Snow Patrol: Chocolate
It has snowed quite a bit this winter, but the predominant precipitation has been freezing rain. Freezing rain leaves behind a lot of ice, which is a nightmare to walk, drive, move on, but makes for a lovely photo. This is a holly tree in Skillman, NJ.
Tears for Fears: Cold
Lush: Leaves Me Cold
Arcadia: Lady Ice
Secret Machines: Leaves are Gone
My husband was sharing a memory from when he was very small in which he remembers his mother pulling over to the side of the road to pick some of these blue wildflowers. It was such a sweet story, I decided to shoot a few and choose one to put up in our living room. This is the picture I chose:
Nellie McKay: Happy Flower
I originally thought that perhaps the blue bottle trees were a prank or some symbol for a secret organization (I may have read a few too many Dan Brown novels). The next sighting dispelled both of those theories. A tall bottle tree with its “trunk” painted bright yellow appeared in the nicely manicured lawn of a house in Princeton. A little bit of research (read: googling) lead to this:
The bottle tree reflects an ancient African tradition that can be traced as far back as ninth century Congo where natives hung hand-blown glass on huts and trees to ward off evil. The tradition continued in Africa and eventually became a part of Southern African-American folklore. In the early American South, trees, typically cedar because its branches point toward the heavens, were stripped of foliage and decorated with colorful glass bottles.
According to African legend, the bottles attract evil spirits, which are drawn to the bursts of sunlit color. The spirits then become trapped inside the bottles, their voices heard moaning as the wind passes by. Though the legend that the bottles trap evil spirits is widely accepted, some believe that the bottles hold the spirits of their ancestors, while others contend that the bottle tree grants wishes.
(”The Campus Chronicle”, Savannah College of Art and Design)
Why this southern legend has made its way to New Jersey and who planted the trees along two roadways are mysteries I still have to solve, but it’s nice to know that the pretty trees are a part of a long-standing tradition. I might “plant” one of my own.
Secret Broadcast: Blue Bottle
Two weeks later, I discovered another blue bottle tree along the tow path several miles away from the first. This tree was taller and had more bottles dangling from its iron branches. Like the other bottle tree, this one straddled the road in an overgrown area. It couldn’t be a coincidence. There had to be some sort of meaning to the pretty blue bottles. It took the third appearance for me to finally start doing a bit of research into the mysterious trees.
The Beloved: Hello
As I drove along the tree shaded road by my new house six years ago, I saw a curious looking pole with a dozen or so bright blue bottle dangling off of nails drilled into it. I thought it was pretty, but strange. It had been pounded into the ground on an overgrown stretch of the road and didn’t seem to be a part of anyone’s property. I came home and asked a few of my neighbors about the curious bottle tree, but although everyone had seen it, no one knew why it was there. I continued to pass it every day while running errands, but just wrote it off as a curiosity until I saw the second bottle tree a few months later.
DJ Patrick Reid: Blue Bottle
