A Beautiful Blue Spruce = Resilience
Just before the holidays, a “Cyclone Storm” hit our area of the country. The winds were fierce, along with blowing snow, causing white-out conditions. When the winds slowed, I was shocked to see our beautiful, mature Blue Spruce had blown down! Heartbreaking is an understatement. After the storm passed, we made our way to the tree. We stayed with it for a bit, contemplating its significance, age, size, and beauty. I decided to respectfully take some branches and clippings to work with to preserve a bit of its legacy.
Blue Spruce (Picea Pungens) is evergreen, slow-growing, and long-lived since it has a better root system than other spruce species. Their color and symmetry are just perfection. A timeless tree that has been on earth for many centuries and represents strength, resilience, and everlasting life. It also symbolizes peace, happiness, kindness, and friendship. All of this made me reflect on the year that has passed, the new year we have entered, and how resilience seems to be a nice meditation to start the year with and manifest what this tree symbolizes.
After clipping small branches and needles into smaller pieces, they went into a large stainless steel pot with water covering them. I slowly simmered for an hour to produce a fairly clear brew. Once cooled, I strained out the clippings and added ¾ tsp of iron powder to the brew, and magic…a stunning cool grey dye was produced on silk and wool; on bamboo and linen, it leans more towards teal grey.
I will incorporate this very sentimental dye into my art pieces this month and will be sure to share images. My leftover dye will be made into a lake pigment to store so I can use it for painting and printing in future projects. Excitingly, We will plant a young Blue Spruce in our yard come spring! Also, this tree provides many health benefits in the form of tea, topical salve, and syrup! Truly a species that keeps on giving.
