The single tree looms large in our imaginations. You’ve seen it in a thousand pictures and read it in a thousand stories that you’ve forgotten: a solitary tree, standing on a hill, in the middle of an empty field, in a castle courtyard, by the beach, in the mountains. You’ve never been told what it means, but the image is clear. Depending on the type of tree, it symbolizes, strength, resilience, faithfulness, and individuality. The solitary tree has grown up by itself in its own location to weather storms, resist waves, and shake off snow. It signals obvious characteristics and hints at virtues too deep for us to understand.
More than any other solitary object (lone wolves, single mountains, or wayward travelers) the image of the solitary tree permeates art, literature, religion, philosophy, and media. At its heart, we know that the solo tree is alone without being lonely. The tree is both by itself and a community unto itself. It is gathered against the sky by its massive form, kept company by its many leaves, branches, and networks of roots. Travelers find shade and birds find rest underneath the lone tree, which bears the brunt of sun and wind to provide loving shelter. It’s strength is its individuality. The solitary tree stands as a testament to life against the odds.
Although the old saying goes “you can’t see the forest from within the trees,” we might equally say that “you can’t see the trees from within the forest.” While all trees portray strength, resilience, and life, the lone tree does so with a particular intensity. Solitary trees portray strength, love, resilience, growth, provision, liveliness, and faithfulness. When we look at a forest, we don’t see the individual trees. We see ominous woods and haunted groves. We might see orchards signaling wealth and abundance. The values of the solitary tree are quite different from trees in a group. The group signifies community and abundance. The solitary tree signifies individuality and perseverance. The group has not beat the odds, it has many parts, any of which can be replaced by another identical tree. The single tree has only itself. It signals life because it has only its own.
Bonsai Tree Symbolism
The Bonsai tree is a cultivated solitary tree. It taps into imagery that already exists. Bonsai, it is true, is the art that creates a lone tree where there was not one, but Bonsai did not create the “lone tree” itself. Solitary trees are an ancient, deeply religious, deeply philosophical concept that Bonsai taps into. Bonsai participates in magic already working beneath the surface of being. It didn’t set the fire, but it does harness it.
Solitary trees themselves represent peace and harmony, strength and security. Bonsai represents a balance of humanity and nature, a cultivation, a project of growth that both humans and trees collaborate in. Bonsai takes the characteristics and metaphors associated with the solitary tree and adds a human, artistic twist to them. It’s important to remember that the “solitary tree” and “Bonsai tree” are similar but not the same. Bonsai references a solitary tree in relationship with human cultivation. The “solitary tree” is often a naturally occurring phenomenon, coming to define a landscape by itself.
There are too many images associated with solitary trees to count. Each culture and artform has its own traditional uses of the solitary tree. Some of the more common images found in religions and art are listed below. For each of the imagery, the solitary tree is first discussed, and then the Bonsai tree. The solitary tree will always portray a more natural and mysterious side, while the Bonsai variety of the image portrays artistic and nature-human harmony sides. The following images are just a few examples of what individual trees can represent. There is a significant amount of crossover between symbols: “strength” and “love” and “life” are all related concepts. Each of the examples chosen for a single image could have been used for any of the other images with almost equal appropriateness. The beauty of the solitary tree is its centralized imagery. The solitary tree is the single image in which strength, vigor, resilience, vigor, love, provision, and growth all bleed into one another, coloring each other with slight variations on a unified theme of life.
Alone, Not Lonely
Like branches from a trunk, solitary tree and Bonsai symbolism radiate outward from their central image of the lonely tree. A group of trees show very different imagery than a solitary tree. The solitary tree is by itself without being alone, kept company by its own plurality. It is an individual which is itself a community. A tree is both only itself, and a combination of leaves, bark, branches, and roots. This duality of solitary and together means that we never perceive the solitary tree as lonely, broken, or ominous, the way we might view a single mountain. Lone wolfs and lone humans carry connotations of independence and private strength, but the solitary tree is not lonely. Solitary trees are by themselves but seen as peaceful.
Not every solitary tree is alone by virtue of being far away from the other trees. One look at the Major Oak in England’s Sherwood Forest or the General Sherman in California’s Sequoia National Park, and you’ll know that there is a difference between the forest and the tree. The solitary tree can also be an exceptional tree located in a grove of regular trees, standing out by the sheer fact of its inability to blend in. The solitary tree shows how something can be in community (among other trees) while never quite fitting in–and yet this not fitting in doesn’t make the tree lonelier, it just means it has a different relationship to the other trees.
In Bonsai: In Bonsai, the loneliness of the tree mirrors the loneliness of the person. We, as people, are both alone and yet in community with our bodies and others. The Bonsai tree relies on its person the way a solitary tree does not, so the communal aspect of the solitary tree is emphasized in Bonsai.
Strength
Solitary trees portray strength: weathering storms, standing through time, and outliving generations of humans. They have staying power. Trees resist attacks and have massive root systems which provide stability.
