September 5: Raccoon Beach

as if etched with runes

beach stones with cool striations--

ocean's ancient spells

 

 

Posted with Blogsy

February 4: Black branches

I ran into someone yesterday who said that they don't mind how cold it gets here as long as the sun is shining: 35 degrees with icy drizzle is unbearably miserable compared to 25 degrees and sunny. Today, with the sun shining, I left my hat in the car so I could feel the sun on my hair as I walked around town. It was a pleasure just to roam the sidewalks, running into people I know and helping the local economy as I bought some Valentine's Day gifts for my husband and family.

Now the sun has set and the sky is the palest blue sheet behind the messy scrawling of black branches. Some of the branches form the patterns of runes, an ancient alphabet of straight lines that could be easily carved as into wood with a knife or chiseled into rock. It is thought that they were originally used for charms and spells; the Norse god Odin recounts in the poetic Edda how he learned the magic runes by hanging nine days on a tree. New Agers cast stones carved with them as a form of divination.

Many of the simple shapes of runes can be easily picked out in the natural lines around us. For instance, the slender maple tree, stark against the sky, looks like the Fehu rune: the trunk a straight line with two branches lifting to the right at a 45-degree angle. This rune meant "cattle" and symbolically represented wealth and abundance--appropriate for my afternoon of shopping, as well as for all that I have in my life for which I am so grateful.

Branches etch dark runes
against sky--cryptic poems,
arboreal spells.

August 10: Dwellings (of sorts)

Who lives here? On a hike through the woods today on a conserved property in Lincolnville, I came across this den. Do groundhogs live in the woods? It's about the right size for them. A little discovery like this always gives me pause, makes me wish I were more woods-wise. And there's that part of me that wants to stick my arm in the hole and see what's in there...

Deeper in the woods, near some of the largest trees I've ever seen in the Midcoast (ash, pine, aspen) and a striking patch of glowing white baneberry, we came across this interesting stone structure.

No one had a clue about what it might be. The opening doesn't go in more than three or four feet, so it doesn't look like a place where something would have lived, but perhaps the rocks at the back of the opening caved in at some point in the past.

Here's a photo with people to give some perspective:

Property owner Rick Ledwith (top) and Orvil Young

Others on the outing suggested that it might be a lime kiln or even a burial mound of some sort. It made me think of purported sacred sites made out of stone that I remembering hearing about in Vermont: "megalithic mysteries." I was reminded of Skara Brae, a prehistoric stone village I visited in the Orkney Islands of Scotland when I was a kid. There's probably a more practical explanation for this interesting structure, such as its being a crude farming shed: these woods were lined with old stone walls indicating that the area had been pastureland around the end of the 1800s. But I prefer to imagine that inside that south-facing opening one might find runic carvings on the stones or perhaps discover that it aligns with the sun's rays on the Summer Solstice.

Or, really stretching my imagination--maybe it was a dwelling for wood elves. Maybe it still is. Such crazy thoughts added a little more mystery, a little more wild magic to these woods so close to a major road and several houses, bisected by a snowmobile trail and power lines. And that feeling was only enhanced by the haunting call of a loon on nearby Megunticook Lake.

Never really tamed,
these woods still harbor strange caves,
poisonous berries.