Month: June 2025

The Deep Knowing of a Stone

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It fits perfectly in my palm,
this rock I found,
heavy, flat, and smooth,
from a riverbed maybe.
It’s a warm, gray-brown,
the color of a rabbit
hiding in plain sight
and just as still.
It would be easy to stack
with other stones,
to create a calming cairn
or to line a labyrinth to linger in.
But maybe it’s meant to simply be held,
a touchstone.
Its curves and weight hold comfort,
solid, sure, simple,
worn and weathered,
dimpled and scratched.
I turn it over and over in my hand
as if I might find a message on it.
There are no engraved words,
but it does hold a message.
I cradle this stone in both hands,
for it holds a deep knowing:
Let the river rage on, it says.
Let it smooth out your rough edges.
Find purpose in stillness.
Be a calming, settled soul.
Outlast the flood.
-kh-

Nurture peace, cultivate kindness, and carry the calm.

Nature of the week:


Shadow of the week:

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Text and photos © Karyn Henley 2025. All rights reserved.

Every Drenched Thing

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Every drenched thing bows to the rain—
branches weighed down with water,
marigolds sated and soggy,
lilies drooping and dripping.
This is not a cool, crisp perk-me-up rain
but a bucket dump so heavy
that it will leave a sultry, thick wet blanket
lazing on the lawn,
steaming the garden.
As the downpour eases to a steady silver shower,
clouds drift apart,
sunlight elbows through,
I scan the sky expectantly,
hopefully…
and I am not disappointed.
Against a billowed backdrop
of blue-gray clouds,
a veil of color gently curves,
gift of rain and sun,
sign of hope,
smile of God,
heaven’s arms holding space,
sharing the secret that all light holds:
a glorious variety of hues,
reminder of the glorious variety of humans,
of plants, animals,
rocks, rivers,
skies, seas.
I can’t help but smile and hope,
for on the other side of the rain
there is a luminous bridge,
arcing in a joyful embrace of us all.
On the other side of the rain
is a rainbow.
-kh-

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 © Karyn Henley 2025. All rights reserved.

I Spy

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I spy something green
and it starts with a T,
and you know (knowing me)
that it’s a tree,
a carefree tree,
for the carefree me
of childhood.
But that was then
and this is now.
I have spied so much anger, so much grief,
so much hurt
that sometimes I want to close my eyes
and spy
nothing at all.
Sometimes it seems as if the whole world
has gone mad
and squeezed the life out of life.
Maybe I care too much
to be carefree.
But then, even behind closed eyes,
I spy something green,
something growing,
and I return
to the childhood game—
with one change:
I spy…something beautiful.
For there is always beauty
of some kind, somewhere.
At this moment,
I spy beauty in a summer-full tree,
a billow of leaves
bowing in the breeze,
waving to three geese winging past
across an evening sky the color of wishes
and strawberry ice cream.
A firefly winks in the cool dark of a hedge.
I catch the scent of newly bloomed jasmine.
I spy beauty.
It’s a game I need
no matter where I am,
no matter what else I spy.
It’s a game I must play
with my whole heart.
Because in the end,
it’s not a game.
-kh-

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 © Karyn Henley 2025. All rights reserved.

A Silent Slant of Light

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In late afternoon, that quiet artist,
the sun,
pours her light at a slant
into my sunroom—
named for her, of course.
She brightens the window shades
to an eggshell white,
glows neon pink through the translucent
pads of the Christmas cactus,
sparks the tips of my cat’s fur,
gifting her with a silver halo.
Outdoors, she dapples the hackberry
with drifts of green,
lights the fiber between
thread-thin veins of fig leaves,
brightens the fountain of romaine leaves
growing in a raised bed,
edging them in white.
Across the deck, she throws shifting shadows,
creating an abstract of dark, thin stem lines,
grayed patches of leaf shade,
rounded shapes of poppy seed heads,
rippled forms of petunia, marigold, geranium.
I close my eyes and face her brilliance
as she eases lower in the sky.
Her parting kiss, warm and gentle,
paints a smooth, fire orange glow
on my closed eyelids.
The sun is wise.
She says, “Shine through where you can,
and where you can’t,
stun the world with the beauty
of the shadow.
-kh-

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 © Karyn Henley 2025. All rights reserved.