Then, Breath of heaven, come dance
with me as autumn comes to an end
And turn me round and round
on the earth, the beautiful hem of heaven
So you can sing in my ear
the hymns of the spheres
To fill me with heavenly peace
beneath the moon and stars
Oh dance with me Yahweh
o’er fields of mercy and grace
Waltz with me Emmanuel
as the angels and I sing, “Hallelujah”in praise of You
Let them praise His(God’s) name with dancing… ~Excerpt from Psalm 149:3 ✝
**Images via Pinterest
Then, a swirl — a spiral —
of blues and turquoise, of teal and purple —
spearing the darkness with light.
Dancing, sparkling, shooting upward.
~Excerpted lines from the same piece of work
by Theresa at: https://soulgatherings.wordpress.com
A mighty wind sweeps over the face of the waters. ~Eriugena
Earth, air, fire, and water, the constituents
of everything that will be, are in a whirlwind of motion.
It is a wild wind carrying the incipient life of the universe in its wings.
From it the matter of life emerges, as does lifeless matter,
flung almost discardedly across space.
Its power and expansiveness are overwhelming.
~Excerpt from THE BOOK OF CREATION
by J. Philip Newell
Look at this amazing hibiscus! The photographer has achieved a sort of abstract version of the flower, and in so doing I see all that these people whom I’ve quoted have described. And too whenever I’m confronted with something as remarkable and wondrous as this flower, I ask myself how anyone can doubt that it is the work of God’s hands, a recognizable symbol of a Power greater than we who flung all that is into being. What folly it is to think that such is the result of a random explosion of atoms! And even if it were such, where did the atoms come from? To deny the miraculousness of Creation and the Creator is to deny self and all that makes us living, breathing, loving entities. Could it be because if one acknowledges God, he/she has to accept the fact that he/she is accountable to the Maker of the gift of life?
I see the work of Your Hands
Galaxies spin in a Heavenly dance oh God
All that You are is so overwhelming
I hear the sound of Your Voice
All at once it’s a gentle and thundering noise oh God
All that You are is so overwhelming
I delight myself in You
Captivated by Your beauty
I’m overwhelmed, I’m overwhelmed by You
~Big Daddy Weave
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. ~Genesis 1:1-2 ✝
**Image via Pinterest
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
The breeze at dawn has
secrets to tell you. Don’t
go back to sleep.
~Rumi
Yahweh’s divine light is woven throughout the entirety of Creation’s multicolored tapestry. Among a host of other things, it can be seen in the soft radiance of a chromatic dawn “unveiling the whole face of nature,” in the blazing streaks of a brilliantly hued sunset at day’s end, in the white glow of the moon illuminating the night, and in an exquisite blossom that mimics the luminous lights of the heavenly orbs. But what does all that have to do with the breeze telling secrets at dawn, one might ask? The answer, my friend, is “blowing in the wind” as always. And it’s really no secret at all, for the breeze knows, as do I, that the Ancient of Days yet walks among us and is still in control of all that He has made.
Who has gone up to heaven and come down? Whose hands have gathered up the wind? Who has wrapped up the waters in a cloak? Who has established all the ends of the earth? What is His name, and what is the name of his Son? Surely you know! ~Proverbs 30:4 ✝
**This white moonflower only blooms at night, but when I get up early in the morning I can capture its glory before in perishes in the bright light of day.
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 ✝
When after the Winter alarmin’,
The Spring steps in so charmin’,
So fresh and arch
In the middle of March,
Wid her hand St. Patrick’s arm on…
~Alfred Percival Graves
May the Angels in their beauty bless you.
May they turn toward you streams of blessing.
May the Angel of Awakening stir your heart
To come alive to the eternal within you,
To all the invitations that quietly surround you.
May the Angel of Compassion open your eyes
To the unseen suffering around you.
May the Angel of Eros introduce you
To the beauty of your senses
To celebrate your inheritance
As a temple of the holy spirit.
May the Angel of Justice disturb you
To take the side of the poor and the wronged.
May the Angel of Encouragement confirm you
In worth and self-respect,
That you may live with the dignity
That presides in your soul.
May all the Angels be your sheltering
And joyful guardians.
