Tag Archives: Joy

1198. When you arise in the morning, think of what a privilege it is to be alive-to breathe, to think, to enjoy, to love. ~Marcus Aurelius

by

20

Every morning, when we wake up,
we have twenty-four brand new hours to live.
What a precious gift!
We have the capacity to live in a way
that these twenty-four hours will bring
peace, joy, and happiness to ourselves and others.
~Thich Nhat Hanh

Screen Shot 2016-07-13 at 7.08.13 PM.png

Hello, sun in my face.
Hello, you who made the morning
and spread it over the fields
and into the faces of the tulips
and the nodding morning glories,
and into the windows of, even,
the miserable and the crotchety –
best preacher that ever was,
dear star, that just happens
to be where you are in the universe
to keep us from ever-darkness,
to ease us with warm touching,
to hold us in the great hands of light –
good morning, good morning, good morning.
Watch, now, how I start the day
in happiness, in kindness.
~Mary Oliver

The path of the righteous is like the morning sun, shining ever brighter till the full light of day. ~Proverbs 4:18  ✝

**Morning glory in my yard

1192. Water lilies, Monet’s passion written in whispering tears as dragonflies press the air into a whir. ~Edited and adapted excerpts from poems by Beth St. Clair

by

16

Lilies perch upon their little islands
To flower on pads of green in the water
Amid the dance of dragonflies by day
And fireflies that grace the dark of night.
~Natalie Scarberry

Screen Shot 2016-07-07 at 4.57.29 PM.png

If you have forgotten water lilies floating
On a dark lake among mountains in the afternoon shade,
If you have forgotten their wet, sleepy fragrance,
Then you can return and not be afraid.

Screen Shot 2016-07-07 at 4.38.40 PM.png

But if you remember, then turn away forever
To the plains and the prairies where pools are far apart,
There you will not come at dusk on closing water lilies,
And the shadow of mountains will not fall on your heart.
~Sara Teasdale

Screen Shot 2016-07-07 at 4.56.01 PM.png

Those who sow with tears will reap with songs of joy. ~Psalm 126:5  ✝

**Image of one of Monet’s water lily paintings and his signature found on the Interent; collage by Natalie

1191. Seasons of the heart…

by

12

Grief can be the garden of compassion.
If you keep your heart open through everything,
your pain can become your greatest ally
in your life’s search for love and wisdom.
~Rumi

Screen Shot 2016-07-03 at 6.38.56 PM.png

Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses
your understanding.
Even as the stone of the fruit must break, that its
heart may stand in the sun, so must you know pain.
And could you keep your heart in wonder at the daily miracles of your life, your pain would not seem
less wondrous than your joy;
And you would accept the seasons of your heart,
even as you have always accepted the seasons that
pass over your fields.
And you would watch with serenity through the
winters of your grief.
Much of your pain is self-chosen.
It is the bitter potion by which the physician within
you heals your sick self.
Therefore trust the physician, and drink his remedy
in silence and tranquillity:
For his hand, though heavy and hard, is guided by
the tender hand of the Unseen,
And the cup he brings, though it burn your lips, has
been fashioned of the clay which the Potter has
moistened with His own sacred tears.
~Kahlil Gibran

Then I would still have this consolation–my joy in unrelenting pain–that I had not denied the words of the Holy One.~Job 6:10   ✝️

1181. People from a planet without flowers would think we must be mad with joy the whole time to have such things about us. ~Iris Murdoch

by

20

[F]lowers… adorn our lanes, fields and fells, and…
smile upon us and cheer and bless us in our country rambles….
the lovely blossoms…
kiss the clear brooks and mountain wells…
~James Rigg

Screen Shot 2016-06-16 at 2.54.38 PM.png

I know someone who kisses the way
a flower opens, but more rapidly.
Flowers are sweet. They have
short, beatific lives. They offer
much pleasure. There is nothing
in the world that can be said
against them. Sad, isn’t it,
that all they can kiss is the air.

Yes, yes! We are the lucky ones. ~Mary Oliver

Greet one another with a holy kiss. ~2 Corinthians 13:12 ✝

**Image taken by Natalie

1159. Words are such small things, like confetti in the brain, and yet they are color and clarify everything; they stain the mind or warp the feelings. ~Diane Ackerman

by

12

Ecstasy is what everyone craves —
not love or sex, but hot-blooded, soaring intensity,
in which being alive is a joy and a thrill.
That enravishment doesn’t give meaning to life,
and yet without it life seems meaningless.
~Diane Ackerman

Screen Shot 2016-05-27 at 8.06.37 PM.png

In the name of the daybreak
and the eyelids of morning
and the wayfaring moon
and the night when it departs,
In the name of the sun and its mirrors
and the day that embraces it
and the cloud veils drawn over it
and the uttermost night
and the male and the female
and the plants bursting with seed
and the crowning seasons
of the firefly and the apple,
I will honor all life —
wherever and in whatever form
it may dwell—on Earth my home,
and in the mansions of the stars.
~Excerpted verses from a poem
by Diane Ackerman

Whoever pursues righteousness and love finds life, prosperity, and honor. ~Proverbs 21:21  ✝

**All images (my enravishments) were taken by me in my yard.

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

by

7

Screen Shot 2016-05-06 at 8.51.51 PM.png

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

Screen Shot 2016-05-06 at 6.31.04 PM.png

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

Screen Shot 2016-05-06 at 6.39.23 PM.png

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

Screen Shot 2016-05-06 at 6.41.45 PM.png

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

Screen Shot 2016-05-06 at 6.42.27 PM.png

Be still and seek the presence of your inner child.

