Tag Archives: Sun

637. Love is a symbol of eternity. It wipes out all sense of time, destroying all memory of a beginning and all fear of an end. ~Author Unknown

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I arise from dreams of thee
In the first sweet sleep of night,
When the winds are breathing low,
And the stars are shining bright.
~Percy Bysshe Shelley

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I want no world (for beautiful you are my world)
and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart
I carry your heart (I carry it in my heart)
~Excerpted lines from a poem
by e.e. cummings

The Lord appeared to us in the past saying: “I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with unfailing kindness. ~Jeremiah 31:3   ✝

**Image via Pinterest

636. Painters use red like spice. ~Derek Jarman


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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.”
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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
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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.
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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

629. One of the most delightful things about a garden is the anticipation it provides.
~W. E. Johns 

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The greatest achievement was at first
and for a time a dream.
The oak sleeps in the acorn,
the bird waits in the egg,
and in the highest vision of the soul
a waking angel stirs.
Dreams are the seedlings of realities.
~James Allen

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Part of the genius of God’s grand design is that we awaken every day to a fresh flowing of His energy and vitality that has been stored in the seeds of our being, seeds that possess the same strength as that of the rising sun, earth’s swelling seas, and its fertile plains. An excellent time to look for the shining of His everlasting light in the “sanctuary of the soul” is in the first waking moments of each new day. That inward realm is where doors open to the germination of new life because inside each one of us the Lord has planted His “seeds of greatness.” There’s never a moment in life when either in and of ourselves or in the people around us that there are not yet unopened gifts of promise. Simply put, “heaven’s creativity on earth” is born in our bodies, and therein the Master’s “sacred hopes” are hidden.

From heaven the LORD looks down and sees all mankind; from His dwelling place He watches all who live on earth-He who forms the hearts of all, who considers everything they do. ~Psalm 33:13-15   ✝

**Image via Pinterest

622. The temple bell stops but I still hear the sound coming out of the flowers. ~Matsuo Bashō

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If a poem is thin, it is likely so not because
the poet does not know enough words,
but because he or she has not stood long enough
among the flowers-has not seen them in any
fresh, exciting, and valid way.
~Mary Oliver

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I am a kind word uttered and repeated
By the voice of Nature;
I am a star fallen from the
Blue tent upon the green carpet.
I am the daughter of the elements
With whom Winter conceived;
To whom Spring gave birth;
I was Reared in the lap of Summer and I
Slept in the bed of Autumn.

At dawn I unite with the breeze
To announce the coming of light;
At eventide I join the birds
In bidding the light farewell.

The plains are decorated with
My beautiful colors, and the air
Is scented with my fragrance.

As I embrace Slumber the eyes of
Night watch over me, and as I
Awaken I stare at the sun,
which is The only eye of the day.

I drink dew for wine, and hearken to
The voices of the birds, and dance
To the rhythmic swaying of the grass.
~Excerpted verses from Song of the Flower

~by Khalil Gibran

By day the Lord directs his love, at night his song is with me—a prayer to the God of my life. ~Psalm 42:8  ✝

615. The sun came up like gold through the trees, and I felt like I was in heaven. ~Harriet Tubman

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The sun, with all those planets
revolving around it and dependent on it,
can still ripen a bunch of grapes
as if it had nothing else in the universe to do.
~Galileo Galilei

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The Sun
Have you ever seen
anything
in your life
more wonderful

than the way the sun,
every evening,
relaxed and easy,
floats toward the horizon

and into the clouds or the hills,
or the rumpled sea,
and is gone–
and how it slides again

out of the blackness,
every morning,
on the other side of the world,
like a red flower

streaming upward on its heavenly oils,
say, on a morning in early summer,
at its perfect imperial distance–
and have you ever felt for anything
such wild love–
do you think there is anywhere, in any language,
a word billowing enough
for the pleasure

that fills you,
as the sun
reaches out,
as it warms you

as you stand there,
empty-handed–
or have you too
turned from this world–

or have you too
gone crazy
for power,
for things?
~Mary Oliver

…May the Lord bless his land with the precious dew from heaven above and with the deep waters that lie below; with the best the sun brings forth and the finest the moon can yield; with the choicest gifts of the ancient mountains and the fruitfulness of the everlasting hills… ~Deuteronomy 33:13-15   ✝

** Image, “Sunlight” by Heather Reichard, via Pinterest

613. But soft, what light through yonder window breaks? ~William Shakespeare

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Here comes the sun
and I say, it’s all right…
Little darlin’, it seems like years
since it’s been clear….
~Excerpted lyrics by John Lennon
George Harrison, and Paul McCartney

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Degree by degree by degree a glow appears on the eastern horizon. Brighter and lighter it grows as inch by inch by inch the sun lifts night’s shades higher and higher revealing a cloudless sky was washed clean of the cold, greys of past days. Up and up and up rises the blaze of the sun, ancient bearer of light and warmth and cheer. In the rising incandescence the busy birds are chirpier, the scampering squirrels are friskier, and the prowling feral cats are bushy-tailed. The sun, the sun, the marvelous sun–now it’s kissing the tips and tops of things before oozing and spreading like melting butter on a warm piece of toast over everything it touches. The morning air, charged with electricity in anticipation of its fullness, is kindling a warmer rhythm for this wintry day, and when the first splinters of the sun’s golden rays finally run across the garden and lawn, the dance of life will pulse strong again in hearts and feet alike. And then, when there is light, glorious, glorious light, we shall rise and greet thee, O Lord, with glad and grateful hearts.

