Tag Archives: Tranquility

835. There’s a place in you where you have never been wounded, where there’s a seamlessness in you, and where there is confidence and tranquility in you. ~John O’Donohue

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In out-of-the-way places in your heart,
Where your thoughts never think to wander,
A beginning has been quietly forming,
Waiting until you were ready to emerge.
Though your destination is not yet clear
You can trust the promise of this opening…

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May your heart never be haunted by ghost-structures of old damage.
May you come to accept your longing as divine urgency.
And waste your heart on fear no more.
~Both passages are excerpts
from John O’Donohue

For the Lord takes delight in His people; He crowns the humble with victory. ~Psalm 149:4  ✝

**Edited image via Pinterest

746. I often think that the night is more alive and more richly colored than the day. ~Vincent Van Gogh

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Night, the beloved.
Night, when words fade
and things come alive.
When the destructive analysis of day is done,
and all that is truly important
becomes whole and sound again.
When man reassembles his fragmentary self
and grows with the calm of a tree.
~Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

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Vespers

The golden sun has gone, the busy day is done.
Twilight has come and with it peace draws near
To dwell an hour within my garden walls, while in
The lambent sky the first pale stars appear.
The wheeling shadows that so slowly marked the hours
Have left no impress on the tender grass,
Nor does the air hold fast the patterns bold and free
That winging birds weave as the warm days pass.
The rued pool is stilled at last, and Lily buds
Prepare to open gently to the night
And to the questing moth whose fragile, gauzy wings
Quiver too rapidly for human sight.
In. this tranquillity, touch, hearing, sight are lulled.
I am as selfless as the scented airs
That wrap me round, while daylight’s drowsy flowers
Send out the fragrance of their vesper prayers.
~Marie Nettleton Carroll

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I will praise the Lord, who counsels me; even at night my heart instructs me. ~Psalm 16:7   ✝

**Images of Hawk (Hummingbird) Moths via Pinterest

246. The flower is the poetry of reproduction. It is an example of the eternal seductiveness of life. ~Jean Giraudoux

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I am a symbol of love and immortality.
I have been around since the time of Confucius.
My name came from a Persian word.
At one time I was more expensive than precious metals.
I can be used in the place of an onion in cooking.
I am in the same family as a lily.

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Do you know who I am?  I am a native of Central Asia, and I am the world’s most planted flower.  When I arrived from Turkey in the mid-16th century, I was a gift from the Ottoman Empire that took Western Europe by storm.  But I did not come to the United States until the 1800’s.  There are about 3,000 varieties of me grown around the world, some that originated in the seventeenth century.  My petals come in every shade of the rainbow as well as black, but my most popular color is red.  And I can be forced into blooming after I have been stored in a refrigerator for 12-16 weeks.

A tulip doesn’t strive to impress anyone.
It doesn’t struggle to be different than a rose.
It doesn’t have to.
It is different.
And there’s room in the garden for every flower.
~Marianne Williamson

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I’ve never had much luck with growing tulips in the ground.  So this year I decided to try forcing them in containers.  Two weeks ago after the bulbs had spent the required amount of time in my refrigerator, I planted some in soil and some in glass containers partially filled with pebbles and water.  As of today I’m proud to report that I have tulips sprouting in both types of containers.  Though it be only the 12th of January, springtime has sprung at least in my greenhouse.  One of the most seductive things in life I know is the thrill of the first spark of life in a garden.  Every time I experience it I feel as if a time machine has transported me back to Eden on the third day when creation was “born of the Spirit in the womb of the universe.”  On that day the first seeds were planted in the earth and their roots reached down for the waters that would sustain them.  Then and now such as this is clearly a manifestation of the goodness of God.

I believe that I shall see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.  ~Psalm 27:13  ✝