If winter comes, can spring...

"Old one," 5 x 7 watercolor, 140 lb. d'Arches cold press paper

The more we fast-paced, self-centered humans learn about trees, the more ignorant we discover we are.
Thinking that homo sapiens is the climax of evolution, of life on earth, Western "civilized" humans arrogantly ignore science and history, leading to our eventual suicidal extinction.
Bleak? Only from a human point of view, because every indication is that life, in its many forms, will survive our aggressive  exploitation of this planet--if we don't exterminate everything off first. 
But that is a narrow view as well, because of the billions of life forms under our feet, in the depths of oceans, in caves, and in forests.

Which brings me to today's watercolor--a "dead" tree I've admired in Hafer Park for a long time. 
It is in the winter of its existence, but it is not dead--it is a necessary host that teems with other life forms we probably can't even see.
If you read about trees--having a "heartbeat," having a community, communicating and caring for each other, you have to cope with what Eastern thought has long known.
All life is connected. 
Western mankind is systematically committing genocide in the oceans and forests, and eventually, us. Homo sapiens is the most dangerous predator ever.
Think about it. Deforestation of the Amazon, the lungs of the planet, is nothing more than suicide...essentially infecting our lungs with emphysema--depriving us of oxygen.
This painting began as a challenge for beauty, not negativity...the older I get, the more beauty I see in aging creations, organic and non-organic. I've tried this before, but my challenge has been to give an impression, an abstraction, almost an Eastern thought process.
Abstract brush strokes lead to abstract ideas....
"If winter comes, can spring be far behind?" asks Shelley. 
"No man is an island," wrote Donne, words more apropos than ever.
Winter is coming. In the long life of trees, and creation, homo sapiens is a recent organism that may not see another spring, but may become host for other unknown life forms.
"No man is an island," wrote Donne, words more apropos than ever.
Sources:
Trees have "heartbeats"

As free as the wind?

As free as the wind? 6" x 8 1/2" watercolor

What is freedom? How do you paint freedom?
"Loose and Free" was today's challenge prompt for World Watercolor Month, and doubled my challenge into abstract.
Impressions, that's all and then some verses came to mind, and thoughts from readings and more.
The more we think we have, the less freedom we have...we are owned by what we think we own--obligated, indebted, tied down, fenced in. "Golden handcuffs," as one friend said.
Chained to protecting what we have.  In materialist America, we see this everywhere. Gated communities. Security systems. Buy more to be happy. The more we have, the more we fear losing it.  Gandhi knew this. Jesus knew this. The Eastern mystics knew this. Hunter gatherers and nomads knew this.
In the book Sapiens, A Brief History of Humankind, author Harari writes that the agricultural revolution was history's "biggest fraud." He uses wheat, once a wild grass, to prove his point. But when wheat was domesticated, homo sapiens "was doing little more from dawn to dusk than taking care of wheat plants,"  which demanded hard work. "the average farmer worked harder than the average forager, and got a worse diet in return." 
His conclusion: "These plants domesticated Homo sapiens, rather than vice versa." Is that freedom?
Deep  thoughts for a watercolor prompt. That's part of the challenge of painting, but I've found every painting has a story behind it, or in it. 
How? I thought of the lines from the song, "Born Free."
"Born free, as free as the wind blows
As free as the grass grows
Free to follow your heart."
And then I thought of the words of Jesus, in Matthew 6:26 after telling his disciples not to worry (not to be owned by, but to be free), about material things:
"Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow, or reap or store away in barns, and yet your Heavenly Father feeds them."
Thus today's abstract painting, wind and grass and birds, all in motion, a difficult task, impressions of freedom, of being loose, 140 lb. d'Arches cold press paper.
How free are we?

The blog at 103 countries--Africa again

About the time I think this blog has reached its limit geographically, readers from a different countries hit on it, and that happened twice this week, both from Africa. Earlier this week, someone from Ethiopia did so, and then yesterday, someone in Ethiopia's southern neighbor, Tanzania, scanned these posts, marking the 14th African nation to be counted.
Considering that there are about 196 "countries" in the world, with 192 as members of the UN, I'm fascinated. There's another blog post coming on the world's countries.

When I was growing up, the main part  of Tanzania was called Tanganyika, and an  island off the coast carried the exotic name of Zanzibar. With the gradual elimination of colonization in the 1960s, the two countries emerged from British control to become Tanzania in 1964, combining their names. Its flag is a combination of the two flags.
As with most African countries, the area lost independence to European countries. Imperial Germany conquered it to make it German East Africa along with Rwanda and Burundi, but after WWI, it became a British mandate from the League of Nations. British rule ended in 1961. Before the Europeans, under a sultan's control, it was the center for the Arab slave trade, with more than half the population sold into slavery in the 1800s. 
But Tanzania is better known for two facts. It is the home of Africa's highest mountain, the volcanic Kilimanjaro, at  19,341 feet--which makes it the highest freestanding mountain in the world.
It is quite possibly the birthplace of mankind, according to fossil discoveries in Olduvai Gorge, where pre-human ancestors lived about 2 million years ago, and homo sapiens has been dated there to 17,000 years ago. The people are not primitive--about 2,000 years ago, they invented a type of steel from a blast furnace

Today the country has a population of more than 43 million, with 80 percent rural, and more than half under 15 years of age. It, like Nebraska, has a unicameral legislature,  with 343 members. Interesting to me is that it has a five-level judiciary combining tribal, Islamic and English common law...proving they can work together, in spite of Americans', and some Oklahoma legislators', fears of Sharia law.
The flag--green for natural vegetation, yellow for rich minerals, black, the skin col, and blue the lakes, rivers and Indian Ocean.
As with all of these visitors from far away, I'd sure like to know more...so many stories. So much imagination. I so wish I could see Kilimanjaro, and Olduvai, and say I'd been to Zanzibar. Wouldn't you? Thanks reader.