555. …teach me how to trust my heart, my mind, my inner knowing, the senses of my body, the blessings of my spirit. ~Edited excerpt of a Lakota Prayer

November 21, 2014 by nataliescarberry

I give you this, one thought to keep.
I am with you still, I do not sleep.

I am a thousand winds that blow
I am the diamond glints on snow,
I am the sunlight on the ripened grain.
I am the gentle autumn rain
born of November’s misty morns.

When you awaken in the morning’s hush,
I am the swift uplifting rush…
of quiet birds in circled flight.
I am the soft stars that shine at night.
I am with you still,
in each new dawn.
~Edited Native American Prayer

Praise Him, sun and moon; praise Him, all you shining stars. ~Psalm 148:3 ✝

** Image via Pinterest

553. As autumn passes one remembers one’s reverence. ~Yoko Ono Lennon

November 19, 2014 by nataliescarberry

Jack Frost
~By C.E. Pike

  Look out! Look out!
Jack Frost is about!
He’s after our fingers and toes;
And all through the night,
The gay little sprite
Is working where nobody knows.

He’ll climb each tree,
So nimble is he,
His silvery powder he’ll shake.
To windows he’ll creep
And while we’re asleep
Such wonderful pictures he’ll make.

Across the grass
He’ll merrily pass,
And change all its greenness to white.
Then home he will go
And laugh ho, ho ho!
What fun I have had in the night.

Frost performed “its secret ministry” as sleep held us close in the night, and when I awoke it lay twinkling like stardust atop things in the garden and on the lawn. Then as dawn’s early light kissed our few colorful autumn leaves, it turned them into glowing golden nuggets or the color of crystalized, reddish ripe persimmons or the usual, splendid oranges of advancing autumn. And as some of the leaves tumbled to the ground, winds blew them into little swirling eddies that played like happy children upon the lawn and in the street. O Autumn, your magic does indeed bring a sense of spectacular glory even as Spring and Summer’s progeny perish.

There is a playful side of nature, and there is a playful side in us which tells me that the Lord too knows something of playfulness since we are made in His image. Anyone who has seen or heard how breezes play in rustling leaves, how raindrops splatter and play on rooftops, how squirrels chase each other round and round a tree trunk has witnessed God’s sense of playfulness.

“Does the rain have a father? Who fathers the drops of dew? From whose womb comes the ice? Who gives birth to the frost from the heavens when the waters become hard as stone, when the surface of the deep is frozen?” ~Job 38:28-30 ✝

** Image via Pinterest

550. I saw old Autumn in the misty morn stand shadowless like silence, listening to silence. ~Thomas Hood

November 16, 2014 by nataliescarberry

The ground is hard,
As hard as stone.
The year is old,
And yet the world,
In its distress,
Displays a certain
Loveliness.
~Excerpts from a poem by
John Updike

In hushed stillness a gloomy, gray shroud has hung over the garden today, and out of the chilling grayness November has weeped drippy tears. Drip, drip, drip started the mist in the night, and ever since the ground has been soaking up the felicitous wealth. On and on it has drizzled as it often does in autumn knowing that, though the garden wanes, earth’s womb has begun mothering spring’s progeny. Roots, strong and deep, need the moisture to grow and gather the vigor they’ll need months from now to push life forth from naked branch and barren soil. And in the muted stillness of the day, I’ve felt is a familiar Presence, a holy Presence, the Overseer of all things great and small. Though it be the Sabbath, God walks His Eden still in the cool of the day for therein lies the heartbeat of Creation, child of His love and light.

