1406. Why are there trees I never walk under but large and melodious thoughts descend upon me. ~Walt Whitman

October 1, 2017 by nataliescarberry

Sometimes thou may’st walk in groves
which being full of majestie
will much advance the soul.
~Thomas Vaughan

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When I think of autumn I think of trees, all kinds of trees, and recently I ran across someone’s lovely thoughts about trees. However it wasn’t clear who wrote them or when. But I’ve decided to share some of them along with photos of trees I’ve taken over the years. And in the collection today is one that is blue, and just so you know I did nothing to make it so. There’s a phenomenon here in Texas called a blue norther which is a rapidly moving autumnal cold front that causes temperatures to drop quickly. Folk tales say they are the result of a norther that sweeps “out of the panhandle of Texas under a blue-black sky”–that is to say a cold front named for the appearance of its leading edge. And years ago I was fortunate enough to be out and about that day with my camera in hand and thus was able to capture a “blue norther.” I hope you enjoy this unknown writer’s thoughts about trees:

“For me, trees have always been the most penetrating preachers. I revere them when they live in tribes and families, in forests and groves. And even more I revere them when they stand alone. They are like lonely persons. Not like hermits who have stolen away out of some weakness, but like great, solitary men, like Beethoven and Nietzsche. In their highest boughs the world rustles, their roots rest in infinity; but they do not lose themselves there, they struggle with all the force of their lives for one thing only: to fulfill themselves according to their own laws, to build up their own form, to represent themselves. Nothing is holier, nothing is more exemplary than a beautiful, strong tree. When a tree is cut down and reveals its naked death-wound to the sun, one can read its whole history in the luminous, inscribed disk of its trunk: in the rings of its years, its scars, all the struggle, all the suffering, all the sickness, all the happiness and prosperity stand truly written, the narrow years and the luxurious years, the attacks withstood, the storms endured. And every young farm boy knows that the hardest and noblest wood has the narrowest rings, that high on the mountains and in continuing danger the most indestructible, the strongest, the ideal trees grow.” ~Author Unknown

You will go out in joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and hills will burst into song before you, and all the trees of the field will clap their hands. ~Isaiah 55:12 ✝

**All photos taken by Natalie; collage created by Natalie

1371. On being asked to write a poem against the destruction of the natural world… ~Dale Biron

April 20, 2017 by nataliescarberry

Poems we love are just songs
we must sing again and again.
~Dale Biron

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Well, yes I have written such poems on occasion and several times in fact, not because I was asked, but just because my heart or soul or maybe some other nameless part of me couldn’t help but do so. I’ve quoted Rachel Carson, Walt Whitman, and Wallace Stegner just to add intellectual heft to my haranguing. And based on what I can tell, so far none of my writing or talking has made a single bit of difference, except that I now stare dumbstruck at the magnificence of a single ocean wave, and cannot take my eyes off clouds and full moons or Giant Egrets, taking one tiny sacred step at a time. After all, isn’t every poem ever just a search and rescue party for our heart and soul– nothing protected, nothing saved, nothing sustained, except maybe, just maybe, me, and you, and every other blessed thing. ~Dale Biron

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And ya know what, I personally think one can write poetry with a camera or a paint brush or with a musical instrument or a sculpting knife and on and on it goes, so that those perhaps bereft of the ability to rhyme may be gifted poets too. The Lord remains the master poet Himself as the stroke of His mighty “pen” plays on in His Creation.

