I keep having an image of nature as a metaphor for Bitcoin but I can't quite word it or fully conceptualize it. Something like a tree. Absorbing and expending energy. The leaves are miners coming in and out of existence as long as energy is plentiful and cheap. The trunk the base layer consensus blockchain. The roots being full nodes verifying that rules are kept in check. And perhaps mycelium, underneath that as a way of communicating information of what is happening on the base layer above as a transaction network like Lightning.
Or maybe I'm just too deep in the sauce. Oh Monday's.