Acadian Old Growth Forest

I want to find words for the experience i have in The Forest, being in the old growth stands.

So Bear with me

It feels like my chest is opened, like the entrance to the secret cave of my heart of hearts becomes accessible and so to the breadth, depth and juicy creative gratitude that it holds. That's one way of trying to describe the spaciousness in the feeling of humility that comes from being dwarfed by something not made by man.
This isn't in the least distressing- being dwarfed- on the contrary, I gladly relax into remembering being held within a larger reality, belonging to it as a part of a whole does, being clear on my size in relation to the world, sandwiched happily between the large and the small.
The lychens and mosses offer so many variations on the melody of green. Watering my dry eyes they initiate a respectful and grounded sense of the awesome miniature worlds that florish everywhere . OH and the brooks... oh sheer magic this moving music of water and how it curves through the landscape. It coaxes strange gurgles of delight from my throat and wipes the straight lines from my face. my joints are thankfull too. They humm to the spring of the ground, so relieved for it's give.

Linden

I do love the smell that gently permeates the city's air once the linden's are in bloom.
It's distinctively fresh and sweet that smell and I associate it with summer...
like sun dried laundry and that small ground cover weed that likes to be crushed and
smells like green apples but is called pineapple plant I believe.
I'm always thankful to have such a luxury in the city.

bye bye old timers

Walking around with the kids, I've been noticing the damage caused to trees by the last windstorm.
Quite a few mature maples and a couple elms lost big branches. Later they were cut down but not all the way. And while it is less of a shock somehow- I still get the pleasure of gazing at root structure and miniature landscapes in moss and grass, of looking straight at the rough and intricate texture of bark, still their death is obvious in the fresh cuts. They look so vulnerable and naked and strangely human devoid of all their "appendages". Having witnessed so much-seems hard to imagine the street scape without them. My son asked about the squirrel we saw regularly in one of them, worried about him not having a home any more.
In a few cases there was no sign of rot or damage sufficient to necessitate such Draconian measures- couldn't help but wonder if people anxious about their property had taken the opportunity to remove what could be perceived as a future threat.
There are signs, traffic signs, no parking signs on a few them and so the trunks, up to the first division into branches, have been kept. If you were wrapped up enough in what was at eye level or bellow- If you didn't look up you might not even notice them gone. It's winter after all, and you wouldn't miss the foliage. there's one like that on Robie just before North.
When I think of how many mature tree there are in this area of the city and how much they enhance the quality of life in terms of air quality, shade, visual beauty, noise reduction and all round calming nature... I get attached and worry that there is nothing in place to ensure renewal, replanting, staggering to help strengthen an urban forest rendered vulnerable by trees weakened by age at the same time.

cedar shakes

It's a quiet, cold and kind of misty morn until I come in range of Manfred Man singing his heart out- you know the song: Bliiinded by the light, we were bliiiiinded by the light- Earthband's big and much giggled over hit (did he say DOUCHE?)
So ya Manfred singing. But picture this.... the big sound, blaring tunes? It's coming out of a very petite blaster plugged into a large extension cord- the bright orange kind?-that wraps it's way around the building, past the guy putting up new shingles and a fancy new sign, up the side stairs off the parking lot and into what will always be known to me as Snow's funeral home.

I repeat FUNERAL HOME.... are you with me???? Blinded.... we were Blinded by the light....

Glad I'm not a carry my latte kind of gal cuz you KNOW I would have sprayed that sucker all over the baby. All I could do was give him a big thumbs up with my red mittened hand. Nice one buddy. You made my day.
Snow's is where my grandparents and great aunt went or displayed or whatever and heck even a colleague of mine had her visitation there. It's becoming another Cruikshanks apparently. The Dignity logo has taken center stage. Very Six Feet Under.


Anyway with the change comes a revamp and I've been watching the slickyfication in progress. And last Tuesday there was guy on scaffolding nailing up shingles- nice neutral silvery gray.

Stretch

The answer to the telephone pole question is: usually cedar- mind you that's off of yahoo answers and may not be accurate for our neck of the woods...

The first time I remember being asked emulate a tree I was 7. It was an introduction to dance class and I was the only one with a pink leotard. Made my Buddha belly that much more obvious. The other little girls wore black over pink. How posh of them right? I had begged to go to this thing. It was a lot of money. I couldn't even formulate what was wrong when I refused to go back getting grounded as a consequence. The only thing that I truly enjoyed during that miserable class was when we pretended to be an elephant and then a tree, reaching up up up, sending roots waaaaaaay down low from the bottom of our feet.

In Hatha yoga the tree pose is associated with the root chakra said to connect to survival, primal urges, safety and security issues. Some people say a person has lost their connection with earth's energy if he or she cannot hold tree pose. Guess my earth energy has always been strong.

I did some yoga yesterday- including tree pose- to ground myself.
First snow, only a few yellow stragglers left on the nearly bare branches. I used to get paralysed with fear of falling around this time of year. Icy slippery conditions still get my heart rate up. aim for limber legs and centered weight my physiotherapist told me once.

Question

Walking around the city with a stack of posters to put up.

It's illegal to poster on the poles in Halifax. You can get fined apparently.

Nevermind. The old ones ripped or peeled, staples stipple: birchbark. The poles are branch less tree trunks. Sticks whittled by big machines. The posters are paper from trees. I can feel a poem percolating. I won't staple leaves back on you, bones of trees. A new layer of bark won't bring you back. I'll stick them on windows instead: wet yellow leaves, some of them forcasting future wild nights.

I don't know what kind of tree poles are made of. Do you? The buses that buzz me have names like Lacewood and Hemlock ravine.

fruit trees and education

Wendell Berry. Manifesto: The Mad Farmer's Liberation Front. Dates back to 73 and I'm learning it by heart. Lovely turn of phrase that eh? By Heart? So that you can have it there with you at all times.
Been a while since I've used my brain that way. First time I can remember was in school in France. Can't remember what poem it was though. Maybe something by Victor Hugo? I do remember the venerable pear tree in the court yard where we went to play for la récré- as in recreation- and how the asphalt came right up to it's roots. How did it drink I wondered. We had pears in the fall to snack on or throw- though doing the latter would result in classic punishment: ear pulling and writing lines on the chalkboard. I suppose that`s another way to memorise something. I never threw pears. Too tasty to waste.
Around here there are a few good apple trees along the steep hill up to Needham park.