Tag Archives: Leaves

183. Why are there trees I never walk under but large and melodious thoughts descend upon me? ~Walt Whitman

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And this our life,
exempt from public haunt,
finds tongues in trees,
books in running brooks,
sermons in stones,
and good in everything.
~William Shakespeare

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Standing beneath the Shumard Red Oak made me feel like I was standing in a temple of the Most High.  The breeze was ruffling its leaves, and they in turn were prompting sacred tongues to utter incantations of their divine purpose.  For though the leaves face eminent extinction and expulsion from the branches, in their dying they’ll fall and create warm blankets to cover the ground.  In so doing they will protect the life that lies beneath the surface during winter’s cold, cold days.  Even at the close of winter their goodness will not be at an end for as they deteriorate, the remaining bits and pieces will add nutrients to enhance the soil.  Thus goes the circle of life and the interdependency of all things.

God’s voice thunders in marvelous ways; He does great things beyond our understanding.  ~Job 37:5  ✝

182. Even if something is left undone, everyone must take time to sit still and watch the leaves turn. ~Elizabeth Lawrence

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In the garden, Autumn is,
indeed the crowning glory of the year,
bringing us the fruition of months
of thought and care and toil.
And at no season, safe perhaps in Daffodil time,
do we get such superb color effects
as from August to November.
~Rose G. Kingsley

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Autumn, a time when magnificent days are often set ablaze under crystalline, sapphire skies or leaves are made to glisten on gloomy, rainy days.  Then there are the chilly eves with their rising moons on star-speckled, indigo nights that add more drama to the sensational spectacle.  What’s more lingering in sylvan settings observing flights of migrating birds or monarch butterflies, or watching busying squirrels gather acorns, or gazing at confetti-colored leaves fluttering gracefully to the ground under broad expanses bathed in the bluest of blues are rich, restorative times of hushed mellowness.  And what about the frosts that adorn grasslands and hills or  the fallen leaves that are the color of reddish, ripened persimmons?  All of it, simply all that autumn has to offer, is in fact “the crowning glory of the year.”

Be exalted, O God, above the heavens; let your glory be over all the earth.  ~Psalm 57:5  ✝

179. November’s sky is chill and drear, November’s leaf is red and sear. ~Sir Walter Scott

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Pleasures lie thickest where no pleasures seem:
There’s not a leaf that falls upon the ground
But holds some joy of silence of sound,
Some spirits begotten of a summer dream.
~Laman Blanchard

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The first Sunday of November had been running out like slow, thick molasses as deepening autumn’s shades of gray hung on it like a shroud.  Even the flocks of busying birds and the foraging squirrels succumbed, as did I, to the hypnotic laziness of the day’s dark, engulfing gloom.  However, things became a little livelier for a time late in the day when the cement on the patio became a dance floor filled with tiny rain-drop dancers jitterbugging to the short-lived “drippy” rhythms.  After the rainy spell light broke briefly through the clouds, and it was enough to highlight a few colorful leaves and a potted petunia.  Together those two sights interjected a touch of color while the wrought-iron furniture that glistened in the light added a bit of beaded elegance to the drab scene.  How sweetly even a token display of earth’s delights can thrill this observer!

Surely then you will find delight in the Almighty and will lift up your face to God.  ~Job 22:26  ✝

178. All the flowers of all the tomorrows are in the seeds of today and yesterday. ~Chinese Proverb

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In the garden the door is always open into the holy –
growth, birth, death.
Every flower holds the whole mystery in its short cycle,
and in the garden we are never far away from death,
fertilizing, good, creative death.
~May Sarton

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Every year the unseen becomes visible as new life explodes from quiet, dark, sustaining wombs.  Beneath the soil roots grow and above the surface tiny leaves yield proof of life.  Enlivening rains come, and the leaves grow.  Daylight hours lengthen, and they grow more.  Amid the leaves emerge buds, and they grow.  Buds burst into flowers, the flowers fade, and their petals fall.  Fruits, seed heads, or pods appear, and they ripen.  Fruits are harvested, seeds are spilled onto the soil, and buds are set inside woody canes or branches.  Then comes the time of rest, the discontinuance of the same, the different new genesis.  The beginnings, the middles, the ends–never an ending without a beginning–never a beginning without an ending, so goes the cyclic constancy of a garden.

