Creativity

“Nobody would affirm that the tree grows its crown in the image of its root. Between above and below can be no mirrored reflection.”

Since we first came down from the trees, we have been looking at them and seeing ourselves, seeing lush metaphors for our own deepest existential concerns — metaphors for the secret to lasting love, metaphors for what it means to live with authenticity, metaphors for finding infinity in our solitude.

Trees have been of especial enchantment and self-clarification ...