897. A garden must combine the poetic and the mysterious with a feeling of serenity and joy. ~Luis Barragan

October 9, 2015 by nataliescarberry

The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science. He to whom emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause and stand wrapped in awe, is as good as dead; his eyes are closed. ~Albert Einstein

By Einstein’s definition above, I’m not dead yet, for my eyes still open and I frequently stand wrapped in awe when I find amazing things like what you see in these photos. What caught my eye at first was the marker identifying the vine as a Dutchman’s Pipe whose flowers, it said, have an interesting and specialized pollination mechanism. Intrigued by that I read on to find that because they are quite aromatic, their strong scent attracts insects, and that the inner part of their perianth tube (or pipe stem) is covered with hairs that act as a fly trap. Once caught these hairs wither to release the fly who has been covered with pollen. That in and of itself was more than enough to wow me. But now after also having seen the strangely beautiful and mysterious flower and its seed pods, I can, with complete confidence, attest to the fact that my emotions are not yet strangers either. Once again the Lord’s amazing creativity and imagination have stopped me in my tracks and taken my breath away. Chronic pain may have long been my lot in life to bear, but I can do nothing less than continually praise the Lord and express my gratitude for unlike me there are so many people in the world who have little to nothing but misery, grief, suffering, and grievous iniquities dumped over and over again upon their plates. Such is why tears so often flood these eyes that yet allow me to see and emotions erupt that yet allow me to feel.

Can you fathom the mysteries of God? Can you probe the limits of the Almighty? ~Job 11:7 ✝

**Sadly with the recent debacle on computer that I shared with my readers, I’ve discovered that some of my photos are missing or in a black hole somewhere. So I had to use these that I found on Pinterest.

885. But these are flowers that fly and all but sing… ~Robert Frost

September 28, 2015 by nataliescarberry

The butterfly is a flying flower,
The flower a tethered butterfly.
~Ponce Denis Écouchard Lebrun

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!

Thou winged blossom, liberated thing,
What secret tie binds thee to other flowers,
Still held within the garden’s fostering?
Will they too soar with the completed hours,
Take flight, and be like thee
Irrevocably free,
Hovering at will o’er their parental bowers?

Or is thy lustre drawn from heavenly hues,
A sumptuous drifting fragment of the sky,
Caught when the sunset its last glance imbues
With sudden splendor, and the tree-tops high
Grasp that swift blazonry,
Then lend those tints to thee,
On thee to float a few short hours, and die?

Birds have their nests; they rear their eager young,
And flit on errands all the livelong day;
Each fieldmouse keeps the homestead whence it sprung;
But thou art Nature’s freeman,—free to stray
Unfettered through the wood,
Seeking thine airy food,
The sweetness spiced on every blossomed spray.

The garden one wide banquet spreads for thee,
O daintiest reveller of the joyous earth!
One drop of honey gives satiety;
A second draught would drug thee past all mirth.
Thy feast no orgy shows;
Thy calm eyes never close,
Thou soberest sprite to which the sun gives birth.
~Thomas Wentworth Higginson

The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in i, the world, and all who live in it. ~Psalm 24:1 ✝

**Photos via Pinterest

884. “I grow old, I grow old,” the garden says. It is nearly October. ~Excerpt from Robert Finch

September 27, 2015 by nataliescarberry

For summer here, bear in mind,
is a loitering gossip, that only begins to talk
of leaving when September rises to go.
~George Washington Cable

the air is different today
and the wind sings
with a new tone
sighing of changes coming…
~Rhawk

When September rises to go here, it is then that the amazing spider lily sits upon her scarlet throne. And when bejeweled in water beads from the sprinkler, her exotic, otherworldly charms grace the garden with a magical sort of sparkle and a melody that indeed seem to sigh along with the wind about coming changes.

…the wind blows over it and it is gone, and its place remembers it no more. ~Psalm 103:16 ✝

879. You are not too young or too old; it is never too late to dive into your increasing depths where life calmly gives out its own secret. ~Adapted line by Rainer Maria Rilke.

