Evening Sky

Beauty at the end of the day.  Beauty as the sun hits the clouds through the barren tree branches and balances itself behind the hills.

This is truly the time to 'walk in beauty'.  

My heart beats a bit faster, standing here, looking out at all of this vast and wonderful glory.

"With every sunset a new hope is born, an old expectation dies." - Noor Unnahar

What is a miracle?

"Miracle - wonder; marvel; anything extraordinary or supernatural"

This little scrap found recently among other little scraps speaks to me.  I must use it on something personal.  What will it become?

Walking outside at this time of the year there are miracles surrounding me.  Sometimes they are small and easy to walk by.  I'll try to capture them and add them to my heart collection.

                                                                                   Beardy Vulcan

Sometimes they are a total surprise such as deer crossing the road as I start up the hill on my morning walk.  Moving through my vision so quickly I was not able to take my own picture.

This is the perfect time for miracles in the garden.  White petals still held close.  Ready to burst open.

These miracles are all around us, all the time, sometimes in the most unlikely of circumstances or places.   What  small miracles have you encountered today?

"There are two ways to live: you can live as if nothing is a miracle; you can live as if everything is a miracle." - Albert Einstein

Today I am thankful for...

...the new Flat Rock Park.  This area used to be a golf course.  Open to only a few for the purpose of playing golf.  After the golf course failed, and after much consideration, the Township of Flat Rock decided to buy the land and turn it into a park.

Today we have a beautiful long walking trail.  A small stream wanders along the edges of the park.

There are ponds in the middle where the water lilies are beginning to bloom.  

Thank you to Flat Rock for giving us the gift of this land.  It makes such a lovely wander on a summer morning.

"The ground we walk on, the plants and creatures, the clouds above constantly dissolving into new formations - each gift of nature posessing its own radiant energy, bound together by cosmic harmony." - Ruth Bernhard
  

Sixth Month Meditation

During this beautiful time of the year I find myself combining my meditation with my daily walk(s).  This month I think about the five senses: sight, smell, touch, hearing and taste.  When I get to the top of the hill, I stand very still and explore myself and my world through my senses.
  

Of course the sight part is easy, but looking up into these trees, identifying singular leaves, fully seeing the tree both in parts and as its whole that fills my spirit.

The scents in the woods are transitory.  This past few weeks it has been honeysuckle - filling the air with its beautiful scent. Now the sweet spire is in bloom and to savor its delicate scent I have to pause for a moment. 

I touch a leaf, or cradle a delicate bloom in my hand.

                                                                         Photo by Tom Baugh

I listen carefully to the birds but I also strain to hear all those insects living on and beneath the forest plants.  I know they are there and I know they must be making the teeniest,  tiniest sounds.

Lastly, taste, and this happens when I get home and settle down with a cup of tea, thinking about what lives all around me each and every day.  Savoring the spirits of my senses.

"All our knowledge begins with the senses, proceeds then to the understanding, and ends with reason.  There is nothing higher than reason." - Immanuel Kant

Stand Still

We took a walk up one of the trails in the Pisgah Forest the other day.  It was early morning and dew was still on some of the leaves.  We were literally surrounded on all sides - above and below - with green.

We walked across streams.

We wandered through and beside and past all manner of ferns, mosses, grasses, shrubs and trees.  Except for little slices of blue sky that sometimes appeared above - we were in a green world.

At the end of the trail we were greeted by this waterfall -- pouring down with a rushing noise. 


Lost
Stand still.
The trees ahead and the bushes beside you Are not lost.
Wherever you are is called Here,
And you must treat it as a powerful stranger,
Must ask permission to know it and be known.
The forest breathes. Listen. It answers,
I have made this place around you,
If you leave it you may come back again, saying Here.

No two trees are the same to Raven.
No two branches are the same to Wren.
If what a tree or a bush does is lost on you,
You are surely lost. Stand still.
The forest knows Where you are.
You must let it find you.
An old Native American elder story rendered into modern English by David Wagoner, in The Heart Aroused - Poetry and the Preservation of the Soul in Corporate America by David Whyte, Currency Doubleday, New York, 1996.