Prim Roses: the revolution

April 3, 2016 by eflaherty

Primula urbanica

Fighting to re-occupy what we humans call the city, the 21st century warriors, Primula urbanica, escaped captivity and weaponised to take the battle to the humans.

Don’t we all dream of this day of reckoning?!

They’re over the barriers already!!!

Look!!! They’re pouring over the barriers!! Victory is in our grasp!

Primula vulgaris

The Prim Roses back at camp, some resting from combat, others in training. For decades they suffered indignities. Humans spat foul names at them. Vulgaris they endured.

Until they discovered the portal to the inner secrets of the Berner Oberland. Behind the scenes, evolution became weaponised and the revolution began. In the dark corners of unknown-to-tourists stubbes can be heard the whispered discussions of Prim Roses: Flowers at every doorstep–no more easy access to cars!

Primula vera

Just past the edge of town, along the creeks, the Wildings keep a cool eye on operations, the battles in town. Sweet revenge. Order returns.

Nature

November 20, 2015 by eflaherty

…plants, animals, humans…

…shelter…and all are in the landscape.

First Snow–not quite

November 19, 2015 by eflaherty

It’s that time of year for snow–mid-November, northern hemisphere, in highlands ski country, though the weather is not quite ready to play.

…but we can fix that…fire up the snow machines!

Autumn Mysteries Revealed…

November 12, 2015 by eflaherty

…in the mountains…in one hour.

Autumn leaves are like forty years of a happy marriage.

The future is always unseen, uncertain, filled with anxiety.

Died and gone to heaven–all is clear.

These images revealed themselves over 15 minutes during an 800 meter climb on a cogwheel train in the Bernese Oberland Swiss Alps.

Mountains, civilized? Ha!

November 8, 2015 by eflaherty

Mountains, civilized? Ha!
Not these behemoths!

Since written history and before, the Bernese Oberlands have frightened and inspired humans, including Goethe, Byron, Hesse, Mann, Strauss, Schiller, Mendelssohn, Doyle, Haller, Hodler, Savrasov, Koenig, Bierstadt, Wolf, Fearnley…the list goes on and on…and thousands of others who have followed their footsteps.

It is that human consensus which has inspired local people, evolving from agricultural dependency into the modern world, to build technically complex, electrically powered, narrow gauge cogwheel trains up the Bernese Oberlands mountain slopes to what is known today in the Swiss Alps as the Top of Europe.

So, now, humans climb these incredibly steep slopes, sitting on padded seats, with central heating, enjoying visual delights through floor to ceiling polarized glass windows–civilized access to the not nearly civilized mountains.

Access–maybe just a tiny bit civilized.

Pop-Up City Centers

October 4, 2015 by eflaherty

…Pop-Up City Center…

I slept well. I dreamt deep.

When I opened my eyes…it was hard to focus…near and far…both fuzzy. Then the foreground cleared and I could see in the distance…across the broad green pastures…I saw the city center.

It had developed over time, drawing resources and energy from the sun, the earth and water–all the while transforming those flows into new forms, new shelters.

The shelters were populated by all diversities of living entities with energy flows, day after day, night after night, until…until…like a Roman settlement in North Africa, they just no longer could sustain neither the energy flows, nor the diversities of living entities.

And the next day, the sun rose; and I was home before the sun set.

Irish Roots

October 2, 2015 by eflaherty

…Irish roots work magic in the forest…

I walked through the forest. Neither the date, nor the day mattered. It was in the north. It was in the mountains. Spruce forest. Densely packed, tall trees, more than 100 feet each.

I walked a ridge in that forest. The canopy sheltered. I wasn’t cold. Somewhere, way up there, was sun. Thin, narrow, fractured beams twinkled and sparkled near my feet.

Delicate cloud edges whisped. They came close…on the edges of forming or dissipating or both…here and there…from time to time.

I was tired from walking and climbing. I looked for a place to sit. My Irish roots have always worked magic for me in forests. So it was today when I was invited to sit down and take the shelter of a mushroom.

The ground was soft and the mushroom stem gently molded itself to my spine and rib cage. I was comfortable. My breathing became easy. It slowed. The rhythm eased my eyelids shut.

Can’t find my way home

August 18, 2015 by eflaherty

The various clouds appear, disappear, move and change at many different speeds simultaneously–and today they hid the giants of Jungfrau, Monch and Eiger–normally visible in this frame.

I am working on a story, The Orient Express, whose beginning and dénouement occur in the mountains surrounding Mürren in Switzerland.

This landscape inspires me because its very presence is mysterious–a consuming presence that forces me to interact with an elusive and overwhelming mystery…without beginning, without end…

Landscapes such as this are beyond my words.

Spring Sun Glory

June 1, 2015 by eflaherty

And I woke up to this glorious sunshine–these huge dancing displays of spring green foliage–an ebullient reality…freshly mown patches of domestic lawn in the air…freshly cut first hay of the season in the air…all those smells, fragrances, Syringa, Philadelphus, aromas…weaving in and out of each other…rubbing over each other…exuding…resonating…deeply…again and again…

Filled my lungs again and again until I became inside out dizzy with its sweetness…then I made a mistake.

I read a newspaper. In the article, I was warned that too many cow farts would doom life as I was enjoying it. Naw…ain’t gonna believe that am I? Spring is here. I’m going out for a walk before I miss it!

…too busy…I almost missed Spring…12 of 12…beginning…last

Snort…what?

May 31, 2015 by eflaherty

Snow?

The temperature lowered, the clouds lowered, the precipitation began…then the gray. Lower and lower came that crazy gray infinite, reducing my vision…that enveloping grayness, proving how limited is our human sense of sight. Grayed out–sense of sight, sense of balance, even sense of gravity…dissolving…bit by bit…

…then the snow. I have carried a dream, maybe just a memory for decades, more than fifty years–strangely vivid–I was told to count backwards from 10 and inhale slowly and deeply–it was a black mask over my nose and mouth and it was ether that I inhaled–I saw the gray background turn darker to almost black and gradually it became filled with white dots–soft white dots–like snowflakes not quite in focus–that is the dream and each time it returns, it has a comforting subtitle–this is how death will come, quietly like a snowfall beginning.

Oh, but this is just a late spring snowfall–it’s not death–it’s not the return of winter…but, oh, for the briefest of moments, it was strangely exciting to feel, but inevitably, not sustainable.

…too busy…I almost missed Spring…11…next…last

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