The land produced vegetation; plants bearing seed according to its kinds and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds.  And God saw that it was good.  ~Genesis 1:12  ✝

174. The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated. ~Mahatma Ghandi

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If all the beasts were gone,
men would die from a great loneliness of spirit,
for whatever happens to the beasts
also happens to the man.
All things are connected.
Whatever befalls the Earth befalls the sons of Earth.
~Chief Seattle of the Suquamish Tribe

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The creatures of earth, sea and sky came forth “out of the waters of God’s life.”   And their arrival was yet another manifestation of the visible from the invisible–another disclosure of the mystery of God.  In addition, “with the birth of the creatures there is the emergence of seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, and touching.  The light of the sun and the whiteness of the moon can now be seen.  The wind blowing through the leaves of trees and the crashing of ocean waves can be heard.  The early morning fragrance of the earth can be smelled.  Its fruit can be tasted, and its textures touched,” writes J. Philip Newell.  It has even been said that if one wants to know the Creator, one of the ways to gain insight is to know His creatures, and I think that’s especially true when it comes to examining the sensory aspect of their coming.  For does not the ability to see, that the creatures brought, teach mankind to see with the eyes of the heart?  In the silences of humanity’s reality does not the ability to hear teach men to listen for the “echo of the spheres” and the still, small voice of God?  Do not the abilities to smell, taste, and touch help mortals meet their Savior, Jesus, through the holy sacrament of the Eucharist (Communion)?

And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds in the sky and all the creatures that move along the ground–everything that has the breath of life in it–I give every green plant for food.”  And it was so.  ~Genesis 1:30

166. Another fall, another turned page: there was something of jubilee in that annual autumnal beginning…. ~Wallace Stegner

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The foliage had been losing its freshness through the month of August,
and here and there a yellow leaf showed itself like a first gray hair…
September dressed herself in showy dahlias and
splendid marigolds and starry zinnias.
October, the extravagant sister, ordered an immense amount of
the most gorgeous forest tapestry to make glorious her grand spectacle.
~Edited and adapted excerpt from Oliver Wendell Holmes

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The first leafy sign of autumn appeared on the Dogwood today, and it triggered a flood of “color” musings in my mind.  Chestnut and chocolate!  What’s not to love about a season that clears off summer’s calamities, piles delectable hues back on nature’s palette, and calls for a pot of hot chocolate?  Lemon and lime!  Grasses, flowers, fruits, berries, and even a beastie or two weave fabulous garlands in the sacred temple bound by earth and sky.  Maroon and mahogany!  Chilling winds induce chemical changes in leaves that conjure up magic shows on woody altars in earth’s forests.  Mauve and mulberry!  The leaves on maples, oaks, dogwoods, pears, persimmons, and other trees give birth to colorful, parchment-like jewels that will one day snap off, swirl in little eddies, and play like children upon the ground.  Orange and ochre!  Pumpkins made to squat on porches or bales of hay tickle the fancy of mortal tongues anxiously awaiting fall feasts and winter banquets.  Red and russet!  Roses, asters, and Maximilian sunflowers invoke a breath of spring not stifled by summer’s heat to keep the year’s last child in colorful array.  Sable and sapphire!  Skies often shrouded by gauzy, gray clouds are swept clear by northerly winds as cold fronts advance.  On such days a spectacular brilliance can be seen on the brows of morn followed by daylight hours drenched in deep, dreamy shades of blue.  Sterling and pewter!  Plumed grasses shift and sigh in authorship of haunting, autumnal hymns.  Ah, how lovely are the many colors of autumn and the Holy One who made them!

As long as earth endures, seedtime and harvest (spring and autumn), cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease.  ~Genesis 8:22  ✝

162. All was silent as before — All was silent save the dripping rain. ~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

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But the true lover of rain…has a deep inner enjoyment of the rain, as rain, and his sense of its beauty drinks it in as thirstily as does the drinking earth.  It refreshes and cools his heart and brain; he longs to go forth into the fields, to feel its steady stream, to scent its fragrance; to stand under some heavy-foilaged chestnut-tree, and hear the rushing music on the crowded leaves.  ~John Richard Vernon

**One of my readers just sent me to a website which has a slowed down audio clip of crickets chirping.   It’s amazing to hear that they sound like an angelic choir reminiscent of gregrorian chanters.  If you’d like to listen, you’ll find it at:  www.soundcloud.com/acornavi/robert-wilson-crickets-audio

