TUSCANY | WATERCOLOR | DISORDER
Mist as a Prayer Shawl
Into the Val d’Orcia…
It’s raining on the car trip south, deeper into Tuscany. Before long, we enter the region of rolling hills shrouded in mist. There are wheat fields, vineyards, and olive groves. Tall cypress trees dot the landscape at intervals. The rain is not hard most of the time, but it is still soaking.
The greens are mostly dark, with some lighter greys in the olive trees and limey greens thrown in for good measure. This contrasts with the raw sienna of the buildings… farmhouses, and outbuildings, all of local stone, topped with numbered half-pipe roof tiles.
Each hill is carved with fields, most plowed in the direction of ascent and some that cut across the grain. The roads are scattered with poppy blooms and wheat fugitives from the fields. These make the scene look more painterly than ordered. They remind us that control is an illusion, and thank goodness! Not everything in our lives needs to be as regimented as a vineyard!
The mists are lovely, shrouding some of the hills like a prayer shawl so that the summit can’t be seen. They sit on the land, purpling the landscape, even parts that are close at hand. Like a prayer, they soak into the vegetation, gathered with those of more ancient times; “Come Spirit, come… send your healing comfort into the valleys and rills… raise the praise of your hills and mountains…”
Yellow broom (Cytisus scoparius) bushes are everywhere, cheering the uncultivated rough places, thriving along the roadsides, and keeping the boundaries of fields.
The afternoon sun has broken out beautifully after we arrive at La Montalla, just below the village of Contignano. La Montalla will be home for a while with other watercolor artists, taking their craft into this garden valley. May a thousand blooms flow from their brushes… may their papers flow with pigments of grace, and may their hands be guided by eyes of wonder….
A poem about a river by Sally A Mortemore. I love the “less than sentimental moon”…
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The Rev. Ron Steed is an Episcopal Deacon in Southeast Connecticut and a chaplain at Lawrence & Memorial Hospital in New London, CT. He writes haiku and lyrical prose that he hopes will help others put the head and heart in right-relation.
Top writer in Art, Watercolor, Haiku, Sermons, Refresh the Soul Weekly, and Episcopal Church.
