Apple Trees

At the beginning of May I visited Orleton Court Farm in Worcestershire and camped in an old apple orchard. The trees were starting to leaf while the main blossom time looked a couple of weeks away. I was struck by all the different shapes formed by the trunks and branches and so took a collection of photos to record their appearance. I had initially planned some illustration work but decided to create a photo collage instead. Clicking on the image should enlarge it.

 

Sunlit Oaks

 

Quick sketch made whilst out for a walk today of sunlight in an oak wood near Lilley, Hertfordshire. The bright green mosses covering the trees beautifully backlit by warm sunshine. Procreate on iPad, 29 minutes.

Woodland Shadows

A week or so ago I walked round the farmland surrounding Wrest Park in Bedfordshire. The weather was cold and overcast and a moderate effort was required to find the motivation to just get out and do something. Taking my camera with me I decided to play around with taking a few random pictures of anything I could find. The sun came out for a short while as I was passing through some woods and, as it was low in the sky even at midday, the shadows cast by the slender ash (?) trees were quite stunning. I then began a quest to find an interesting photo to take. The photo here has been adjusted a little to enhance the contrast and remove the colour. The sunlight was just in the right place coming from my left so my own shadow was not visible as I walked along the footpath between the tress. It took a few minutes to find a location where the lines of shadows and trees were not obviously disrupted by obviously diagonal wayward branches or fallen trees. There was also a field to my left which meant the there was only a narrow band of trunks casting strong shadows with little interference from a higher canopy to blur the lines.

Hop Picking and other things

The hop harvest has got underway in the Teme Valley in Worcestershire and I have just visited a friend’s farm to watch the hop bines being brought from the hop yards to the picking shed. The long hop bines, laden with a healthy crop of cones, have come from fertile land by the river where they have not been adversely affected by the summer’s drought. A new drying system has been installed this year to replace the traditional hop kilns and I watched whilst the 50 year old Bruff hop picking machine thundered it way through the afternoon like a huge monster eager to devour anything fed to it.

Then there was the sheer physical nature of working there. People moving urgently about unloading trailers, untangling the long bines, attaching them to the trackway, clearing blockages, keeping conveyor belts moving smoothly…. for about eight hours a day for the next three weeks. The noise was loud and you had to shout to be heard - it was like being in a tin shack during a very heavy hailstorm! The side of the machine shed resembled a large workshop implying that keeping the whole setup running was a challenge in itself. Actually, the new drying system seemed to be having more teething problems than the vintage picking machine. Once the day’s work had finished and all the floors swept clean of hops, the mechanical leviathan was shut down and everyone, including me, went for a drink at the bar. This had been built in one of the two long brick arched cellars beneath the house and these opened out onto a newly built patio/function area overlooking the river. A cool refreshing pint of draught cider was most welcome. If I could I’d easily give up sitting in front of a computer for a month to help out here. 

Once the hop harvest is finished there won’t be much time before the cider apple harvest begins. Farming is not a job here, it is a way of life and a very physically demanding one at that.

Around Hanley Childe the corn harvest has just finished and the fields are dotted with round bales awaiting collection. Several distant combines could be heard and I walked through one field of spring barley still to be harvested. A tractor and a huge trailed muck spreader were seen at work on one of the fields.

Fruit trees abound everywhere here though not all the fruit is edible. Many of the tress are very ancient and haven’t been managed to produce edible fruit for decades. Pear, apple and damson trees pop up everywhere in fields, hedgerows and woodland. Several very fruitful damson trees were relieved of their heavy burden. I haven’t had damson fool since I was a child and it was a joy to go home, cook the fruit, sieve the pulp and add cream. Absolutely delicious.

Slightly surprisingly, so I thought, I have only found one place where a wild hop was growing. It had climbed a good 12 feet or so up into a heavily berried hawthorn hedge beside an old orchard. 

The neatly mown cider orchards are laden with fruit from many different varieties. As cider apples are small and not really edible I wasn’t sure if the drought had affected them. The trees looked quite heavily laden and will be mechanically harvested later in the autumn.

Berries in hedgerows: rose-hips, blackberries, bryony, hawthorn, elder, some wild arum, sloe and a few others to be identified.

Most wild flowers have gone over, but a few surprises were found like water mint on an old ford and a single purple violet in some woodland. Was it late or early?

Butterflies: whites, red admiral, blue, skipper, speckled wood, meadow brown, small copper.

Dragonflies common, frequently seen anywhere.

Birds: birdsong quiet or non-existent compared to earlier in the year: buzzard, green woodpecker, wren, heron, magpie, jay, pigeon, pheasant, small tweeting things, heron and various other unidentifiables.

Animals: sheep, cow, horse, squirrel, muntjac deer, rabbit, mouse, no hares this time.

Most of the hedgerow verge plants have died or are on their way out: nettles, docks, grasses, hogweed, greater willowherb, goosegrass, woundwort. Bryony berries are spectacular with their trails of brightly coloured berries and leaves adorning hedges and blackberries in abundance in places.