And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. ~Genesis 1:3-4   ✝

**Image via Pinterest

594. The wise still seek Him. ~Author Unknown

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The media is increasingly devoted to fear-inducing subject matter: terrorism, serial killers, environmental catastrophes, and so on. And yet, every day the Lord’s grace is made manifest in countless places and situations, and He showers blessings and outright miracles on our planet. ~Edited excerpt from JESUS CALLING by Sarah Young

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Let us remember that He has given us
the sun and the moon and the stars,
and the earth with its forests and mountains and oceans–
and all that live and move upon them.
He has given us all green things
and everything that blossoms and bears fruit–
and all that we quarrel about
and all that we have misused–
and to save us from our own foolishness,
from all our sins,
He came down to earth and gave us Himself.
~Sigrid Undset,
Nobel prize-winning Norwegian novelist

God is our refuge and strength,an ever-present help in trouble.Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea,  though its waters roar and foam and the mountains quake with their surging. ~Psalm 46:1-3   ✝

**Image via Pinterest

593. It is in the nature of cats to do a certain amount of unescorted roaming. ~Adlai Stevenson

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Prowling his own quiet backyard
or asleep by the fire,
he (a cat) is only a whisker
away from the wilds.
~Jean Burden

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Twas three days after Christmas, and all through the yards
Nothing was stirring, not even wind-blown papery discards;
The feeders were hung by the greenhouse with care,
In hopes the red cardinals soon would be there;
And seedlings were nestled snug in leafy beds,
While thoughts of springtime danced in my head;
The squirrels in their nests and I in my chair,
Lay resting ourselves from yesterday’s fare,
When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter,
I sprang from my chair to see what was the matter.
Away to the window I flew like a flash
And raised the bamboo curtain and tied up its sash.
The lowering gray clouds of a cold winter’s day
Had earlier shrouded the land in garments of gray.
Now in the sun what to my wondering eyes did appear
But a feral feline running a path both straight and clear.
With a blue jay held loosely in her clenched jaw awry
The proud huntress lost her grip and away it did fly
Leaving her to wonder
Why her incursion was put asunder.
~A parody of Clement’s
Twas the Night Before Christmas 

…a time to weep and a time to laugh… ~Ecclesiastes 3:4a   ✝

I was laughing so hard after what I’d seen, I couldn’t resist the urge for some playfulness and thus wrote the parody above.  The cat, however, was not amused at all by what had happened.

**Image via Pinterest

585. On the first day of winter, the earth awakens to the cold touch of itself. ~Laura Lush

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Alas! how changed from the fair scene,
When birds sang out their mellow lay,
And winds were soft, and woods were green,
And the song ceased not with the day!
~Excerpt from poem 
by
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

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Winter is Awakening
The Solstice Sun is Rising

The Heart of Nature
dreaming
Poems of Earth
now sleeping

The Seasons are
weaving
The journeys
of Creation

The Seeds
are Quickening
in Mother Nature’s
Sacred Wing

~Edited poem by Victoria Pettella

Perhaps I will stay with you for a while, or even spend the winter, so that you can help me on my journey, wherever I go. ~1 Corinthians 16:6   ✝
(Paul was speaking here to Christ followers in Corinth, but this could well be a prayer we lift up unto the Lord for safe passage through winter’s dark realm.)

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572. The creation of a thousand forests is in one acorn. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

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When the oak is felled
the whole forest echoes with its fall,
but a hundred acorns are sown
in silence by an unnoticed breeze.
~Thomas Carlyle

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A tiny acorn falls from a towering tree. An even tinier seed drops from a flowering plant. Deciduous trees and shrubs lose their sheltering leaves. Perennials die down to the shivering ground when the first hard freeze comes, and the flourishing grass withers and turns brown. At a glance there is no telling proof of life as the sun and moon pass over barren fields throughout the short, cold days and the long colder nights of late autumn and wintertime. Yet the world doesn’t pass into nothingness. What the Lord spoke into the void remains alive in dark, inner chambers where it lies in wait, waiting patiently with expectancy for moments in time when a spark will activate the memory of what Yahweh spoke, and once again life emerges from sacred, secret places. Then sunlight and rain, filled with the same kind of holiness, nurtures the new growth and urges it on to another round of completion. For in the faithful and ongoing rites of passage in springtime under the multitudinous orbs of heaven, life goes on directed by the ancient and engulfing rhyme and reason of the Maker of Heaven and Earth who is as omnipresent now as He has ever and always been.

So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. ~2 Corinthians 4:18   ✝

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