932. How fair is a garden amid the trials and passions of existence. ~Benjamin Disraeli

November 6, 2015 by nataliescarberry

To forget how to dig the earth and
to tend the soil is to forget ourselves.
~Mahatma Gandhi

There is something incredibly engaging and comforting about a garden, especially when one is surprised this late in the year by a find as lovely as this Heavenly Blue morning glory. However, even long after she’s gone when winter has plunged us into its “vale of grief,” there will yet be signs that point to primeval and sacred origins, ordained recurring seasons, and our connection to the Holy Breath of the Creator. But today it was the brilliance of the autumn morn, the splendor and blueness of the blossom, and a gentle breeze blowing in my face from time to time that prompted an awareness of the in and out movement of God’s life-giving breath in me as well as cognizance of a sacramental connection to Him. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, a French philosopher and Jesuit priest, said, “There is a communion with God, and there is a communion with earth, and there is a communion with God through the earth.” Teilhard de Chardin contended that the more he devoted himself in some way to the interests of the earth the more he belonged to God. It is the same for me. Being close to the earth in my garden or taking photographs of its progeny and/or nature in general, is like being attached to an umbilical cord that keeps me forever tethered to the Divine Source of all life, and therefore through it comes the spiritual nourishment that feeds my hungry soul.

The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it; for He founded it on the seas and established it on the waters. ~Psalm 24:1-2 ✝

925. The earth has music for those who listen. ~William Shakespeare

November 1, 2015 by nataliescarberry

Inside the silence between
your  heartbeats hides a summons.
Do you hear it?
Listen.
Quiet the voices and noise around you.
Honor the Holy One calling you!
~Author Unknown

I perceive the universe as a cosmic temple and planet earth as a sanctuary in that temple. Although not given the power of speech as such therein, rain and other weather-related phenomena exhibit distinctive voices in and under the heavens. And as these things fall from earth’s chaotic atmosphere, they often blend their unique voices with other holy sounds in the natural world. In that sacred chorus is a call for 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. Thus 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 to some extent what is seen and heard, and a heart that in due time turns from irreverence to deep 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 rain in its weather. It takes you to a place within yourself.” And so after the 11 inches of magical, mystical rain that we’ve had in the last week, I’m a’listenin’ and doin’ little jigs all over the place.

…let the wise listen and add to their learning, and let the discerning get guidance— ~Proverbs 1:5 ✝

**Image via Pinterest

904. Everything that slows us down and forces patience, everything that sets us back into the slow circles of nature, is a help. Gardening is an instrument of grace. ~May Sarton

October 16, 2015 by nataliescarberry

Gardening time is time that involves itself in the moment,
that focuses on the soaring stateliness of trees and
the minute scale of the tiniest blossom.

The time that began in a garden is the kind of time I go to my garden to find again. It’s the time the way God created it: as a servant and not a master.

This kind of time is a container for worthwhile work, a resource for creating the beautiful and feeding the hungry and growing soul. It is measured in drifting or purposeful hours, in day and then night and then day again, in slowly rolling seasons, each with its special purpose under heaven.

Garden time required daily attention but does not require that everything be done in a day. I go to my garden to rediscover that kind of time. And I have to take time out from the other kind of time to discover it.

It’s great to get away from the rat race, the conveyor belt, the traffic jam, to be renewed and refreshed in the company of growing things; it feels like a day in the country. ~All pasages by Emilie Barnes

The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. ~Genesis 2:15 ✝

**A friend and fellow blogger asked me to post pictures of my garden. And so I spent some time looking through old photos this afternoon. But here’s the thing, my “garden” is actually in flower beds all around the house and along the fences. The largest portion may be in the backyard, but it is separated by other beds and sections of the yard so finding a photo the covered it all quickly became an insurmountable problem. Then I also realized that what might be blooming in some photos is not blooming later in the year. So it really is a moveable feast as it were, and now it is waning rapidly, not so much because the temperatures have lowered all that much but because we haven’t gotten rain in months. So I’ve already started cutting down spent perennials, pruning roses, and pulling down vines that have nearly bloomed out. Sadly right now there is only a smattering of things worth seeing, and it’s hasn’t even gotten cool enough for any leaves to start turning their lovely colors. There are only the dead and brown ones from the heat and lack of rain. However, I did go back and found some pictures that give an idea of the splendor around here at times. Another thing, look at the white trellis in the third photo; it is now completely covered with spent autumn clematis vines and morning glory vines that are both waning fast. In the last photo, the black round trellis in front of the metal sunflower is also covered in waning morning glories. So the garden really does alter its appearance from month to month and season to season as some things perish and new things are planted. A garden at any given moment is just a work in progress.

885. But these are flowers that fly and all but sing… ~Robert Frost

September 28, 2015 by nataliescarberry

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

881. White is not a mere absence of color; it is a shining and affirmative thing, as fierce as red, as definite as black. ~G. K. Chesterton

September 24, 2015 by nataliescarberry

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.

874. As September advances, the light continues to don a succession of gowns that grow more and more golden, especially in the late afternoons. ~Natalie Scarberry

September 17, 2015 by nataliescarberry

Nature’s seasons don’t change in one fell swoop. Instead they keep us tottering a while on the edge of that which comes next. And so it is with autumn! Inch by inch and day by day she proffers more signs of her coming. Acorns are dropping from the oaks, the squirrels quickly snap up the nutty little treasures, a random smattering of leaves are changing colors, and the days are growing shorter and shorter.

