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

872. The sun is new each day. ~Heraclitus

September 15, 2015 by nataliescarberry

Every day is the world made new.
I have lived all my life up to this moment,
to come to this day. I shall make of this day –
each moment of this day – a heaven on earth.
~Dan Custer

Every morning the world is created.
Under the orange sticks of the sun
the heaped ashes of the night
turn into leaves again and
fasten themselves to the high branches —
and the ponds appear like black cloth
on which are painted islands of summer lilies.
If it is your nature to be happy
you will swim away along the soft trails for hours,
your imagination alighting everywhere.
And if your spirit carries within it
the thorn that is heavier than lead —
if it’s all you can do to keep on trudging —
there is still somewhere deep within you a beast
shouting that the earth is exactly what it wanted —
each pond with its blazing lilies is a prayer
heard and answered lavishly, every morning,
whether or not you have ever dared to be happy,
whether or not you have ever dared to pray.
~Mary Oliver

The whole earth is filled with awe at your wonders; where morning dawns, where evening fades, you call forth songs of joy. ~Psalm 65:8 ✝

**Image via Pinterest

857. If you want to know God, watch a monarch butterfly from a thousand miles away return to a place where it has never been before. ~Author Unknown

September 1, 2015 by nataliescarberry

Butterflies…not quite birds,
as they are not quite flowers,
mysterious and fascinating
as are all indeterminate creatures.
~Elizabeth Goudge

From inside my house today, I’m pretty sure I saw a monarch butterfly fluttering about my yard. This is an occurrence that I look forward to twice a year. For you see from April through June monarchs leave their habitats in groves of fir trees deep in Mexico or in the ancient Mayan ruins of Palenque to begin a journey as far north as southern Canada and in so doing fly over our area. Sadly the monarch’s numbers have decreased tremendously because of the ongoing shrinking of their habitats and the poisoning by farmers of milkweeds (Asclepias) along their flyway. However, I’m still seeing a measure of them every year, and finding these colorful nomadic wanderers in my garden has always been a delightful rite of passage in their dramatic migrations. Monarchs with their burnt-orange and black-veined wings edged in black margins which are sprinkled with white dots are remarkably stunning. That’s why it’s easy in the spring to spot the 5 or 6 generations of them as they go along the way to their northernmost destinations. Since milkweeds are their host plants (the ones on which they lay their eggs), monarchs pause to breed whenever and wherever they find them which is why I purposefully plant some in my yard each year. As though heeding some kind of primordial cosmic call or the birthing scents of autumn at this time of year, the last brood of summer begins the long journey back to Mexico. Though it takes 5 or 6 generations of them to make it northward in the spring, as summer ebbs away a “Methuselah generation” is born, and that unique breed of monarchs makes the journey all the way from Canada deep into Mexico where they’ll cluster in colonies the rest of the year. The fact that this generation of monarchs returns to these places where they have never been speaks of knowledge beyond the grasp of the human mind.

Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge! How unsearchable His judgments, and His paths beyond tracing out! ~Romans 11:33 ✝

**Image via Pinterest

856. August, the summer’s last messenger of misery… ~Henry Rollins

August 31, 2015 by nataliescarberry

August ends today,
and yet summer will continue
by force to grow more days.
They sprout secretly between
the chapters of the year,
covertly between its pages.
~Adapted and edited quote by
Jonathan Safran Foer

Sail away, sail, sail away–oh wretched month of August that brings into such sharp focus the “furious boil” of Texas summers. Your daily assaults of sweltering heat test my sanity, my stamina, and my endurance! As the beast of sizzling nastiness that you are, you’ve successfully bathed the landscape in drab browns and beiges by keeping nary a drop of rain from falling, day after day after drought-ridden day. But, alas and alack, your time coin will be spent at midnight today! And even though the heat of your volcano-like fury will linger a bit longer, at least there are a few visible signs that autumn is on the way. So it is with a huge grin and a hopeful heart that I say goodbye and good riddance!

