Keenly aware...

of these blessings today:

Familiar steps leading to my front door.

Little dogs who love to snuggle.

The smell of homemade laundry soap.

Pine trees and clear blue skies.

Solitude.

Bird nests collected from the woods.

A nubby blanket in the most delicious shade of blue.

A coffee mug from the wheel of a local potter.

How are you blessed on this beautiful day?

Reverie

first cool front of the season...fresh coffee...the smell of cinnamon wafting through the house...

relaxing with friends...



enjoying the last few summer blooms...

no demands on my time this morning...nothing urgent to make me rush about, nothing to disturb this sweet reverie...only the longing to be still and know...

Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 

Take my yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.  For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.

Matthew 11:28-29

 

A Dream Come True

Today I had the great fortune of visiting with one of the most beautiful women I know, Mattie Seale.

Mattie is the mother-in-law of one of my dearest friends, Susan. (Mattie is quick to point out that Susan is not "just" a daughter-in-law, but that she has become a true daughter over the years.)  To many of us Mattie is "Mama Seale" and just a few moments in her presence today left me with a feeling of peace and contentment.

Mama Seale has a heart of gratitude.  She is well-loved and she loves well.  She has lived a big life filled with the usual ups and downs but when she looks back on it all, she says life has been good "without interruption".  She told me that her faith is the foundation that allows her to enjoy life to the fullest and that her life today is like a "dream come true".  I felt peace and hope settle over me as I listened to what she had to share. 

It seems that every day I am bombarded with information about how to make my life "better".  I am encouraged to do more and be more.  Teachings abound on how to "create the life I want" and "live my best life now".  I believe, though, that great lives are not orchestrated or acheived.  Great lives are simply lived, facing whatever comes with courage and grace.  Mama Seale knows this and her words of experience and wisdom resonate with something deep inside of me.  They call forth a desire to simply let go and be content with what I have and what I am this very day...to realize that my life, with all its challenges and triumphs, disappointments and victories, really is a dream come true because I am loved and I love and in the end that's all that really matters.

Secret Gardens

After spending a few days visiting family last week I arrived home yesterday just in time to put together my favorite bouquet of the season. Spring at our place begins with the blooms of narcissus and grape hyacynth bulbs.  Happily, for just a few days their blooming season overlaps that of our azaleas and I gather the blossoms into small bouquets of riotous, glorious color..

Most of the bulbs I grow were harvested from flower beds planted by my grandmother over fifty years ago.  I found them in this old garden, hidden in the woods just a few hundred yards from my back doorstep.  Grandmother lived in a house that used to be nestled in these woods.  The house is gone, but the bulbs and plants she cultivated there have continued to grow and multiply.

Entering this place I feel like Mary in Frances Hodgson Burnett's The Secret Garden, stepping softly as if she were afraid of waking someone.  This is a sacred space for me...a place where I dreamed childhood dreams and shared happy times with people I loved.  It is a place that captured my imagination even when I was very young.  I dreamed of living on this property when I grew up, of carving out my own nitch in the woods and planting gardens of my own.

Sometimes I forget that I am actually living my dream.  Sometimes I think I might like to live someone else's dream.  Really, though, this one is best for me.  Here I have room to breathe and stretch and grow, just like the buds Mary unearthed in Burnett's garden.

So this week I am going to spend time cultivating the garden around my own home and in the process I know I will be renewed.  Warm spring days have arrived and I am eager to feel connected to the earth with the sun on my back and the rich, damp soil in my hands.   My spirit yawns and stretches as it wakes to this new season.

I hope this week you will do some maintenance in your own secret garden...that quiet place, whatever it is for you, where seeds of promise and hope were planted long ago.  Pull a few weeds.  Clear a little space.  Give your dreams room to grow.

Summer House

Our summer house has...

...time for impromptu sleepovers with friends.

...time to rediscover our passions.

...and time to enjoy our favorite things.  (One of my new faves is limeaid with a splash of orange juice, absolutely the best when served in a glass that belonged to my grandmother.)

I love our summer house!

Thoughts and Images

I hope you are finding much joy and beauty in your world today. As promised, I've put together a collection of thoughts from the great poet, Rainer Maria Rilke, and images from my own portfolio to inspire and calm your creative spirit...

Seek those (themes) which your everyday life offers you; describe your sorrows, desires, passing thoughts and belief in some sort of beauty.

Describe all these with loving, quiet, humble sincerity and use to express yourself, the things in your environment, the images from your dreams, and the objects of your memory.

If your daily life seems poor, do not blame it; blame yourself. Tell yourself that you are not poet enough to call forth its riches. For to the creator there is no poverty and no poor, indifferent place.

Perhaps it will turn out that you are called to be an artist. Then take that destiny upon yourself and bear it, its burden and its greatness, without ever asking what recompense might come from outside.

Your life will in any case find its own ways thence. That they may be good, rich and wide I wish you more than I can say.

Quotations taken from Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke, translation by M.D. Herter Norton

All images were captured in the woods that surrounds our home.