May 22
“Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.” – Lao Tzu
“Happiness? The color of it must be spring green” – Frances Mayes
Winter rest, spring rain, early summer sun.
The earth is greening.
Bursting, shouting, flourishing.
Made new, lush, alive.
Witness, partake, participate.
Abide here.
Bask in the glory of the blooming of this day.
Root, green, grow.
“The sun does not shine for a few trees and flowers, but for the wide world’s joy.” – Henry Ward Beecher
“Everything is blooming most recklessly; if it were voices instead of colors, there would be an unbelievable shrieking into the heart of the night.”― Rainer Maria Rilke
“If you will stay close to nature, to its simplicity, to the small things hardly noticeable, those things can unexpectedly become great and immeasurable.”― Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet
Look not too far ahead nor back and miss the show.
The one of reckless bloom of the present.
The dance of seasons woven together.
Winter rest to spring burst, summer in the wings.
On the cusp, tipping points, transitions, transformation.
Do not skip your turn.
What’s in your foreground?
Arms reach awaiting noticing and attention?
Reach.
Bloom recklessly, with great abandon.
In this very day.
“Let your beauty manifest itself
without talking and calculation.
You are silent. It says for you: I am.
And comes in meaning thousandfold,
comes at long last over everyone.”
― Rainer Maria Rilke
“Seeds emerge as small plants when they break through their shell and reach for the sun, growing past the soil that has nurtured them. When flowers are ready they open to the light. In nature, growth is normal and natural. The same is true for us. We’re intended to stretch past who we perceive ourselves to be to grow into the glory of who we truly are.” – Rev Jane Beach
Morning Poem by Mary Oliver
Every morning
the world
is created.
Under the orange
sticks of the sun
the heaped
ashes of the night
turn into leaves again
and fasten themselves to the high branches–
and the ponds appear
like black cloth
on which are painted islands
of summer lilies.
If it is your nature
to be happy
you will swim away along the soft trails
for hours, your imagination
alighting everywhere.
And if your spirit
carries within it
the thorn
that is heavier than lead–
if it’s all you can do
to keep on trudging–
there is still
somewhere deep within you
a beast shouting that the earth
is exactly what it wanted–
each pond with its blazing lilies
is a prayer heard and answered
lavishly,
every morning,
whether or not
you have ever dared to be happy,
whether or not
you have ever dared to pray.”
Revel in the spring of things.
Flowers making their grand entrance to center stage.
The sun rise earlier, lingering later too.
The earth waking up each day calling all to anchor feet, raise arms.
A celebration of flourishing.
Winter to spring.
Hope fulfilled.
Vibrancy, color, beauty.
Without and within.
The dance of the spring of all things.
Dance.
“We delight in the beauty of the butterfly, but rarely admit the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty.”― Maya Angelou
“I thank you God for this most amazing day, for the leaping greenly spirits of trees, and for the blue dream of sky and for everything which is natural, which is infinite, which is yes.” – e. e. cummings
“I imagine that yes is the only living thing.” – e. e. cummings
Lilacs on the cusp of bursting.
Blue dream of sky.
Rain on Tuesday should advance the bloom.
Short lived but powerful fragrance and soft purple.
Remaining gratefully present with one foot in hope for what’s next up.
Like the flowers surety, steadfastness and certainty.
The lessons of the season of bloom.
In nature and within.
“If everything on earth were rational, nothing would happen.”― Dostoevski
Apr 14
“Spring is nature’s way of saying, ‘Let’s party’!” – Robin Williams.
“Hope is not naive, and hope is not an opiate. Hope may be the single greatest act of defiance against a politics of pessimism and against a culture of despair.”― Sharon Brous
The heroism of the daffodil.
Pushing through dry weathered ground, old leaves.
To pop its head up first.
Risking too soon.
Perhaps one more snow.
The kid that jumps when others hesitate.
Defiant rebel.
Shouting praise and let’s party.
Spring is here.
Brillant color, showing off.
Soul rising to meet the sun.
Hope fulfilled.
“Blessed be you, universal matter, immeasurable time, boundless ether, triple abyss of stars and atoms and generations: you who by overflowing and dissolving our narrow standards or measurement reveal to us the dimensions of God.”― Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Hymn of the Universe
“There’s so much around us that’s trying to put us to sleep. In the quiet, we wake up.” – Wess Daniels
“Your new life is going to cost you your old one.
It’s going to cost you your comfort zone and your sense
of direction.
It’s going to cost you relationships and friends.