No sign of ash die back disease here, ash trees are everywhere and fully laden with bunches of keys. Found a few limes and a few other interesting trees such as maple and sweet chestnut.There always seems to be something of interest to discover. I did find a few fungi though I think it was a little too early in the year to have a successful fungal foray.

I might as well be doing a complete ecological survey of the area. Whilst waiting the water to boil on my gas stove for a cup of coffee I found two new trees I needed to identify near to where I had parked. Not sure if all this detail will be relevant for my book, I am just trying to get to know the area so that at least I can write about it with some background knowledge.

Only a few trees are showing any immediate sign of turning colour. Most are still a deep summer green. It is the fruits, seeds and berries that give the hint that autumn is close. The brown, dry pastures have recovered significantly from the drought with most grassland turning back to green. The soil feels moist though it will take time for the cracks in the clay to disappear.

It is 8.34pm, very nearly dark and a farmer is still muck spreading  - he started late afternoon. Wonder what he did the rest of the day and why this job is so important now? Perhaps he needs to sow another crop and working with tractors on the clay soil now is easier than if it rains. Moving over the fields with heavy equipment will not be possible then. On second thoughts it may well be a contractor at work, or a farmer doing contract work for a neighbour. The countryside is full of busy people at this time of the year and I didn’t really want to interrupt their work by asking questions.

Trees

A rather scrappy sketch of some trees at Croft Castle a few days ago.

Hopton TItterhill

A conifer plantation: tall maturing trees, widely spaced with little to impede a walk through the towering silent softwoods. No breeze, a soft overcast light.  I can hear a buzzard (or some bird of prey), small birds, an occasional distant car and some mountain bikers whose voices echo across the hillside. I sit on a carpet of pine needles and small wood sorrel plants that cover the ground like a dusting of green snow.

I like sensing the three dimensional space that surrounds me. Although I am just sitting with my back against a tree I focus on objects around me and try and imagine what they feel like with respect to temperature, moisture, texture etc and their place in the landscape. It is as though I am imagining myself being everywhere around me and not just within.

I have written before about finding space, peace and separation from technology in places like this over the years so I am trying to find new things to write about. With quick fleeting visits to these places that isn't always easy.

Over my life I have explored many woods like this and, generally they are quite safe places as long as one takes a few precautions. Forestry tracks can suddenly stop in the middle of nowhere or deviate from maps so having a good sense of direction is important. Fortunately, in this area of the country there aren't any vicious wild animals or venomous snakes that can cause harm. The only things that really worry me are ticks. They aren't too prevalent around here as in some parts of the country but I always check myself over when I get home. I was never too worried about falling branches until I watched a tv programme about american loggers who had armour plated logging machines. So far, in 50 years, I have never had a branch fall next to from high up and I generally avoid woodland in strong winds. Oh, and it is generally a good idea to avoid wood ants and gamekeepers.

Grey Poplars

There is a footpath I walk along near to where I work that I use fairly regularly. For some reason it was this week that I actually really noticed the tall mature grey poplar trees that lined part of the hedgerow. I was walking past them and suddenly thought 'Hello' I wonder what you are?' In the light breeze the silver undersided leaves shimmered and rustled. They held my attention and I went back today to clarify my identification of them and to take a few photos in the beautifully clear and bright summer sunlight. I could have sat and looked at them for hours. I noticed in one of them there were, high above me, two large woodpecker holes. In another, a branch about a foot in diameter from two close growing trunks had completely merged into its neighbour.

Pines in Sowdley Wood

This was a sketch made between rain showers of some pine trees in Sowdley Wood near Clun. They had been planted amongst a mixed stand of conifer and old oak woodland and stood alongside some redwoods. Both types of tree towered high above me and looked spectacular even on a dull and wet day. I have spent quite a while trying to identify this particular tree but haven't quite found anything that exactly matches what I have seen. What struck me was the gorgeous pale turquoise colour of the trunks that stood out in the dim light. I am often struck by how intense colours can be in nature even when there is very little sunlight. The bark was very smooth and with fine horizontal markings but very little cracking except at the very base of the trees. One rather interesting feature on all the trees was a diagonal stripe on the bark that curved very slightly anticlockwise by about 5 or 10 degrees, approximately 10ft long and beginning 20ft up. I wondered if this was a mark made by some protective covering of the young saplings when they were originally planted, but I don't really know. Judging by their height they must have been planted early in the last century as they looked far grander than stands of commercial conifers that are grown nearby.

After a little scrambling about on the step hillside I did find the remains of some very large fir cones and, as they don't match those of the redwoods or other nearby Douglas firs, they must come from these trees. Even after an extensive Internet search I cannot exactly match them to anything. I could be missing something fairly straightford and I am a little annoyed at not being able to name them but I do like an occasional puzzle like this.

