Light

WINTER LIGHT AND COLOURS

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Travelling through the Caha mountains during winter I find that there is plenty of interest to see and get excited about even just along the way. While some of my drives are taken in bad weather conditions, heavy mist, rain and or wind, most of the time I’ve experienced dry and also regularly sunny weather.

Most of all, this winter I find the skies fascinating. The colours, subtle, in pastel pink, light blue, ashen grey or radiant white, and even as if with a magic brush, diffused streaks of periwinkle purple. I’ve seen it all in skies over the Bantry Bay, over the Caha mountains and over the Glengarriff valeys. Ever changing skies with light of a beautiful quality. It certainly holds the attention of the traveller. These days I drive home when the sun is setting, adding another marvel of light, the setting sun, often spectacular!

Looking down into the valley there is a whole palette of different browns, beiges and forest greens. A true feast for the eyes. As can be seen in the photo below Glengarriff National Forest has a lot of birch trees growing, and apart from their stark white trunks, their branches are particularly beautiful at the moment. Every time I pass clusters of them I try to think how to name their colour, a type of maroon, or a vintage wine, or does it look more like an English lavender, burgundy, gothic mulberry or umbral umber. It is hard to pinpoint exactly the colour of those branches, and it also depends how the light shines on them and how the rain brightens them.

Birch trees in the distance

A variety of other branches, among them the deep red of the dogwoods is always very nice in a landscape, and so is the drama of the bleached grasses, rushes and sedges covering whole stretches of hillsides with cream blonde colours or even rusty browns.

Darkness falls early these days, painting the landscape mainly in moss green, dark brown or black, though the mountains in the distance do give us some mauve. The landscape changes constantly, it is very noticeably when driving higher up, clouds throwing huge shadows over the valleys interspersed with stretches of sunlight. As I said there is a lot of interest even in winter on my journey. Probably much more to discover yet and that leaves me with a feeling of ever more excitement.

I came across two photos of winter foliage recently, these are paintings of the Danish painter Peder Mork Monsted, (1859-1941) from his ‘Winter’ series. I thought it shows the colouring of the birch trees beautifully and rather well. I think his work very nice. (Referenced from Gallery of Art) with thanks.

Nature on CHRISTMAS EVE

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All is calm in our little town on this Christmas Eve, the only sounds in our street are the wind howling and the odd car passing.  It seems that people are all heading towards home, the shops are slowly closing and town is emptying.  There is always a nice buzz in Skibbereen around this time of year.  Traditionally young people who would have emigrated to America or the UK would try and get home for the festivities, these days it is students and those that made it overseas that return, it’s always a great time for rejoicing and that is palpable in the streets and shops as old friends and families gather.  People seem cheerful.  Nice!

But I did not mean to write about this.  For me Christmas or Solstice time is special too but in other ways.  I feel myself pulled deeper into nature, my wish is to go for a long walk and take note of all that is happening, and so much is happening underneath all the rest that nature is supposed to be taking at this time.  Around me I not only see daffodils shooting up, but all sort of buds are getting bigger by the day. A myriad of small young plants are covering the ground where there are patches not covered by fallen leaves. 

 A fine Irish mist is making everything wet and glistening, as a result the colours of the tree trunks in our garden are not dull, they are bright and beautiful.  This time of year is special, I read the old stories of animals being able to converse with each other in language on Christmas Eve, that somehow always stuck with me!  These are the darkest days, midwinter, we celebrate the solstice and look forward to the light returning, the brighter and longer days, new life and renewed energy in nature and in humans.  Christmas too is about new life, the birth of Christus, bringing light into the world.  It is a beautiful time, hopefully a time of peace for all.

Here in our little house, Ian is working on writing his book, we just had lunch and some real Flemish marzipan that my sister Josephine sent us from Lier.  Everything is peaceful, I’m listening to baroque music on rtbf Musiq3.  Work is done, our garden birds are fed, and I’m enjoying writing my blog post and wondering how all my WordPress friends and followers are celebrating this time of year.  Soon it will be 2024 and I hope that it will be a year full of blessing for you all. 

Sending love and wishing peace to everyone.

EARLY MORNING MUZINGS

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The colours of the pre-dawn are magnificent, it is also the expectation of what is to come, the light! The light that will colour the world once again for another day.

Pre-dawn light

Last week saw me travel up to the city several times for appointments and one of those was early in the morning, so it was that I was able to enjoy the dawn albeit from a bus window. To see the first light appearing and the mist rising has always had me spellbound and needless to say I enjoyed it very much.

I had nothing else to do but sit and observe how the light scattered the darkness.
Being driven through the rural Irish landscape at this time of day is magical, the land still covered here and there with garlands of mist.
Flashes of colour reached my eyes distorted by the speed the bus was travelling, I loved it.
If I wanted to paint I could not do any better than what the eye of my mobile phone offered me in colour and form.

I was in a reality all my own

It was as beautiful as any of my other realities

Another day started and I was thankful to make it a good one

~~~~~~~~~~~

FRAGMENTED LIGHT

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The sea was playing magic, shimmering in a thousand  sparkling mirrors of itself,

the sun, movement like a vibration, disappearing on the horizon,

two people appear out of this fragmented light – in a canoe –

they move fast into the still and aquamarine waters of the cave,

leaving no trail.

CHRISTMAS GREENERY

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I went picking some greenery to make a wreath and flower piece this afternoon, close by there is a boreen ( Irish word for a little pathway with lots of greenery), and during the year I saw lots of ivy growing there, some of which won’t be damaged by a little pruning, so I set out to cut some and bring it in for decoration. There was ivy with lots of the most beautiful berries, some quite dark and bright green. There was also quite a bit of gorse in flower, these bright yellow flowers are usually open end of January but already they are fully in bloom. Then I spotted some of the last Hawthorn berries, the birds have so much food in this mild winter that there are many berries left for them. The beautiful red berries stand out lovely against the dark green of the foliage. At home I raided some of our cotoneaster hedge very profuse with fruits this year, and I picked some ivy and holly from along the hedges.

I know that I am too late to make an advent wreath which is what I normally would do but that is for the four Sundays before Christmas, so I will just make a wreath for the front door, and a piece for the dining room table. Candles and greenery do make it for me around this time of the year, and pine cones!

Tomorrow is mid-winter and the days will start to lengthen, this winter more than most has been very dark, we will all welcome the light again.

CHRISTMAS GREENERY