What the Raven Made Sold

There are two trees that stand in my garden at Tweedhill.  It is purely an optical illusion but from the kitchen windows it looks like they are holding hands.  Since we live in a time where we are steadily winding the temperature of the planet upwards towards no trees like these being able to live in my garden, it feels like they are reaching out and taking hands for comfort.  They are right to be wary because we are like headsmen with our axes and for centuries we have been chop, chop chopping.

I drew them while our clear up from Arwen was happening.  Having lost so much it was a “just in case” picture and I hope it will lessen the regret if the next hurricane force wind takes them down. I found it strange that having lived in this destroyed but slowly regenerating  landscape for over a year I suddenly felt a deeply affecting and renewed sadness at what had been lost. But this time it’s mixed with the regret of losing even more through damage.  It is February, which is so bare and bleak, before the first real signs of spring and one could believe that this landscape might last in its ruined state forever.

I listened to The Tree Line by Ben Rawlence while drawing this.  He paints a grim reality and it is hard to avoid the sense of isolation and disconnect we have built between ourselves and the natural world.  The self entitled beating drum of humanity’s desire drowning out its needs. It’s frustrating because I don’t think it makes us wildly more content and I worry that our children will not have the skills they need to bind themselves to the natural world. It isn’t their fault but is brought on by our own lack of understanding and demonstration

I used to believe that life was like water on this Earth.  It never left but instead was recycled in its different forms and spread around the world where the forces of physics took it.  While it might have been tricky for it to survive in certain places there was more than enough area for it to thrive elsewhere.  I don’t believe that anymore and I can easily imagine bleak deserts fringed at the very north and the very south with the last vestiges of clinging green still managing to remain.  Animal life will have gone so very long before.  If I am to be recycled I want to put in a request to come back as a tree. And since not many of us seem to know the answer to the questions of what mark we want to leave on this planet maybe no mark is the best aim. Does anyone agree with that?

Books read:

Mad Enchantment by Ross King.  Monet’s final years painting the water lily series in Givernay during World War 1.

The Tree Line by Ben Rawlence.