Nikki’s Photography

Avocado Leaf, caterpillar munched heart-shape. The Heart Shapes in Nature website is temporarily only one static page. The calendars need updates and will be available online again this week..sorry for the inconvenience. If you would like to place an order or purchase any of the images as framed or unframed prints or calendars, please contact me at nikki_coulombe@hotmail.com

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i carry your heart with me by ee cummings

i carry your heart with me
(i carry it in my heart)
i am never without it (anywhere
i go you go my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is you doing, my darling
i fear no fate (for you are my fate, my sweet) i want
no world (for beautiful you are my world, my true)
and it’s whatever you are a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you.

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of a sky of a tree called life; which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart.
i carry your heart (i carry it in my heart)

During winter the Avocado leaves become very crisp, and when crumbled in the hands the scent is kind of like licorice.

Heart-shaped Redbud leaf on a two year old young tree.

 Somerset Maugham said, “There is never enough time for love and art”.

To elaborate:

There is not enough time for love of trees and art.

Excerpts from the Album and song of the same title

 by Kate Bush, c 1989

The Sensual World

Mmh, yes.

…Stepping out of the page into the sensual world

Stepping out…..

to where the water and the earth caress

and the down of a peach says mmh, yes

…when I could wear a sunset, mmh, yes

…You don’t need words…

Stepping out of the page into the sensual world…

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http://www.katebush.net/ Recent release: Aerial, c 2009

One Sweet World

Excerpt of One Sweet World by Songwriter Dave Matthews

Nine planets around the sun,

the only one with something there

Upon this watered one

so much we take for granted

If greens all turned to grey

would our hearts still bloody be?

…so let us sleep outside tonight;

lay down in our Mother’s arms

and here we will rest safely.

(The Dave Matthews Band)

http://www.majestyoftrees.com/

Thanks to individuals rallying together and signing the petition, we are reassured that small efforts can and do make a difference on this planet. The land surrounding the Angel Oak is no longer in jeopardy. http://www.savetheangeloak.org/

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Originally posted September 11, 2008

This set of photos honors the efforts of a petition to halt construction on John’s Island, South Carolina that would encroach on an area of land boasting an Oak tree estimated to be between 1,400 and 1,500 years old.
Charleston, SC is proud of its heritage and respected for its commitment to preserving history in the area, so residents hope that plans will not proceed to cut down nearby trees and forest in favor of land development. Charleston, SC is proud of its heritage and respected for its commitment to preserving history in the area, and on the Angel Oak petition website, even if you don’t sign (but please do), you will still be able to read pages of interesting comments and pleas from residents who have fond memories of climbing the immense branches as children, and whose children now do the same; how a nearby elementary school carries its’ name, and exclamations by tourists who have visited the area specifically to see the Angel Oak.

This summer my husband and I drove through South Carolina and took a short detour to John’s Island. We drove through wicked rains at the edge of Tropical storm Faye, so when we arrived at Angel Oak park no one else was there. The tree trunk and lower branches are so immense, they have been propped up with stakes and heavy cables here and there, which is a little intrusive but obviously necessary. Growth is spread outward more than upward, occupying an enormous space at least 150 feet wide.

It occurred to me that this tree has lived through one serious chunk of history, and wondered what was happening on our planet when The Angel Oak was knee-high to an acorn? 1400 years ago it was the year 608 A.D., Common Era. Almost everything we are familiar with; our collective modern identity has been shaped by many of the events and people who lived and died since the Angel Tree established its first roots in the earth.

Angel Oak’s parent-tree was undoubtedly alive for centuries before and during the year 476 A.D. when the last of the Roman emperors died, bringing about the Fall of Rome. Around the 7th Century A.D. an acorn falls from one of the magnificent Oaks on the southeastern shores of a land only known to the indigenous peoples; a land we now refer to as North America. The acorn sprouts along with many others…but this one will outlive the rest, seasoning hurricanes, wars, and countless generations of playful children climbing it’s branches; it sprouts in conjunction with the collapse of Teotihuacan, one of the major cities in Mesoamerica with widespread influence in central Mexico. The Toltec civilization was unheard of, and would not flourish for another 500 years (1100-1521). Aztecs did not seize power until the 13th century.

When this tree was 300 years old during 901 A.D., the Vikings discovered Greenland. In 1066 William the Conqueror and the Norman troops conquered England altering the English culture forever by bringing French rule and rivalry with France until the The French Revolution occuring from 1789 – 1799. Circa 1100 A.D. the famous Buddhist temple, Angkor Wat in Cambodia is constructed to house the Hindu faith. Around 1275 A.D. Marco Polo, the Venetian explorer and trader visits China via the The Silk Road, returning to Europe with new foods and goods from the Orient which impact modern culture, medicine and dietary habits today.

The Black Death devastates Europe around 1348 A.D., while the 740 year old Angel Oak thrives. Columbus and other adventurers would not claim to discover America for another 144 years (C. 1592). Leonardo da Vinci, a man light-years ahead of his time in the field of science and medicine through his various studies. By the time he would paint the Mona Lisa and Michelangelo would paint the Sistine Chapel, the Angel Oak has lived for 900 years. The Tree continues growth beyond the life of Galileo, father of modern Astronomy, and through the life of Shakespeare, who established some of the most famous English literature in our era (c. 1564 – 1616).

Year 1776 – Angel Oak is 1,166 years old when the U.S. breaks free from British rule and establishes the first Independence Day In 1895, and by the time the Angel Oak had already survived for 1,287 winters Sigmund Freud would bring modern medicine and humanity into a new open-minded age by announcing his theories of dream psychoanalysis and studies of the human psyche.

The First World War between 1914-1918 was followed by WWII, 1939 -45/51.
According to after the Category 5 Hurricane Hugo hit the coast of in 1989, Governor Carroll Campbell is reported to say that the storm destroyed enough timber in South Carolina to frame a home for every family in the state of West Virginia. All those trees and forests obliterated, yet The Angel Oak survived. It has since healed injuries inflicted by Hurricane Hugo.

The petition page has so many interesting comments left by those who signed the petition.

Out in traffic the effects of the ice storm are not so pretty.

…splashes of color on the Cotoneaster ”Cornubia” in our next door neighbor’s yard… branches are redder on the other side of the fence! They will remain this way most of the winter, minus a few berries plucked by birds.

The changing seasons in Texas are not as dramatic as in the North. There’s more time to appreciate the cooler weather and enjoy the colors of lingering leaves. Autumn here is all about extremes though; AC on during the day and furnaces on at night. 

Petals in the wind blowing off the remaining white Crepe Myrtle flowers remind me of the snow already flying up north. It’s so beautiful today.