Tag Archives: Earth

1114. The hum of the bees is the voice of the garden. ~Elizabeth Lawrence

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The bee collects honey from flowers
in such a way as to do the least
damage or destruction to them,
and he leaves them whole, undamaged
and fresh, just as he found them.
~Saint Francis de Sales

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A garden spot may be a noisy place
Where droning bees seek honey,
Spiders weave their silver lace upon the trees,
And little birds sing songs the livelong day.

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Or it may be so silent that is seems
The flowers sleep, and shy
Mysterious virgin dreams their vigil keep,
And God communes with earth all day.
~Pringle Barret

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

**Images of the bees via Pinterest; images of spider webs found on Pixabay

 

1112. To me, every hour of the day and night is an unspeakably perfect miracle. Walt Whitman

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Everything that slows us down
and forces patience,
everything that sets us back into
the slow circles of nature, is a help.
~May Sarton

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Tonight
Tonight I’m flying low and I’m
not saying a word
I’m letting all the voodoos of ambition sleep.
The world goes on as it must,
the bees in the garden rumbling a little,
the fish leaping, the gnats getting eaten.
And so forth.
But I’m taking the evening off.
Quiet as a feather.
I hardly move though really I’m traveling
a terrific distance.
Stillness.
One of the doors
into the temple.
~Edited and adapted poem
by Mary Oliver

Well, kiddies, I am taking the night off. My aging, aching back in killing me as I’ve been working too hard for too many days in the gardens. I pray you have a lovely evening. I shall be back tomorrow. Love, Natalie

He says, “Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.” ~Psalm 46: 10  ✝

**Image found on Pixabay

1106. Everything in heaven and earth breathes. Breath is the thread that ties creation together. ~Morihei Ueshiba

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Every breath we take,
every step we make,
can be filled with peace,
joy and serenity.
~Thich Nhat Hanh

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Breath
Breath, the mindful breath,
the rhythm, out and in,
the wave that washes
through our days,
creating space for stillness,
sorrow, joy, or exaltation.
Full, then empty,
ebb and flow,
breath accompanies
each step into the unknown.
In the breath, the soul
finds an opportunity to speak.
Images or intuition,
poetry or wordless wisdom
come and go — no effort but
to breathe and listen.
~Danna Faulds

By the word of the Lord the heavens were made, their starry host by the breath of his mouth. ~Psalm 33:6  ✝

**Image found on Pixabay; text added by Natalie

1098. How can I stand on the ground every day and not feel its power? How can I live my life stepping on this stuff and not wonder at it? ~William Bryant Logan

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A garden is the mirror of the mind.
It is a place of life, a mystery of green,
moving to the pulse of the year,
and pressing on and pausing the whole
to its own inherent rhythms.
~Henry Beston

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After the autumnal equinox passes sometime in late September the days begin to grow shorter and shorter so that light blesses the soil less and less. Soon with each new cold front that blows in temperatures start dropping more and more from the feverish pitch of their summertime highs. Then as the year’s last child draws near its end, the first freeze comes and the garden starts to wither and unravel. Soon afterwards another freeze arrives, harder than the last, and then another until the stage is set for ice or snow or frost to layer the land. With each onslaught winter’s sting strikes deeper and deeper at the remains of the garden. However, after the winter solstice occurs, the process of “pausing the whole” slowly but surely begins to reverse itself so that day by day there’s a little more sunlight and a little more and a little more until somewhere in all of that movement of the sun and the earth and the stars, the divine mystery and its miracles spark children of the soil into being once more. Faithfully in hidden wombs beneath soil or in bark, embryos have been growing and waiting for the elements to create the right catalytic mixture to push tiny tips upward or outward into the light of day. Following the first emergence of new life, earth’s sacred rhythms, which had been faint as we traversed winter’s veil of grief, become louder again until buds, nurtured by water, warmth, and sunlight, grow large and ripe enough to come into their time of blossoming. So it is that the “pausing” at last comes to an end, and spring’s first comers to press upward, outward and onward burgeoning into flowers and the “mystery of green” that’s a garden. And then in the mirror of my mind I can see clearly the countenance in the Face of all faces because as Robert Brault says, “As a gardener, I’m among those who believe that much of the evidence of God’s existence has been planted.”

