Thanks to those who turned out and participated. It was a somewhat challenging topic....
Honorable mentions:
3rd place:
No quite as symbolic as some others, but a beautiful composition, impeccable technique and excellent lighting.
2nd place:
Nice find. Its from a scanned negative, so I gave it a slight technology bonus.
The winner is:
All 3 entries showed the same little shoot of life emerging from a severed branch. I chose this one because its sharp throughout and has a nice bokeh...