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Romy🌲 Forest Photography & Land Art

@rootandantler

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𓃦 once upon a time a woman vanished
‎ ‎
🜃‎‎ ‎ they say the woods took her for their bride
𖥸 sometimes, strange little tales make it to the village

POSTS STORIES REELS TAGGED

Dear Wildbraided Kin,

your presence here is no small thing.
It’s kindling. The first crackle of something ancient and alive. So let me step into the circle and lay down the heart-song of this space.

🙋🏽‍♀️ I am Romy, a tender-footed daughter of the Earth. Story-gatherer. Listener of silence. Trail-walker. Witness at the edge of things. Companion to thresholds no one rushes to meet.

This account began as a trail journal for my PCT thru-hike in 2020. But the stars turned otherwise & the trail didn’t lead forward, but down - into the forest’s mouth. Where trees speak in Braille and the wind has memory older than speech.
Here, I live by a vow:

To meet the land as kin, not resource.
To greet each stone as elder, each fern as sister.
To ask before I touch and bow when met with a no, knowing even refusal is a form of blessing.
To move as guest, not master.
To be still. Step back.
Wait
until the wild summons and let it mark me.
To leave beauty where I find it.
To live as though the Earth is awake,
because She is, and She is watching.

What I share with you here is born of that vow.
Please don’t mistake it as content,
it’s contact. Consequence. Consent.

These are field-notes from the soul.
Rain-soft traces of long, unspectacular witnessing.
Things with teeth and tenderness.

If you’d like to wander with me,
my forest diary lives in the Highlights.
But echoes of my conversation with the wild
slip like foxes through this feed:
rough as bark, mud-warm, earth-bright.
Moss and ash, bone and bloom.
Earth Altars. Palm-warm offerings.
My way of remembering the tongue
we once spoke in dreamtime,
woven from longing,
and the listening that costs something.

And maybe, just maybe,
something in you will stir.
A root shiver.
A breath you forgot you were holding.

If anything here touches you, know this:
In this wildwoven place,
there is room for you. Just as you are.

So come
with your questions,
your ache,
your unspoken hunger.
Come weathered.
Come hollow-bellied.
Come as offering.

The wild listens and the circle is wide.

P.S.
If you’ve wandered this far, leave a trail-mark.
Say hello. I’d love to meet you, soft-soled,
in the wildness we share. by @rootandantler

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365

5 years ago

There’s a creature in me
who remembers the old songs.
The ones curled in the spiral of ferns,
whispered through the mouths of moss,
sung in the slow tongues of river stones,
braided into the dark grammar of stars.

I wasn’t born in the forest,
but it found me,
named me.
My oldest friend is a tree,
not metaphor,
but bark and breath,
rooted deeper than sorrow.
She holds my silence like an heirloom,
teaches me stillness,
and stitches wildness
into the weave of my being.

It’s partly her doing
that I stand in awe of every season.
But when spring returns
on feathered wings,
branches swell with bloom,
honeying the air,
the wild thing in me
lowers her guard
and begins to sing:

of the ochre hush of earth stirred by rain,
the hues that murmur in leaf and vein,
the silver flicker of wings in moonlight,
the gold, dusted gently in pollen’s flight.

With threads of my forest, I create,
not to capture, but to commune:
ears pressed to the ground,
feet blackened by the stories of soil,
heart bowed to the trembling gifts of now.

This here is
a slow scatter of offerings, laid with care.
A fleeting visual diary of the forest,
written in light & shadow,
where rough edges remain -
a vow
to presence, to tenderness,
to what grows untrimmed.
A place of soft attention,
a place for witnessing.

A place to remember:
you are not a machine.
You are a seed.
A spark.
A breath.

If you’re still walking barefoot
toward something you cannot yet name,
still carrying questions like lanterns through dusk,
come rest with me a while.
You’ve wandered far.

The fire burns warm, the kettle’s on,
there’s a place just your shape beside me.
The forest remembers your name,
you’ve been expected.
Welcome home. by @rootandantler

3

124

a year ago

𖥸 Yule Altar

Made from pine cone, bark, sticks, stones & earth

It feels like a good time to hold on and think of all the things I‘m grateful for.

One of them is you.
Thank you for being here,
for showing up with care and kindness.
Your way of walking alongside me
roots this space in something shared.
And I’m thankful for that.

Heartfelt solstice greetings,
wherever you find yourself today ✨🌲

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#naturemandala #solstice #ephemeralart #landart #mandalaart by @rootandantler

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161

10 months ago

𖥸 A Brighter Light in the Dark

MADE FROM unidentified fungus, calendula, holly + ghost berry, rose hip, maple samara, cherry + wisteria leaves, quince & earth — in 11/25

I am more bound to soil than to most humans.
Soil keeps its agreements—
breaking nothing it cannot remake,
forgetting nothing it intends to hold.

