“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
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
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
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
How Filled With Awe
Days pass and the years vanish and we walk sightless among miracles. Oh, Holy One, fill our eyes with seeing and our minds with knowing. Let there be moments when your Presence, like lightning, illumines the darkness in which we walk. Help us to see, wherever we gaze, that the bush burns, unconsumed. and we, clay touched by Thee, will reach out for holiness and exclaim in wonder, “How filled with awe is this place and we did not know it.” ~ Rachel Naomi Remen, quoting a prayer from the Jewish Prayer Book, Gates of Prayer
I keep a small basket of smooth stones, each marked with a word, on the back porch which I use like prayer beads. Somehow, as I lift a stone and place it beside me with a prayer for each thing the word I have written there represents, I am able to focus more sharply and receive these gifts. I keep the same list by the coffee pot in the kitchen and can cover it with the palm of my hand in my petition. Laying the stones down is a random process, so I am drawn to the pattern on this particular day when I look at all of them together. I begin with seeking Light and the progression leads me to the most important request, “Thyself.” I realize that if I could have only one request it must be that, for it is in the presence of God I find the all the rest.
The poetry of John O Donahue helps me imagine he might have had a basket of stones, too.
May I live this day
Compassionate of heart,
Clear in word,
Gracious in awareness,
Courageous in thought,
Generous in LOVE.
– John O’Donohue
“God is not a belief to which you give your assent. God becomes a reality whom you know intimately, meet everyday, one whose strength becomes your strength, whose love, your love. Live this life of the presence of God long enough and when someone asks you, “Do you believe there is a God?” you may find yourself answering, “No, I do not believe there is a God. I know there is a God.” ~Ernest Boyer, Jr
Morning Glory
opening with abandon
act of eternal knowing
swirling indigo, unfolding star
royal blaze set by spark of morning light
act of eternal knowing
centered with ember of lingering moonlight
royal blaze set by spark of morning light
given with brilliant tenderness
centered with ember of lingering moonlight
indigo swirling, star unfolding
Gift of brilliant tenderness
opening with abandon
Pantoum ~ Mary Ann Parker August 22, 2012
Stones and Feathers 