726. All of earth is crammed with heaven and every bush aflame with God, but only those who see take off their shoes. ~Elizabeth Barrett Browning

May 7, 2015 by nataliescarberry

Even a stone, and more easily a flower or a bird,
could show you the way back to God, to the Source, to yourself.
When you look at it or hold it & let it be
without imposing a word of mental label on it,
a sense of awe, of wonder, arises within you.
Its essence silently communicates itself to you
and reflects your own essence back to you.
~Eckhart Tolle

Some time in March here in this part of the world the garden begins its ascent out of winter’s “vale of grief.” By the time March has gone, the flowering quince has already quit, the daffodils have departed, the tulips have been toppled, the crocus have concluded their blooming, and the hellebores have halted their show. April brings more delights, but after it has gone, the foxgloves have fallen by the wayside, the peonies have been pummeled by the rain, and the hyacinth have handed over their pink and blue scepters. And somewhere amid all that other splendor, the jasmine climbed, the penstemons’ purple bells appeared, and wisteria fell from on high while white bridal wreath spirea cascaded daintily down long, arching branches where bees and bright butterflies searched for flowery nectar. All the while, the crescendos of spring’s symphony were increasing, and the blankets of cold, laden with death were slowly but surely being consumed by spring’s warming nights and days. Then as the music of spring reached it frenzied rhythms, the melodious strains mounted garden walls and pushed past garden gates to fill busy streets where mankind pursues its harried madness. And there her music captured the inclined ears of some to draw them into her web where for eons she has recanted the magical mystery of life, ever hopeful and opulently abundant. So loudly does springtime declare the glory of God, in fact, that it’s hard to believe that anyone who is not deaf or blind could disclaim God’s existence for it’s His unmistakable voice that calls out from every stone, every leaf, every flower, every insect, every bird to the inheritors of Eden.

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

**All images via Pinterest are of species named Eden; collage created by Natalie

725. Difficult times require difficult decisions. ~Jim Bunning

May 6, 2015 by nataliescarberry

The struggle of life is one of our greatest blessings.
It makes us patient, sensitive, and Godlike.
It teaches us that although the world is full of suffering,
it is also full of the overcoming of it.
~Helen Keller

Last year was an exacting and troublesome one for me in several ways. Fortunately now that my knee has been replaced, one of the stressful, problematic issues has been successfully resolved. However, in it’s stead another health issue that had been under control for the last half of the year, has raised its ugly head again and gone to an even more distressing level. For decades I’ve been dealing with a neurological disorder called Restless Leg Syndrome. And since in the last few weeks it as been very difficult for me to manage this disorder, I’ve made an appointment today with a new neurologist, but I couldn’t get in to see him until the end of the month. Until then I am and more than likely will continue to get little sleep or be able sit at anything for very long. As a result, I’ve not been able to read many, if any, of your posts for a while now and until this issue improves or is resolved that will sadly continue. I am, however, going to try to continue posting something each day and will do that as long as I am able to; I will also try to answer any comments I get about my posts in a timely fashion. In the meantime, I hope you take good care of yourselves and please know that I am, at least, browsing through your posts as they appear in my inbox even if I am unable sit long enough to hit “like” or comment on them. The Lord, as always, will be with me on this difficult and exhausting journey, and I pray that I will be up to par soon so that I am able to re-engage with each and every one of you. In the meantime, love and hugs to you all, my little band of wonderful readers and followers, Natalie

Has anyone else ever noticed how the colors of life just sort of seem to fade from your days when things become emotionally and physically arduous? Perhaps that’s why I love flowers so much. When all else is gray and gloomy, their bright, colorful faces shine still in the dark days and nights of the soul.

So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand. ~Isaiah 41:10 ✝

**Images via Pinterest

724. Earth, thou great footstool of our God, who reigns on high; thou fruitful source of all our raiment, life, and food; our house, our parent, and our nurse. ~Isaac Watts

May 5, 2015 by nataliescarberry

So will I build my altar in the fields,
And the blue sky my fretted dome shall be,
And the sweet fragrance that the wild flower yields
Shall be the incense I will yield to thee.
~Samuel Taylor Coleridge

All those days
you felt like dust,
like dirt,
as if all you had to do
was turn your face
toward the wind
and be scattered
to the four corners
or swept away
by the smallest breath
as insubstantial—
Did you not know
what the Holy One
can do with dust?
This is the day
we freely say
we are scorched.
This is the hour
we are marked
by what has made it
through the burning.
This is the moment
we ask for the blessing
that lives within the ancient ashes,
that makes its home
inside the soil
of this sacred earth.
So let us be marked
not for sorrow.
And let us be marked
not for shame.
Let us be marked
not for false humility
or for thinking
we are less
than we are
but for claiming
what God can do
within the dust,
within the dirt,
within the stuff
of which the world is made,
and the stars that blaze in our bones,
and the galaxies that spiral
inside the smudge we bear.
~Jan Richardson

