Our Refuge - The Enchanted Forest
Our Refuge - The Enchanted Forest 14 X38 Pastel and pencil on paper
Although we often associate bats with caves, dead and dying trees provide roosts for more than half of the bat species in the United States. As a result, it is important to recognize and preserve roost trees in a forest, and understand the great value of dead trees, and living ones, as shelter for bats.
Hoary bat in an oak tree in Tennessee
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Over 400 bats were once recorded underneath the bark of one dead pine tree. |
Our Refuge - The Enchanted Forest depicts a magical forest as a place of refuge for wildlife. The forest is eternally autumn, with a low golden sun striking brightly colored leaves at an angle. A charm ensures that bats and other creatures can live safely and move invisibly through passages between the trees.
The title is derived from a line in the poem Night Music by Chester Kallman, and refers to a place of refuge created by a protective enchantment, cast by using the herb wolf's-bane as a bat flies overhead.
Our Refuge - The Enchanted Forest has a companion, The River Under Our Refuge. Both are based on a work for harpsichord called Mysterious Barricades written by the composer François Couperin in 1717. Although many have tried for centuries, no one has ever discovered exactly what Couperin's intriguing title means.
The text comes from Shakespeare's As You Like It.
Song by William Shakespeare |
Banner photo - Creative Commons by Forest Wanderer