Oak

(Notes from a recent visit to the Shropshire Hills)

A dry, hazy Sunday morning in February. The distant hills are hidden in the paleness that hides the boundary between the hills and the sky. It is cool, but not too cold. I am above the village of Clunton in Shropshire, looking over the Clun valley below me and hearing a landscape that is full of birdsong. Snowdrops fill gardens and roadside and the river tumbles over stoney rapids between feelers of sheep.

In front of me is a magnificent oak tree. It stands on the northern side of the steep hill between the valley field and the start of the extensive conifer plantation that reaches high above me. It is a huge tree and surrounding it is a grass clearing that looks as if the conifers were intentionally not planted in its immediate vacinity sixty or so years ago thus allowing the tree space to breathe. A fence has been place around this clearing, approximately 15m x 30m in size, though quite why I am not sure as it now separates this patch of grass with the adjoining sheep grazed field that leads down the hill and there is no gate or access to this clearing. Perhaps it was just becoming an awkward area of grassland for the farmer to manage but I don't quite see why it has been contracted this way.

It is just a beautiful tree. It's broad central trunk branches out in almost perfect evenness to form a huge symmetrical arch. It probably stood out for me because, in the dull light, its dark form is highlighted by the pale pastel colours of the misty backdrop of fields. Branches of dull brown,grey and black are highlighted by bright green mosses. 

I am tempted to draw the the tree but I am not sure that in a small amount of time I can do it justice. There are just so many branches all radiating out in even patterns of intricacy that I will spend most of my time being visually lost in its complexity.

I am grateful that the forestry planters years ago seemed able to have a heart and not swamp this tree with conifers. It seems to have been left to reach a glorious maturity.

Oak

It isn't often I come across very old oak trees in this part of the country, but today I visited one near Wrest Park. With a trunk diameter of around 5ft this was once a very large tree but at some time in the past it had lost its uppermost branches above about 12ft leaving only a single main leaf bearing trunk continuing upwards of about 1 ft diameter and 25ft or so above that. What struck me was the the old craggy bark on the shaded side of the tree. It's age was very apparent by the deep ruts and distortions of the bark. I spent some time looking closely at this world of mosses, lichens and spiders and wished I had a magnifying glass. Various areas of the bark had evolved into different ecosystems possibly determined by light, shade, moisture, orientation, level of decay etc and this was marked by differences in the colours of the greens of the surface plant life. Where moses were covering the wood there was a dominant dark green. For lichens it was more of a pale whitish green and in areas of algae a more bright fluorescent like green. A rich brown dust covered some areas possibly due to the actions of woodpeckers delving into the rotten areas to find food. This is an incredible landscape that I am touching and exploring and which I am sure most people over the years have just walked by without giving it a second glance. I am reminded how in the past day or so man has managed to land a spacecraft on a comet orbiting Jupiter - on a surface that probably looks not too dissimilar in places. It is also amazing to realise that, from one perspective, these two very different places 300 million miles apart are connected through being a part of the universe. They were ultimately birthed in the same place, made of similar materials and are part of the natural world.

The wood here is incredibly still today. It is an overcast day, not cold, but no breeze at all. Even the last few very uppermost leaves are not perceptively moving. Tits, crows and the background rumble from a busy main road are the only sounds. How different a wood like this would be in the wind. There are, I think, several other trees like this in the woods and I expect at one time they stood in open parkland as the surrounding woodland (coppice?) grew up around them.

"Look at Me".

The National Trust property, Croft Castle, is one of my favourite places to visit. Today found me sheltering in the cafe from a heavy rain shower and being inspired to draw the colourful drinks cabinet. The place was empty mid-morning, but at lunchtime it was packed out with visitors and I had to join a long queue to buy a BLT sandwich (which was worth the wait). I sat in the walled garden for a while and sketched the apple trees and then climbed up though Fishpool Valley up through the woods and onto the top of Croft Ambrey. The conifers have started to be felled here and a forestry machine was making short work of felling, cleaning and slicing the long tall trunks into shorter sections. The earlier mist of the morning had completely dissipated and there were magnificent views all over the Welsh borderland. As I walked back down to the castle the sunlight was spectacular. It was now late afternoon and the light was taking a golden turn beneath a clear sky. As the trees are well into turning colour, the scenery around me was spectacular. There was hardly any breeze and, with the sun low in the sky all colours, shapes and changes of light seemed to be accentuated to give a breathtaking beauty to everything.

If ever there could be a day in which Nature (God?) was saying "Look at Me" then today must be one of those days. It was day that brought a sea of mist, dramatic clouds and showers and a golden evening's sun. It showed me lots of wildlife from woodpeckers to deer. It showed me numerous different trees from the apple trees in the walled garden to the colourful hornbeams that I sketched. It showed me a landscape of hills and valleys. This was a reminder that we live on a planet where by the forces of nature will always continue to do their own thing. Mankind will, seemingly, never cease to evolve into a species that alienates itself from the natural world and seeks a selfish "I can do whatever I want" attitude with disregard for one another, other cultures and civilisations. We seem intent on destabilising communities and countries by greed, fundamentalism and selfish ideologies with no regard for a bigger Earthen picture or philosophy.

