581. It’s like nature (in autumn) is trying to fill you up with color, to saturate you so you can stockpile it before winter turns everything muted and dreary. ~Siobhan Vivian

December 17, 2014 by nataliescarberry

The autumn of the year is an artist,
a mural artist who enchants the landscape
with  touches of tangerine and magenta, crimson and gold.
And we, we who witness and relish fall’s splendor
are invited to tell its story or to dance or to sing
with the same kind gusto as the dazzle of its drama.
~Natalie Scarberry

Magenta! The mystery of marvelous, magical magenta! But why, why would a color as gorgeous as it be a mystery? Well, magenta doesn’t have a wavelength, and it’s never seen in a rainbow. Yet the rainbow is supposed to be the full spectrum of color, and wavelengths of reflected light determine what color the eye sees. So the answer lies in color mixing. But wait, colors cannot be mixed in physics! And therein lies the mystery of magenta. It has to do, not with photons and physics, but instead with the physiology of the way the eye works. Even though the human eye is sensitive to color, it is only through red cones, blue cones, and green cones in the retina, none of which mixed, result in magenta. However, as it turns out, the brain can be tricked into color mixing or even into inventing or making up a color. And so magenta results from the perceived absence of green in the color spectrum leaving only red and blue, and blue light mixed with red light creates magenta. That’s why my photo of the ornamental grass yesterday and the one today tell me that the Lord, genius and maker of all this is, is a Master Artist as enamored as anyone, including “moi,” with mixing and matching colors and creating what some call “eye candy.”

I will proclaim the name of the Lord. Oh praise the greatness of our God. ~Deuteronomy 32:3 ✝

574. No child but must remember laying his head in the grass, staring into the infinitesimal forest and seeing it grow populous with fairy armies. ~Robert Louis Stevenson

December 10, 2014 by nataliescarberry

Faeries, come take me out of this dull world,
For I would ride with you upon the wind,
Run on the top of the dishevelled tide,
And dance upon the mountains like a flame.
~William Butler Yeats

The Song of the Acorn Fairy 

To English Folk the mighty oak
Is England’s noblest tree;
Its hard-grained wood is strong and good
As English hearts can be.
And would you know how oak-trees grow,
The secret may be told:
You do not need to plant for seed
One acorn in the mould;
For even so, long years ago,
Were born the oaks of old.
~Cicely Mary Barker

Fairies are invisible and inaudible like angels, but their magic sparkles in nature. ~Lynn Holland

In speaking of the angels he says, “He makes his angels spirits, and his servants flames of fire. ~Hebrews 1:7 ✝

** Images via Pinterest

549. The man who is happy is fulfilling the purpose of existence. ~Fyodor Dostoyevsky

November 15, 2014 by nataliescarberry

If Heaven made him —
earth can find some use for him.
~Chinese Proverb

I watched light split the darkness on this chilly November morn, and as the sun rose higher on the horizon, I saw it initially tickle the tops of trees. Then leaf by leaf by leaf it began to lower. In the topmost branches, the squirrels, benefactors of the sun’s first fruits, sat poised in readiness for the day. Below the birds, yet reluctant to lift off, and I were on stand by waiting for the light’s kiss to brush its warmth against us as well. While I sat before the unfolding drama, it occurred to me that such as this, these primal vignettes of earth’s awakening, had played out in the same prevailing silence and expectancy since the dawn of time. It’s as if the light, and only the light, adds the vibrancy and buoyancy of sound and tempo to the day–as if there is a purpose in dim, quiet beginnings, as if first there is a need to obey holy rhythms, a foremost call to offer thanksgiving, a wisdom in opening songs of praise. Verily what I witnessed was the pregnant pause between what was, what is, and what’s yet to be, and standing in those gaps waiting to be greeted was, as always, the Giver of light, of breath, of life. At last when the light touched the ground, birds gave voice to the day’s opus and the dance of life began again! Thus I knew it was time not only to rise but also to celebrate miracles and keep them from becoming ordinary, time to prevent the mundane from stealing joy and a sense of awe and wonder. For it is ordained that we, all of us, have been anointed, have been given skill sets, and somehow, in some way have a purpose to fulfill. And if we are to accomplish that, we must cherish the light, take it with us, open life’s doors, and live in amazement.

