212. It is part of the cure to want to be cured. ~Seneca

December 10, 2013 by nataliescarberry

To feel keenly the poetry of a morning’s roses,
one has to just have escaped from the claws
of this vulture which we call sickness of body or heart.
~Adapted excerpt from Henri Frederic Amiel

In order to mend and bridge chasms of painful, isolating realities, I often douse the fires of what breaks my heart in cups of tea or tears that flow during quiet dawns or at night when the wee hours find me awake and alone. After the sipping or crying comes to an end, a numbed stillness often develops. When it does, I become aware in its clarity of the amazing nearness of God. Jesus, whom I’ve been calling, is offering to guide me through portals to places where pools of mercy await. Sometimes the healing waters lie deep within my own being where the Holy Spirit resides in His cloistered sanctuary. At other times they are found in the beautiful colors of autumn, or in the glistening dew on greening grass and flowers in springtime, or in the gentle gestures of another’s compassion, or in softly spoken prayers proffered by kind and endearing voices. Wherever the pool and whoever the beneficial bearer of blessing, one or both sustain me, if I yield, in the returning rhythm of fitness as the Lord’s grace works to render me wholly well.

I’ve discovered that tears have amazing restorative powers for frequently it is when my eyes are blurred with wetness from them that a sense of God’s presence is strongest. For surely in the loss of His own son by the hands of creatures He breathed life into, He shed more tears than we’ll ever know. We all endure difficult and sorrowful moments in our lives. So excruciating is the pain on occasion that it nearly stifles our very breath, but one breath and one step at a time begins the journey out of the depths of despair.

“But I will restore your health and heal your wounds,” declares the Lord… ~Jeremiah 30:17a ✝

**Whittard’s is a tea, coffee, and cocoa shop that we found in London last summer.

191. Summer ends, and Autumn comes, and he who would have it otherwise would have high tide always and a full moon every night; and thus he would never know the rhythms that are at the heart of life. ~Hal Borland

November 17, 2013 by nataliescarberry

The hush comes with the deepening of Autumn;
but it comes gradually.
Our ears are attuned to it, day by quieter day.
But even now, if one awakens in the deep darkness
of the small hours, one can hear it;
a foretaste of Winter silence.
~Hal Borland

One day recently as we pulled out of the garage to go to lunch, we saw this, the clearly defined, back edge of a line of thunderstorms. While I was taking shots of the scene, it occurred to me that in a much slower progression that’s the way all of nature’s phenomena pass over the earth during the course of a year. Sunny days come and go, hot and cold periods come and go, flowers come and go, fruitings and harvests come and go–in other words the Lord’s good provisions are always in a never-ending flux of comings and goings. Autumn then, as Hal Borland suggests in another excerpt, is indeed a summing up of what’s happened throughout a year’s trip around the sun, and thankfully it only takes away what the gardener holds dear a little bit at a time. We may not be too many steps away from winter, but given earth’s history of unfailing continuance neither are we too many steps away from spring. So to recall an old familiar adage, all’s well that ends well, and autumn does indeed end a year splendidly well.

Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good. His love endures forever. ~Psalm 135:1 ✝

189. Every single story nature tells is gorgeous. ~Natalie Angier

November 15, 2013 by nataliescarberry

How little note is taken of the deeds of Nature!
What paper publishes her reports?
Who publishes the sheet music of the winds,
or the written music of water written in river lines?
Who reports the works and ways or the clouds,
those wondrous creations coming into being
every day like freshly upheaved mountains?
And what record is kept of nature’s colors – the clothes she wears
– of her birds, her beasts – of her livestock?
~John Muir

When life is lived close to nature, one sups at banquets the earth lays upon sacred plains and holy, high altars. These moving, kaleidoscopic feasts are found in or on waters, woods, hills, mountains, meadows, fields, deserts, even rocky, jagged cliffs. Therein or on the planet’s vistas and colors bedazzle the eyes; her shapes and textures fascinate the hands; her scents and fragrances thrill the nose; her rhythms and symphonies seduce the ears while through it all and all the while the human heart is comforted by God’s faithfulness and His divinely appointed seasons. Simply put, under the sun, moon, and stars and in haunts where breezes blow, grasses grow, and waters flow the human spirit and the soul are nurtured while his life is sustained by the Creator’s grace and lavish spreads.

