The Silver Dancing Tree, photograph

This photograph captures the silver birch tree in a beautiful autumn light, the sunlight contrast with the beautiful Prussian and cobalt blue sky where dark clouds of forming. The slightest breeze sets the leaves shaking and moving and here they almost seem to sparkle.
The light on the silver white of the bark is highlighted and shines, and its graceful form the arching branches the slender branches and twigs are all movement light and life.
Birch trees have long had spiritual and cultural traditions in many countries. In Russia that birch tree has long been a symbol of heath and it leaves and bark have been used in many medical applications.
In Britain that birch is often carried as part of the midsummer festivals and in common with Europe Birch twigs were used in the beating of the bounds.
Birch rods were also used in the ritual of driving out the spirit of the old year.
In Scandinavia its leafing marks the beginning of the agricultural year, the farmers use it as a directory for sowing their spring wheat.
The Iroquois and Ojiloway nations make birch bark canoes and birch bark has also been used for their containers and cooking implements.
Birch bark has also often been used as a type of paper.