Category Archives: Notes
1251. We strain to renew our capacity to wonder, to shock ourselves into astonishment once again. ~Shana Alexander
What
if you were
a beetle,
and a soft wind
and a certain allowance of time
had summoned you
out of your wrappings,
and there you were,
so many legs
hardening,
maybe even
more than one pair of eyes
and the whole world
in front of you?
And what if you had wings
and flew
into the garden,
then fell
into the up-tipped
face
of a white flower,
and what if you had
a sort of mouth,
a lip
to place close
to the skim
of honey
that kept offering itself –
what would you think then
of the world
as, night and day,
you were kept there –
oh happy prisoner –
sighing, humming,
roaming
that deep cup?
~How Everything Adores Being Alive,
by Mary Oliver
For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. ~Isaiah 40:29 ✝
**Photos 1, 4, 6, 7, 8 by Mandy Disher; images 2, 3, 5 via Pinterest
Rose
1250. A vignette-a small illustration or photograph that fades into its background without a definite border. ~New Oxford American Dictionary
For summer there, bear in mind, is a
loitering gossip, that only begins to talk
of leaving when September rises to go.
~George Washington Cable
Ah summer, barbarous in the sun’s rays,
the sands in your hourglass remain but few
and yet your closing hours have not cooled.
Days now shorter still bring too large a measure
of treacherous heat amid high levels of humidity.
What once were colorful, flowery arrays fade
more and more into backgrounds blurred by eyes
weary of squinting from the blinding rays of sunlight.
There is only a mere tidbit of vignettes of what
once was the garden’s grandeur on an unequaled scale.
So, Rilke, I pray your prayer, and may the Lord
hear my pleas for summer’s heat to come to an end.
~Natalie Scarberry
Lord, it is time.
The summer was very big.
Lay thy shadow on the sundials, and
on the meadows let the winds go loose.
Command the last fruits that they shall be full;
give them another two more southerly days,
press them on to fulfillment and drive
the last sweetness into the heavenly wine.
~Rainer Maria Rilke
He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak. ~Isaiah 40:29 ✝
**All photos taken by me in yard; collages by me; and I deliberately blurred the edges of them.
You are above…
**Photo by Mandy Disher; text box added by Natalie; collage by Natalie
Life Experiences
Present
You are- the prayer that is living.
You are – the sacred that is breathing.
Walk out of your house like a shepherd.”
“Be a lamp, or a lifeboat, or a ladder.
Help someone’s soul heal.
Walk out of your house like a shepherd.”
~ Rumi
Photo & text credit: Rumi Page https://web.facebook.com/mevlana/
1249. The bee’s life is like a magic well: the more you draw from it, the more it fills with water. ~Karl Von Frisch
Bees do have a smell, you know,
and if they don’t they should,
for their feet are dusted with
spices from a million flowers.
~Ray Bradbury
I could do that.
I could nuzzle into those blossoms,
bury my nose in that corolla,
rub my belly all over with that
succulent pollen.
I could live in that body
with the requisite pose,
with the honeybee’s reticent
enthusiasm,
never taking too much from any one blossom,
never quarreling with my fellow foragers,
keeping my pollen-sacs well-balanced,
eyes shined, antennae erect
I could master the dance steps–
I love to dance.
And I have no qualms about
humming the solar anthem
dawn to dusk,
praising the fire in my wings as the one
and only engine of pure transport.
Just don’t ask me
to enter the hive. I get anxious
even thinking of that buzzing horde,
packed together in angelic densities. Inside
I can’t tell which are the brood chambers
and which are the tombs, which is the honeycomb
and which are the catacombs.
To whom do I bow? Where do I spit?
What if the guard bees take me for an interloper?
And what will the queen do
if she catches me alone?
So maybe
I’m not ready for that life.
Maybe I haven’t even figured out
how to be a human–
how to walk straight
pay attention,
try to keep my head out of the clouds.
~Honeybeeing by Charles Goodrich
Eat honey, my son, for it is good; honey from the comb is sweet to your taste. ~Proverbs 24:13 ✝
**Images via Pinterest and Pixabay
the portrait of a saint
I am not sure exactly what heaven will be like,
but I know that when we die and it comes time for God to judge us,
He will not ask, ‘How many good things have you done in your life?’
rather He will ask,
‘How much love did you put into what you did?”
Mother Teresa
(photo A Photographic Record by Michael Collopy)
It matters not whether you are a fan of the Catholic Church.
It matter not whether you believe in saints and sinners…
It matters not if you are a fan or critic of this particular individual…
Anjezë Gonxhe Bojaxhiu, a humble woman from Skopje, Albania was canonized yesterday…
To you and I, she was known simply as Mother Teresa.
I’ve written extensively about this tiny woman before…
the following link is more about the feet…
(https://cookiecrumbstoliveby.wordpress.com/2013/03/27/these-feet-were-made-for-love/)
But what does exactly matter is that despite her detractors,
for…
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Our spirit has an instinct for silence
“Our spirit has an instinct for silence.
Every soul innately yearns for stillness,
for a space, a garden where we can till, sow, reap, and rest,
and by doing so come to a deeper sense of self and our place in the universe. Silence is not an absence but a presence.
Not an emptiness but repletion.
A filling up.”
~ Anne D. LeClaire
~ Image by Miyako Koumura
Photo & text credit: ॐ Nature Heals, Nature Reveals ॐ https://web.facebook.com/%E0%A5%90-Nature-Heals-Nature-Reveals-%E0%A5%90-729612107082182/
Sacred Touches 