415. In the right light, at the right time, everything is extraordinary. ~Aaron Rose

July 3, 2014 by nataliescarberry

Light gives of itself freely,
filling all available space.
It does not seek anything in return;
it asks not whether you are friend or foe.
It gives of itself
and is not thereby diminished.
~Michael Strassfeld

It was day’s end, and the light had almost drained out of the day, but before the sun vanished, it filled a portion of one last cup with its splendor. This hibiscus had been perched atop its stem since first light, and now it was one of the fortunate “available spaces” to be kissed by the last light of day as well. The flower that had been a thing of great beauty all the live long day was a chalice to be blessed one last time by an essential piece of Creation, light.

For with you(God) is the fountain of life; in your light we see light. ~Psalm 36:9 ✝

Thank you, Lord Jesus, that you save, you heal, you restore, and you reveal Your Father’s heart to us! You have captured me with grace and I’m caught in Your infinite embrace! Like Saint Hildegard Lord, may I too be a feather on your holy breath and spread, like seeds, the gospel abroad.

414. Life’s enchanted cup sparkles near the brim. ~Lord Byron

July 2, 2014 by nataliescarberry

Life has loveliness to sell, all beautiful and splendid things, blue waves whitened on a cliff, soaring fire that sways and sings, and children’s faces looking up, holding wonder like a cup. ~Sara Teasdale

The usefulness of the cup is in its emptiness. ~Bruce Lee

But tomorrow, dawn will come the way I picture her, barefoot and disheveled, standing outside my window in one of the fragile cotton dresses of summer offering a handful of birdsong and a cup of light. ~Edited quote by William Collins

Never lose an opportunity of seeing anything that is beautiful; for beauty is God’s handwriting – a wayside sacrament. Welcome it in every fair face, in every fair sky, in every fair flower, and thank God fot is as a cup of blessing. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Something opens our wings. Something makes boredom and hurt disappear. Someone fills the cup in front of us; we taste only sacredness. ~Rumi

Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over. Surely your goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever. ~Psalm 23:5-6 ✝

** Huge hugs and thanks to http://scottishmomus.wordpress.com/ for her help in making this post possible. 🙂

410. The butterfly is a flying flower, the flower a tethered butterfly. ~Ponce Denis Ècouchard Lebrun

June 28, 2014 by nataliescarberry

Black atennas twitch
as the caterpillar
strips the last green leaf
from the naked milkweed.

Striped flesh shed,
the green skin below
becomes a jade pendant
rimmed in gold,
hung by a black thread.

Nature, that green magician,
arranges a slight of hand.
The fat worm in a striped suit
slides into a chrysalis
naps for a fortnight
wakes,
draped in orange,
ready to dance.
~Tere Sievers

He changes times and seasons; he deposes kings and raises up others. He gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to the discerning. Daniel 2:21 ✝

Poem first posted at: http://ivonprefontaine.com/2014/06/26/monarch/

** Images via Pinterest

405. As the garden grows, so does the gardener. ~Nora Jarbou

June 23, 2014 by nataliescarberry

Where you have a plot of land,
however small, plant a garden.
Staying close to the soil is good for the soul.
~Spencer W. Kimball

On a lesser scale what John O’Donohue said of the farmer that was quoted in my last post could also be said of a gardener. It may not have been fields that I chose to cut and create, but the labor to put flower beds around this piece of land was equally tough and punishing. The soil here is heavy clay laid over bedrock that in some places is a foot or less below the surface. That and the fact that bamboo and its extremely hard to dig up rhizomes were consuming the back of the lot may have been the reason only a few trees, the grass, and one small flower bed were here when we bought the place. Whatever the reason for the lack of little else I had to do a lot of digging, cutting, uprooting, and amending the soil to create the many “clearances” where I now plant and sow. And like the farmer’s fields, each bed has become a presence in my life, a unique and sacred presence that has not only tempered my heart and greened my thought but has also brought me back into the Lord’s keeping. The earth and its wildlife indeed seem now to trust the intention of my hands, and what has happened over the years in my “fields” has changed my heart and spirit for both had grown cold and hard and dark from living so long away from earth’s engaging and compelling ways.

