Landscape 2

Quiet leafy pathway in summer

This was an edge-of-field track for tractors and farm vehicle to get round the edge of the large field areas to the right of the shot, now hardly used at all, and so it become a quiet leafy walkway for folks and their dogs - and the occasional horse ! - and in summer, it has the smells and the lushness of all that good growth all around it. A joy to be in.

Left overs of a community from many hundreds of years ago.

These ruins have a few walls and two turrets still standing but the majority of it is simply the natural flat stones on the ground that have been excavated to show the overall floor plan of what was once an extensive castle with all the living and trade areas those people who walked and lived and breathed here, all that time ago, shared together, in the middle of what was then, and is now, a quiet and beautiful natural pastureland. Who were they. What did they think. How did they dream, in the midst of so much quietness and natural beauty. Were they kind to each other. Did they learn that Love and being true to your Word are the two most Blessed choices.

A Quiet lush green walkway in summer

This open parkland has some lovely quiet places within it. This is one of them. The lush summer growth everywhere makes it all a welcoming thing and the many variations of greens, amongst the flowers and seedheads create a tableau that just refreshes the heart

Summer abundance in woodland

These beautiful white flowers and seedhaeads, as well as the wild wheat, at the back of the shot, are all at their bountiful best right now, and the vibrant greens all around them make anyone walking through this abundance, very glad to be able to.

Riverside growth in summer

This river is reasonably wide and can be seen clearly most of the year but right now, in high summer, with everything grown out to its’ full potential, you struggle to make out where the water is from this vantage point - and doesn’t it all look wonderful ! Everything reaches out over the water, catching the moister in the evaporating air, and making the whole tableau a richness of interweaving colours, shapes, textures and, if you walk through it all, aromas and sounds. Talk about abundant life !

A Mighty Elderly Tree

This magnificent tree is several hundred years of age and as strong as it’s ever been, providing shelter and a living for all the living things in the woodland area as well as shade and oxygen for the humans all around. The prolific shrub and tree growth all around it tells you it is a lynch pin for the spaces all the spaces here. A real gift to us all.

A Pathway to Potential

All paths lead somewhere. For the two people walking away from us in this shot (you can just see their outlines as they move amorphously into their own hopefully beautiful potential) they could represent all of us on all of our own paths, trying the best we can, sometimes missing that but nonetheless, hoping to win, hoping to become peaceful, happy, fulfilled and making a positive difference in the hearts minds bodies and lives of those we love and care for - and aren’t there a lot of those wonderful people in our, lives, if we settle down and count so many blessings really. The lush green growth of high summer, either side of these two people (and maybe all of us at some time or other) seems like a fitting testament to the respect and applause which Love always deserves.

Riverside growth in summer

This river is reasonably wide and can be seen clearly most of the year but right now, in high summer, with everything grown out to its’ full potential, you struggle to make out where the water is from this vantage point - and doesn’t it all look wonderful ! Everything reaches out over the water, catching the moister in the evaporating air, and making the whole tableau a richness of interweaving colours, shapes, textures and, if you walk through it all, aromas and sounds. Talk about abundant life !

Lush Riverside growth in summer

This time you can see a bit more of the river itself, and it makes sense of the geography of it all when you can see where the waterway is. Look how those shrubs just cannot get enough of leaning out over the water, to pick up all that nice evaporating H20 ! All the rest of my thoughts for this shot are to be found on the earlier riverside pics in this gallery.

Sliver Green Pine Leaves & Branches

These massed tiny leaves of this ground hugging pine tree growth shimmer with a silver hue in each of the dark turquoise greens and in some lights can all seem to be alive with that shimmer happening. Hard to get in light that is too strong but here, in the cloudy end of day light, is a peaceful look at this extraordinarily beautiful tree. And the smell of this pine is a strong heady mix that you always remember well once you smell it again. I remember that aroma form my childhood playing around the base of such trees and it always takes me right back to those first times when I discovered these great trees.

Left overs of a community from many hundreds of years ago.

These ruins have a few walls and two turrets still standing but the majority of it is simply the natural flat stones on the ground that have been excavated to show the overall floor plan of what was once an extensive castle with all the living and trade areas those people who walked and lived and breathed here, all that time ago, shared together, in the middle of what was then, and is now, a quiet and beautiful natural pastureland. Who were they. What did they think. How did they dream, in the midst of so much quietness and natural beauty. Were they kind to each other. Did they learn that Love and being true to your Word are the two most Blessed choices.

Under the shade of A Mighty Tree in summer heat

This tree has grown into an extraordinary long low lean and extensive wide overhang so that any living thing under its’ shade, in summer, is certainly cooler and out of the glare and, as this shot shows, the hot summer heat out there can get glary. Squirrels love to run up and down the main trunk and big branches of this mighty thing

Lush green summer walk alongside the river

You can see the river up on the right, and the myriad wondefulnesses of all these colours and hues, flowerheads and greens everywhere, as you walk in pleasant not overdone heat, reminds you why being alive in such places is such a blessing and especially so while so much of our world is in the business of killing humans or reeling from the effort and shock of trying to not let that happen.

Tiny white & yellow flowers in green summer growth

These uncountable tiny flowers everywhere are, literally, everywhere you look in the height of all this summer growth. They collaborate to have a sweet smell that somehow feels fresh, and with the river babbling away on the right of this shot, all is pretty good with the world - just here. For right now.

