Happy New Year to You From Trees Older Than The New Year!

On By cindy knokeIn Conservation, MY PHOTOGRAPHS, TRAVEL REVIEWS

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They carry the scars to prove it,

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which like all living creatures,

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makes them beyond beautiful.

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Despite the fires of time,

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they thrive.

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Thank you Jim for giving perspective once again.

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From the living ancient ones,

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and the ones who eventually succumb.

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There is always new life waiting to reach the sky!

Happy New Year to you and may you hold the resilience of the Sequoias always in your heart.

183 thoughts on “Happy New Year to You From Trees Older Than The New Year!”

  24. These are amazing photos of spectacular trees. Thanks for showing just how enormous they are with the person standing next to one. I bet the air is sweet smelling unless you smell the residue of the fires.

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  27. So amazing! I just showed those pictures to my boyfriend and I told him that it is like being able to travel too in a way, watching great pictures. As my boyfriend said: you can travel faround the world sitting in you’re home with great literature or photos. So true!Thank you!

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    1. You and your bf are so right. Our minds are the most amazing time and travel machines! They can take us anywhere and anytime. I refer to this ability of our psyches to send us flying away from even unpleasant circumstances, as my “inner resources.” We all have them, but need to learn to access them. They are such a part of peace and happiness. Plus they make life a gas! Unleash your imagination and you go, wherever you wish!

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  35. Happy New Years Day, Cindy…, and please don’t say you’re “up a tree”…, especially one of those. That big one that Jim’s standing near is absolutely awsome. After seeing your pics, this will have to be another stop on my “bucket list”. The photos are wonderful. The 1st one is especially eye-catching.
    Paul

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  39. Such beauty in trees. I’ve weaved a whole chapter in my novel around the eco-system of a particular tree. When I was a child, I loved sketching deciduous trees in the winter.
    Wishing you a very Happy New Year 🙂

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    1. I liked drawing trees as a child too…..and I always wanted to live in a tree house. I think many children do. We have to teach children to not love the trees, and it is so sad we do!

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  56. Awesome. I was wondering why I hadn’t seen any posts from you lately and have just discovered that somehow I have become ‘unfollowed’ from your blog. Horrors! Happy New Year dear Cindy.

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  58. Incredible trees, looking like they came straight from Lord of the Rings or some fairy tale. Wishing you and all your loved ones a wonderful 2014, my friend! Cheers.

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    1. Precisely 7 1/2 hours drive. I know this because I have been coming here all my life, since I was a small child. It is hard to capture nature’s immensity and sometimes you need people to show how small we really are in comparison. You Wendy are a joy and I am so glad to have met you. Cheers to you~

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  67. Amazing trees, and photos. A beautiful and appropriate reminder as we enter into a new year. Your reference to them carrying scars to prove their age and endurance brought to mind this poem by Wendell Berry.

    The Sycamore – Wendell Berry

    In the place that is my own place, whose earth
    I am shaped in and must bear, there is an old tree growing,
    a great sycamore that is a wondrous healer of itself.
    Fences have been tied to it, nails driven into it,
    hacks and whittles cut in it, the lightning has burned it.
    There is no year it has flourished in
    that has not harmed it. There is a hollow in it
    that is its death, though its living brims whitely
    at the lip of the darkness and flows outward.
    Over all its scars has come the seamless white
    of the bark. It bears the gnarls of its history
    healed over. It has risen to a strange perfection
    in the warp and bending of its long growth.
    It has gathered all accidents into its purpose.
    It has become the intention and radiance of its dark fate.
    It is a fact, sublime, mystical and unassailable.
    In all the country there is no other like it.
    I recognize in it a principle, an indwelling
    the same as itself, and greater, that I would be ruled by.
    I see that it stands in its place and feeds upon it,
    and is fed upon, and is native, and maker.

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    1. Yes they do sort of put our lack of centrality on this earth into clear perspective don’t they? This is what I love most about nature. It calms me to clarify my relative unimportance in the great scheme of things. Stops me from focusing too much on myself. You are a joy my friend! Happy NY~

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  81. 🙂 Happy New Year Cindy and you make some beautiful shots of these wonderful threes, I was surprised how tall they were when there was Jim 🙂 ! Threes are our survival let us treat them with respect !

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  83. Cindy, these photographs are amazing. I was wowing the entire time I viewed them. It is indeed a great honor to have you following Petals Unfolding. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. I see you have the same theme as I do and I just love what you have done with yours!

    And because I sense a “kindred soul” I am going to push your follow button. Not because you followed me, tit for tat, but for the real deal because I really love your site and who I see you are.

    Bless you! Amy

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    1. How could I have missed this wonderful comment! I just found comments that didn’t post. Your photos are remarkable my friend and the admiration is mutual! Visa versa to you x 2!

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