Solstice: Celebrate Winter in Montana

I wish all of my blog readers happiness and clarity of heart in the coming year -- may you each have the blessing of Good Luck in your lives.

To celebrate winter, to honor Mother Earth, and to welcome the light coming back to us from the darkest, longest night of the year ... I would like to share with you a selection of winter images from my Montana albums.


Click on a thumbnail to view the image larger. To see the original (much larger) photo, click LINK below the photo on the right. Enjoy!

Festival of Trees #15: a Collector's Delight

Welcome to the Festival of the Trees #15.
Thank you everyone for sending those links and articles. I received scads of excellent contributions - enough to make a large collection that should have something for everyone. So, let's jump right in:

Anyone who has been around the Festival of Trees for awhile will recognize Daniel Mosquin, head poobah at the University of British Columbia's Botany Photo of the Day. That's one of Daniel's beautiful photos, above, a Mimosa monancistra. Daniel constantly delights me with his beautiful photos taken in the botanical gardens as well as on his travels. I can't imagine hosting a FOTT without giving Daniel a plug. So thanks, Daniel for all the time and effort you put into BPOTD. His site also features work by other photogs, especially by members of the BPOTD flickr group. Daniel also includes with every day's photo, either a link to a photographic website or to a botany web link. Always educational ... often hugely entertaining.

Woodworker Tim Carney, shares some fascinating stuff about Baobab trees at his blog, Shop Talk. The photo, above, is by Daniel Montesinos.

Jade Blackwater submitted several written pieces from the "Halo" short fiction writing contest. The short fiction pieces, posted at The Clarity of Night are:
The Clarity of Night: Entry #56 (a short story with trees and forests in its heart. Written by Helen Flatley, posted and hosted by Jason Evans of The Clarity of Night blog.) The Clarity of Night: Entry #49 (Another tree-story from the Halo contest) and The Clarity of Night: Entry #12 (Another contest entry - this one more poetry than prose, and also speaking to the trees.)

Nature is an Art Gallery (the photo, left, is just one of many) comes to us via Gerry Gomez Pearlberg at Global Swarming Honeybees (she has lots of info on bees, too) "Dawn: a glorious caterpillar descends from a tree, with twinkling trees in the background ..."

Stuart Forsyth, of The Thought Menagerie, was in a frustrated mood one day so he decided to head outside and shoot some tree photos.

Stuart writes, "there is nothing like doing something you love to change your mood and feelings." A second contribution from Stuart, along with more awesome pics like this cork tree, is A Walk in the Park.

Wren, of the illustrious and beautiful blog, Wrenaissance Reflections always seems to have something there to entertain and educate us. Check out her recent Wrendition on trees, Treelimma, in which this bird-lover and tree-lover explores her ambiguity about keeping (or not) the mature Bradford Pears in her garden.

I know Wren thinks alot about creating habitat for birds on her property. How many of you take birds and other wildlife into consideration when planning your garden or landscape? There are so many conservation and ecology programs that encourage us to plant more trees or preserve existing trees and to make our home landscapes more inviting to a diversity of plants and animals. It's hard to know where to start pointing out the good ones! Mary Jo Manzanares of The Seattle Traveler, presents Backyard Sanctuary Program Helps Keep Washington one of the Best Places to Live.

Bat Cave, Swamp Style comes to the Festival courtesy of Swamp Things blog. Check out the gorgeous bald cypress (above) posted with that article! I have always loved the "knees" of the bald cypress for their resemblance to elderly folks, gnomes and little people.



"Wollemia nobilis" © Ontario Wanderer
Dean Gugler is one of the contributors at Whorled Leaves, an online reading group on nature books. Dean shared his interest in their current book, "The Tree" by Colin tudge, by elaborating on the natural history of the rare Wollemia ""Pine: Wollemia nobilis. Dean relates,

"Although we have found the book fairly heavy for summer reading it has sparked interest in trees in general."

photo ©Fleur-Ange Lamothe
Dean's partner, Fleur-Ange Lamothe is a painter/photographer artist in her own right (that's her photo, just above.) I introduced my friend Fleur-Ange in this blog post with some of my favorite tree photos of hers.

Our very own Dave Bonta, coordinator of the Festival of Trees and blogger at Via Negativa, shares a wonderful post titled, New Life from and Old Chestnut (that's his beautiful photo, left.) Dave also writes, along with another submission on Giant Trees, that "Most Americans would probably be shocked to hear that their redwoods and sequoias aren't quite the largest trees in the world."

I love the way Jarrett writes at his blog, Creature of the Shade. This time Jarrett sent us Southern Flora, Northern Word where he muses on the names of Australian trees. "However acclimated I become, I'll probably never shake the first impression that Australian plants and animals seem designed to mislead the northerner. Anything remotely conifer-like is called a pine. (And the) eucalypts were called ash, boxwood, and even apple."

