‘Mistical February’
Oil on Canvas Board 12″ X 9″
~
~ moody brooding dusky gloaming ~
An afternoon in February ~ already turning to dusk in the forest.
The darkness comes much sooner in under the trees.
It’s a magical time
~ the most likely of times to catch a glimpse of an Old One
as colours and shadows all deepen and intensify around you,
on a dark winter’s day like this one,
with the mists rolling down the mountainsides
~ such beauty in these rich brooding purple- and deep green-greys.
They awaken a yearning within me; I know not from where it comes, a longing to be wrapped in these mists and
surrender to the soft, cool mystery they bring.
It is said in Celtic lands that what the Faeries call themselves is
‘The Old Ones,’ or ‘The Old People.’
Mythical beings, magical creatures, elementals, wizards
~ through the veils of shifting mists and in the deepening shadows of a day such as this, when the clouds descend and enshroud the mountainsides,
it’s easy to believe the romance and mystery of the otherworlds.
~
This is the Inland Temperate Rainforest, part of the
Interior Cedar-Hemlock Ecozone.
When mature, the forest is dominated by Western Red Cedar and Western Hemlock. It includes a wide variety of tree species: Douglas Fir, Grand Fir, Larch,
Mountain Hemlock, White Pine, Lodgepole Pine, Engelmann Spruce,
Ponderosa Pine, White Birch, Cottonwood and Trembling Aspen.
~~~
~Barbara Brown, from Volume I, SYLVAN REFLECTIONS, Wanderings, Paintings & Ponderings From the Forest, Page 77