There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven: a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot. . . ~Ecclesiastes 3:1-2 ✝

401. Tough as a mule, big as imagination, pretty as a summer dress, eternal as the sky. ~Steve Bender

June 19, 2014 by nataliescarberry

One little, two little, three little flowers
Four little, five little, six little flowers
Seven little, eight little, nine little flowers
Ten little blooming pinknesses!

Bender’s words above describe crinum lilies, which he says are “also called hot country lilies.” In the article that Steve wrote about crinums, he went on to say that “forever Southerners have cultivated, swapped, and rhapsodized about these bulbs, according them nearly legendary status.” He, himself, remembers sitting on his grandmother’s porch with crinum clumps on either side, and as their fragrance enveloped him, he thought it was the most pleasant thing on earth.

First there was one, and I was thrilled. Then there were two, and I was beyond thrilled. Now there are three and I am overwhelmed with gladness and gratitude for what has been born of faith, hope, and love. So far my newly acquired crinum bulb that I wrote about last weekend has produced three large flower stalks from its strappy green foliage, and each stalk has produced at least ten showy pink blossoms. How much more blessed can one little gardener be!

Where flowers bloom so does hope.
~Lady Bird Johnson

With a few flowers in my garden,
half a dozen picture and some books,
I live without envy.
~Lope de Vega

Guide me in your truth and teach me, for you are God my Savior, and my hope is in you all day long. ~Psalm 25:5 ✝

400. If you can’t take the heat, don’t tickle the dragon. ~Author Unknown

June 18, 2014 by nataliescarberry

Everywhere were peace and stillness,
as though all the elements were obeying
a sacred law of calm and silence
imposed by the blazing heat.
~Sadegh Hedayat

Can you read between the lines in the photo?
The flower that mimics the sun declares
The summer solstice is soon to be here.
And as the sun ascends her ordained throne
She’ll open the door for the surly beast of heat
That metes out wretched misery till the north wind
Comes to blow the dragon back from whens’t he came.

Typically here in Texas it’s the arrival of the solstice that “tickles the dragon.” Then he begins day after sweltering day to show us little to no mercy; sometimes the fire breathing beast even stays well into September and October. And as “the sun, like a golden knife…steadily pares away at the edges of shade” and we feel the “ache of the street’s burn” we who live here flee “with a grimace of heat” upon our faces from one air conditioned space to another. And oh how I thank the Holy One for those air-conditioned spaces! Rachel Caine put it this way, “God, it was hot! Forget about frying an egg on the sidewalk; this kind of heat would fry an egg inside the chicken.”

Hear my cry for mercy as I call to You for help, as I lift up my hands toward your Most Holy Place. ~Psalm 28:2 ✝

399. But what minutes! Count them by sensation, and not by calendars, and each moment is a day. ~Benjamin Disraeli

June 17, 2014 by nataliescarberry

…Thus in each flower and simple bell,
That in our path untrodden lie,
Are sweet remembrancers who tell
How fast the winged moments fly.
~Charlotte Turner Smith

May flowers always line your path and sunshine light your day.
May songbirds serenade you every step along the way.
May a rainbow run beside you in a sky that’s always blue.
And may happiness fill your heart each day your whole life through.
~Irish blessings

Remember, O God, that my life is but a breath… ~Job 7:7 ✝

393. For so work the honey-bees, creatures that by a rule in nature teach the act of order to a peopled kingdom. ~William Shakespeare

June 10, 2014 by nataliescarberry

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…
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

O little bee a buzzing at your task,
is it lavender that speaks your name,
or do the coneflowers and rudbeckia,
tempt your hunger even more.
What about the roses and the jasmine
or French Hollyhock and foxglove?
Or might it be those flashy daylilies and
Spirea that recently bloomed in pink?
Grand indeed are the garden’s gifts,
And you appear to love them one and all
for everywhere that I have been
I’ve found you working there as well.
Whilst I busy myself with garden chores
I do keep a watchful eye on you
for I’d love to find your hive one day
and taste your nectar honey’s sweet.
~Natalie Scarberry

