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

September 25, 2015 by nataliescarberry

From Under Toadstools They Came.

Swirling around me
they danced upon twinkling tips
over shimmering shards of grass
stirred by the early morning breeze.
A hundred sparkling amber eyes watching as
I walk amongst them, smiling, mesmerized by such beauty,
riveted on the turn of a new season, now the last butterflies have gone.
Filligrees of autumn, flashing golden in the low, warmish sunlight,
dashing off across the field only to return to peek once more.
Delicately, they flutter up around and skyward,
And I watch
magically
transfixed
as faeries
descend down
again from up above
~Adapted poem by Ruby Watson

The fairy poet takes a sheet
Of moonbeam, silver white;
His ink is dew from daisies sweet,
His pen a point of light.
~Joyce Kilmer

Let my teaching fall like rain and my words descend like dew, like showers on new grass, like abundant rain on tender plants. ~Deuteronomy 32:2 ✝

**Images via Pinterest; collage by Natalie

840. And hand in hand, on the edge of the sand, they danced by the light of the moon. ~Edward Lear

August 13, 2015 by nataliescarberry

Watch the rising of the sun.
Listen to the morning’s chorus outside.
Feel the day’s vibrancy, the clanging of life in the sun’s rising.
Such is the dance of life, my friends.

Smell the aromas of life.
Taste life’s goodness all around you.
Take time to touch others in a meaningful way.
Such is the dance of life, my friends.

Look at the stars.
Watch the jitterbug of the fireflies.
Hear the music of the night.
Such is the dance of life, my friends.

Life is the dance and you are the dancer!
“Let your life lightly dance on the edges of Time
like the dew on the tip of a leaf.”
~Rabindranath Tagore

Let them praise His name with dancing and make music to him with the timbrel and harp. ~Psalm 149:3 ✝

833. The happiness of the bee and the dolphin is to exist. For man it is to know that and to wonder at it. ~Jacques Yves Cousteau

August 6, 2015 by nataliescarberry

The careful insect ‘midst his works I view,
Now from the flowers exhaust the fragrant dew,
With golden treasures load his little thighs,
And steer his distant journey through the skies.
~John Gay

“Veiled in this fragile filigree of wax is the essence of sunshine, golden and limpid, tasting of grassy meadows, mountain wildflowers, lavishly blooming orange trees, or scrubby desert weeds. Honey, even more than wine, is a reflection of place. If the process of grape to glass is alchemy, then the trail from blossom to bottle is one of reflection. The nectar collected by the bee is the spirit and sap of the plant, its sweetest juice. Honey is the flower transmuted, its scent and beauty transformed into aroma and taste.” ~Stephanie Rosenbaum

The bees’ rhythms may be heard only by petaled ears, but the hum of the bee is sweet music to the gardener’s ears for the “wonder at it” divvies up its humming happiness and the honey it makes renders the taste of the fragrant flower’s sweetness.

Eat honey, my child, for it is good; honey from the comb is sweet to your taste. ~Proverbs 24:13 ✝

**Images via Pinterest

827. The moon is at her full and riding high… ~William C. Bryant

July 31, 2015 by nataliescarberry

As ancients saw, so do I
A throbbing light, a painted globe
Upon a pinpricked sparkled sky.
Suspended in the nothingness of black
Always there, poetic universal rhyme
Dangling upon an invisible track of time.
~justme

The Moon was but a Chin of Gold
A Night or two ago—
And now she turns Her perfect Face
Upon the World below—
Her Forehead is of Amplest Blonde—
Her Cheek—a Beryl hewn—
Her Eye unto the Summer Dew
The likest I have known—
Her Bonnet is the Firmament—
The Universe—Her Shoe—
The Stars—the Trinkets at Her Belt—
Her Dimities—of Blue—
~Excerpted verses from a poem
by Emily Dickinson

The Eiffel Tower in the photo is blue, and there’s a “blue moon” in the sky tonight – but that doesn’t mean the lunar surface will turn indigo. Tonight’s (July 31) moon will be a gorgeous sight, but it won’t look different than any other full moon. The term Blue Moon has come to refer to the second full moon in a given month (since full moons come around about every 29 days, most months only contain one). So set your sights skyward tonight, but don’t expect a change in the moon’s regular hue.

When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them? ~Psalm 8:3-4 ✝

**Image via Pinterest

755. “I’m glad I am alive, to see and feel the full deliciousness of this bright day…” ~William Allingham

June 3, 2015 by nataliescarberry

In June, as many as a dozen species
may burst their buds on a single day.
~Aldo Leopold

By 1890, San Antonio, Texas, was a thriving trade center with population of 38,000.

In 1891 a group of citizens decided to honor the heroes
of the Alamo and Battle of San Jacinto with a Battle of Flowers.

The first parade had horse-drawn carriages, bicycles decorated with fresh flowers
and floats carrying children dressed as flowers.

The Belknap Rifles represented the military.

The participants pelted each other with blossoms.

Today it’s the largest parade in Fiesta and is second in size nationally
only to the Tournament of Roses Parade.

It’s fiesta time again in yard too!

Whenever I look out the windows, especially this time of year,
I think of these hispanic fiestas which are always so very colorful.

So I hope you enjoy this frenzy of oranges, reds, pinks,
yellows, blues, whites, and purples.

I don’t often post two entries in one day, but it’s getting awfully hot here
and some of my pretty blossoms don’t last too long in the heat.

This is what the Lord says to me: “I will remain quiet and will look on from my dwelling place, like shimmering heat in the sunshine, like a cloud of dew in the heat of harvest.” ~Isaiah 18:4 ✝

684. God writes the Gospel not in the Bible alone, but also on trees, and in the flowers and clouds and stars. ~Author unknown, commonly attributed to Martin Luther

March 27, 2015 by nataliescarberry

Morning is the best  of all times in the garden.
The sun is not yet hot.  Sweet vapors rise from the earth.
Night dew clings to the soil  and makes plants glisten.
Birds call to one another.  Bees are already at work.
~William Longgood

Hold on to what is good even if it is a handful of earth.
Hold on to what you believe even if it’s a tree which stands by itself.
Hold on to what you must do even if it is a long way from here.
Hold on to life even when it is easier letting go.
Hold on to my hand even when I have gone away from you.
~Pueblo Blessing

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 ✝

622. The temple bell stops but I still hear the sound coming out of the flowers. ~Matsuo Bashō

January 24, 2015 by nataliescarberry

If a poem is thin, it is likely so not because
the poet does not know enough words,
but because he or she has not stood long enough
among the flowers-has not seen them in any
fresh, exciting, and valid way.
~Mary Oliver

I am a kind word uttered and repeated
By the voice of Nature;
I am a star fallen from the
Blue tent upon the green carpet.
I am the daughter of the elements
With whom Winter conceived;
To whom Spring gave birth;
I was Reared in the lap of Summer and I
Slept in the bed of Autumn.

At dawn I unite with the breeze
To announce the coming of light;
At eventide I join the birds
In bidding the light farewell.

The plains are decorated with
My beautiful colors, and the air
Is scented with my fragrance.

As I embrace Slumber the eyes of
Night watch over me, and as I
Awaken I stare at the sun,
which is The only eye of the day.

I drink dew for wine, and hearken to
The voices of the birds, and dance
To the rhythmic swaying of the grass.
~Excerpted verses from Song of the Flower 
~by Khalil Gibran

By day the Lord directs his love, at night his song is with me—a prayer to the God of my life. ~Psalm 42:8 ✝

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

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.

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 ✝