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

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

November 3, 2013 by nataliescarberry

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

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 ✝

171. Nature is to be found in her entirety nowhere more than in her smallest creatures. ~Pliny the Elder (Roman Scholar)

October 25, 2013 by nataliescarberry

She sat down in a weed patch, her elbows on her knees ,
and kept her eyes on the small mysterious world of the ground.
In the shade and sun of grass blade forests,
small living things had their metropolis.
~Nancy Price, Website writer and poet

This writer is describing a kingdom that exists in probably every square foot of ground in any garden, and it is not a singular kingdom. In and around blossoming things there’s yet another mysterious metropolis. In it airborne living things yearn to “possess the sweet of every flower that blooms,” and so in that above-ground realm there really is a very simple equation: if there are no flowers there are no pollinators; if there are no pollinators there are no flowers. One simply doesn’t exist without the other, at least for very long. The hum or buzz of the pollinating agent and the flower’s blooming go hand in hand. Together they dance the dance of life and commit their acts of love. And so it is that different life forms as well as scripture “remind us that there are other voices, other rhythms, other strivings, and other fulfillments…” How I’d love to hover over the petals of a rose, peer deep into its center, and then dive in to taste its “sweets” like the wasp on this bi-colored Scentimental rose.

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

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

March 11, 2013 by nataliescarberry

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

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 ✝

9. O Autumn…pass not, but sit…and tune thy jolly voice…and all the daughters of the year shall dance! ~William Blake

November 21, 2012 by nataliescarberry

In the garden, Autumn is, indeed the crowning glory of the year,
bringing us the fruition of months of thought, and care, and toil.
~Rose G. Kingsley, British Gardener and Writer

Now that the year has grown long in the tooth, the migratory birds have moved on to warmer lands. But the birds who overwinter here are still very visible and busy. However, on the chillier days they, like me, “remain perched” early in the morning and later when the sun is well over the rooftops. Nevertheless, in spite of our periodic and combined lethargy, we still manage to be out and working during the warmer parts of the day. The “common feast for all” the garden spreads may be nearly gone and the bird’s tired wings along with my tired feet may drag somewhat, but autumn’s remaining golden glory continues to quicken our spirits. In fact even after winter ravages the land, we, man and beast alike, who live close to the soil will venture out on the occasional warm day to search with hungry eyes for any signs of what we know lies waiting to emerge from beneath the surface of things.

Autumn’s song is indeed “a rich and lusty melody.” It induces a healthy renewal in bodies wilted by summer’s long siege of torrid heat, and it creates a restful peacefulness that washes away the “fret and fever of life.” “It’s jolly voice” sings a comforting song of promise that speaks of God’s circadian rhythms of life–the rhythm of changing seasons, busyness followed by stillness, “youth’s energy followed by age’s measured pace.”

There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens. . . ~Ecclesiastes 3:1 ✝

6. There is pleasure in the pathless woods. There is rapture in the lonely shore. There is society where none intrudes. ~Lord Byron

November 3, 2012 by nataliescarberry

She sat down in a weed patch, her elbows on her knees,
and kept her eyes on the small mysterious world of the ground.
In the shade and sun of grass blade forests,
small living things had their metropolis.
~Nancy Price

In and around blossoming things there is another mysterious metropolis. This one is above the soil, and therein airborne things move around yearning to “possess the sweet of every flower that blooms.” In that realm two simple equations are in place: a) if there are no flowers there are no pollinators; b) if there are no pollinators there are no flowers, no fruits, no crops. The hum or buzz of a pollinating agent and a flower’s blooming go hand in hand; together they commit reproductive acts of love as they dance the sacred dance of life orchestrated by the Lord. In so doing they “remind us that there are other voices, other rhythms, other strivings, and other fulfillments. . .” in God’s grand plan.

Recently in a National Geographic snippet on the internet, the narrator remarked that present-day humanity is the recipient of a 400,000,000 year old legacy bequeathed by earth. Imagine that! For all those years the sun has not failed to rise and set at its appointed time, fruits and crops have not failed to burst forth and ripen, and the earth has not failed to make its trip around the sun. One season has followed another repeating the Genesis story over and over again as per the Lord’s plan. Like the fruits and flowers and pollinators, our time here is very brief, and we who are fashioned by the same holy Hands as the sun and earth are no less adored and significant in our loving Father’s eyes.