when memories dance... like red leaves falling

Image © 2012 Lenni Morkel-Kingsbury

 I am starting a new series of jewellery based on the concept of the tree of life. I've been thinking about the interconnectedness of collective memory and history, and also how personal memory connects our body with our spirit. The tree of life has long been a symbol of the interconnectedness of things, of spirit, heaven and the underworld.  I am wondering if ultimately we are all connected by a collective consciousness that influences who we are, who we become.

Darwin's origin of the species, apparently suggests, "the great tree of life fills with its dead and broken branches the crust of the earth and covers its surface with everbranching ramifications."
There are synergies between the symbol of the tree as a source of life and interconnectedness of all things and the concept of memory that interconnects  past, present and future. Memory springs from different forks of the past (the dead) and given the now, the present,  buds into  new branches of thought, and new patterns of self in the present.