Thank you Winnie for your support, it means a lot to me, having you here. And everyone else, Welcome! I would like to have an adventure, lets walk down a trail and see what magic we can find, want to? There may be portals between the hedgerows and the corn fields so keep a good eye open. Whichever path we take let's keep nature close by our side and our hearts tuned to the divine, shall we? I have a feeling it's going to be grand. I'll meet you here by the blue door.
Thursday, April 28, 2005
Hanging On
by Trendle Ellwood
Oaks are such a sturdy rugged tree. Some of them hold their leaves into the winters. They are never in a hurry to jump into spring, they clasp their buds tight and wait patiently until the days are sure to be warm before they gallop out to play. In this way they have always seemed old and mature to me, able to keep their silence. Not running off with every little notion of spring, but waiting for the real thing. Mature, dignified, that is how Oaks always seemed to me.
I have always noted with interest a large old oak that I pass by on 22.
This tree appears by its size and it’s gnarled bark to be quite old. Some times an old oak tree will be left standing in a field and it is so neat when they do because they get so big and present such an awesome presence. This certain Oak Tree has something else about it, which makes it noteworthy, and that is the fact that it has a serious lean.
No matter from which direction you look at it, it cannot be missed the tree is topping over.
When my daughter and I drove by it for the first time after the rains this spring we exclaimed how much more bent over it seemed to be then ever. Although we were on a destination we slowed down and looked hard for signs of new growth on the tree and we were happy when we saw, Yes! little green-yellow leaves unfurling all over the huge tree.
I got out to visit with the tree a bit and I was greeted with a wave,
It seemed to me that in it's own silent way the tree had so much to say.
I walked up to the tree and I looked up into it's hollow and I took this picture.
Do you see the spirits and the faces that I see there?
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Oaks are such a sturdy rugged tree. Some of them hold their leaves into the winters. They are never in a hurry to jump into spring, they clasp their buds tight and wait patiently until the days are sure to be warm before they gallop out to play. In this way they have always seemed old and mature to me, able to keep their silence. Not running off with every little notion of spring, but waiting for the real thing. Mature, dignified, that is how Oaks always seemed to me.
I have always noted with interest a large old oak that I pass by on 22.
This tree appears by its size and it’s gnarled bark to be quite old. Some times an old oak tree will be left standing in a field and it is so neat when they do because they get so big and present such an awesome presence. This certain Oak Tree has something else about it, which makes it noteworthy, and that is the fact that it has a serious lean.
No matter from which direction you look at it, it cannot be missed the tree is topping over.
When my daughter and I drove by it for the first time after the rains this spring we exclaimed how much more bent over it seemed to be then ever. Although we were on a destination we slowed down and looked hard for signs of new growth on the tree and we were happy when we saw, Yes! little green-yellow leaves unfurling all over the huge tree.
I got out to visit with the tree a bit and I was greeted with a wave,
It seemed to me that in it's own silent way the tree had so much to say.
I walked up to the tree and I looked up into it's hollow and I took this picture.
Do you see the spirits and the faces that I see there?
Sunday, April 17, 2005
The Green of Spring
by Trendle Ellwood
The fields are emerald green now. It is as if my world is blushing with hope. The hope that is eternal. The hope that swells within young birds hearts and persuades them that they should sing the song of spring. The hope that makes the flowers rise from the darkness of the ground. The hope that makes them forget their winter.
The old brick house that sits in my view to the north in the winter is removed from my sight now with the first blush of the trees. All that can be seen is her white barn which glows when the sun sets. Oh how can I describe how joyful the trees look with their light, still shy colors of new growth.
The apple trees and the grape vines are blooming although the average last frost is not until May 8th and so we pray that we will be lucky. It is nice for this that we reside up on a hill as the cold fingers of the frost does not always reach up from the valleys to us.
I cannot get over how beautiful and purple are the berries that will turn into cones and are sprouting all over the spruce trees. And then the redbud branches swish against them continuing the same color theme.
The new rhododendron blooms by my front steps as Calie Button runs about and playing with the fairy flowers who only she can see.
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The fields are emerald green now. It is as if my world is blushing with hope. The hope that is eternal. The hope that swells within young birds hearts and persuades them that they should sing the song of spring. The hope that makes the flowers rise from the darkness of the ground. The hope that makes them forget their winter.
The old brick house that sits in my view to the north in the winter is removed from my sight now with the first blush of the trees. All that can be seen is her white barn which glows when the sun sets. Oh how can I describe how joyful the trees look with their light, still shy colors of new growth.
The apple trees and the grape vines are blooming although the average last frost is not until May 8th and so we pray that we will be lucky. It is nice for this that we reside up on a hill as the cold fingers of the frost does not always reach up from the valleys to us.
I cannot get over how beautiful and purple are the berries that will turn into cones and are sprouting all over the spruce trees. And then the redbud branches swish against them continuing the same color theme.
The new rhododendron blooms by my front steps as Calie Button runs about and playing with the fairy flowers who only she can see.
Wednesday, April 06, 2005
Two Portraits
by Trendle Ellwood
My friend Edwina Peterson Cross, more affectionately known as Winnie, created a picture for me once of a girl looking out over the hills enjoying nature. When I first saw it I was surprised at how it resembled another painting that I had once seen.
