Every so often something makes me take a photo–something?
Walnut tree–Juglans nigra
Is it my eyes, is it my heart, is it paranormal?
I don’t know. But Alfred Joyce Kilmer wrote, in his poem ‘Trees’:
I think that I shall never see
A poem as lovely as a tree.
My photos may not be technically the best but they do have my heart in them. And I love living in the Swiss Highlands because such simple things as the beauty of a tree have become embedded in their culture for all to appreciate.
A few years back, I posted a story here entitled ‘Landscapeyness’. The title was not so accurate related to its content about trees and culture in the Swiss Highlands. The following image shares the flavor.
Settled science? Humans and animals–oxygen in, carbon dioxide out. Plants–carbon dioxide in, oxygen out.
In cold weather those are small clouds coming out of our nose when we breathe.
Does the earth breathe out clouds like we do?
Mountains, creeks and lakes come together with temperatures just above freezing and a light drizzle from cloudy skies…that makes my day.
The play of air, water and earth can be visualized best by observing the visual interplay of low level clouds–they appear and disappear with a rhythm and frequency that reminds me of my own breaths.
On a calm day, the very low clouds come and go as if breaths from a huge giant–the earth itself.
What is fresh air if it is not air that has been filtered by plants …or filtered by earth…or filtered by both.
Think about it the next time you inhale a deep breath of fresh air.
Think about it the next time you exhale a cloud.
Clouds often arise from creek beds like this.
Cloud arising from adjacent forest.
Clouds arising from the earth via forests and creeks have a scaled up size and time span not dissimilar in proportion to small individual human exhales. They appear…
…and they disappear.
For me, the action is at the cloud edges.
Inhale…exhale…repeat…more slowly…more deeply…recharge is real.
I better post this before a serious snowfall. The colorful golden beauty of the first image is that it occurs above the tree line, above 2,000 meters elevation.
The lift, for access to these areas, has already been closed for maintenance prior to the upcoming ski season. So, I screen captured the image from a 24/7/365 webcam, at Jungfrau.ch.
This golden color arises after the evening temperatures regularly drop below freezing. The color will be hidden any day now when the first snowfall arrives. This is a view of the Grosse Scheidegg pass (2,300 meters elevation) just east of Grindelwald.
The last two images are from the Japanese Ginkgo. It holds its bright yellow gold leaves until the first major frost–then the leaves drop almost all at once. At 600 meters elevation, the first frost arrived this week.
Ginkgo biloba at 600 meters elevation 20Nov2018, Interlaken, Switzerland.
I am obsessed with the magic of clouds rising from nothing.
But what is that nothing?
Imagine what you might see, feel, hear underneath that dark, 100 foot tall forest canopy as a cloud just begins to emerge from around you?
This mixed evergreen and deciduous forest has a canopy that is more than a ten story building, 30 meters (100feet) tall. On the forest floor, it is dark. And the floor is not level. Beneath the canopy is a steeply varied topography–very exciting–filled with surprising variety of flora and fauna–if you are quiet and patient.
I am looking at a bosque of Plane trees planted next to the Interlaken Ost train station. In the recent afternoon sun, I could call them butterscotch or toffee and be happy.
Often, in the urban public realm, simpler is better.
I was born and grew up in the urban and suburban Midwest USA—Detroit, Chicago, Cleveland—had to drive for miles to see farms, the places where we could buy fresh corn on the cob and watermelon from small makeshift roadside stands. These were grown on huge extensive plains. A consumer, I was a consumer.
I had no idea what farmers had to do over a 12 month or more cycle so that they would have ‘produce’ to sell to me from their roadside stand.
Decades later, I am still a consumer; but I live in a community that has been for generations small scale farmers. Each and every farm house has apple trees and walnut trees growing close by. Even the generations who have moved into the dense village have planted small fruit and nut trees. Why?
This first image reflects a spiritual understanding that nature is unpredictable and a reverence for a greater power is essential for farmers. So many things can go wrong with weather, climate and the geophysical that a season, a year may come anytime to take away the food necessary for farmer life. Imagine no grocery store with well stocked shelves, imagine no 7-11/24-7-365 convenience. Imagine if you had no access to food. Farmers make plans that their families never have to suffer such a hardship.
This means long hours everyday, year round. Just grab a short bit of relaxation from time to time. Hard life. I can see it all around me these days. Yet, I, as a consumer with a second-hand sympathy for farmers, sometimes feel envious of how much determination, commitment and practical knowledge they bring with them day-in, day-out to solve problems beset on them by nature and changing government regulations.
So this year, I have enjoyed observing the ripening process of fruits and nuts—apples and walnuts.
The Alphorn is a conduit providing mystic connections between music, people and the landscape.
Walnut trees on every farm.
The apple of my eye on every farm.
Walnuts in green—the husks in first stages of ripening.
Signs that ripening is progressing—the husk prepares to break open.
The walnut reveal.
Apple and walnut torte or apple and walnut kuchen…your choice.:)
