Delightful candy apples,
A red carmel coating,
Sticky with each bite you take.
making faces red.
~Sylvia
Sylvia’s poem above is Dodoitsu which is a form of Japanese poetry developed towards the end of the Edo Period. Dodoitsu poems consist of four lines with the syllabic structure 7-7-7-5, no rhyme or metre is used, and any subject is acceptable.
Keep me as the apple of Your eye; hide me in the shadow of Your wings. ~Psalm 17:8 ✝
**Candy Apple Image found on Pinterest
This is the blessing for rain after drought:
Come down, wash the air so it shimmers,
a perfumed shawl of lavender chiffon.
Let the parched leaves suckle and swell.
Enter my skin, wash me for the little
chrysalis of sleep rocked in your plashing.
In the morning the world is peeled to shining.
~A verse from a poem by Marge Piercy
Land that drinks in the rain often falling on it and that produces a crop useful to those for whom it is farmed receives the blessing of God. ~Hebrews 6:7 ✝
Let it rain! Let it rain! Let it rain! And Word of God speak, and pour down like rain, and let us rest in Your holiness!
**Image via Pinterest
Let there never be forgot,
that once there was a spot,
for one brief, shining moment
that was known as Camelot.
~Lerner and Lowe, 1960
The line above from the Broadway musical makes a statement that in fact there was a Camelot, and many people, including President John F. Kennedy, seemed to believe that it was a real time and place in history. Real or not so real, it was the legendary, marvelously magical time and place of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. For me it’s magical moments in time when things ever so extraordinary and good are happening in the awakening landscape. Then sadly when they get nipped in the bud by a bitter, cold snap, it’s a betrayal of sorts not unlike what brought an end to the glory of Camelot. Such is what happened night before last to the pretty babies in the photographs. But I shall not curse late February for telling the traitorous lies that led to their demise; instead I rejoice that they came at all. Even if only for a few days their “brief, shining moment” in the garden’s “kingdom of Camelot” was stunningly beautiful.
By the breath of God ice is given, and the broad waters are frozen fast. ~Job 37:10 ✝
January is the quietest month in the garden.
. . .But just because is looks quiet
doesn’t mean that nothing is happening.
The soil, open to the sky, absorbs the pure rainfall
while microorganisms convert tilled-under fodder
into usable nutrients for the next crop of plants.
The feasting earthworms tunnel along,
aerating the soil and preparing it to welcome
the seeds and bare roots to come.
~Rosalie Muller Wright
I’ve heard it said that “the color of springtime is in the flowers” whereas “the color of winter is in the imagination.” Thankfully I’ve got a good imagination, and when that fails, I have a large collection of photos to look back on because by the end of January my spirit is in dire need of a boost. A place I like to frequent also helps to keep my imagination alive and well. It’s a nursery, and this particular Dallas nursery not only has a great selection of flowers during the growing seasons, but year round it has all sorts of indoor plants too. In addition to the plants it has an oak cabinet with drawers full of fascinating seeds, racks of seed packets, shelves filled with gardening books, and an array of tools. So between the plant and seed catalogs that start arriving in the mail after Christmas and my visits to Nicholson-Hardie’s nursery, the “dream” is kept alive even when the under-the-surface busy but ravaged-atop January garden appears to be completely shut down. And it is this “stuff” of which gardener’s dreams are made that keeps my imagination churning and my head full of schemes, schemes that are the spice of a gardener’s life. What a blessing is our memory, our imagination, and our ability to dream; God is so good.
I will praise the name of God with a song; I will magnify Him with thanksgiving. ~Psalm 69:30 ✝
Is it winter? Is it not?
Is it cold? Is it hot?
The two-headed Janus knows not.
Where I live unseasonable warming trends often occur in January, and when the month keeps its “box” open-ended long enough, some things in the garden are duped into thinking it’s time to get going. If the lie that spring is upon us continues on into February, that month as well is made a partner in the deceiving treachery. Then when the wintry weather falls back into place and worsens, as it nearly always does, the new growth is the innocent victim of the two traitorous libertines. Such is exactly what happened last year when they were finally exposed as the charlatans they were by a mid-February ice storm. After weeks of mild weather, frigid rain descended from a whitish cloud cover blown in on arctic winds. As the temperatures fell from the 70’s and 80’s to well below the freezing mark and everything became encapsulated in tombs of ice, an almost audible death knell sounded. For days the sun was unable to burn a hole in the clouds, and while the storm’s icy bite endured, the birds who over winter in my yard were, if visible at all, seen only in the mornings. When they were present, I’d see them huddled close to their birdhouses or in the bay tree or azaleas near the house, but by afternoon they’d have disappeared completely into the day’s dismal gloom. Neither did I see any of my neighbors nor the squirrels who’d been so busy as of late, and that collective absence of life forms led to a disturbing sense of aloneness that I did not like at all.
