As winter moves into spring we are tantalised with the promise of a seasons growth while in fact the lingering taste of a winter that has lost its welcome fills the senses. Cold winds from the east temper the joys of longer days and bright sunlight – there is little immediately evident in the landscape apart from a deepening sense of decomposition as the last year’s foliage disappears into a soupy morass.
This season ends in a stormy wash. The earth’s surface rendered into a purifying mud bath, a final cleansing of body and soul as the tempest scoured landscape prepares for a new cycle. Trees have been thinned and the paths are waterlogged; allowing the piercing gaze of the sun to expose and echo each tiny transition.
A new door opens – although outside lies the heart of winter – a raw austere land where each limb stands absolutely bared and stripped of foliage. Life’s passage is now frozen – reduced to the stirring of puddles, ice and freezing fog. Hope lies in anticipation; belief that some new deity of nature will manifest itself.
Earth smothered by seeping cold damp. Days pass eclipsed by the shadow of an unconquered sun – that spark of life is now buried safely in a cocoon of adversity. Trees decorated with frozen water form cracks against a sparse sky with each clear shape keeping hold of distant memory.
Dawn splashes gold – respite from dashing wind and rain that trails from branch to ground. One grand finale to a year’s growth as life seeps back through each small vessel. Sunlight glimmers into the gaping canopy revealing a citrine sparkle in each dying leaf.
The land now glides into repose – swirling energies that momentarily stormed through the trees now disappear into a wisp – broad chimes of a harvest chorus morph into the honk of migrating geese that glimpse across the sky while the earth prepares to hibernate…
Autumn creeps in under the cover of mist – the rampant growth of the summer months consolidated in the bright fruits and berries that burst through the fading green. Skies open up in readiness for the harvest moon – the ground now littered with empty kernels and the chestnut colour of mushrooms.
Late summer shrouds the forest in the deepest of greens, covering trees in heavy and shadowy canopies while concealing the forest floor in a wash of choking bracken. It is easy to become disorientated, to wander into once familiar places and become lost in mysterious and magical worlds. It is a month of exploration – the landscape becomes the fantasy world of the faerie tale and paths lure far into the unknown. This relentless world is eventually broken by the […]
These slowly dwindling surfaces of forest water offer a gateway to other worlds – a magical mirror that reflects and distorts. Folklore and myth suggest that these freshwater streams and pools are inhabited by spirits – sometimes playful and at other times malevolent. The Naiades of Ancient Greece are nymphs who nurture poetic creativity while simultaneously exuding a hypnotic sexuality to ensnare the unwary.
Opulent energies of summer arrive in gusts, those blasts of heat allow us to languish in the pleasure of long days as we glimpse a world away. Heavy clouds linger – teasing us with the possibility of a summer storm that might clear the air now thick with insects and pollen.
Those canopies of spring finally weave into abundant emerald brilliance. The magic of another year fulfilling its promise as the gentle carpeting emerges from the stippled clods of yesterday. Driven by desire for perpetual procreation and dancing to Arcadian rhythms, the steps of life wind round these terse new shoots.
The fecund forces of nature rise from the earth and fill us with the excitement of unsettled energies. The sky turns a shade of blue not seen for months and those familiar skeletal branches pop with bright green. We become intoxicated by the liquidity of change – frameless pictures that continually evolve. April never satiates; it is a month of becoming and our image of the world around us recedes as we attempt to grasp it.
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