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

388. The greatest gift of the garden is the restoration of the five senses. ~Hanna Rion

June 5, 2014 by nataliescarberry

How could such sweet and wholesome hours
Be reckoned but with herbs and flowers?
~Andrew Marvell

Then the heart, the poor jaded heart, that must etherize itself to endure the grimness of city life at all how subtly it begins throbbing again in unison with the great symphony of the natural. The awakened heart can sense in spring in the air when there is no visible suggestion in calendar or frosted earth, and knowing the songful secret, the can cause the feet to dance through a day that would only mean winter to an urbanite.

The sense of taste can only be restored by a constant diet of unwilted vegetables and freshly picked fruit.

The delicacy of touch comes back gradually by tending injured birdlings, by the handling of fragile plants, and by the acquaintance with different leaf textures, which finally makes one able to distinguish a plant, even in the dark, by its Irish tweed, silken or fur finish.

And the foot, how tangibly it becomes sensitized; how instinctively it avoids a plant even when the eye is busy elsewhere. On the darkest night I can traverse the rocky ravine, the thickets, the sinuous paths through overgrown patches, and never stumble, scratch myself or crush a leaf. My foot knows every unevenness of each individual bit of garden, and adjusts itself lovingly without the conscious thought of brain.

To the ears that have learned to catch the first tentative lute of a marsh frog in spring, orchestras are no longer necessary. To the eyes that have regained their sight, no wonder lies in the craftsmanship of a tiny leaf form of an inconsequential weed, than is to be found in a bombastic arras. To the resuscitated nose is revealed the illimitable secrets of earth and incense, the whole gamut of flower perfume, and other fragrant odors too intangible to be classed, odors which wing the spirit to realms our bodies are as yet too clumsy to inhabit.

~Excerpted paragraphs from Let’s Make a Flower Garden
by Hanna Rion (1912)

For hardship does not spring from the soil, nor does trouble sprout from the ground. ~Job 5:6 ✝

** Images via Pinterest

386. She is the world’s sharpest flower and when she blooms deeply she slices into my soul. ~Ronald Howard Moman

June 3, 2014 by nataliescarberry

A bunch of glads,
certainly highly emblematic of creation,
remote from frills of working blossom with hope of fruit:
slow, durable, placid,
generous, sure of kingly dreams.
~Gottfried Benn

The ancient Romans called the primary sword of their foot soldiers a gladius, and a smaller sword was a gladiolus, which was often used by the gladiators. Pliny the illustrious Roman author dubbed the flower with the long sword-shaped leaves gladiolus and the name stuck.

Mother’s Gladiolas
by Anne Bach

Mother’s hands dig deep holes in soft brown earth,
watering in the tender seedlings —
teaching me of the promise of flowers.

She was quiet about her thoughts and beliefs,
but I think she always believed
in the promise of flowers.

When we moved
to the old house on top of the hill,
next to the gladiola field, she was even more quiet.

She planted no flowers there.
But the man who picked the gladiolas
brought her a big bunch in all different colors every week.

I think she still believed in flowers
a year later when we moved
to a rural farm house in New Jersey.

She planted pansies all around the old tree
before the long days
when she took to her bed.

I must have been born from her love of flowers
for I have planted them wherever I have lived
Looking for dark rich soil and a promise of flowers.

My eyes stay open through the watches of the night, that I may meditate on your promises. ~Psalm 119:48 ✝

Thank you, Lord Jesus, that you save, you heal, you restore, and you reveal Your Father’s heart to us! You have captured me with grace and I’m caught in Your infinite embrace!

** Some images via Pinterest

Sacred Touches

Life is a time of purpose and anointed blossoming…

Tag Archives: Flower