“Or speak to the earth, and let it teach you; and let the fish of the sea declare to you. “Who among all these does not know that the hand of the Lord has done this… ~Job 12:7-9 ✝

*Image via Pinterest

723. Bee to blossom, moth to flame; each to his passion; what’s in a name? ~Helen Hunt Jackson

May 4, 2015 by nataliescarberry

I wanted to know the name
of every stone and flower
and insect and bird and beast.
I wanted to know  where it got its color,
where it got its life…
~George Washington Carver

The real name of this beauty is Tradescantia, but it’s commonly called Spiderwort, a name not my favorite for two reasons. First, I’m not a big fan of spiders and secondly as a kid I had lots of warts. And so to put those two irksome things together for such a colorful and interesting bloom seems to me to do it a terrible injustice. But then it’s real name is a tad hard to spell and to remember for that matter too. So what’s one to do? Though it got its color and its life from the Lord, it was mortal men who gave it such a dreadful name; perhaps now it is time for a change, and one day I shall just have to come up with a name of my own for this lovely, small, but fetching flower.

Then God said, “Let the land produce vegetation: seed bearing plants and trees on the land that bear much fruit with seed in it, according to the various kinds.” And it was so…And God said, “Let the waters teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the vault of the sky.” ~Genesis1:11 and Genesis 1:20 ✝

**The top photo is one I took in my yard yesterday; the others I found on Pinterest.

719. His Labor a Chant – his idleness – a Tune – oh, for a Bee’s experience of Clovers and of Noon! ~Emily Dickinson

April 30, 2015 by nataliescarberry

Give and Take…
For to the bee a flower is a fountain of life
And to the flower a bee is a messenger of love
And to both, the bee and the flower,
The giving and receiving is a need and an ecstasy.
~Kahlil Gibran

…store of bees, in a dry and warme bee-house
comely made of fir boards to sing and sit,
and feede upon your flowers and sprouts,
make a pleasant noyse and sight.
~William Lawson

The men of experiment are like the ant;
they only collect and use.
But the bee…gathers its materials
from the flowers of the garden and of the field,
but transforms and digests it
by a power of its own.
~Leonardo da Vinci

To make a prairie it takes a clover and one bee,
One clover, and a bee, And revery.
The revery alone will do,
If bees are few. ~Emily Dickinson

No matter whether it hops, crawls, runs, wriggles, slithers, swims, flies, buzzes, chirrups, grows from the ground or lives in water, we, mankind, need nature. And those of us who garden know that what we as stewards of Creation must supply feeding stations and safe havens for the bees, the birds, and other wildlife. Therefore our flowers, berries, seed heads, etc. should be free of toxins. And among other things in autumn we need to resist disposing of things like hollow plant stems because tiny bees may be hibernating inside. All this is why years ago I started meeting the requirements for my yard to be certified as a habitat, and now that it is I proudly display my National Federation of Wildlife signs on the gates.

There are so many joyous components that go into what a yard and it flowerbeds and gardens are, and for me the buzz of the bees is one of the most essential of those elements. I love my bees and over the years I have intentionally planted things to attract them, especially after I began reading more and more about the alarming and widespread decline of bee populations as well as the collapse of beehives here in the US and all over the world. For instance, there are places all over our country where too many pesticides have been used over the years and as a result their ecosystems are void of bee populations. That’s why nowadays hives have to be transported from state to state by 18 wheel trucks so that farmers and growers can pollinate pollinate their crops and orchards.

What mankind desperately needs to realize is that should bees completely vanish from planet earth, there would never again be peaches and almonds(two of my favorite foods by the way) and so many other things, things we desperately need and depend on to support human life. So I always advise people who have a growing space to please consider planting things that will invite these amazing creatures to sup at their table. And as for being stung by one, let me just say two things: first, it’s a small price to pay for the preservation of our species; secondly, I have hundreds of bees in my yard, and I walk among daily among flowers to work in the beds or to take photos, and in the 20+ years that I’ve been doing I’ve not been stung once. A couple of times I have gotten a loud, warning buzz, especially when it’s a bumblebee that has been offended by my presence, and I just get up and walk away until the “grumbling bee” moves on. Ya know, now that I think about it, that works well in human relationships too. Hee hee!

