“Everything that slows us down and forces patience, everything that sets us back into the slow circles of nature, is a help. Gardening is an instrument of grace.”
-May Sarton
Category Archives: Home
Solstice
This summer solstice has been an embrace, an opening, a huge release and a tremendous expansion – inner and outer. What a gift!
Mother Earth in her wisdom, in her sustaining and nurturing power and love, is as ever, guiding, comforting, and expressing beauty in myriad ways.
The wild roses at home are radiating wonder holding rain drops as precious gifts.
It is all a gift to me.
Happy Summer Solstice!
“I too have known loneliness.
I too have known what it is to feel
misunderstood,
rejected, and suddenly
not at all beautiful.
Oh, mother earth,
your comfort is great, your arms never withhold.
It has saved my life to know this.
Your rivers flowing, your roses opening in the morning….”-Mary Oliver
What Feels Real and True
From Mark Nepo’s The One Life We’re Given the quote below helped with perspective today. Mark Nepo creates word tapestries that weave together to provide such solace, and he has provided tremendous peace to me these last weeks.
I am deeply listening and learning, reading and absorbing the foundational and fundamental changes needed in our country, our culture, our society and our world now. Now. From justice for marginalized people of every pigment shade, every circumstance, to respect and care for our nourishing and sustaining Mother Earth, to acknowledgement for the gifts of the wild ones, the plants and the trees that share our planet, much compassion, understanding, support and change are needed. Thank you Mark for helping me to traverse and navigate these tumultuous times.
“During times of deep change, we’re forced to kneel before the silent god of patience; listening—not for direction, but for what feels real and true. Until presence leads to presence. This is how we come to listen to our soul.
I know from my own evolution that most of what the heart knows enters us like lightning, and is already true somewhere inside, while the rest of us struggles to catch up. I’ve also learned that we’re never drawn into a change we’re not ready for, though the change may be difficult.
Under the weight of living, I’m thankful for how gifted we are to have hearts that feel. Thankful for the chance to be tender and thorough and possible one more time. And whenever we dare or are forced to lift each other up or ease each other down, we have the glorious chance to find what we’ve lost in our common story. When we can truly behold each other, we slowly become each other. We become love itself. It’s through love’s eyes that we can see that it’s sweetly enough to have come this far.
So however uncertain tomorrow might seem, I encourage you to withstand the dizziness of freedom and to trust the wisdom that waits in your heart, which knows what it needs to be alive and to stay alive.
No matter what seems unbearable, the well of feeling in the center of our being will never let us down, just as the fire in the center of the Earth will never go out. As you leave our long conversation and walk back into the sweep of your flowering life, I can only assure you that nothing will keep you from being worn to your beauty, that all will be real, and that everything you touch will gift you something.”
-Mark Nepo
The Secrets of Life
“Those who find beauty in all of nature will find themselves at one with the secrets of life itself. ”
-L Wolfe Gilbert
Your World for a Moment
“If you take a flower in your hand and really look at it, it’s your world for a moment.”
-Georgia O’Keeffe
Blushed with Beginning
“This is the time to be slow, Lie low to the wall Until the bitter weather passes.
Try, as best you can, not to let The wire brush of doubt Scrape from your heart All sense of yourself And your hesitant light.
If you remain generous, Time will come good; And you will find your feet Again on fresh pastures of promise, Where the air will be kind And blushed with beginning.
-John O’Donohue
We All Burn Brightly
I was writing in my journal yesterday afternoon, a soft Spring sun streaming through the window into the loft, four candles burning. I paused in my writing to watch the candles burn, and was stricken by the metaphor in front of me, four candles all burning brightly, within the constrictions of their containers, all so different, some new, and some near their extinguishing, but burn with their own unique flames they did. How like people, I thought. All with their own wondrous inner flame of life, and love, and expression in the world, and all burning brightly within the containers of their individual circumstance.
At times those flames are muted, at times blown sideways by the wind, at times straight and strong and unwavering. But still, they burn, we all burn with our inner flame. Our soul’s light, our spirit’s flame, an ardent constant of pure love. This we share with all humanity.
May we honor each of our unique, burning flames today, recognizing that we all endeavor to shine brightly, to share light, within the containers of our circumstances. Young, old, challenged, unwell, unemployed, overwhelmed, peaceful, adapting, unique, wondrous, majestic flames all. Let us acknowledge the sacredness of each flame, and let none be extinguished before their time.
The One Breath
The definition of prayer by Hildegard of Bingen,
“Breathing in and breathing out the one breath of the Universe.”
-Hildegard of Bingen
Prayer indeed. While saying thank you, the most essential prayer.
Mark Nepo in his chapter “A Reality That Keeps Unfolding,” in Seven Thousand Ways to Listen, says of the breath of prayer:
“This is listening with our entire being. It speaks to an immersion of attention that all the traditions aspire to; each claiming in its own way that peace resides in this completeness which arises when our individual sense of being merges with the ongoing stream of being that is the heartbeat of the Universe. Whether these moments arise from great stillness or great suffering or great love, they all seem unexpected and seem to depend on our ability to hold nothing back.”
Timely words in these days of stillness, suffering and great love that we all are experiencing around our planet. Today, may you find this peace residing in completeness with the heartbeat of the Universe as you navigate your new normal.
Hold nothing back.
What Stories Shall We Tell
What a perfect joy to have these lovely, moving, soothing words, this poetic offering, in my inbox this week – so unexpected and appreciated. Thank you Susan!
Notes on a Pandemic
“What stories shall we tell
past knotted fear:Of touching without flesh
of Winter-seeded faith
of viral music trumpeting
imagine all the people
of hands sounding gratitude
of words looped over metered space
threading a collective
of parked tyres, dusty tarmacthe exhaling earth
the constancy of sun
a pink crescent moon
the usual light on
all our faces”-Susan Waters
(“Imagine all the people” credited to John Lennon by Susan Waters, author.)
I loved Susan’s words. “The constancy of sun”, as shown at sunrise here over newly fallen April snow. “The exhaling earth” as she prepares for Spring’s unfolding, the new soft snow blanketing her with the promise of fresh seeping water to nourish the roots of all that is pushing forth.
And when next I find a crescent moon, I will add it to this post…
The World is Holy
“The world is holy. We are holy. All life is holy. Daily prayers are delivered on the lips of breaking waves, the whisperings of grasses, the shimmering of leaves.”
-Terry Tempest Williams