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I like to think of the universe as a cosmic temple and of planet earth as a sanctuary in that temple.  Though not given the power of speech as such, rain and other weather-related phenomena exhibit distinctive voices under heaven’s dome, and as they fall from earth’s chaotic atmosphere, they often blend their unique voices with other holy sounds in the natural world.  I believe that in that sacred chorus is a call to humanity to seek the Maker of the temple because God not only hardwired man with a desire to connect with other human beings but also with a  longing to seek and connect with Him whose breath gave him life. To that end man was given eyes to witness the sacraments of heaven and earth, ears to hear the chants of their hallowed voices, intellect to question and understand much of what is seen and heard, and a heart that in due time turns from irreverence to longing.  Tecumseh, a leader of the Shawnee, said, “Nature is so powerful, so strong.  Capturing the essence is not easy – your work becomes a dance with light and the weather.  It takes you to a place within yourself.”

Let my teaching fall like rain and my words descend like dew, like showers on new grass, like abundant rain on tender plants.  ~Deuteronomy 32:2  ✝

124. Every flower about a house certifies to the refinement of somebody. Every vine climbing and blossoming tells of love and joy. ~Robert G. Ingersoll

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What a desolate place would be
a world without a flower!
It would be a face without a smile,
a feast without a welcome.
~A .J. Balfour

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With its delicate tendrils the striking, lacy pink coral vine rapidly climbs up, over, and on anything it can find.  Because it is a vigorous vine upon which masses of flowers are situated, it needs support to produce the masses of green heart-shaped leaves and large branching flower stalks.  Once it reaches high enough and the dainty pink blooms appear, the sweet of it delights the bees.  And of course like all flowering vines it feeds my soul.

Return to us, God Almighty!  Look down and see!  Watch over this vine. . .  ~Psalm 80:14  ✝

122. Has the luster of the infinite holiness of God ever shone upon your heart and drawn your heart to him? ~Jeremiah Burroughs

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The world is holy.
We are holy.
All life is holy.
Daily prayers are delivered
on the lips of breaking waves,
the whisperings of grasses,
the shimmering of leaves.
~Terry Tempest Williams,
American author and naturalist

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I’ve even seen what seems like daily prayers being offered up from the nodding heads of birthing flowers in the garden.  It’s as if they know to reverence life and its Giver.  For we humans reverence for life sometimes comes through the senses for with them we are able to see, hear, smell, touch, and taste Creation’s pervasive holiness.  Moreover, from a power of perception seemingly independent of the five senses we are able to discern the holiness that exists within the human heart.  And why not?  The human heart is, after all, the Divine’s sanctuary, and as such it is the mystical core from which God operates in our lives. To come into that inner place of holiness is to come “home” in a way for therein croons the voice, soft and sweet, of a loving Father.  If we strive to listen to and obey His still, small Voice, a well within is filled with the mercy, forgiveness, and love needed for us to blossom into a purposeful anointing.  Surely even the angels stand in awe of such as this.

. . . by the power of God, who has saved us and called us to a holy life—not because of anything we have done but because of His own purpose and grace.   ~2 Timothy 1:9   ✝

60. That God once loved a garden we learn in Holy writ. And seeing gardens in the Spring I well can credit it. ~Winifred Mary Letts

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With the birth of the creatures there is
the emergence of seeing, hearing,
smelling, tasting, and touching.
The light of the sun and the whiteness
of the moon can now be seen.
The wind blowing through the leaves
of the trees and the crashing
of ocean waves can be heard.
The early morning fragrance of
the earth can be smelled.
Its fruits can be tasted and
its textures touched.
~Excerpted lines by J. Philip Newell

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Springtime is so much “a showing forth of the mystery of God” that if one wants to know more of the Creator, all he/she needs do is pull up a chair in a garden and watch the year’s first season unfold.  Seeking the goodness of God and what He made by being still therein and listening to the Holy Spirit as well as Creation’s rhythms is a way of bringing the Heavenly Father closer.  In that nearness one is then able to look through eyes that recognize the depth of His and Creation’s  goodness.

And the LORD said, “I will cause all my goodness to pass in front of you, and I will proclaim my name, the LORD, in your presence. I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.  ~Exodus 33:19   ✝