Tag: Nature

Autumn flowers

I am sitting in the living room with the Christmas tree on my right hand and a crackling fire in the tile stove on my left. Both the night and day have been stormy and the mild spring feeling turned into dry and cold winter weather, but with a clear light blue sky. A day like this one, my thoughts turn to the warm colours of autumn. There are two species that stand out, perhaps because of their soft lilac colour, October aster and the autumn crocus.

The october aster

While the October aster is hardier with small flowers in abundance, the autumn crocus is more gentle and on the verge of surrealistic. You find it there in the bare soil of the flowerbed without any fragrance and without leaves to accompany the weak flowers, but with a colour that even the bright roses of summer would be proud of.

Autumn crocus

Golden Sunset

When I set out for a walk, I never really know if the sunset will be outstanding or not. Often I begin the walk some time before the sunset is at its height with bright colours contrasted with the failing light. This cold evening we started walking first to the north and then turned east and then south. The evening was already turning quite dark and we decided to walk across the fields to enjoy the last of the light . Then suddenly the sun said goodbye in a splendid show of golden colours. Speechless one stands there trying to comprehend the beauty, but it surpasses my mind and in this moment solace is mingled with impatience. Solace to sense something magnificent, impatience to not be able to grasp the beauty in its essence, just to watch it from the outside.

Just another moment of a beautiful sunset.

Sunday colours

There is few things as beautiful as fog in the morning a winter day… A walk that lasted some hours, cold but very beautiful.

I love these lonley roads, especially on Sunday forenoons when people prefer being at home, I suppose taking a long breakfast. There is a silence in the air created, I think, by the low temperature, as if every creature is economising with even the callings to save some energy. Even the thoughts become sparse, the mind listening to the sound of birds flapping and one’s own footsteps in the snow.

A lovely walk in the snow

The snow comes and goes, and with it the reflection of the sun on the ground. One never really knows how the walk will turn out, as this walk with Toby. We had been waking for one and a half hour then suddenly the sun found its way through the clouds and we are standing there bathed in winter evening light. I appreciate these gems of moments very much. I think it is because I am not in control, and thus can receive it as a gift.

A moment of remembering

It was more than seven years ago. I got up before the others in the house. It was the month of April, thus nature was not in her complete spring colours, but the mornings were bright, full of smells and sounds. Toby was just some months old and as all puppies, an early bird. This particular morning we took a stroll along our little lake. While standing by the edge of the lake, the air together with the rising sun created an almost unreal feeling. Toby was fascinated by the water, but also by the light I think. He sat for a long time just looking at the surface. It was a lovely time which I still would like to return to, the silence, the light, the warm air.

Toby by the lake

As the years have passed I have tried to realise that some moments just don’t repeat themselves. They remain there in your soul accompaning you through life. Toby isn’t a puppy anymore, the lake is different.

Some months ago my sister and I was returning home from a walk with the dogs. Passing by the lake at another place I was suddenly struck by the same feeling and the same ambience. He sat there, looking at the lake, now seven years old, attentive. Just a moment of silence, now at dusk and the lake partially covered by ice. A quick feeling of gratefulness and surprise came over me to, to just for some seconds, get hold of the same feeling of a slight unreality created by sun and water.

A fire in the woods

I took a walk in the forest one day and came upon a fire in the woods without any people around it. It rendered an almost faërie tale atmosphere to the situation, as if I had come upon a secret meeting among faëries. The firewood was red and inviting and at the same time I felt like an intruder. I passed it and followed my path to the little farm in the middle of the forest, standing close to a small river with an old broken water mill, dreaming undisturbed dreams to the music of streaming water under a thick layer of ice.