#ThursdayTreeLove | Coping with the Madness of 2020: Spend Time with Trees

November 12, 2020November 13, 202013 Comments

“Autumn Road,” November 2020

In a cool solitude of trees
Where leaves and birds a music spin,
Mind that was weary is at ease,
New rhythms in the soul begin. –William Kean Seymour

I’ve written enough about tree therapy on the blog for you to know that “talking to the trees” is definitely one of the ways I cope with life’s challenges. You’ve probably figured, then, 2020 has driven me to the trees more times than I can count.

I could not find time this week for a full tree therapy session, but I took advantage of drive time for quick doses.

The sight of autumn taking over as I drove to work was thrilling, and the drive through campus was like entering an autumn heaven. The reds, yellows, and oranges vied for my attention.

Some mornings, I parked, stood outside my car in the early morning quiet (before others arrived), and took it all in. I listened to the wind and trees sing in perfect harmony as the crisp leaves danced across the parking lot.

Even such short pauses with the trees shake off the madness.

If you want to read more about how trees help me cope, take a look at some of my older posts or click the #ThursdayTreeLove hashtag below:

Consider the Trees, December 2014
Pause for Sanity, January 2015
Praying with Trees, February 2017
The Oak and a Lesson in Self-Healing, October 2018

Hopefully, the posts will persuade you to try a bit of tree therapy!

I am joining Parul Thakur for #ThursdayTreeLove every second and fourth Thursday of the month. If you would like to play along, post a picture of a tree on your blog and link it back to her latest #treelove post.

#ThursdayTreeLove | When Tree Love Meets Creative Auto

October 22, 202016 Comments

For the last few weeks my campus walks have been taking me in directions I don’t normally take, and I have thoroughly enjoyed other sights and sounds of campus. As always, there’s no shortage of trees to love.

A couple of weeks ago, my walk started with the tree below:

I pass this tree twice a day–on my way to and from the office. In fact, it’s had a moment on the blog before. But as I was on my way to a different tree, this lone tree and its shadow caught my eye. The photo is a bit boring because I was really photographing the shadow.

Then…just yesterday, my camera wanted to play and found the tree again!

Again, I was drawn to the tree’s shadow. 😉

I’ve had a DSLR with a Creative Auto (CA) setting for at least a decade, but until a few days ago, I had not even attempted to play around with CA. Gasp! Don’t judge me too harshly.

There are various fun settings–toy camera, vivid, monochrome [of course], fisheye, soft focus, miniature, ambient, and more–but the grainy black and white stole my heart. I don’t know what it is about this setting that’s made me go ga-ga! The images are nostalgic and dramatic and artsy and moody all at once.

The really cool thing about the CA setting is that it captures a normal [color] version of the image as well as the “creative” image, so there are no regrets about missing the opportunity to shoot a particular object in color.

Thus, we have my two favorite photos from today’s escape-the-screen photo walk:

Yes. I walked to the willows today.

Be sure to take some time away from the screens and have a weekend filled with joy and creativity!

#ThursdayTreeLove | “When I Am Among the Trees”

October 8, 2020October 10, 202016 Comments

As I’m nearing the end of this week of not feeling quite like myself, I am thankful for the time I spent with the trees–during one long walk on a path I hadn’t taken in years and in brief moments while running errands.

The photo above was from one of my shorter walks. As I walked, I looked up to behold the beautiful black walnut tree with its gorgeous branch extended over the path–an invitation to loveliness and light.

Being “among the trees” is therapy at its best. “They save me…daily.”

“When I Am Among the Trees”
Mary Oliver

When I am among the trees,
especially the willows and the honey locust,
equally the beech, the oaks and the pines,
they give off such hints of gladness.
I would almost say that they save me, and daily.

I am so distant from the hope of myself,
in which I have goodness, and discernment,
and never hurry through the world
but walk slowly, and bow often.

Around me the trees stir in their leaves
and call out, “Stay awhile.”
The light flows from their branches.