Be merciful to me, O God, be merciful to me, for in you my soul takes refuge; in the shadow of your wings I will take refuge, until the destroying storms pass by. Psalm 57:1 ✝
When we look deeply into the heart of a flower,
we see clouds, sunshine, minerals, time, the earth,
and everything else in the cosmos in it.
~Thich Nhat Hanh
Color is my daylong obsession, joy, and torment. ~Claude Monet
The richness I achieve comes from nature, the source of my inspiration. ~Claude Monet
I perhaps owe having become a painter to flowers. ~Claude Monet
Like Monet, I must always, always have flowers, and I’ve discovered that cut flowers do little to satisfy that hunger. I need to have flowers that, as in nature, are alive and growing, and to that end my greenhouse is a godsend. From my chair in our family room I have a clear shot at the back shelf through the window in its door, and so that space is reserved during the winter months for potted flowers that aren’t suited to our Texas climate except as cool weather annuals. Also like Monet, I must have color, lots and lots of color, and so the more bright and colorful the flowers are the better. And again, like Monet I wanted to become a painter, but that’s where the likeness between us ends. I may have found a way to have flowers and color but not the talent to translate that beauty onto a canvas. However, the Lord in His gracious goodness did not let it end there. During my years as a teacher I was asked at one time to sponsor the high school’s yearbook. During that 5 year period I learned from the book’s professional publisher how to take photos, how to edit and crop them, and how to lay them out on a page in an eye-appealing manner. Then after I retired, with that training still in place, I discovered the amazing technology of digital photography, and voila, who’s to say an artist of sorts wasn’t born.
For you, O Lord, have made me glad by your work; at the works of your hands I sing for joy. Psalm 92:4 ✝
Oh fog! Oh fog!
What can I say?
You’ve painted the day
A thick shade of grey.
~Adapted excerpt from a poem by Andrew D. Robertson
A textbook definition of fog is that it is a collection of water droplets or ice crystals suspended in the air at or near the Earth’s surface–a cloud of sorts, as it were. Since it wasn’t cold enough last night for this one to have been formed from ice crystals, it had to have been from the little bit of misting rain we got yesterday. Thus, the only strange thing is that I’ve never seen a fog of either kind come so early or last as long as this one has, at least here in north central Texas. And the somewhat dense fog not only wrapped its arms around the morning, but it has also kept us held tightly in its embrace all day long. Furthermore, as darkness closed in on us, it still hadn’t lifted.
The fog is an illusion–
A master of disguise;
Which hides the tangible
Before our very eyes.
It gives an air of mystery
That has long prevailed.
Dangerously intriguing
Is the fog’s foggy veil.
~Excerpts from a poem by W. Salley
In the silence of its thick haze this strange January fog has been reducing visibility and cloaking our city and the outlying areas in its mysterious veil of shyness since first light. In grayness not unlike a pigeon’s feather, it has literally held our world close to the ground all day long, coating all the eyes could see. And lying heavy on all that it encompassed, it kept the sun pushed back which sheltered the earth, smothered most of the day’s colors, and blurred everything as it clung to all possible shapes it could find.
Foggy mist, misty fog
Marvelous manifestation
Of magnificent nature!
~N. Subbarman
The fog descends
in the wee hours of dawn
like a sacred thing.
~John Tiong Chunghoo
Like most weather events, fog is often seen as some kind of spiritual force as it creeps along the ground and across the sky. Actually there seems to be something about all weather phenomena that lends itself to perceptions of sanctity. Perhaps tis so because all such events fall from the heavens overhead or, like the fog, are a part of earth’s mysterious beneath-the-surface workings. And because they are beyond our control, we feel helpless to stop them and sometimes lives as well as homes are lost in the wake of the more forceful ones. Genesis tells us that a mighty wind swept over the waters as God set about the business of Creation, and in His hands He held the elements of earth, air, fire, and water. As He cast them out upon the wind, they were carried throughout the universe on its wild wings. How could one not stand in awe and consider sacred such immense and mysterious powers!