The whole earth is filled with awe at your wonders; where morning dawns, where evening fades, you call forth songs of joy. ~Psalm 65:8 ✝

**Images found at: http://petitcabinetdecuriosites.tumblr.com/tagged/flowers

1327. I must have flowers, always, and always. ~Claude Monet

January 2, 2017 by nataliescarberry

Flowers seem intended for the
solace of ordinary humanity.
~John Ruskin

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Last weekend one of my grandsons went with me to do our grocery shopping. When I told him to stop a minute at the floral department, he asked if I bought flowers every week, and I replied with a boisterous “yes.” That made him chuckle at first; then he became curious and asked me why. I replied with Monet’s exact declaration above. Since then I’ve been contemplating why I have that compelling need but have been able to come up little more than that they are beautiful, they cheer me up, and they are fun to replicate with a camera or on a canvas. Since I’m not much of an artist however, a camera and editing programs are much more able to help me create good images than those I try to achieve with paints or pens. Not only that, because I’m one of those people who has a persistent and irresistible urge to find beauty and be creative, even the tiniest of flowers can satisfy both those needs.

Passions, who can say from whence they come
or why, but I for one am glad there’s solace,
comfort, and joy to be found in them, for ‘tis they
that bringeth the light needed to make it through
the dark nights of my soul, and it’s evident that the
Lord of heaven and earth whom I adore and seek
finds them to be so as well for one learns much of
Him and His heart in the Genesis account of Creation.

There is no atom in earth but is alive and astir in the all-penetrating splendor of God. From the infinitesimal to the infinite, everything is striving to express the thought of His Presence with which it overflows. ~Lucy Larcom

For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse. ~Romans 1:20 ✝

**Photo taken by Natalie and the special effects and border were done by her on iPiccy

1248. I am forced to conclude that God made Texas on his day off, for pure entertainment, just to prove that all that diversity could be crammed into one section of earth… ~Author Mary Lasswell

September 4, 2016 by nataliescarberry

The stars at night – are big and bright
Deep in the heart of Texas.
The prairie sky – is wide and high
Deep in the heart of Texas.
The sage in bloom – is like perfume
Deep in the heart of Texas…
~Excerpted lyrics from a song
by June Hershey

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Texas is a state of mind. Texas is an obsession.
Above all, Texas is a nation in every sense of the word.
Like most passionate nations, Texas has  its own
history based on, but not limited by, facts.
~John Steinbeck

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I have said that Texas is a state of mind, but I think it is more than that. It is a mystique closely approximating a religion. And this is true to the extent that people either passionately love Texas or passionately hate it and, as in other religions, few people dare to inspect it for fear of losing their bearings in mystery or paradox. But I think there will be little quarrel with my feeling that Texas is one thing. For all its enormous range of space, climate, and physical appearance, and for all the internal squabbles, contentions, and strivings, Texas has a tight cohesiveness perhaps stronger than any other section of America. Rich, poor, Panhandle, Gulf, city, country, Texas is the obsession, the proper study and the passionate possession of all Texans. ~John Steinbeck, 1962

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And, “Texans for the most part have never learned to be dull,” accurately quipped Randolph Campbell.

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As I’ve said repeatedly the intense heat of the Texas summer has always been difficult for me to tolerate. It forces me to stay indoors much more than I like, and being separated from the earth and God’s voice in the natural world starves my spirit. However, I have come to love much of the unique Texas experience, and I am thankful that the Lord created the man or woman who invented air-conditioning. I’m grateful too that our house has lots of windows so I can at least see my yard during times when it’s just too miserably hot to be out in it.. Also after I bought a digital camera, I’m able to save the garden’s glory in photographs that help me make it through the times when the summer heat temporarily robs the landscape of much of its beauty. How blessed are we that the work of His hands is as apparent as ever in His world.

