Morning forest with palmette, 11 April, 2020.

I am sure the sky has got more crystalline, as no planes fly over. This morning a spindle shaped cloud hovered in the blue, like a message. The tiered trees on the forested hill seem to have woken up since the dense smoke of summer and started moving and stirring in the clear air. My sister told me that sometimes in Japan people from cities go 'forest bathing', just sitting amongst trees, breathing.

The palmette ornament is a replica from the Acropolis Museum in Athens. It's a tree-of-life device, known to Hittites, Sumerians and Egyptians and adopted by the Greeks as the crowning ornament on tomb stones, or high on roofs. It could be emblematic of a date palm, or derived from the fringe of a lotus flower. It's a reminder of 'physis', the Greek word for nature, meaning everything that is born or generated, a good image for death or a protective device against roaming evil for people in houses. Quite useful at present.

Diana Wood Conroy, 'Morning forest with palmette',watercolour on Arches paper, 15 x 21 cm, 11 April, 2020