September 22, 2015 by nataliescarberry

Each one of us has an inner room
where we can visit to be cleansed of
fear-based thoughts and feelings.
This room, the holy of holies,
is a sanctuary of light.
~Marianne Williamson

Sanctuary, on a personal level, is where
we perform the job of taking care of our soul.
~Christopher Forrest McDowell

The ache for home lives in all of us,
the safe place where we can go
as we are and not to be questioned.
~Maya Angelou

A sanctuary is your space,
a safe place in a troubling world,
private and strong for healing wounds
an oasis where you can relax
take off your shoes
enjoy being your true self
feel free, think big, think small
take your time and breathe
savor the moment
open up your heart and
laugh, cry, or be crazy if you like…
“Remember the entrance  to the sanctuary is inside you.” ~Rumi

You’re my place of quiet retreat; I wait for Your Word to renew me. ~Psalm 119:114 (MSG) ✝

**Top photo is a view of my garden, my own personal sanctuary; the other lovely ones are via Pinterest

875. The foliage began losing its freshness through the month of August, and here and there a yellow leaf shows itself like the first gray hair amidst the locks of a beauty who has seen one season too many. ~Adapted quote by Oliver Wendell Holmes

September 18, 2015 by nataliescarberry

Lord, it is time.
Summer has been very big.
Lay thy shadow on the sundials,
and on the meadows let the winds go loose.
Command the last fruits that they shall be full;
give them only a few more southerly days,
~Adapted quote by Rainer Maria Rilke

September days have the warmth of summer in their briefer hours but in their lengthening evenings a prophetic breath of autumn. The cricket chirps in the noontide, making the most of what remains of his brief life. The bumblebee is busy among the blossoms of the aftermath, and their shrill and dreamy hum hold the outdoor world above the voices of the songbirds, now silent or departed. ~Rowland E. Robinson

Awake, north wind, and come, south wind! Blow on my garden, that its fragrance may spread everywhere. Let my beloved come into his garden and taste its choice fruits. ~Song of Songs 4:16 ✝

**Image via Pinterest

871. A bee is an exquisite chemist. ~Royal Beekeeper to Charles II

September 14, 2015 by nataliescarberry

A work of arte; yet no arte of man,
Can worke this worke, these little creatures can.
~Geffrey Whitney, 1586

Bees work for man, and yet they never bruise
Their Master’s flowers, but leave it having done,
As fair as ever and as fit to use;
So both the flower doth stay and the honey run.
~George Herbert

There is one masterpiece, the hexagonal cell, that touches perfection. No living creature, not even man has achieved, in the centre of his sphere, what the bee has achieved in her own: and were some one from another world to descend and ask of the earth the most perfect creation of the logic of life, we should needs have to offer the humble comb of honey. ~Maurice Maeterlinck, 1924

Hello gardeners! Please try to resist tidying away the hollow plant stems in your garden in the autumn and instead wait to the following year. They may have tiny bees hibernating inside! www.buzzaboutbees.net

Gracious words are a honeycomb, sweet to the soul and healing to the bones. ~Proverbs 16:24 ✝

**All images via Pinterest; collages by Natalie

858. Faith sees a beautiful blossom in a bulb, a lovely garden in a seed, and a giant oak in an acorn. ~William Arthur Ward

September 2, 2015 by nataliescarberry

Faith is that tiny beautiful songbird in
one’s heart that sings wonderful melodies
even during the darkest moments
because it feels and sees the divine light
that is yet to arrive with the dawn.

