Acadia Interlude

Below the Summit - Image c 2011 Lynda Lehmann

I've always wanted to visit Acadia. Since my seventh grade English teacher Miss  Rogers spoke of Longfellow, Evangeline, and the descendants ofthe French called the "Acadians," I've wanted to see the marvelous sights of an unspoiled wilderness on the Northeast Coast of the USA. 

Emerald and Blue Gem  - Image c 2011 Lynda Lehmann

 I recently had the opportunity to spend eight days there, and I can tell you: it was worth the trip. Every day was resplendent with new trails to explore, rock studded mountain paths to climb, and scenic vistas that took my breath away. 
Even with a week of exploring the mountains, the lush undisturbed forest and the rocky coastline, we barely scratched the surface of the map.  Mount Desert Island, which is also home to a few quaint and interesting towns (Northeast Harbor, Southwest Harbor, and the more well known Bar Harbor), comprises the Ice Age transformed landscape and web of ecosystems  that is Acadia National Park.
If you are interested in visiting Acadia, the internet has many sites that offer information.  Here are some scenes from the lovely and gorgeous parts of the park that we were lucky enough to experience.  I'll be featuring other scenic views and landmarks of Acadia in subsequent blog posts, so watch for those if you're interested in hiking and nature. 
Here my husband is perched on an overlook on Beech Mountain, overlooking Echo Lake.  We hobbled up the steep boulder strewn path without breaking an ankle or taking a tumble, but this shelf halfway up the mountainside was challenge enough.  The cliffs above were just a tad formidable for us to attempt, making the summit out of the question.  But who knows how brave--or foolish--we may be on a future trek!
We've since purchased "trekking" sticks, those aluminum poles that look like ski poles that you occasionally see walkers toting.  It's amazing how well they aid and abet your balance, especially when treading over steep, angled and jagged boulders and rough terrain. 

Perched Over Echo Lake - Image c 2011 Lynda Lehmann 

Never have I seen such jewels of green and azure!  Well okay, I have seen some similar beauty before, on our hikes, but these scenes were definitely was among the most gorgeous vistas of peace and grandeur we've enjoyed.

Awesome View  - Image c 2011 Lynda Lehmann 

If you look closely at the next photo, you'll see tourists clustered at the far edge of Cadillac Mountain, looking down over clouds and islands and rich green stretches of fertile and undisturbed wilderness interspersed with vast reams of granite.  Cadillac Mountain is so far north and east, that it's the first spot on the North American continent to be graced with the first rays of sunrise, each day.   

Distant Crowd on Cadillac Mountain  - Image c 2011 Lynda Lehmann

I could easily spend a month up there on Cadillac, absorbing the fresh, sweet air and gazing at the ocean to the east or the islands and larger land mass to the west.  Cruise ships off of the town of Bar Harbor are sometimes visible from the summit, and they look small and surreal from that height.  As do the clouds that shroud the horizon--so far beneath our line of vision and strange to look down upon.

The Islands Below  - Image c 2011 Lynda Lehmann

Lush and Barren  - Image c 2011 Lynda Lehmann

Cadillac's rich pink granite is rounded and buffed by Ice Age glaciers that moved over it, thousands of year ago.  The pink boulders are deeply fissured yet rounded at the edges; they seem to fit together in a sort of free-form jigsaw puzzle.  Very dramatic and sculptural and beautiful in their own right.  The variety of colored lichen and arctic shrubery adds to the beauty and richness of the scene, and multiple ledges and paths beckon in all directions. 
Have you ever been to Acadia?  Do you have have any particular stories of adventures  there, that you'd like to share?  
I'm looking forward to showing you more photos of our trip, next time I publish!

Natural Color  - Image c 2011 Lynda Lehmann

Sweep of the Land  - Image c 2011 Lynda Lehmann

All images and text on this blog are copyrighted material, and may be used only with written permission, except where syndication rights have been granted. All other rights reserved. Please visit my sites at http://LyndaLehmann.imagekind.com/  or http://www.absolutearts.com/lyndalehmann/ if you would like to see my acrylic paintings and more of my photography and digital art. You can find a list of my other sites and links in my blog's sidebar. Or google my name for more links.  I hope you enjoyed your visit!