It’s going to cost you being liked and understood.
It doesn’t matter.
The people who are meant for you are going to meet you
on the other side. You’re going to build a new comfort
zone around the things that actually move you forward.
Instead of being liked, you’re going to be loved. Instead of
being understood, you’re going to be seen.
All you’re going to lose is what was built for a person you
no longer are.”― Brianna Wiest, The Mountain Is You
From winter to spring.
Slow greening.
Threshold to new life.
Brimming with color
Overflowing with possibility.
Make space.
Put down the old.
Gather the new, fresh.
New comfort zones.
Broadened horizons.
Quiet awakening.
Gratitude in the unfolding.
“It’s a funny thing about life, once you begin to take note of the things you are grateful for, you begin to lose sight of the things that you lack.”― Germany Kent
Feb 2
“Can words describe the fragrance of the very breath of spring?”― Neltje Blanchan
“April’s air stirs in
Willow-leaves…a butterfly
Floats and balances”― Bashō, Japanese Haiku
What a non-winter winter.
Less than a few inches of snow in Minnesota.
10 days of cold.
Brown ground.
Buds are about to bloom in February.
Confused by January and February temperatures.
Two days of 50+ degrees.
40-degree days ahead.
On track to be the shortest winter.
Snow mid to late February, perhaps.
All seasons serve their purpose.
Spring is doing double duty this year.
The weather, like so many things in our life we pine about and try to predict.
Out of our control.
Remain in what’s present, early spring.
Winter’s short return.
Nature will take care of itself.
Enjoy all seasons when and how they come.
Find and open each day’s gifts.
February spring.
“I glanced out the window at the signs of spring. The sky was almost blue, the trees were almost budding, the sun was almost bright.”― Millard Kaufman, Bowl of Cherries
“The soul is the greening life force of the flesh, for the body grows and prospers through her, just as the earth becomes fruitful when it is moistened. The soul humidifies the body so it does not dry out, just like the rain which soaks into the earth.”― Hildegard of Bingen
“O most honored Greening Force, You who roots in the Sun;
You who lights up, in shining serenity, within a wheel
that earthly excellence fails to comprehend.
You are enfolded
in the weaving of divine mysteries.
You redden like the dawn
and you burn: flame of the Sun.”
― Hildegard von Bingen, Holistic Healing
Rain yesterday.
Overnight, the leaves broke open in unison on my front tree.
Sun this morning.
Blue skies.
Fresh air.
Dew on the grass.
Spring unfolding, noticeably.
Gestation, bloom, formation.
The breath and brush of God.
The earth, the canvas.
Spring springing.
“Underneath all the texts, all the sacred psalms and canticles, these watery varieties of sounds and silences, terrifying, mysterious, whirling and sometimes gestating and gentle must somehow be felt in the pulse, ebb, and flow of the music that sings in me. My new song must float like a feather on the breath of God.”― Hildegard of Bingen
“Life stands before me like an eternal spring with new and brilliant clothes.” – Carl Friedrich Gauss
“My favorite six letter word is
always
because it promises
so much.
My favorite five letter word is
never
because it insists on contradicting
the promise.
My favorite four letter word is
once
because it says it
happened then.
My favorite three letter word is
yes
because I’m just now learning
to say it
to my heart.
My favorite two letter word is
if
because it makes
all things possible
like this:
If not always
If not never
Then once.
Yes.”― Kate Dicamillo
May you enter open fields of joy and run with abandon.
Open to this day and all that is present before you.
We remember the extraordinary and live in the ordinary.
Mark this ordinary day be imprinted with your fingerprint, footprint, embrace.
Ordinary becoming extraordinary.
Feel the earth under your feet, the sky filled with blue and light above.
Make your answer “Yes!” to this day.
Love, be loved, enjoy the journey.
“If you have no intention of loving or being loved, the whole journey is pointless.”― Kate DiCamillo
“Every flower must grow through dirt” –Laurie Jean Sennott
“As full of spirit as the month of May, and as gorgeous as the sun in Midsummer.”― William Shakespeare
April is fickle.
May, there’s no turning back.
The threshold into spring, the cusp of summer days ahead, light and warm.
Soon full color, certain bloom.
Spring in full swing.
The faint scent of spring soon to be overwhelming.
Pay attention.
Do not miss the show.
A lift, an entering, a flow.
Cross the threshold.
Happy May Day.
“…I hear the sounds of melting snow outside my window every night and with the first faint scent of spring, I remember life exists…” – John Geddes
