434. If you want to live and thrive let the spider run alive. ~American Quaker saying

July 23, 2014 by nataliescarberry

Little Miss Natalie sat on a tuffet
Pulling her weeds today
Along came a spider
Who sat down beside her
And frightened Miss Natalie away.

Much like a subtle spider which doth sit
In middle of her web, which spreadeth wide;
If aught do touch the utmost thread of it,
She feels it instantly on every side.
~Sir John Davies

Actually the spider didn’t frighten me away because I saw the thing before I ventured into its sticky lair and was keeping an eye on it. There was a time though that had I seen the likes of this guy, I would have let out a yelp, jumped up, and scampered far, far away. But the aging gardener that I am now is way too fascinated by the wondrous and interactive nature of Creation to do that these days. I did, however, not sit on my “tuffet” much longer because I wanted to get a picture of the spider and its web. As spiders go, it was a rather handsome fellow, and I’d never seen a web that had a vertical zig-zag strip down the middle like this one had. But shortly after I got up, grabbed my camera, and got back out there, I had only snapped a couple of shots when one of my yard cats moseyed up at my feet and touched the bottom of the web with his tail. And as Sir Davies suggests the spider felt it because it then scurried quickly up to the top of its web to hide under an overhanging leaf. I waited a bit but it was hot and the spider, it seems, was just not going to leave the safety of its sheltering leaf. So finally I took a deep breath and reached out gingerly to tap the top of the leaf and sure enough when I did down the creature came back to the center of its web. As luck would have it, this time it went down the other side of the web which allowed me to get a shot of its underbelly. So if you look carefully at the photos, you can see its back in the first one and in the second one you see its underside through the web.

Such is the destiny of all who forget God; so perishes the hope of the godless. What they trust in is fragile; what they rely on is a spider’s web. They lean on the web, but it gives way; they cling to it, but it does not hold. ~Job 8:13-15 ✝

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! Like Saint Hildegard Lord, may I too be a feather on your holy breath and spread, like seeds, the gospel abroad.

433. Every moment and every event of every man’s life on earth plants something in his soul. ~Thomas Merton

July 22, 2014 by nataliescarberry

Frilly pink petals
Above a sea of green
Now whole are they
And full of beauty
But soon thye’ll be only remnants
Of an alluring aroma
Held captive briefly by the wind
~Natalie Scarberry

Speaking of pink, the flowers called Pinks (Dianthus) are (in almost all species) pale to dark pink. They typically have a frilled or pinked margin which comes from the verb “pink” that dates from the 14th century and means “to decorate with a perforated or punched pattern.” Some have a delicious spicy fragrance which could be why one species of pinks has been long been called sweet william and also why it attracts bees, birds, and butterflies. Many legends purport to explain how sweet william acquired its English common name, but to date none has been verified. On a “sweet” side note, at the wedding of Prince William and Catherine Middleton included sweet william in her bouquet as tribute to her bridegroom.

Praise the Lord, my soul; all my inmost being, praise His holy name. ~Psalm 103:1 ✝

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! Like Saint Hildegard Lord, may I too to be a feather on your holy breath and spread, like seeds, the gospel abroad.

**Song of the Pink Fairies by Cicely Mary Barker
**Flower photos via Pinterest

432. Colors are the smiles of nature. ~Leigh Hunt, British author

July 21, 2014 by nataliescarberry

Summer is the time when one sheds
one’s tensions with one’s clothes,
and the right kind of day is a jeweled balm
for the battered spirit.
A few of those days and you can become drunk
with the belief that all’s right with the world.
~Ada Louise Huxtable

What color do words like blush, coral, fuchsia, magenta, raspberry, rose, and salmon conjure up? Isn’t it pink, pink that tones down the physical passion of red, replacing it with a gentle, loving energy?

Pink that’s the sweet side of red, pink that’s playfulness and tenderness, pink that’s the color of bubble gum and cotton candy and babies, especially little girls.

Pink that’s charming, pink that soothes the heart and fills it with love, pink that’s feminine and romantic, affectionate and intimate, thoughtful and caring.

Pink that’s compassion and nurturing and unconditional love, pink that’s a sign of hope, pink that represents the sweetness and innocence of the child in all of us.

