The main biological determinant of the shape of a pine tree or fir is the presence of a lead or apical bud which directs the upward growth and sends hormones down to the lower buds which keep them subordinate and prevent them from growing longer. This helps the tree to quickly shoot up to where it can catch the maximum amount of light. When the apical bud dies, is broken off, or is otherwise damaged, the other buds around it go into a kind of race to replace it as the new lead. This is what causes the split crowns, double tips and other marks of individual character in these trees.
In the same way we can speak of times in our lives when the driving force, whatever our own sort of apical bud is to each of us, has left us or been irrevocably damaged. All of us have felt how the wind shook us and snow buried us in our younger years, damage to our weaker branches in a storm, the old growth falling off as we no longer need it. But when we no longer have that bud leading us forward, the mind goes a little haywire with worry, confusion, doubt and everything else. Recently it has been good for me to think that maybe there are other things inside us, other strengths and loves ready to help us lead ourselves forward into light and health. The change might always be detectable and we may always be able to see just where the crisis point was-- our trunks growing a little crooked, our symmetry a little off. But I have always found far more interesting and endearing the trees that have grown a little out of the ordinary, that have suffered damage, been bent by the weather, struck by lightning, singed by fire and still kept growing.
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