THE ZALIPIE FLOWERS

The flowers of Zalipie, Poland. A bouquet and sunflowers painted on a white wall.
“I am working with the enthusiasm of a man from Marseilles eating bouillabaisse, which shouldn’t come as a surprise to you because I am busy painting huge sunflowers.”
— VINCENT VAN GOGH

In a village called Zalipie, on the flat plains of the lower Polish farmlands, we experienced a small, but beautiful moment that will forever remain in my memory.

A kindly old lady, while watering her plants, saw that we were wandering around the village, and speaking no English, she came to her gate and simply gestured that we should follow her into her home.

Her house was, like all the others, adorned with painted flowers - wreathed above the windows, and all along the walls. But inside that tiny space, where the ceiling was so low it almost brushed the top of Oliver's head, the flowers burst into a huge array: on every surface, every bowl and spoon, every couch and cloth, every corner, there bloomed some gorgeous element of spring! I was taken aback, having felt a little apprehensive at following this stranger indoors. All my doubt melted away, and I just stood there gazing around me, mouth open...

She spoke to us in Polish, explaining it all in words we couldn't understand. Her smile, and her gestures told us so much more. She offered us food: boiled eggs and mash, then took us back outside to show us the barn and her chickens. Like everything else, the barn was painted with bright flowers, that seemed to make her smile even as she looked at them on that grey winter day.

She was a flower ~ a bright sunflower, with shining face and waving hands. And, just by being so sweet and joyful, she reminded me, a passing stranger on the meadow lane, to smile.

 

Bright flower details painted on an old brown barn in Zalipie, Poland.
A bucket hanging over a well, painted with bright flowers, in Zalipie.
A little wooden fence and wall painted with colourful flower patterns in Zalipie, Poland.
The sweetest little blue cottage door with painted flowers hung all about - in Zalipie, Poland.
Looking in at the window - brown and pink flower patterns on a small house in Zalipie.
A charming little cottage with tiled roof and white walls painted with colourful wreaths of flowers, Zalipie, Poland.
An old lady who lives in a painted house, with her traditional clothes, in Zalipie, Poland.
A whole living room painted with flowers - even the tissue box is painted.
The red brick church of Zalipie, Poland. Seen from the front gate.
The beautiful church interior of Zalipie - all painted with wreaths of flowers, and the old wooden pews.
Flower fences at the local school of Zalipie, Poland.
A church organ sits above the pews, on a painted balcony of bright flowers, Zalipie Church.
Brightly patterned walls on an old barn window in Zalipie - with orange and red flowers.
“Someone was sitting in front of a sunflower, watching the sunflower, a cup of sun, and so I tried it too. It was wonderful; I felt the whole universe in the sunflower. That was my experience. Sunflower meditation. A wonderful confidence appeared. You can see the whole universe in a flower”
— SHUNRYU SUZUKI

MORSKIE OKO

Lake Morskie Oko and the Tatras Mountain range, in winter snow, black and white photography.

EARLY BIRDS

In the high Tatras, on the Polish side, the forests are of spruce and pine. I remember walking beneath the slender limbs of tall trees, one winter morning...

We had awoken early, in our car seats, in some nondescript parking lot outside of Zakopane. It was cold, although not as cold as it had been in Slovenia, and the windows remained clear and unfrosted. It took only a few moments to get ourselves ready for that day's adventures: a good stretch, a new pair of socks, a banana and an apple, and we were on our way. Living in a car is easy like that.

In the half light, between the hours of 6 and 7, we began our trek through the forest, with a little food tucked away, water, and wooly hats, to protect from the wind. That wind. I remember the way it moved up through the hills up towards the peaks, the tail ends getting caught in the trees, making them creak and sway in solemn song, like monks in a choir beneath the fading stars.

The creaking noises were a little eery, and in these early hours, when not another human soul was around, it was easy to imagine things...

...bear, fox, lynx and wolf; deer, boar, goat and squirrel,
all living somewhere in the shadows, beyond the first layer of trees. I wondered if they were watching us.

The ascent was gradual, and the path began to follow a small stream, ducking in and out of woodland groves into wide clearings where the mountains could be seen in the distance. They grew larger, as we got nearer. First the snow capped peaks appeared as tiny pinnacles - peeping up from the vast stretch of trees. Then they seemed like a great wall on the edge of sight. Until, finally, when we were standing below them, they shrouded everything, towering over the lake like giants peering into a pool... 

And oh, that lake! It was bitter cold, on the edge of Morskie Oko - the Eye of the Sea - the lake was now still, the eye unseeing, covered by a great snowy lid... The wind that had moved the trees to song was now whirling about the mountain tops, composing snow and rock into various formations. I stood there, on the shore, gazing out for a long while, till my fingers grew cold and stiff, and my nose turned red, and my eyes watered and stung. But still I stayed to look - in awe of the incredible beauty, strangeness, and seriousness of this Earthly place. Had I stayed for much longer, I am sure my body would have frozen there. The delicate nature of my human life meant that eventually I would have to go inside to bring my body temperature back up... but just for those few minutes, I was allowed to witness something incredible.