I cared for you in the wilderness, in the land of the burning heat. ~Hosea 13:5 ✝

843. Deep in the sun-searched growths the dragonfly hangs like a blue thread loosened from the sky… ~Dante Gabriel Rossetti

August 16, 2015 by nataliescarberry

Iridescent sylphs prancing in the breeze
with fast flickering gossamer wings
in a cloud of vivid blue, red, and green.
~Edited excerpt from a poem
by Jacob Fuson

Alight, dragonfly, upon a frail stem,
dance with the wind
beneath the hot, summer sun.
Beneath that brittle shell of yours
is a secret, sacred grace.
~Edited excerpt from a poem
by J. L. Stanley

blue green dragonfly
angel of my garden pond
hunt the mosquito
~Michael K. Thompson

The dragonfly keeps dancing
over the dark water,
the flash of iridescent blue
underneath her wings
quick as a breath
~Edited excerpt from a poem
by Sy Lilang

How graceful and lovely
is the dragonfly as it
flits about under the summer sky
observing the wonders of a garden,
attracted to its vast array of colors
~Natalie Scarberry

I stand stunned
in awe as you
sleekly shimmer by
in a fabulous flurry
of lustrous, dew-laden lapis blue
and jubilant jade green
~Edited excerpt from a poem
by April J

By wisdom the Lord laid the earth’s foundations, by understanding he set the heavens in place by his knowledge the watery depths were divided, and the clouds let drop the dew. ~Proverbs 3:19-20 ✝

**Images via Pinterest, collages by Natalie

839. And soon, too soon, we part with pain to sail o’er silent seas again. ~Thomas Moore

August 12, 2015 by nataliescarberry

It’s an art to live with pain…
to mix the light into gray.
~Eddie Vedder

I have lived pain, and my life can tell,
but I only deepen the wounds
when I neglect to give thanks for
the heavy perfume of wild roses in August
and the song of crickets on humid summer nights
and the rivers that run and the stars that rise
and the rain that falls and all the
good things that a good God gives.
~Edited and adapted excerpt
from Ann Voskamp

The migraine rages on, and once more I’m sailing the silent seas of pain. Though it be a life long story, the Lord has and will again bring me back one day to dry land. ~Natalie

But as for me, afflicted and in pain–may your salvation, God, protect me. ~Psalm 69:29 ✝

**Images found on Pinterest

827. The moon is at her full and riding high… ~William C. Bryant

July 31, 2015 by nataliescarberry

As ancients saw, so do I
A throbbing light, a painted globe
Upon a pinpricked sparkled sky.
Suspended in the nothingness of black
Always there, poetic universal rhyme
Dangling upon an invisible track of time.
~justme

The Moon was but a Chin of Gold
A Night or two ago—
And now she turns Her perfect Face
Upon the World below—
Her Forehead is of Amplest Blonde—
Her Cheek—a Beryl hewn—
Her Eye unto the Summer Dew
The likest I have known—
Her Bonnet is the Firmament—
The Universe—Her Shoe—
The Stars—the Trinkets at Her Belt—
Her Dimities—of Blue—
~Excerpted verses from a poem
by Emily Dickinson

The Eiffel Tower in the photo is blue, and there’s a “blue moon” in the sky tonight – but that doesn’t mean the lunar surface will turn indigo. Tonight’s (July 31) moon will be a gorgeous sight, but it won’t look different than any other full moon. The term Blue Moon has come to refer to the second full moon in a given month (since full moons come around about every 29 days, most months only contain one). So set your sights skyward tonight, but don’t expect a change in the moon’s regular hue.

When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them? ~Psalm 8:3-4 ✝

**Image via Pinterest

822. Color is my day-long obsession, joy and torment. ~Claude Monet

July 28, 2015 by nataliescarberry

Gardens are a
form of autobiography. ~Sydney Eddison

I know that if odour were visible, as colour is,
I’d see the summer garden in rainbow clouds.
~Robert Bridges

When I was in college we used to discuss frequently an old philosophical question about the 5 famous people we’d like to meet and get to know. At that time I’m sure my list was different from what it is today, and back then I was never really sure who would top the list. Though I’m still not sure about who all five would be, I do know for certain who would top the list, Jesus Christ and Claude Monet, and in that order.

