Our church are our forests.
The essence of Englishness is to enjoy a luke warm cup of tea from a thermos in a damp car parked on Beachy Head whilst staring into the mist on a cold, windy November day.
"The USA appears destined by fate to plague America with misery in the name of liberty." Simon Bolivar, Caracas, 1819
Very true. (Brings back memories of many walks. In woods full of other walkers.) *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
Mind you that the Greens got into parliament when the German people discovered that the forests were dying due to acid rain. One could also argue that the German political parties became very ecologically minded because of the threat to the forest - and this includes the conservative parties.
Germans are still pagans who worship trees.
Hmmmm, you must have walked in forests in only a part of Germany! In the Taunus, the Vogelsberg, the Spessart, the Hunsrück, the Odenwald, and a couple of others, I encountered plenty of underbrush in parts of the forest. It depends on the age and the type of the trees planted.
But when the forest is older, and especially if it is beech, it is indeed as you describe. In particular when, as your photo, there is fog. I made that experience on only three trips when there (out of maybe fifty), but those were memorable. *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
On a broader note, I participated in this subthread in the mindset of uncovering subconscious assumptions and beliefs correlated with nationalisms (in my sense, as imagined communities). But, of course, (1) all of these myths are internalised by different subsets of adherents of one nation, and to different extent, (2) to some extent, all of these myths have counterparts in other nationalisms. To extend the latter, I'd say there are several myths that are central to one nationalism that are almost universal among nationalisms, but not recognised as such. Say, "united we are great, disunity aways led to our fall", and the connected "we are a very divided people". *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
German romanticism breaks with the classic view, also expressed by Shakespeare in A Midsummer Night's Dream, that the forest is a ex-urbe place of condamnation and chaos.
The German working class movement sees the forest as a place of gaining social strength through personal interaction and sports (in corpore sano...) as shown in the film "Kuhle Wampe".
The Nazis mystify the nordic wood and interprete the free standing rows of orderly assembled trees as a symbol of military marching columns of soldiers.
A lot of things could be said about the forest scene of Siegfried in the Nibelungen, or more recently some Greens activists chaining themselves to trees to stop the construction of new runways at Frankfurt airport (see: tree huggers).
So, DoDO pretty much nails it when he says:
But, of course, (1) all of these myths are internalised by different subsets of adherents of one nation, and to different extent, (2) to some extent, all of these myths have counterparts in other nationalisms.
*Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
Wish it were true here. The Fates are kind.
