These woods....

The other morning we had a very frosty one. 

The sun came out a bit and showed off the workings of cold and nature...

Look how sporty Jed looks!!

Ready for some duck hunting bud?

Another perspective on wabi sabi...the beauty of the decaying...acceptance of the imperfect...

I have a never ending fascination with moss...thick, thin, feathered, velvety, fluffy, trailing...

Remnants of the old farm that used to be here many years ago...

And then there are These Woods.

Growing up in Victoria I had a love for Garry Oaks.

There ecosystem is restricted to a small area on the Southeast part of our Island.

Nowhere else in the world do these gnarly, craggy ones grow...

The very bones of them in the winter, the loving dappled shade in the summer.

But for eighteen years when I lived in Sooke I had a relationship with the coniferous

evergreen forests that surrounded our house.

The deep, tall woods of the west coast are a spiritual place for me.

A free and open place of worship where quite often I was alone with my thoughts and prayers.

So now I think among these different beings...some tall, some short and scrubby. 

But a place like this is my tall drink of water in this sad and beautiful world.

I can sit and wonder and grow along with the moss and the lichen.

Invent my own stories of the things I find.

Like this simple wooden cross I found lying at the base of a big oak.

I wondered...what lies beneath?

So I propped it up against the great tree, stood up some of it's meaning again...

So I will wander these wiry meadows now.

They are new kin to get to know.

I find comfort when I drive up our road, past the subdivision, entering our block

 where the oaks still line the sidewalk-less street. 

Some parts around here were left to be.

For that I am grateful.

The creek starts to sing...

There's nothing like finding a shady, cool spot by a creek or a river

during the height of a hot summers day.

But going up a creek at the beginning of spring is magical.

The jumble of log jams from rushing winter waters has settled in for the time being.

The bones of bears dinners lay strewn about in the woods above the shore.

Rich salmon feasts, now a thing of the past , lay like 

puzzles waiting to be pieced together again.
The tiny vertebrae so beautiful...inspiration for Antonio Gaudi for sure!

Things; flora and fauna alike, asleep for the winter

are now awakening, feeling the dawn on leaves,

petals, slimy skin and bright green moss.

 ...the delicate trillium one of the brightest faces in the woods...

...little wine cup fungus awaiting a fairies dinner party...

...false lily of the valley, lined up, soldiering along the forest floor

Like a book being opened...a new story begins again.

Last years dipper has decided that this spot under the bridge is 

a good, safe place to nest again.
One small ball of twig and moss, now dwarfed by its latest neighbor.

The tiny winter wren, hungry for love, trills out a song as big as the forest itself.

And the water!

Truly perky, alive, dancing over rocks in sensual glides and dives.

Going where water wants to go.

Flowing with abandonment to places great and small.

Settling into pools for armies of fish fry; a safe harbor to grow.

Sunlight speckles rounded rocks polished by the waters touch.

 Ghosts in the wood, man made and nature made alike...

Someone's lost belongings blending in, reminding us of our transparency here.

A lookout perched above the banks, on call for another summer at the creek side.

So I borrow this lovely space for a short time, drenched in the singing of the creek,
watching the world begin once again...

...things watching me perhaps from the shadows of the woods...

...rock hopping like a child through velvet greens, muted by birdsong.
Who knows what treasures and surprises I'll find this time around?

It's a small world after all...

The other day I took Griffin for a walk down on part of the Galloping Goose trail

that is rich with moss and lichen and arbutus trees.

I was so taken by the many shades, textures and colours and I decided

to gently bring home some tiny bits of this vast world

to create my own miniature landscape...

 I used this old, thick glass fish bowl that I bought in a thrift store in Seattle years ago.

Put some various shapes and sizes of rocks in the bottom for drainage.

 I needle felted a few tiny sheep to settle in amongst the minuscule hills and fallen trees...

The variations of greens takes me back to my days in Ireland...

'Tell me what you pay attention to and I'll tell you who you are'

Jose Ortega y Gasset

So much in this world is walked over and missed.

When Dr Seuss wrote 'Horton hears a Hoo' I knew exactly what he was thinking.

 

 

 



Of moss and men...

Yesterday we took advantage of the dry afternoon and went for a walk on the Goose. It was quite spring like and the moss was as green as can be...

It covers every limb and rock and with the many varieties, when examined closely, it resembles tiny little forests...what goes on in these minuscule landscapes?

The little golden back fern grows along this route too.

As does the lovely copper skinned Arbutus tree.

A few relics of the old telegraph line still stand along the trail which once belonged to the railway.

The mist was hugging the mountainside and gave way to images of Chinese paintings...

And still the moss is everywhere...

 On the way home look who was parked across from the pub, just outside the village...

 

Wrapped in their fuzzy winter coats...

Trying to get a taste of my camera lense...

No doubt enjoying a bit of sun and dry weather as well.