Vines cascade and dance down from branches, take root, then twist and claw their way back up and strangle the host, becoming a new gnarled twisted "Strangler Fig" tree you can climb inside.  Orchids clutch the side of.a tree and blossom proudly.  Thick twiny wood vines curl like horror movie fingers.

Two and half hours on the gorgeously-groomed trails of Curi Cancha here in Monteverde, alternately sunny and wind-whipped clouds dampening my face.  Dark canopy-cover giving way to pockets of sun where different strata of leaves and birds strain and sing and soar upwards toward the light.  The Continental Divide, beaten and nourished with rain clouds from both the Atlantic and the Pacific.  And wind, always that mighty insistent wind, animating the tiniest and mightiest, howling the power of Shiva the destroyer and the creator.

The slideshow below attempts to capture a smidgeon of the myriad biodiversity and intertwining of nature.  Nothing here exists alone.  Every old and sturdy tree grew on and out of and devoured an older and sturdier tree, and now hosts the next generation of plants and bugs in a complex ecosystem that knows how to take care of each other.

Would that our human roots and frail branches and hungry hungry leaves could so openly and joyously reach across and through each other without apology, without vain assertion of independence.  That we could all hear and truly live the wisdom shared in my online men's circle last night: "Now that I'm 89, I understand that we are all trying for the same thing, and I love you all for that."