The light in my forest

My land is composed of 2 acres of overgrown forest. It is one of several lots on my street that you can’t see the houses from the street. I was intrigued by the mystery of not knowing what was down the driveway. My house sets in the middle of the 2 acres. Each room has large windows that allow you to have a panoramic view of 2 sides of the forest. There is very little evidence of the surrounding suburb. You can almost believe that the birds and occasional small animals scurrying around were the only neighbors. And somewhere in the sounds and colors of nature bouncing through the trees, you overwhelmed with a sense of life. The sounds always take me back to the hot days of summer church camp in Cedar Hill. While it is memories of being hot and miserable, they are always outweighed by the tremendous sense of peace and tranquility that comes from being aware of being in the center of God’s creation. It is a sound that made me think the trees were so hot that their branches and leaves could only creek in pain. It is possible that it certain type of bird or the chirping of crickets, but whatever it is my property is full of it. And the afternoons on my land can take me back to those childhood afternoons of peace.

But it is the light that really intrigues me. Light that filters through the trees to the bottom of the forest. Light that makes every leaf, every limb, every branch, unique, vital, alive. In the summer, there are thousands of greens against lines of brown. It makes me want to take needle and yarn and fill a canvas of hundreds of green loops. In the hottest part of the summer and through the fall, the colors change, the cedars hold on their green as the other greens fade away. Eventually the greens have become oranges and then they are gone. In the winter, the light drops through a back drop of brown limbs and branches. The darkness of the trees is so stark against the winter light. At first, my eyes are captivated by how quickly the light is dropping to the floor of the forest. My line of sight never reaches the forest floor: it always caught by the bare limbs and driven upward, upward in praise. There are those rare winter days that water freezes on the limbs and my forest becomes a brilliant field of diamonds blowing in the wind.

It is not only the light from the sun that creates the palate of my forest. Each cycle of the moon through each season the year leaves each own highlights on the forest. Night after night I watch as the moonlight moves up and down, side to side in my forest. During the full moon my forest is a very dark place.

(time frame May-June)