One of my favorite words.  It is how the mind finds a pattern in random data.  The key part of the word is the “idol” part and frequently the mind finds a human face or body.  The phenomenon is likely a survival/tribal mechanism.

This is a picture of a huge old oak tree on my work-home route. I see arms and a body with a woman’s breast. I like her (the tree) a lot.  She comforts me with her waves on the way to the office and distracts me from the Culvers’ chocolate sundae billboard in the next block on the way home. She stands near the road edge of a large farm property that (hopefully) will stay as long as I do.

I honor her — not worship like a Druid — as a powerful reminder of shared consciousness.  It’s easy to see a tree like this with some level of stoic awareness and as valuable a part of all that is as I am.

Read my poem, My Witness Tree on Poetiosity.