Indian Summer

Hi All,

I hope you’re enjoying this beautiful weather we’re having.  I, in fact, am a little under the weather today, so this will be a short blog.  I want to thank everyone for continuing to read my posts.   Seeing the amount of readers who visit my site means more to me than you’ll never know.

Have a good weekend, everyone.

Maya Angelou

Below is one of my ultimate favorite quotes from Maya Angelou.  It’s a “call to action” trumpet of words that I’m so fond of posting.  So, here it is.

Have a good weekend, everyone!

“What is a fear of living? It's being preeminently afraid of dying. It is not doing what you came here to do, out of timidity and spinelessness. The antidote is to take full responsibility for yourself - for the time you take up and the space you occupy. If you don't know what you're here to do, then just do some good.” 

Awesome Artist

Today, I came upon an awesome article that I had to post.  It again shows the triumph of the human spirit.  I hope the article warms your heart as much as it did mine.

Have a good weekend, all!

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2550887/Disabled-artist-26-paints-incredible-wildlife-scenes-holding-paintbrush-MOUTH.html

Amazing Artist

A friend showed me this video and I was truly amazed.  I hope you are as inspired as I when watching this clip.

Have a good weekend, everyone!

September

As you all may already know, I love the month of September.  The crispness of the air revives my spirit somehow.  So, this week, I chose to share one of my poems with you.  I hope you enjoy it and the weather!

September, 1918

By Amy Lowell

This afternoon was the colour of water falling through sunlight;

The trees glittered with the tumbling of leaves;

The sidewalks shone like alleys of dropped maple leaves,

And the houses ran along them laughing out of square, open windows.

Under a tree in the park,

Two little boys, lying flat on their faces,

Were carefully gathering red berries

To put in a pasteboard box.

Some day there will be no war,

Then I shall take out this afternoon

And turn it in my fingers,

And remark the sweet taste of it upon my palate,

And note the crisp variety of its flights of leaves.

To-day I can only gather it

And put it into my lunch-box,

For I have time for nothing

But the endeavour to balance myself

Upon a broken world.

Gift From the Sea

Today, I’m posting an excerpt from one of my all-time favorite books, Gift From the Sea by Anne Morrow Lindbergh.  Even though I first read the book a long time ago, its words always remained with me and served me well in life.  I hope this has the calming effect on you that it does me. 

“When you love someone, you do not love them all the time, in exactly the same way, from moment to moment. It is an impossibility. It is even a lie to pretend to. And yet this is exactly what most of us demand. We have so little faith in the ebb and flow of life, of love, of relationships. We leap at the flow of the tide and resist in terror its ebb. We are afraid it will never return. We insist on permanency, on duration, on continuity; when the only continuity possible, in life as in love, is in growth, in fluidity - in freedom, in the sense that the dancers are free, barely touching as they pass, but partners in the same pattern.

The only real security is not in owning or possessing, not in demanding or expecting, not in hoping, even. Security in a relationship lies neither in looking back to what was in nostalgia, nor forward to what it might be in dread or anticipation, but living in the present relationship and accepting it as it is now. Relationships must be like islands, one must accept them for what they are here and now, within their limits - islands, surrounded and interrupted by the sea, and continually visited and abandoned by the tides.”
― Anne Morrow Lindbergh, Gift from the Sea

A Critique of Monet

As a follow-up on last Friday’s commentary on Monet, I thought I’d post one of my favorite poems I’ve written over the years about him.  Trying to capture the beauty of Monet’s brushstrokes is very difficult, in my estimation, but this is my young attempt to do so.  I hope you all enjoy!

How precisely his movement of brush glided over the canvas as he worked.

The beauty of the objects which he saw captures the entire being.

A sparkling lake, a bubbling spring, and a garden filled with colorful, but

Delicate flowers.  Red roses, white lilies and purple asters create a sense of utopia.

It is intense, yet subtle.

The masterpieces transport one to another time and place.  To another century.

It is a place where only beauty remains, though tempered by the reality of the world.

A pastoral, sweet existence for which one yearns.

The man fades, but the image remains of pictorial visions in the sky.

A little girl sitting on a bench in the park, a flower covered wall and a cornfield are

All familiar objects in his imagery.

One is left to wonder if that sense of pastoral passion will every be captured

again.

Or is the spirit too wistful, too unique?

Emily’s Garden

As you all know, the enigma of Emily Dickinson always fascinated me, even as a young child.  Like her poetry, her love of her garden is certainly a well-known aspect of her life.  During these hot, summer days; I always wonder about the poetic musings she had while she worked in her garden; planting and pruning over a hundred years ago.  She certainly experienced the hot, blazing sun at her back while she tended lovingly to her plants.  Today, as I re-read some of her poetry, I marveled at how she captured nature’s beauty and described it on paper.  I feel honored to see the same sun’s brightness as she and to witness God’s great beauty every ephemeral summer day that passes.  It is comforting in a way to know some things change, while others stay the same; that we can always see and feel God’s unending love in His magnificent creations, knowing our journey does not end, only changes in its form.