Wiser and Wilder

“There comes a day, somewhere in the middle of every woman’s life, when Mother Nature herself stands behind us and wraps her arms around our shoulders, whispering

It’s time.

You have taken enough now. It’s time to stop growing up, stop growing older and start growing wiser and wilder.

There are adventures still waiting on you and this time, you will enjoy them with the vision of wisdom and the companionship of hindsight, and you will really let go.

It’s time to stop the madness of comparison and the ridicule of schedule and conformity and start experiencing the joys that a life, free of containment and guilt, can bring.

She will shake your shoulders gently and remind you that you’ve done your bit. You’ve given too much, cared too much, you’ve suffered too much.

You’ve bought the book, as it were, and worn the t-shirt.

Worse, you’ve worn the chains and carried the weight of a burden far too heavy for your shoulders.

It’s time, she will say.

Let it go, really let it go and feel the freedom of the fresh, clean spaces within you. Fill them with discovery, love and laughter. Fill yourself so full you will no longer fear what is ahead and instead you will greet each day with the excitement of a child.

She will remind you that if you choose to stop caring what other people think of you and instead care what you think of you, you will experience a new era of your life you never dreamed possible.

It’s time she will say…

to write the ending, or new beginning, of your own story.”

-Donna Ashworth

Sweet Solstice, Sweet Summer!

“There is a pleasure in the pathless woods

There is a rapture on the lonely shore

There is society, where none intrudes

By the deep sea and music in its roar

I love not man the less

but nature more.

-Lord Bryon

Sweet Solstice!  The nectar of summer absorbed by all of the senses…

The layers of myriad greens, the sensuous breeze, the fragrances of pine and honeysuckle and wild roses, the raven song, the textures of grass under bare legs…. these small yet large, simple yet complex pleasures feed my soul.

Happy Summer, Happy Solstice, Happy Long Languid Days!!

Luminosity

 

“Look carefully around you and recognize the luminosity of souls. Sit beside those who draw you to that.”

-Rumi

“…with thankful attention… looking back…I can always tell which moments had taken on the restful luminosity.  There is a certain stillness, or completion, about them.”

-Hannah Hinchman

“The perceptions of middle age have their own luminosity.”

-Gail Sheehy

“I try to live in the luminosity of things.”

-Meia Geddes

The Door

“The doors to the world of the wild Self are few but precious.

If you have a deep scar, that is a door.

If you have an old, old story, that is a door.

If you love the sky and the water so much

you almost cannot bear it,

that is a door.

If you yearn for a deeper life, a full life, a sane life, that is a door.”

-Clarissa Pinkola Estés

This Is What You Shall Do

Oh Walt Whitman!!

Timeless words that inspire me daily….

“This is what you shall do: Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to every one that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown or to any man or number of men, go freely with powerful uneducated persons and with the young and with the mothers of families, read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of your life, re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul, and your very flesh shall be a great poem and have the richest fluency not only in its words but in the silent lines of its lips and face and between the lashes of your eyes and in every motion and joint of your body.”

-Walt Whitman

Grateful for the Earth

Respect and care for our planet is every day.  With each breath pure nature sustains us at the most fundamental and genuine level of being.

Every Day is Earth Day.

Thank you Mother Nature for your gracious, overwhelming gifts.

I am forever in gratitude.

 

“The wealth of the nation is its air, water, soil, forests, minerals, rivers, lakes, oceans, scenic beauty, wildlife habitats and biodiversity… that’s all there is. That’s the whole economy. That’s where all the economic activity and jobs come from. These biological systems are the sustaining wealth of the world.”

-Gaylord Nelson

“And this, our life, exempt from public haunt, finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, sermons in stones, and good in everything.”

-William Shakespeare

“On Earth Day, we celebrate all the gifts the world and nature make available to us. We recognize our complete dependence on its bounty. And we acknowledge the need for good stewardship to preserve its fruits for future generations.”

-John Hoeven

“When you become scientifically literate, I claim, you become an environmentalist.”

-Bill Nye

Photography, Nature, Animals, Simple Living, Uplifting Words, Sapphire Girls – Love, Truth & Energy!