…when you are a tree! For more Green, click here.
Promenadvägen upp till doftträdgården och den lilla sjön
En grantopps syn på livet
…bedövande grön och skön!
WPC: It IS Easy Being Green…
Sweden
Cee’s B&W Challenge: Letters E or F
F for Forest – a Lapland, frozen, silent place to hike. Over to Cee for more!
Travel theme: Woman
There are so many women in the world…and they are all important. My choices are still easy to make – the two most important women in my own life: My daughter and my mother. My daughter, some years ago, a summer in our cottage by the sea, and my mother hiking one of the Madeiran trails at the age of 75.
Woman – industrious, hard working, smart, loving, kind, helping, generous, caring…
The Sun is Back!
Thursday Thoughts
In less than 8 weeks from now…the wonder will happen again…
Pictures from last year and Spring unfolding…
How much do I long for this? I cannot tell you. But, the blackbird sings in the evening now, the cranes, the lark and the lapwings have arrived. We are ready.
Travel theme: Paths
Nice company on your path is often welcome…
…family and friends…
But also – alone, reflective…
Stony, hard, tough…
Soft, warm and glorious
I love paths, and I love the memories when I once again look at them, remember them…a little bit of sadness, a little bit of…life gone forever.
These paths belong to the Azores, Spain, Madeira, New Zealand and Sweden.
Lev! Live!
In Umeå, where my daughter is studying, there is a 170 meter long glass wall in the railway tunnel (2012) decorated with some 30 quotes from the works of author Sara Lidman (1923-2004)- Lev!(Live)
She was born in the village Missenträsk and raised in the Västerbotten region of northern Sweden. She studied at the University of Uppsala when she contracted tuberculosis. She achieved her first great successes with the novel Tjärdalen (The Tar Still) and the novel Hjortronlandet, where she depicts themes such as alienation and loneliness.
Sara Lidman is one of the most important writers of the Swedish language in the twentieth century. Especially because of her innovative language and imagery, Biblical but also integrating the worldly and the spiritual. She also wrote extensively on political subjects, always with a strong feeling for the poor, against war and colonialism, pornography and the misuse of our natural environment. She engaged in protest against the Vietnam War and apartheid in South Africa.
Picture provided by and thanks to Wikipedia.
WPC: Against All Odds
Against the odds – my very special and wonderful friend, Mille, survived his severe illness and lived his last two years thanks to my daughter’s loving care. He was so close to death several times, but she managed to save him through natural medicine from the Japanese sea, and through loving care. No veterinary has managed to explain how this really worked – but it did. He was strong and lively throughout his life. And we are so very grateful to have known him. I have had some dogs in my life, but no one like him. I called him Iron Man.
Mille died in May 2014. This is the last picture of him, standing in his beloved water, the sea at our summer house. He had just turned 12.
Thursday Thoughts – Jokkmokks Marknad -412 Years Old
”Jokkmokk’s Market has a long history and is considered to have a four hundred-year unbroken tradition. Permanent marketplaces near the Sámi’s winter settlements were established by the Swedish crown at the beginning of the 17th century in all the Sámi Lappish territories on both sides of the Gulf of Bothnia. The purpose was to strengthen the state’s control of the population in the north as well as to collect taxes, hold legal court and spread the Word of God. Planning a market in the Lappish territories during the coldest time of the year had several advantages. The Sámi were gathered in their winter settlements in the forest area with winter grazing for their reindeer and the frozen waterways constituted magnificent roads for the merchants, state officials and men of the church.”
http://www.jokkmokksmarknad.se/visitors/history/
”Renrajden” is every year led by Per Kuhmunen and his family. It takes at least a year to tame the reindeer as much as needed to follow their leaders through the market place and let people touch them. At the Snow Scene in the middle of the market place, they sometimes let themselves be interviewed and photographed in the traditional Gákti. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%A1kti
His wife makes all the beautiful clothes for the family…
…but now the older children make their own Sámi clothes
Once in a while Per might say a word or two…but must be coaxed into it…
Not many words from his wife either. I guess that is the way of northeners.
The Sámi people have always led a harsh life, and today they also have problems with the global warming that hits hard up north. As the weather wavers between warm and cold, the ground will get icy and the reindeer cannot find food enough. Last year some 30000 reindeer starved to death in northern Russia.
Per Kuhmunen and his family comes back every year to Jokkmokk’s Market. Today they are met by film cameras and ordinary cameras, radio and TV. But they seem to enjoy it.
Between Old and New.
Art Suites – In the Rocks
When the first snow has arrived somewhere in November, artists from all over the world come together in the village to take part in creating the art exhibition of snow, ice and light that makes up Icehotel.
My guess is that they will spend quite some time in the cosy bar…! Here you get drinks in ice glasses…as they say – in the rocks.
From the beginning, the glasses were made by hand. But, as the guests started to get numerous, the capacity of three glasses a day became a bit too slow…so now they are machine made. Do you know that they last only for 30-45 minutes? Then the alcohol will make the ice melt and make your drink end up in your lap. Glasses made for fast drinkers like Hemingway then…
The selected artists who are invited to take part are not required to have worked with ice before. Instead, those who want to participate have to send in their ideas based on originality, and creating it in natural ice will pose a new challenge. Some 200 applications usually end up in some 40 artists coming here in November each year for the construction of the rooms. But this year they were about 60 – to decorate the new art suites.
The artists often work two at a time in the rooms, and when they are finished, they are allowed to stay one night in their creation…and only one night.
Let us walk down the corridor and peep inside some of the art suites!
Mermaid Fitness – Nina & Magnus Hedman
Oh Deer – Ulrika Tallving & Carl Wellander
In fact, should you spend the night here…you would get a mattress, reindeer skins and a sleeping bag for -28 C. My absolute favourite room was Living With Angels – artist Benny Ekman. I would have felt perfectly safe and secure.
Leya 
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