In the beginning when God created the heavens and earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters. Genesis 1:1 ✝
In my garden there is a large place for sentiment.
My garden of flowers is also my garden of thoughts and dreams.
The thoughts grow as freely and the flowers,
and the dreams are as beautiful.
~Abram L. Urban
One of the fascinating things about a garden is that it’s never quite the same from year to year even if nothing is lost or nothing new is planted. Depending on the variable nature of the weather and the seasons, there is always a difference from one year to the next in the way things grow and perform. Since a garden is a living, breathing entity, it is always in a state of flux, a continuous inconstancy of gain and loss, rise and fall. For example one never knows how many seeds will germinate and flourish or when they or something established will perish for one inexplicable reason or another. So, like people, a garden awaits another “voice” each year, and every ending in it and us yields a new and somewhat different beginning. Whatever was said and done last year is just that for both nature and humanity, and I’ve found it best to leave what was said and done in the past where it belongs. Neither do I spend time thinking about new year’s resolutions because I know that the seasons in my life are always different and therefore evoke different feelings within me and different responses from me.
Time and time again life rises from death, and when it does, one can feel the beating heart of heaven and hear the hushed voice of grace–that unchanging holy voice of grace, that sacred in-and-out breath of life, the Presence that captures me again and again and again. For me that is the only constancy, and I simply cannot live without it or the Ancient of Days by whose grace I live.
“The sounds, the aromas, the speech of life that infiltrates and seduces in heard and unheard melodies echoing from every life form to cocoon, to feed us, to excite us, to give solace, to renew, to cry in joy and sorrow, to create, to birth, to laugh at the sheer exuberance of feeling, I love.” ~Patricia at: http://theenglishprofessor.net/qualifications.php
Obey the Lord and serve Him faithfully with all your heart; consider all the great things He has done for you. ~1 Samuel 12:24 ✝
…But though to the outer ear these trees are now silent,
their songs never cease.
Every hidden cell is throbbing with music and life,
every fiber thrilling like harp strings…
~John Muir, American naturalist and author
In this particular writing Muir eventually goes on to say that it’s “no wonder the hills and groves were God’s first temples.” When one thinks about earth’s courts in such a way, he/she realizes that trees, whose roots are three times the size of the tree itself, monopolize large chunks of the planet’s hallowed ground, and so it’s not surprising that throughout the ages trees have been endowed with profound and sacred meanings. For example, by observing the growth and death of trees, the flexible nature of their branches, the annual reoccurrence of their foliage, many have regarded trees as powerful symbols of growth, decay, and resurrection. In addition to their aesthetic appeal, trees prevent soil erosion; they provide weather-sheltered ecosystems in and under their leaves; they play a vital role in the production of oxygen and the reduction of carbon dioxide; they moderate ground temperatures; and some even produce sumptuous orchard fruits. Trees also speak to mortal men of the largeness and power of their Creator, and their lofty heights as well as the views afforded from them are envied by those who dare not climb their towering trunks.
The Lord God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground–trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food. ~Genesis 2:9a ✝
Spooky wild and gusty;
swirling dervishes of rattling leaves race by,
fleeing the wildflung deadwood
that cracks and thumps behind.
~Dave Beard
White, the world is still white, very white and very frozen! And the only movements I see out my window this morning are leaves fluttering to the ground and birds coming to the feeders for breakfast and the bird baths for water. Sadly all the birdbaths are so frozen that no matter how hard they peck at the ice, there’s no water beneath it to be had. So after putting in enough chair time to be fully awake, I braved the cold and took them a bowl of water. As I inched along on the frozen ground, I noticed that some of the fallen leaves from the red oak were striking lovely poses wherever they’d fallen. One of them had even lodged itself quite prettily inside a large ceramic pot I’d emptied of its greenhouse-bound contents. Once back inside after my errand of mercy and a few snaps of the camera, I heard on the news that there was a 30% chance of more sleet today and that the temperature would remain well under the freezing mark. It really didn’t feel all that bad while I was out, but it seems we are in for another forced stay-at-home day. I won’t complain though for like the birds I have much for which to be thankful. The birds too have warmth and safety? Indeed they do, for the ones who are cavity nesters, I’ve put in place plenty of birdhouses around the yard and for the others several kinds of evergreens have been planted. If God stewards and provides for me, and he does so well, how can I not in turn steward and provide for all that He has given me?
For if, by the trespass of the one man, death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive God’s abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ! ~Romans 5:17 ✝
Sacred Touches 