And they call again, “It’s simple,” they say,
“and you too have come
into the world to do this, to go easy, to be filled
with light, and to shine.”

#ThursdayTreeLove | Robin Hood’s Tree

September 17, 2020September 17, 202020 Comments

So passed the seasons then, so they pass now, and so they will pass in time to come, while we come and go like leaves of the tree that fall and are soon forgotten. –Howard Pyle, The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood

Thanks to sheer exhaustion, I missed #ThursdayTreeLove last week, but I’m making up for it today by taking you on a brief trip to Sherwood Forest to get a glimpse of the magnificent Major Oak.

I went to Sherwood Forest many, many moons ago and fell in love with the famed tree which the legendary outlaw Robin Hood and his band of Merry Men used as a hideout. I probably don’t need to tell you that this English professor loves visiting the actual places made famous [in my mind] by literature, so this was definitely a treat!

The [800 to] 1000-year-old tree is the largest tree in England. It is supported by stilts and has been so since the Victorian Age.

The original images [below] were shot with a film camera–a Canon Photura–in the days before digital cameras, but I had the roll digitized. It seems the digitized images lost their integrity over the years, so I edited them [above] for the post. [Click below to see larger images of the originals]

You can see better images and find out more information about the Major Oak of Sherwood Forest by clicking this link.

I am [usually] joining Parul Thakur for #ThursdayTreeLove every second and fourth Thursday of the month. [This is the third Thursday. Forgive me]. If you would like to play along, post a picture of a tree on your blog and link it back to her latest #treelove post.

#ThursdayTreeLove | Unbothered

August 27, 2020September 17, 202021 Comments

“Oak Feet”

The campus trees and I have been reunited! I returned to work August 3 [technically], but it had been too hot to visit them. Yesterday was less oppressive, so I was happy to get outdoors when a colleague needed a favor. While I was walking back to my office, I noticed how beautifully the oak near my building had spread.

“The Spreading Oak” [iPhone photo]

I had to get back to my office to complete a task before leaving for the day, so I quickly snapped the shot above with my phone and promised to return.

I made good on my promise today.

I worked diligently all morning. It was afternoon before I knew it, so I took a five-minute break to clear my head and energize before tackling another task on the ‘must do today” list. Of course, I headed to the trees.

“Intricate Pattern”

Oh, how I missed them the last five+ months! I didn’t have much time, so I walked the circle of trees nearest my building. I stood still for a moment to take in the scene–from the patterns in tree trunks (above) to the tiny magnolia [?] that took root in the foot of another tree (below).

“Magnolia Rooted”

Then, I turned my attention to the oak. I was simply mesmerized by its majesty and by how much it had thrived in the absence of an abundance of human activity. In fact, all the trees seemed unbothered by pandemics and human foibles.

“Hello, Beautiful”

I was reminded of a reading from Melodie Beattie’s Journey to the Heart. In the passage, she refers to the redwoods of California, but I will take the liberty and ascribe her words to “my” trees:

“A Fragment of the Majestic”

For hundreds of years they have been here, patiently seeing things through. Little ruffled them. They just kept on growing for all those years—steadily, patiently, peacefully, calmly. They have been through enough, seen enough, to know not to worry. Things work out. Change happens. Life continues to evolve.

I didn’t see one tree hurrying or worrying. They have been here long enough to learn life’s lessons well. –Melody Beattie, Journey to the Heart: Daily Meditations on the Path to Freeing Your Soul

“Strong Arms”

My first campus walk since March–a deep, cleansing breath.

#ThursdayTreeLove | “Pretty and Sweet”

August 13, 2020August 13, 202026 Comments

I am not like the rose, [so] beautiful and enchantingly rare that it seduces you; and when you have fallen so deliriously, it pierces you with its thorns, wounding you so deep.