Faith enables us to believe in something,
something that may be beyond  any
rationale, reasoning or logic.
And faith is also our inner strength that
empowers us to bring our dreams and vision
to fruition, with the Grace of God.
So take a leap in the unknown with
full faith in God and yourself.
~Author Unknown

The earth is filled with your love, Lord: teach me your decrees. ~Psalm 119:64 ✝

**Image via Pinterest

850. Colors are the smiles of nature. ~Leigh Hunt

August 25, 2015 by nataliescarberry

blue
ocean
sky
peaceful
like the soothing calm of falling rain

pink
sweet side of red
dreamy
innocent
like the charming smell of roses

purple
rich
dark
silken
like melting chocolate on the tongue

There was a flowery mixing of pink and blue and purple yesterday
Making of the yard a purplicious, pinkish, bluish sort of palette.
The innocence of pale pink was tinged with bolder magenta
While a sparkly pink sat mid-throat in a deep blue morning glory
Thrilling the bees and me almost as much as the pink chiffon of dusk and
The heavenly shades of night’s deep purple fallingl over sleepy garden walls.
~Natalie Scarberry

That which we love as purple by any other name would be just as grand:
Threads of amethyst in the divine tapestry interwoven upon demand.
The winter of life is embellished in buoyant dimensions of purple strands.
Like in The Color Purple, I wander through in purple pastures when I can.
Each majestic mauve and passive purple proves there’s no need to be sad.
Were the world mine, all of Earth’s shores would be rife with purple sand,
And I would request sparkly purple sunshine if nature granted me the chance.
~Edited poem by Ryan John Payne

Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast. ~Psalm 139:7-10 ✝

847. There is a joy that comes from admiring the beauty of flowers. ~Luther Burbank

August 22, 2015 by nataliescarberry

To nurture a garden is to feed
not just the body but also the soul.
~Alfred Austin

When in these fresh mornings
I go into my garden before anyone is awake,
I go for the time being into perfect happiness.
In this hour divinely fresh and still,
the fair face of every flower
salutes me with a silent joy. . .
All the cares, perplexities,
and griefs of existence,
all the burdens of life
slip from my shoulders
and leave me with the heart
of a little child that asks nothing
beyond the present moment
of innocent bliss.
~Celia Thaxter, American writer

As I stood there yesterday morning looking at what you see in the photographs, I was trying to figure out how I could describe to others the impact of the vision before my eyes. Scenes like this are exactly the reason I created and continue to maintain a garden. The exquisite beauty of a single morning glory perched atop a sea of blooming autumn clematis touched my soul in a way that is beyond all reason and verbal expression. It was indeed a source of holy food that nurtured my body and soul. How could I ask for anything more!

For you, O Lord, have made me glad by your work; at the works of your hands I sing for joy. ~Psalm 92:4 ✝

843. Deep in the sun-searched growths the dragonfly hangs like a blue thread loosened from the sky… ~Dante Gabriel Rossetti

August 16, 2015 by nataliescarberry

Iridescent sylphs prancing in the breeze
with fast flickering gossamer wings
in a cloud of vivid blue, red, and green.
~Edited excerpt from a poem
by Jacob Fuson

Alight, dragonfly, upon a frail stem,
dance with the wind
beneath the hot, summer sun.
Beneath that brittle shell of yours
is a secret, sacred grace.
~Edited excerpt from a poem
by J. L. Stanley

blue green dragonfly
angel of my garden pond
hunt the mosquito
~Michael K. Thompson

The dragonfly keeps dancing
over the dark water,
the flash of iridescent blue
underneath her wings
quick as a breath
~Edited excerpt from a poem
by Sy Lilang

How graceful and lovely
is the dragonfly as it
flits about under the summer sky
observing the wonders of a garden,
attracted to its vast array of colors
~Natalie Scarberry

I stand stunned
in awe as you
sleekly shimmer by
in a fabulous flurry
of lustrous, dew-laden lapis blue
and jubilant jade green
~Edited excerpt from a poem
by April J

By wisdom the Lord laid the earth’s foundations, by understanding he set the heavens in place by his knowledge the watery depths were divided, and the clouds let drop the dew. ~Proverbs 3:19-20 ✝

**Images via Pinterest, collages by Natalie

Sacred Touches

Life is a time of purpose and anointed blossoming…

Tag Archives: Garden