Highlands Déjà Vu
Archival Pigment Print
Copyright © 2006, 2011 Rose Rita Petersons - All Rights Reserved
...I'll get to Scotland afore ye...
"The Bonnie Banks o' Loch Lomond" ~ Trad.1841
A bad accident had left me suffering from spinal damage. Wracked with pain, there were times when I could hardly move. There never seemed to be any creative juices flowing through me. The trauma had turned me into someone I had never expected to become. I literally had to drag myself to a wonderful new park and force myself to walk some of the beautiful trails. Nature has such amazing healing energies that can be transformational. The beauty of the surrounding hills and the brilliance of the Berkshire Mountains in the distance worked their spell. There were actually a few moments when there was no pain at all and I felt as if I could could go on hiking forever.
As the Lookout Trail gradually rose higher and higher, my meandering magically transported me back to another time and place. It was uncanny - I found myself feeling as though I was hiking through the Scottish Highlands to places I'd been many times, decades ago. I could almost smell the fragrant heather and hear the calls of the lambs across the mountains in the distance. Suddenly, I came back to the here and now of reality. At the top of the hill on the Lookout Trail, my eyes focused upon a thistle. It was that time of day when the sun is at an angle that bathes everything in a transforming golden light. Photographers and cinematographers refer to it as Golden Hour.
Behold the thistle. Ripe and glowing. Reminiscent of Scotland sunsets. Bursting with the kinds of colors that would reflect into languid Scottish lochs surrounded by mossy green meadows and towering purple mountaintops. It was a heavenly sight to me. And it was a heavenly gift to forget about my physical pain, if only for a short while.
And fare thee well, my only Luve
And fare thee well, a while!
And I will come again, my Luve,
Tho’ it were ten thousand mile.
~Robert Burns, 1794 (distant relative of my maternal grandfather Michael Burns)
Copyright © 2006, 2011, 2013 Rose Rita Petersons - All Rights Reserved - Exclusive Creative Property of the Artist (with the exception of the poetry of Robert Burns and
This photo and all other content may not be downloaded, printed, copied, or forwarded by electronic media from this website or otherwise used without the express permission of the Artist.
Contact: [email protected]
Photo Location: Roeliff Jansen Park - Hillsdale, NY - http://www.roejanpark.org/
New York State Department of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation - http://nysparks.com/