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Tag Archives: spirit of place
Golden Autumn Days
At the end of the summer, it never ceases to amaze me how, every year, so many folks look to the approaching winter with a sense of foreboding, quite forgetting that the most beautiful season of the year has yet … Continue reading
Musical Journeys – Following the Songlines
Our lives take us through so many different phases, twists and unknown turns; well certainly mine has. Sometimes it’s interesting to look back and see what crazy things we were preoccupied with in years gone by; given perspective, we might … Continue reading
Posted in In Scotland, Music, Wild Places
Tagged Aberdeenshire, Animism, asceticism, Assynt, Atlantic coast, Australian Aborigines, blues, Bruce Chatwin, Clearwater Studio, cultural heritage, folk, folklore, Gaelic Music, guitar, Heartbeat, Hebrides, Highland Perthshire, Julie Fowlis, landscapes, nature, Niel Gunn, Perthshire, Peter Matthiessen, power places, rock, Rory and Callum MacDonald, Runrig, Scottish music, shamanism, singing, Songlines, songwriting, Sorley Maclean, Spirit Creek, spirit of place, Taoism, The Band from Rockall, The Last Child in the Woods, The Mill Studio, The Snow Leopard, Tibetan Buddhism, World Music, Zen
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Carnival in the Eifel
It’s getting close to Carnival time here in Germany – however due to the Corona pandemic festivities will be somewhat muted this year, if virtually non existent. Normally, at this time (around mid February), the whole population goes a bit … Continue reading
Scottish Light and Land:
There’s something unique about Scottish light and how it compliments the landforms – just like the Scottish people (and indeed people everywhere), landscapes too have their changing moods, their storms and periods of calm when they shine radiantly like the … Continue reading
New Life in Scotland’s Ancient Forests
On the banks of the River Tay by Dunkeld in Perthshire stands the ancient “Birnam Oak”, reputedly the sole surviving tree of the famed Birnam Wood of Shakespeare’s Macbeth. In Shakespeare’s “Scottish” play, Malcolm’s soldiers camouflaged themselves with branches from Birnam Wood before capturing Macbeth’s stronghold … Continue reading
Posted in History & Culture, In Scotland, Trees & Greenspaces, Wild Places
Tagged ancient woodland, birch, Birnam Oak, Cairngorms, Caledonian Pine Woods, charcoal making, community woodlands, coppicing, Forest of Spey, forest schools, Glen Finglas, Glenmore Forest, Highland Birchwoods, highland clearances, Highlands, history, Loch Lomand and the Trossachs National Park, Loch Tay Woods, Macbeth, native woodlands, oak, Pass of Ryvoan, Perthshire, Scots pine, spirit of place, tanning industry, Trossachs, wood pasture, wood turning, Woodland Trust
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Secrets of the Wild Wood
Like a scene from a distant lost world, the damp woods of the Inde valley between Hahn and Walheim hang with a mass of tangled ivy. Dead branches, rotten tree stumps and slippery, moss-covered rocks litter the ground, making for treacherous conditions underfoot. Ominous, … Continue reading
Posted in Aachen & Euregio, History & Culture, In Europe, Trees & Greenspaces, Wild Places
Tagged Aachen, ancient woodland, Blaustein, Bluestone, brophytes, Camperdown Elm, Devonian limestone, Eifel, Eifelsteig, Hahn, Inde, Konelimunster, Lime kilns, mosel, nature, nature conservation, outdoors, Raeren, saproxylic species, spirit of place, venwegen, Walheim, woodlands
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“Away With the Fairies” – The Legend of Doon Hill and Robert Kirk
As a child I spent many, happy summer Sundays sailing on my Dad’s boat at Loch Ard; a scenic forest-fringed loch, located in the Queen Elizabeth Forest Park within the Trossachs region of Scotland. In 2002, this area became part of Scotland’s first National Park, Loch Lomand and the Trossachs, … Continue reading
Posted in Family, History & Culture, In Scotland, Trees & Greenspaces, Wild Places
Tagged Aberfoyle, Atlantic oak woods, Bonnie Banks, clootie wells, clooties, Doon Hill, Elves, Fairies, Fauns and Fairies, heritage trees, In Scotland, legends, Loch Lomand and the Trossachs National Park, magic and mystery, nature, outdoors, Rev Robert Kirk, sacred groves, spirit of place, The Little People, Trossachs, Trossachs Trail, woodlands
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Tuscan Towers: Medieval Highrise of San Gimignano
As I surveyed the lush, rolling hills, woods and vineyards of the Tuscan landscape from the medieval hill town of San Gimignano, I couldn’t help but wonder why the Romans ever bothered to head off to invade hostile enclaves and dark forests of Northern … Continue reading
Posted in History & Culture, In Europe, Urbanism
Tagged corporate culture, Ghibellines, Guelphs, Italy, medieval architecture, Milan, San Gimignano, skyscrapers, spirit of place, Tuscany
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Ghost Trains in the Urban Jungle
It could be a vision straight from a post apocalyptic sci-fi movie; a real-life “Planet of the Apes”. Trees and dense shrub vegetation encroach over former railway tracks, sidings and marshalling yards. Abandoned steam locomotives, rusting water towers and mysterious structures loom out of the … Continue reading
Posted in Current Affairs, History & Culture, In Europe, Trees & Greenspaces, Urbanism
Tagged Berlin, Environmental Art, environmental education, graffitti, Green Networks, history, Industriewald, pink floyd, planet of the apes, Südgeländ, Society for Urban Ecology, spirit of place, SURE, Urban Forestry, Urban Greenspace, woodlands, zombies
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Off the Beaten Track 