Those who sow with tears will reap songs of joy. ~Psalm 126:5 ✝

546. God writes the Gospel not in the Bible alone, but also on trees, and in the flowers and clouds and stars. ~Martin Luther

November 12, 2014 by nataliescarberry

The Fall of the year
is more than three months
bounded by an equinox and a solstice.
It is a summing up without
the finality of year’s end.
~Hal Borland

As we backed out of the garage not long ago, we saw this, the clearly defined, edge of a line of the thunderstorms. As I took the photograph, it occurred to me that in a much slower progression, that’s the way all of the aberrations of nature pass over the earth during the course of a year. Sunny days come and go, hot and cold periods come and go, flowers come and go, fruitings and harvests come and go–in other words God’s good provisions are always in a never-ending flux of comings and goings. Autumn then, as Borland says, is indeed a summing up of what’s happened throughout a year’s trip around the sun, and thankfully it only takes away what the gardener holds dear a little bit at a time. We may be just steps away from winter, but given earth’s history of unfailing continuance we are not too many steps further away from spring. So to recall a familiar phrase, all’s well that ends well, especially when we’re blessed with the divine promise for more. Is there any way God’s enduring love and goodness could be even the slightest bit more grand!

Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good.
His love endures forever.
Give thanks to the God of gods.
His love endures forever.
Give thanks to the Lord of lords:
His love endures forever.
to him who alone does great wonders,
His love endures forever.
who by his understanding made the heavens,
His love endures forever.
who spread out the earth upon the waters,
His love endures forever.
who made the great lights—
His love endures forever.
the sun to govern the day,
His love endures forever.
the moon and stars to govern the night;
His love endures forever.
~Psalm 136:1-9 ✝

542. Most glorious night! Thou wert not meant for slumber! ~Lord Byron

November 8, 2014 by nataliescarberry

I often think that the night
is more alive and more
richly  colored than the day.
~Vincent Van Gogh

On a dark, windy November night huge raindrops were slapping autumn leaves against the car or sending them whirling, willy-nilly all around us. As we drove on towards home, more and more of the colorful foliage litttered the slick black pavement ahead of us. As I listened to the sound of the leaves and rain smacking against the windshield in addition to the clicking back and forth noise of the wipers I was being lulled into a deep reverie of personal reflection. But as we turned onto a more traveled thoroughfare, the bright street lights illuminating our neighborhood duck pond broke my preoccupation with the day’s troubling matters. At that moment I looked up, away from my thoughts, and saw a few mallards and some geese gliding serenely along on the reservoir’s glazed, rain-spattered surface. In the halo-like light and the falling rain, the buoyant creatures looked surreal. They were like visions of floating grace and peace seemingly sent to testify that God is with us even in the midst of bothersome realities on cold, rainy nights.

I will praise the Lord, who counsels me; even at night my heart instructs me. ~Psalm 16:7 ✝

**Image via Pinterest

538. The three great elemental sounds in nature are the sound of rain, the sound of wind in a primeval wood, and the sound of outer ocean on a beach. ~Henry Beston

November 4, 2014 by nataliescarberry

Let the rain kiss you.
Let the rain beat upon your head
with silver liquid drops.
Let the rain sing you a lullaby.
~Langston Hughes

At dawn today the yard was steeped in a still grayness awaiting the fulfilled promise of rain. Hours later the grayness darkened as if it were twilight and the outside lights came on again. With the darkness fierce winds rushed in against the backdrop of rumbling thunder in the distance, and huge tree limbs like those found in a primeval wood bowed to forces bigger and stronger than they. It was a day when early November was slipping deeper into autumn with ominous overtones. Sensing stormy peril the yard cats sought shelter early on instead of enjoying their usual playful antics, and as the rain drew nigh they were already slipping into the “arms of Morpheus” in which to sleep, perchance to dream of better times. Then drop by drop by drop, drip, drip, drip the rain began to fall, and as it kissed the ground, I too began to doze off in my chair but not before I smelled its fragrance and heard the sound of sanctity in it, the holy sound of Him who faithfully makes the rain fall.

