My online journal where I share my interests in photography, nature, journaling, fountain pens, bicycling, coffee life, spirituality and asking deep questions.
We moved from being a part of nature to being apart from nature.
David Attenborough
Most of the trails in the Natural Areas are closed due to wet and muddy conditions from this gentle rain we have been enjoying the past three of days. And, not much more to say about the clouds that this image doesn’t say. Green dominates the eyes, especially when it is wet. I enjoy being a part of nature!
Most mornings I’m up to see the sun, and that rising of the light moves me very much, and I’m used to thinking and feeling in words, so it sort of just happens. I think one thing is that prayer has become more useful, interesting, fruitful, and … almost involuntary in my life. And when I talk about prayer, I mean really … what Rumi says in that wonderful line, “there are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.”
Mary Oliver
This scene is the predawn light at Pineridge Natural Area from four years ago. It is not the same scene this morning as we have overcast skies and a steady mist. Everything is soaked and we may see 2-3 more days of this. I like this quote by Mary Oliver as it resonates with my life experience of prayer. The wrote prayer of my childhood has been “let go” which in turn has allowed prayer to become what it is in my life. And, like her it has become involuntary in my life. I find prayer of gratitude rising within me throughout my day. And when I am present to a morning sunrise it is almost always a prayer of gratitude. Hope you have a wonderful Sunday!
The truth is: the natural world is changing.
David Attenborough
And we are totally dependent on that world.
It provides our food, water and air.
It is the most precious thing we have and we need to defend it.
There is a voice inside of you
Shel Silverstein
That whispers all day long,
“I feel this is right for me,
I know that this is wrong.”
No teacher, preacher, parent, friend
Or wise man can decide
What’s right for you–just listen to
The voice that speaks inside.
Whoever you are, you are human.
Barbara Brown Taylor
Wherever you are, you live in the world,
which is just waiting for you to notice the holiness in it.
“The more you turn inward, the more available the sacred becomes. When you sit in silence and turn your gaze toward the holy mystery you once called God, the mystery follows you back out into the world. When you walk with purposeful focus on breath and birdsong, your breathing and the twitter of the chickadee reveal themselves as miracles…”
Mirabai Starr
Radiometric dating suggests our Earth is about 4.5 billion years old.
That’s a lot of birthdays. It must be time for cake!
I sit quietly on a rock looking out over the meadow and Dixon Reservoir.
mws
I feel gratitude for this morning sanctuary, this sacred and holy place.
With my journal and pen in hand, I try to express what I am seeing and experiencing.
My sense of hearing is alert to the chatter of the magpies and the songs of robins and meadowlarks.
I feel the gentle but cool breeze that reminds me it’s still early spring.
I’m noticing the color green beginning to dominate in the trees and grasses of the meadow.
I watch the ever changing and beautiful clouds along the eastern horizon
as they add a feeling of mystery to this moment.
Within me is a knowing that what I’m experiencing is an expression of the Divine
and the miracle is that we are here at all.1This was inspired by the quote “The miracle is that we are here at all” by Richard Wagamese, Embers: One Ojibway’s Meditations