Beauty and Prayer. Part 2

This follows on from the previous post.

Prayer

What is prayer? I like this definition from the internet 'Prayer is, at root, simply paying attention to God' (Dr. Ralph Martin, The Fulfillment of all desire). John O’Donohue calls prayer ‘A bridge between longing and belonging’.

I have thought a lot about beauty recently and now I have moved on to prayer. In many ways they are connected. Each is an expression of something desirable, something put right, something aesthetically pleasing. Each welcomes the desire to improve one's emotional balance. Each draws upon the soul to look outward into the world seek change.

Journal Notes

It is early on a late September morning and the sun has yet to break over the houses at the end of the garden. The sky is gradually brightening - an expanse of blue with a few high wisps of salmon pink clouds in the distance. It should be a bright day and I plan to go and spend a couple of hours just sitting on a local hilltop. A sort of mini retreat, and I will see what happens. I have no expectations. Being in Nature requires the suspension of expectation. I just need to let it ‘be’, for I cannot make anything happen. I am there to just let go and find a place from in which I can receive. I am not too sure whether I can really learn from Nature as such, but I feel I can definitely receive from a place that accepts my presence.

Prayer can possibly be said to begin with the placement of the self in the universe. The first thing that happens is that you acknowledge yourself. It is you that forms the starting point, you are the centre of what will follow. You are the initiator.

Can prayer happen without your presence? Can Nature pray in your absence? Imagine an empty cornfield. Where or when does prayer happen? I started to think that an empty field cannot pray but once I stand in that field then prayer will happen. It needs me to be the initiator and the focus or does it? My intention for the prayer is what matters. How does that prayer leave me and how does it affect the recipient of the prayer? How does what I am thinking about in that field touch something else? Can it? Will it? What are the factors that decide if, how and when a prayer will work?

What are the boundaries between my imagination and prayer? I could easily pray that a teleportation device would suddenly appear and by pressing a button I could be instantly transported back to my homeland. This is unlikely to happen and is this just wishful imagination? So does prayer then have to be something that could, in reality happen? I could pray for Alice in Wonderland to appear with a wonderful tea party accompanied by lots of English speaking animals. Well, this could happen, but not in the form that I imagine it. I could come up here one summer with my daughter with a few of her cuddly toys for a picnic. But then is there here just a wishful imagining of something that is based around a collection of varied subconscious thoughts that I have picked up over the past few weeks?

Prayer must be an idea about something that will manifest itself in someway though how it does so may not be quite as we expect it to. If there is a perceived answer to prayer then is it not just our consciousness taking note of something that may have actually occurred anyway? Is it just random whether prayer works or not? Is it just an over positive, intense emotional moment that affects us psychologically and alters mental processes in ways that could be construed as being attributed to a ‘spiritual’ moment.

Prayer is about me having particular thoughts and directing them at something. How can my thoughts influence something - say, internally for healing or externally to people or situations? And what about a group of people praying?

There is a hope that by praying there is a supernatural element that can change the ways the universe is. We pray because we want to change things around us that are unjust, unwell, painful etc. We have an emotional attachment to wanting to better our lives.

Back to the illustration of the field, I am in Nature, if I believe that Spirit is around me then I am not alone and I am part of a bigger picture and somehow I connect with that. I was born in to it and it sustains me. I cannot survive independently of nature.

Prayer is being in touch with beauty.

Notes made amongst the trees:

I've cycled to one of my regular haunts a wooded hill top where sycamore birch and ash form an open, spacious area. The tall slender trunks reach upwards to the high enveloping canopy. As a progression from the earlier thought of praying in an open field, I wondered how I would feel being in amongst the trees. I have enjoyed the freedom that is presented by open fields and hilltops before. Sometimes the liberated feel of the body away from any physical restriction is the right place to be in. Now I am exploring this patch of trees and wondering the following: does prayer exist here when there is no human present?

If I and nature are imbued with the same spirit then although I have a conscious mind and can entertain the concept of prayer, could not the trees around me also, in some way, be part of Nature's way of prayer - their presence being part of the eternal evolution of life on this planet.

In a place like this is am surrounded by objects of nature. Trees, grass, moss, fungi, nettles etc. Each is present as a thing of natural beauty and creation. When an empty field is transformed into such a tangible expression of creation, this is where life exists in proliferation. It is in our nature to fall in love with the trees and see them as a thing of beauty and as a multi-faceted resource. It is here, amongst the trees that I think the concept of prayer can be heightened.

In churches prayer is often expressed in groups of people. Here I am surrounded by other living non-persons, but could they not actually form the same function? Together with the trees I could pray. I could uses their symbolism and presence to help me form my prayers.

