Isadora sycamore

This curvaceous tree, alone in its grove clad in mustard yellow lichen, always reminds me the celebrated dancer Isadora Duncan, rooted to the spot in the middle of one of her sinuous dance routines.

Isadora Duncan (1877-1927) is ackowledged as the creator of modern dance. Rejecting the rules and conventions of ballet etc., she used self-expression and improvisation to convey the movement and rhythms of natural forces like waves, wind, trees and water. With her flowing gowns, loose hair and bare feet she seemed a wild and elemental force and indeed her life was filled with passion and tragedy. She had lovers of both sexes, and bore two children out of wedlock who were drowned when the car they were in rolled into the Seine in Paris. She herself died in memorable circumstances when, at the age of 50, her long trailing scarf caught in the wheels of a sports car when driving off with a younger man.

Here's a sample of her dancing style performed by a shapely imitator.

Alternatively, this graceful sycamore could be compared to Bernini's lovely sculpture of Daphne being turned into a laurel tree in order to escape the amorous advances of Phoebus Apollo. She prays to her father River and her mother Earth for rescue and so, in the (translated) words of Ovid,

Before her prayer was ended, torpor seized on all her body, and a thin bark closed around her gentle bosom, and her hair became as moving leaves; her arms were changed to waving branches, and her active feet as clinging roots were fastened to the ground.

Daphne or Isadora, which do you think this is?