Enchantment Before Twilight

Bathed in Evening Light - Lynda Lehmann c 2011

 
NOTE:  I have picked these two photos from my archives to post with this poem, as I could not shoot while paddling.  But they don't do justice to the beautiful play of light, water and sky I witnessed on this occasion.  Nor do my words suffice, but I write them in homage.

Enchantment

Thunderheads form and morph: vast cumulonimbus canyons turn from white to gray to orange or silver-rimmed.  They stand silent, at a distance.  Evening sunlight's warm caress, wraps a golden light over the emerald island: a jewel-like scene that seems to shimmer with benevolence and promise.  Verdant glowing hues band outward from the island's shore, reflected with sky tones and bands of gold and black in the flowing stream.

Pale violet clouds in cauliflower forms bifurcate and move higher, until they reach the towering nimbus state.  
So far beneath them, paddling the lake in my tiny blue kayak, I feel my smallness.  
Each dip of my paddle brings up droplets that make whirlpools as they fall back onto the water's surface.  A line of whirlpools ripples smaller as each moves forward from the first set of spreading circles.  I can hear each drop fall and watch it meld.  Ensconced in the drama of whirlpools and lace-like water doilies, my boat is couched in a pattern of of subtle movement: energy waves strong enough to be visible, yet insignificant to the larger universe.  Yet, with my persistent stroke, I have made them.  I watch the forms disperse as they merge back into the infinite and undulating sea. I do not have the power of nimbus clouds, but I make my own music, just the same.
I feel complete, ensconced in the luxury of light show and water symphony, while the sky plays its pastel counterpoint.  
It's hard for me to believe there's room for conflict, greed, and suffering in this world, while I am surrounded by all that seems holy.  
-- Poem c Lynda Lehmann 2011 

Enchantment - Image c 2010 Lynda Lehmann

All images and text on this blog are copyrighted material, and may be used only with written permission from me, except where syndication rights have been granted. All other rights reserved. Please visit my sites at http://www.absolutearts.com/lyndalehmann/ or http://LyndaLehmann.imagekind.com/ if you would like to see my acrylic paintings and more of my photography and digital art. Or you can Google my name to see my other sites and links. I hope you enjoyed your visit to my blog.

Ice Abstract: Nature's Subtle Palette and Dynamic Design

Ice Abstract - c 2011 Lynda Lehmann

Nature never fails to fascinate.  In every season, in every kind of weather, at every time of day, intricate patterns and textures captivate the eye.  My prize for walking the beach on a bitter cold day last week, besides almost-frozen toes, was this view of cracked ice along the side of the road.  I think it makes a beautiful abstract.  
I'm forever marveling at how accidental arrangements can be so arresting and gorgeous.  The Earth's natural processes produce patterns, textures and designs that outdo the best capabilities of the human hand and eye.  
What have you seen in your locale this week, that made you feel blessed with the serendipitous beauty of nature's grand design?

All images and text on this blog are copyrighted material, and may be used only with written permission. All rights reserved. Please visit my primary site at http://www.lyndalehmann.com/gallery if you would like to see my acrylic paintings and more of my photography and digital art. I hope you enjoyed your visit to my blog!

