Author: bsefran

The Tree in a Holy Fog

The Tree in a Holy Fog, From the Tree as Symbol series:

“The Tree” in this series, represents the individual person or our society in general.


THE TREE IN A HOLY FOG. What does that mean? Why a holy fog? To you, it can mean whatever you would like it to mean ! I’ll tell you how it came about and some of its meanings to me. This tree is is one of my series, The Tree as Spiritual Symbol, and it has been the most popular one!

I made this one after a workshop in which people were invited to draw themselves as a tree, in a setting in which they felt they were right now . The results were as interesting as the people themselves! Later, I kept on drawing more versions of my own tree.

Why a holy fog? There are different kinds of fog.

This fog is not a fog which we are able, or not able, to see physically with our eyes.

It stands for not knowing and also the uncertainty in which we always live, but even more acutely so these days.

“Uncertainty” is mostly used about something specific, when we really want to know something exactly and we can’t. Something which we think should be calculable, like how long this pandemic will last, how long will I live etc? It’s a state of limited knowledge where it is impossible to exactly describe the existing state, a future outcome, or more than one possible outcome. In science, uncertainty is a useful concept!

“Not Knowing”, is a Zen phrase. According to Suzuki Roshi, “Not-knowing does not mean you don’t know. It doesn’t require us to forget everything we have known or to suspend all interpretations of a situation. Not-knowing means not being limited by what we know, holding what we know lightly so that we are ready for it to be different. Maybe things are this way. But maybe they are not.”

We cannot really ever know Infinite Reality, whether we think of that in religious, or scientific terms, or both, because we ourselves are NOT Infinite. But still we have to act.

In these Covid times, many of us, in our isolation and overwhelmed with decisions to make, find ourselves, off and on, in our own small local fog of needing to just tune out from the situation, by music, TV, the web, media, reading . . .whatever! And that is good . . . for limited periods. No one can exist in stress forever and these things reduce stress. But we cannot let ourselves be paralyzed by the pandemic.

In this picture, you may notice that the fog immediately around the Tree is lighter than further off. I didn’t design it that way; it just happened! Perhaps that shows that it is possible to keep a circle of “light” around you, even in stormy times. In a real fog, we do see what is immediately around us, even if we can’t see very far!

The fog is a holy one, because, as William Blake, Thomas Merton and others have said, “Everything that lives is holy”. The word “holy” has roots in ancient words meaning “whole, entire, complete, uninjured” and “sacred”, and we are part of a Whole beyond our imagination.

I invite you, too, to take out your pencils, and draw yourself as a tree, in this pandemic, or in any of your situations! Just for yourself. Lots of trees, if you like. It can be fun, even healing. A tree is easy to draw: it just has a trunk, some branches, and, most importantly ROOTS, even tho, as in this picture, the roots are not always visible above ground. But they are there!

Stay rooted!

Blue Scribble

Blue Scribble

I often find it difficult to pick one title for a picture, or for anything, actually! This one, an abstract, had three potential titles: Ups and Downs, Water Patterns, Dancing Reflections. It ended up as Blue Scribble!

One thing I realised during the B’s Bits Covid project was that everyone reads different things into pictures, poems etc. Sometimes, it is what I had intended but did not mention, and sometimes they are things which I did not see until they were pointed out to me.

The Wings of the Morning

The Wings of the Morning. From Psalm 139 ( Acrylic Collage)

“Whither shall I go from Thy Spirit?
Or wither shall I flee from Thy Presence?
If I take the WINGS of the MORNING
And dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea
Even there shall Thy hand lead me
And Thy right hand shall hold me.
If I say surely the darkness shall cover me
Then the night shall be light about me.”

– – – –

A personal diety, whom one would address as Thou, is not part of my spiritual imagination, yet some of the Psalms resonate with me, as do these (selected) lines from Psalm 139. They also remind me of the second and last verses of an old-favorite poem, by Yeats:

The LAKE ISLE OF INNISFREE
-William Butler Yeats

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made
Nine bean rows will I have there, a hive for the honey bee
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight’s all a glimmer. and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet’s wings.

I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,
And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow
I hear it in the deep heart’s core.

– – – – –

Sometimes when anxiety, or fear these Covid days, threaten to take over, I can reach down to “my deep heart’s core” and know that I do have some peace there, even if sometimes, “peace comes dropping slow” ! And even in “the uttermost parts of the sea” with darkness covering me, I will have some Light there, and Peace there, in my deep heart’s core, by whatever name one wishes to call it.

To anyone who has to fly to the uttermost parts, through illness or other circumstances: may you be blessed with Peace.

Sunflower and mandalas


From the Sunflower series: Blue Sunflower.

This is part of a small series of sunflower pictures made from photos of sunflowers, mostly in the community garden where I had a plot. Sunflowers are one of my favorite plants and the seedhead in the centre (one of nature’s patterns) viewed together with the surrounding petals, makes something like a mandala.

At the back of each sunflower in the series are two circles containing cultural, religious or universal circular patterns, in this case a star and a maze.