And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose. ~Romans 8:28 ✝

**Image via Pinterest

533. Laughter is God’s blessing. ~Joseph Prince

October 30, 2014 by nataliescarberry

Laughter is the brush
that sweeps away
the cobwebs of the heart.
~Mort Walker

Like the joy of the sea coming home to shore,
May the relief of laughter rinse through your soul.

As the wind loves to call things to dance,
May your gravity by lightened by grace.

Like the dignity of moonlight restoring the earth,
May your thoughts incline with reverence and respect.

As water takes whatever shape it is in,
So free may you be about who you become.

As silence smiles on the other side of what’s said,
May your sense of irony bring perspective.

As time remains free of all that it frames,
May your mind stay clear of all it names.

May your prayer of listening deepen enough
to hear in the depths the laughter of God.
~John O’Donohue

Our mouths were filled with laughter, our tongues with songs of joy. ~Psalm 126:2a ✝

525. The garden one wide banquet spreads for thee, O daintiest reveler of the joyous earth! ~Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Edmund Clarence Stedman

October 22, 2014 by nataliescarberry

Thou spark of life that wavest wings of gold,
Thou songless wanderer mid the songful birds,
With Nature’s secrets in thy tints unrolled
Through gorgeous cipher, past the reach of words,
Yet dear to every child  in glad pursuit beguiled
Living his unspoiled days mid flowers and flocks and herds!
Excerpt from Ode to a Butterfly by
~Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Edmund Clarence Stedman

A butterfly is one of the pollinating insects that carries and moves a flower’s grains of pollen around, and its labors enable fertilization and subsequent sexual reproduction. Given that, the butterfly is owed a debt of gratitude by us and the flower because its dance seems to be not only an act of celebratory reverence but also an act of jubilant purpose. And who among us mortals, either young or old, finds not joy in the butterfly’s gleeful and beguiling dance.

I often wonder why people who are easily wowed by the technology wrought of human hands fail to realize that without a dance, a marvel of Divine technology as seemingly insignificant as that of the bee and butterfly, that which supports our very existence would first be in great peril and then cease to exist. Neither do these individuals acknowledge that their ability to create technology is a gift, one not earned or designed by their own limited ability. The simple truth is that flowers cannot continue to exist without the help of a gracious and generous “pollinating” benefactor and neither can mankind. Each mortal’s life then should be a dance, an offering of reverent and joyful thankfulness to the Creator whose technology it is that creates life, enables the continuance of it, and gives us the intellect we need to create man-made technology.

For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. ~Psalm 139:13-14 ✝

**Images via Pinterest

515. If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales. If you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairy tales. ~Albert Einstein

October 12, 2014 by nataliescarberry

Child of the pure, unclouded brow
And dreaming eyes of wonder!
Though time be fleet and I and thou
Are half a life asunder,
Thy loving smile will surely hail
The love-gift of a fairy tale.
~Lewis Carroll

The Toadstool

THERE ‘s a thing that grows by the fainting flower,
And springs in the shade of the lady’s bower;
The lily shrinks, and the rose turns pale,
When they feel its breath in the summer gale,
And the tulip curls its leaves in pride,
And the blue-eyed violet starts aside;
But the lily may flaunt, and the tulip stare,
For what does the honest toadstool care?
She does not glow in a painted vest,
And she never blooms on the maiden’s breast;
But she comes, as the saintly sisters do,
In a modest suit of a Quaker hue.
And, when the stars in the evening skies
Are weeping dew from their gentle eyes,
The toad comes out from his hermit cell,
The tale of his faithful love to tell.

~Oliver Wendell Holmes

They send forth their children as a flock: their little ones dance about. ~Job 21:11 ✝

**Today is my daughter’s birthday, and although she’s a grown woman with children of her own, I always loved reading her fairy tales when she was young.

