Shades

These pictures are a couple of weeks old now - taken around Beltane, they captured for me the moment when spring finally happened. I had been watching desperately for it, through cold bare days of baited breath  and suffocated growth, at times wondering if it would ever come; wondering if perhaps our apocalypse would sneak up on us in the guise of everlasting winter. But come it did, and for a few sparkling days the earth glowed and sang.

I honestly know of no greater joy than to witness things growing. I am eagle-eyed at this time of year, watching earth and branch almost hourly - seeing birch buds, starting as no more than pin pricks, gradually uncurling like tiny scrolls giving the woods a greeny sheen. Beech leaves too, opening like folded paper fans, translucent with newness. Palmy fronds of rowan emerging, waving in the sun

The empty ground starts to sprout a spreading carpet of wild greens and seeded weeds; nettles and dandelions familiar amongst the delicate scatterings of wind-sown unknowns. In my slow, haphazard way I have been cultivating the land about me - some begged, some borrowed - planting bits and pieces here and there. I watch my small efforts eagerly for signs of life, rejoicing when the perennials appear as if by magic - bare earth giving birth to shoots forgotten since autumn; astilbe, astrantia, aquilegia - I hover like a nervous mother over their slug injuries and frost bites.

And those sycamores, their swollen buds bursting at the seams, releasing leaves too long confined, so glad to be free, shaking the sun along their veins and spreading a canopy of golden green glory...

The transformation is almost complete, I type to a window of fully clothed hillsides. It is raining, and cloud hovers in the valley, the greening is settling down from limes and acids, to emeralds and olives, maturing and solidifying with the aging season. I miss the sun, the way it dances between the branches with the newly minted leaves, casting shimmering shadows on the floors where I walk.

Nurture Photography Finale

This autumn has been a season of many photographs. Taking part in the Nurture Photography Challenge has prompted me to take my camera with me whenever I leave the house and to really discover beauty in the detail. A a result of all that looking I've got a fairly comprehensive record of this moment in our lives.

From the early stirrings of the season at Equinox to the bare trees and bleak skies that are the accompanying features of our current wanderings, each mood is captured. The light and landscape have changed, low winter sun now slants louchely through almost naked branches, illuminating surviving vegetation in a random and magical manner. Temperatures have dropped, there's a sniff of Christmas in the air.

The boys and I have walked widely during our autumn adventures and re-visited many favourite spots. If I'm honest, it will be harder for us to find the enthusiasm to get ourselves out there when the world looks barren and wet from our window, but I know we'll find a rhythm and joy with our winter explorations eventually. Promises of hot chocolate upon returning to the house will help to encourage us to pull on our boots and brave the elements. No doubt I will take my camera and continue my lessons in looking.

 

I'm incredibly grateful to Bumbles and Light and Live and Love out loud for this opportunity to share a season with others and for providing inspiration and focus for my (very amateur!) photography. It's been a real treat to browse through such delicious pictures and see how other bloggers have documented the changing year.

Here's to the next challenge...

And the land waits with us

It is fully the season of decay. We've passed through the mellowness of late summer, the splendour of mid-autumn and arrived at the gate of winter. The trees are almost bare, a few fluttering leaves cling to otherwise empty branches. The ground is mud and mulch, waterproof shoes are no longer optional. Smoke spirals upwards from houses where the inhabitants of these valleys shut out the growing darkness and seek comfort in hearth and home.

Evenings are long and daylight scarce. The night-time frolics of Hallowe'en and Bonfire Night have been and gone. We make our peace with the months ahead. In these dark days we plan for the return of the light. We sow our seeds and nurture them, turning them over in our minds, watching them grow in our dreams, ready for the first licks of a clean spring wind.

We walk. To remind us that the land waits with us, to smell the rot and taste the damp. To feel the solidity beneath the soil, the great vastness of the earth under our feet. In this dark womb roots gather goodness to feed the growth of the future. We are supported, we are nourished.

Fade from green

Today, in an effort to improve my photography skills I'm joining in with Bumbles and Light who are hosting an Autumn themed photo challenge. Each week there will a prompt to encourage those taking part to get

out there with our cameras and have fun. Although I love taking pictures I'm still a bit of a novice so this seemed an ideal opportunity to pick up some tips whilst enjoying being inspired by the themes of the week. 

