Tag Archives: awareness

Reach

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The beginning of a new year is a time to think about what is important, what needs to be done, who I am called to be.  I like to ponder and come to those thoughts over a period of time, rather than my making resolutions on January 1.  A good way for me to do that is to choose a word for focus.This year I choose the word Reach. LIke these tomato seedlings  in my kitchen, I start where I am, break open my comfort zone, shed what is unnecessary for growth, and celebrate new opportunity in the present – all the while reaching toward the Light.

Recalibrating, relinquishing

Embracing this season of enough

Attentive and astonished

Called to this journey

Holy mystery

Winter’s Last Verse

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IMG_0149Our typically mild Texas Gulf Coast Winter has teased us with its wide variety of weather. The past week has been an example of the season’s vagaries. An unseasonably warm few days ended with storm force winds and a cold front – which for us has meant a return to morning temperatures in the upper 30’s warming up considerably as the day moves on. I already see that first hazy blush of green on trees that leaf soonest.  In these last days of winter, Spring is already humming and I look ahead with excitement.  But in a desire to celebrate the now and savor the gifts of this season, I walk in the sunshine and remember…

“Winter is the time for comfort, for good food and warmth, for the touch of a friendly hand, and for a talk beside the fire: it is the time for home.”    ~ Edith Sitwell

The cardinal that perched outside my kitchen window early this morning didn’t linger long enough for me to get his photograph, but just long enough to sing me the last verse of Winter’s Song.

Alchemy of Sorrow

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shattered petals fall

fragrant still

garden gift of grace

“Sorrow fully accepted brings its own gifts. For there is alchemy in sorrow. It can be transmitted into wisdom, which, if it does not bring joy, can yet bring happiness.”

— Pearl S. Buck

How Much is Enough?

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We learn from our gardens to deal with the most urgent question of the time: How much is  enough        ~ Wendell Ber

In recent years, I enjoyed forcing Paperwhite narcissus in the period after Thanksgiving and before Christmas – the flowering of Advent, if you will.  I never planted just one container, pushing the ugly, papery bulbs into pebbles and keeping them in just the right temperature and light until strong white roots appeared.   It became my habit to prepare at least half a dozen bowls of them to scatter around and share with family and friends.  This year, whether by blatant omission or intentional effort to simplify, I  didn’t buy any Paperwhite bulbs, although I have delighted in watching the green spears poke up and begin to bloom in the past.

This morning,  celebrating a day of sunshine after some long dreary days with pewter skies and everything dripping with rain, I walked around the garden thinking to plan what needed to be dug up, pruned, and cleaned up in the next weeks.  I began to see spots of color where the roses had responded to the rain, little things here and there that survived the frost, a single snapdragon, berries on the holly and hawthorne, and almost buried in wet leaves, one single stem of Narcissus.  It was as if I were being told “You didn’t have to do it, I took care of it for you.”  And one was enough.

Roses on a Rainy Day

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While many of our friends and family are wearing their warmest outdoor gear and shoveling snow, we have had a succession of cold, wet days that seemed to be just what the roses needed to cheer us with round mounds of fragile petals. I brought these inside more for their exquisite fragrance than for their beauty.  I knew they wouldn’t last very long in the dry warm air of my kitchen, and they didn’t.  At least, the blooms didn’t, shattering petals almost as soon as I put them into water.  But their scent remains.  I am grateful for the reminder of beauty experienced in ways other than my eyes and the lingering of joy – the way a phrase of song runs through my mind for days after it has been sung, the warmth of touch remaining after a hug, the smile that stays on my face even though the telephone conversation has ended.    

Happening Still

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“It is a world of magic and mystery, of deep darkness and flickering starlight. It is a world where terrible things happen and wonderful things too. It is a world where goodness is pitted against evil, love against hate, order against chaos, in a great struggle where often it is hard to be sure who belongs to which side because appearances are endlessly deceptive. Yet for all its confusion and wildness, it is a world where the battle goes ultimately to the good, who live happily ever after, and where in the long run everybody, good and evil alike, becomes known by his true name….That is the fairy tale of the Gospel with, of course, one crucial difference from all other fairy tales, which is that the claim made for it is that it is true, that it not only happened once upon a time but has kept on happening ever since and is happening still.”  ~ Frederick Buechner,  Telling the Truth: The Gospel as Tragedy, Comedy, and Fairy Tale

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Wonder

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Light has come.
Let us pay attention
Let us be astonished
So that we do not starve for want for wonder
‎”THE world will never starve for want of wonders; but only for want of wonder.” ~G.K. Chesterton

Seeing a Star

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100_1854Of the many symbols which decorate our home at Christmastime, my favorite may be the star.  Our big tree is lit with tiny twinkle lights reminding us of stars, and is topped with a star.  A crystal star holds a candle on the kitchen table.  My grandchildren draw stars. Joe loves the Christmas Song  “Beautiful Star of Bethlehem.”  I love the deep mystery of the great star which led wise men to search for a baby.  How sweet, then, in this simple and sacred ordinary evening,  to slice an apple to float in the cider on my stove and find this star, marking seed and promise of fruit..

Star giver,

Light shiner

Promise keeper…

Come.

Quicken.

Emmanuel.

Light Comes

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Advent: season of waiting, expecting, preparing. One morning recently, I walked toward my front door and stopped, stilled with the beauty of light and shadow which shimmered in early morning sun streaming through our leaded glass door. As I received these images with my camera, I considered how much our Advent and Christmas pondering is like this – the shining of Light into our lament and darkness, beyond our closed doors, past our barriers of grief or bewilderment, settling into the curve of yearning in our hearts to create that  which can strike us still with its mystery.

“The light would never be so acceptable, were it not for that usual intercourse of darkness. . .God will have them that shall walk in light to feel now and then what it is to sit in the shadow of death. A grieved spirit therefore is no argument of a faithless mind.    ~Richard Hooker

” I’ve remembered this truth again and again as my ups decline into downs, my highs into lows. This reminder only confirms what I know but still need to learn. Light comes not in spite of the darkness, but to balance and penetrate it.”  ~Luci Shaw

 

Insight

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I write a great deal about vision, particularly attentiveness and seeing with the eyes of the heart. Most of my posts here on Stones and Feathers are related to that in some way. But one does not require perfect physical visual acuity to acquire keen insight. I know a man who is legally blind due to a genetic retina degeneration that presented suddenly when he was 10 years old. His vision is severely limited. He lives in a world of shapes and blurred edges. The blurred photo above represents this although it still has more detail than he would find.  However, he has a sharper awareness of his surroundings than anyone else. Seeing with his heart gives him a depth of understanding and perception that many whose eyes work well never develop. I have seen him meeting challenges in getting his education, dealing with issues of transportation because he does not drive, working with his hands in his kitchen and garden. I watched his face as he repeated marriage vows to the love of his life. I admire his determination and faith.  I love the hugs only a son can give his mother. I am grateful for his inner vision.

                                                              Insight

if it must be dark outside

there can be light within

look!

can you see what I see?

inside the shadows

nebulous luminosity

harvesting fog

for numinous brilliance

written in gratitude for my son, Ben Parker