Tuesday 21 June 2011

A Tear for Midsummer



Among the trees on the Longest Day. The idea is that it should be warm and sunny. The reality is that it is raining. But everything is so green as I stand underneath the dripping leaves. I am totally immersed in the reality rather than the idea. A tear runs down my cheek. I could think of it as symbolic of the rain falling. This is a nice idea. But the reality is that this is a tear of empathy. Not sad. Not disappointed. Shedding a tear because that is my response to the rain falling and dripping down off the leaves. I feel the tear and the rain together on my face as a blessing and a joy. I feel part of this green place, a northern rain forest where the greenness glows in the grey light under the open canopy and darkens in the shadier places where the roof of leaves is thicker. In the grey light of a rainy evening in the mid of Summer I am in the enchantment of an other world. This is not an idea. It is real.

Sunday 12 June 2011

HAWKWEED

Orange Hawkweed (Hieracium aurantiacum)

Heavy rain today after a long dryish spell.  I went out this morning to wet my hair and welcome the rain.  But now I'm having a rare sunday afternoon indoors, remembering yesterday when I took the photo above of a stand of Orange Hawkweed (also known as 'fox and cubs'). It's a plant I love to see. The books say it is a naturalized garden escape, but it seems to me to be naturally a part of the local flora besides the wild yellow hawkweeds and other dandelion-type flowers that grow tall in the hedges and field corners.

According to one book, hawkweeds were named after a belief of the ancient Romans that hawks ate them to strengthen their eyesight. A lovely idea. I hope to get some more books with stuff like that in them, maybe some of the old herbals, to add to my scientific knowledge of plants.

Wednesday 8 June 2011

Re-visiting my Newly Discovered Place

Have been back to the woodland I found for a longer exploration (I love these late evenings as we move towards the Midsummer Solstice).

Here's one of the paths running down to the valley bottom:


And here's an old hollow lime tree:


The valley bottom with a wide stream running along it really is the most atmospheric place - full of dark shady groves, lighter flowery dells and a real sense of depth not just in the number of trees but the very presence of the place. Much more than a collection of trees this really feels like an archetypal forest.


'll leave this post with another pic from my first visit of some foxgloves from a bit higher up where the canopy is more open. This area has a different quality. There is more light and there are more flowers. It is also 'lighter' in atmosphere. But wonderful too in its own way.


I could dance naked in these glades if I dared. But it is a public place :O

Sunday 5 June 2011

New Discovery



I found a woodland site this weekend that is only fifteen minutes from where I live. I didn't know what was there until I decided to stop and explore. I have passed it quite often and noticed a sign for a picnic site but never explored it until now. 

It's a Forestry Commission woodland with the usual conifer plantation along one side of it, but the rest is a natural broadleaved wood. Away from the picnic site there are some wide paths where people stroll and walk dogs, but beyond that you get into lovely mature woodland where hardly anyone else seems to go. The picture above is of a sycamore that has spread into three trunks. A lovely tree that I spent some time with.  There are also some deep lanes through the trees along the lowest part of the wood, dark paths running through the shade with wood garlic and other flowers of damp woodland in an atmosphere of mystery and enchantment. I stood among the trees here with my breath held sensing something deep as I felt the presence of the wood spirits all around me. 

The wood also runs up the hillside and on the slopes there is more light and  it is more open. There was a clearing here full of foxgloves and a seat to sit on to admire the view of trees and, further away, fields stretching to the horizon.

I'll be going back to this place often especially as it is so near. Before long I will know it intimately. And I hope it will know me and accept me too.