Roots make more sense to me
than conversations that skim the surface:
the way they share what they learn,
passing water, warnings, nourishment
through a network of kinship
that steadies everything within reach,
including me.

I feel close to leaf and its cycles—
the way it opens in brief astonishment,
how it tires when the season turns,
and its willingness to collapse into the dark.
Leaves know how to fall without failing.
I am still learning that.

Among trees I meet a kind of honesty
rare in two-legged spaces.
Nothing forced, nothing hidden,
each being tending its part
of the larger network.
No one stands alone here,
not even the oddest trunk.

And I believe that’s why I return
again and again.
Not to leave humans behind,
but to remember how kinship works.
And each time I come,
the forest makes room for me
as if I were simply another branch
finding its place in the canopy.
In the presence of trees,
something warm rises in me—
a spark drawn from the many.
A reminder of what rises when we stand together:
a brighter light in the dark.

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#naturemandala #ephemeralart #landart #morningaltars #mandalaart #naturkunst by @rootandantler

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78

10 months ago

𖥸 For Magne

MADE FROM apple, sage, aster, Canadian goldenrod, sweetpea seedpods, leaves & earth

You moved through this world
the way light moves through leaves,
generously,
letting others glow.

You looked at people
until they remembered they were good,
and somehow
you made it easy to believe
that humanity is still worth the experiment.

And though your chair sits empty now,
the room hasn’t gone silent.
There’s laughter in the corners,
and air that still carries
the shape of your kindness.

You left us enough light
to keep going.

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#naturemandala #artfromtheheart #morningaltars #mandala #ephemeralart #landart #spiritualecology #earthart by @rootandantler

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136

a year ago

The southbound geese have stitched the sky into a trembling spell. From the treeline, a stag‘s gaze holds mine, breath turning to ghost between us. A single red leaf burns against my hair, and through the branches, amber light spills — thick and slow as syrup. These wild moments refuse to let me go, tugging at my sleeve long after the woods have gathered me back inside. They‘ve been asking something of me for years, but I kept pretending I couldn’t hear.

Fear can be such a convincing storyteller —
insisting we stay where it’s tidy and known. But there comes a moment when silence cracks, and the pull under your ribs grows louder than all the reasons to ignore it. Mine arrived this summer.
My life had grown too small for the size of my wonder, so I stepped out of it — followed the tug into the dark. I still don’t know where it will lead.

Since then, ideas have been stirring, slow as roots splitting stone. Nothing polite or tame — nothing meant to rest on a shelf, but something breathing, a living trail, soft underfoot… a place where hands can wander bark and moss and feel the ground rise and fall, alive beneath them.

Nights find me sifting through old images, each one a sleeping seed under frost. Some stir when touched, begin to hum, and I gather them carefully — the ones that still remember their own light.
I’m still learning what this forest book wants to become, what shape it longs to take.
But I believe it knows.

Until it tells me more —
let’s dwell a little longer in this late-October magic together✨ by @rootandantler

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117

a year ago

𖥸 The Way Home

MADE FROM quince, linden & beech leaves, earth

It’s one of those evenings when
dusk tastes of river and rain,
tangles its antlers in the wind‘s dark mane.
I listen for the little sound between goodbye
and gone,

when a moth mistakes my heartbeat for a lantern,
its wings a trembling question
against the open sky of my palm.
For a moment,
trust is a wild thing
and I am the branch it chooses.

The world exhales through that soft body,
as if remembering how to rest.
Even what quivers knows warmth by instinct.

I lift my palm,
ghosted with dust and flight,
and somewhere inside I know:
no wild thing forgets
the way home.

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#ephemeralart #naturemandala #morningaltars #landart #mandalaart by @rootandantler

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63

a year ago

𖥸 A Song to the Unsung

MADE FROM slow worm, maple, daisy & Earth

Just sand,
wind-laced and listening,
a curl of maple leaves,
daisies bowing their bright-rimmed heads.

And her
silver-bodied, old as stone.
A presence
with no map,
no master,
and no interest in hurry.

She’s there like nightfall -
soft-bellied.
Full of what the world forgets
when it runs too fast to feel.

Like something that
doesn’t want your gaze,
only your stillness.
Just lives
close to the root of things.

A shimmer - spine and soil,
a poem written in movement,
the width of a breath.

Not spoken,
but grown
along the curve of stones,
in the tongue of things
too wild to tame.

