Tag Archives: Heart

1175. When you love something as a kid, you never stop loving it; you just tuck that love away in a spot in your heart. ~Edited excerpt from a quote by Nikki Van Noy

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In the life of everyone there is a number
of experiences which are not just written
upon the memory, but stamped there with a die;
and in the long years after, they can be
called up in detail, and every emotion that was
stirred by them can be lived through anew…
~Edited excerpt from a quote by
James Weldon Johnson

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**Image of my dad, me on the right, and my middle sister on the left;
text image via Pinterest

I will perpetuate Your(God’s) memory through all generations; therefore the nations will praise You for ever and ever. Psalm 45: 17  ✝

1174. Bring me the the sunflower crazed with the love of light. ~Eugenio Montale

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Many flowers open to the sun
but only one follows it constantly.
Heart be thou the sunflower, not only
only open to receive God’s blessing
but constant in looking to Him.
~Jean Paul Richter

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The Legend of the Sunflower

A beautiful princess once sought to find a path to the sun.  She traveled the world over but couldn’t seem to find a path that would take her there.  One day as she was searching, she chanced upon a small straggling flower hidden in the shade of a large tree. The princess, believing in the healing powers of the sun, dug up the small flower and placed it in her garden.

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That night as the princess slept, the sun, sensing the princess’s sadness, showered sunbeams down on the little flower. The next morning as the princess looked upon her struggling flower, tears fell from her eyes and when they touched the flower a magical thing happened. The sunbeams came alive and encircled the head of the flower like flames shooting from the sun. Day after day, the flower reached up for the sun until it towered over the princess. At summer’s end, she gathered all the sunflower’s seeds, and scattered them throughout the land, spreading sunshine.

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In the same way, let your light shine before others, they they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven. ~Matthew 5:16  ✝

**Images of sunflower taken by me in my yard; bottom image of seeds in the center of a mature sunflower found on the Internet; collages by Natalie

1158. Memory is the treasury and guardian of all things. ~Marcus Tullius Cicero

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…I swear I will not dishonor
my soul with hatred,
but offer myself humbly
as a guardian of nature,
as a healer of misery,
as a messenger of wonder,
as an architect of peace…
~Diane Ackerman

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Boredom, anger, sadness, or fear
are not “yours,” not personal.
They are conditions of the human mind.
They come and go.
Nothing that comes and goes is you.
~Eckhart Tolle

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Every morning, every moment,
with every breath, breathe in forgiveness,
breathe in the Holy Spirit, breathe in life,
and breathe out gratefulness.
Let the love and light of God soak
into your spirit and flood your heart.
You are loved.
~Author Unknown

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For he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways… ~Excerpt from Psalm 91:11  ✝

**First image found on the internet along with Ackerman’s quote; other images via Pinterest

1148. Being vulnerable is the only way to allow your heart to feel true pleasure. ~Bob Marley

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To become whole
first let yourself be broken.
~Based on lines from
the Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu

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To love at all is to be vulnerable.
Love anything and your heart
will be wrung and possibly broken.

If you want to make sure of keeping
it intact you must give it to no one,
not even an animal.

Wrap it carefully round with hobbies
and little luxuries;
avoid all entanglements.
Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin
of your selfishness.
But in that casket, safe, dark,
motionless, airless, it will change.

It will not be broken;
it will become unbreakable,
impenetrable, irredeemable.

To love is to be vulnerable.
~C.S. Lewis

Blessed is the one who perseveres under trial because, having stood the test, that person will receive the crown of life that the Lord has promised to those who love him. ~James 1:12  ✝

**Watercolor image found on Pinterest

1140. I tried to discover, in the rumor of forests and waves, words that other men could not hear, and I pricked up my ears to listen to the revelation of their harmony. ~Gustave Flaubert

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You can listen to silence, Reuven.
I’ve begun to realize that you can
listen to silence and learn from it.
It has a quality and a dimension all its own.
It talks to me sometimes.
I feel myself alive in it.
It talks. And I can hear it.
…
You have to want to listen to it,
and then you can hear it.
It has a strange, beautiful texture.
It doesn’t always talk.
Sometimes – sometimes it cries,
and you can hear the pain of the world in it.
It hurts to listen to it then. But you have to.
~From THE CHOSEN by Chaim Potok

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Be still and listen to the rhythm of your beating heart.

