Sometimes thou may’st walk in groves
which being full of majestie
will much advance the soul.
~Thomas Vaughan

When I think of autumn I think of trees, all kinds of trees, and recently I ran across someone’s lovely thoughts about trees. However it wasn’t clear who wrote them or when. But I’ve decided to share some of them along with photos of trees I’ve taken over the years. And in the collection today is one that is blue, and just so you know I did nothing to make it so. There’s a phenomenon here in Texas called a blue norther which is a rapidly moving autumnal cold front that causes temperatures to drop quickly. Folk tales say they are the result of a norther that sweeps “out of the panhandle of Texas under a blue-black sky”–that is to say a cold front named for the appearance of its leading edge. And years ago I was fortunate enough to be out and about that day with my camera in hand and thus was able to capture a “blue norther.” I hope you enjoy this unknown writer’s thoughts about trees:

“For me, trees have always been the most penetrating preachers. I revere them when they live in tribes and families, in forests and groves. And even more I revere them when they stand alone. They are like lonely persons. Not like hermits who have stolen away out of some weakness, but like great, solitary men, like Beethoven and Nietzsche. In their highest boughs the world rustles, their roots rest in infinity; but they do not lose themselves there, they struggle with all the force of their lives for one thing only: to fulfill themselves according to their own laws, to build up their own form, to represent themselves. Nothing is holier, nothing is more exemplary than a beautiful, strong tree. When a tree is cut down and reveals its naked death-wound to the sun, one can read its whole history in the luminous, inscribed disk of its trunk: in the rings of its years, its scars, all the struggle, all the suffering, all the sickness, all the happiness and prosperity stand truly written, the narrow years and the luxurious years, the attacks withstood, the storms endured. And every young farm boy knows that the hardest and noblest wood has the narrowest rings, that high on the mountains and in continuing danger the most indestructible, the strongest, the ideal trees grow.” ~Author Unknown

You will go out in joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and hills will burst into song before you, and all the trees of the field will clap their hands. ~Isaiah 55:12 ✝

**All photos taken by Natalie; collage created by Natalie