Know also that wisdom is like honey for you: If you find it, there is a future hope for you, and you will not be cut off. ~Proverbs 24:14 ✝

**All images via pinterest and the internet; opening collage created by Natalie

712. Hardships often prepare ordinary people for an extraordinary destiny. ~C. S. Lewis

April 23, 2015 by nataliescarberry

Life finds me down, but not out. Hope finds me exhausted, but not emotionally bankrupt. Faith finds me weary, but not willing to stop pressing on. Health, you can try hard to drag me along, but I can’t be drug along when I’m in God’s hands. He holds me. ~Heather Mertens, fellow blogger at: http://40yearwanderer.com/blog/

Sometimes, I am startled out of myself, like this morning when the wild geese came squawking, flapping their rusty hinges, and something about their trek across the sky made me think about my life, the places of brokenness, the places of sorrow, the places where grief has strung me out to dry. And then the geese come calling, the leader falling back when tired, another taking her place. Hope is borne on wings. Look at the trees. They turn to gold for a brief while, then lose it all each November. Through the cold months, they stand, take the worst weather has to offer. And still, they put out shy green leaves come April, come May. The geese glide over the cornfields, land on the pond with its sedges and reeds. You do not have to be wise. Even a goose knows how to find shelter, where the corn still lies in the stubble and dried stalks. All we do is pass through here, the best way we can. They stitch up the sky, and it is whole again. ~Barbara Crooker

I read this article above at: http://www.gratefulness.org and thought it was too great not to share.

When you go through deep waters, I will be with you. ~Isaiah 43:2 ✝

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

April 22, 2015 by nataliescarberry

There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,
There is a rapture on the lonely shore,
There is society, where none intrudes,
By the deep sea, and music in its roar:
I love not man the less, but Nature more.
~George Gordon, Lord Byron

Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature’s peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop off like autumn leaves. ~John Muir

Oh, how I love the sea and at no time more than when I’m there at dusk or dawn. I took these photos on a visit to Galveston several years ago, and they still speak to me as much of God as does my garden. While the bird and I walked along the “lonely shore” together, you’ll notice that it stopped twice as if waiting and watching and listening. I believe it’s because in the dim quietude we both clearly heard the sacred songs of the spheres and the music of the deep sea’s roar. So let us drink a cup of the “good in everything” today as we celebrate the earth, its bounty, and its beauty. And let us not forget to praise the Lord now and always for all His gifts and goodness!

For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities–his eternal power and divine nature–have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse. ~Romans 1:20 ✝

709. We are such stuff as dreams are made on; and our little life is rounded with sleep. ~William Shakespeare

April 20, 2015 by nataliescarberry

We live in between the act of awakening
and the act of surrender.
Each morning, we awaken to light,
and the invitation to a new day
in the world of time;
each night, we surrender to the dark
to be taken to play in the world of dreams
where time is no more.
~John O’Donohue

We become not a melting pot
but a beautiful mosaic.
Different people, different beliefs
different yearnings, different hopes,
different dreams.
~Jimmy Carter
but
God’s gifts put man’s
best dreams to shame.
~Elizabeth Barrett Browning

The name of this wonderful pink rose is Belinda’s Dream, and since she is one of my favorites, I have two of them planted in different places my yard. Her blooms, especially in the spring and the fall, are always and definitely the stuff of which my garden dreams are made. And whenever I photograph her, I always think to myself, “What beautiful dreams, she, whose name this rose bears, must have.” I wonder who she is!

For God does speak–now one way, now another– though no one perceives it. In a dream, in a vision in the night, when deep sleep falls on people as they slumber in their beds. He may speak in their ears… ~Job 33:14-16a ✝

708. All that is eternal in me welcomes the wonder of this day… ~John O’Donohue

April 19, 2015 by nataliescarberry

I place on the altar of dawn:
The quiet loyalty of breath,
The tent of thought where I shelter,
Waves of desire I am shore to
And all beauty drawn to the eye.
~John O’Donohue

May my mind come alive today
To the invisible geography
That invites me to new frontiers,
To break the dead shell of yesterdays,
To risk being disturbed and changed.

May I have the courage today
To live the life I would love,
To postpone my dream no longer
But do at last what I came here for
And waste my heart on fear no more.
~John O’Donohue

He (God) performs wonders that cannot be fathomed, miracles that cannot be counted. ~Job 5:9 ✝

707. Silence is exhilarating at first – as noise is – but there is a sweetness to silence outlasting exhilaration, akin to the sweetness of listening and the velvet of sleep. ~Edward Hoaglan

April 18, 2015 by nataliescarberry

Let me silent be,
For silence is the speech of love,
The music of the spheres above.
~Richard Henry Stoddard

Poetic Black and White Watercolors  of Children With Wild Animals  by Elicia Elidanto

Spring

Somewhere
a black bear
has just risen from sleep
and is staring

down the mountain.
All night
in the brisk and shallow restlessness
of early spring

I think of her,
her four black fists
flicking the gravel,
her tongue

like a red fire
touching the grass,
the cold water.
There is only one question:

how to love this world.
I think of her
rising
like a black and leafy ledge

to sharpen her claws against
the silence
of the trees.
Whatever else

my life is
with its poems
and its music
and its glass cities,

it is also this dazzling darkness
coming
down the mountain,
breathing and tasting;

all day I think of her —
her white teeth,
her wordlessness,
her perfect love.
~Mary Oliver

…a time to tear and a time to mend, a time to be silent and a time to speak… ~Ecclesiastes 3:7 ✝

Sacred Touches

Life is a time of purpose and anointed blossoming…

Tag Archives: Life