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Be still and feel the in and out movement of your breath.

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Be still and find the peace at the center of your being.

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Be still and seek the presence of your inner child.

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Be still and remember childhood’s simple pleasures.

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Be still and recall the unadulterated innocence of a child

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Be still and let joy now bubble up from gratitude for the gift of life.

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And finally in the silence of your thankfulness be still and listen so that you hear the Lord calling you by name.

Be still, and know that I am God… ~Excerpt from Psalm 46:10  ✝

**Images found on Pinterest and Pixabay

1139. If it’s drama that you sigh for, plant a garden and you’ll get it. ~Edward A. Guest

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‘Tis like the birthday of the world,
When earth was born in bloom;
The light is made of many dyes,
The air is all perfume…
~Excerpt from a poem by Thomas Hood

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One of my favorite poems in all of “poemdom” is this one below by Robert Browning. In fact I recite it to myself at least once every spring.

The year’s at the spring,
And day’s at the morn;
Morning’s at seven;
The hill-side’s dew-pearled;
The lark’s on the wing;
The snail’s on the thorn; God’s in his Heaven—
All’s right with the world!

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Spring began very early here, almost a month and a half ago, but this morning was the first one exactly like the quintessential spring morning of which Browning spoke. A heavy dew had blanketed everything that lay before my eyes making grass and flower sparkle, and in the sparkle was the sort of magic that thrills this old gardener’s heart beyond measure. So I sat spellbound forever so long in my chair watching the birds feed and the squirrels play and the breeze ruffle petals and leaves. My little piece of Eden was gloriously alive as well as all of her adoring paramours. What a  magnificent sight to behold it was as light oozed into all the dark corners, not only outside the window but also in the windows of my being! What had been created in the beginning continually points to the Creator, and oh what a Creator He is! My eyes were filled, my ears were filled, my cup of life was filled, and in and of it all was Yahweh, that Holy Presence, who continually fills my soul with His goodness and grace. Oh how I adore Him and His wondrous Eden!!!

Surely 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: 6  ✝

1125. Flowers heal me. Clematis make me happy. I keep myself surrounded by it… ~Edited excerpt by Rebecca Wells

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Natalie, Natalie, oh so merry
How does your garden grow?
With a vine here, and another one there,
Of pretty clematis climbing on high.

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Clematis vine boasts vibrant hue,
now seeks acclaim for ocean’s blue,
and strives to catch the morning dew.
~Cona Adams

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If I had grown up in that house
I couldn’t have loved it more,
couldn’t have been more familiar with
the creak of the swing, or the pattern of the clematis
vines on the trellis, or the velvety swell of land
as it faded to gray on the horizon…The very
colors of the place had seeped into my blood.
~Donna Tartt

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On the warm stone walls, climbing roses
were just coming into bloom and
great twisted branches of honeysuckle and
clematis wrestled each other as they
tumbled up and over the top of the wall.
~Meg Rosoff

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Happiness is remembering my wild and lovely garden,
Arbors of white roses and purple clematis;
Pretty yellow daylilies and daffodils beside a rail fence,
Placing carefully flowers, I create a soul-soothing retreat.
In my beautiful garden all my old favorites grow,
No color does not have its place to welcome birds and butterflies;
Even wild flowers and vines, and kittens grow,
Seeding themselves the purple larkspur and rosy phlox;
Such beauty, O such beauty, had rested beneath the snow.
~Edited acrostic by Broken Wings

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Take delight in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart. ~Psalm 37:4  ✝

1124. I love tulips better than any other spring flower; they are the embodiment of alert cheerfulness and tidy grace… ~Excerpted line by Elizabeth von Arnim