~Excerpted lines by John O’Donohue
Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. ~Ephesians 1:3 ✝
**Images via Pinterest
We look at life from the back side of the tapestry.
And most of the time, what we see are
loose threads, tangled knots and the like.
But occasionally, God’s light shines through, and
we get a glimpse of the larger design with God
weaving together the darks and lights of existence.
~John Piper
No moon, no stars, no sun, no blue of sky… No bees, no butterflies, no adoring, garden paramours… Only a foggy Sabbath steeped in silent, grey stillness as bit by bit by bit color empties out of the landscape leaving in its wake pallid, watercolored remains to blanket the lawn… Autumn has but a fortnight left before she relinquishes her throne to winter’s chilling reign. So I wonder if she’s weeping, if the falling mists are her crestfallen tears. It would certainly seem so as gloomy and grey as her recent days have been. Her palette, once streaked with chestnut and chocolate, maroon and mahogany, mauve and mulberry, orange and ochre, red and russet, is soon to be washed of all but grey and beige and evergreen. Thankfully, however, there are the brightly colored lights of Christmas to brighten the dying year’s ever-increasing, muted days.
Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows. ~James 1:17 ✝
Music, oh, how faint, how weak,
Language fades before thy spell!
Why should Feeling ever speak,
When thou canst breathe her soul so well?
~Thomas Moore, Irish Poet
Music gives a
soul to the universe,
wings to the mind,
flight to the imagination,
and life to everything.
~Plato, Greek philosopher and mathematician
The Bird her punctual music brings
And lays it in its place –
Its place is in the Human Heart
And in the Heavenly Grace –
~Emily Dickinson, American poet
Music speaks what cannot be expressed,
soothes the mind and gives it rest,
heals the heart and makes it whole,
flows from heaven to the soul.
~Author Unknown
First was the world as one great cymbal made,
Where jarring winds to infant Nature played.
All music was a solitary sound,
To hollow rocks and murm’ring fountains bound.
~Andrew Marvell, English poet
It is good to praise the Lord and make music to your name, O Most High. ~Psalm 92: 1 ✝
**Images via Pinterest
Winter is an etching,
spring a watercolor,
summer an oil painting,
and autumn a mosaic of them all.
-Stanley Horowitz
Before one season passes into another, some of what has been comes along with the new blessings and before long the coming one begins easing its gifts into place. For example ripening rose hips are a part of winter’s etching, roses are a continuing bestowal of springtime’s watercolor epic, the now sighing-in-the-wind ornamental grasses appeared on summer’s brush-stroked canvas, and little purple asters aswarm with bees are securing their place in autumn’s developing mosaic, a mosaic not too different from the section of a pieced quilt like the one in the photo.
…the discipline of blessings is to taste
each moment, the bitter, the sour, the sweet
and the salty, and be glad for what does not
hurt. The art is in compressing attention
to each little and big blossom of the tree
of life, to let the tongue sing each fruit,
its savor, its aroma and its use.
~Marge Piercy
Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. ~Ephesians 1:3 ✝
** Image is a piece of a Barbara Olson quilt pinned on Pinterest
Beauty of whatever kind,
in its supreme development,
invariably excites
the sensitive soul to tears.
~Edgar Allan Poe
I see the work of Your Hands
Galaxies spin in a Heavenly dance oh God
All that You are is so overwhelming
I hear the sound of Your Voice
All at once it’s a gentle and thundering noise oh God
All that You are is so overwhelming
I delight myself in You
Captivated by Your beauty
I’m overwhelmed, I’m overwhelmed by You
God, I run into Your arms
Unashamed because of mercy
I’m overwhelmed, I’m overwhelmed by You
I know the power of Your Cross
Forgiven and free forever You’ll be my God
All that You’ve done is so overwhelming
I delight myself in You
In the Glory of your Presence
I’m overwhelmed, I’m overwhelmed by You…
~Lyrics from Big Daddy Weave’s song Overwhelmed
written by
Adams, Yolanda Yvette /Belcher, Ryan Kent / East,
Rodney L. / Mccalla, Errol W. Jr. / Ecby, Marcus
Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need. ~Hebrews 4:16 ✝
** Image via the Internet
Sacred Touches 