Tag Archives: Dream

629. One of the most delightful things about a garden is the anticipation it provides.
~W. E. Johns 

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The greatest achievement was at first
and for a time a dream.
The oak sleeps in the acorn,
the bird waits in the egg,
and in the highest vision of the soul
a waking angel stirs.
Dreams are the seedlings of realities.
~James Allen

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Part of the genius of God’s grand design is that we awaken every day to a fresh flowing of His energy and vitality that has been stored in the seeds of our being, seeds that possess the same strength as that of the rising sun, earth’s swelling seas, and its fertile plains. An excellent time to look for the shining of His everlasting light in the “sanctuary of the soul” is in the first waking moments of each new day. That inward realm is where doors open to the germination of new life because inside each one of us the Lord has planted His “seeds of greatness.” There’s never a moment in life when either in and of ourselves or in the people around us that there are not yet unopened gifts of promise. Simply put, “heaven’s creativity on earth” is born in our bodies, and therein the Master’s “sacred hopes” are hidden.

From heaven the LORD looks down and sees all mankind; from His dwelling place He watches all who live on earth-He who forms the hearts of all, who considers everything they do. ~Psalm 33:13-15   ✝

**Image via Pinterest

616. Our doubts are traitors, and make us lose the good we often might win, by fearing to attempt. ~William Shakespeare

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I’ve always been delighted at the prospect of a new day,
a fresh try, one more start, with perhaps a bit of magic
waiting somewhere behind the morning.
~J. B. Priestley

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I place on the altar of dawn:
The quiet loyalty of breath,
The tent of thought where I shelter,
Wave of desire I am shore to
And all beauty drawn to the eye.

May my mind come alive today
To the invisible geography
That invites me to new frontiers,
To break the dead shell of yesterdays,
To risk being disturbed and changed.

May I have the courage today
To live the life that I would love,
To postpone my dream no longer
But do at last what I came here for
And waste my heart on fear no more.
~Excerpt from a blessing
by John O’Donohue

In the morning, Lord, you hear m voice; in the morning I lay my requests before you and wait expectantly. ~Psalm 5:3   ✝

**Image via Pinterest, text added by Natalie

596. Know the true value of time; snatch, seize, and enjoy every moment of it. ~Lord Chesterfield

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Our life is an apprenticeship to the truth
that around every circle another can be drawn;
that there is no end in nature,
but every end is a beginning,
and under every deep a lower deep opens.
~Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Look well to this day.
Yesterday is but a dream
and tomorrow is only a vision.
But today well lived
makes every yesterday
a dream of happiness,
and every tomorrow
a vision of hope.
Look well therefore to this day.
~Francis Gray

This is what the Lord says— he who made a way through the sea, a path through the mighty waters, “Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland. ~Isaiah 43:16, 18-19   ✝

**Image via Pinterest, text added by Natalie

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

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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

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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   ✝

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500. Each time dawn appears, the mystery is there in its entirety. ~René Daumal

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The breeze at dawn
has secrets to tell you;
Don’t go back to sleep.
~Rumi

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Look to this day!
For it is life, the very life of life,
In its brief course
Lie all the verities and realities of your existence:

The bliss of growth,
The glory of action,
The splendor of beauty,
For yesterday is but a dream
And tomorrow only a vision,
But today well lived makes every yesterday
a dream of happiness
And every tomorrow a vision of hope.

Look well, therefore, to this day!
Such is the salutation of the dawn.
~Kalidasa (2500 BC Sanskrit)

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    ✝

** Image via Pinterest

497. I wanted to know the name of every stone and flower and insect and bird and beast. I wanted to know where it got its color, where it got its life… ~George Washington Carver

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i thank You God for this most amazing day:
for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky;
and for everything which is natural
which is infinite
which is yes
~e.e. cummings

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Of What Surrounds Me

Whatever it is I am saying, I always
Need a leaf or a flower, if not an
Entire field. As for sky, I am wildly
In love with each day’s inventions, cool blue
Or cat gray or full
Of the ships of clouds,I simply can’t
Say whatever it is I am saying without
At least one skyful. That leaves water, a
Creek or a well, river or ocean, it has to be
There. For the heart to be there. For the pen
To be poised. For the idea to come.

~Mary Oliver

The eye never has enough of seeing, nor the ear its fill of hearing. ~Ecclesiastes 1:8b   ✝

** Image of Dahlia via Pinterest

481. Explanation separates us from astonishment, which is the only gateway to the incomprehensible. ~Eugène Ionesco

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Even the poppy knows to bow its head
in praise before rising to the wonderment of day!

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Truly, we live with mysteries too marvelous
to be understood.

How grass can be nourishing in the
mouths of the lambs.
How rivers and stones are forever
in allegiance with gravity,
while we ourselves dream of rising.

How two hands touch and the bonds
will never be broken.
How people come, from delight or the
scars of damage,
to the comfort of a poem.

Let me keep my distance, always, from those
who think they have the answers.