The light this time of year,
eclipses summer light by far.

An eerie feeling is in the air,
as we feel what great artist’s share.

They go there for the light.
They go there for the color.
They go there for the sight,
of the Sun dancing on the water.

And we come too, to catch the sight,
of dust floating in the light.

Slanting beams through cracks and seams,
lazy days in and out of dreams.

A time for calm and reflection.
A time to study light’s deflection.
~Excerpted lines from a poem
by Ronald W. Hull

Light in a messenger’s eyes brings joy to the heart, and good news gives health to the bones. ~Proverbs 15:30 ✝

**Images via Pinterest

873. What you are is Gods’ gift to you, what you become is your gift to God. ~Hans Urs von Balthasar

September 16, 2015 by nataliescarberry

He who is born with a silver spoon in his mouth
is generally considered a fortunate person,
but his good fortune is small compared to that
of the happy mortal who enters the world
with a passion for flowers in his soul.
~Celia Thaxter

Don’t ask yourself what the world needs,
ask yourself what it is that makes you come alive.
And then go do it. Because what the world needs
is people who have come alive.
~Harold Whitman

They come, I see, they conquer! Beauties like the ones in these photos have left me spellbound for as long as I can remember. So it is that I have been blessed with a fire-fanning renewal of the passion of which Thaxter speaks month after month, season after season, year after year for 7 decades now. And as the yearly succession of earth’s flowers has advanced over the years, something in my soul has in fact felt more alive. As a result in the pregnant pauses of my days, over and over again I’ve heard a voice imploring me to make something good out of that passion. M. C. Entyre said that “singers and musicians know the power of the pause, the rest, the soundless beat,” and I’ve come to realize that the spaces between our thoughts or words are dwelling places where things register and then move inward. When we linger in spaces of quietude, we open ourselves to the possibility of an epiphany–the sudden knowing, the flashes of clarity where Christ enters with revelation. In such moments the veil lifts and we are, as Wordsworth put it, “surprised by joy,” the inexpressible joy of coming alive.

I love to think of nature as an
unlimited broadcasting station,
through which God speaks
to us every hour,
if we will only tune in.
~George Washington Carver

The precepts of the Lord are right, giving joy to the heart. The commands of the Lord are radiant, giving light to the eyes. ~Psalm 19:8 ✝

**Images via Pinterest, collages created by Natalie

862. Nature is what we know – yet have not art to say – so impotent our wisdom to her simplicity. ~Emily Dickinson

September 5, 2015 by nataliescarberry

Simplicity is beauty
and beauty is simplicity,
nothing more, nothing less.
~Oscar Wilde

In character,
in manner,
in style,
in all things
the supreme
excellence
is simplicity.
~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Simplicity, clarity, singleness:
These are the attributes that give
our lives power and vividness and joy
as they are also the marks of great art.
They seem to be the purpose of
God for his whole Creation.
~Richard Holloway

A pretentious, showy life is an empty life; a plain and simple life is a full life. ~Proverbs 13:7 ✝

**Images via Pinterest, collages created by Natalie

859. Surprise is the greatest gift which life can grant us. ~Boris Pasternak

September 3, 2015 by nataliescarberry

I’m a great believer in the
beauty and power of surprise.
~Mark Gatiss

Even the dullest bird or face or object becomes interesting when you give it a good look in the wild/flesh. The way the shadow drops across the cheek, the light hits an eyebrow, and so on. There are many more angles and positions than you can ever imagine. My heart always makes a little jump when I see things in birds or faces or bits of nature that surprise me. ~Edited quote by Siegfried Woldhek

The precepts of the Lord are right, giving joy to the heart. The commands of the Lord are radiant, giving light to the eyes. ~Psalm 29:8 ✝

**Image via Pinterest

853. Nature is infinitely creative. It is always producing the possibility of new beginnings. ~Marianne Williamson

August 28, 2015 by nataliescarberry

The Law of Divine Compensation posits that this is a self-organizing and self-correcting universe: the embryo becomes a baby, the bud becomes a blossom, the acorn becomes an oak tree. Clearly, there is some invisible force that is moving every aspect of reality to its next best expression. ~Marianne Williamson

Nature inspires my everything. She inspires my solitude, and my writing and my art. She lifts me upon her welcoming wings and soars me through the sky of possibilities. She colors my day, brightens my soul, and calms my nights. She is fierce and beautiful, strong and delicate — an unrelenting Queen so generous of advice and never weary of new beginnings. In spring a colorful maiden, in winter a wise old lady, in autumn a looking-glass to my falling-leaf self, and summer a warm blossomed benefactor, comrade to the sun. A constant companion — sometimes indifferent, sometimes nuzzling me with her genial breezes and raining drops of heaven onto me. To close my windows and shut her out is error and melancholy. ~Terri Guillemets

“Who dares despise the day of small things, since the seven eyes of the Lord that range throughout the earth will rejoice when they see the chosen capstone in the hand of Zerubbabel?” ~Zechariah 4:10 ✝

**Images via Pinterest; collages of seeds, seedpods, bird nests, baby birds, bird eggs, caterpillars and chrysalises created by Natalie

Sacred Touches

Life is a time of purpose and anointed blossoming…

Tag Archives: Nature