When we were still renting, before we had found our homestead my husband and I were taking a little holiday in a town south of here. And so we were roaming about the town when we walked through a restaurant that had a local artist’s paintings on display. There was one painting that so struck my heart. A girl was standing on her homestead, the farm, the meadow, the creek and the woods swept towards the horizon behind her. But in front of her loomed the skyline of a city. She held a long rifle in her arms and pointed it across the cornfield and towards the steadily approaching monster of commerce.
Winnie’s picture reminds me of this painting because they both have the same hills, and the same girl with the same soul looking out over them.
I live outside of town where farmhouses, fields and woods dot the land just like in the pictures. The city and a lot of population are in front of me, just yet out of view across the cornfield and down the road. Behind me you can take country roads down into the hills and away.
I like to go where I need to in ever-growing city by skirting around the edges of the metro. It is there, skimming around the edges of the material world that I see more and more farm/wood land just plain disappearing.
The beautiful little creeks that used to be so lovely are ploughed over and forced into drainage ditches. There is no place left for a tree to cast its full shadow down the hill of a green field. Don’t they know that our eyes need this? Mine do! I just don’t understand, how much farther will they build? Will they ever stop? Will it keep on going until every field and woods is subdivision?
Today I drove through where there are rolling fields of an especially knobby kind. I have always loved driving there and thinking how magical those little hills are. Now I see that they are destroying this place for more subdivision. As I was driving through I saw three deer silhouetted against the sunset. They posed in hesitation between two new subdivisions.
It so struck my heart how their home had been stolen.
Animals have a code in their hearts that connects them to the land that they were born on. When people move in taking up more then their fair share, the deer stay and they try to travel the old pathways that the genes of their forefathers taught them to travel. They do not understand when we build a highway over their trails and expect them to go someplace else. My heart so went out to those deer and I cried. I felt like the Native American still watching the greed of the new comers. I felt like the Lemurian who hated Atlantis.
The earth is a spiritual being, will we wake up and be aware of this?
The earth needs to honored again. We act as if the earth should honor us; well it is the other way around.
I feel like the girl in the picture that Winnie created standing in awe of the God given beauty. I also feel like the girl in the painting that Winnie’s picture reminds me of, the girl with the rifle standing ready. Because the city threatens to come towards my little piece of hollowed ground and I would like to pick up my rifle and chase it away.
But I reckon when the day comes that the material world starts to swallow up this little spot of mine that I will just have to pack up my bags and leave and find some, more country, place to dwell. God I pray that this so called progress will come to a halt before there is no country quiet place left to go to. For where would my soul gather then?
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My friend Edwina Peterson Cross, more affectionately known as Winnie, created a picture for me once of a girl looking out over the hills enjoying nature. When I first saw it I was surprised at how it resembled another painting that I had once seen.
When we were still renting, before we had found our homestead my husband and I were taking a little holiday in a town south of here. And so we were roaming about the town when we walked through a restaurant that had a local artist’s paintings on display. There was one painting that so struck my heart. A girl was standing on her homestead, the farm, the meadow, the creek and the woods swept towards the horizon behind her. But in front of her loomed the skyline of a city. She held a long rifle in her arms and pointed it across the cornfield and towards the steadily approaching monster of commerce.
Winnie’s picture reminds me of this painting because they both have the same hills, and the same girl with the same soul looking out over them.
I live outside of town where farmhouses, fields and woods dot the land just like in the pictures. The city and a lot of population are in front of me, just yet out of view across the cornfield and down the road. Behind me you can take country roads down into the hills and away.
I like to go where I need to in ever-growing city by skirting around the edges of the metro. It is there, skimming around the edges of the material world that I see more and more farm/wood land just plain disappearing.
The beautiful little creeks that used to be so lovely are ploughed over and forced into drainage ditches. There is no place left for a tree to cast its full shadow down the hill of a green field. Don’t they know that our eyes need this? Mine do! I just don’t understand, how much farther will they build? Will they ever stop? Will it keep on going until every field and woods is subdivision?
Today I drove through where there are rolling fields of an especially knobby kind. I have always loved driving there and thinking how magical those little hills are. Now I see that they are destroying this place for more subdivision. As I was driving through I saw three deer silhouetted against the sunset. They posed in hesitation between two new subdivisions.
It so struck my heart how their home had been stolen.
Animals have a code in their hearts that connects them to the land that they were born on. When people move in taking up more then their fair share, the deer stay and they try to travel the old pathways that the genes of their forefathers taught them to travel. They do not understand when we build a highway over their trails and expect them to go someplace else. My heart so went out to those deer and I cried. I felt like the Native American still watching the greed of the new comers. I felt like the Lemurian who hated Atlantis.
The earth is a spiritual being, will we wake up and be aware of this?
The earth needs to honored again. We act as if the earth should honor us; well it is the other way around.
I feel like the girl in the picture that Winnie created standing in awe of the God given beauty. I also feel like the girl in the painting that Winnie’s picture reminds me of, the girl with the rifle standing ready. Because the city threatens to come towards my little piece of hollowed ground and I would like to pick up my rifle and chase it away.
But I reckon when the day comes that the material world starts to swallow up this little spot of mine that I will just have to pack up my bags and leave and find some, more country, place to dwell. God I pray that this so called progress will come to a halt before there is no country quiet place left to go to. For where would my soul gather then?
Friday, April 01, 2005
April
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