…rejoice in the Lord your God, for He has given you the autumn rains because He is faithful… ~Joel 2:23 ✝

** Image via Pinterest

537. The wind shows us how close to the edge we are. ~Joan Didion

November 3, 2014 by nataliescarberry

Although the wind is very powerful
and you can feel its presence,
in and of itself it cannot be seen.
You know it is there by its effect on things.
The great trees, the grasses, and
waves on the sea bend with its force.
If you are aware of your surroundings,
you know it is there long before you feel it.
So it is with the ineffable.
~Author Unknown

Wind, the holy breath of Ruach, blows through Eden today. In it is a changed rhythm, a brooding rhyme versing odes of finality. As November’s clouded chills sweep across the garden, from where they perch on high the first smatterings of leaves topple to the ground. When downed, they dot the lawn, alliterating the year’s closing stanzas, and as they, the altered remnants of spring’s glory fall, they foretell what blooming color has yet to disclose. For there are flowers, duped by the favorable clime, that continue to open as day by day we slide down, down, down into winter’s ordained “vale of grief.” And so it is that whilst the raucous music and poesy of summer’s feverish days fade from memory, lower and deeper dip the melodies of autumn’s opus and balladry.

The tempest comes our from its chamber, the cold from the driving winds. ~Job 37:9 ✝

**Image via Pinterest

528. Behold congenial autumn comes, the Sabbath of the year. ~John Logan

October 25, 2014 by nataliescarberry

There’s music in the sighing of a reed;
There’s music in the gushing of a rill;
There’s music in all things, if men had ears:
Their earth is but an echo of the spheres.
~Lord Byron

Year after year I fall in love again with autumn, and this one is no different than all the others. Even though few leaves have changed colors, there are tangible signs of Keats “season of mists and mellow fruitfulness.” Samples of such manifest themselves daily in the form of ripening seeds, nuts, hips, berries, fruits, and acorns. As well several crisp mornings have filled autumn’s cup with its quintessential sanctity, and some shrouded in foggy mists have revealed squirrels scurrying about with greater urgency while birds, soon to pull out on migratory treks, feast on seeds and berries like the ones in the photo. These are American beautyberries, and they first appeared months ago in shades of pretty, pale greens, but as autumn drew near they deepened into their stunning shade of magenta and began issuing forth tunes in this, the next series of earth’s delightful melodies.

Passages in Scripture indicate that music originated with God and accompanied Creation, and there are those who yet hear the continuing echoes of Yahweh’s “Divine symphony” as made evident in the lines I quoted from Lord Byron. The American evangelist, Beth Moore, says that a song is “the fluent language of the soul,” and I couldn’t agree more because it is my soul that “hears” the myriads of earth’s melodic voices. I think perhaps the hymns of nature are more discernible in spring and autumn after they’ve been weighed down by winter’s oppression or nearly snuffed out by the intensity of summer’s fires, but earth’s music never fails to play on. And whenever the “echo of the spheres” and “the music in all things” of which Baron Byron spoke is heard, it is a privilege to “listen” to the “songs of the morning stars and the angels shout for joy” (Job 38:7). And how blessed are we, the peoples of the earth, that God “takes delight” in us, that “He quiets” us “with His love,” and that “He rejoices” over us “with singing.”

“The Lord your God is with you, the Mighty Warrior who saves. He will take great delight in you; in his love he will no longer rebuke you, but will rejoice over you with singing.” ~Zephaniah 3:17 ✝

526. Heat lingers as days are still long; early mornings are cool while autumn is still young. ~Po Chu-i, Chinese poet who lived from 772-864 during the Tang Dynasty

October 23, 2014 by nataliescarberry

how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any–lifted from the no
of all nothing–human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

 ~Excerpt from i thank you God for most this amazing… (65) 
by e.e. cummings, a poet whose peculiar syntax
and lack of or strange use of punctuation
conjures up as lasting and as memorable
images as this photo

