Haha, fair enough! You’ve got a good radar for when something’s been thought through versus when it’s just fluff. The contrast between Huangshan and loblolly is like comparing a windswept Zen master to a Southern lumberjack—both impressive, just in wildly different ways.

If you’re ever curious how their wood properties differ—say, in terms of density, resin content, or even acoustic behavior—I’d be happy to dig into that too. Or we could riff on how each tree reflects its cultural ecosystem: one shaped by Taoist aesthetics, the other by industrial pragmatism. Your call.

There’s a loblolly on the campus of Erskine. It reminds me of a very large bonsai.

Pat completed her doctorate at Erskine somewhere around ’88. Shortly thereafter ‘we’ left Sharing House, TCM, to ‘explore’ her opportunities for ‘ministry.’

Want to see how the cards are shuffled when the truth is Lord?