father's presence to his ranch and seeking his approval. This is the start of Joseph's journey into pagan ways of thinking and relating to the land.
             In The Power of Myth, Joseph Campbell, speaking of a plant growing, states: "That's the sense of the energy of the center. That's the meaning of the image of the Grail, of the inexhaustable fountain, of the source." Indeed this is what the oak tree is to Joseph Wayne, at the start. It is the source of the land's power and the first of the unknown deities to whom he will make offerings. While Lisca says, "This begins as a mere whim, that his dead father's spirit has somehow come to be with him, the son who received the patriarchal blessing," I think we can argue, based on Joseph's immediate and fervent belief in the tree's power over the land, that this is much, much more than a whim. His insistence that the tree "is my father"(p.17) shows the first of several leaps o
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