Faithfulness springs forth from the earth, and righteousness looks down from heaven. ~Psalm 85:11  ✝

1089. The quality of mercy is not strained; it droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven  upon the place beneath. ~William Shakespeare

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The great and amorous sky curved over the earth,
and lay upon her as a pure lover.
The rain, the humid flux descending from heaven
for both man and animal, for both thick and strong,
germinated the wheat, swelled the furrows
with fecund mud and brought forth the buds in the orchards.
~Aeschylus, The Danaides, c 500 B.C.

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Rain! Each drop is a small, but powerful, miracle descending from above, and when it falls, it comes down on a mission of salvation through time, space, and distance. When it first hits the ground after a prolonged dry spell like the one we’d been having, the sound of it fills my ears with joyful delight. As I listen to the falling rain it seems to create a kind of music which is not unlike the dulcet chords a beloved’s voice gives rise to. What’s more its haunting melodies often spark the remembrance of a vague “water” memory, perhaps a nebulous recollection of my wet beginning that lingers somewhere in memory’s oldest and deepest recesses. So it is that for as long as I can remember I’ve been drawn to rain’s mystique, and it never fails to put a smile on my face and thanksgiving in my heart. It has been said that nature, like man, sometimes weeps for gladness, and when the smell of wet soil and damp grass greet my nose, I have also been known to “weep for gladness.” Not only that but on the heels of the smiling, gratitude, and weeping, I’m oftimes overcome with the irresistible urge I felt in childhood to jump and dance with wanton joy in the sloshy puddles beneath my feet.

He(God) draws up the drops of water, which distill as rain to the streams. Job 36: 27  ✝

**These are rain dotted flowers already blooming in my gardens.

1088. All the water that will ever be is right now. ~National Geographic

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Between earth and earth’s atmosphere,
the amount of water remains constant;
there is never a drop more, never a drop less.
This is a story of circular infinity,
of a planet birthing itself.
~Linda Hogan

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Rain that has fallen here again today is one of several holy water-bearers, water-bearers without which there is no life. They are the “stuff” in which life is formed, and the “stuff” of which life is sustained. Whatever form the wet “stuff” falls in, it is the same moisture that fell on the faces of Adam and Eve for it is of the water that was in the beginning and is forever in a divinely designed cycle to insure Creation’s continuance. And I find it mind-boggling to think how far each drop of moisture must have traveled throughout the eons of time. Since rain, snow, or ice move in a never-ending circle of coming down to kiss the earth and then going up back to the clouds, it is carried on journeys that take it to all corners of the earth as it fulfills its holy purpose. Man would I love to hear the tales the rain could tell if it too had the gift of speech.

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When you look at the natural world, it becomes an icon; it
becomes a holy picture that speaks of the origins of the world.
Almost every mythology sees the origins of life coming
out of water. And, curiously, that’s true.
It’s amusing that the origin of life out of water is in myths and
then again, finally, in science, we find the same thing.
~Joseph Campbell

He (God) provides rain for the earth; He sends water on the countryside. ~Job 5:10  ✝

1087. I can hear you making small holes in the silence rain… ~Excerpted line from a poem by Jerry Hughes

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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…
~Excerpt from a poem by Langston Hughes

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Listen to the rain! Each drop whispers secrets as it falls in many notes. All in tune the pitter pattering of their rich elemental sounds reveal a holy, life-giving melody written by the hand of God. Yahweh’s songs tell of filling lakes and streams to quench the thirst of earth and man and of replenishing gardens so as to provide food for the bodies and beauty for the souls of His children. There too are songs that like tears which empty the heart of sorrow fall like mercy from above to bless and heal in their quiet persistence.

