Landscapes, Meditation

[SweetPeaandSunBird]

Hi all,

My boyfriend and I were talking about a river he used to fish at. He described it to me and I visualized it and I noticed
my breathing was less erratic. (biofeedback?)

So what if we were to share our "scenic postcards" to one another by writing a description of our favorite calming landscapes -- real or imagined.

Hope this isn't too kookie, but thought I'd offer it out there.
Below is mine.

What seemed like a River (Dallas in the 80s)--

The descent to it is easy, a grassy platform above "to sneaker down" a few steps, and a somewhat agile jump, to land on the rocky bed. My walkman filled with folksy music matching the sunlight through the canapy of trees above me. The most perfectly smooth and round stones, cool in the palm of my hand await me, until I skip as many as I want across the water and...Success! -- one, two, three, four skips before the water rings begin to expand toward me. The city forgotten, I can't hear the traffic, an escape away from troubles. Alone and in tune (pun and all).

Truth be known: it was a creek. Across the 8-lane traffic from my neighborhood, to the "nicer" side -- large homes, mansions, sprawling manicured acres of lawn, but...as curious and somewhat rebellious girls are wont to do to get away, a short jog, a sly eye and a tree-lined property line, was just enough to get me to that "river."

I think back to it now that my boyfriend described the Obey River (Tennesse?) to me tonight. I say to myself,
Yes, let us all obey our rivers. Amen

 

[ericaboo]

My grandfather's house was in the High Sierras. As you walked uphill from his back deck there was a small lawn ringed with flowers, and then forest leading up to an irrigation ditch with frogs and water skeeters. All along the way up the hill you can still see small remnants of toys my cousins and I played with in those few acres of forest. At night it was totally silent except for crickets, and the forest was full of wildlife. There was a also a workshop for cutting stone, which was full of beautiful semi precious stones, geodes, and jewelry in different stages of creation.

 

[SweetPeaandSunBird]

There was a also a workshop for cutting stone, which was full of beautiful semi precious stones, geodes, and jewelry in different stages of creation.

That sounds so lovely. Where I once lived in Arkansas, there were places to mine for quartz, diamonds. A river near the college I went to had a lot of tiger iron and jasper, too.

 

[beautifulbroken]

A painting done for a friend who loves sunsets. She was very pleased and it now hangs in her flat in Paris. Ooh La La!

 

[Pencil]

The painting is STUNNING!

 

[beautifulbroken]

Thank you. The picture doesn't do it justice. It is 18"x36" and there is a great deal of texture. Most of my pieces have a lot of texture but are usually much larger. Normally I don't paint anything under 24"x36".

 

[SweetPeaandSunBird]

A painting done for a friend who loves sunsets.

Sunset colors are my favorite! Thanks for posting your beautiful work. Really lovely!!!

 

[Changing4Best]

We called it Second Falls:

A pretty wide stream came slowly down from above, then it poured over some rock ledges and finally into a pond. Then the pond slowly emptied out into another slow stream that we traveled in to get to the beauty of it all from up on the road above. There was a ledge that was next to the falls, which you could sit on and have a picnic on, which we did often.

 

[Changing4Best]

Lake Champlain, which borders on New York State (USA), Vermont and Canada. When I was a young adult and then an older adult, my parents used to rent a cabin there and we would all just sit on the front porch and admire the beauty of the lake. It was so relaxing. One day, while my parents were still sleeping, the man who owned the cabin offered to take me out for a ride in his sailboat. He showed me all the different inlets and outlets, for 3 hours! That lake is 125 miles long (north and south) and only a few miles wide (west to east). He just showed me the parts of the lake that were not too far from the cabin, or we would have been in that boat for days!

My parents loved to drive all the way around it in a day though. THAT was fun!

 

[Changing4Best]

There was a valley behind our house that we used to sled on in the winter. My sister had a tobagan too, which is a sled that is made completely from wood. The underside of it is coated with maybe a wax or something that keeps it slippery. Anyway, we had hours of fun sledding in that valley in the snow.

One spring we caught a baby bird that had fallen out of its nest. We kept it and fed it for a few days, then when it was more mature, we took it to the top of that valley and tossed it up in the air. It flew all the way down the valley, then caught the drift and flew UP into a tree. We cheered it on. And off to its new life it went.

During the spring and summer, there was a small creek in the bottom of the valley. Small fish sometimes swam in it.

In the fall, the leaves there were gorgeous, colorful and the sun would shine through here and there and brighten them....

 

[Whitneys story]

Ooh La La!

Gorgeous and wonderful use of color, lucky friend. :)