Often, trees in media and culture are used in cities to mirror the strength of a city. Fantasy epics, like Lord of the Rings and Game of Thrones, feature a kingdom with a single, lonely tree. The tree becomes the mascot and rallying point for the kingdom, portraying the strength and vigor that the kingdom hopes to have. In Lord of the Rings, the kingdom of Gondor has a huge, majestic tree which was brought there by one of its founders. The tree is cultivated by humans, almost a large Bonsai tree in its own right. Myths and legends have sprung up around the tree showing the tides of battle and defending the city from attack. When the tree is strong, the city is assumed to be strong as well.
Other times, a city grows up around a pre-existing tree.Many real life cities have a famous solitary tree as well, either planned or unplanned. Monterey’s Lone Cypress Tree was unplanned, but is now landscaped by people. It has become an image of paradise, strength, and the harmony of the city with nature. Think about your hometown or the cities you know well–you can probably conjure up images of landscape and places in the city defined by a single tree.
In Bonsai: The strength of the Bonsai tree comes through its pruning. Without careful pruning and planning, the Bonsai tree won’t show strength the way naturally occuring mighty oaks might. The image of strength is therefore tempered by an image of control, care, and cultivation.
Vigor
Trees don’t generally move. Their branches sway in the breeze, they grow over time, and they change with the seasons, but they don’t walk around or make noises of their own accord. Yet humans for all history have found trees to be speaking to them. We often attribute great amounts of vigor and personality to the tree.
Sometimes, in fiction, the lonely tree can speak, communicate, and move, like the lovable character Groot from the Marvel Universe. The Nintendo video game series Kirby features a recurring tree with a face, Whispy Woods, who functions as a boss in many games. Nintendo’s other IP, Zelda, features a famous Deku tree.
Perhaps the most “vigorous” of the fantasy trees is J.K. Rowling’s Whomping Willow in Harry Potter. The Whomping Willowis an old tree which “whomps” at everything within reach of its location on a hill in Hogwarts. In early stories, the strength and vivacity of the Whomping Willow plays a chaotic, disruptive role. As the heroes age, they become more experienced in dealing with the Whomping Willow, and are even able to use its powerful branches to their advantage. The Whomping Willow is a great example of a relationship with an ultimately untamable tree. The heroes learn to work with the willow, even while never controlling it. There’s an element of Bonsai to Harry, Ron, and Hermione’s relationship to the Whomping Willow.
In Bonsai: A Bonsai tree is not quite a pet, not quite a plant. It definitely is personified and invigorated, closer to the trees from fantasy worlds and video games. The relationship with the Bonsai tree accents the vigor of the solitary tree.
Resilience
The solitary tree shows resilience, thriving by itself in its own space, being its own tree. A community of trees shows that a given location is fertile for growth and flourishing. When a hundred trees grow, nobody is impressed by any of the trees, because the soil and ecosystem is proved to be fruitful. When only one tree grows, we know that that tree has beat the odds. A solitary tree has grown in a location that it was either difficult to get to or difficult to grow in.
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn uses the famously resilient yet foul smelling tree of heaven (Ailanthus altissima) as a metaphor for the protagonist. The tree of heaven is notoriously strong and resilient. In the book, the tree mirrors the tough life of the main character. Just like the tree struggles to grow and survive in Brooklyn, the main character does as well. Both the tree and person grow up to beat the odds.
In Bonsai: The person and tree grow to be resilient together, both thriving. The resilience of the tree becomes unveiled as reliance on a person. Solitary trees in the wild rely on sunshine and water, but we rarely see these things. Bonsai trees show us that everything relies on something, even when those things are hidden from view!
Site of Strange Power
The solitary tree can be haunted, spiritualized, or magical. Its majesty makes it a rich image for strange power. It is both a location (under the tree) and an object (the tree itself). In Buddhism, the Bodhi Tree is an ancient fig tree under which the Buddha sat and attained enlightenment. The Bodhi Tree is identified in iconography with heart shaped leaves. Although the tree itself doesn’t contribute to the Buddha’s enlightenment, and he certainly didn’t eat of it, the tree plays an iconic role in enlightenment as the location of the Buddha.
The Hebrew Bible has a habit of placing prophets underneath their own tree–such as the prophetess Deborah, who waits to hear cases and give military advice under a certain tree. The tree is Deborah’s location, her resting place, a channel of the divine. The tree represent the strength and vigor that Deborah brings to the Israelite army.
In Bonsai: The strange power of the site of the tree is cultivated. In the wild, the magic is untamed, foreign. In Bonsai, you cultivate the tree and by extension cultivate your own site of strange power.
Love
Solitary trees are sites of love and provision. They may offer fruit in the wasteland, protection from predators, or shade from the sun. The tree’s strength and resilience to grow by itself offers love and provision for all who come to its branches. When you sit beneath a solitary tree you can feel its love radiating through its trunk and leaves.
