from Diary of a Mad Hatter by P.R. Lowe, July 21st, 2025
The sweetest sleep is in those hours when the sky is just beginning to go from black to gray, to pale gray, to blue, as the sun crawls over the distant ridge and snakes through the treetops. Those great strong fellows who survived Helene… still nurturing their children below. A sleep akin to cat- napping with eyes half open, aware yet adrift upon a benign cloud of peace and detachment. The world with its trials and tribulations of the current era fades back into the darkness as dawn subdues its power over me with new promise and light. I nestle into my soft blankets and smile through the sorrow and disappointment of yesterday. ……………………… Every day I can begin again. Every day I can make choices. Every day is a gift that I am free to cherish or discard.
I am still learning to be me…even if that does not fit into someone else’s square, circle or triangle….even if that means creating my own special shape and stepping out of the shape sorter box entirely.
I strayed too far from the edge of the wood and I forgot that I could fly I failed to see the bee in the bud and my soul began to cry The day bled out with an unfamiliar fog and I became a cog in the machinations of man
by P.R. Lowe, June 24, 2023 There is a hole in the sky where I once saw a tree There is a space in my heart where you used to be. Still, I am grateful to know that my soul floats free. Perhaps it will step in and rescue the rest of me. Is my time here over or has it only just begun? Shall I rejoice in the sun and run and play, or shall I lie down quietly and let it all slip away? Shall I float free to London, or be a mist in the Ferniebank wood? Could I lay over Jonas where fiddle ferns are curled? Shall I stand at Bannockburn where his flag was unfurled? Would I blossom and grow in another body somewhere? Will I remember me? and you? or will I even care? Is it time to lay down the gauntlet, the sword, and the shield Is it time to surrender and give up my will Could Merlin be tender and grant one last spell? Tomorrow still comes …only time will tell.
by P. R. Lowe March 2, 2023 To go on a raven’s wing and see those things unseen to lift above the treetops hovering near the clouds then to soar and settle again amongst its boughs allowing a shroud of greenness to caress my luminescent wings these things and more are at the core of my raven dream and I scheme to become one on my return or is it churned up recall of things already done
we are adapting you and I not a pure choice to leave you behind that my kind goes one way and yours another you will always be my brother and I will carry you in my heart wherever I go and so it is to be strong and carry on along our own way who knows where this will lead our hearts may bleed a little but I will keep smiling and carry your beguiling ways into the days before us I must trust and hold the love for you are the song above the noise and clatter you are the whisper in the wind that matters the blending of sun and moon and time it is hard to express an empty nest or a trail that’s grown over with vine. let us make the best of where we are and trust in intervention divine.
by Eiluned Lewis (Thank you, Penny, for sharing this)
We who were born In country places, Far from cities And shifting faces, We have a birthright No man can sell, And a secret joy No man can tell. For we are kindred To lordly things, The wild duck’s flight And the white owl’s wings; To pike and salmon, To bull and horse, The curlew’s cry And the smell of gorse. Pride of trees, Swiftness of streams, Magic of frost Have shaped our dreams: No baser vision Their spirit fills Who walk by right On the naked hills.
Watching ravens. It must be nice to hop from limb to limb and walk about in the trees so easily. After a long absence, it is good to see them again and I smile inside and out at their presence. Is this magic returning? Do I go down the rabbit hole today…that place of beauty, awe, discovery, wonder and peace… both remembered and anew? I no sooner give birth to question than I am away…not just a memory, but there in real time… with the rushing waters of the creek, near my childhood home …the forbidden forest, a field of fairies and Pepper my dog and best friend…as he leaps up from the broom sage like a fox searching out his prey in the snow… What joy I have known! What a lucky time to be part of that special secret world as a child and then to revisit it again as an adult at Fernybank, my sacred land in Virginia. I move through time tunnels like wormholes. I am a time traveler…a space hopper. Later, in the cold morning, as I hang the bird feeder, I am overcome with gratitude that I have a warm nest inside to return to. Then in that moment.. just a brief instant …I am displaced again…like passing through a vacuum cleaner hose into a another place and time. Here, I feel and see the discomfort and suffering of others, both human and non …great and small…then, just as quickly as I’d left, I am standing beneath the feeder again with the knowledge and gratitude that I can go inside and be warm and fed and safe…. carrying with me the quiet peace of a raven hopping limb to limb, in tall naked trees and the magic of a gushing creek, forbidden forest and laughing faeries… They are forever mine to visit regardless of the climate, here or elsewhere.