Here are some thoughts from Nimue Brown’s book (see Beauty and Prayer: Part 1)

'Essentially it is about entering a mystery, not getting a result.' John Pritchard, How to Pray, SPCK 2002.

'Prayer is, in essence, an attempt to start a conversation with something.’

'Much of the prayer work suggested by religious leaders, regardless of tradition, has nothing to do with petition. Prayer is more about entering into a relationship with the divine, being open to the voice of the spirit; open to direction and inspiration. Prayer is an invitation to the numinous to enter your life.'

'The important thing ... is being open to, and aware of, something beyond us. We break down the privacy of the world inside pour skulls, a little. Something else is then able to get in ... The actual existence of things beyond us. We might then learn to empathise with that which is not us, and start to care about it.'

'Everything we do brings us in contact with other living beings ... Everything we do automatically engages us with other manifestations of spirit. Everything is about such relationship and it all brings scope for meaningful exchange. If everything we do becomes prayer, then we should be listening to what is around us, with the intention to walk more lightly, cause less harm, use less, and live more harmoniously.'

What to pray for? Nimue sees much petition prayer as inappropriate because of the way it excuses the prayer from taking responsibility for their actions; it can be just an ego boost and a desire for a quick-fix, much like the modern consumerist culture we live in expects of us. We should pray more respectfully for:

Gratitude: our existence and expanding out to every part of our lives. That which hurts and challenges us can also help us to grow... these are the things that shape us. Look for what seems especially good, beautiful or precious... Seeing the good, responding to it, praising, appreciating and supporting, all help to make life that bit better for ourselves and others.

Strength and gratitude: although with petition prayer, if the solutions are given to us then we do not learn or grow, this can be useful. Asking for strength to endure, and the means to do the necessary work, is not about getting off lightly. It is about developing a quality of self.

Inspiration: as with the above, this is not a petition to get out of something. Inspiration solves problems, but does not take them away. Inspiration reduces insurmountable obstacles to hills we can feasibly climb. Inspiration allows us to look properly at the rock and the hard place, and respond by growing some wings.

Relationship: a way of seeking connection. We can pray to reach out, from a desire to experience, understand, learn and be changed by what we encounter.

Healing: prayers that seek to find a good way through. May be more effective than those that assume we know what the best method or outcome should actually be. Sometimes the most useful thing to do is to seek insight, not solutions.

Awen
There is a concept in Druidry of the idea of Awen which I like. I feel I can more easily identify with it as a Holy Spirit concept because it talks in a language that I identify with more easily. It is less paternalistic and personified (I am not a people person as such so this is more comfortable in my mind) and more in tune with a sense of creativity, inspiration, mystery and beauty. Here are a few random definitions from the internet:

‘Awen is the wisdom, truth and most of all the inspiration, Awen is Nature, the universal power behind life, yet it is never born and shall never die. Awen is a force or energy forged from an indivisible source that is the power behind the physical and non-physical or spirit forms Existence, and distinction between the natural and the super-natural becomes meaningless, as both are the personification of Awen Every link which is a part of nature, be it a man, animal, plant or elemental force, each holds its own little piece and together make up the whole chain which is Awen. Awen is the spirit of Druidy itself, it is knowing, sensing and feeling it in your essence and true being, it is the freedom to accept ones nature.(http://www.freewebs.com/nexusdruids/awen.htm)’

‘Loosely translated from Welsh, it means flowing spirit, or flowing inspiration. We know that it is a flowing spirit, a kind of life essence, a source of spiritual strength, prophetic insight and poetic inspiration.’

‘It is an awareness, not just on a physical and mental level but on a soul deep level – an awareness of the entirety of existence, of life itself.  It is seeing the threads that connect us all.  It is the deep well of inspiration that we drink from, to nurture our souls and our world and to give back in joy, in reverence, in wild abandon and in solemn ceremony.’

Swifts and Stories

Swifts are ‘screaming’ above me as they dart though the warm July evening sky. I am inspired by the speed and agility of these birds that are rarely seen in close up. I wonder how they perceive the world around them? When I watch small birds and insects moving with such apparent speed relative to their size it almost seems as though they adhere to different laws of physics. They seem to be able to process information about their position in their environment so much more quickly than we humans can. They can run, fly or move with lightening agility between, what might seem to us if we were that size, such difficult terrain. I know that it is probably all down to ratios of size and mass and other things, but even so their perception of their environment must be quite different to ours. At the other end of the scale are plants and trees. How do they interpret their environments? I am not sure I would really class them as conscious individuals but they are still seen by us in human terms as living things. For an old oak tree living for potentially several hundred years in one place there is not the need to rush around like an ant might do on the woodland floor, but it still is ‘aware’ of its environment in terms of light, shade, moisture, nutrient availability etc and is able to adapt to changes where necessary.

