#ThursdayTreeLove | Robin Hood’s Tree

September 17, 2020September 17, 202016 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.

Be a Purple Fish

September 16, 2020September 16, 20209 Comments

Purple Fish: Bright and Beautiful

Be your true, unfettered, God-given self, regardless of the expectations hammered into you. –Sue Monk Kidd, When the Heart Waits

About the image: The “bright and beautiful” purple fish arrived in my mailbox this week, a gem from Jacki W, one of my purple-loving Love Notes friends from England. The card came from The Postcard Store.

Fly High…

September 9, 202012 Comments

Fly high… where the only chill that cuts through you is the wind. Where your heart pounds from exhilaration not disappointment, and after ascending through cloudy wisps, brushing your wings, there is only the clear blue horizon beckoning you forth… –Virginia Alison

#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.

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.

Sisters and Solace

August 26, 2020August 26, 202012 Comments

“Sisters.” Photo by Kelli D.

Is solace anywhere more comforting than that in the arms of a sister? –Alice Walker

A few years ago, my friend Kelli posted a photograph of her three beautiful daughters. The two older sisters were consoling the youngest as she tearfully apologized for terrorizing them all day. Kelli had captured such a sweet moment. I asked permission to alter the photo because I felt the tenderness between sisters would be better expressed through a painterly-vintagesque edit.

Is solace anywhere more comforting than that in the arms of a sister?

#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.

#GoodTrouble

July 27, 202022 Comments

John Lewis, after arrest in Mississippi, 1961. He served 37 days in Parchman Penitentiary for ‘disorderly conduct”–using a restroom reserved for whites.

When you see something that is not right, not fair, not just, you have a moral obligation, a mission, and a mandate to stand up, to speak up and speak out, and get in the way, get in trouble, good trouble, necessary trouble [and help redeem the soul of America]. –Congressman John Lewis (February 21, 1940-July 17, 2020).

#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.

Sunlight

July 15, 2020July 26, 202011 Comments

“Stay close to people who feel like sunlight.”
–Xan Oku–

#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.