The leaves, the daisies,
they turned their faces to the sky
because even gods
need small witnesses.

And something ancestral stirred
between sand and shadow,
slipped through all this,
like dusk through the ribcage of trees.

We rarely ask for wisdom.
But it settles
not in answers,
but the way moss touches stone,
low to the ground
belly to soil.

So if you stand here,
bring nothing loud.
Leave your name at the edge.
Feel with your feet.

And remember her,
she who has never forgotten
how to be
Earth.

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#naturemandala #morningaltars #ephemeralart #artfromtheheart #earthaltar #mandalaart by @rootandantler

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148

a year ago

𖥸 The Light We Hold

MADE FROM 🐇, hypnum moss, beech leaves & Earth

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I was taught, “Don’t touch the d*ad,”
But deep within, I feel:
Me, walking past, pretending they are not there—
To remain untouched
Is a betrayal of what it truly means to be alive.

So, with trembling hands,
I lift them from the shaded earth,
Bringing them into the light—
Where they can rest in the warmth of being remembered

And perhaps,
When our end draws near,
This is all we long for:
To be carried by warm hands,
To be held in reverence,
To be seen—
not as fading shadows,
But as something worth remembering,
Something sacred

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#artfromtheheart #earthart #ephemeralart #morningaltars #naturemandala #landartist #spiritualecology #earthaltar #landart #environmentalart #forestart #reverence #remebering #sacredconnection by @rootandantler

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250

2 years ago

𖥸 Yule Altar

MADE FROM pine cone, sumach, rosehip, acorn, hazelnut, firethorn, aniseed, crabapple & sand

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#yule #yulealtar #wintersolstice #naturemandala #morningaltars #ephemeralart #artfromtheheart #landart #spiritualecology #naturkunst #botanicalart #ephemeralpoetry #blessedyule #solstice by @rootandantler

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69

2 years ago

𖥸 Letter From Hekate’s Realm

MADE FROM rose(hip), Jap. anemone seed, calendula, ilex, snowberry, quince, clematis, twigs & Mother Earth

Grief is
aluminum colored
and thick as
mountain mist
It has stolen my
vocabulary and
very little of it
remained

I cannot read
words anymore
written with light

I need eyes
capable
to orient
in darkness
and

Rhodopsin,
the protein
responsible for
night vision,
breaks down
when exposed
to brightness

I’m navigating
Hekate‘s realm
by star constellations
rather than flashlight,
by myth rather than maps

But I believe December
is lit in the Upper World
and everyone’s in sales,
moving at light speed

Up there we rush
to get rid of grief
We think of it
as hanging
onto loss

But from down here
grief really is
hanging
onto
love

My heart’s broken and
I don’t want it to be mend

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#ephemeralart #mandalaart #earthaltar #morningaltars #naturemandala #natureart #landart #botanicalart #spiritualecology #artfromtheheart #naturmandala by @rootandantler

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75

2 years ago

𖥸 The Courting

MADE FROM apple, cherry, firethorn, conker & Earth

If winter is conception, spring is birth/youth and summer‘s middle age then autumn is old age and endings. Endings require courting - much the same way we would court a new love.

Make gifts. Whisper ornate words that hopefully, possibly, land in a gleaming bouquet at the feet of autumn. The Great Crow Mother. She‘s the one that adds poignancy to endless summer days, clacking her beak when we think joy or grief will last forever. What she asks from us is a little acknowledgment, a little style, a little affection in how we address her, she appreciates the panache. During the past days/ weeks I wondered often what my feed here would look like if we stopped selling her and began gifting her instead. By gifting I mean…

…light her candles, consciously. Hold hands with her. Stop marketing her. Come to her with offerings. It could be a pink apple or leaves of gold. Adorn her with a necklace of berries. Shed tears to create her a crystal tiara from them. Collect her raindrops and dew, leave her conkers, acorns and beechnuts to provide for her. Read her your favorite poems. Dance for her in the rain. Set her a plate at your table, offer her bits of your food, milk & spill some of the good wine. In return for your courtship she will sow her claw marks on your collar, opening a dialogue that should inform the rest of your life. (I hope it does.) And that‘s her gift to you, unequivocally. So you do not meet her all at once, presumably underequipped and rather abruptly, at the end when she comes to gather you under her black-feathered wings.

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#earthaltar #morningaltars #ephemeralart #naturemandala #wildearthart #artfromtheheart #ephemeralpoetry #naturmandala #landart #natureart #waldmandala #botanicalart #artfromtheheart #spiritualecology #thecourting by @rootandantler

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102

2 years ago