A pulse, a gentle stirring, a fire deep within,
A flame to light the coals of love, a spark from nought begin.
Burning through the wintery cold, hope, so worn and thin,
Yet find in you, that fiery hearth, to warm my soul within.
~ D.F.
Author Archives: nataliescarberry
Soul Colors
836. May you awaken to the mystery of being here and enter the quiet immensity of your own being. ~John O’Donohue
When the rhythm of the heart becomes hectic,
And all the madness and stress of life fall in
On the mind like an endless, increasing weight,
The light in the mind grows dimmer and dimmer
And weariness invades the body and spirit.
It is time then for your soul to take you back
Into the “quiet immensity of your own being”
Where you can take refuge in your senses,
And notice all the small miracles you rushed through,
Miracles meant to clarify and soothe your soul.
It is time to watch the way of rain
When it falls through space, slow and free.
It is time to imitate the habit of twilight at day’s end
And in so doing open up the well of color
That fosters the brightness and beauty of the day.
It is time to be excessively generous with yourself
So that gradually, you can “awaken to the mystery of being here.”
And afterward having learned a new respect for your heart
It is time to seek the joy that dwells far within slow time.
Thus will you find peace in mind and body, temple of the Holy Spirit.
~Both passages are edited and adapted excerpts from John O’Donohue
We do, however, speak a message of wisdom among the mature, but not the wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing. No, we declare God’s wisdom, a mystery that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began. ~1 Corinthians 2:6-7 ✝
**Image via Pinterest and texts added by Natalie
Today’s Quote
835. There’s a place in you where you have never been wounded, where there’s a seamlessness in you, and where there is confidence and tranquility in you. ~John O’Donohue
In out-of-the-way places in your heart,
Where your thoughts never think to wander,
A beginning has been quietly forming,
Waiting until you were ready to emerge.
Though your destination is not yet clear
You can trust the promise of this opening…
May your heart never be haunted by ghost-structures of old damage.
May you come to accept your longing as divine urgency.
And waste your heart on fear no more.
~Both passages are excerpts
from John O’Donohue
For the Lord takes delight in His people; He crowns the humble with victory. ~Psalm 149:4 ✝
**Edited image via Pinterest
834. The bee collects honey from flowers in such a way as to do the least damage or destruction to them, and he leaves them whole, undamaged and fresh, just as he found them. ~Saint Francis de Sales
“That buzzing-noise means something. If there’s a buzzing noise, somebody’s making a buzzing-noise, and the only reason for making a buzzing-noise that I know of is because you’re a bee … and the only reason for being a bee that I know of is making honey … and the only reason for making honey is so I can eat it.” ~Winnie the Pooh
Honey At The Table
It fills you with the soft
essence of vanished flowers,it becomes
a trickle sharp as a hair that you follow
from the honey pot over the table
and out the door and over the ground,
and all the while it thickens,
grows deeper and wilder, edged
with pine boughs and wet boulders,
paw prints of bobcat and bear, until
deep in the forest you
shuffle up some tree, you rip the bark,
you float into and swallow the dripping combs,
bits of the tree, crushed bees – – – a taste
composed of everything lost, in which everything lost is found.
~Mary Oliver
How sweet are your (God’s) words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth! ~Psalm 119:103 ✝
**Image via Pinterest
The Elves
I love the playfulness of this!
There amidst the undergrowth, or high the forest top,
Where the birds, they gather, or the hills, their rocky crop.
With faintly steps, discerning, nary a rest or stop,
See the elves, they’re scurrying! Wings and feet, a hop!
~ D.F.
Heart Drops
833. The happiness of the bee and the dolphin is to exist. For man it is to know that and to wonder at it. ~Jacques Yves Cousteau
The careful insect ‘midst his works I view,
Now from the flowers exhaust the fragrant dew,
With golden treasures load his little thighs,
And steer his distant journey through the skies.
~John Gay
“Veiled in this fragile filigree of wax is the essence of sunshine, golden and limpid, tasting of grassy meadows, mountain wildflowers, lavishly blooming orange trees, or scrubby desert weeds. Honey, even more than wine, is a reflection of place. If the process of grape to glass is alchemy, then the trail from blossom to bottle is one of reflection. The nectar collected by the bee is the spirit and sap of the plant, its sweetest juice. Honey is the flower transmuted, its scent and beauty transformed into aroma and taste.” ~Stephanie Rosenbaum
The bees’ rhythms may be heard only by petaled ears, but the hum of the bee is sweet music to the gardener’s ears for the “wonder at it” divvies up its humming happiness and the honey it makes renders the taste of the fragrant flower’s sweetness.
Eat honey, my child, for it is good; honey from the comb is sweet to your taste. ~Proverbs 24:13 ✝
**Images via Pinterest
832. Happiness is the harvest of a quiet eye. ~Austin O’Malley
A happy life must be to a great extent a quiet life,
for it is only in an atmosphere of quiet that true joy dare live.
~Bertrand Russell
Only in quiet waters do things mirror themselves undistorted.
Only in a quiet mind is the adequate perception of the world.
~Hans Margolius
We hunger for quiet times;
we find in them a womb to renew our strength.
~Virginia Ann Froehle
…have a mind so quiet, that you can hear doves whispering
as they rest their wings in the rafters of your silent sanctuary.
~Kate Mullane Robertson
With an eye made quiet by the power of harmony,
and the deep power of joy, we see into the life of things.
~William Wordsworth
But I’ll tell you what hermits realize.
If you go off into a far, far forest and get very quiet,
you’ll understand that you’re connected with everything.
~Alan Watts
And now in the serenity and quiet of this lovely place,
touch the depths of truth, feel the hem of heaven.
~Adlai E. Stevenson
Noise, the relentless distraction of noise, surrounds us day after day after day. And it steals from us that which is not its to take. So seek a “silent sanctuary” in which you can “feel the hem of heaven” and renew your strength in that quiet “womb.”
Rather, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God’s sight. ~1 Peter 3:4 ✝
**Images via Pinterest