I think it curious when I read another’s perfect description of my current reality, especially when it is one like Po Chu-i’s that was written so long ago and so far away from where I am. When it happens, I can’t help but wonder what the writer was like, what he was doing when not writing poetry, and what the landscape looked like that inspired his thoughts and rhymes. Was he young like the autumn of which he spoke, or was he like me, one who has weathered many an autumn. I also wonder if in China today the heat lingers again in Lady Autumn’s infancy. It’s certainly lingering hear in Texas in the 21st century. However, I’m not complaining because for some time now our early morns have been deliciously cool as have been the evenings that draw the days to an end. So cool in fact was it again this morning that after last night’s watering, droplets yet bejeweled the rose in the photo. That in and of itself is cause for thanksgiving since it wasn’t too long ago that all such surface water would have evaporated before dawn’s first light brushed away night’s obscurity. Actually, despite the lingering heat, this fall has been filled with more than a fair measure of splendor, a smattering of its usual intimations of holy mysteries, and now the first expected touches of nature’s autumnal poetry have been penned. Speaking of poetry, some poets like e.e. cummings write lines that challenge easy interpretation, but often poetry which defies easy understanding endures through the ages because the words and thoughts resonate in the deepest chambers of the human heart. Perhaps that’s why today I’m captivated by cumming’s poetic imagination as well as nature’s magical images and the Lord’s amazing genius.

The Spirit of God has made me; the breath of the Almighty gives me life. Job 33:4 ✝

524. Gardening: the fine art of soul to soil. ~Jan Bills

October 21, 2014 by nataliescarberry

But each spring. . .a gardening instinct,
sure as the sap rising in the trees,
stirs within us.
We look about and decide to tame
another little bit of ground.
~Lewis Gantt

Life! Life has materialized again! On a cool, misty morn of late October, little green slivers of life have emerged into visible existence, life anew made manifest from tiny black seeds scratched into barren soil and sprinkled with water, the very elixir of life itself! And it has come where two losses occurred unexpectedly in my yard last June. When it happened, “the gardening instinct” Gantt mentions kicked in immediately even though it was long after the last rising of sap and well before the next. Sadly, at that time however, the fires of summer were already growing intense, and it was too hot to start “taming” bits of ground. But when temperatures at last lowered in late September, my son-in-law tilled and tamed the new bits of ground for me. It may seem odd to sow this late in the year, but given the mild winters and early to warm up springtimes of north central Texas, the seeds of poppies, larkspur, bluebonnets, bee balm, and sweet peas must be sown in the fall so that the roots of the seedlings have enough time to grow strong and hardy. Such indeed is “the stuff of which dreams are made” for those of us who need flowers for the soul to thrive, who seek revelation of God in a garden, who live close to and find intrigue in the soil from which we came, and who dig the ground seeking His presence in earth’s depths.

Be patient, then, brothers, until the Lord’s coming. See how the farmer waits for the land to yield its valuable crop and how patient he is for the autumn and spring rains. ~James 5:7 ✝

**Images via Pinterest

Sacred Touches

Life is a time of purpose and anointed blossoming…

Tag Archives: Autumn

555. …teach me how to trust my heart, my mind, my inner knowing, the senses of my body, the blessings of my spirit. ~Edited excerpt of a Lakota Prayer

553. As autumn passes one remembers one’s reverence. ~Yoko Ono Lennon

550. I saw old Autumn in the misty morn stand shadowless like silence, listening to silence. ~Thomas Hood

546. God writes the Gospel not in the Bible alone, but also on trees, and in the flowers and clouds and stars. ~Martin Luther

542. Most glorious night! Thou wert not meant for slumber! ~Lord Byron

538. The three great elemental sounds in nature are the sound of rain, the sound of wind in a primeval wood, and the sound of outer ocean on a beach. ~Henry Beston

537. The wind shows us how close to the edge we are. ~Joan Didion

528. Behold congenial autumn comes, the Sabbath of the year. ~John Logan

526. Heat lingers as days are still long; early mornings are cool while autumn is still young. ~Po Chu-i, Chinese poet who lived from 772-864 during the Tang Dynasty

524. Gardening: the fine art of soul to soil. ~Jan Bills