The white cross is the result of a ‘saprotrophic’ fungus growing on the tree stump. Life is coming out of death, both in nature and symbolically. The picture has not been ‘manipulated’, aside from correcting the color and brightness. I am struck also by the pine needles which speak of the nails, and the blood-red vine growing beside the trunk. The cross seems to be reaching out, and one might even imagine that it is the power of the cross itself which has so dramatically split open the hard heart of the fallen tree.