Our perception of the world is unique in the way that we as human kind sees it and also how we see it as individuals. Our lives are spent trying to make sense of the earth we walk and attempting to build a sustainable life for as long as possible. On our journeys we each build upon our unique personal story and it is that story that creates a framework for how we view our lives too. Like all other living things we have to find food and shelter and yet we have evolved to do so much more. We have become a species that seeks constant innovation: the desire to better our place in the world. These are our own individual stories.

I have returned to my journaling again. This is an exercise in writing three pages of A4 longhand each day on anything that springs to mind. My motivation this time is to seek healing from what I think is a partly anxiety related illness. I have had chronic tummy problems since childhood and I decided to revisit my writing as a way of opening up a communication with myself and to try and break out of some boundaries that were closing in.

After a month and a half of writing two of the themes that have emerged are these: the need to recognise that each of us (humans and others) has a story - a story that has shaped the way that we think, act and live. Perhaps I don’t always recognise the stories that shape and form others around me. Also, I am trying to revisit my spiritual life. This has struggled a little recently due to a lack of suitable inspiration and motivation, but now that the summer is here I feel more refreshed and willing to explore a few things.

My personal artwork had to take a back step whilst I began the journaling. I can’t do everything I want to do and I have a whole bunch of ideas that I am awaiting to forge into something cohesive.

When meditating and appreciating Nature, observation and reflection comes alongside slowness and being more aware of the environment around me. There is an appreciation of space: the empty space and the space taken up by the humans and non-humans who belong in it. There is a language of discovery, a sense of beauty and awe and a feeling of belonging in the natural world. This is part of my story and after a good few years on this earth I feel I should open the doors and walk out again and discover new things. For me, it is a slow process. Things happen over weeks and months, time is almost like a natural time - a time that flows differently from the minutes and hours that govern commercial deadlines and the demands of family life. Like an oak tree that stands in a field, I just need to wait and see what happens.

Light in the woods

An image that came to me this evening during a quiet time.

In and around Tavistock, Devon

Yet another rain shower passes overhead and my sketchbook is getting damp. I can't write with my fountain pen so have to use a pencil instead. It has been a day of contrasting weather with heavy showers and even a thunderstorm and heavy hail shower just as I was about set out early this morning on my bike. In between there have been clear blue skies and even some warm sunshine in sheltered spots out of the wind. I am now huddling under a large umbrella and this is keeping most of this latest shower off though holding it in the wind is a little tricky. It isn't too cold but my fingers are a little numb and writing is not too easy.

I have found my way to the wooden seats within the woods. I am in a clearing within the conifer plantation and surrounded by beech trees with my bike as companion. I have seen a few other people around but at the moment I am on my own. I have been to this place before though it wasn't really in my mind as a destination today. I had various paths that I could have followed through the woods and seem to have found my way here without really thinking about where I was going. The conifers form a dark boundary around the edges of this place and the ground is covered by wet copper-brown beech leaves. What stands out in this place is the bright, almost fluorescent green of the mosses that cover the tree trunks and fallen branches on the ground.

A flock of birds passes overhead. I don't know what they are, they could be siskins or some other finches. Their call echoes thoughout the woods. They are small, but I'm sure they are not tits or goldcrests. The sound is almost like the ripples that you hear when telephone wires are blown in the wind.

I am getting cold and wonder about leaving. Then I remember that yesterday I travelled many hours to get to this part of the country and so really ought to make the most of my visit here. It hasn't been good drawing weather today but I can do a little writing now. I wrote a few days ago about paths and now reflect on the path that has brought me to this place. It is a place of rest, a place of contemplation, a place of shelter away from the exposed windy hillsides that I have cycled over to get here. It is a place I would like to have of my own. There aren't places quite like this around my home. This is a place of different landscapes, nature and weather. This is a place in which I can just sit and be. To observe the landscape and have a relationship with it. A place to let thoughts dance in the wind.

I have followed a path to get here, but here isn't the end of the path. I am at a place of rest along the main path. My journey could continue onwards but instead I will return for a little way back along the way I came. It doesn't matter ultimately where I go in philosophical way because even if I return back the way I came the path will never be the same as before. You see things from a different angle, light changes, the wind changes and your perspective will always be different. The path has brought me to a place I though I knew but, as nature always changes, so this place is different from the last time I visited here.

I see a glimpse of blue sky between the conifers and the sunshine may be about to return. The light has changed and the colours of my surroundings has changed. The mosses have lost their vibrancy as other colours are now dominant in brighter winter light. The sun is too low now to reach me and a golden late afternoon light just touches the tree tops above me. I have to leave this place and I give thanks for being able to enjoy and appreciate this place. I am sure I will come back again sometime. I love places of trees. Somehow I am drawn to appreciate them and enjoy being in their presence.

