Every year since my daughter was a small child, we visited this forest near the town of Xanten in Germany. This year was no exception. I always walked with her there and upon arrival we stopped and took a moment to greet the forest. One hand on a tree and she still recognises her tree till now, we announced our presence and pledge to do no harm to the forest. She always loved this little ceremony and so did I .
If you have chance to read the book, ‘secret life of plants’, you will see the overwhelming evidence that our planet and its fauna are so alive and so communicative in ways we hardly can comprehend. I do completely believe that our presence in the forest is felt and communicated from tree to tree and that intentions can also be felt.
It has been proven that the life of the tree retreats in the face of harmful intent and hides in its roots and that it can actually feel distress. There is so much to research about this subject and to experiment with as we reconnect to this marvellous garden of plenty that the planet offers to us so generously.
As the fresh new snow blankets the ground and lays a layer of white powder on everything standing still, it feels like a permission for a new beginning. All is still, all is clean, all is white and a new chapter can now begin.
Yesterday the sun was shining as it still is today and the whole day, snowflakes shimmered in the sun, floating, dancing and eventually landing gently on surfaces, each in its unique glory.
Despite the bitter cold, I kept finding myself jumping up, grabbing my camera and heading outdoors to try and capture the magic of what was going on.
To make up for its bone chilling cold, winter sends its apologies with the magical white blanket of snow that makes it all better. I don’t know many who can resist the charm of freshly fallen snow and today I was one of those who ran out in the early morning to be with the symphony of falling snow flakes.
It often happens to me like it did today when I come back from teaching photography to children feeling like they actually did all the teaching. I learned so much from how free thinking they are, how imaginative, refreshingly creative and flexible in the mind they can be. I may have showed them technique but what they gifted me with was freedom and unhindered possibility that comes form a future that is yet to take form.
Thank you Barbara Sarbin and the children of ‘something good in the world’ for the great opportunity of doing this photography workshop today in this magical ecology.
As long as there is a sun for the planet to revolve around, time will be our master. We chase it, we save it, we spend it, we waste it and we race against it. Isn’t it time we make peace with time?
For the largest part of our recent history, we humans find ourselves living in a box of our own making. We have lived in caves, tents, huts, houses, and the majority of the human race lives currently in complex buildings inside large cities that resemble beehives and are just as noisy.
Then one day, we, the city dwellers find ourselves in a forest and we begin the process of expansion. It happens slowly and gradually that for a while we carry our virtual box with us wherever we go, even to remote places and we are simply unable to let go.
I just marvel at the idea of being able to shed all the confining webs we weave around ourselves and to simply be…
Haven’t you ever had the strange revelation that something in you knows? It just knows. We often seek confirmation from others, we vainly attempt to disqualify the silent knowing within simply because we cannot trust it. But it knows…
Image taken today with the help of Lea, somewhere in Germany.
Magic is never far, it lives in every changing leaf, in the colors that move us, in the smell of an autumn day; all we have to do is look, hear, smell, taste and feel it. The knowing is sure to follow…