Blossom - Bear Fruit - Blow Away

I thought about trees today. The kinds of trees I like to photograph. The ones I want to play with. Or think about. Touch. Ask questions. Listen to. Smell. The trees of my early childhood, that gave me comfort and entertainment. Trees I watch as an adult in my neighborhood. And finally, trees I met on my travels in countries far away.

Like beloved, long gone friends, the horse chestnut trees of my early childhood are etched into my soul. Their vivid spring displays and their shiny brown bounty of playful fruit made them ideal companions. I grew up between a red poppy field, a wooded salt mine, and a parklike spa environment with perfectly groomed flower beds and a bubbling fountain. Beyond my everyday playground a vast high plain of rape and wheat fields, dotted with oak trees, extended to the horizon.

We girls spent our summer afternoons outdoors, in the shade of trees, building and crafting dwellings for our dolls with chestnuts, daisies, leaves, moss, sticks, and stones, while boys climbed and hid between branches - to attack and destroy. It was a perfect world.

Now, living near a creek, I often walk among deciduous trees, flowering brightly in the spring, thickening with leaves in summer and showing their graceful, bare designs during fall and winter. Near my house I pay attention to an ever-growing palm tree and a redwood tree that towers above it all. And recently, when I sit in my living room, knitting Bears, trees come to visit me, one by one. I suppose it started with the tai chi practice and my search for a peaceful place to "sink my chi." I have almost finished the first bear for this group. As I hang him over the canvas above my bed, he demonstrates perfectly what the process means. I can see the chi sinking beyond the edge of the photograph and new chi replenishing him from above. His loose ends are the connectors.




Searching my imagination I see that blossoms, pink blossoms, want to be part of the next Bear.







But what about the tree that shows its bare branches? Can I incorporate him into the group?



Or the scar, the outburst, the riot? Will I be ready to "Bear their souls".








I often photograph bark. And stumps. Will they be part of the story?






When all is said and done I sometimes just want to get quiet, empty my mind, rest.
Wow. Did I just say that? I sure hope it isn't a metaphor!

No! It is a purposeful ending for a post that has already gone on far too long:)

Happy tree dreams!