Tag Archives: Winter

1027. Everyone can identify with a fragrant garden, with beauty of sunset, with the quiet of nature, with a warm and cozy cottage. ~Thomas Kincade

by

30

Many miles away there’s a shadow
on the door of a cottage
on the Shore of a dark Scottish lake.
~Sir Walter Scott

Screen Shot 2016-01-03 at 7.53.37 PM.png

Let there be a cottage….a real cottage…a white cottage, embowered with flowering shrubs, so chosen as to unfold a succession of flowers upon the walls, and clustering round the windows through all the months of spring, summer, and autumn—beginning, in fact, with May roses, and ending with jasmine. Let it, however, not be spring, nor summer, nor autumn—but winter, in his sternest shape. This is a most important point in the science of happiness. And I am surprised to see people overlook it, and think it matter of congratulation that winter is going; or, if coming, is not likely to be a severe one. On the contrary, I put up a petition annually, for as much snow, hail, frost, or storm, of one kind or other, as the skies can possibly afford us. Surely every body is aware of the divine pleasures which attend a winter fire-side: candles at four o’clock, warm hearth-rugs, tea, a fair tea-maker, shutters closed, curtains flowing in ample draperies on the floor, whilst the wind and rain are raging audibly without… ~Thomas De Quincey

Screen Shot 2016-01-03 at 8.03.07 PM.png

Praise the Lord from the earth, you great sea creatures and all ocean depths, lightning and hail, snow and clouds, stormy winds that do his bidding, you mountains and all hills, fruit trees and all cedars… ~Psalm 148:7-9   ✝

**Images via Pinterest

1026. The simplicity of winter has a deep moral. The return of Nature, after such a career of splendor and prodigality, to habits so simple and austere, is not lost either upon the head or the heart. ~John Burroughs

by

11

Winter is the slow-down
Winter is the search for self
Winter gives the silence you need to listen
Winter goes gray so you can see your own colors…
~Terri Guillemets

Screen Shot 2016-01-02 at 6.20.01 PM.png

What is your color? Do you know? If you do, do you like what you see? If you don’t, maybe you should give some thought as to why. For what colors us, colors our world and the way in which we respond to those around us. Perhaps like me, the seasons determine your colors, which I’m given to believe is a good thing. I rather like the idea of being a whole spectrum of colors as opposed to being a monotonous stream of only one or two. Whether such things matter is not the true import of my discourse here however. As Guillemets suggests we truly do need time to slow down, time to rest, time to listen, time to reflect on things for soon we will forge full speed ahead into another year of life that we’ll never get back, that when it’s over will never afford us more chances to change, that when it’s spent will never allow us more time to become all that we are meant to be, that when it ends will never give us other opportunities to forgive, to love, to find and bring peace. So when I find myself grumbling about the grays of sunless, winter days, I tell myself that perhaps they happen because the color gray is a good back drop for discerning the true colors of life, the unmasked face of the world, and our authentic reflection upon its stage.

A year of beauty. A year of plenty.
A year of planting. A year of harvest.
A year of healing. A year of vision.
A year of passion. A year of rebirth.
A year of peace.

This year may we renew the earth.
Let it begin with each step we take.
And let it begin with each change we make.
And let it begin with each chain we break.
And let it begin every time we awake.
~Edited poem by Starhwak

Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom. ~Psalm 90:12   ✝

**Image via Pinterest

1021. Life is a series of little deaths out of which life always returns. ~Charles Feidelson, Jr. 

by

12

There is something frank
and joyous and young
in the open face 
of the country.
It gives itself ungrudgingly
to the moods of the season,
holding nothing back.
~Willa Cather

Screen Shot 2015-12-29 at 6.40.47 PM.png

Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. It’s only two days until the end of the year. The train carrying all of this year’s comings and goings has all but run out of track, and it has been almost 10 days since we entered the season of somber gardens, short, but lengthening days, decidedly lower temperatures, and more-gray-than-blue skies. The reckless abandon of the growing seasons has yielded to winter’s, seemingly unadventurous restraint, and the countryside has been at least somewhat ravaged. The bare bones of the landscape now stand like silent sentinels over treasures buried beneath the soil where masses of autumn’s fallen have come to rest. Although the countryside appears to be wasted and barren, the soil in reality is teeming with life, life which the decaying matter warms and protects. And so it is time for us to rest and reflect on life, love, and home, whatever, whoever, and wherever that might be for you.

