Tag: forest

The Fetched Stick

Photographer Unknown, (The Fetched Stick)

“When Theo would laugh or guffaw beneath the spreading canopy of Red, Shadow knew he had accomplished his job. The gray mask of civilization had fallen from the boy. Death left his eyes. Blood returned to his cheeks. There was song in his voice. Together, dog and master were once again in the huff and roar of the natural, bliss-filled world. They played ball, Shadow fetched rope, and, weather permitting, they swam in the sea. They proved once more what the ancients knew in the magical first world—that there was peace in play.”
― Steven James Taylor, The Dog

Reblogged with thanks to http://gill4u.tumblr.com

Hermann Hesse: “In Their Highest Boughs, the World Rustles”

Photographers Unknown, (Men of the Forest), A Collection

“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. In their highest boughs the world rustles, their roots rest in infinity; but they do not lose themselves there, they struggle with all the force of their lives for one thing only: to fulfil themselves according to their own laws, to build up their own form, to represent themselves. 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, the ideal trees grow.

-Herman Hesse, Bäume, Betrachtungen und Gedichte

 

Rick Bragg: “In Water So Fine”

Photographer Unknown, (The Forest Stream)

“In water so fine, a few minutes of bad memory all but disappear downstream, washed away by ten thousand belly busters, a million cannonballs. Paradise was never heaven-high when I was a boy but waist-deep, an oasis of cutoff blue jeans and raggedy Converse sneakers, sweating bottles of Nehi Grape and Orange Crush, and this stream. I remember the antidote of icy water against my blistered skin, and the taste of mushy tomato and mayonnaise sandwiches, unwrapped from twice-used aluminum foil.”

― Rick Bragg

Howard Pyle: “All the World Sweet and Clean and New”

Photographer Unknown, (Spring Blooms in the Forest)

“And, indeed it is a very pleasant thing for to ride forth in the dawning of a Springtime day. For then the little birds do sing their sweetest song, all joining in one joyous medley, whereof one may scarce tell one note from another, so multitudinous is that pretty roundelay; then do the growing things of the earth smell the sweetest in the freshness of the early daytime—the fair flowers, the shrubs, and the blossoms upon the trees; then doth the dew bespangle all the sward as with an incredible multitude of jewels of various colors; then is all the world sweet and clean and new, as though it had been fresh created for him who came to roam abroad so early in the morning.”

― Howard Pyle, The Story of King Arthur and His Knights

Gaston Bachelard: “In the Forest I Am My Entire Self”

 

Photographer Unknown, (Waiting by the Tree)

“Now I am traversed by bridle paths, under the seal of sun and shade…I live in great density…Shelter lures me. I slump down into the thick foliage…In the forest, I am my entire self. Everything is possible in my heart just as it is in the hiding places in ravines. Thickly wooded distance separates me from moral codes and cities.”

― Gaston Bachelard, The Poetics of Space

John Burroughs: “All the Forces of Nature Are Going Their Own Way”

Photographer Unknown, (The Forest Calls)

“The universe is so unhuman, that is, it goes its way with so little thought of man. He is but an incident, not an end. We must adjust our notions to the discovery that things are not shaped to him, but that he is shaped to them. The air was not made for his lungs, but he has lungs because there is air; the light was not created for his eye, but he has eyes because there is light. All the forces of nature are going their own way; man avails himself of them, or catches a ride as best he can. If he keeps his seat, he prospers; if he misses his hold and falls, he is crushed.”

― John Burroughs, The Light of Day (Volume 11)

Denizen of the Green Forest

Photographer Unknown, (Denizen of the Green Forest), Model Unknown, Photo Shoot

“Often misunderstood, Dionysus is far more than a wine deity. He is the Breaker of Chains, who rescues not only the flesh but the heart and spirit from too much of worldly regulations and duties. He is a god of joy and freedom. Any uncultivated, tangled, and primal woodland is very much his domain.”

― Tanith Lee, The Green Man: Tales from the Mythic Forest