512. We need beauty because it makes us ache to be worthy of it. ~Mary Oliver

October 9, 2014 by nataliescarberry

Beauty of whatever kind,
in its supreme development,
invariably excites
the sensitive soul to tears.
~Edgar Allan Poe

I see the work of Your Hands
Galaxies spin in a Heavenly dance oh God
All that You are is so overwhelming

I hear the sound of Your Voice
All at once it’s a gentle and thundering noise oh God
All that You are is so overwhelming

I delight myself in You
Captivated by Your beauty
I’m overwhelmed, I’m overwhelmed by You

God, I run into Your arms
Unashamed because of mercy
I’m overwhelmed, I’m overwhelmed by You

I know the power of Your Cross
Forgiven and free forever You’ll be my God

 All that You’ve done is so overwhelming
I delight myself in You
In the Glory of your Presence
I’m overwhelmed, I’m overwhelmed by You…

~Lyrics from Big Daddy Weave’s song Overwhelmed
written by  Adams, Yolanda Yvette /Belcher, Ryan Kent / East,
Rodney L. / Mccalla, Errol W. Jr. / Ecby, Marcus

Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need. ~Hebrews 4:16 ✝

** Image via the Internet

511. Let your life lightly dance on the edges of Time like dew on the tip of a leaf. ~Rabindranath Tagore

October 8, 2014 by nataliescarberry

Only when you drink from the river of silence
shall you indeed sing. And when you have
reached the mountain top, then you shall climb.
And when the earth shall claim your limbs,
then you shall truly dance.
~Kahlil Gibran

Where Does the Dance Begin, Where Does It End?

Don’t call this world adorable, or useful, that’s not it.
It’s frisky, and a theater for more than fair winds.
The eyelash of lightning is neither good nor evil.
The struck tree burns like a pillar of gold.

But the blue rain sinks, straight to the white
feet of the trees
whose mouths open.
Doesn’t the wind, turning in circles, invent the dance?
Haven’t the flowers moved, slowly, across Asia, then Europe,
until at last, now, they shine
in your own yard?

Don’t call this world an explanation, or even an education.

When the Sufi poet whirled, was he looking
outward, to the mountains so solidly there
in a white-capped ring,
or was he looking

to the center of everything: the seed, the egg, the idea
that was also there,
beautiful as a thumb
curved and touching the finger, tenderly,
little love-ring,

as he whirled,
oh jug of breath,
in the garden of dust?

~Mary Oliver

May God give you heaven’s dew and earth’s richness… ~Genesis 27:28a ✝

**Image via Pinterest

489. Departing summer hath assumed an aspect tenderly illumed… ~William Wordsworth

September 16, 2014 by nataliescarberry

The morrow was a bright September morn;
The earth was beautiful as if newborn;
There was nameless splendor everywhere…
~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

September’s steeds galloped, instead of meekly sauntering, in this year and by doing so apparently dealt an injurious blow to the heat beast. As a result our temps have lowered much earlier than usual, and now that the equinox is only a week away, the opening of autumn’s gates could bring even more delicious temperatures since windy chariots driven on gusts of arctic-born winds have already brought snow to northern regions. So it is that though parched by summer’s savage sun, a fair amount of the garden’s ragged “citizenry” have already started reviving and putting on new growth. In addition to the lower temperatures, the encouragement for them to make a come back has been spurred on by the little bit of rain we’ve recently had. Now if all continues to go well both of those circumstances as well as more rain from the storms they’re predicting will insure that before life and death embrace for the year’s last dance, a generous measure of new blooms will grace the garden. The only downside to all this is that the hummingbirds may have to head south a bit sooner, but until then I shall continue to be enchanted by their daylong visits to flowers and the feeder. And I, happy witness that am I to all of this, yet gets to fill her cup to the brim on my little piece of the Lord’s Eden!

Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. ~Philippians 4:8 ✝

480. Live in each season as it passes; breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit, and resign yourself to the influences of each. ~Henry David Thoreau

September 7, 2014 by nataliescarberry

Seasons knocking on the door
Each one with its unique lore

Springtime fingerpaints the earth
Spreading its immeasurable mirth

Summer’s heat bursts upon the scene
And each day the sun reigns as queen

Autumn casts a cloak of burnished hues
With copper tinged foliage as its muse

Winter’s kingdom wears robes of pristine white
While snowflakes whispered dance is quite the sight

Seasons stand side by side, natural neighbors
Observing each other’s seasonal labors.
~Edited poem by Kristen A.

He (G0d) made the moon to mark the seasons, and the sun knows when to go down. ~Psalm 104:19 ✝

Sacred Touches

Life is a time of purpose and anointed blossoming…

Tag Archives: Dance