And my God will meet all your needs according to the riches of his glory in Christ Jesus. ~Philippians 4:19 ✝

**Images found on the Internet, Pinterest, and Pixabay; collages by Natalie

1030. What was that? Did you see it? There, there it goes again! Look! It can’t have disappeared.

January 6, 2016 by nataliescarberry

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In the half light of dawn a quick flash of red had been darting back and forth just beyond the blue gazing ball. Whoosh! There is was again! Surely you saw it that time. No? Ohhhhhh, but I did! Even from 30 yards away the vibrant color and black mask of a male cardinal is unmistakable. Fully awake and focused now I could clearly see what the beautiful flash was, and yet sadly I had not obeyed the call earlier to get up and find my camera. After weeks of early wake ups, I just couldn’t make myself get up out of my chair; I was being lulled into a kind of stupor by the gray, quietude of the early January morn. Then I remembered the last line in Kalidasa’s Sanskrit poem, “The Salutation to the the Dawn. “Look well therefore to this day,” he said. So with a better late than never resolve, I started trying to untangle myself from a blanket and get up from my chair when all of a sudden the amazing crimson creature landed not ten feet away from me on the other side of my patio door. Lots of cardinals live in and around our yard, but until today none of them had come this close to the house. What a brave, cheeky guy was this one who had found and perched itself atop the blackberry vine I’d purchased last week. Though he tarried there a while, I was afraid to move for fear I’d shoo it away. So I eased back down in my chair, watching in awe and admiration until it flew off. Afterwards, I did go grab my camera in case the beauty returned again. Alas, however, it did not. Instead now it was only flying back and forth, along with its mate, from the feeders to the top of my rose arch outside Natalieworld

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Therefore, with minds that are alert and fully sober, set your hope on the grace to be brought to you when Jesus Christ is revealed at His coming. ~1 Peter 1:13 ✝

**Images found on Pinterest

923. Without passion man is a mere latent force and possibility, like the flint which awaits the shock of the iron before it can give forth its spark. ~Henri-Frédéric Amiel

October 31, 2015 by nataliescarberry

Don’t ask yourself what the world needs;
ask yourself what makes you come alive.
And then go and do that.
Because what the world needs is
people who have come alive.
~Howard Thurman

I remember reading an article a while back about Pablo Casals, the world-renowned cellist. He was in his 90’s at the time and still going strong so the reporter asked him to what he attributed his health and longevity. Casals answered that they were the result of his passion for music. When I read that, I was envious because at that time I had never experienced that kind of passion for anything. But the Lord knows the desires of our hearts, and it came to pass that He granted me things to stir up passion in me. It began one summer when I bought some seeds and sowed them in pots on my patio. From the onset seeing new life emerge from those tiny seeds, I was hooked. So with spade in hand, I began pushing it down into the soil and thus began my love of gardening. As my efforts flourished and the birds and bees came, the desire to capture the day to day beauty of it all became the catalyst of my passion for photography. Now not only do I have a great camera and lots of beds with wondrously beautiful flowers but on my blog I’ve also sown, it seems, a “garden” that blooms with amazingly deligtful people.

Take delight in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart. ~Psalm 37:4 ✝

**Images via Pinterest, and the music in video is my happy song

748. Red is passion-lit, orange is flowerageous, yellow is suntastic, pink is lipsensual, green is lifebursting, blue is skyful, purple is berrydancing, gray is cloudrainy. ~Terri Guillemets

May 28, 2015 by nataliescarberry

Beauty is the adjustment of all parts
proportionately so that one cannot add
or subtract or change without
impairing  the harmony of the whole.
~Leon B. Alberti

To conquer a piece of earth and make it as beautiful
as one can dream of it being: That is art, too.
A man cannot be separated from the earth.
I come out of the garden every day feeling,
oh, inspired in a way that one needs
in order to convert the daily-ness of the life
into something greater than that little life itself.
~Stanley Kunitz

Nothing is more the child
of art than a garden.
~Sir Walter Scott

But who can paint
like Nature?
Can imagination boast,
amid its gay creation,
hues like hers?
~James Thomson

Nature is painting for us,
day after day,
pictures of infinite beauty.
~James Russell Lowell

If you ask me what I came
to do in this world,
I, an artist, will answer you:
I am here to live out loud.
~Emile Zola

My garden is the canvas
upon which nature paints,
and in it I daily toil.
With my camera in hand
at other times,
I let live  Yahweh’s art
out loud!
~Natalie Scarberry

