It's been a while since I was able to take a breath and write something here. I miss it. I have been off-kilter and running ragged with "to-do's" for the last couple months. OK, so perhaps even longer than that.
However, with only today and tomorrow in class and the Thanksgiving break looming large before me, my spirits are lifted and I think this may be the best Thanksgiving ever! Adding to this rarefied state is the fact that the only contribution I need make for Thanksgiving is an apple pie! I thought prior to last week I was going to host the dinner in some wild mad rush since I had previously committed to being two states away earlier in the day. Now, life is looking good.
Add to this that almost all my Christmas decorating is finished and the presents are wrapped as they are bought - All is calm, All is bright!
Monday, November 22, 2010
Saturday, November 6, 2010
Hemlocks
Now that the trees have shed their leaves and it appears that a person is looking at the world's bare skeleton, the view is so remarkably different. The Hemlocks are standing out. It's all very reminiscent of the forest primeval of Longellow's Evangeline:
On days when the fog lies heavy on the fallen leaves and moves in and around the trunks of the oaks which stand like sentinels, I am reminded most of Longfellow. The way the branches of the young hemlocks sweep the ground and the majesty of the ancient ones towering over the earth gives me romantic impulses (historic romantic, not emotional romantic). Of course, there is also the poisoned cup of hemlock taken by Socrates. However, the 1st Nations people supposedly used the leafy twigs of hemlock for tea used to treat colds, fevers, stomach and instestinal issues and scurvy. They also used it for steam baths. I know I had an anthropology professor who had some pictures of the boughs lining a teepee, which I thought were hemlock but may have been spruce. So you may well ask, what is the point to these ramblings?
To which I reply, merely this: when the leafy distractions of nature have blown off and the world once more seems stark and we can view the bare bones of life, we can appreciate the underlay that is normally overlooked and all that it connotes.
"This is the forest primeval. The murmuring
pines and the hemlocks,
bearded with moss, and in garments green, indis-
tinct in the twilight,
Stand like Druids of eld, with voices sad and
prophetic,
Stand like harpers hoar, with beards that rest on
their bosoms." (1-8)
On days when the fog lies heavy on the fallen leaves and moves in and around the trunks of the oaks which stand like sentinels, I am reminded most of Longfellow. The way the branches of the young hemlocks sweep the ground and the majesty of the ancient ones towering over the earth gives me romantic impulses (historic romantic, not emotional romantic). Of course, there is also the poisoned cup of hemlock taken by Socrates. However, the 1st Nations people supposedly used the leafy twigs of hemlock for tea used to treat colds, fevers, stomach and instestinal issues and scurvy. They also used it for steam baths. I know I had an anthropology professor who had some pictures of the boughs lining a teepee, which I thought were hemlock but may have been spruce. So you may well ask, what is the point to these ramblings?
To which I reply, merely this: when the leafy distractions of nature have blown off and the world once more seems stark and we can view the bare bones of life, we can appreciate the underlay that is normally overlooked and all that it connotes.
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