Pine Cones & Pine Trees

Platonic Lambda Λ
in Flowers, Pine Cones and Trees
around Mountain View Parks & Streets

Wednesday, April 5, 2017

By Peter Y. Chou
WisdomPortal.com

Preface: I was ecstatic finding a yellow conical Houseleek (Aeonium arboreum) shaped like the Platonic Lambda ("Soul of the Universe" according to Plato's Timaeus 35b) in my courtyard at Paulson Park. Several days later, I noticed a Butterfly Bush with Lambda-shaped Buddleia flowers around my apartment. On April 5, leaving Mountain View Senior Center (266 Escuela Ave), I saw more Buddleaia flowers at the Child Care Center (260 Escuela Ave), with many of these magenta flowers in the Lambda Λ-shape. Crossing Rengstorff Park to catch Bus #40 to Foothill College, I noticed scattered pine cones at the corner of Stanford Ave & Rengstorff Ave. I didn't realize many of the pine cones were Lambda Λ-shaped and photographed them below. Looking upward, the pine treetops from where these pine cones fell were also Lambda Λ-shaped. Right across the Bus Stop was a towering Redwood in Rengstorff Park with a perfect Lambda Λ. Two more Redwoods across the street from where I live remind me of the Platonic Λ. I conclude this web page with my favorite Platonic Lambda Λ Branch in the Pepper Tree at Montebello Ave which I pass by every day, and say my prayer to the "Soul of the Universe" for its blessings. Poet John Ciardi began his Dante lecture (New England Life Hall, March 19, 1972) with "A man is defined by his attention. Dante's attention was God, that's why he experienced Paradise." Recently, I read Mary Oliver's Evidence: Poems (2009) with its book epigraph by Kierkegaard: "We create ourselves by our choices". So whatever we are attentive to and what we choose will define our life.