tahoe snow (tree story #95)

Sunny, clear, warm, snow on the ground but no jackets required. Decided to take a day trip up to Tahoe - try to get a bit of snow in before it’s all gone. So little has fallen this year, there’s only about sixty percent of normal snow pack. And now it’s forecast to be quite warm this next full week. Highs in the valley are supposed to be nearly eighty today - Tahoe is predicted to be low sixty’s - certainly feels spring like. We’ve brought all our cold weather gear - all we really need are boots for tromping in the snow...

Just north of McKinney Bay - I have to climb up on top of the snow drift - occasionally stepping into knee deep snow - coming back toward the car I see the snow comes nearly to the edge of the lake. Getting there I step through a few more times, a little worried that I could catch my leg between rocks along the shoreline -

Judith Monroe, Wanderings journal

wild & cultivated (tree story #138)

When she was little she used to draw trees. It was natural. The earth was a healing ground for finding her core of peace and inside this core the voice of God. Through the years her tree drawings would come and go, become modern and jagged branches or watercolored maps of the woods. It was natural. The imagery of the tree always drew her inward again and then outward to feel the simple joy of nature and the gifts of life so evident in the colors and textures of the many trees found in the forest, local parks, and the hills of California.

Trees, wild or cultivated, ancient or sweet seedlings in a row, spoke to her and, when she couldn’t laugh at home, the trees would help her find that personal sense of freedom again. Life is packed with challenges and pain along with indescribable joy and walking a path lined with trees or touching fingertips to bark or gazing at the amazing patterns in leaves was a way to find that joy again when it was lost in the hardships. Trees hold fast, stand tall, and offer protection from the burn of a hammering sun. Trees reach up and out while staying rooted like sentinels. They remind her of the strength to be found deep inside even when weakness wants to rule. They remind her of the need for balance in being strong but also receptive, keeping arms wide to the higher power like the tree welcomes the sky in order to survive.

When she grew old she would draw trees now and then between carrying a camera out for a daily walk of capturing images of another tree or field or wild flower dancing in the wind. She grew old with trees as her friend and forever thinks of trees as inspiration and a gift from God that keeps her sane when the world seems not. Trees forever reach until the end and so she goes on, reaching, lifting face and heart to heaven in surety that she is rooted deeply as a loved child loving the magic of God’s creation … even when the clouds darken and rain comes she can sense the Son rising in her heart to nurture her with everlasting life.

Susan Raines

with eager hope (tree story #108)

Yet what we suffer now is nothing compared to the glory he will reveal to us later. For all creation is waiting eagerly for that future day when God will reveal who his children really are. Against its will, all creation was subjected to God’s curse. But with eager hope, the creation looks forward to the day when it will join God’s children in glorious freedom from death and decay. For we know that all creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. And we believers also groan, even though we have the Holy Spirit within us as a foretaste of future glory, for we long for our bodies to be released from sin and suffering. We, too, wait with eager hope for the day when God will give us our full rights as his adopted children, including the new bodies he has promised us. We were given this hope when we were saved. (If we already have something, we don’t need to hope for it. But if we look forward to something we don’t yet have, we must wait patiently and confidently.)

Romans 8:18-25

still singing (tree story #97)

10 a.m. sunny, warm & clear. Songbirds singing, kids playing, voices echo in the quiet hills. No sign of life on the vines yet, grass & other little plants green up the ground. I wander around a bit and see about a half dozen mule deer carefully work their way along the west edge of the vineyards in the bordering oak woods where the light will be better later...

6 p.m. Light clouds coming in - little less intense light than last evening - cooling just a little, songbirds are still singing. Clouds shift, the earth moves around the sun, the light shifts and changes. Vineyard to the southwest, framed by trees and a stone wall.

Judith Monroe, Wanderings journal

ghost (tree story #92)

It was just as she said it would be: the reddish light glancing off the hill, filtering through the summer’s yellowing grass. I was close to where the blue oak should be. “Stop,” I said, for no other reason than to hear a sound other than the scrub jay’s shrill retorts, the barb-wire twanging from a breeze somewhere along the fence’s many-miled length. I knelt to sit momma’s ashes down in the grass. Instead of the soft thud, porcelain against earth, there was a resounding thunk. I swept away pebbled dirt and wisps of straw-grass, to find - momma’s tree, leveled by something stronger than the 50 years that had passed since she was last here. A deep cleft scarred the trunk where lightning had broken it like a promise. I pulled the faded picture from my back pocket; the tree momma spent much of her childhood around now only existed on its yellowing surface. In the evening light, the blue oak seemed to shimmer and ghost across the film: gone was the knot where it had grown around the barb wire fence, metal sticking out its trunk like a rotted tooth; gone were the limbs stretching like compass points over the horizon to anywhere except here; gone was momma’s name carved with a chunk of broken glass; gone was momma’s wish to climb it one last time. The meadow swayed arid and dusty in the heat as I picked up the jar, the orange of the sunset arcing across the porcelain. I started to pull the top off the vase, then put it back on, tucked the vase under my arm and walked back across the field to my car. Momma had come too far to find out she could never go home.

