…goes a long way. Especially this time of year in the Northern Hemisphere.
Northern Hemisphere?
After the joy of the first fluffy snows, I find a certain, almost enbalming, dreariness in gardens before any sign of snow drops or aconites. Everything is gray and dank.
That was yesterday, after my physio at the hospital, as I walked home. Cheery did not enter my thoughts. Wind was cold. I zipped my coat up higher to protect my throat. Everything was wet. Melting piles of snow everywhere. All plants had suffered under the burdens of ice, slush and snow.
Unexpected discovery. Don’t give up hope. And even a little bit of fragrance.
They call it witch hazel. There are a bunch of them around the world in the Genus Hamamelis. Got its common name from its use by water witchers. Lots of medicinal uses.
Have you ever been where black forests white, only to feel winter pushing at the edge, unleashing colored dreams?
These are the forests of fairytales. Forests, where blacks and whites dissolve…into the always gray, always shady dreams…or do they?
Color or gray, dreams invariably have misty, shapeshifting edges where certainty and uncertainty jostle. And the fairytales? Were they once dreams, or…?
As the evening comes and the snowy blanket gently covers the town about me, it is time for me to cuddle down, get warm and have a peaceful night’s sleep. It has been a very long week.
Late December 2020 in the northern range of the Swiss Alps.
I crossed the line.
What? Which line?
Did I stop wearing a mask?
Did I stop supporting local populism?
Did I walk the wrong way on a one-way-street?
No.
I stopped seeing winter as cold, naked and heartless. I stopped seeing winter as death to be abhorred.
No leaves? No problem. No sun? No problem. Huge landscape? Big time. Mountains, sky, lake. Along the shoreline in the middle ground and background, the big landscape squeezes three towns into mere nothingness. And, by God, I saw beauty. I had crossed the line.
I have talked about, that is, written about portals…portals and plants.
What do I mean when I say portals? It is more about what words can not describe. What?
Perhaps you remember some TV shows, Twilight Zone, One Step Beyond…but this is about real life. That’s right, real life.
For centuries, dare I say, millennia, people, humans have spoken about, written and explored the indescribable relationships between plants and humans. Portals is my effort to continue that chain of communication.
This last week I had a birthday. I received from my dearest friend two books of illustrations by the Swiss, Ernst Kreidolf. Both images in this post are his work. He spent his lifetime addressing the communication relationship between people and plants.
Ernst used gnomes and elves to describe these indescribable relationships.
Let me share some of Ernst Kreidolf’s life story.
He was born over one hundred years ago in Switzerland. He was a classic artist, a pioneer of children’s illustration and picture books…and gnomes in the popular imagination! His magical illustrations have a timeless quality. To this day, his art is still very popular in Switzerland.
Kreidolf’s famous books first appeared in 1901 Die schlafenden Bäume (The Sleeping Trees), in 1902 Die Wiesenzwerge (The Meadow Dwarves), and in 1903 Schwaetzchen fuer Kinder (Chit Chat for Children). In 1904 Kreidolf was involved in Richard Dehmel’s Buntscheck, ein Sammelbuch für Kinder (Patchwork, a Scrap-book for Children). In 1905 the book Alte Kinderreime (Old Nursery Rhymes) appeared followed by in 1908 Sommervoegel (Butterflies). The latter was highly acclaimed by Hermann Hesse. In 1911 Der Gartentraum (The Garden Dream) was published.
In 1920 Blumen Ritornelle (Flower Chorus), in 1922 Alpenblumenmaerchen (Alpine Flower Fairy-tales), in 1924 Ein Wintermaerchen (A Winter’s Fairy-tale), in 1926 Lenzgesind (Servants of the Spring), in 1928 Das Hundefest (The Dogs’ Party), in 1929 Bei den Gnomen und Elfen (With the Gnomes and Elves), in 1931 Grashupfer (The Grasshopper), in 1932 Aus versunk´nen Gärten (From the Sunken Gardens) and in 1935 Die Himmelreich-Wiese (The Kingdom of Heaven Meadow).
His illustrations carry us off to the world of fairytales and dreams, where plants play a leading role.
One cannot but wonder at his ability in both identifying the key characteristics of plants and giving humans a unique interaction with them.
His legacy endures as a tender ode to Mother Nature’s glory. The best illustrated web site with Kreidolf biography–a fantastic display of his water-color work.
This landscape has been labelled, the Jungfrau Region. The Jungfrau is the virgin. I see it differently. These are the Three Kings.
Mountain peaks from left to right, Eiger, Monch and Jungfrau.
Snow = Water. Water = King.
But what I like most about this photo is the foreground. On the top of the center foreground hill, see below, is a place to have a cup of coffee and a piece of pie while enjoying unrestricted visual access to the Kings.
Look carefully in the right center background to see the Jungfraujoch Observatory at 3,400 meters above sea level.
Today was one of those fall days when I just had to take a walk.
No mask. No distancing. Just a walk outdoors.
The fresh air keeps me from thinking why so many governments and media outlets want me to be afraid to breathe. Afraid to breathe? Yeah, because somebody might die. I have to be afraid of breathing? Doesn’t make sense.
So I took a walk. On a mountain path suitable for this 75yr old, three years after a stroke, nevertheless, in good health.
Clouds were everywhere. And they weren’t everywhere as I walked uphill.
I breathed deeply the air. The air was influenced by agriculture and forestry management. It was not influenced by bustling cities. When I inhaled deeply. The air felt clean and healthy deep down in my lungs. The entire passage felt clean and healthy.
To me that is not only the basis of life, it is the simplest pleasure of life. I was feeing refreshed, what to speak of fall color and 50 degrees Fahrenheit
Then I was in the clouds. I found myself walking in the sound of clouds. In case you haven’t, you should note that clouds come and go without sound. Without even the slightest whisper they come, they envelope, then they leave. Through the entire experience, the thread of sameness was silence.
But other things changed. As I walked deeper into the cloud, I saw less and less about me. My breathing became labored. Then my mind took over–had I been enveloped by a covid cloud? Hard to breathe–is this my end–is this the beginning of harder and harder breathing–never getting enough?
Then the cloud lifted. Clarity resumed. Unhindered deep breathing resumed. I was no longer afraid to breathe.
1. In real life these mountain clouds form, dissolve, move at speeds that disable human powers of observation. They are as slow as they are silent.
2. They arise, grow and dissolve while we are busy thinking. Stealth is their very essence.
3. In these mountains, it is easy to walk above the clouds–not fog–clouds!
4. Autumn colors seduce.
5. Clouds arrive without warning.
6. They thicken without warning.
7. Breathing becomes labored.
8. …and then under labored breathing, the mind troubles. The mind can become our worst enemy. Only proper use of intelligence can harness the mind.
9. Clouds lifting, like intelligence cleaning out the worries of the mind.
10. Clarity returns; but clouds are always just around the corner.
And speaking of stealth, I think my freedom to breathe healthy air deep into my lungs, under some debatable guise, may be in real life, stealthily taken from me.