I am like the hibiscus, pretty and sweet, yet ordinary. You’d find me anywhere—in backyards and graveyards too, but what you see is what you’d get—no hidden thorns to bare.—Diwa

One day, not too long ago, I was checking out my aunt’s “new” backyard–she had recently moved. As I was taking in the size of the yard—not too big, not too small “for someone her age”—I was drawn to the way the setting sun caressed blossoms spilling over into the back corner of her yard from her neighbor’s yard.

I recognized the blossoms. Hibiscus, right?

But do hibiscus bushes grow so tall? The tree I was looking up had to be at least 10 feet tall.

I did a little “research” and “lo and behold,” I learned that either there is such a thing as a hibiscus tree or hibiscus plants can be groomed into a tree or both. I am not a horticulturist, so please don’t judge me too harshly for not having the fine details.

I’m just here for the beauty.

#ThursdayTreeLove | Trees in a Field of Sunflowers

July 23, 2020July 23, 202022 Comments

Photograph by F.A. Ackermann [Click image for a full view]

At some point in life the world’s beauty becomes enough. –Toni Morrison, Tar Baby

How perfect is this image?

The absolutely gorgeous photo postcard above came from my Love Notes friend, Eileen V. She embellished the postcard with extra sunflower love on front and back and sent it “just because.”

Trees and sunflowers? Just the kind of #ThursdayTreeLove therapy I need.

Be sure to click the image for a full-size view of this scene.

#ThursdayTreeLove | TreeArt Part III: A Masterpiece

July 9, 2020July 9, 202014 Comments

I’m back with my final TreeArt photo from a late May visit to Burritt on the Mountain.

A gorgeous tree stump arrested my attention just before we entered the “open-air museum,” as the park is described. It was behind a low fence near the entrance, so I walked around the fence to take a few shots. For my son, who is a stickler for rules, the fence meant “don’t go there.” so I had to be quick.

I was mesmerized by the patterns. It had recently rained, so the dampness gave the stump a smooth, polished texture. Isn’t it beautiful?

I’m convinced the “inside” of a tree is one of nature’s most magnificent masterpieces.

#ThursdayTreeLove | TreeArt Part II: Shadow and Light

June 25, 2020June 25, 202018 Comments

We find beauty not in the thing itself but in the patterns of shadows, the light and the darkness, that one thing against another creates…Were it not for shadows, there would be no beauty. –Junichiro Tanizaki, In Praise of Shadows, 1933

I don’t know about you, but I really need time to slow down a bit. How are we already at the end of June? I am trying to savor this summer, but it’s almost impossible since I really haven’t begun my summer break yet (meetings and tying up too many loose ends of a crazy COVID semester). I will have to work a lot of tree love into the remaining five weeks if I am to face a new academic year with at least a little sanity.

Anyway, I’m back, as promised, with the second installment of TreeArt. The photos aren’t spectacular, but I I was drawn to these particular shots because of the interplay of shadow and light.

I failed to mention in TreeArt Part I that the photos for this three-part series were shot at Burritt on the Mountain in Huntsville, Alabama.

If you want way more Burritt tree love [and autumn loveliness] you should check out my November 2016 post, Walk to the Cross.

Until next time…

#ThursdayTreeLove | TreeArt Part I: The Sculptor

June 11, 2020June 11, 202011 Comments

The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the eyes of others only a green thing that stands in the way. Some see nature all ridicule and deformity… and some scarce see nature at all. But to the eyes of the [wo]man of imagination, nature is imagination itself. William Blake, Letters from William Blake to Dr. John Trusler (1799)

The guys and I finally had an opportunity to get in a bit of tree therapy a couple of weeks ago. After finding absolutely no parking at one mountain trail, we drove to another and found the parking lot empty. We had the whole trail to ourselves! [We kept our masks on anyway–just in case].

For this outing, I was drawn to the remains of trees, which add a bit of drama and art to the trails.

I didn’t take many shots, but I have nine or ten photos to share. Instead of throwing all in one post, I’m spreading them out over three [consecutive?] #ThursdayTreeLove posts.

Today I’m sharing tree sculptures. Nature does an amazing job of sculpting trees–from the initial “cut” to the shaping.