Tag Archives: Spring

Flowers, Home, Inspiring Words, Nature, Photography, Sweet Breathing

When The Human World Seems Heavy

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Brigit Anna McNeill always in all ways uplifts a heavy heart. She brings us a welcome fresh perspective, deeper, one that is healing and true. May her words heal and uplift you today. Let’s drop the heaviness and lean in to nature’s gifts and strengths, remembering that we are “wild, wise and ensouled.” Yes.

“When the human world feels heavy, take yourself to the homely arms of oak, into the whispers of the ocean and find the call of bird.

Let new languages, new sounds, new meanings fill your bones.

Let the beauty of this more than human world settle your frightened heart.

Let your wider community show you, strengthen you, let them tell you stories of the wildness that is seeded from the darkness.

Find the white of blackthorn blossom amidst the bare spaces, the gold of celandine and the song of the bee.

Let rose and hawthorn hold your heart, and nettle strengthen your resolve.

Let dandelion’s medicine speak to you of courage, weaving tales of tenacity and rewilding into your gut.

Find the verdant seedlings grown from death, the young Elder birthed from a breaking.

Watch how the little alchemists, the insects, the fungi and the worms eat the shit and turn it into gold.

You are more than stagnant human in concrete and chaos.

You are wild, wise and ensouled.

Let yourself remember.”

~ Brigit Anna McNeill

Animals, Inspiring Words, Nature, Photography, Sweet Breathing

The Perfect Love of Spring

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Spring by Mary Oliver

“Somewhere a black bear has just risen from sleep and is staring

down the mountain. All night in the brisk and shallow restlessness of early spring

I think of her, her four black fists flicking the gravel, her tongue

like a red fire touching the grass, the cold water. There is only one question:

how to love this world. I think of her rising like a black and leafy ledge

to sharpen her claws against the silence of the trees. Whatever else

my life is with its poems and its music and its glass cities,

it it also this dazzling darkness coming down the mountain, breathing and tasting:

all day I think of her – her white teeth, her wordlessness, her perfect love.”

-Mary Oliver

Sweet Breathing

There Is Only One Question

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Spring continues to unfold,  with the absorbing music of life bubbling just beneath the surface.  I feel it.

Parker J. Palmer’s words resonated deeply with me this morning as he wrote the following words as a prelude to Mary Oliver’s poem – both his words and Mary’s poem follow.   They speak to me of of season of rebirth in northwest Montana and of Love.

“Spring arrived on my patch of the planet last week, but it’s 25° here as I write! To encourage the season to show up more fully, here’s Mary Oliver with her spot-on description of “the brisk and shallow restlessness of early spring.”

I’m especially grateful for the profound reminder in the pivotal line of this poem: “There is only one question: how to love this world.”

Oliver illustrates love for the world not with a Valentine sentiment, but with a black bear “just risen from sleep” coming down the mountain with “her white teeth, her wordlessness, her perfect love.”

Wild animals “love the world” because they depend on it for their well-being. We are dependent, too, no matter how arrogantly we pretend that we are self-sufficient.

There’s only one way for us to survive and thrive. We must learn to love the earth and each other with the ferocity of a mother bear—saying “NO!” to everything that threatens that which we love, and “YES!” to all that gives it life…”

-Parker J. Palmer

“Somewhere a black bear has just risen from sleep and is staring

down the mountain. All night in the brisk and shallow restlessness of eary spring

I think of her, her four black fists flickering the gravel, her tongue

like a red fire touching the grass, the cold water. There is only one question:

how to love this world. I think of her rising like  black and leafy lodge

to sharpen her claws against the silence of the trees. Whatever else

my life is with its poems and its music and its glass cities,

it is also this dazzling darkness coming down the mountain, breathing and tasting,

all day I think of her — her white teeth, her wordlessness, her perfect love.”

-Mary Oliver

 

Sweet Breathing

Spring!

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Ah Spring!

Your vibration has been simmering, now ready to burst forth!  I feel this awakening in every cell, the sweetness on my skin, a soft embrace, an invitation.

The inner world of winter making way for the outer connections of Spring into Summer. So many Gifts! I am present.

“Only with winter-patience can we bring the deep-desired, long-awaited spring”

-Anne Morrow Lindbergh

“The life of the earth comes up with a rush in springtime.”

-Laura Ingalls Wilder

“To me a lush carpet of pine needles on spongy grass is more welcome than the most luxurious Persian rug.”

-Helen Keller

“Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.”

-Lao Tsu

Sweet Breathing

Spring Sampler – A Gallery of Photos

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“Every spring is the only spring – a perpetual astonishment.” -Ellis Peters

“Can words describe the fragrance of the very breath of Spring?” – Neltje Blanchan

“Come with me into the woods where Spring is advancing, as it does, not matter what, not being singular or particular, but one of the forever gifts and certainly visible.” – Mary Oliver

Click into any image to see a full scale version and to start a slideshow…