But pink is not just a color; it embodies a variety of attitudes, all of which are uplifting. There’s the cool and collected pinks, the bold and sassy hotter pinks, the soft and drowsy pinks, and the daring and dramatic deep pinks.

In the spring I think of pink as a somewhat shy presence but as summer’s fiery temperatures rise, pink is anything but timid. In Texas the scorching days of July and August punish the flesh and the spirit relentlessly, but even the smallest touch of pink pours over them like a soothing salve of goodness. The pinks of summer may not entirely keep one from walking “without flinching through the burning cathedral of the summer,” but they do keep the flames from licking up so high that they completely snuff out the breath. While locusts screech, pink flowers murmur softer melodies taking some of the edge off their discordant harmonies and human discomfort. I’ve even seen ribbons of pink in a majestic sunset at the end of a day when they seemed to cool down the heat from the intense, fiery glow of the summer sun.

Praise the Lord, my soul. Lord my God, you are very great; you are clothed with splendor and majesty. The Lord wraps Himself in light as with a garment; he stretches out the heavens like a tent and lays the beams of his upper chamber on their waters. ~Psalm 104:1-2 ✝

431. Let mystery have its place in you; do not be always turning up your whole soil with the ploughshare of self-examination, but have a little fallow corner in your heart ready for any seed the winds may bring… ~Henri-Frédéric Amiel

July 20, 2014 by nataliescarberry

The morning-glory’s blossoming
Will soon be coming round
We see their rows of heart-shaped leaves
Upspringing from the ground.
~Maria White Lowell

breathing in and out I
picture morning glories…
blue, bluer, bluest
~Kirsty Karkow

I love and am fascinated by the mystery of seeds, the ones that I sow, the ones that nature sows, and the ones the Lord sows. The morning glory vines I’ve had for several years now came not from the work of my own hands. They’ve been self-sown, and each year the vines have come up more numerous and hardier than before. Perhaps, it would be so then that if, as Amiel suggests, we left a little fallow corner in our hearts, the “winds” that blow through our lives might bring hardier beauty and more powerful strengths than ever before.

For as the soil makes the sprout come up and a garden causes seeds to grow, so the Sovereign Lord will make righteousness and praise spring up before all nations. ~Isaiah 61:11 ✝

430. Curious dragonfly with wings of stained glass…your delicate beauty keeps wonder in my heart. ~Grace Edwards

July 19, 2014 by nataliescarberry

Let us bless the air,
Benefactor of breath,
Keeper of the fragile bridge
We breathe across.
~John O’Donohue

The Dragonfly

You are made of almost nothing
But of enough
To be great eyes
And diaphanous double vans;
To be ceaseless movement,
Unending hunger,
Grappling love.

Link between water and air,
Earth repels you.
Light touches you only to shift into iridescence
Upon your body and wings.

  Twice-born, predator,
You split into the heat.
Swift beyond calculation or capture
You dart into the shadow
Which consumes you.

You rocket into the day.
But at last, when the wind flattens the grasses,
For you, the design and purpose stop.

And you fall
With the other husks of summer.
~Louise Bogan

Who is like you, Lord? Who is like you — in majestic in holiness, awesome in glory, working wonders? ~Exodus 15:11 ✝

Thank you, 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! Like Saint Hildegard Lord, may I too be a feather on your holy breath and spread, like seeds, the gospel abroad.

429. Pleasure is spread through the earth in stray gifts to be claimed by whoever shall find. ~William Wordsworth

July 18, 2014 by nataliescarberry

May you experience each day
as a sacred gift
woven around the heart of wonder.
~John O’Donohue

It seems that in my zeal for ridding the wondrous things in my gardens from their undesirable companions, the weeds, I have overused my right arm to the point that it’s painful even to do much on my computer or take photographs. So until the healing begins, sadly I will only be able to post short snippets each day and read and respond to a limited amount of your posts. In the meantime, I pray that your cup run over with marvelous things and that all that fills it will always be more than enough.

