Dedicated to a retired Violinist I happen to know. 10th. April 2018…

Spring heralds the time of year when Red Deer stags cast their magnificent antlers.

Shedland’s wild stags seem to be more genetically inclined to shed their ‘horns’ late, yet this year’s Quest has already begun in earnest. My search is as much about hoping to find a huge shed antler as actually finding one, the thrill of the hunt is everything… 

After several hours lost in my element each evening – I always think to myself as I climb back over the gate for home – how very lucky I am to have already found three ‘magnificoes’; two in 2016 and one in 2017. Every night before I go away upstairs to sleep – I touch my eight-pointer for luck, it’s like ‘touching wood’ only different, it fortifies my belief in the elemental forces that are at work all around us, in Nature.

Scaling Shedland’s heights…

My favourite hour for this Spring-tide activity is just before sunset, at evensong – when all the woodland birds seemingly sing as one Chorus——filling the silence of the darkening wood with a sound so pure, so sublime, it would be impossible for this mere earthbound mortal to put into words – so I’m not going to try. 

However, there is an orchestra of musicians whom have exactly captured the excitement of my nightly Quests——the feeling, the ascending notes that joyfully sound inside my head long after I’ve come home after dark; it’s Vivaldi’s Four Seasons recomposed——reimagined by Max Richter.  Together, Vivaldi and Richter are Alchemy to my ears.

I realise too – why this rearrangement of Vivaldi’s magical musical notation has such special significance to me now.  Last year, I welcomed a very special new friend to my house – and during our meeting he offered to read my palms! It was then that I noticed his extraordinary long fingers – that curved back at the tips like an arc. I asked him to hold his extraordinary hand up to the light so that I could photograph it; the palmist is a retired violinist among other great talents – truth be told he’s a polymath.  It was only after he’d gone – that suddenly I could see ‘something other’ in his hand. This past year, we have been on our own Quest——together, that for me started where my fascination with Shed hunting began…

Antler like Hand like Antler.

‘Yod’ my first find in 2016.  Like an outstretched hand waiting to be unearthed…

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