Three branches that cannot be severed

For people from Berga, the Three Branch Pine Tree is a special place. It's where your dad brought you to look for mushrooms. Or maybe one day you went there one day for a hike, or a bike ride, or to run. Or you attended the annual gathering. Or you thought about it for a few hours, while preparing the event, the speeches, the refreshments and the lunch afterwards. The Pine Tree is country, it's politics, but it is also nature, and childhood memories. It's a sort of magical space.

For those of us who understand the country as a national entity, the Pine has an intense, electric responsibility. It is capable of gathering us at the base of the sacred tree of our country, and capable of pitting us against each other. It's hard to turn the page on the quarrels and arguments that went on during the 90's. Incidents that illustrate the anarchic character of the Catalan people, and how hard it is for us to come to an agreement. But the intensity you can feel there is also what makes it continue to be, year after year, one of the symbols that has kept the flame alive in this country.

That something might happen to the Three Branch Pine Tree was easy to foretell. Periodically, Spanish extremists and ultras have vandalized the tree. But, even still, the feeling that arises when you hear that they have sawed off one of the branches is one of humiliation, fury, and tension. Especially in the case of those of us from Berga, because the blow has come on our own turf.

What these folks surely didn't predict is that what they have done will backfire, in a big way. We Catalans are in constant need of a reminder about who is the enemy that we must stand up to. All of our military intelligence seems to have been used up with the Almogàvers, but there's still a pinch left. And cutting off one of the branches that symbolize the unity of our nation is a good way to get our attention. It would be great if a few groups from Berga or elsewhere start thinking about this year's gathering, because after this attack and the current situation in general, it's likely that there will be a huge response.

It's hard to think about the future of the Three Branch Pine Tree so soon, when one is still seething. It's been dying for many years, but despite that fact, it never stopped being symbolic. Because for many, it forms part of our collective imagination. The Pine is memories, feelings, summer days, winter days, dreams, hope. And maybe it doesn't have to be made of wood.

They're talking about rejoining the branch to the trunk. It'll most certainly be weaker due to the damage. And on top of that there are the stones that were erected around the tree years ago for protection but which killed the roots. And the road built next to it has taken its toll. And perhaps that'll be the way to remember its wounds and keep looking toward the sky. But it's also possible that there are other solutions, like recreating it out of metal and those in the know say that that may be more majestic than the wounded tree.

Now however, it doesn't matter what decision they make. Because the Three Branch Pine Tree, within each of us, can never be severed.

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It would be great if a few groups from Berga or elsewhere start thinking about this year's gathering, because after this attack and the current situation in general, it's likely that there will be a huge response.

Now however, it doesn't matter what decision they make. Because the Three Branch Pine Tree, within each of us, can never be severed.