Category Archives: Notes

You have traveled too fast over false ground;

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“You have traveled too fast over false ground;
Now your soul has come to take you back.

Take refuge in your senses, open up
To all the small miracles you rushed through.

Become inclined to watch the way of rain
When it falls slow and free.

Imitate the habit of twilight,
Taking time to open the well of color
That fostered the brightness of day.

Draw alongside the silence of stone
Until its calmness can claim you.”

~John O’Donohue

Artist~ Chris Barnes
Text & image source: Moonlight Serenade https://web.facebook.com/Moonlight-Serenade-228504310532112/

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1417. My heart leaps up when I behold a rainbow in the sky… ~William Wordsworth


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The flower offered of itself
And eloquently spoke of God
In languages of rainbows
Perfumes, and secret silence…
-Phillip Pulfrey

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Almost comically what brought roses to Texas began with a “slow boat to China,” as it were. The Chinese had been cultivating roses for over 5,000 years. Then during the early 19th century, ships of the East India Company brought the repeat-blooming China roses back from the Orient to Europe. Once there the Europeans bred the China roses with their once-blooming roses. Eventually progeny of the old China roses, the once-blooming European roses, and their hybrids were brought to the Americas by the early settlers. However as time passed, the public grew to have a greater desire for the more modern roses, and nurseries stopped offering old roses. Thankfully in the last couple of decades there has been resurgence of interest in the old garden roses, and they are readily available to the public again. In my garden most of the roses are the old ones. They are much hardier, and I love wondering what roads they must have traveled to get here, but the best part is that in every season my roses of antiquity speak eloquently to me in their “languages of rainbows” more and more distinctly of God, His love, and His faithfulness.

May the rose and all else that God made
offer freely of themselves
and speak eloquently of God.
May their secret silences be broken
so that they call out His name for the masses to hear.
May their perfume permeate every corner of the planet
with the heady aroma of Grace.
~Natalie Scarberry

I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth. -Genesis 9:13 ✝

1416. Imagination is the soul’s happiest retreat. ~James Lendall Basford

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Half the interest of a garden
is the constant exercise of the imagination.
~Mrs. C.W. Earle

Where does our imagination come from? It’s spawned in the mind of God, and the conduit is the imagination that connects us to our creative Maker in whose image we are made. And what a great place a garden is to let one’s imagination run wild! It can loosed over and over again in the ever-changing shapes of the beds and paths, in the kinds of plants that are introduced, and in the garden’s supports and structures. Among other venues my imagination has led me over the years to include pieces of yard art to my gardens. For me it adds whimsical and charming levels of interest and feeds my inner child and would-love-to-have-been an artist self. Given all this, I’m want to end my musings tonight with an edited and adapted rendition of one of John O’Donohue’s blessings for the artist in all of us.

May your mornings be times when you become
A pure vessel for what wants to ascend from silence.
May your imagination reach beyond imitation
And the wheel of repetition, deep into the call of all
The unfinished and unsolved until the veil of
The unknown yields and something original begins
To stir toward your senses and grow stronger
In your heart in order to come to birth in a clean
Line of form that claims from time a rhythm
Not yet heard, that calls to space a different shape.
May whatever it is be its own force field and
Dwell uniquely between the heart and the light
To surprise the hungry eye…
~John O’Donohue

…and I have filled him with the Spirit of God, with skill, ability and knowledge in all kinds of crafts-to make artistic designs for work in gold, silver and bronze, to cut and set stones, to work in wood, and to engage in all kinds of craftsmanship. ~Exodus 31:3-5 ✝

**Image via Pinterest

1415. Imagination is the soul’s happiest retreat. ~James Lendall Basford

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A thing of beauty is a joy forever:
Its loveliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness; but still will keep
A bower quiet for us, and a sleep
Full of sweet dreams, and health,
and quiet breathing.
~John Keats

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The human body needs one kind of nourishment, while the spirit needs to be fed in other ways. One of the needs of the spirit is beauty, and nature’s vast array of beauty has a way of strengthening and healing body and soul. Creation is a place to “play in and pray in,” and when we spend time in earth’s sanctuaries, we gain a better perspective of what’s really important as our senses are heightened and ordered. Rachel Carson alleged that “those who dwell among the beauties and mysteries of the earth are never alone or weary of life,” and as Keats said, our breathing becomes quieter in such places. Quieted and slow breathing does indeed promote a sense of well being and induce a healthy state of mind. Also, when we are alone with the Lord in any of nature’s settings, it is easy to feel His presence. More importantly if we listen carefully when in the midst of the natural world’s profound silences, we can hear Him speak to us.

God made the forests, the tiny stars, and the wild winds–
and I think that He has made them partly as a
balance for that kind of civilization that would
choke the spirit of joy out of our hearts.
He made the great open places for people who want
to be away from the crowds that kill all reverence.
And I think He is glad at times to have us forget our cares
and responsibilities so that we may be nearer Him–
as Jesus was when He crept away into the wilderness to pray.
~Margaret Elizabeth Sangster

Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed. -Mark 1:35 ✝

**Image found on Pinterest

 

 

1414. In the right light, at the right time, everything is extraordinary. ~Aaron Rose

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For me, a landscape does not exist in its own right,
since its appearance changes at every moment;
but the surrounding atmosphere brings it to life –
the light and the air which vary continually.
For me, it is only the surrounding atmosphere
which gives subjects their true value.
~Claude Monet

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All things in the natural world drink in sunlight, and they are affected by it a number of ways. When the sun’s warmth touches skin, it creates a pleasant sensation. On cold days that pleasurable feeling seems to sink down into the depths of human flesh; deeper and deeper it settles until it reaches places normally untouched by sunlight. Flesh and spirit drink in other light too. They take in “the light of God and energy itself” so that in an often cold and lonely, dark world the inner flame of our sacred origin keeps the glow of the eternal alive.

In the temple of my inner being,
in the temple of my body,
in the temple of earth, sea, and sky,
in the great temple of the universe
I look for the light that was in the beginning,
the mighty fire that blazes still from the heart of life,
glowing in the whiteness of the moon,
glistening in night stars,
hidden in the black earth,
concealed in unknown depths of my soul.
In the darkness of the night,
in the shadow of my being, O God,
let me glimpse the eternal.
In both the light and the shadows of my being
let me glimpse the glow of the eternal.
From SOUNDS OF THE ETERNAL
by J. Philip Newell

When Jesus spoke again to the people, he said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” ~John 8:12 ✝

**Image via Pinterest