Serendipity is Nature's Generosity

Lamb's Ears - Image c Lynda Lehmann

I've been wanting to get back to painting, because painting is my first love.  I had promised myself that my next post would be about pigment instead of pixels.  But nature intervened and threw me a curve.  
I had all but given up on finding anything pixel-worthy on my walk today, when I stumbled upon these dried "Lamb's Ears" plants (as a friend of mine calls them).  They are just slightly wilted from the cold, which has been intense for a December on Long Island.  But their light gray-green color was outstanding against the auburn of dried, fallen leaves.
It's sometimes hard to find subjects to shoot on suburban streets, unless one comes across a wooded area or something at the very edge of the street. In order to respect people's privacy, or should I say their feelings about privacy, I never point my camera towards a house.  That's why I so enjoy getting out of the neighborhood to the larger outdoor spaces with my camera.  Not only is there usually more to shoot, but I feel free to point my camera in any direction.
Nature came through again today, with a subject that I feel holds a good deal of beauty and mystery.  I've seen this cluster of plants in the same location before, but today the light was right and the colors just popped! Whenever I take in a scene or object of beauty, I feel rich. So today held a tiny bit of serendipity for me.
I hope you found beauty and a touch of serendipity in your day, as well!    
All images and text on this blog are copyrighted material, and may be used only with written permission (email is okay) by the author/artist, except where syndication rights have been granted. All other rights reserved. Please visit my primary art site at http://www.lehmann.myexpose.com/gallery if you would like to see my paintings and more of my photography and digital art!

Earth's Ever-Present Voice

Broken Conch - Image c 2010 Lynda Lehmann

Peculiar Mix - Image c 2010 Lynda Lehmann

Stranded - Image c 2010 Lynda Lehmann

Shell Heap - Image c 2010 Lynda Lehmann

Basking on the Boulders - Image c 2010 Lynda Lehmann

Surf - Image c 2010 Lynda Lehmann

Flap and Flutter - Image c 2010 Lynda Lehmann

Alone in the Surf - Image c 2010 Lynda Lehmann

Earth's Ever-Present Voice

Nature speaks
and I must listen.

In inklings and intimations
She speaks to me,
diffuse and subtle
yet powerful and sure.

Her Voice comes in the
crunch of gravel and seashells underfoot,
in the hissing of sand
blowing sideways across the beach
in a gale
that stings my ankles
and whirls away.

Her Voice is in the
rakish angle of an emerging fin:
a diver following his own Muse,
deep underwater in
ironic search for treasure.

Her Voice is in the arc and call
of seagulls circling shoals
for late-day food
and even in the roaring engine of a lobster boat
making headway towards the shore.

Her Voice is in the sparkle of
quartz-laden pebbles
strewn on the beach,
each etched with its own
pattern of experience,

smoothed but striated,
glistening with minerals
while soaking in Eons,
the wear of centuries

and in the tumult
of children playing on the beach,
their laughter ringing
on the teasing wind.

Her Voice rises on the foaming tide
as it sweeps the shore,
engulfing seaweed, shards of glass and
millions of grains of sand.

Her Voice rises on the
scream of the gull
diving at the jetty,
extending its claws to claim a place
on the crusted rocks,

and in the flickering of sunlight
on all the detritus and
natural objects of the shore.

Her Voice is in
the singing of my heart
as I absorb
infinite dimensions of splendor

and in the stirring of my soul,
reveling in the
wildness and the freedom.

It is the Voice of Earth
calling to me
in intimations and inklings,
subtle and tentative
but always sure.

I must stop and listen.

Questions for My Blogging Friends: Is this poem too long? Should I cut a verse or two? Do you find the repetition of the phrase "Her Voice" to be boring or cumbersome? Your advice would be deeply appreciated! I look forward to any constructive comments, both positive and negative. Thanks for your visit!

All images and poem c Lynda Lehmann. If you would like to view more of my art or make a purchase, please visit Lynda Lehmann Painting and Photography or my gallery at Imagekind, where you can choose from several sizes and paper types or buy my prints plain or matted and framed.

In Every Inch, a World...

Texture Play - Image c Lynda Lehmann

The wild woody plexus knows
its own emergence
and certain of the sun,
wills itself to life.

Wrinkled welter of the arbor
yields to efflorescent splendor,
and springs forth in joyful verdure
to grasp the azure sky.

****

In the tangle of the thicket,
intimations of Everything...
and in every inch, a World.

- Poems c Lynda Lehmann




Bark Abstracts c Lynda Lehmann

(Note to my dear blogging friends: Any and all constructive criticisms of these two little poems are invited and will be gratefully accepted. What would you change? Which words would you leave out? Would you change the line breaks?)

HAPPY SPRING, EVERYBODY!