~The land enjoyed its sabbath rests… ~Excerpt from 2 Chronicles 36:21  ✝

**Image via Pinterest

1020. Come, see the north wind’s masonry… ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

by

26

Through the sharp air
 a flaky torrent flies…
and hides the gloomy skies;
the fleecy clouds their chilly bosoms bare,
and shed their substances on the floating air.
~George Crabbe

Screen Shot 2015-12-28 at 2.35.35 PM.png

What a weekend weather wise it has been! We’ve been dealt nearly the full gamut of frequent Texas weather patterns in the last 72 hours–high winds, thunder, lightning, heavy rains, flash floods, hail, tornados. And then as if that were not enough, for good measure Mother Nature also threw in an earthquake and a white-out blizzard in the Panhandle and a few other places. On top of that I woke up here to find a smattering of snow on the ground which given that it didn’t freeze overnight nor was it 32 degrees or below when I awoke is very unusual. About the only thing that got skipped the last few days was the intense heat of summer although on Christmas Day the temperature did climb to almost 80 degrees. So hellooooo Winter! It seems you HAVE arrived ready to go, ready to wash off last year’s grime, and bringing nighttime temps right at freezing or below for the next 10 days. Makes me kind of wonder, and a bit fearfully I might add, what more Mother Nature could have up her perfidious sleeve for truly she’s demonstrated once again that she can be most untrustworthy at times.

Screen Shot 2015-12-28 at 2.19.38 PM.png

Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean; wash me, and I will be whiter than snow. ~Psalm 51:7  ✝

**Weather image found on Facebook; all other images taken by Natalie; collages created by Natalie

1019. There’s not one blade of grass, there is no color in this world that is not intended to make us rejoice. ~John Calvin

by

19

We were always intoxicated with color,
with words that speak of color,
and with the sun that makes colors live.
~Andre Derain

Screen Shot 2015-12-27 at 4.33.30 PM.png

By filling the earth with color the Lord has painted a kind of portrait of himself, and in so doing He has revealed an intentional path to His throne. This is no less true in winter for color is a continuous, rhythmic part of the mystery of God’s life and thus is deeply rooted in all four seasons. Winter may allow periodic breathing spaces for garden and gardener on forbidding days, cold and lacking in sunshine, but on days when the sun does make an appearance, there’s the usual soft, golden glow at sunrise, the sometimes pinky/purply bands low on the eastern horizon at day’s end, and the random blazing red and orange streaks of intensely tinted sunsets in the west. On occasional cloudless nights, there’s the white glow of the moon at times illuminating the deep indigo canopy overhead; on days when the bright yellow sun shines, there are the china blues of daytime skies, and when the sun doesn’t appear, there are the lovely, velvety grays of clouds filled with rain or  in rolling fogs or mists. I’ve heard winter called the season of drabness of the spirit yet I find bliss and hope not only in the things I’ve already mentioned but also in the reds of winter berries and the cardinals at the feeders, in the white of snow when it falls, in the silvery sparkles of icicles and frosts, in the constancy of green on hollies, conifers, spruces, and such, in the beiges and browns of dried grasses, autumn leaves, and seed pods, in the magenta of hyacinth bean seed pods or ornamental grass seed heads, and on and on it goes, the glorious, never ending sacred voice of color.