Indigo Moor

meditations (tree story #78)

Faithful tree! Freeing us from your forbidden ancestor’s curse,
The birthplace of empty promises and lies.
Pestilence and toil, war and hatred, pride and fear and despair
-The tyranny of sin and death-
All find their ultimate end when the gardener
Nails payment to your branches.

Tree of beauty! Not resin but blood flowing down those branches,
Blood to wash the world from stain,
Blood to reconcile wayward sons and daughters to the Father,
Blood to make one people.

Sweet tree! None in fruit thy peer may be.
Your long-awaited Divine fruit giving nourishment,
Only antidote to the toxic ancient fruit,
Fruit to produce fruit.
The purchased feast under your boughs,
The beloved discovers that she has become someone else
As the crimson juice trickles down her chin.

Tree of victory! Among your branches the partridge rules over the serpent,
And the aged remember the first dawn and recognize the day:
The second creation, pardoned and beyond tarnish or corruption.

Glorious tree! Leaves unfurling after the frost
Drink the Light and prove that Winter’s spell has broken.
Lush foliage erupting over the hills testifies to this newness of life,
Quivering silver medallions hanging from tender stems whisper of riches beyond measure.
Great tree, point heavenward lest I forget the ever-circling Sovereignty.


Karen Garven

the taller tree (tree story #68)

I was in China on a mission. One of the many things we did on this adventure was meet at this small tea house for something called English Corner. English Corner was a chance for some of the locals to come in and practice their English with those who were fluent. I got a chance to hold a conversation with an older Chinese woman who happened to be a single mother of one little girl. During our conversation she seemed to not only be able to practice her English with me but started to open up to me about what was currently stressing her. She was sad for her daughter. She had noticed that her daughter of eight years old had begun to develop a strong artistic talent. The little girl wanted so bad to be an artist and she constantly practiced her creativity at home and in school. What saddened the mother was that this was not acceptable in their culture. Her family was against it, the school was against it and the little girl’s friends made fun of her. The lady then explained that in this place it is not acceptable to be the taller tree. That everyone must be on the same plane as everyone else. The little girl was not allowed to branch out, she must remained pruned back. Her daughter was a tree that could not become the full majesty that she was created to be. She wished so bad that she could send her daughter to America where her daughter could grow among the shores of freedom. Ever since this conversation I realized how blessed I have been to grow in a place that encourages artistic growth. I pray for this girl even to this day. I even had a dream that she was able to finally grow beyond the trees next to her and become the height that God had planned for her talents. This tree story is dedicated to this little girl.

Jared Konopitski

under the shade (tree story #50)

One day the angel of God came and sat down under the oak in Ophrah that belonged to Joash the Abiesrite, whose son Gideon was threshing wheat in the winepress, out of sight of the Midianites. The angel of God appeared to him and said, “God is with you, O mighty warrior!”
Gideon replied, “With me, my master? If God is with us, why has all this happened to us? Where are all the miracle-wonders our parents and grandparents told us about, telling us, ‘Didn’t God deliver us from Egypt?’ The fact is, God has nothing to do with us - he has turned us over to Midian.”
But God faced him directly: “Go in this strength that is yours. Save Israel from Midian. Haven’t I just sent you?”
Gideon said to him, “Me, my master? How and with what could I ever save Israel? Look at me. My clan’s the weakest in Manesseh and I’m the runt of the litter.”
God said to him, “I’ll be with you. Believe me, you’ll defeat Midian as one man.”
Gideon said, “If you’re serious about this, do me a favor: Give me a sign to back up what you’re telling me. Don’t leave until I come back and bring you my gift.”
He said, “I’ll wait till you get back.”
Gideon went and prepared a young goat and a huge amount of unraised bread (he used over half a bushel of flour!). He put the meat in a basket and the broth in a pot and took them back under the shade of the oak tree for a sacred meal.
The angel of God said to him, “Take the meat and unraised bread, place them on the rock, and pour the broth on them.” Gideon did it.
The angel of God stretched out the tip of the stick he was holding and touched the meat and the bread. Fire broke out of the rock and burned up the meat and bread while the angel of God slipped away out of sight. And Gideon knew it was the angel of God!
Gideon said, “Oh no! Master, God! I have seen the angel of God face to face!”
But God reassured him, “Easy now. Don’t panic. You won’t die.”
Then Gideon built an altar there to God and named it “God’s Peace.” It’s still called that at Ophrah of Abiezer.

