The cool greenery of native bush is a shady lure as the summer continues to heat up in Aotearoa/ New Zealand.
A refuge from the amped up glare amongst the palms and ferns.
There is just something tranquil about disappearing into a grove of trees and being immersed in green light, the sun battling to break through the leafy canopy.
For however long you are in the bush, it is as if the outside world is irrelevant and time stops ticking.
We all need a place to go like that, I think.
“You cannot, in human experience, rush into the light. You have to go through the twilight into the broadening day before the noon comes and the full sun is upon the landscape.” – Woodrow Wilson
Those words sum up my own experience; my picture recreates its memory and serves as a reminder.
When you know a darkness, it is tempting, when you are leaving it, to want to parade in the fullness of light.
However, in the ‘tween time – the twilight – you get to really know show the shapes and forms of the important things, dimly lit as they are.You feel them deeply, even as you peer though the mystical interplay of shadows and light.
There will be plenty of time for full light to illumine all the details…
“If you go down to the woods today, you’re sure of a big surprise”
– ‘The Teddy Bears’ Picnic’
(for more flora aflame, see Electric Glade )
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…
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)
Pohutukawa trees – shore sentinels as the day fades – the spirit of home, always.
Nice juxtaposition of humanity and nature – sleek, linear monolith up against swirls of bushland and pastel evening skies.
For mine,the house is like a vain attempt to impose order on the uncontrollable…
Stardust on the trees – equally good for complete fantasists and the hopelessly lost.
We 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…
…dangling in drag ,pretty in pink..
The previous series of ‘Tree Beards’ photos were shot in cooler weather and reflected that in my post-production of those images.Now, it is the height of a glorious summer in Auckland and I am drawn back to the iconic Pohutukawa tree and the very masculine ‘beards’ (aerial roots)they sport,vivid red in the harsh sunlight.
The same palms featured in the last post about NZ’s national day,Waitangi Day, but since it is a celebration, had a bit of fun with this photo. Which do you see?
Side by side, two strong trees, growing and coming together
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 “.
So you just ask for a gentle trim, or maybe you didn’t even ask, then you get the buzzcut from hell…. hopefully you grow back stronger!
ebb then flood 