Of all God’s gifts to the sighted man,
color is the holiest, the most divine…
~John Ruskin

…for God’s gifts and His call are irrevocable. ~Romans 11:29  ✝

**Images and collage by Natalie

 

1013. I saw old autumn in the misty morn stand shadowless like silence, listening 
to silence. ~Thomas Hood

by

16

After the leaves have fallen, we return
To a plain sense of things.  It is as if
We had come to an end of the imagination,
Inanimate in an inert savoir(way of knowing).
~Wallace Stevens

Screen Shot 2015-12-21 at 2.25.26 PM.png

O splendid, lusty autumn, you who come with a subtle change in the light, with skies a deeper blue, with cooler days and lengthening chilly nights, it is, I’m sad to say, time for you to go. This year’s first frosts have come and gone, migratory birds have vanished over distant horizons, and crops have been harvested from garden and field alike. And all the while your while beauty and bounty “shined unconfined” as your days spread a “common feast for all that live.” Grateful are we to God and thee, o “season of mists and mellow fruitfulness” that rains fell in good measure and gusty winds laid abundant, leafy blankets over the ground in protective readiness against winter’s icy blasts.

silence
seeks the center
of every tree and rock,
that thing we hold closest
-
the end of mere songs
~Michael McClintock

O Lord, I have truly enjoyed listening to nature’s solemn, autumnal hymns once again. And I’ve watched in wonder as leaf upon leaf floated down disrobing the earth. Now I find delight in the millions of shining stars I can see through the bare tree branches, and I know, according to Your promises, that when autumn’s allotted sands of time run out of this year’s hourglass that it’s not an ending. So I’ll go to bed tonight assured that with the arrival of the winter solstice near midnight this evening that the slamming shut of fall’s back door is in reality just a new beginning, a fresh start that will usher in another season, a season of restful silences. Thus at the morrow’s first light, I will rise and begin in earnest to prepare my heart to welcome Your son, Emmanuel, and to rest–to rest, to observe, to listen, and to continue worshiping You.

As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease. ~Genesis 8:22  ✝

**Image via Pinterest

1009. Who, what, where, when, and why?

by

12

Every single word you read
Has a lot going on, you see?
So read this age-old story,
As it is a blessed advisory.

Screen Shot 2015-12-17 at 4.30.42 PM.png

The first Noel the angels did say
Was to certain poor shepherds as they lay
In fields where they lay a keeping their sheep
On a cold winter’s night that was so deep.

Screen Shot 2015-12-17 at 4.29.37 PM.png

They looked up and saw a star
Shining in the east beyond them far:
And to the earth it gave great light
And so it continued both day and night.

Screen Shot 2015-12-17 at 4.21.27 PM.png

And by the light of that same star
Three wise men came from the country far;
To seek for a King was their intent,
And to follow the star wherever it went.

“Go and search carefully for the child. As soon as you find him, report to me, so that I too may go and worship him.” ~Excerpt from Matthew 2:8  ✝

**All images via Pinterest

994. Give me the end of the year an’ its fun when most of the plannin’ an’ toilin’ is done… ~Edgar A. Guest

by

16

December finds himself again a child
Even as he undergoes his age.
Cold and early darkness now descends,
Embracing sanctuaries of delight.
~Nicholas Gordon

Screen Shot 2015-12-05 at 7.37.37 PM

Why do we feel restored in December
As in a sacramental time and place?
Therein Mystery is artfulness,
And therein too a vision of peace is stored,
So that healing flows from it through our eyes.
~Edited and adapted excerpt
from May Sarton

Screen Shot 2015-12-05 at 7.18.15 PM

As the year draws to an end and winter and Christmas approach, “Shall we liken what has and is coming to pass to the web in a loom?  There have been and still are many weavers, who work into the pattern the experience of their lives. When one generation goes, another comes to take up the weft where it has been dropped. The pattern changes as the mind changes, yet never begins quite anew. At first, we are not sure that we discern the pattern, but at last we see that, unknown to the weavers themselves, something has taken shape before our eyes, and that they have made something very beautiful, something which compels our attempt at understanding.” ~Edited & adapted excerpt  by Earl W. Count