I am wondering, as I tidy up my notes and write this, what my path for the next year will be. I always leave places like this with a renewed enthusiasm to do something different. The day after I did this bike ride I spent a couple hours drawing people in the centre of Tavistock. I saw many interesting characters who caught my creative imagination and I do feel as though I might be giving birth to something new-albeit only slowly. It was such a liberating experience and I love scribbling in public places-not only for the experience but because I do occasionally meet people who are genuinely interested in what I do. I need simulation and creative motivation. There is an exciting world out there and I need to go and be inspired by it.

Trees

Amongst other things, trees seem to be on my mind at the moment. My creativity seems to be diverging in different directions. My artistic side is striking off in two different directions: developing my personal character style for which I now think I have something that I am excited to be working with, and a desire to enter the world of pattern making and strengthen my skills in surface pattern techniques. I began doing some daily journalling a couple of weeks ago and that has tapped into my spiritual side that has lain dormant for a while. Trees have figured in that significantly and, although I am not wiling to divulge much here, I feel a renewed sense of a need to go out and explore.

...

Deep around me is the song of the trees in the winter's wind that pushes over the hillside and is caught by the tall, leafless bodies. I sit on a fallen birch log and acknowledge their presence. Each an individual: unique in form and character. Tall, leafless, swaying to rhythms that move across the greyness above me. Light is subdued, no shadows today. Rain is imminent. I am bathed in the constant roar of the wind as it finds its way through the branches that fill the space. What can I learn from this place today? There is calm within the wood. The edges are wild and frantic with movement and conversation but within there is a greater peace and calmness. I have a senseless of natural healing: nature taking time to create inner ecological systems and to heal and create places of regeneration if there is harm or damage. This might happen in a wood, or within our bodies. This I am seeking for myself and this place is an inspiration that I pray will guide and help me.

A group of off-roading motorcylists roars thunderously past me breaking the peace and then a group of walkers talking loudly to each other does likewise. I am still here. I am just standing in a wild place and observing all that is around me. I look at the textures, the patterns, the movements - I use my senses to welcome my soul into this place. I am here, surrounded by friends. Just taking time to value and appreciate the trees around me. I give thanks and quietly move on.

Dreams in the Landscape

On autumnal earth, with leaves that have become a memory of summer, the trees reach for the cosmic light of creation, presently obscured by deep grey haze that softens the landscape around me. The shedding of leaves is like a bowing before the creative authority - a recognition that submission to the winter is a price to pay for the beauty and wonder of the life of the year past. A relaxation of energy, as if an exhalation of breath before the biting of the forthcoming winter.

Slowly, from the revealed branches, whispers of colour descend to the silent earth. The gentle chatter of leaves in the cool breeze is the only movement. Taller branches sway almost imperceptively.

Be still, like my companions.

A ladybird: the first of many that I'll see today enjoying the autumnal warmth and later sunshine. I hear a distant skylark, crows and nearby a wren, a flock of tits and pheasants.

Be still like my companions.

I sit and wait, how different to the intenseness of the digital world that shapes our lives. There, energy produces the light of display screens through which we interact. Here, light produces the embodied energy of the wood with whom I interact. In the ten or so minutes that I have sat here little has changed. A subtle change of light perhaps. A new fallen leaf on the ground before me perhaps. Yet the same time passing on a tv screen would have thrown a multitude of mesmerising images towards me. Here, the millions of leaves are my pixels.

Dreams in the landscapes - the words that came to me just as I approached this place to write - seem a little out of place. And yet here in this landscape I can have dreams. Dreams that are just as valid as those that technology presents to me. Perhaps it is to do with expectations - resolved and unresolved, surprises, discoveries - dreams can be formed in both worlds. You have to shift your perspectives and expectations. Dreams are about taking hold of the imagineable and creating reality. Perhaps the tress can do this as much as a computer screen can. I wonder if they know that?

Radnor Forest Willows

I have to stop. I am unable to go on. It seems as if this place has forced me to stand in its presence. I have cycled through a large area of conifer plantation in the Radnor Forest on the Welsh border and now I have emerged to a place where the trees uphill to the left of me have been felled and the hill drops steeply down though open fields to the right. Along this edge of the forest road is a row of windswept and almost leafless Goat Willows that stand in contrast to the monoculture around me. They seem an unusual find, and somehow out of place here. 

The cool wind is loud in their branches and I shelter in front of a pile of felled timber and sit and wait. Why was I called to stop here? Somehow my initial thoughts on arriving here were evocative of a cold and frosty winter's day. Is there something of a memory that is tied up here with childhood memories  and my father? Am I just recalling an unidentifiable moment from the long distant past?

I almost feel a heaviness - a pity for these these beautiful trees that have for so long been hidden from the true light of day by towering conifers and which now lie fully exposed to the elements on this east side of the hill. Perhaps it's the sound, the deep song of the branches that ebbs and flows so slowly - like the movements in my qigong. Nature may just be saying "stop, and just observe me". I'm on a long bike ride and haven't much time to stop and dwell in one place. Here I am given the opportunity to do so.

I do some meditation before I get too cold and just absorb into my senses this unexpected special place which others would just pass by. I give thanks to the place.

