Receive each day as
a resurrection from death,
as a new enjoyment of life.
[William Law]
I do not skip down a Lenten path singing
my steps are slow, measured
intentional
a labyrinth path reminding
each day
take one step, then another
on toward center
and Song
“if you ignore beauty, you will soon find yourself without it,
But if you invest in beauty,
it will remain with you
all the days of your life.”
~ Frank Lloyd Wright
Remembering the planting and sprouting
watching for beauty of weed and flower
cool dark hours bring both
To be still
to be astonished
to see beauty in a cabbage
before it goes into the soup
Gardening is an instrument of grace. – May Sarton
Wanting to choose plants for my garden that don’t need constant watering and fertilizing, I favor native Southeast Texas plants. I didn’t plant the large bushes of Lantana that are showing up this time of year, growing from the roots in a few days of sunshine. The birds did! The plant produces deep purple berries which are poisonous to cattle, sheep and humans,but birds love them and spread the seeds. Bees use the nectar in making honey, and the tube flowers, are excellent food for many butterflies. Lantana thrives in the full summer sun and heat, requiring little water and taking the blistering heat of summer by covering itself with multi-colored flowers shaped like tiny nosegays.
I am realizing that many of the plants I remember in my grandmother’s and mother’s flower beds were volunteer, reseeding or re-emerging each year.
Reseeding. Returning.
Simple, ordinary flowering
of color and beauty
reminding me of Grace,
both perennial and volunteer
Pewter skies and gentle rains yesterday gathered into thunder clouds and stormy weather today, so I stay inside, grateful for the morning last week when I took my camera into the morning light to receive the gifts of beauty offered by this climbing Noisette rose, whose name is Crepuscule. I don’t think the name is a lovely one, sounding harsh to my ears, but the word means twilight, that time of day just after sunset, and the flowers hold the memory of sunset in its unfurling petals. The loosely double blooms open nearly orange, fading to a rich apricot, peach, and yellow. The sprawling canes have light green leaves with rosy new growth. This rose has few thorns so reaches for me only with fragrance when I brush past it as I walk through the arbor, bringing me the “peace of wild things.”
THE PEACE OF WILD THINGS
When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
~ Wendell Berry
True Love
true love is a coat of many colors
red as flash and flush of beginning
gladdest green when cultivated and grown
turning all hues of blue in faithfulness
gilding golden with each new morning following storms
not always the color of roses
graying like my hair
bleak and black when bearing sorrow
silvered patina as a lasting choice
not one color, but many
not even patchwork
but a crazy quilt of peacework
every piece unique in shape
pierced and scarred with stitches
holding it all together,
stronger than uncut cloth
the art of life,
the fabric of two lives
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
Our 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.
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
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.
Stones and Feathers 