... The sage continued, “Seeing is a manifold experience. You must not only be aware of what is in front of you here and now but try to imagine all possibilities of past, present and future realities and act accordingly. Then you will take part in wisdom. You must learn to imagine.” 

This is the challenge Keiko has set for us, to stretch our notion of seeing beyond the here and now and spur us to see with our mind’s eye. To help us, Keiko provided an object to use as a point of departure for our imagination. The object, which was once part of a sturdy leafy beach tree on the corner of 11th and Girard near the Cambridge Plaza Housing Projects in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, is now lying before us with its insides out, bare for all to see.

So what do you see? Squirrels, birds or images of the Lenni Lenape roaming the pre-urban jungle of present day Philadelphia or the coming of William Penn and the city’s original planners with their optimistic visions of civilizing the land. Or the city’s post-war boom that precipitated construction of the Cambridge Plaza Projects and the planting of this tree to provide shade, a place to picnic, kiss, hide, climb. Perhaps a vision of perserverance and stability for people to draw strength from when all about them was changing. The tree certainly did persevere as evidenced by the bricks, glass and bottle caps that it consumed while reaching for the sky.

In looking at the tree one can’t help ask why it was uprooted along with the inhabitants of the Cambridge Plaza Projects. We can see what has become of the tree but what has become of the people. A low income housing project is to make room for a mixed income project so the people have to move on, why and to where. Such questions could lead to cynicism about gentrification and other urban pitfalls or they can lead to more positive thoughts of renewal and rebirth.

Keiko asks us to imagine the positive possibilities because the negative ones help neither the displaced, the newcomers or the thinker. They lead to frustration and feelings of impotence. Wisdom must lead us to positive actions or we have failed to take part in it. This tree was strong enough to live with bricks, glass and metal in its insides and we must be strong enough to imagine the positives and act to realize them despite the real and metaphorical bricks, glass and metal in our path. So sit and swing from the roots to the sunshine.

– Words by Benjamin Morse