touch of soles

Excerpt from the book The Old Ways by Robert Macfarlane

Touch is a reciprocal action, a gesture of exchange with the world. To make an impression is also to receive one, and the soles of our feet, shaped by the surfaces they press upon, are landscapes themselves with their own worn channels and roving lines. They perhaps most closely resemble the patterns of ridge and swirl revealed when a tide has ebbed over flat sand. Our heels have marks that look like percussive shockwaves. The arch, where the foot's flex is greatest, is reticulated with shallow folds. The ball carries non-intersecting ripples. The whole foot is a document of motion, inscribed by repeated action. Babies - from those first foetal footfalls, the kneading of sole against womb-wall, turning themselves like astronauts in black space - have already creased their soles by the time they emerge into the world. 

~

What an amazing description of our soles. It is so true that our foot is a document of motion. During my childhood days I used to walk barefoot, play barefoot and run barefoot. With the kind of comfortable footwear available and are affordable (these days), we've forgotten to walk barefoot. I do not even know how many would even be comfortable walking barefoot. 

I should try walking/running barefoot for 15 minutes everyday. Just to feel that touch. 

Srik

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what places make of us

Excerpt from the book The Old Ways by Robert Macfarlane

As I envisage it, landscape projects into us not like a jetty or peninsula, finite and bounded in its volume and reach, but instead as a kind of sunlight, flickeringly unmappable in its plays yet often quickening and illuminating. We are adept, if occasionally embarrassed, at saying what we make of places - but we are far less good at saying what places make of us. For some time now it has seemed to me that the two questions we should ask of any strong landscape are these: firstly, what do I know when I am in this place that I can know nowhere else? And then, vainly, what does this place know of me that I cannot know of myself? 

~~

Sigh. Right questions to ask I guess.

I keep thinking whenever I am in such a place where such thoughts come to me. I ask myself several questions that I have no answer and I feel something else other than me can answer some of them.

I was on top of the cho-la pass in the year 2010 very close to Mt.Everest. I had never seen such beautiful and dangerous landscapes in my life. There were hardly any footprints nor there was any clear route to walk.  Those thoughts that came to me during my journey was so inspiring in spite of not knowing what exactly they mean to me at that point in time. 

Srik

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habits of landscape

Excerpt from the book The Old Ways by Robert Macfarlane

Paths are the habits of a landscape. They are acts of consensual making. It's hard to create a footpath on your own. The artist Richard Long did it once, treading a dead-straight line into desert sand by turning and turning about dozens of times. But this was a foot-mark not a footpath; it led nowhere except to its own end, and by walking it Long became a tiger pacing its cage or a swimmer doing lengths. With no promise of extension, his line was to a path what a snapped twig is to a tree. Paths connect. This is their first duty and their chief reason for being. They relate places in a literal sense, and by extension they relate people. 

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Whoa! absolutely. I could not agree more for his definition of a 'path'. Paths connect - this is so much true. They exist to connect. Connect places, us and more.

Srik

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a permit, a shovel and a bit of elbow grease

Excerpt from the book Orchid Fever by Eric Hansen

"I save orchids for a living. That's what I do. I know there are people out there that would like to take me down and take me down hard, because they just can't tolerate the thought that there might be a simple solution to the problem. I own three shovels and The Beast, and as long as I can pull my permits and get landowners' permission I'm going to be walking ditches, digging plants, and wrestling root balls. The experts can debate their cutting-edge conservation theories all they like. I don't begrudge them, but I'll let you in on a little secret. You see over there where the peat field meets the forest? That's what I call the cutting edge. It's coming in this direction and the best way to save an orchid around here is with a permit, a shovel, and a bit of elbow grease."

As told by Tom Nelson (An Orchid Rescue person from MN) to Eric Hansen.

~~

I was absolutely thrilled to read Tom Nelson's story. All he does for living is to rescue Orchids and that too  with his own money. All through the story I was thinking how many people show this kind of commitment? His passion for Orchids and saving them has no boundaries. 

There are people who write theories, there are people who just read them, there may be a few people who understand and follow them, and there are only a handful of people who actually do practice them on the field when it comes to conservation.

Srik

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An experiment...

(Click on the images to enlarge them)

Forest area looking East

Forest Area looking South

Looking South West

Looking South

Looking West

Adjacent Hill. Looking East

Looking North-West

Looking North

(C) Srikanth Parthasarathy

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kas in monochrome

This is just an experiment to display Kaas landscapes in monochrome. I did not particularly shoot them for this effect but I selected those that may look good with this monochrome effect. Let me know what you think.

Smithia flower amidst the Senecio flowers

Rocks on the Sahyadri slopes overlooking the Satara City

Smithia hisruta - the mickey mouse flowers

A lonely tree on the yellow carpets of Smithia 

Acacia Tree on the plateau

Sahyadri slopes and the Urmodi Dam backwaters

The mass flowering of Impatiens flowers on the plateau

Bamnouli landscape

White flowers of Dipcadi montana amidst the Impatiens flowers

Eriocaulon flowers on the plateau

Utricularia flowers 

Shivsagar lake backwaters at Bamnouli village

Utricularia and Eriocaulon

Exacum flowers amidst the Eriocaulon

Macro shot of Eriocaulon flower

The trumphet flowers - Ramphicarpa

Pogostemon flowers

Murdannia simplex flower and the bee

(C) Srikanth Parthasarathy

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