Walking through an aspen grove during golden hour is one of my favorite ways of seeing the beauty of the everyday.
Autumn's Jewels
Green to Gold
Singing and Thinking
Martin Heidegger, one of the greatest minds of all time, was born 125 years ago on September 26. Phew, just made it!
This is my favorite poem of his:
When the evening light, slanting into
the woods somewhere, bathes the tree
trunks in gold...
Singing and thinking are the stems
neighbor to poetry.
They grow out of Being and reach into
its truth.
Their relationship makes us think of what
Hölderlin sings of the trees of the
woods.
"And to each other they remain unknown,
So long as they stand, the neighboring
trunks."
A careful eye could detect that the above smartphone photo does not feature evening light. But fear not! At some point, I would like to put together a visual collection to illustrate every text from Heidegger's "Thinker as Poet."
Aspen in Fading Light
Spring Like Autumn
Aspen Masquerading as Birches
I walked through a prairie aspen grove just before noon.
"One, two, three? Don't touch me!"
Even the trileaf poison ivy, littering the way, parted to let me through.
And the aspen themselves bowed before me, and their leaves did whisper my name.
But I can't be sure. It might have been the breeze.
地、 水 、火、風、空
It is not particularly difficult to illustrate one of the elemental systems--earth, water, fire, wind, and sky, in this case--with a single image.
Making it simple increases that challenge.
Aspen Candles
Walking the dog just before sunset, I noticed that aspen catkins lit by the golden hour resembled a thousand little candles (albeit hanging upside down and synchronously moving in the wind, as if nodding). Just for the record, I didn't nod back!
P.S. Normally, I remove the "blue glow (line) of death" caused by direct sunlight, but here, it adds to the impressionistic quality of the image. That's my story, and I'm sticking to it!