All images and text c Lynda Lehmann. If you would like to view more of my art, please visit Lynda Lehmann Painting and Photography or my gallery at Imagekind, where you can choose from several sizes and paper types or buy my prints plain or matted and framed.

Quiet Witness on a Snowy Day

The beauty I see around me leaves me speechless. Sometimes I just like to pay homage, bear quiet witness, and fill my cup with beauty.

Today we took a two-hour walk in the snowy woods, surrounded by peace, scenic snowy scenes, and a tangle of living things groping their way to the promise of new growth. I'll publish more of my photos from our trek, if I find that they have enough exposure. I was shooting with a small aperture for depth of field, but the ice and snow made it difficult to manage my tripod. And those hand-held shots are tricky, especially when you have to watch your footing!

I wish you a warm and cozy night. Before I close, I just want to thank my dear friend Anna at My Only Photo for posting my image from my last post, on her page. Anna is a terrific photographer, mommy, and friend. Thanks, Anna!

Image and text c Lynda Lehmann. If you would like to view more of my art or make a purchase, please visit Lynda Lehmann Painting and Photography or my gallery at Imagekind, where you can choose from several sizes and paper types or buy my prints plain or matted and framed.

The Nature of Pine Bark: Beauty in Every Line and Pore

The Beauty of Pine Bark - Lynda Lehmann c 2009

Looking for and finding natural beauty, is my life. It carries me through my days, cushioning me from life's disappointments and the tragedies of the human condition. I remember the day I walked around the shore of Echo Lake State Park in New Hampshire, snapping photos of tree bark. I approached this tall pine, among others, on a crowded beach, and stood just a couple of inches from the scabrous and meandering bark. The people sunning on the lake shore literally stared--no doubt they thought I had escaped from the "loony bin." What IS that woman doing, standing with her nose stuck against the trunk of that scraggly, old pine? (Smirk...)

I've always had to explain to people how and why I LOOK at things with great interest. I've been asked in recent years,"Why are you always looking up?" The answer, of course, is that I find great inspiration in the trees, sky, and clouds. And why shouldn't I? Chances are, those particular acquaintances might be more concerned with contemplating their navels.

I remember WAY back in my college days, when I carried an apple home from the dining hall at Penn State and a roommate made a quip about "pseudo-intellectualism." But I was in earnest when I commented on the form and exquisite color of the apple. Of course in those days of upheaval and rebellion, we questioned everything. Especially the "Establishment," the "military-industrial complex" and the other stale institutions of the status-quo. Now, in my ripe old age, I realize that more than anything, we have to question ourselves, as the basis for any positive change. Transformation begins with our own perception and intellect. We have to take responsibility for who we are, for our own attitudes, actions and reactions, before we can change the world.

I'm lucky that simple beauties change the world for me! If this means I'm a "simple" person, I'll take it. I think I'm blessed to find the beauty and mystery in small details some other folks might be "too busy" to discover.

NOTE: I did tweak the above photo a bit, to bring out the hues that were already there, in the pine bark.

All photos and text copyright Lynda Lehmann. All rights reserved.

If you would like to view my art or make a purchase, please visit Lynda Lehmann Painting and Photography or my gallery at Imagekind, where you can choose from several sizes and paper types or buy my prints plain or matted and framed.

The Sacred Energy of Wild Places

There is an energy at the core of Life, a sacred energy felt most apparently and keenly in those places we may refer to as "wild." For some of us, that place may truly be in a remote wilderness area. More likely it will be a place that is just a bit out of the way. But it seems to me that the place, whether near or far from the beaten track, will be a place that is as yet unexploited and unspoiled by the touch of man.

My husband and I discovered such a place about two weeks ago. One of our mini-excursions into the Maine countryside brought us unexpectedly to a wooded marshland. It was just a tad off of a main road that was not quite a highway, but a two-lane road well-traveled by local traffic.

We made a right turn on a street whose name I can't remember. What I do remember is that it was indeed, a "proper" town street-sign in white and green with a name bestowed on this road. But it was not in any sense your typical suburban or even country road.