Judges 6

things we cannot see (tree story # 43)

Though our bodies are dying, our spirits are being renewed everyday. For our present troubles are small and won’t last very long. Yet they produce for us a glory that vastly outweighs them and will last forever! So we don’t look at the troubles we can see now; rather, we fix our gaze on things that cannot be seen. For the things we see now will soon be gone, but the things we cannot see will last forever.

2 Corinthians 4: 16-18

castle in they sky (tree story #42)

The little girl tugs on the man's sleeve and, with longing in her eyes pleads, "Please Daddy? Will you build me a tree house? I can go there to have tea parties with my dolls. And how fun to peek down on the tiny people on the ground!"

The man contemplates the tree as if through his daughter's eyes. What is childhood without a tree house? Could he ever live up to his title of “Daddy” if he were to push this request aside? Did he not ache for the same thing when he grew up in a suburban home that offered no hope of a castle in the sky?

Of course he will do it. The weekend is free to get started right away. Lumber is purchased, designs drawn, dad and daughter excited at the thought of seeing it built. The floor first. Maybe a roof next, but plan to protect the growing branches that burst forth from the rafters. And walls are a must. Those teacups need shelves to store them, and windows with lace curtains to waft in the breeze.

The little girl moves in right away, happy with just a floor. Her dolls can imagine the rest. Walls? Who needs walls when the sun offers the warmth and security that those very walls would block? Spring blossoms peek in the windows that do not even exist. She is content.

The pleasant seasons offer hours of escape in her tree house. Daddy visits, but the excitement of the building process is dampened by other duties, other projects, maybe another day?

Fall turns to winter. The leaves vacate the tree, as does the little girl.

Maybe next spring will be time enough to get to those important details: roof, walls, a rope to climb.

Then again, the little girl is growing. Tea parties and dolls may be stored away and replaced with more young womanly things. Maybe a tree house with no walls will offer her the freedom to grow without boxing her in.

Lisa Van Aken

reunion (tree story #17)

Took a drive over to James’ and Janet’s property - some day a retirement home will be there - wandered around and talked of plans, admired views, this cluster of trees marks the property line at one point.

Back at Butch and Linda’s I set off to wander again. Little cousin Edie wants to come along, so I sit down by the naked ladies to wait for her to put her shoes on. Edie takes me for a walk and shows me the creek through the gate, just off the property. This is her grandparents’ house and she knows her way around pretty well - as well as any seven-year-old would. But I think Edie took me through poison - I hope not - I was watching her instead of watching out.

We wander back onto the property; Edie finds her brother’s long lost hat and her long lost doll. We camp out on the big rock outcropping I stopped at yesterday and I let her shoot a few frames on the Izone, I shoot a couple with the Land Camera. “Grandma and Grandpa’s woods” hold high adventure: Edie climbs a tree to fetch an old light switch plate made of clear blue plastic and adorned with silver glitter. Old treasures abound here.

The light is fading - I’m guessing it’s time to head back.

Judith Monroe, Wanderings journal

endless battle (tree story #141)

Still it stands, the tree of life
holding its ground
struggling to survive the endless battle.

Still it comes, the mist of death
unleashing its powers
trying to win the endless battle.

Still there is, an equilibrium
balancing the scales
making sure there is an endless battle.

Still I wonder, could someone win
life or death, growth or decay
bringing an end to the endless battle.

Magnus Holmgren

love

The last in this little series, another 8x8" mixed media collage, $95 currently at my studio in Midtown Sacramento, contact me for details.

joy

another 8x8" mixed media collage on canvas, $95 - contact for availability ;)

quercus woodland #44

Mixed media collage with Polaroid transfer on canvas (6x6") $75 - contact for availability -

quercus woodland #37

Mixed media collage with Polaroid transfer on canvas (6x6") $75 - contact for availability -

quercus woodland #31

Mixed media collage with Polaroid transfer on canvas (6x6") $75 - contact for availability -

quercus woodland #27

Mixed media collage with Polaroid transfer on canvas (6x6") $75 - contact for availability -

quercus woodland #25

Mixed media collage with Polaroid transfer on canvas (6x6") $75 - contact for availability -

quercus woodland #24

Mixed media collage with Polaroid transfer on canvas (6x6") $75 - contact for availability -