1136. Each color lives by its mysterious life. ~Wassily Kandinsky

May 1, 2016 by nataliescarberry

Mere color, unspoiled by meaning,
and unallied with definite form,
can speak to the soul
in a thousand different ways.
~Oscar Wilde

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Color… thinks by itself, independently
of the object it clothes.
~Charles Baudelaire

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Color, rather than shape,
is more closely related to emotion.
~David Katz

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Colour is, on the evidence of language alone,
very bound up with the feelings.
~Marion Milner

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Color is the language of the poets.
It is astonishingly lovely.
To speak it is a privilege.
~Keith Crown

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From the blue, purple and scarlet yarn they made woven garments for ministering in the sanctuary. ~Excerpt from Exodus 39:1 ✝

**All photos taken by me in my yard

1117. To rise above tree line is to go above thought, and after, the descent back into birdsong, bog orchids, willows, and firs is to sink into the preliterate parts of ourselves. ~Gretel Ehrlich

April 8, 2016 by nataliescarberry

I was left alone there in the company of the orchids,
roses and violets, which, like people waiting beside you
who do not know you, preserved a silence which
their individuality as living things made all the more striking…
~Marcel Proust

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A Wild Orchid
We are all flowers in the garden of the world.
Some of us are daisies dainty and bright.
Some of us are poppies,with sweet contagious laughter.
If there was a flower for you,
You’d be a wild orchid,
So full of life, colors alive,
Sprinkled with scarlet and purple,
Explosions of colors racing through your petals.
~Lanie Costea

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Your lips are like a scarlet ribbon; your mouth is lovely… ~Excerpt from Song of Songs 4:3 ✝

**Images found on Pinterest

1067. And far and wide, in a scarlet tide, the poppy’s bonfire spread. ~Bayard Taylor

February 14, 2016 by nataliescarberry

Flowers could be described as bursts
of color, pattern, and infinite grace
all governed by sacred geometry.
They are perfectly woven into the fabric of
existence to brighten up our world.
~Cherie Rae Dirksen

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To see the flower,
to really see it
takes time: knowing
what to praise
and for how long. Suppose
the poppy’s a scarlet
ibis afloat on a bed
of leaves, cardinals
in flight, a tanager calling
its mate. The artist
enlivened this flower
so you could know it.
Yet here you stand
befuddled by a poppy:
recognizable, small
delicate as a robin.
Relax. Try not to stare
so hard. It knows
you’re here admiring
its birdlike petals.
Opalescent, the red
poppy shines from within
dark, oval center
clipped from a swath
of velvet cloth.
You can feel the wings
sway: five of them
on a huge scale
gathering sun.
Not one of us
can ignore their
willful beauty.
~Georgia O’Keeffe

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Who is like the wise? Who knows the explanation of things? A person’s wisdom brightens their face and changes its hard appearance. ~Ecclesiastes 8:1 ✝

**Some images via Pinterest; others from my archives; collage by Natalie

***Georgia O’Keeffe was regarded as one of the most significant and intriguing artists of the twentieth century. She was known internationally for her boldly innovative art, being best known for her paintings of enlarged flowers such as this red poppy.

636. Painters use red like spice. ~Derek Jarman 

February 7, 2015 by nataliescarberry

Has anybody grown curiouser and curiouser about what’s been up with all the red posts as of late. Well, since February is the month in which we celebrate Valentine’s Day, I thought it might be fun to take a look first at all the shades, meanings, and associations that go along with the color red. And then afterwards launch into the passionate side of the color and the subject of “love, love, love – dut, dudda, da – all you need is love, love, love – dut, dudda, da…” So after this one tonight, get ready for some “luv.”

Red can be the color of a rising dawn as it glides
across morning skies and through misty white clouds.
It’s fierceness is felt when the hot summer sun
reddens the body with its feverish intensity.
Red is the thorn that pricks the fingers,
But it’s also the rose whose aroma is sweet.
~Edited lines by Sunny Summers

Red

 Fire-cracker, fire-engine
Fire-flicker red –
Red runs through your head
When you’re angry-est.
Red is a big rubber ball.
Red is the giant-est
Colour of all.