I was stricken with my first view of the marsh. Forest encroached on all sides, rising above the area on gentle hills. The trees still retained some of their autumn splendor but were at least partly given over to the stark winter nakedness that makes their skeletons so much more gestural and poignant than their leafy summer counterparts.



I got out of the car and scanned the near distance. Woods, woods, and more woods, with a wetland in the middle that coalesced into a quiet stream that wound its way through the thicket.


At the side of the road, cattails abounded, rich in their brown fur and contrasting the more sparse occurrence of milkweed pod. Some of the pods were open to the skyward flurry of their gossamer white fuzz, while others remained closed and pregnant with the seed loads of future plants.



A huge beaver lodge graced the middle of the watery pool on the right side of the road, commanding the eye's attention, as would a mansion on the vast grounds of a manicured estate.


But this was no manicured estate. Although fairly close to the town of Norway in southwest Maine, it had all the trappings of a true wilderness. Bird calls of all ilks met my ears, like beacons of a distant time in the annals of Creation. The milkweed seeds, picked up by an intermittent breeze, sailed into the blue dome that reflected on the water below. Everywhere there was life. Thorns, red winter berries, the milkweed, swaths of emerald moss and the texture of the slightly churned water. Sweet pungent air, sparkling with sunlight. The auburn of spent foliage rimming the swamp.


I could almost hear our dear Mother Earth inviting me in her mysterious tongues to partake. She wanted me to embrace her, smell her, feel her caress, hear her song. She wanted to delight me. She wanted to pay homage to herself for her dignity, sustained in the face of ages of exploitation and consumption, by her own stubborn Being.

Years ago, I wrote a young adult novel (one of four, actually) about a teenage girl who has to leave the lowland plain between Brazil and Peru, to climb deep into the Andes. She had to undertake this journey because her tribe was dying out, and their only chance was for her to try to retrieve the ancient medical secrets of the Incas, from whom she had descended. The Boutiquin, the ancient medicine chest of the forest floor was dying out and only she, Liana, with the tenacity of the vine for which she was named, could make her way into the highland to fetch the ancient wisdom.

Along the way, repeatedly, she bent her head to the Earth and heard the Hum of Being.

In my writing, the "Hum of Being" was a contrivance to enhance the plot, an embellishment in my manuscript to bring home the feminist and earth stewardship themes of my book.

But last week, in that patch of wild made of forest and river and swamp, filled with sunshine and seeds and berries and birdsong, I heard the Hum of Being for myself. Have you ever heard it? What is your experience with finding yourself surrounded by the magic of a sacred place? For me, it is the among the very best and most inspiring of life experiences.

All photos and text copyright Lynda Lehmann. All rights reserved.

If you would like to view my art or make a purchase, please visit Lynda Lehmann Painting and Photography or my gallery at Imagekind, where you can choose from several sizes and paper types or buy my prints plain or matted and framed.

Low-Lives or Elegant Beauties?....The Organic Splendor of Lichen, Revisited

Branching with the grace of trees; sparkling with the light of stars; spreading with the hope of life; imbued with the energy of Creation; pastel-colored like fairies and rainbows. What am I talking about? LICHEN, of course!

Welcome to my "Garden of Earthy Delights!" Here are some recent macro shots of majestic trees whose bark presents a cornucopia of smaller lifeforms. They represent a microcosm of organic form that rivals the beauty of any flower garden. Form, color, infinite configurations: the peaceful symbiosis of bark, moss, insects, and lichen defy the hungry eye to ignore them. At first glance you might feel these shots are redundant, but if you look closely, you'll see a great variety of abstract compositions!

I LOVE photographing lichen. I think that some of my Abstract Expressionist paintings reflect my fascination with the kind of bursting forth of life force reflected in the orderly disorder of lichen!

If these images awaken your sense of wonder and you'd like to view more of them, please visit my "Living Surface" Gallery at Imagekind.

NOTE: Please click on any image to see the enlarged version.

All images and text copyright Lynda Lehmann. All rights reserved.

If you would like to view my art or make a purchase, please visit Lynda Lehmann Painting and Photography or my gallery at Imagekind, where you can choose from several sizes and paper types or buy my prints plain or matted and framed.