Let me keep company always with those who say
“Look!” and laugh in astonishment,
and bow their heads.
~Mary Oliver

“Can you fathom the mysteries of God? Can you probe the limits of the Almighty? They are higher than the heavens above—what can you do? They are deeper than the depths below—what can you know?” ~Job 11:7-8    ✝

448. A blue jay’s feathered back holds spots of white clouds and soft, glistening blue. ~From a poem by Gayle Sween

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We saw–through milky light, above the doghouse–
A blue jay lecturing the neighbor’s cat
So fiercely that, at first, it seemed to wonder
When birds fought the diplomacy of light
And met, instead, each charge with a wild swoop,
Metallic cry and angry thrust of beak.
Later we found the reason,
Near the fence
Among the flowerless stalks of daffodils,
A weak piping of feathers.
Too late now to go back
To nest again among the sheltering leaves…
~Excerpted lines from a poem by Paul Lake

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Photo posted on Flickr by Brian E. Cushner

Noisy blue jays screech in the alley calling for help because a baby has been snatched from the nest by a prowling cat. Alarmed I look up at one of my cavity nests where I recently heard the tiny peeps of newly birthed baby sparrows. I’m relieved to see Mom and Pop sparrow sitting close by in attentive, watchful vigilance for they’ve spotted the cat wandering back inside the yard. But they too have been seen and in a flash the cat charges ready to pounce. The sparrows quickly take to wing, however, and make a clean getaway fearing not for the safety of their children for they know that having just been fed the hatchlings will lay quietly inside the nest till their return. And so now whilst the feline huntress sleeps under her favorite lawn chair she can only dream of better days when she’ll once again have her way.

Hardly a day goes by when one cannot find something engaging or new being birthed in a garden. Even in late autumn and winter there’s a hopeful progression of captivating events. Our lives are like that too, I think. Since it’s a bit harder sometimes to realize much variation or progression in our day to day living, I love to go out and walk or sit in my garden so I can feel the thrill of moving constancy, intrigue, and rebirth.

The end of a thing is better than its beginning; the patient in spirit is better than the proud in spirit. ~Ecclesiastes 7:8   ✝

Sweet Jesus, fill us with the mercy you bled and draw us back unto Yourself!  Let us be aware of You in all that we see and hear in Creation!

309. Oh, the music in the air! An’ the joy that’s ivrywhere… ~Thomas Augustin Daly

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St. Patrick’s Day is an enchanted time-
a day to begin transforming
winter’s dreams into summer’s magic.
~Adrienne Cook

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Color has returned to the earth in a few places here in our area; so St. Patrick’s Day has indeed brought a beginning measure of earth’s enchantments.  And where there are but few flowers yet, there is the promise of many more.

I arise today through God’s strength to pilot me,
God’s might to uphold me,
God’s wisdom to guide me.
God’s eye to look before me,
God’s ear to hear me,
God’s word to speak for me.
God’s hand to guard me.

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Christ with me, Christ before me, Christ behind me,
Christ in me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me,
Christ on my right, Christ on my left,
Christ when I lie down, Christ when I sit, Christ when I arise,
Christ in every heart of everyone who thinks of me,
Christ in the mouth of everyone who speaks of me,
Christ in every eye that sees me,
Christ in every ear that hears me.
~St. Patrick, Patron of Ireland.

Your kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and your dominion endures through all generations.  The Lord is trustworthy in all He promises and faithful in all He does.  Psalm 145:13   ✝

**Photos via Pinterest

261. Miracles are a retelling in small letters of the very same story which is written across the whole world in letters too large for some of us to see. ~C. S. Lewis

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Every gardener knows
that under the cloak of winter
lies a miracle–a seed waiting to sprout,
a bulb opening to the light,
a bud straining to unfurl.
And the anticipation nurtures our dream.
~Barbara Winkler

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Miracles!  Where would any of us be without the existence of miracles?  Bad things happen on planet earth, but miraculous things occur on a daily basis too.  And many times out of the dust and devastation of catastrophic disasters arise changes for the betterment of life and living conditions as well as the inevitable uplifting examples of an amazing goodness that exist in the human soul.  I garden not just because of a love for flowers but more importantly because I find day to day evidence of the mystery and miracles of God and His goodness in the garden’s confines.  Spending even the smallest amount of time in my garden brings repeated awarenesses of the Lord’s abiding presence, and that keeps me focused on Him and not on my own smallness or limitations.  In spite of Creation’s brokenness and my own heart’s sufferings, I am guided to wellsprings of life and hope amid earth’s unmistakable hallowed workings.  Both contentment and enlightenment can be found in the orbs of the heavens, in the green of the earth, in the flowing of its waters, in the warmth of the sun, and in the wind, that like Yahweh, can be felt but not seen.  That in turn teaches me how to respond to life and its sometimes terrifying circumstances with a spirit of peace and love instead of anger, confusion, and frustration.  Understanding is not promised unto us, but peace that transcends understanding is granted to those who seek the Prince of Peace and search for the true heart of life.

The Mighty One, God, the LORD, speaks and summons the earth from the rising of the sun to the place where it sets.  ~Psalm 50:1   ✝