Beech Tree with Love Tattoos
Close up of Love carvings
This beech tree stands on the edge of the woods which spill away from the parkland gardens of the old abbey. It has been here a long time. It’s roots reach down through the same rocks and soil which covered this patch of earth when Mary Queen of Scots was struggling for her throne. The sound of the River Esk has soothed this tree since it was a tiny fragile sapling just making its way in the world.
Here on the edge of the river and the woods thousands of young hands have carved their hopes of love into the bark of this tree. As the tree has grown their names and letters have stretched and cracked across the trunk, leaving its skin tattooed with promises of love, growing into the future. The wish is the growth of the tree will fuel their dreams of the future. A bit of Celtic tree magic right before our eyes. Some will be broken and some will hold, but what has been carved can’t be uncarved. Regardless, the tree continues to bear witness. I wonder how their stories are unfolding now.
You can see more Future Tense posts by following the link to the weekly photo challenge.
You can also see more posts with the theme of Time at Ailsas weekly photo challenge.
breathofgreenair 
Beautiful shots and they stretch the imagination about Future. 🙂
Thanks…I guess the future hods many twists an turns we can’t see yet 🙂
Human only has a limited lifetime, but full of infinite desire. maybe all the tragedy stems from here.
What magical tree shots.
This tree has a beautiful atmosphere around it….it kind of draws you in 🙂
This makes me do a trip down my own memory lane! Wonderful and heart warming post. 🙂
Thanks Angie. Did you do some tree carving in your younger days?
Oh yes, indeed! The joy of being young and in love? haha
Good memories 🙂 I used to spend a lot of time sitting up in trees….must try it again soon!
The view from up those trees creates a different world.I do miss climbing up trees, although my biggest scar came from falling down from one. 🙂
Love the way your posts range from beach to beech. Certainly, that tree ‘wood’ have witnessed much of interest. You also range from bark to bark, come to think of it …
Ha…love your comments….too funny… You must follow me just so I get more comments which make me laugh!!
Duly done. You may be sorry. I tend to overdo punning!
I will look forward to punning taken to whole new levels 🙂 Your comments even made my 19 year old son groan!! That’s when you know it’s good 🙂
What an unusual tree. So did you make any carvings for yourself?
No, my hands are too old and steeped in history for carving tree wishes….in the past though I carved into a rock which is similar…I will write a post about carving rock after my trip up North to Plockton this week 🙂
The colours in this photo are so intense and the subject matter so astounding. Such a history in this tree. I saw a tree like this in Singapore, ( very small ) and it was being killed by love – the messages left by lovers on its bark was in fact contributing to the death of the tree. But this tree appears so strong and powerful. Thanks so much for posting.
That’s sad about the tree in Singapore, killed by love 😦 So I guess this tradition is all across the world, which is interesting in itself, an ancient and universal impulse to leave our wishes in the hands of the trees 🙂
This tree is in no danger from its carvings, but you can see that lightening has stripped away some of its branches and bark…I wonder what portents that holds for the carvings lost to lightening ?
Tattoos of love… a poignant and luminous concept, thanks for adding that dimension to the photography. Also, congratulations on your Freshly Pressed (I’m not sure how recent it is; I have just noticed it now.)
Glad you enjoyed the tattoos …these trees are amazing….. Freshly pressed was so last month 🙂
Great image and lovely post! 🙂
Thanks 🙂
Love the title “Carved into the Future”/ gr8 image
Thanks so much…and I suspect we all carve things into our future without even realising 🙂
Nice topic … nice image. The lighting on the one up front glows.
Thanks, I took this photo last Autumn with my iphone, and caught it just as the sun highlighted the tree for me. mother nature can be very helpful sometimes 🙂
With your iPhone! Is that what you use for all of your images? Or just in this particular case? D
Just some of my older images 🙂 I got a new camera for Christmas ( thank you Santa) and I’m practically inseparable from it now, so all my images since January are courtesy of canon and my developing skills with DSLR!
A fabulous post! – well written and pertinent to the challenge.
Thanks Lynne, so glad you enjoyed reading it. I was scratching my head a little with this challenge, so searched back through my photo archives to find this…..it’s funny how one pst leads to the inspiration for the next…I’m now planning some shots of an old carving rock up in the highlands 🙂
I know, it’s what keeps us posting I guess. 😉 Looking forward to the post.
It is interesting to think of ourselves through the framework of trees that come before us and are alive long after we are gone.
So true Charlie…I think that’s one of the reasons I love trees so much…they have a bigger perspective on time than we do 🙂
Trees are living souls. This is a beautiful post. i saw in your comments that someone already had told you about the Swedish word “bok” – so I will not tell you again…but I love the thought of it, because that’s what they are.
Living books with pages reaching back and stretching forwards ….wonderful magical trees 🙂
What an impressive tree. Our beeches almost never get that big, they are virtually all sick and die premature. I like seeing this old timer.
They are so beautiful when they get big, and in Autumn the colours in the beech woods are glorious 🙂
Where do you live that your beeches are all sick?
Funny, I put up a post with some photos of a beech tree. Ours is not nearly as old and only has about four names carved into it, but I did put up a photo of one.
I’ll go and have a look….there must be hundreds of these wishing beeches all over the UK….don’t know if they have this tradition in other countries?
Well, I’m in the U.S., so I believe so.
I wonder if its a native tradition or if the settlers brought it with them from Europe? There is something magical about coming across these wishing trees 🙂
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What a creative interpretation of the Photo Challenge theme. You have some great old trees surrounding you where you live!
Thanks, we do have lots of big old trees, and beeches are one of my favourites 🙂
What a lovely post. That’s quite a tree.
Thanks you, and yes the tree is amazing, there is a beautiful atmosphere around it 🙂
wonderful… really, majestic! thanks for the share 😉
My pleasure 🙂
beautiful 🙂 reminds me of a church wall rhat’s been graffitti’d, tho your picture s more powerful
Yeah, I hadn’t thought of it as graffiti but that’s exactly what it is on one level….graffiti filled with desires and dreams 🙂 Making a mark to pass into the future…..
yep 🙂
possibly the best graffitti i’ve seen, once my transprt is back on the road i will try to remember and visit the church i mentioned ( with camera 🙂 )
I’ll look forward to the photos 🙂
the swedish name for beech is bok…which is a homonym, and also means book.
many pages in this one.
Janna, this set off some memories for me….I had forgotten that beech is linked strongly to words and books. The English word Beech stems from the old Anglo Saxon, boec…..which also literally means book. Dont you just love how old languages hold wisdom like this! This then got me curious….apparently thin slices of beech wood were bound into some of the earliest known books in Europe. I love re-finding this ancient link between beech trees and words …..thanks for kindling the remembering 🙂
marvellous! anglo-saxon has quite a few common roots with old norse, i think. 🙂 there are many words in the english language that come from the old norse to begin with, for example window. it comes from vindöga, which means wind-eye. i’ve always thought that was a fantastic word, too.
I love this Janna, I will look at windows in a whole new light now….and given the drafts which whistle through my old sash and cord wooden windows, wind-eye is a perfect description 🙂 Here in Scotland we have lots of Norse roots in our place names and words…I find it all fascinating and thanks for enlightening me in windows and books …and that’s just today 🙂
We usually cut trees open to tell us about the past – it’s interesting to see a tree that holds so much future promise 🙂
That’s so true, I hadn’t even thought about tree rings and all the secrets they hold deep under the bark….the past and the future merged 🙂