Yet you, Lord, are our Father. We are the clay, you are the potter; we are al the work of your hand. ~Isaiah 64:8 ✝

**I took all these photos of flowers blooming in my yard.

698. We might live with the angels that visit us on every sunbeam, and sit with the fairies who wait on every flower. ~Samuel Smiles

April 9, 2015 by nataliescarberry

Finger-like ancient
flowers dating back to the
reign of Edward III

Freckled are your tube-
like prettily colored bells
that look like a glove

And are a lurking
place of the wee folk who clap
the fairy thunder

Stately foxglove with
the lambs-tongue-leaves you thrill
the eye and heal hearts

But beware to all
who know not you can kill a
man as well as heal

Favorite of mine
are you in the garden but
grow you not in heat

So it is that I
must find you early in the
year to grow in pots

Where a favorite
of the buzzing bees and
my camera are you

Because you see
I love your freckly poetry
of apostrophes

My blogging friend, Bette Stevens, posted this week that April is national poetry month, and so I set out to write a series of haikus about a favorite flower of mine. I’m certainly no poet but I had fun trying to tell some of the lore about this flower in haiku fashion. Along with the verses are photos I’ve taken and others I found on Pinterest.

The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of our God endures forever. ~Isaiah 40:8 ✝

474. 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

September 1, 2014 by nataliescarberry

September days have the warmth of summer
in their briefer hours, but in their lengthening evenings
a prophetic breath of autumn.
The cricket chirps in the noontide,
making the most of what remains of his brief life.
The bumblebee is busy among the clover blossoms
of the aftermath, and their shrill and dreamy hum
hold  the outdoor world above the voices
of the song birds, now silent or departed.
~Rowland E. Robinson

Whew! Am I glad August is over!!! It’s still extremely hot, but at least September, bearer of the autumnal equinox, holds the possibility that later in the month we’ll be blessed with our first cool, crisp morn. Although autumn’s voice nor breath are yet discernible, its harbingers have alerted my eyes and therefore my camera. So with forbearance I shall press on through the remainder of the “heat beast’s” reign, knowing and delighting in the fact that its days are numbering fewer and fewer. Perhaps one day I shall be able to embrace the idea that “the discipline of blessings is to taste each moment, the bitter, the sour, the sweet and the salty, (even the insanely hot) and be glad for what does not hurt.” Indeed, God has lots of work left to do in me.

There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens… ~Ecclesiastes 3:1 ✝

472. Outside the open window the morning air is all awash with angels. ~Richard Purdy Wilbur

August 30, 2014 by nataliescarberry

Angels descending,  bring from above,
echoes of mercy,  whispers of love.
~Fanny J. Crosby

My cats start meowing for food around daybreak, and when I hear them, I heed the call, put out their food, and then settle back in my recliner to snooze a little longer. In between my snippets of sleep, I open my eyes to enjoy the spectacle of day’s coming as it moves in and across my backyard. Yesterday because I had seen a hummingbird at my feeder, I’d decided to leave my camera near my chair. So the photo above was shot early this morning from inside through a sliding glass door and its screen. Sadly the little guy was not up as close as I’d have liked nor is he completely in focus. But I loved the image because as he hovered with wings still rapidly in motion, the camera captured him just at the right moment so that it looks like he has the tiny wings of an angel. And who knows? Perhaps he was and had been sent to remind me that…

It’s not just another day.
It’s the one day that is given to me today.
It’s a gift.
It’s the only gift I have right now,
and the only appropriate response
is gratefulness.
~Verse taken from “A Good Day”  by David Steindl-Rast

“The Lord lives! Praise be to my Rock! Exalted be my God, the Rock, my Savior!” 2 Samuel 22:47 ✝

Lord, Your beauty draws all things to Yourself. Please let me stay and rest in your holiness.

Sacred Touches

Life is a time of purpose and anointed blossoming…

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