The controversial children’s book The Giving Tree features a single tree which gives selfless love to a little boy who lacks the appreciation for the tree. As a child, the boy loves the tree, climbing around in her branches and eating fruit and showing affection. As he grows up, he begins using the tree for his own purposes–selling its fruit, chopping it down to build a house, carving into it the initials of him and his lover. The Giving Tree has been interpreted variously as a portrayal of divine love (mainly by Protestant Christian ministers), a parent child relationship, or earth’s relationship with us. The tree gives unconditionally, partially because it can’t do otherwise. It is a testament to the love and provision that the symbolism of the solitary tree offers. The book clearly captured our imaginations with its portrayal of the love and provision of a single tree, even to the point of the abuse of that love and provision.
In Christianity, the Son of God dies on a tree, a Roman cross which brings love and the forgiveness of sins through the vindication of God. This tree isn’t solitary, it is flanked by two other common criminals, but just like the Major Oak or General Sherman, the other trees around it are separate an only serve to accent its solitariness. It is among other trees without being a part of the forest. In the Christian account, divine love comes through the lone tree and its lone prophet, the crucified Jesus.
In Bonsai: The love of the tree is matched by the love of the person caring for it. In Bonsai, the solitary tree receives reciprocal love and care. The image of love becomes a two way image.
Harmony and Peace
Trees are peaceful, swaying gently in the breeze and standing firm in their place. Ruffling leaves are a wonderful white noise. A tree covered in snow glimmers with the morning sun. Even in stressful circumstances, like storms and fires, trees resist the danger with a peaceful presence, bending without often breaking, riding the wind without giving way.
Bonsai trees have been traditionally associated with values of harmony and peace. Buddhist monks, especially, saw the Bonsai tree as a symbol of balance between natural and human, human and soul, natural and supernatural. The Bonsai is itself a lone tree which is a miniature version of a fully grown tree, bringing the house or garden into harmony with the natural house. The Bonsai provides a contact point with the natural world, functioning as the perforation between house and forest. The Japanese word shizen refers to the kind of beauty found in the harmony of human and nature. Shizen is the beauty of the Bonsai, a lone beacon of harmony and peace.
In Bonsai: The curated tree, the artfully grown tree becomes a site of harmony between human and nature.
Life
It’s a testimony to the power of the lone tree that it gets identified with life. The tiger may symbolize speed and agility, and the swan may symbolize majesty and grace, but it’s the lone tree that portrays vivacity, livingness, and biology itself. In the film Pan’s Labyrinth, a tree represents the life of Ofelia’s mother. In many fantasy worlds, trees are themselves living characters, communicating with humans.
All the Abrahamic faiths have an origins account of humanity that involves a lone “tree of life.” In Jewish and Christian variants, Adam and Eve partake of the opposed “tree of knowledge” against God’s will and lose access to the tree of life. God banishes Adam and Eve from the garden of eden after they eat from the tree of knowledge to prevent them from attaining immortality in a fallen state. Islam has an account similar to Jewish and Christian stories, in which Allah forbids Adam and Eve to eat from the tree of life. Satan tells Adam to eat from the tree, and Adam and Eve both eat, disobeying Allah.
In these traditions, the tree of life is prohibited, offering some form of flawed immortality. And yet, in all three, the tree is a powerful symbol of life which brings with it life’s inverse–death. Taoism offers a very different take on the tree of life. In Taoism, to eat of the fruit of any tree is to partake in oneself, in change, in the life of all things. But one tree offered exceptional gifts. The Queen Mother of the West lived next to the Peach Tree of Immortality, or Tree of Life, which grew leaves every 3,000 years and took another 3,000 to produce peaches. The eight immortals would eat here to sustain their immortality.
In Bonsai: The life of the tree and the life of the person become intertwined. If the tree dies, the person will feel it in their heart! If the person is affected, the tree will become unkempt, less beautiful, and may even die. In Bonsai, the life symbolism of the solitary tree is emphasized in a communal way. Life is communal, tree and person need each other to truly flourish.
Conclusion
The lonely tree permeates human imaginations, representing a wide variety of images, themes, and virtues. There is no singular interpretation of Bonsai or the lonely tree. Like the tree itself, the meanings branch out from the center, becoming different and yet remaining rooted to the same individual symbol. Strength, individuality, community, vigor, resilience, stability, love, life are all represented in the solitary tree. Each of the themes chosen requires the other images–a tree’s ability to show love through shelter relies on its strength, and its strength needs its vigor and resilience, and so on.
In Bonsai, the solitary tree becomes a human art. Human and tree enter into a relationship, where the person prunes and takes care of the tree and the tree in turn gives back of its symbolism to the person. When you grow and care for your own Bonsai tree, you open yourself to its images. You create a meditative space that is a “site of strange magic.” The solitary tree becomes a harmonious human art!