Screen Shot 2016-05-06 at 8.39.34 PM.png

Be still and remember childhood’s simple pleasures.

Screen Shot 2016-05-06 at 6.41.09 PM.png

Be still and recall the unadulterated innocence of a child

Screen Shot 2016-05-06 at 6.33.10 PM.png

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

Screen Shot 2016-05-06 at 8.27.16 PM.png

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

1134. I must have flowers, always, and always. ~Claude Monet

by

26

Color is my daylong,
obsession, joy and torment.
~Claude Monet

Screen Shot 2016-04-29 at 6.15.24 PM.png

Smitten! I’m completely and reverently smitten! And like Monet, what I’m smitten with are flowers and color. Not only that but when the two unite to create something as spectacular as has occurred in this iris, I’m doubly smitten, doubly enamored of, doubly attracted to, doubly enchanted by, and doubly swept off my feet! Then if the element of frilliness appears in the drooping down falls (sepals) of the flower, I become triply smitten. Last but not least, when the flowers are adorned with veining (lines and/or dots) the smittenness takes a leap totally off the scale of smittendom! How can anything as exquisite as this iris not speak of holiness as well as Divine intent and design to anyone who beholds its beauty.

Flowers are beautiful hieroglyphics of nature,
with which she indicates how much
she and God, her Creator love us.
~Edited quote by 
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Flowers have spoken to me more
than I can tell in written words.
They are the hieroglyphics of angels,
loved by all men for the beauty
of their character, though few can
decipher even fragments of their meaning.
~Lydia M. Child

I know that my redeemer livers, and that at the end He will stand on the earth. ~Job 19:25  ✝

**Iris image taken today in my yard

1133. Where does reverence arise in your life? ~Gratefulness.org

by

8

So often and especially this time of year, both reverence and gratefulness come forth from my ability to see. So I put together some words and collages of places, images, and/or ways that never fail to arouse reverence. As I sat looking out my window, I found great joy in finding the holy in the small and the sacred in the ordinary. Enjoy and count the ways reverence arises in your days.

Screen Shot 2016-04-28 at 2.49.52 PM.png

the sacrosanct lay on spring’s flowery altars

Screen Shot 2016-04-28 at 5.41.30 PM.png

the hallowed bloomed atop roses, old and new

Screen Shot 2016-04-28 at 6.09.01 PM.png

the sanctified twined and climbed on sundry vines

Screen Shot 2016-04-28 at 3.01.21 PM.png

the holy wafted forth from fragant berries and herbs

Screen Shot 2016-04-28 at 4.50.00 PM.png

the sacred was carried on the wings of pollinators

Screen Shot 2016-04-28 at 5.59.46 PM.png

the consecrated could be seen in a wide array of colors and hues

Screen Shot 2016-04-28 at 5.43.49 PM.png

But I, by your(God’s) great love, can come into your house; in reverence I bow down toward your holy temple. ~Psalm 5:7  ✝

**All images were taken in my yard

1130. Who hath a garden, he has joy, however small his plot may be. ~Excerpted lines by Thomas Curtis Clark

by

13

My garden is a pleasant place
Of sun glory and leaf grace.
~Excerpted lines from a poem
by Louise Driscoll

Screen Shot 2016-04-25 at 9.04.14 PM.png

What pure delight a garden bring–
What joy in watching growing things
Upspringing from the sodden mould
Their wealth of beauty to unfold–
‘Tis here my spirit soars and sings!

Screen Shot 2016-04-25 at 9.43.32 PM.png

To note the flash of painted wings,
And hark the bees’ soft murmurings
In quest of sweets the blossoms hold;
Where all gray days are days of gold,
Strolling its paths bright wanderings,
What pure delight!
~Louella C. Poole

Now the Lord God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden; and there he put the man he had formed. ~Genesis 2:8  ✝

**All the flower “babies” were blooming in my yard today.

1120. It is only when we are aware of the earth and of the earth as poetry that we truly live. ~Henry Beston

by

25

If a child is to keep alive his inborn sense
of wonder without any such gift from the fairies,
he needs the companionship of at least
one adult who can share it,
rediscovering with him the joy, excitement,
and mystery of the world we live in.
~Rachel Carson

Screen Shot 2016-04-11 at 9.29.59 PM.png

The old people came literally to love the soil and they sat or reclined on the ground with a feeling of being close to a mothering power. It was good for the skin to touch the earth and the old people liked to remove their moccasins and walk with bare feet on the sacred earth.  Their tipis were built upon the earth and their altars were made of earth.  The birds that flew into the air came to rest upon the earth and it was the final abiding place of all things that lived and grew. The soil was soothing, strengthening, cleansing and healing. ~Chief Luther Standing Bear

It had been planted in good soil by abundant water so that it would produce branches, bear fruit and become a splendid vine. ~Ezekiel 17:8  ✝

**All images are photographs of spring’s offerings from my yard