A gift opens the way and ushers the giver into the presence of the great. ~Proverbs 18:16 ✝

428. Summer looks out from her brazen tower, through the flashing bars of July. ~Francis Thompson

July 17, 2014 by nataliescarberry

Great is the sun, and wide he goes
Through empty heaven with repose;
And in the blue and glowing days
More thick than rain he showers his rays.
~Robert Louis Stevenson

The round, golden face of the great sun began flooding our prairie with its wide showers during June’s infancy. The siege steadily intensified until it broke like a fever a few days ago and our temps fell below the century mark. Then with only a fortnight left in July, clouds moved in, thunder rolled, lightning flashed, and blessed rain fell. The showers didn’t last long, but the landscape soaked up what there was of the precious liquid and things seemed discernibly greener within minutes. The next day the thunder grumbled shortly after daybreak, and following close on its heels rain began to fall off and on. For the first time in months the fierce summer sun has been shrouded all day in the soft grayness of this drippy day. There were no high winds nor hard-driving downpours, just moments here and there of a light rain to drizzle.

Peace was prevalent inside the house and out all day long, and rest became the order of the day. Though there were household chores that needed to be done, I found myself guiltlessly sitting and staring at the grass and flower beds out my big patio window. Even the yard cats remained listlessly curled up in a corner of the porch and only meowed twice for food. They were apparently as content as I to do next to nothing. Few birds moved around the yard while it was raining, and the ones that did venture out were much less lively than usual.

Thankfully, after it was all said and done, the temperature climbed only into the high 70’s. That level of coolness won’t last, but as long as it does the “blue and glowing days” of summer will be significantly more tolerable hereabouts. So I praise God “for the wisdom that fashioned the universe” and that our misery has again been tempered by His mercy.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort. . . ~2 Corinthians 1:3 ✝

427. Man’s heart away from nature becomes hard. ~Standing Bear, Ponca Native American Chief

July 16, 2014 by nataliescarberry

Happiness flutters in the air
whilst we rest among
the breaths of nature.
~Kelly Sheaffer

The best remedy for those who are afraid, lonely or unhappy is to go outside, somewhere where they can be quite alone with the heavens, nature and God. Because only then does one feel that all is as it should be and that God wishes to see people happy, amidst the simple beauty of nature. As longs as this exists, and it certainly always will, I know that then there will always be comfort for every sorrow, whatever the circumstances may be. And I firmly believe that nature brings solace in all troubles. ~Anne Frank

Nature is man’s teacher. She unfolds her treasures to his search, unseals his eye, illumes his mind, and purifies his heart; an influence breathes from all the sights and sounds of her existence. ~Alfred Billings Street

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 ✝

426. Crowds of grasshoppers skip at our feet… thanking the Lord for a life so sweet. ~Jean Ingelow

July 15, 2014 by nataliescarberry

I seeeeeee yoooou!
But from where did you come?
You were not into the camera’s eye at first.
Perhaps it was because my focus
was solely upon your handsome home.
But now that I have spied you,
I wonder if you’ve come into view
in fear of what I’m up to.
But you need not worry Mr. Hophopper
for I will not try to catch or harm you;
I want merely to capture your image
with the magic of my camera.
~Natalie Scarberry

The Summer Day

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean–
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down–
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
With your one wild and precious life?

~Mary Oliver

Let us come before Him with thanksgiving an extol Him with music and song. ~Psalm 95:2 ✝

425. Loveliest of lovely things are they on earth that soon pass away. ~William Cullen Bryant

July 14, 2014 by nataliescarberry

Pretty little pink rosebud
sitting atop your bed of gold rudbeckia
came you too late to last
for July has unlocked the gate
and loosed the heat beast in the garden;
so it is that by mid afternoon
your sweet, rosy petals will have fried.
~Natalie Scarberry

The Rose Fairy Poem  
Best and dearest flower that grows,
Perfect both to see and smell;
Words can never, never tell
Half the beauty of a Rose-
Buds that open to disclose
Fold on fold of purest white,
Lovely pink, or red that glows
Deep, sweet-scented.
What delight  To be a Fairy of the Rose!
~Cicely Mary Barker

Take delight in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart. ~Psalm 37:4 ✝

Sacred Touches

Life is a time of purpose and anointed blossoming…

Tag Archives: Seeds