Humans, no matter how delicately they are made, will always feel this curiosity and attraction to the wildest places of our world... It was that particular feeling that led my wandering feet up the mountain.

...

There, at the top, we ate something warm, talked a while, then met a group of mountain climbers who were preparing for their own early ascent further up the mountain. I imagined that these people were much more intrepid than us, more driven, crazy even, to want to get up so early and do something so dangerous. But then I saw that same twinkle of curiosity in each of their eyes, that I know lives in my own.

This is why we travel... this is why Oliver and I push our limits, live in cars, get up early to walk miles in the cold to stand, if only for a few moments, in front of splendour... because we feel that same twinkle of curiosity and awe that pushes us outside our normal limits.

 

Our capacity as human beings is made greater by awe.

 

The Tatras mountains of Poland and Slovakia - covered in snow in the winter.
The small cabin at the top of Morskie Oko Lake, where climbers get ready to scale the mountains.
Pine trees and tall snowy mountains in Poland, near the border of Slovakia.
Waterfalls and blue pools in snow on the hike to Morskie Oko.
The beauty and majesty of the Tatras mountain range in winter - black and white photography, Poland.

SLOVAK PARADISE

Wooden ladders over a frozen river at the Slovak Paradise National Park.

 

I think we were the only people in the park, that day. Winter was still wrapped around every surface, the layers of snow packed down by trampling feet, but far underneath a steady dripping sound indicated the coming of spring...

As we ascended on wooden ladders and stairs the dripping became a slow trickle, then a rushing of moving waters, heard from beneath every waterfall...

At a certain point, after a particularly difficult climb up a waterfall and over an icy lip, through an opening in the stone, above a 200 foot drop, we realised there was no turning back... We were lost in a land of impossible beauty.

A WINTER WONDERLAND

...where magic and science are one and the same...

 

Sticks lined all along the edges of the rock walls, bare boned ribs of some wooden creature, neatly arranged by unseen hands...
- (pushed there by the flow of the river.)
 
Leaves and other treasures encased in glass, like curiosities of autumn...
- (revealed by the melting of the ice, they lay in small puddles.)
 
Glass waterfalls, that spill from nowhere, down into the icy river...
- (water frozen in middair, emerging from a small crevasse in the rock.)
 
Patterns on logs: symbols and characters, the hyroglyphics of an ancient society, etched into the top layers of rotting wood...
- (the work of small insects, that eat away at the tree under bark, aiding in its eventual decomposition.)
 
Up, up, up, we went
Walking on hard water, and soft, crumbling wood.
Then up the ladders, chilled fingers on cold steel, holding on so tightly,
My breath in my throat as I look down past my feet...
 
Up to discover:

The Most Fascinating Wonder of All...
We came across a cave, out of which spilled a waterfall. Looking in, I spied something glinting at the back of the cave: what looked like worms of ice, reaching up from below... They reminded me of childhood stories, an image came to mind from the Moomintroll Books, of rows and rows of 'Hattifatteners,' small ghost-like, wiggling white worms. I half expect these ice creatures to move.
- (formed as a rare, natural phenomenon, these kind of ice spikes, or stalagmites, are still being studied. Their formation requires a perfect combination of many variables: water quality, surface temperatures, timing and the expansion of water through small frozen pockets to create the spike.)

 

A steep drop - looking down a metal ladder at the icy valley below, hiking in Slovak Paradise Park in winter.
Small sticks stuck in the sides of the rock river bed - all lined up. Weird natural phenomenon.
A small orange leaf from Autumn, now frozen into the ice of the river.
A sprig of pine needles, frozen in the layers of the river.
Ollie hiking on the wooden ladders of Slovak Paradise National Park in winter.
A frozen waterfall - one that once rushed over grassy cliffs.
Metal ladders to hike over the frozen waterfalls in Slovak Paradise Park, in winter.
The river still runs underneath the ice layer - with small icicles edging the rill.
Frozen water draped over a tree trunk, wedged into the sides of a narrow canyon.
Wood that was carved by boring insects - an old tree trunk with natural pictographs.
A small pictograph made by insects on a dead tree trunk.
Wooden ladders lead through narrow canyons, cut by a frozen river.
Real life Hattifatteners from the Moomintroll world - Ice formations grow in a small cave like worms.
A frozen waterfall spills out of a small cave in the mountainside, Slovakia.
Small stalagmite like ice formations in a natural cave, Slovak Paradise Park.
A frozen waterfall in the Slovak Paradise Park.
A mushroom grows on a tree - decorated with red and orange rings.
Wooden ladders to hike over frozen rivers, Slovakian National Park.