WINTER TREES

| gaiainaction

With the very wet winter we are having here in West Cork, it is rather showing up some beauty all of it’s own, it is how the trees look fresh, bringing out the colours of the trunk and branches, stark against a sometimes grey sky but now and then against clouds and sunsets. We have five trees in the garden, and these photos I took either from behind the glass if heavy rain, or outside, each brings out different aspects in the photo. Some bring out a rather foggy mood, some are melancholic, but some others bring out a bright clarity, it reflects the way that the mind is affected by the dampness, and according to Chinese traditional medicine, the mind is affected by the spleen, and the spleen is in turn very much affected by dampness, cold dampness, and that is what we get here in winter. It follows then that during these winter months the mind might become a little foggy if not careful, CTM advises us to eat warm stews made from root vegetables, with plenty of ginger to counteract this dampness inside… but that is going away from the trees a bit.
I love trees, I might even be a tree hugger, always want to touch their bark and admire their beauty, and beside that there is nothing as nice as using wood in the kitchen or wherever, the feel of it so smooth after it has been sanded, the lines and colourful markings are very nice too. I have wood on the ceiling and wall in one of our rooms, it often gives me pleasure to take in the many knots and lines visible to the eye. The scent also of wood is so pleasing.
Right now our trees are blowing in the wind, it is quite stormy and has been all winter, but they seem able for it. The silver birch moves most of all, it’s high and thin but the branches are very flexible. The Hawthorn moves very little – that is why the birds like to hide among it’s branches. The oak and the pine sway as if to the sound of their own music, while the chestnut watches over it all, stiff and majestic, even despite it has lost some of it’s branches last summer after we cut some down as they were making the garden far too shady. My trees are very much alive to me, I sense their moods, they are powerful and nothing fazes them, but they do like me to touch them when walking around the garden.
The trees, they give me much pleasure, I feel they are a blessing in our garden, and I am very appreciative.

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33 thoughts on “WINTER TREES”

  1. when you write, I feel I’m visiting…and am reminded of Joyce Kilmer’s “I think that I shall never see/A poem as lovely as a tree…” Spring cannot get here soon enough for my liking

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  3. I had a beautiful little crab apple out back. Bloomed bright pink each May. Snow broke it one year. I trimmed it back, and it continued on, though without as much enthusiasm as before. Three springs ago, seven years after it broke, it bloomed with complete abandon. So beautiful and bright on every branch. I couldn’t help myself. I took out my sheers to bring a blooming branch inside. Just as I snipped that perfect branch, the entire top of the tree tipped towards me, then fell to the lawn…and the perfect tree died. I’ve not replaced it.

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  5. Interestingly, I planted a rose in her stead. It grew full, put out gorgeous pink blooms the size of my open hand all that summer. It died down to the root stock. Me thinks It might have been more than the heavy, wet snow that killed my crab. This coming year, vegetables!

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  7. As always, beautiful shots.

    Thank goodness there is a greater awareness of the need for trees now – at least here. I don’t know about elsewhere. They are so important. If only I had the space for more.

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    1. I know Helen, if I had more space I would still add more. I have two smaller trees in the front garden, and I planted an elderberry tree totally in the back of the garden, and a buddleia also in front.

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    1. Yes Mary, I have lived more or less according to CTM methods for decades, a good friend of mine went to study in a hospital in China years ago, she qualified and was practicing in Ireland, she treated very successfully.

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  14. West Cork is such a lovely part of Ireland. I adore the gardens; the summer fuschia growing wild is unlike anything I’ve ever seen anywhere else. As we here on the east coast of the States settle in for some of the coldest days of the winter, it is nearly spring in Ireland. *sigh*

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