We have a new Tree-Festivalee, Larry, from Wandering Around Kansas. Welcome, Larry! His contribution is an excellent photo, The Shade Tree. It's still summer in the northern hemisphere (just barely) and, well -- if it's hot where you live, I expect you're still appreciating the shade under trees like the oak in Larry's photo.

American Forests, a conservation group that has been protecting forests and their denizens for over 20 years, has a page of e-cards you can send to friends. Check out their postcards of "champion trees" like the ancient white pine, above. Then head over to their Historic Tree Nursery and dream of planting a piece of history near your own home.

Silver Valley Girl presents Still Life of My Tree posted at Silver Valley Stories. Her post illustrates a great idea: to document one tree you really care about, through the seasons. Still Life of My Tree shows views of the same tri-color beech through seven months so far. The photo, left, shows her beech in July.

Karen Bastille sent in one of my favorite submissions this month, Nurturing The Bond Between Child And Tree. Karen wrote on her blog, At Home With Grandmother Wren, that "we can encourage our children’s relationship with trees and the natural world around them while at the same time renewing our own awareness of its blessings."

Karen includes links for more ideas for teaching children about nature, and ideas she used with her granddaughter who has grown to love the nectarine tree her Grampy planted when she was born.

Finally, I'd like to point you to two more collections on Raven's Nest. This Festival#15 post was getting way too long, but I couldn't bear to leave out a few of my favorite sites about trees in art and literature. If you have the time, I think these two Festival-specific blog posts will be entertaining and elucidating. I apologize for any overlap between these posts and the links above.

Trees in Art

Trees in Poetry and Prose

Well, folks, that concludes September's edition of Festival of the Trees. The next edition of the Festival will appear at trees, if you please. Send your tree-related submissions to festival (dot) trees (at) gmail (dot) com no later than September 28th. Or if you wish, you can submit your blog article to the next edition of Festival of the Trees using our handy-dandy carnival submission form. Past posts and future hosts can be found on our blog carnival index page.

Thank you to everyone who participated in Festival#15
your host, Maureen Shaughnessy

Trees in Art

All artwork above © by Laura Medei
Laura Medei has developed a whimsical, dreamlike style with her paintings and sketches of trees (above) and her artwork never fails to delight and inspire me when I visit her Flickr album of sketches. If you enjoy her uplifting style as much as I do, why not check out the rest of her beautiful art?

1 2 3	I recently found the book, The Night Life of Trees, on our public library shelf. Wow! Exquisite! Myth and poetry, vision and artistry combine to illustrate the deep connections many indigenous peoples have to all of Creation. These vivid tree portraits were created by Bhajju Shyam, Durga Bai and Ram Singh Urveti. Each volume is hand-screen printed and hand bound by Tara Publishing. The book is filled with intricately drawn visions of trees ... from the Gond tribe in central India, (who believe) trees stand in the middle of life and the spirit of many things lie in them. Trees are busy all day giving shade, shelter and food. Under the night skies, spirits of the trees are revealed. The Night Life of Trees is a tribute to the majesty of trees, and to old ways of relating to the natural world. Left: the first tree made by the Creator the Peepul tree is so perfect that seen against the sky, it has the same shape as its own leaf the Earth is held in the coils of the snake goddess. The roots of trees coil around the earth too, holding it in place
	Ruby-Scented Dawn, by Catherine Hyde, an artist from UK. Hyde makes exceedingly beautiful christmas cards as well. Some of her tree images remind me vaguely of dreams, of Matisse, of childhood paintings made by smearing blackberry and chokecherry juice on concrete sidewalks ...
	Robert Ryan, a paper-cut artist and illustrator, often depicts trees in his incredibly intricate paper-cuts and screen prints. Click here to see his papercut galleries or click on the images, left, for enlarged views. Below is a collaged photo of Robert's studio, originally posted on his blog, titled (ummm...) Robert Ryan. Another artist working in the paper-cut medium is Peter Callesen, who lives in Denmark. Though his medium is similar to that of Robert Ryan, Callesen's papercuts (left) are relatively simpler, though still incredibly elegant, and he often focuses on fairytales and constructs room-sized cut-paper installations as well. His website has so many beautiful pieces it was hard to choose just one to showcase here.