An addendum to my previous post: The Poplar Tree, posted on Nov 4.
Interestingly, the following quote presented itself today….
“The natural world is the greatest source of excitement; the greatest source of visual beauty; the greatest source of intellectual interest. It is the greatest source of so much in life that makes life worth living.”
November 4th 2022 I grew up with crickets under my window and lightning bugs (fireflies) on it’s screen… soft breezes that moved the curtains, carrying smells of crab apples, figs, scuppernong grapes and cedar trees. The night skies were clear and pitch black… dotted with millions of shimmering diamonds… I traveled back in time last night. I was a little girl again, in my bed by the open window …I could actually smell the smells…especially that of a little plaid dress. with puff sleeves and a tiny silk-like bow at the collar, that I didn’t particularly care for (the bow or the dress). I think it was bought for “picture day” (on which I usually presented with a massive cold sore). You know how people’s clothes have a certain smell about them? And their rooms and there houses… and for me, the yard and it’s inhabitants of all species. I rode my bike long distances from home, across neighbor’s yards, along strange roads and lanes and one particular highway, I wasn’t even supposed to be near. I ran through farmer’s fields and played with the fairies in a magical wood, near a large gushing creek…it too “off limits” to my small personage. I made friends with frogs and tadpoles and minnows in the still ponds around the creek created by huge stones and downed limbs covered in moss. I played in the hayloft of a large stable that housed race horses. I wasn’t allowed there either, by my parents or it’s owners. I savored the excitement of being sneaky and the smells of leather, saddle soap, horse sweat and hay…and would have a chill down my spine when an actual jockey entered the long barn isle below. I had great adventures there… even rode one of the horses bareback on a dare and nearly hung myself on a clothesline, only to fall to the ground giggling with delight, along with my gang of cronies. Often I didn’t come home until dark was settling in and the windows danced with the grey lights of flickering TVs and supper-time was long past. No one seemed to mind or worry, except my dog. He was my best friend and I carved our initials in a Poplar tree my dad had planted. I watched it grow, carrying the wee heart with our initials closer and closer to the sky… and in time, out of my reach. My dad would sit under that tree in an old cross-woven, aluminum framed lawn chair, tapping his spread out fingers together, as if in shamanic prayer, gazing out across the distant landscape, which was devoid of houses then, and stretched for miles with fields and forests…which he and I sometimes rambled together. I would often sit on the ground in front of his feet, under the the popular… under the little heart with initials. I would be completely still and silent. There was a sort of holiness in those moments, as if he was traveling somewhere wondrous and I was his disciple or apprentice. Something transpired between us during those times…a sort of inner knowing that I have no words for. Later, as an adult, I would live in the forest surrounded primarily by large Poplar trees (and Cedars which is another story for another time)… funny how things come around… how there are signs, an augury of what’s to be… important things that are often dismissed or trivialized. Much later in life, after I had written a book entitled Walking With Trees, I realized that my elementary school’s name was “Woodleaf” and my high school was “Rowan” and I lived in Rowan county …it dawned on me much later that my granddaughter attended the following schools; Mighty Oaks, Fernleaf and Evergreen. Coincidence? I think not. My childhood home didn’t have air conditioning, laptops, tablets, cell phones, internet or color TV, yet I don’t feel like I missed a thing…in fact I feel blessed to have been introduced to a magical world that was not indoors or on a screen. To this day even amid all the chaos and hoopla, it is still my saving grace.
Walkingwithtrees's Blog 