Red is rosy cheeks and lipstick,
Red is a signal; red is a shout,
Ever so loudly it says, “Watch out!”
Red is a show-off,
No doubt about it –
But can you imagine
Living without it?
~Edited verses by Mary O’Neill

These are the offerings (for my Tabernacle) you are to receive from them: …scarlet yarn…ram skins dyed red…spices for the anointing oil and for the fragrant incense… ~Excerpted lines from Exodus 25:3-6 ✝

**Images via Pinterest; collages created by Natalie

634. Bright reds – scarlet, pillar-box red, crimson or cherry – are very cheerful. There is certainly a red for everyone. ~Christian Dior

February 5, 2015 by nataliescarberry

If one says “Red” – the name of color –
and there are fifty people listening,
it can be expected that
there will be fifty reds in their minds.
And one can be sure that all these
reds will be very different.
~Josef Albers

Red
Red is a fading sunset on the horizon.
It’s a burst of flame;
A spray of the fire leaping towards us.

It’s the heat of the warm afternoon.
It’s a flickering flame of a tiny candle.
It’s the spark able to spread the wildfire of love.

Red is the color of heat.
It’s full of passion.
It’s bold.
~Sunny Summers

For the word of the Lord is right and true; He is faithful in all He does. The Lord loves righteousness and justice; the earth is full of His unfailing love. ~Psalm 33:4-5 ✝

**Images via Pinterest; collages by Natalie

566. The face is the mirror of the mind, and eyes without speaking confess the secrets of the heart. ~St. Jerome

December 2, 2014 by nataliescarberry

The best and most beautiful things
in the world cannot be seen or even touched –
they must be felt with the heart.
~Helen Keller

On the edge of dreaming when the brain lets go, when it stops its scheming, our blood runs slow… Then the heart speaks clearly of the things it knows, things it brought so dearly at the evening’s glow… And a misty sunset fills the west with yellow, gold and scarlet red. The bowl of space at dawn sheds light upon our silky bed. For you, I send refreshing rain to wash the past away. A quiet breeze drifts warmly across your tired face. It brings the scents from flowery climbs, and leaves without a trace. With vines and newborn stars in our hair…undressed, bronzed platinum we are as summer in your golden church… Like whispers lost at sea…we soar beyond the sky of fire…in harmony within the clash of elements… Together lost and free to claim our each desire. Like leaves we float to earth, once more…forbidden passion, romantic eyes, and heated lips…two burning amber hearts released and drinking slowly mysterious champagne of heaven’s sweetest rest… ~Oksana Rus

Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. ~Deuteronomy 6:5 ✝

**Image via Pinterest

559. Here on gray paths of November like a trembling hand a beam of light caressing my pain and my soul breathes the sweet scent of God. ~Frédéric G. Martin

November 25, 2014 by nataliescarberry

At no other time (than autumn) does
the earth let itself be inhaled in one smell,
the ripe earth; in a smell that is in
no way inferior to the smell of the sea,
bitter where it borders on taste,
and honeysweet where you feel it
touching the first sounds.
~Ranier Maria Rilke

There’s a nip in the morning air. The willow leaves have turned yellow, and the once green lawn has now donned its beige coat. As autumn continues to morph into winter, the sun streaks across the yard from its more southerly stance. In the aftermath of recent rain and wind, the redbud tree scarcely has any leaves, and the Rose of Sharon stands naked in the chilled garden. Beneath her the rose hips are dressed in scarlet and above the oaks leaves are reddening. The whir of butterfly wings is gone, the hum of the bees is gone, the fragrance of the blossoms is gone, and yet something mysterious, something magical, something hallowed remains. But what is it? What is alway present in Eden’s haunts? Surely you must know for all around us the air sweetly speaks of the unmistakable, unending, undying, abiding aroma of El Shaddai, the Lord God Almighty.