Woodland Evening

Against the oak tree I sit, my mind cluttered with flirtaceous thoughts: things dipping in and out of my thinking, teasing and all competing for my attention. The day, past, has devoured my energy and so I have stepped out on a small journey to find settlement and calm from all that clusters around me and space that sits outside my immediate needs.

In this place I am amongst my 'other' friends. The greenery around me seems so distant from the busyness of my work, family, and various preparations for creative experiences. I ask for a touch of the other; the language of the landscape and the poetry of the breeze in the trees around me. Here, with only a slight breath that moves the leaves of bramble and oak I absorb the cool stillness. Stillness like the presence of the silent trees whose sense of time seems to belong in another perspective - their slowness of being shames our competitive spirit.

And the song of the birds carries through the dimming light - not songs of high energy like in the early morning, but songs of passing, patience and subtlety.

How small I am in this place, where tallness draws from the undisturbed earth and which is reflected in my new expressions of artwork. How weak is my ability to exist here unaided. How much I have lost though my ancestors and the desire of the world to take nature away from existence.

One day I will return.

I leave, settled.

I give thanks to this place of blessing.

* * * * *

I see four hares as I leave the wood.

Hawthorns

We recently had a holiday in the small village of Farnborough just north of Banbury. It was mainly a time to be outdoors, going for walks and spend time with the family. I didn't find it easy to create space for anything really deep and meaningful. I had a few walks by myself, but these were mainly a time to just enjoy the exercise, to try and do some drawing and just to "be" away from the office. There was one moment on one of my walks when I really felt something tug at my deeper spiritual psyche and this is described here.

On a warm, sunny, still morning I find myself walking over a field of pasture with grazing cattle scattered around me. As I walk down off the top and over the crest of a small rise I come across a group of around fifty or so large hawthorn trees that seem to draw me into them. I wonder why these trees are still standing here? There is a patch of gorse not far away, but otherwise this is a large field of probably quite ancient pasture bounded by old and mature hedges. There is a farm just on one side of the field and I wonder if this patch of ground has a long history of settlement and a long disappeared more functional use. Did this patch of trees once cover the whole hill? Was there an old barn or house that once stood here? These trees feel like a site of antiquity and memory, but I seen not direct evidence of any building having been here.

Here is a place that draws me into its presence - to sit down at the base of a tree, to get out my sketchpad, to observe and to write.

The hawthorns stand amidst the new green spring grass, their heavy and fragrant blossom bright in the sunshine. Each tree has its own character and presence within the group. Their trunks are old and twisted - some single others an intertwining of multiple stems that form many variations in shape and form. It is like each tree has a different pattern to follow in its design. For some, the trunks rise straight up, others have gentle clockwise turns - some even seem to have knots with branches criss-crossing over and under each other. Some look like a thick rope of woven cords.

Hawthorns are often a symbol of dark and impenetrable hedges and thickets but here I can walk freely on the grassy openness between the trees. Here, cows will seek shelter from the sun or the rain and there may be rabbit holes here and there. The earth may be always damp and cool here. In winter, hawthorns can create an unwelcoming place with cold dark shapes, defensive thorns and bare soil beneath black rotting leaves.

Apart from a gentle breeze in the leaves and blossom this place makes little sound. In the distant hedges birds sing and the gentle murmur of the M40 a couple of miles away always intrudes on this landscape.

There is a solitary oak tree in from of my sitting place. Like the hawthorns it is misshapen and seems out of place here. Its main trunk lies at around 45 degrees and then divides into double trunks, one of which bend down to the ground. The churned up mud at its base shows that it is used as a scratching post by the cattle and, indeed, there are patches where the bark has been totally removed.

I touch the trunk of one tree, examining it more closely. Devoid of the sharp thorns that cover the branches and twigs the bark is soft and warm and strongly textured - home to spiders and other invertebrates.

A small group of buttercups add a touch of yellow to the ground which is strewn with cowpats, fallen blossom and hoof holes in the soft earth. Perhaps a small spring arises here, just enough to dampen the soil.

A few chaffinches dart amongst the branches around me, singing unseen.

I give thanks to the place and leave. I don't know why this place attracted me. Some places just seem to be a source of inspiration. For me, it isn't usually a beautiful view that inspires me or something else of wonder in the natural world. It is sensing something in what could be very ordinary and missed by many people. Perhaps it was just the shape and form of the trees that I perceived as something unusual; perhaps it was a sense of discovery; or perhaps a deep tuning in to a moment when the boundaries between spiritual worlds became thin.

* * * * *

Later on my walk I pass within about six feet of two young fox cubs staring a me from an earthen hole in a bank under a hedgerow.

As I stand in a wheat field, a hare appears and walks towards me, stopping every so often to eat a leaf of the growing wheat. Motionless I watch it. It almost seems oblivious to me and quietly passes by about ten feet away. Another close encounter with a hare.