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 Guarded within the old red wall’s embrace,
Marshaled like soldiers in gay company,
The tulips stand arrayed.
~Excerpt from
a poem by Amy Lowell

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Sooooo, every week when we go to the grocery story, I buy one of those little bunches of cut flowers to set on the shelf near my computer. But this last week they had a pot of tulips on sale for $5.00 and they looked like they might be very pretty ones when they fully opened up. So I saved myself some money and brought the bargain, potted tulips home. And every day I have watched as they slowly but surely opened up into a very pretty species indeed. And here’s the thing, since I’ve tried and tried planting tulip bulbs in the ground with little to no luck at all, (actually this year I did get one to come up and bloom. It wasn’t very big but it was pretty) now I’m wondering, if I planted these that are already in soil in the pot instead of more bulbs in the fall, that they might actually come up next year and bloom for me. Okay, okay, before any of you gardening gurus out there have reasons to shoot holes in my theory, just let them lie and allow me to find out the folly of it for myself. That way I’ll have a whole year to look forward to their coming before my hopes are dashed again and I am once again “tulipless.” Also should any of you feel compelled to ask why I don’t just go out and cut flowers from my garden instead of buying ones each week, let me just say that I’m greedy and can’t stand for any of my babies to be “murdered.” And yes, I am also aware that the ones I buy have been “murdered,” but hey, that was someone else’s bad choice not mine.

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Flowers heal me. Tulips make me happy. I keep myself surrounded by them… ~Excerpt from a line by Rebecca Wells

…the cheerful heart has a continual feast. ~Excerpt from Proverbs 17:22   ✝

1119. It is a wholesome and necessary thing for us to turn again to the earth and in the contemplation of her beauties to know of wonder and humility. ~ Rachel Carson

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Earth, my dearest, I will.
Oh believe me, you no longer need
your springtimes to win me over –
one of them, ah, even one,
is already too much for my blood.
Unspeakably, I have belonged to you,
from the first.
~Rainer Maria Rilke

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The best remedy for those who are afraid, lonely or unhappy is to go outside, somewhere where they can be quiet, alone with the heavens, nature and God.  Because only then does one feel that all is as it should be and that God wishes to see people happy, amidst the simple beauty of nature. As long as this exists, and it certainly always will, I know that then there will always be comfort for every sorrow, whatever the circumstances may be. And I firmly believe that nature brings solace in all troubles. ~Anne Frank

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The mystery at the heart of creation is Love. To be in love with the gift of nature is to be well within oneself. ~J. Philip Newell

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Grace of the love of the skies be thine,
Grace of the love of the stars be thine,
Grace of the love of the moon be thine,
Grace of the love of the sun be thine.
~Excerpt from the
Carmina Gadelica, an anthology
of poems and prayers from Gaelic oral tradition

The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. ~Psalm 19:1  ✝

**All the images are ones I took in my yard this last week, and I created the collages with the.

1096. It would be infinitely lonely to live in a world without blessing. ~John O’Donohue

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Though suffering and chaos befall us,
they can never quench the inner light of providence.
~John O’Donohue

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There is a quiet light that shines in every heart.
It draws no attention to itself,
though it is always secretly there.
It is what illuminates our minds to see beauty,
our desire to seek possibility, and our hearts to love life.
Without this subtle quickening our days
would be empty and wearisome, and no horizon
would ever awaken our longing.
Our passion for life is quietly sustained from
somewhere in us that is welded to the energy
and excitement of life. This shy inner light is what
enables us to recognize and receive our
very presence here as blessing.
We enter the world as strangers who all at once
become heirs to a harvest of memory,
spirit, and dream that has long preceded us
and will now enfold, nourish, and sustain us.
The gift of the world is our first blessing.

This is the opening paragraph of the book
“To Bless the Space Between Us: A Book of Blessings” 

by John O’Donohue

They will receive blessing from the Lord… ~Excerpt from Psalm 24:5  ✝

**Image found on Pinterest