They have ears, but cannot hear, noses but cannot smell. ~Psalm 115:6 ✝

478. If I can put one touch of rosy sunset into the life of any man or woman, I shall feel that I have worked with God. ~Gilbert K. Chesterton

September 5, 2014 by nataliescarberry

Tonight the sun died like an Emperor…
great scarlet arcs of silk…
saffron…green…crimson…
and the blaze of Venus to remind one
of the absolute and the infinite…
~John Coldstream

The busy buzzing of the bees had ceased, and the butterflies had completed the day’s last waltz as gentle breezes began ruffling leaves late yesterday. As the zephyrs moved through the yard, the nodding sea oats looked like jittery lawn dancers in the descending, shadows of darkness. The sunlight, with night, the vanquishing “emperor,” nipping at its heels, had almost oozed out of the day as I went out to watch it yield more and more of its hold on the garden. While I kept an eye on the stunning blaze along the western horizon, I saw the yard birds diving and darting into safe havens for the night and the screeching grackles, much higher in the sky, looking for lodging elsewhere. The hastening darkness added frantic drama to their random forays for nightly asylum but not enough to make me feel even the slightest remorse for making sure they didn’t return to my yard. Then in the distance I heard a train whistle, and from the sound the locomotive seemed to be moving at a fast and frenzied pace for home, and I hoped it, too, would make it before long. As the last shaft of sunlight moved up and off the towering oak, a velvety hush lowered, and the lone sparrow who’d been sitting on the edge of the roof at last vanished. Then, boom, the sun fell off the edge of the world, and the blackness of night was to be denied no longer.

Each part of a day has a feel and reality of its own. Take time to savor the uniqueness in each passing moment and say a prayer of simple praise for comforting patterns and rhythms.

May you go into the night
blessed, sheltered and protected.
May your soul calm, console and renew you.
~John O’Donohue

By day the Lord directs His love, at night His Son is with me-a prayer to the God of my life. Psalm 42:8 ✝

368. The poppies hung dew-dabbed on their stalks. ~John Keats

May 14, 2014 by nataliescarberry

Poppies

The strange bright dancers
Are in the garden.
The wind of spring
Is a soft music.

Scarlet and orange,
Flaming and golden,
The strange, bright dancers
Move to the music.

And some are whiter
Than snow in winter,
And float like snowflakes
Drifting in the garden.

Oh, have you seen them,
The strange bright dancers,
Nodding and swaying
To the wind’s music?
~P.A. Ropes

He let loose the east wind from the heavens and by his power made the south wind blow. ~Psalm 78:26 ✝

Thank you, Lord Jesus, that you save, you heal, you restore, and you reveal Your Father’s heart to us! You have captured me with grace and I’m caught in Your infinite embrace!

**Images via Pinterest.

167. God gave us memory so that we might have roses in December. ~James M. Barrie

October 20, 2013 by nataliescarberry

I arise today
blessed by all things.
~John O’Donohue

The English poet, William Blake, once penned that all “the daughters of the year shall dance” in autumn and “sing the lusty song of fruit and flowers.” I think it might be hard to find a much lustier song or livelier a dance than what the beauties above are lending to October’s opus. As a part of the process of summer’s “slow disrobing” and the “summing up” before year’s end, their ordained and impassioned performances are undeniably spreading a magnificent and long lasting “common feast for all that live.” From this rich banquet, the berries will remain on winter’s menu for birds who fly not elsewhere for warmer refuge. The seeds in the lower right corner produced from flowers like the pink and blue morning glories will foster faith and hope for we mortals as they carry the promise of spring through winter’s cold and dark dominion. The scarlet spots in the throat of the yellow Canna will bleed thoughts of Christ into our awareness as we look forward to celebrating His birth in deep December. And the scent and sight of the inimitable rose will take its usual place in memory whilst not in bloom.

I will perpetuate Your memory through all generations; therefore the nations will praise You for ever and ever. ~Psalm 9:6 ✝

Sacred Touches

Life is a time of purpose and anointed blossoming…

Tag Archives: Scarlet