Last night
the rain
spoke to me
slowly, saying

what joy
to come falling
out of the brisk cloud,
to be happy again

in a new way
on the earth!
That’s what it said
as it dropped,

smelling of iron,
and vanished
like a dream of the ocean
into the branches

and the grass below.
imagine! imagine!
the long and wondrous journeys
of the rain.
~Edited excerpt from a poem
by Mary Oliver

I will send you rain in its season, and the ground will yield its crops and the trees their fruit. ~Leviticus 26:4 ✝

**Images found on Pinterest

1084. A hush is over everything…the world is waiting for the spring. ~Sara Teasdale

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Springtime is the land awakening.
The March winds are the morning yawn.
~Lewis Grizzard

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Don’t flowers put on their
Prettiness each spring and
Go to it with
Everything they’ve got?
Who Would criticize the bed of
Yellow tulips or the blue Hyacinths?

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So put a
Bracelet on your
Ankle with a
Bell on it and make a
Little music for
The earth beneath your foot, or

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Wear a hat with hot-colored
Ribbons for the
Pleasure of the
Leaves and the clouds, or at least
A ring with a gleaming
Stone for your finger…
~Excerpted lines from a poem
by Mary Oliver

He makes winds His messengers… ~Excerpt from Psalm 104:4  ✝

**Images via Pinterest; collages created by Natalie

1070. Dance is the hidden language of the soul. ~Martha Graham

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May I stand amazed in the Presence of God;
May I stand in the midst of celestial fire
until my heart is molten gold…
May I walk everywhere on earth radiant, complete…
~Normandi Ellis

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I am the Lord of the Dance said he!
I danced in the days when the world began.
I live in you, and you live in me.
So dance on, then, wherever you may be
For I am still Lord of the dance, said he,
And I’ll lead you all, wherever you may be!

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I sleep in the kernel and I dance in the rain;
I dance in the wind and through the waving grain.
I dance in the constancy of waves in the sea,
For I am still the Lord of the waves’ mystery.
I dance at the Sabbath when it’s time to rest
For to live is to dance, and the dance goes on and on.

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The moon in her phases, the tides of the sea,
The movement of the earth, and the seasons that will be
Are the rhythm of the dancing and a promise through the years
That the dance goes on through both joy and the tears.
They took My life at Calvary, but I leapt up high,
Because I am the Life that will never, ever die.

**This is not a repeat of last night’s hymn that I quoted in part. It’s a heavily edited and adapted version of another rendition of the Lord of the Dance, and I love the new elements of it because I think they add depth and richness. I hope you enjoy it.

There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens: A time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance. ~Ecclesiastes 3:1 and 4   ✝

***Images via Pinterest; collages created by Natalie

1069. On with the dance! Let joy be unconfined. ~Lord Byron

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I danced in the morning when the world was begun
I danced in the Moon, and the stars, and the Sun
Next I came down and danced on the Earth
For I am the Lord of the Dance, said He!
And  now I’ll lead you in the Dance with me!
~Edited and excerpted lyrics
from the hymn, Lord of the Dance

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This day had begun with a
dollop of golden light in the east.
And then up, up, up recoiled
the night’s dark shade
so that the space all around me
was filled with wondrous light,
holy light,  warming light.
And in the light was a sparkle;
’twas a glittering hint of spring’s
advance upon earth’s stage.
In the midst of the morn’s litany
Yahweh’s familiar footsteps could be heard
as he moved along the garden’s paths.
~Natalie

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Sing and dance did we,
the birds and I, with
the Lord of the Universe,
the God who won’t let go of
all that He has made and loves.
~Natalie

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Then young women will dance and be glad, young men and old as well. I till turn their mourning into gladness; I will give them comfort and joy instead of sorrow. ~Jeremiah 31:13   ✝

**Images via Pinterest; collage created by Natalie