Tag: Trees

Wise Old Beards

by Ebb Then Flood

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Four aerial root formations dangle from the branches of an ancient Pohutukawa tree.

Like woody stalagtites.

And like the beards of old wise men.

Wisdom.

The final request of The Serenity Prayer

The hardest thing to find, and when I really don’t have a clue, this favourite tree reminds me that it may come eventually…

 

 

 

Nikau Palm

by Ebb Then Flood

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Pictured amongst other New Zealand native trees is a prince among them – the striking nikau.

A stripey trunk, a crown of symmetrical fronds, ropes of berries and  a bulb of overlapping leaf bases sitting below the crown.

The old leaf bases will harden and fall to the ground in time. And even then, they are wonderful – as children, we would ride the larger tough, semi-circular shells down slopes like toboggans!

As  Aotearoa’s only endemic palm species it is something special.

(The previous post, Electric Glade, starred one of these beauties in a rather modified treatment if you want to see more)

 

 

My Bowling Happy Place

by Ebb Then Flood

20190206_101708.jpgWe all should have at least one physical place that makes us joyful, a spot where you can just be. I have a few as it happens and thought I would round off the series of lawn bowls posts with a shot of my own club and its green in Auckland.Sometimes noisy with the sounds of bowlers playing,at other times it is just me there in the parklike grounds,with the sounds of birds and cattle,the wind in the poplars and pines.Bliss…

In Transition

by Ebb Then Flood

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Trees silhouetted in the pre-dawn light over my back fence. That time of day is special – night has faded but the sun is yet to rise, all things are in transition.

I have recently reflected a good deal about being in transition, as life events in the past year or two have placed me there, whether I like it or not. And you don’t have to like it, you just have to recognise when it is that time and place – and that it is an actual and important time and place , not a gap nor a void – make best use of this fallow period and be open to the possibility of some new things to come, albeit they have not arrived yet and you have no freaking clue what they might look like if and when they do.

This blog is littered with other images and thoughts about this phenomenon – refer the ‘Under The Wharf, Above The Waves’ series of posts or ‘Between The Lines’ ,just published, for instance. Others have probably described it much better. One who has delved deeply into the matter is William Bridges in his book ‘The Way Of Transition’, which has been both comfort and inspiration to me.

He says: ” All we know is that periodically , some situation or event deflects us from the  path we thought we were on and , in so doing ends the life chapter we were in. In order to continue   our   journey ,we are  forced to let go of the way we got that far. Having let go, we find ourselves in the wilderness for a time, and not until we have lived out that time can we come back around to a new beginning “.