Ok, had your thought?
My other half's initial reaction is to shout back (please imagine appropriate accent), "Run Forest, run!" Which makes me giggle every time!
If you were in a forest or woodland area what direction would your mind wander in?
Slight tangential paragraph, hang in there it will make sense!
I love working in a library. Simply for the fact that librarians are amazing at finding books, how much more amazing is it when they get to know your quirks and when a random book crosses their path they know you will be interested in it! I'll tell you....totally amazing. A colleague has done this for me recently and I took a look at the book in question today, oh and I have fallen for the book within the first few pages!
Sara Maitland - Gossip from the Forest (The tangled roots of our forests and fairytales) 2012It starts with the dedication; ".... the true princess (No green vegetables were hurt testing of this hypothesis)"
Then continues with the definition of 'gossip' and goes on from there. See I told you that I was going somewhere with that ;-)
She talks about the earth before the last ice age and what was left behind after the melt. And this line caught my imagination.
"And so once upon a time it was all forest. Forest enough to be lost in it forever"Ooooo, did you get a shiver?? I did. The next couple of pages (which is as far as I have read) she goes on to talk about how, whilst camping in a forest, the conversation she was having made it's way to fairytales. I have to say, with the way she describes the forest they were in I think that is where my mind would have wandered.
For more from this talented photographer visit Lee Johnson Photography
Here's a challenge; if you can go out into a forest great, if not your imagination is your greatest tool. Imagine you are in a forest or wooded area, now where does your mind go? If it is a particular fairytale, which one? Is it even fairytales at all? Let me know in the comments or turn it into a blog post if you like and link back. I will complete the challenge and report back next week, including any other gems from Maitland's book I discover.
Happy dreaming.
Great challenge! And I have one specifically for you in my post yesterday ("And Now for Something Completely Different"). ...and I may or may not share an excerpt from my novel. Go now and accept your challenge from me! :-)
ReplyDelete:-) I've been and accepted yours.....
DeleteForest is peace, forest is tranquility, adventure, mystery and a little bit of eeriness. Forest is memories..
ReplyDeleteFor some reason my mind also links it to The Scarlet Letter . And that links to imp child..and so on .. (:
Thanks for sending my mind wandering! (;
Sounds like a great book and I LOVE it when librarians can do that! :D
I love your mind wanderings, all so perfect!
DeleteI keep forgetting that I'm one of the special breed known as librarians now, it's weird!!
A week later and I'm still working on this in my head. I want to do something with it, but not sure what yet. It's growing.
ReplyDeleteTake it, ponder a while and I will wait with bated breath for your fabulous words!
DeleteI don't tend to get out into the forest as much as I would like--though we do live in a rural area surrounded by state forest lands so it's fairly accessible. When I am out in the woods, though, I tend to get a bit scienc-y: spotting, naming and classifying all varieties of flora and fauna. It's as magical for me as fairy tales are for other people. ;)
ReplyDeleteWhy is it when the gorgeous things are on our doorstep we hardly ever get chance to visit them??
DeleteI have a friend who is always pointing things out to me on walks; naming things for me. I wonder sometimes if he has worked out that my mind isn't working out which bird the call came from, or even the direction. It wonders if the birds are people spotting; if the have tick sheets like bird spotters do? Do they comment on 'the mother, ushering her clan, obviously on route to feeding time'? Sorry mind wandered for a moment there. I love that we all see different things!