Redwoods, Philosophy, Moss, and Silliness

To the great tree-loving fraternity we belong.  We love trees with universal and unfeigned love, and all things that do grow under them or around them - the whole leaf and root tribe.  ~Henry Ward Beecher



 

Time is what prevents everything from happening at once.  ~John Archibald Wheeler





 

"Let everything happen to you
Beauty and terror
Just keep going
No feeling is final" ~ Rainer Maria Rilke

Fairies are invisible and inaudible like angels.  But their magic sparkles in nature.  ~Lynn Holland




And this, our life, exempt from public haunt, finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, sermons in stones, and good in everything.  ~William Shakespeare




Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind.  ~Dr. Seuss



It is not so much for its beauty that the forest makes a claim upon men's hearts, as for that subtle something, that quality of air that emanation from old trees, that so wonderfully changes and renews a weary spirit.  ~Robert Louis Stevenson





One gets to the heart of the matter by a series of experiences in the same pattern, but in different colors. - Robert Graves 
 



Shall I not have intelligence with the earth?  Am I not partly leaves and vegetable mould myself.  ~Henry David Thoreau





Wisdom is nothing but a preparation of the soul, a capacity, a secret art of thinking, feeling and breathing thoughts of unity at every moment of life. ~ Herman Hesse







And now here is my secret, a very simple secret; it is only with the heart that one can see rightly, what is essential is invisible to the eye. ~ Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Humankind has not woven the web of life.  We are but one thread within it.  Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves.  All things are bound together.  All things connect.  ~Chief Seattle, 1855





In some mysterious way woods have never seemed to me to be static things.  In physical terms, I move through them; yet in metaphysical ones, they seem to move through me.  ~John Fowles





You will find something more in woods than in books.  Trees and stones will teach you that which you can never learn from masters.  ~St. Bernard





A wee child toddling in a wonder world.... I prefer to their dogma my excursions into the natural gardens where the voice of the Great Spirit is heard in the twittering of birds, the rippling of mighty waters, and the sweet breathing of flowers.  If this is Paganism, then at present, at least, I am a Pagan.  ~Zitkala-Sa






There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it.  ~Minnie Aumonier







Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.  ~Albert Einstein





Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.  ~Lao Tzu





A faery hammock deep in a hollow.


Soft moss a downy pillow makes, and green leaves spread a tent,
Where Faerie fold may rest and sleep until their night is spent.
The bluebird sings a lullaby, the firefly gives a light,
The twinkling stars are candles bright, Sleep, Faeries all, Good Night.
~Elizabeth T. Dillingham, "A Faery Song"





A man's growth is seen in the successive choirs of his friends.  ~Ralph Waldo Emerson



The road leading to a goal does not separate you from the destination; it is essentially a part of it. ~ Charles de Lint 





Look at the trees, look at the birds, look at the clouds, look at the stars... and if you have eyes you will be able to see that the whole existence is joyful.  Everything is simply happy.  Trees are happy for no reason; they are not going to become prime ministers or presidents and they are not going to become rich and they will never have any bank balance.  Look at the flowers - for no reason.  It is simply unbelievable how happy flowers are.  ~Osho





Well, some bits of nature don't seem happy.  This fellow seemed sort of grumpy.  So I thought I'd help him frown for a few moments.




 I never saw a discontented tree.  They grip the ground as though they liked it, and though fast rooted they travel about as far as we do.  They go wandering forth in all directions with every wind, going and coming like ourselves, traveling with us around the sun two million miles a day, and through space heaven knows how fast and far!  ~John Muir





The human spirit needs places where nature has not been rearranged by the hand of man.  ~Author Unknown






What would the world be, once bereft
Of wet and wildness?  Let them be left,
O let them be left, wildness and wet,
Long live the weeds and the wildness yet.
~Gerard Manley Hopkins, Inversnaid








Science, like life, feeds on its own decay.  New facts burst old rules; then newly divined conceptions bind old and new together into a reconciling law.  ~William James




So tiny.  See the camera lens at the far right to get a sense of size.






And some tings aren't so tiny.  Watch out Victoria.  The Green Man is right behind you!!!







Nature will bear the closest inspection.  She invites us to lay our eye level with her smallest leaf, and take an insect view of its plain.  ~Henry David Thoreau






Fieldes have eies and woods have eares.  ~John Heywood, 1565





The groves were God's first temples.  ~William Cullen Bryant, "A Forest Hymn"





Another faery hammock, this one was beautifully decorated.

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference. - Robert Frost

Victoria was quite smitten with the deep red branches that were under foot.




I go to nature to be soothed and healed, and to have my senses put in order.  ~John Burroughs





Nature built herself a totem pole full of faces.





Fire is an integral part of a grove's history.




As the poet said, "only God can make a tree" - probably because it's so hard to figure out how to get the bark on.  ~Woody Allen





Trees are the earth's endless effort to speak to the listening heaven.  ~Rabindranath Tagore, Fireflies, 1928





Hair style is the final tip-off whether or not a woman really knows herself.  ~Hubert de Givenchy, Vogue, July 1985





There are rich counsels in the trees.  ~Herbert P. Horne





When the student is ready, the master appears.  ~Buddhist Proverb

We are spirits clad in veils.  ~Christopher P. Cranch

If you would know strength and patience, welcome the company of trees.  ~Hal Borland





 
Alice came to a fork in the road.  "Which road do I take?" she asked.
"Where do you want to go?" responded the Cheshire cat.
"I don't know," Alice answered.
"Then," said the cat, "it doesn't matter."
~Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

Wandering Through Redwood Country

I'm relaxed, tuckered out in a happy way, so I'm not gonna work too hard to make this post witty.  Just gonna share some of the most interesting photos from a fun day driving up Highway 101.



Look at the beautiful shadow world inside the pond.




Rocks trying to be a tree.



A tree spirit emerges.



And another one!



Gandolf and a Hobbit house.



This one takes a bit more explanation.  There were these really oddly creepy but cute rabbits in the window of a real estate office.  There were quite a few of them but I couldn't really get a photo because of all the daytime reflections.  You can just barely make out a few of them.



I like how it looks like Victoria is throwing out a "shadow" of light.



A floating fae or a ball of light?  Or do I repeat myself?



Beautiful colors and shapes.



Several faces clinging to the side of a redwood.



"Not all who wander are lost."  Some people (including tree people) grow straight toward their goal and others spend time taking a creative wandering path. 



Nature's lace.



Three caballeros.



A forest gnome pays homage before a redwood giant.  Or.....



The Pink Lady - Eureka, CA.  If you've ever been to this location, you'll appreciate this next bit.  I'm driving down the street and Victoria is pointing at the Pink Lady and saying "Oooh, look at that Victorian! It's so detailed.  So amazing!" And I point across the street and say "Yeah, but not as amazing as that one."  She turned her head and GASPED "OHMYGAWD!!!!"  It was really funny.  Don't know what I'm taking about?  Go here.



Who's a night owl?  Whoooo?  Whooooooo?

 

I wanna eat off a rainbow!