Another quiet lush summer walk

The river is on the right of the shot and this walkway goes all along it, from the lake way back behind you, to the white bridge up ahead and out of view for now. In this summer paradise, the birds sing, the rustle of all that lush foliage susurrates everywhere and the warmth all around you settles everything into a peacefulness and pleasantness which two third of our equally shared and precious planet would so long to be able to share. What can we each do to make that more possible.

Unexpected pink flower heads in a sea of green.

The late afternoon light over this quiet area of planned and well looked after open parkland spaces, washes it all with a softness and a beauty that truly makes you glad to be alive when you stand there and breath it all in. Those tall growing pink flowers just never seem to stop. They want to be the highest and most light-unobstructed growths anywhere around, and they seem to manage that just fine. Their delicate hues here make a fine contrast to the many soft greens, and that slight else of the land between us and them adds a sort of emphasis to their shape and colour. A beautiful moment of the light really

Beautiful soft late afternoon light across quiet woodland - at Peace.

I was shooting a close-up of some foliage, then turned and saw this lovely tableau all set out before me - the shot already delineated in all its’ fullness - and was so gratefully amazed to be able to translate it into a photographic image, honouring it for all time, Look at the soft quality of the late afternoon light on all that you see before you. The balance of it all. The gentleness of it all on a still, unbreezy day. The sheer wondefulness of those white flowerheads against the darks all around “Your very Life is a reason for Belief in God” ? (according to our Australian Evangelist and Teacher of Christs’ Love to each one of us) Surely then, the very sights we see out of our eyes - like this - are as compelling a reason to accept the completely abundant and constant provision of Our Loving Father God, whose Love for every single part of His awesome Creation is unchanged and unchanging always - speaking to each one of us through it, in that ‘still quiet voice’ - reminding us that we were created to enjoy this together : each one of us, with Our Loving Father, El-Shaddai, without schism.

Sudden strong sunlight darkening all the darker colours

As the sunlight bursts full-on out of a cloud it crisps everything up and highlights the pin pricks of the white flowerheads and you can just know that if you walk through it all you will be squinting eyes and creasing smile lines, even under a hat - unless you’re from the tropics or south of the equator in which case this is pretty much normal for you hat or no hat !

Quiet sunny summer walk-place 1

This is a lovely quiet spot on a peaceful summer’s day. It is a blessed place to be and all those who can be here, share in that blessing, and are fortunate to be able to. The lush summer growth of everything around you is in full flow and everywhere you look it’s full-on potential being realized. It’s everything - the smells, sounds, the warm air on your skin, the feel of the grass or the leaves across your fingers. The sight of colours and shades, high and low lights. Perspectives, interesting bits to look at and discover. All of it made out of the natural world, allowed to do its’ thing, Wonderful

Quiet sunny summer walk-place 2

This is a lovely quiet spot on a peaceful summer’s day. It is a blessed place to be and all those who can be here, share in that blessing, and are fortunate to be able to. The lush summer growth of everything around you is in full flow and everywhere you look it’s full-on potential being realized. It’s everything - the smells, sounds, the warm air on your skin, the feel of the grass or the leaves across your fingers. The sight of colours and shades, high and low lights. Perspectives, interesting bits to look at and discover. All of it made out of the natural world, allowed to do its’ thing, Wonderful.

An edge of woodland in summer

The middle low down greens here are almost translucent as the light comes not only through but down on top of them and somehow, with the darks of all this murky canopy shade in here, there is this lighter-than-light effect in all those greens which could be somewhere underwater near some coral reef maybe ! I like it anyway, and the sheer lushness of all this summer growth here is a happy thing, wherever you find your Self.

A Woodland path

This particular pathway is a longish walk up a gradually rising hillside ,and all along, on each side of you, is thin sparse forest, with thin trees, but lots of them, going away into the distance, left and right of you, and the very quietness here is a bit special. The canopy up higher is quite dense and so the light in and around you is a gentle muted off-green and there is a sense of hush, almost like being in some magical cathedral somewhere which, in away, it is. A great place to thank Our Loving Father Creator for all His endless abundant provision - for our direct benefit, in so many tangible ways. Thank you Father God ! in The Mighty Name of Jesus. - Your Living Word, through whom all this was Created and by Whom it is all sustained, each moment.

Looking our from the shade of the canopy

A small green-grassed pathway runs in between the wooded areas we’re right on the edge of and the next lot, just beyond the path in front of us and, in the gap, the stronger muted light gives us lighter hues everywhere and a reminder that light is all around us and not always darkened and maybe a little claustrophobic, as it sometimes can seem, the deeper into woodland you get, and the more prolific the canopy cover up above you.

An old fashioned edge-of-woodland-scene

This beautiful tableau is out in the open, on the edges of several bits of woodland and, in its’ several variations of good old and new growth everywhere, gives us a bit of a look at what tableaus often used to be seen as, in many paintings, drawings, sketches and some early photography of the land all around us all, when there were so many fewer folk able to see and enjoy, let alone record it all. We saw it through the eyes of those privileged to be there and painting it, or in some other way recording it and this shot has a throwback look of some of those e.g. Constable paintings that became popular for a while there.