Trees in Poetry & Prose

photo by Maureen Shaughnessy © Native Trees Neither my father nor my mother knew the names of the trees where I was born what is that I asked and my father and mother did not hear they did not look where I pointed surfaces of furniture held the attention of their fingers and across the room they could watch walls they had forgotten where there were no questions no voices and no shade Were there trees where they were children where I had not been I asked were there trees in those places where my father and mother were born and in that time did my father and mother see them and when they said yes it meant they did not remember What were they I asked what were they but both my father and my mother said they never knew -W.S. Merwin©

photo by Mika Hiironniemi © Breath Tree, gather up my thoughts like the clouds in your branches. Draw up my soul like the waters in your root. In the arteries of your trunk bring me together. Through your leaves breathe out the sky. - J. Daniel Beaudry © published in Nature in Legend and Story

Trees are poems that earth writes upon the sky, We fell them down and turn them into paper, That we may record our emptiness. -Kahlil Gibran, from Sand and Foam

photo by courambel on flickr © Under the Walnut Tree When I face what has left my life, I bow. I walk outside into the cold, rain nesting in my hair. All the houses near me have their lights on. Somewhere, there is a deep listening. I stand in the dark for a long time under the walnut tree, unable to tell anyone, not even the night, what I know. I feel the darkness rush towards me, and I open my arms – Lynn Martin © From Blue Bowl (Blue Begonia Press)

Alone with myself The trees bend to carress me The shade hugs my heart. - by Candy Polgar © Woods I part the out thrusting branches and come in beneath the blessed and the blessing trees. Though I am silent there is singing around me. Though I am dark there is vision around me. Though I am heavy there is flight around me. - Wendell Berry © from Collected Poems (North Point Press)

photo by Ric McArthur © Fern-Leafed Beech This tree listened when my husband died. I leaned my head against its trunk and cried. No words passed, but I took its strength and knew that life at last secretly transforms until what is seen becomes unseen, and what has been is still to be. -Moyra Caldecott©

a few other links:
Solitary Trees
find other poets' work at Gratefulness.org
Trees in Myth and Legend
Spirit of Trees

Plant a Tree

Old Apple Tree, Copyright by Maureen Shaughnessy

Do you want to plant a tree (or 2 or 3) yet
a.) keep putting it off until you settle down in one house for a long time?

buy a house?
b.) figure out exactly what you're going to do with your garden so you know exactly where to plant the tree?
c.) have enough money saved to afford a large tree?
d.) decide what kind of tree you want to plant?
e.) other?

Well ....

The best time to plant a tree is twenty years ago. The second best time is now. -- International Society of Arborists

Weeping Tree over Bench, Copyright by Maureen Shaughnessy

HOW TO PLANT A TREE
So .... What are you Waiting For?
Click here for a fact sheet on planting a new tree.


a few facts about trees, listed on the International Society of Arborists website:

• In one year, an acre of trees can absorb as much carbon as is produced by a car driven up to 8700 miles.
• Trees provide shade and shelter, reducing yearly heating and cooling costs by 2.1 billion dollars.
• Trees lower air temperature by evaporating water in their leaves.
• The average tree in metropolitan area survives only about 8 years!
• A tree does not reach its most productive stage of carbon storage for about 10 years.
• Tree roots stabilize the soil and prevent erosion.
• Trees improve water quality by slowing and filtering rain water as well as protecting aquifers and watersheds.
• Trees provide food and shelter for wildlife.
• The death of one 70-year old tree would return over three tons of carbon to the atmosphere

If you love trees, and want to tell other people about it, please head over to the Festival of Trees coordinating blog to find out how to participate in the next festival. Click here:

I will be hosting Festival #15 for the month of September, at Raven's Nest (aka Water Earth Wind and Fire) ... so check back here around the 1st of September to see more about trees from all over the world.

Wandering: a Meditation on Life, Art, Trees, Creativity

Whoever has learned how to listen to trees no longer wants to be a tree. He wants to be nothing except what he is. That is home. That is happiness. -- from Wandering

Wandering, Hermann Hesse's collection of succinct prose, poetry and sketches, was on my bookshelf as a young college student. I don't know where it is now -- it's the kind of book you want to keep around to read over and over again, yet at the same time, a book that begs to be passed around from friend to friend ... Hesse's writing is simple, profound, mystical (in a Earth-mystic sense) poetic, inspiring. This is one of my favorite books ever.

I originally put together this post for Tim's woodworking site, ShopTalk. Inspired by the Festival of Trees, I decided to illustrate my favorite passage from Hesse (on listening to trees) with some of my photos and share it with my readers on Raven's Nest.

Sit down anywhere you like, on a wall, a stone, a tree stump, on the grass or the earth: everywhere they surround you, a painting and a poem, everywhere the world resonates beautifully and happily around you. -- from Wandering

... For me, trees have always been the most penetrating preachers. I revere them when they live in tribes and families, in forests and groves. And even more I revere them when they stand alone. They are like lonely persons. Not like hermits who have stolen away out of some weakness, but like great, solitary men, like Beethoven and Nietzsche.