…the Lord turn His face toward you and give you peace. ~Numbers 6:26   ✝

**Both images via Pinterest

966. Some places speak distinctly. ~Robert Louis Stevenson

by

9

Paris is a place where just walking down a street
that I’ve never been down before
is like going to a movie or something.
Just wandering the city is entertainment.
~Wes Anderson

Screen Shot 2015-11-23 at 10.20.25 AM

Every time I look down on this timeless town
Whether blue or gray be her skies
Whether loud be her cheers or whether soft be her tears
More and more do I realize
That I love Paris in the spring time
I love Paris in the fall
I love Paris in the winter when it drizzles
I love Paris in the summer when it sizzles
I love Paris every moment
Every moment of the year
I love Paris, why oh, why do I love Paris?
Because my love is there.
~Excerpted lyrics
by songwriters Blondy, Alpha

I ran across this image of Paris last night on Pinterest, and the splendor of it brought into the foreground of my mind once again why, like the song above says, I love Paris every moment of the year. The river is the beautiful Seine. Over the two bridges in the foreground on the Île de la Cité is Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Paris with its renowned flying buttresses. In the background I see the top of the Musée de l’Orangerie des Tuileries, the permanent home for 8 of Monet’s water lily murals as well as works by Cezanne, Matisse, Modigliani, Picasso, Renoir, Rousseau, Sisley, and others. Behind that I see the top of the Arc de Triomphe de l’Étoile. And these are only a few of the things that so long ago made captive my heart. Gertrude Stein once said that the US was her country and that Paris was her home. I instantly understood how she felt. Glad am I that the Lord who delights to give us the desires of our hearts is  faithful to His promises for twice now He has granted me the opportunity to spend time in the magical place that is the city of Paris. Ooh la la! Je t’adore Paris!

Your love, Lord, reaches to the heavens, your faithfulness to the skies. ~Psalm 36:5  ✝

961. The wind shows us how close to the edge we are. ~Joan Didion   

by

34

 I hear the wind among the trees
Playing the celestial symphonies;
I see the branches downward bent,
Like keys of some great instrument.
~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Screen Shot 2015-11-21 at 3.16.26 PM

And this time of year the edge is often closer than we hope or realize. But oh so visible did that brink become when we awoke this morning to find a cold, blustery north wind bearing down upon us. I’m never ready to say goodbye to the still blooming remnants in the garden. Nonetheless, I sensed earlier in the week that their demise was imminent and started putting the potted ferns and clock vine in the greenhouse. What’s more I decided to buy a large container in which to plant pansies, snapdragons, stock, alyssum, Sweet William, and cyclamen for like Monet, I always, always have to have flowers. So now I’m guaranteed to have flowery beauty along with luscious scents and colors even as late autumn’s unraveling continues to roll us over into winter’s drab and ofttimes forbidding realm. The potted beauty is on a much smaller scale than what grows and blooms in the yard, and the display is not as visible from my recliner in the house. However, the descent into winter’s “vale of grief” and the season’s allotted time thereafter never seems as stark when I go out to the greenhouse to check on the warmth inside, to look after the plants, and to give them all a drink of water.

National Weather Service Forecast:
This Afternoon
Sunny, with a high near 50. Windy, with a north wind 20 to 25 mph, with gusts as high as 35 mph.
Tonight
Patchy frost after 3am. Otherwise, mostly clear, with a low around 30. North wind 5 to 15 mph, with gusts as high as 20 mph.
Sunday
Patchy frost before 10am. Otherwise, sunny, with a high near 53. North wind around 5 mph becoming calm in the morning.
Sunday Night
Clear, with a low around 33. South wind around 5 mph.

The wind blows to the south and turns to the north; round and round it goes, ever returning on its course. ~Ecclesiastes 1:6  ✝

**Images in my collage are from photos I took in my garden last week.