This first week's prompt was 'Green/Journey' so living in possibly the greenest part of the entire planet I thought I could probably manage this one. Everything in this bit of the soggy pennines seems to be covered in moss, if the people stood still long enough I'm fairly sure we too would be covered in green hairy coats. It's incredible stuff, bright and springy close up but looking like ancient velvet upholstery covering tree trunks and branches. These pictures were taken at Hardcastle Crags, which feels like the epicentre of this wet and sodden land. It is so beautiful though, with a rushing river complete with stepping stones and acres and acres of woodland.

The trees are still clinging to their foliage and except for one or two trees brightly blazing yellow, leaves were mostly still green. We all love it here so much, if we came every day there would be new things to discover and enjoy.

I'm not sure my photography really captured the day - I really wanted to try and get some mossy loveliness but the day was grey and the light flat...challenging conditions for my untutored eye. I enjoyed the challenge though and am looking forward to taking part again next week.

Dark and sweet

In those times of tension brought on by the strains of family life, I often forget what is available to me outside my door. When Rob is around and I know I need to quickly grab some time and space for myself I panic a bit. What to do? A run, a bike ride, some projects that have been waiting to be completed for a long time? I had such a moment on Saturday. I was looking outside at the bright equinox day, unsure about how to best use my time when I heard the woods calling me.

The woods run right up to the back of our house and as soon as I remembered them I knew this was what I  needed. I was quickly out of doors with camera in hand and crossed the yard. Slipping into that dark familiar embrace brought deep and immediate relief. The air smelled sweet and damp, the soft mud of a million fallen leaves squelched deliciously as I walked gratefully up the path. Illuminated leaves shone against the dark, and I was rapt.

There is so much relief and refuge to be found beneath a leafy canopy; these woods are mostly birch, airy and full of life. Ferns and grasses cover the floor, cobwebs stretch across pathways with their spiders dangling from threads, performing aerial tricks and small furry creatures scurry towards hidden dens.

Underneath these kindly boughs seemed to be the perfect place to contemplate the closing of the summer. Where light and dark produce such perfectly balanced beauty, where sharp air fills the lungs and clears the head. It's a good time to take stock of the harvest, both personal and edible, to look at the seeds that were sown last Autumn, see what has come to fruition in our lives and be thankful for our gifts. Here, with the sun playing amongst the translucent forms of the wood, I am thankful for the rest and regeneration that is constantly open to me through connection with the land.

The pagan year is drawing to a close. In a few weeks Samhain will celebrate the new year and welcome in the dark, cold, wet and barren months. No doubt there will be challenging days ahead and I am hoping that, if I can ready myself, perhaps I can weather the winter with a little more grace and patience than usual. Walk, when I can, with the falling leaves and the keen wind, say soft goodbyes to the fading green, remembering that it will return.

Soon, the trees will be stripped to their bare bones and will stand like ranks of skeletons across these hills. But they, like us, will only be resting; putting their energy into their roots, reaching down into the earth for strength and sustenance; ready to emerge next year, into the light once more.

Sylvan wanderings

On last week's walk to and from Kindergarten we noticed an Autumnal nip in the air, enough for Monty to put on his hat. A few fallen birch leaves on the pavement inspired some early season kicking and scrunching. The sun cast its light in the spaces between shadows and the boys ran eagerly into the morning. Instead of taking our usual path across the field and alongside the river Monty asked if we could go on an adventure through the beech wood. The trees on this hillside are tall and bewitching, I am hushed each time I wander beneath their dark boughs.

On this day I noticed nature's details: the colours of decay amongst the green, criss-crossed threads of a spider's silky den and diaphanous canopies high above

After dropping off a confident and happy youngest son, Eli and I carried on our quiet way, stopping off at deserted tennis courts once part of the Cragg Hall estate, their overgrown and crumbling grandeur at odds with the little clubhouse kitchen.

We meandered down to the river where Eli climbed across branchess that hung over the river while I sat with the late summer sun on my eyelids and wondered at this tiny window of harmony we had stumbled upon.

Summer is heaving her last sigh, may we all hold on tightly to these final golden days.

Woods Not Yet Out

closed and containing everything, the land

leaning all round to block it from the wind,

a squirrel sprinting in startles and sees

sections of distance tilted throught he trees

and where you jump the fence ,a flap of sacking

does for a stile, you walk through the webs, the cracking

bushtwigs break their secrecies, the sun

vanishes up, instantly come and gone.

once in, you hardly notice as you move,

the wood keeps lifting up its hope, I love

to stand among the last trees listening down

to the releasing branches where I've been -

the rain, thinking I've gone, crackles the air

and calls by name the leaves that aren't yet there

Alice Oswald