... Nothing is holier, nothing is more exemplary than a beautiful, strong tree. When a tree is cut down and reveals its naked death-wound to the sun, one can read its whole history in the luminous, inscribed disk of its trunk: in the rings of its years, its scars, all the struggle, all the suffering, all the sickness, all the happiness and prosperity stand truly written, the narrow years and the luxurious years, the attacks withstood, the storms endured. And every young farmboy knows that the hardest and noblest wood has the narrowest rings, that high on the mountains and in continuing danger the most indestructible, the strongest trees grow.

Trees are sanctuaries. Whoever knows how to speak to them, whoever knows how to listen to them, can learn the truth. They do not preach learning and precepts, they preach, undeterred by particulars, the ancient law of life.

A tree says: A kernel is hidden in me, a spark, a thought, I am life from eternal life. The attempt and the risk that the eternal mother took with me is unique, unique the form and veins of my skin, unique the smallest play of leaves in my branches and the smallest scar on my bark. I was made to form and reveal the eternal in my smallest special detail.

A tree says: My strength is trust. I know nothing about my fathers, I know nothing about the thousand children that every year spring out of me. I live out the secret of my seed to the very end ... I trust that God is in me. I trust that my labor is holy. Out of this trust I live.

When we are stricken and cannot bear our lives any longer, then a tree has something to say to us: Be still! Be still! Look at me! ... Let God speak within you, and your thoughts will grow silent. You are anxious because your path leads away from mother and home. But every step and every day lead you back again to the Mother. Home is neither here nor there. Home is within you, or home is nowhere at all.

A longing to wander tears my heart when I hear trees rustling in the wind at evening. If one listens to them silently for a long time, this longing reveals its kernel, its meaning. It is not so much a matter of escaping from one's suffering, though it may seem to be so. It is a longing for home, for a memory of the Mother, for new metaphors for life. It leads home. Every path leads homeward, every step is birth, every step is death, every grave is Mother.

So the tree rustles in the evening, when we stand uneasy before our own thoughts. Trees have long thoughts, long-breathing and restful, just as they have longer lives that ours. They are wiser than we are, as long as we do not listen to them ...

Whoever has learned how to listen to trees no longer wants to be a tree. He wants to be nothing except what he is. That is home. That is happiness.

-- excerpt from Hermann Hesse: Wandering translated by James Wright, © 1974

Festival of the Trees 7 is up and it's almost time for number 8

If you are a tree-lover, nature lover, ecologist, artist, poet, writer, dancer, baker, or even a logger, you may be interested in the Festival of Trees. The 7th monthly festival is being hosted by Jeremy Bruno at his Voltage Gate Blog. Please visit the Festival of Trees to ooo and ahhhh over the many different aspects of trees and forests presented by a diverse and creative community.

The next Festival of Trees #8 will be hosted in February by Gingko Dreams, a blog I hadn't known about until just now... and wow! Her design blog is tasteful, elegant, and so beautiful -- I can't wait to see how Kelly hosts the tree festival. It will be sumptuous for sure.



If you want to submit something you have made, photographed or written about trees, here is the call for submissions for Festival 8

see you there.

Calendar for July: Bluebird House

Dear blog readers:
Here is my monthly calendar offering to my blog readers to say thank you for reading and visiting -- I publish these downloadable calendars as a gift of appreciation to you for sharing your lives with me through your writings and photos and comments on my blogs. You can see my other blog, Land of Little Rain, here


For July's calendar, I wanted to feature a photo I shot at our friends' land near Helena. Clancy and Mandy celebrated their wedding in August, 2005 near this beautiful aspen grove in Blue Cloud. The rainbow-colors painted on this bluebird house, to me, symbolize the beauty and happiness these two young people have -- and are creating everyday -- in their lives. Their one year anniversary is coming up next month: blessings and good luck to both of you in the second year of your marriage, Clancy and Mandy!

Please feel free to download and print this calendar. To download, click anywhere on the calendar and you should get a new window with the image. Click on the photo again in that new window to go to the large version of the calendar. Right-click to download the calendar. It should print out 8.5" x 11". If you have a printer that requires a margin, please print this slightly reduced to fit on a standard letter-size paper.

I hope you enjoy the monthly calendars, and please let me know if you have any problems downloading I can send them to you by email attachment.

Warmly,
Maureen

Calendar for June

June Calendar Originally uploaded by MontanaRaven.

Here is my monthly offering to readers of my blog, this calendar which you are welcome to download, print, or use however you want to. To download, first click anywhere on the calendar, and you will see a new window with just the calendar photo on it. Click on the photo for a larger version. It looks best printed out at 8"x10" size on heavy weight matte photo paper, but any paper will do.

Thanks for looking. I appreciate the visits to my blog and I hope you can make use of this calendar.

I'm always curious if anyone is actually using these calendars, so if you do, please leave me a comment. (that's optional as always, though). And for sure ... enjoy it!