How glorious a greeting the sun gives the mountains! naturalist John Muir
One perk of walking the dog in the morning is seeing the sun rise. Not much color on the ground, but the sky was glorious today. You can see it change over a period of about 20 minutes. Enjoy!
All images ©2011 Lynn Emberg Purse, All Rights Reserved
Never did pine trees seem so dear. How sweet was their breath and their song, and how grandly they winnowed the sky! naturalist John Muir, from “Steep Trail”
It seems fitting at this time of year, when we bring pine and holly into our homes to celebrate the holidays, to give some thought to trees. I have been in love with trees my entire life, spending hours in the woods as a child, walking among them, climbing them, reading beneath them. Not surprisingly, I was married in a grove of plum trees on my parents’ farm; the night before the wedding, the trees on the farm came to me in a dream and promised me that they would be there as witnesses. Then they sang the most beautiful song, with voices deeper than the deepest Russian men’s choir. That song, untranslatable into earthly song, has always stayed with me.
Trees figure large in the human imagination, in myth and archetype, in holy writ. The notion of the sacred tree is present in most cultures. The idea of towering giants whose roots are as deep as their heads are high is profound and symbolic, even as they feed us, shelter us, transport us and hold us in their arms. After reading Julie Moir Messervy’s “The Inward Garden” which uses an archetypal approach to garden design, I created my lower garden around the idea of a cosmic tree at its center. It is a small weeping cherry surrounded by a tall hardwood forest, a still point in the center of the swirl of trees and flowers and birds.
Surrounded by these same trees as I was sitting on my deck (and perhaps remembering my wedding eve dream,) I was inspired to write Trees of Righteousness, a three movement choral work commissioned to celebrate the 125th anniversary of our university.
Here’s a brief clip from the first movement: (Text: They shall be called trees of righteousness, planted by the Lord)
Many musical instruments, including guitars, cellos, pianos, and wooden flutes, are constructed from the wood of trees, perhaps extending the voice of the tree in another way. It is conjectured that Antonio Stradivari used the wood of very slow growing trees (see the Maunder Minimum hypothesis) that ultimately became his celebrated violins.
And finally, here is a link to an unusual video of a man, Diego Stucco, who chose to make music with a living tree. Enjoy.
All images (except wedding photo), audio and text of “Trees That Sing” ©2011 Lynn Emberg Purse, All Rights Reserved
Bows and flows of angel hair and ice cream castles in the air, and feather canyons everywhere, I’ve looked at clouds that way. Joni Mitchell, “Both Sides Now”
I am short of words this week but filled with images of clouds. I thought I would try the new photo carousel in WP. Enjoy.
For a true devotee of clouds, visit the 365 Days of Clouds site
All images of “Looking Up” ©2011 Lynn Emberg Purse, All Rights Reserved. Please do not reblog.
The speed of light is the same for all observers, no matter what their relative speeds. Einstein
Tonight the air is crisp and cold and the sky is bright with winter stars and a growing half moon. Cassiopeia and the Big Dipper float over the roof of the house and Orion the Hunter is rising in the southern sky.
The “more than half” moon is bright enough to cast shadows across the dark tangle of the garden and thread between the almost leafless trees. The four seasons seem an inadequate description for the ongoing flow of changes that I notice in the garden; it morphs from moment to moment each time I step outside. As I set up my camera for a long exposure, I think of a card that a friend sent describing the thirteen moons of the native American tribes. What is this moon tonight? Harvest is over and winter will arrive soon; perhaps this is a liminal moon, a threshold between the season that has ended and the one yet to arrive.
The lyrics and melody to “Light” (See blog post Fire and Light) run through my head and keep me out in the cold night gazing up at the sky. “Gathered on the waters, reflected by the moon, even once removed, its power streams into the night. Light . . .” The piece is being premiered in ten days and I am preparing the visual media that is part of the performance. Solar flares, clouds across the moon and the water, light sifting through trees and clouds – the images and the music are inextricably intertwined and indeed, this piece was born from nights spent just like this, in the quiet of the garden filled with light.
Here is a sneak preview of part of the piece, with a MIDI soundtrack sans sung lyrics. The lyrics to the clip shown above:
Light, Light, Light. . .
Gathered on the waters,
reflected by the moon.
Even once removed, its power
streams into the night,
Light, Light, Light . . .
Words and music by Lynn Emberg Purse, ©2011, All Rights Reserved
Text and images/media of “At the Speed of Light” ©2011 Lynn Emberg Purse, All Rights Reserved
I stood on a hill in Dunoon, Scotland, in the middle of March many years ago. Powerful winds brought a succession of rain, sleet, snow, hail, and sunshine over and over again in the course of an hour – a microcosm of the turbulent transition from one season to another. The change of seasons this week in Western Pennsylvania was less compressed – spread over days rather than minutes – but otherwise not so different. The week began with a warm evening on the deck, listening to what surely would be the final cicada and frog chorus of the season. Gusty winds brought cold temperatures and days of rain, followed by an enchantingly beautiful misty morning immediately followed by a snowy morning, all in less than a week.
Though I’m reluctant to acknowledge the end of the gardening season and the coming of winter, I must admit that I love the turbulent changes that the seasons’ transitions bring. There is a certain security in knowing that one season will follow another, an overarching stability of structure. But the passage from one state to another is filled with chaos, unpredictability and extreme fluctuations. It is this push pull of change and stability that fascinates me, and it seems to be at the heart of my artistic endeavors as well. Achieving a balance between the familiar and the novel, the security of what has been done and the adventure of exploring new ideas, is an ongoing dynamic in my work, and perhaps in my life as well.
A video celebration of nature’s transitions in my garden, set to the music of “Falling” from “Three States of Being.”
Here’s another take on the idea of transitions as passages, courtesy of Margie Strosser.
All text and images of “Turbulent Transitions” ©2011 Lynn Emberg Purse, All Rights Reserved
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