Tag Archives: forests

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Lens-Artists Photo Challenge: Into the Woods

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“The way is clear, the light is good, I have no fear, nor no one should.
The woods are just trees, the trees are just wood.
No need to be afraid there– there’s something in the glade there…
Into the woods without delay, but careful not to lose the way.
Into the woods, who knows what may be lurking on the journey?
Into the woods to get the thing that makes it worth the journeying.
Into the woods–” Stephen Sondheim

I was at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival last weekend and saw a production of “Into the Woods” at the Elizabethan theater. How perfect that this is the Lens-Artists challenge theme this week! Thanks, Egidio!

My neck of the woods includes a great number of Douglas Fir trees and a carpet of Solomon’s Seal, ferns, and wood sorrel. Lichen and moss cover the branches of oaks. This is the temperate rain forest.

For much of the year, you could literally bathe in the forest. Walking through clouds is not unheard of, either.

My weekly Monday walks give me the benefits of forest oxygen and sanity, cardio exercise and socialization.

Sleeping In The Forest

I thought the earth remembered me, she
took me back so tenderly, arranging
her dark skirts, her pockets
full of lichens and seeds. I slept
as never before, a stone
on the riverbed, nothing
between me and the white fire of the stars
but my thoughts, and they floated
light as moths among the branches
of the perfect trees. All night
I heard the small kingdoms breathing
around me, the insects, and the birds
who do their work in the darkness. All night
I rose and fell, as if in water, grappling
with a luminous doom. By morning
I had vanished at least a dozen times
into something better.

– Mary Oliver

I wish you all time and place and space to vanish into something better. May the trees shelter and breathe you once again.

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Happy Arbor Day!

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Thank you, Trees, for oxygen, food, beauty, wood, shade and so many other things!

Have you hugged a tree today? Better yet, have you planted one?

The driveway and our front yard are both expansive, for sure.

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Lens-Artists Photo Challenge: Trees

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Ann-Christine and I share a love of trees. I’m glad for her challenge subject today.

Much of the wisdom of the natural world is about how to sustain life in harmony with others. It turns out that Trees are no exception. They share a unique kind of communication via threads of fungi and operate as a living community. That discovery changes the way I see forests and individual trees completely. 

“A tree can be only as strong as the forest that surrounds it.”
― Peter Wohlleben, The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate

“It appears that nutrient exchange and helping neighbors in times of need is the rule, and this leads to the conclusion that forests are superorganisms with interconnections much like ant colonies.”
― Peter Wohlleben, The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate – Discoveries from a Secret World

“We have learned that mother trees recognize and talk with their kin, shaping future generations. In addition, injured trees pass their legacies on to their neighbors, affecting gene regulation, defense chemistry, and resilience in the forest community.”
― Peter Wohlleben, The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate—Discoveries from A Secret World

“If a tree falls in the forest there are other trees listening.”
― Peter Wohlleben, The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate – Discoveries from a Secret World

I feel now more than ever how important it is to conserve larger tracts of land containing whole forests, especially mature growth forests. It’s not enough to plant a tree in the yard. Trees are the lungs of the planet, breathing the oxygen that we all depend on into our world. 

“An organism that is too greedy and takes too much without giving anything in return destroys what it needs for life.”
― Peter Wohlleben, The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate – Discoveries from a Secret World

Have you thanked a forest today?