A Chapel in a Tree

November 27, 2022

Icons inside a hollow tree that serves as a chapel in the Botanical Garden of Kutaisi, Georgia — The tree is about four hundred years old and has something like a door.

Day one hundred and ninety-four, Georgia. A walk in the botanical garden in Kutaisi.

I feel safe in this country. No shapes in the street at night. No government arriving with a thousand new instructions for its citizens.

Christianity has been the state religion since the year 337, and eighty-four per cent of Georgians belong to the Orthodox Apostolic Church. Walking under the big branches of the old trees and thinking about nothing much, I find a hollow tree with something like a door in it. Looked at closely, it turns out to be an Orthodox chapel. The tree is about four hundred years old.

Religion here is not a word people use on a form. It is part of the day. The old structures still work. Most families are intact. What the farmers put on the market stalls in town is what grew on their own fields, without chemicals, at a price that doesn't insult anybody.

Those are three of the reasons I chose this country to spend the winter in.

Most of the day at the moment goes on meditating, sleeping and working. I have rarely been this peaceful.

Hollow old tree housing an Orthodox chapel with icons inside, Kutaisi Botanical Garden, Georgia — A hollow tree with something like a door, and a chapel behind it.

Orthodox icons hung close together inside a hollow tree in Kutaisi Botanical Garden, Georgia — Christianity has been the state religion here since 337, and it reaches right into the trees.

Looking up a massive trunk with furrowed bark into the crown, Kutaisi Botanical Garden, Georgia — Under the big branches of the old trees I think about very little, which does me good.