A soulmate is defined in the dictionary as a person ideally suited to another as in a close friend or a romantic partner. Perhaps not in a romantic sense but Jesus is the Lover of my soul and therefore is my eternal and divine soulmate, and I’ve long thought of Claude Monet as a soulmate, someone with whom I would love to have been close friends. Needless to say our trip to Giverny confirmed and solidified Monet’s spot at number 2. Sadly there are hundreds and hundreds of people who visit Giverny each day, and we were prodded along much like cattle being driven down a chute so it was hard to get really nice photos or spend as much time lingering as I would have liked. But I did get some to which I have added to a few more that I found on Pinterest and the internet so as to try and give you all an idea of the exquisite beauty of Monet’s gardens and the charm of his house. If you look carefully at the map in the opening photo, you may be able to get an idea at least of the scope and size of Giverny. There are literally flowers EVERYWHERE, and they are scattered over acres and acres. So here we go on today’s leg of my little photo tour of Giverny. Enjoy.

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

812. And sure enough even waiting will end…if you can just wait long enough. ~William Faulkner

July 18, 2015 by nataliescarberry

You can become blind by
seeing each day as a similar one.
Each day is a different one,
each day brings a miracle of its own.
~Paulo Coelho

I’ve always been delighted
at the prospect of a new day,
a fresh try, one more start,
with perhaps a bit of magic waiting
somewhere behind the morning.
~J. B. Priestley

And waiting did come to an end, this day was a different kind of one, and there was magic waiting behind the morning. However, it wasn’t until after much waitng that such as what you see in the photo appeared in my yard, for I had had to plant three passion flower vines before one would survive much less bloom. I know not why the first two vines didn’t make it, but alas and sadly they did not. But determined as I was not to give up I put yet another one in the ground last year, and that one not only survived but actually continued putting on new growth well into autumn. When it died down to the ground as these vines do in winter, I waited and as spring approached watched to see if it was going to make a come back and sure enough it did. The waiting finally ended a week ago when I spied its first two blooms. Then today another of these rather exotic blossoms is prettily perched atop the back fence. So here’s to waiting, morning’s magic, and miracles!

The whole earth is filled with awe at your wonders; where morning dawns, where evening fades, you call forth songs of joy. ~Psalm 65:8 ✝

809. Seasons change with the scenery; weaving time in a tapestry. ~Paul Simon

July 15, 2015 by nataliescarberry

**Important information below haikus and photos…

I saw at first a
bit of her coronal
frilly filaments

In luminous veils,
a hazy shade of summer
and soft purpleness

At the bottom of
the garden where it’s said
fairies often play

Sadly, I am the bearer of worrisome tidings this afternoon. My daughter’s mother-in-law had surgery on Monday, and it seems that her lungs have partially collapsed. Therefore she is still in ICU and struggling to breathe. Thus my post today is brief, and they will remain that way until Alice is “out of the woods” so to speak. It also regrettably means I’ll have little time, if any, to read of your posts for a few days. So excuse my absence and pray for healing and comfort for Alice as she is in great need of the Lord’s mercy and grace during this ordeal.

The Lord sustains him/her on his/her sickbed; in his/her illness He restores him/her to full health. ~Adapted passage from Psalm 41:3 ✝

Sacred Touches

Life is a time of purpose and anointed blossoming…

Tag Archives: Summer

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

872. The sun is new each day. ~Heraclitus

857. If you want to know God, watch a monarch butterfly from a thousand miles away return to a place where it has never been before. ~Author Unknown

856. August, the summer’s last messenger of misery… ~Henry Rollins

843. Deep in the sun-searched growths the dragonfly hangs like a blue thread loosened from the sky… ~Dante Gabriel Rossetti

839. And soon, too soon, we part with pain to sail o’er silent seas again. ~Thomas Moore

827. The moon is at her full and riding high… ~William C. Bryant

822. Color is my day-long obsession, joy and torment. ~Claude Monet

812. And sure enough even waiting will end…if you can just wait long enough. ~William Faulkner

809. Seasons change with the scenery; weaving time in a tapestry. ~Paul Simon