The Trees of Winter

February 25, 2024

“When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.” - Wayne Dyer

Sunrise through the trees, February 20, 2024

Two weeks ago I had the good fortune to be joined on my morning walk by an artist friend I met in the park last summer. I had been lamenting that there is just so little to photograph when it is brown, unseasonably warm, and spring hasn’t quite come yet. My friend mentioned that she was having her art students paint the trees in winter, when they were naked and you could see how they grow. She noted that trees do not grow in straight lines. (Side note - nothing in nature forms straight lines. Nature is the queen of beautiful imperfection.)

This tree looks to me like an open hand, just receiving from the universe.

My friend completely transformed the last two weeks for me! Everywhere I look now, I see the trees. I see their shapes. I see how they twist and spiral as they grow and how that movement is reflected in their trunk and branches. It’s something I have seen before but had completely forgotten. I was so busy looking at what wasn’t there, missing the ice and snow, I forgot to look and see what was visible instead.

One of my favorite trees in the park. Someone left a chair underneath here. I imagine they were sitting there admiring her beauty. You can see she is already budding.

Most of the time I am looking in the trees, at the delightful bird friends who flit among the branches. In the fall I am often looking at the trees but rather than noticing their shape, I am usually noticing their adornments.

Like arms, reaching upwards for the light in the way dancers might reach up as they move to the music. I notice that the trees are budding where they receive the most light.

This week is a tribute to some of my favorite trees. Trees I walk by all year long. Trees who provide me with shade, oxygen, and more photographs than I could count. Trees who provide a home for my bird friends. I do sometimes talk to the trees - and occasionally I sing. Today I am celebrating their beauty in their most naked form.

Even this tree that is so symmetrical, has movement, wave, and flow.

I call these the three sisters. They had a rough year last year and I am hoping they can rebound this year.

Looking at the trees in the darkness highlights the way they wind upward.

Same trees as the previous photo, from the other side and in the light. It’s astonishing to me how evenly spaced they are next to the water. Nature knows just how much room is required.

It’s amazing how much tree branches look like pictures of human lungs. We breathe out, they breathe in. We breathe in, they breathe out. We are inexorably linked to the trees through our breath.

She really looks like lungs, doesn’t she? Quite a stately tree.

Looking at the trees this week, one can’t help but notice the buds. Around the lake birds have been migrating over and through. Spring is on the way even though I still have newer ice photos I haven’t gotten to yet. It always happens this way - Life has it’s own timeline and it’s never in line with mine.

Snow geese and greater white-fronted geese passing over, headed north.

Thursday morning at sunrise I kept hearing a sound I couldn’t place out on the lake. I could only see Canadian geese and though the sound was similar it wasn’t a sound I’ve heard any goose make before. As the sun rose the noise picked up and I started to see splashing across the lake. Through my camera I saw the source of what I had described as a honking sound - eight trumpeter swans! I rarely see swans and it’s always a treat if they decide to make a brief stop on their way north.

Not the best photo but swans are just magnificent anyway - and loud!

This time of year I always feel behind. The sun rises one to two minutes earlier every day. Sunrise time is already 45 minutes earlier than mid-winter and it will move two more hours before it’s done. I may be one of the few people thankful we move our clocks forward and back as this enables me to be out at sunrise all year long. Still, shifting the schedule is a challenge. There’s so much I like about the slower pace of winter - but there’s so much I like about spring too! Hopefully, the trees have taught me to let go of what I can’t change and focus on what is here. It’s a lesson I have to learn again and again and again.

Female common goldeneye in the shadows. She keeps her own pace.

Maybe I can take another cue from the trees who know when to move - but never seem to rush. Perhaps I can maintain a healthy pace if I keep talking to - and really seeing - the trees.

Northern pintail ducks migrating through.

What are you noticing in your world this week? What might you notice that you usually look past? I’d love to know!