“What lies behind us and what lies before us
are small matters compared to what lies within us.”
– Ralph Waldo Emerson –
Nurture peace, cultivate kindness, and carry the calm.
Wishing you love, joy, and peace in the new year!
Nature of the week:
Shadow of the Week:
If you want me to send these thoughts to your email each Sunday, simply sign up on the right.
Text and photos © 2023 Karyn Henley. All rights reserved.
I’m watching a lampshade gently sway in the updraft of warm air from a heating duct on the floor. Across the room, shamrocks bob in rising air from a matching duct below their flower pot. They are visual echoes of each other, quietly bobbing and swaying to the flow of warm air as if the shamrocks are acknowledging the movement of the lampshade, and the lampshade is respectfully nodding back. It’s a subtle dance, and I wonder why I’m drawn to it. I wonder why I note it in my journal. Maybe it’s the way these two things, so unalike, are moving quietly and gently in harmony. Maybe it’s witnessing this backdrop of life that carries on whether I’m here to see it or not, the way breeze, trees, stars, and seasons play their role in the flow of life. Maybe it’s because now that I’ve seen these two, I’m part of their dance.– kh, from Noticing: 365 Days of Calm Reflections
Nature and shadow are the same photo this week:
Merry Christmas!
If you want me to send these thoughts to your email each Sunday, simply sign up on the right.
Text and photos © 2022 Karyn Henley. All rights reserved
The morning sun is melting the frost on roofs and lawns except where there are shadows. So instead of the shadows being dark, they’re frosty white. The trunk of one of our elm trees is casting a shadow on the next-door garage roof. Its shadow is a long, rectangular streak of white frost on dark gray shingles. It seems backward for a shadow to be white. But then, nature always has something new up her sleeve, and I always have something to learn. – kh, from Noticing: 365 Days of Calm Reflections
Nature of the week:
Shadow of the Week:
If you want me to send these thoughts to your email each Sunday, simply sign up on the right.
Text and photos © 2022 Karyn Henley. All rights reserved.
A blanket of soft, silver-gray clouds
covers the morning sky
as far as I can see.
Even indoors, I feel the weight of it.
I try not to see it as gloomy
but as a protective roof
over the pines and the bare elms.
All is still and quiet.
The whole world seems to have taken
a day off.
Rest, the clouds say.
Rest after this busy, crazy year.
Rest under this silver gray blanket of sky.
– kh –
From Noticing: 365 Days of Calm Reflections
Nature of the week:
Shadow of the Week:
If you want me to send these thoughts to your email each Sunday, simply sign up on the right.
Text and photos © 2022 Karyn Henley. All rights reserved.
Go forth under the open sky,
and listen to Nature’s teachings.
What is Nature teaching me? To listen, I think. The world will circle on with or without me. The evening star will rise. Clouds will sail the skies. Cicadas will buzz. Crickets will chirp. Trees will dance in the wind. Seasons will glide in and then pass on. Nature says to simply breathe deeply and listen. (From my new book Noticing, available now.)
Nurture peace, cultivate kindness and carry the calm.
Nature of the week:
Shadow of the Week:
If you want me to send these thoughts to your email each Sunday, simply sign up on the right.
Text and photos © 2022 Karyn Henley. All rights reserved.