pegkerr | The Holy Tree

This poem, "The Two Trees," by Yeats, is my favorite poem in the world. I was introduced to it by Loreena McKennitt, who sang it as a song on her album The Mask and the Mirror. (Which is a corking good album, and you should get it. Yes, you should.) Listen to a clip from this beautiful song here.

I have thinking a great deal about the holy tree in the poem. To me, this poem is about one of the central struggles of my life, and it words it so beautifully. I am too apt to believe the demons who hold up the bitter glass, and show me a vision of a blasted and barren tree. I have been trying to see more clearly the holy tree, which the poet assures me grows within my own heart. The song is also a damn good description of cognitive therapy, one of the best I've ever read. When depression gets its claws into me, my tormentors are, indeed, the "ravens of unresting thought," who shake their ragged wings, alas. The key, the poet says, is to turn the eyes away from the bitter glass, with its false vision of the blasted tree, back to the holy tree within the heart.

I also love it because it seems to reflect what I feel deeply about the heart of flesh/heart of stone.

Tolkien cared deeply about trees, and they are central to his mythology. Thinking about the holy tree, I decided to make several icons using his drawings, and I'm pretty pleased with them:

and

, which is a detail from his painting "Lothlorien in the Spring."

I would love it if someone who is more knowledgable about icon making than I am could do an icon of just one mallorn from that painting. Does anyone know how to isolate just one tree from that forest and make it an icon all on its own? Thanks for any help anyone might be willing to give!

The site where I got the Tolkien paintings to make the icons is here. The Lothlorien picture is here.

Edited to add:

knitmeapony came through! Thanks!

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You could probably do it with a little masking and some cloning to fill in any parts that're covered -- do you have a fairly high-res image of the painting?

The two instances of the painting I've found on the web are here and here, which is larger, but less intensely colored. I might have it in a book somewhere and could try scanning it. But as for masking and cloning? Clueless. I don't have a program that could do that, and I wouldn't know how to go about doing it if I did.

Oops. That first link was supposed to be this one. It's the one I originally used.

Well, I could do it quite easily -- if you can scan it, that'd be great, otherwise I'll take a whack at it after work today.

I don't have the book with me (I'm at work, too). My scanner at home is pretty bad, but there is one at work I could perhaps use. So I could bring it in tomorrow and try scanning it. Hopefully, the tech monkeys here could help me scan it so that it is hi-res. And then what--e-mail it to you? Or post it somewhere, and you can grab it?

Thanks for being willing to help!

Email is duckie -- knitmeapony at gmail will hold just about any size attachment.

If I get bored I might take a stab with the links you posted; the two trees in the front look pretty easy to isolate.

Thanks!

I poked around my Tolkien collection, and I wasn't able to find an edition with a color plate of Tolkien's watercolor. I do have a color art card of the picture, but it is quite faded and so will not do.

If you do a Google image search with the words "Tolkien Lothlorien," you will find five or six different representations of the picture; I hope one of them will have a high enough resolution that you could use it? I'm afraid I don't have anything better in my own collection.

http://pics.livejournal.com/knitmeapony/gallery/0000hf8x

They are exquisite! Thank you so much! I have credited you.

Glad you like them!

Wow, v pretty. I especially like that second one. I love that Yeats poem and the song, too.

I think you want this URL for Lothlorien in the Spring, tho: http://www.arwen-undomiel.com/tolkien/images/Lothlorien_drawing.jpg

I love making icons, altho am never sure how good I actually am at it. I tried just for fun, but I wasn't quite sure what you meant by wanting just one tree. This probably isn't what you want, but maybe they will amuse you anyway.

Yes, that is the same painting from the same site I used.

*sigh* it is such a beautiful painting, isn't it?

Wish I could see the place it depicted.

Wow- the tree in your icon is amazing as well!! Where did you find that?

I shopped it a fair amount from a dustjacket picture.

I kind of suck at modern poetry and had not encountered the poem before I heard Loreena McKennitt's setting of it, but I love it and totally agree with you about it. (And about Mask and Mirror, which is an awesome album -- the song on it that really gets to me is "Dark Night of the Soul.")

Mmm, Yeats and Loreena McKennitt, two favorites. And her "The Highwayman" is another great one, from another poet I forget.

Alfred Noyes. (Though I like Phil Ochs' setting of it better than McKennitt's. It's a completely different effect.)

The Holy Tree

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Gaze no more in the bitter glass

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