Crystal woods — Jabeek forest‑trees

All journal-items with the title ‘Crystal woods’ form a whole and are part of a new project. During 2017 I expanded my research for nature and life-energy to seven woods in a range of 10 km around my living place. The Crystal-woods-journals. The Crystal woods story consists of photographs, maps and paintings. In Crystal woods — Introduction one can find global information about this project.

Lately a friend showed me a photo of a huge tree, the only tree in the environment that wasn’t chopped down because it was considered as a holy tree. Maybe this thought is an underlying intention of my Crystal wood project: to declare nature as holy/whole, with the trigonal ‘places of wholeness’ as crystallisation points. In Japan very old forest have been preserved because in Shintoism they are still considered as holy sanctuaries. A subsequent leap of consciousness should be: seeing all life and nature as whole/holy, and to base a new economic model on this essential universal vision. (On this theme one can read ’Capitalism in the web of life’, J.W. Moore.)

Snake trees

On May 30 2017, on a warm day in spring, I take a walk in the cool shadowed forest of Jabeek-forest. For the first time I visit the places which I already know since 1996, but did not see for many years. Such as a hollow in which a small hill marks a Black place. I lean against the trunk of an oak that grows here and watch the play of translucent, green leafs and there playful shadows above me, while I feel the streaming life-energy of the Black place.

Especially the trees that seem to have more individuality attract my attention (in production forests, where all trees look the same, I don’t feel at home). They show remarkable shapes that partly originate by the influence of ’snake lines’, at least that is my conclusion after many years of tree observations. That is, there snaky growth with sharp angles and curves is affected by wavy, life-energetic tracks with frequencies of water, fire, earth or ether.

A month later I take the decision to make a five hour walk at least twice a month and one July 2 for the first time a make such a longer walk. November 2017 I take a series of photos of these kind of trees. The snake-oak that growth next to the path that leads to the Black place I already knew since 1996. And on the Black place in the hollow growth an oak with twisting trunk and sharp edged branches.

The black of the ‘Black place’ actually stands for a black-purple aubergine hue which one can perceive on that spot by the inner eye. That is the basic color I used for the painting of the oak. I made lighten up the points of interference, expressing the merging of the seen and the unseen.

Principle of connection

There’s another oak growing on snake lines on the central place of the forest Jabeekerbos. This tree did hardly grow since I took its picture twenty-two years ago. I examined it once more very well from different angles: surprising how one branche bows sharply from the right to the left, while an opposite branch bows from the left to the right.

Further more I discovered a buckthorn (or wild cherry?) on a Black-Mary-place with two main branches that cross one another and form a geometric imprint expressing the life-energetic principle of connection and of transformation.

Acrobatic

On March 2 2018 I walk to the forest Jabeek-forest through a biting cold east wind. Once more I visit the central spot and from there I wander through the woods parallel to the bicycle lane, and after 50 meter I am surprised by a group of ‘dancing’ trees that I had not seen before. In their middle grows a wild cherry that really catches the eye. For a while I walk in circles around its stem, fascinated by its shape. It makes me glad to see how its branches and roots embrace space, whirling and sensing for light. Together with him standing still becomes streaming…