Soaring

“No bird soars too high if he soars with his own wings.”

Sometimes it’s hard to recognize your own wings, to appreciate them, to come to love them. Sometimes you have to lean on someone else’s wings first. But when you recognize and accept your own, that’s when your heart soars.

Nurture peace, cultivate kindness, and carry the calm.

Nature of the week – Lenten Rose:

Shadow of the Week:

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With Love’s Enthusiasm

Posted by karynhenleyauthor

“From form to form, beauty to beauty,

ever changing, never resting,

all (in nature) are speeding on

with love’s enthusiasm,

singing with the stars the eternal song of creation.”

– John Muir –

Nurture peace, cultivate kindness, and carry the calm.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Nature of the week:

Shadow of the Week:

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I Have Loved

Posted by karynhenleyauthor

“I have loved the principle of beauty in all things.”

– John Keats –

Look for the beauty in all things. Nurture peace, cultivate kindness, and carry the calm.

Nature of the week – a rhododendron bud waiting for spring:

Shadow of the Week:

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Deep in Winter, Deep in Me

Posted by karynhenleyauthor

“In the depths of winter, I finally learned

that within me there lay an invincible summer.”

– Albert Camus, “Return to Tipasa” –

Nurture peace, cultivate kindness, and carry the calm.

Nature of the week – summer smiles from the “garden” of my supermarket floral department:

Shadow of the Week:

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Nature’s Wealth

Posted by karynhenleyauthor

“Nature is not so poor as to possess only one of anything.”

– John Muir –

Notice how nature echoes herself in abundance. Trees, each the same but different from others, sometimes subtly, sometimes extravagantly. Flowers, birds, clouds, all themes and variations of beauty and wonder. Gifts offered to us daily. Ours simply for the noticing.

Nurture peace, cultivate kindness, and carry the calm.

Nature of the week – berries I saw on a walk in Japan:

Shadow of the Week – morning shadow on the rice paper screen of my bedroom in Japan:

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Art and Stillness

Posted by karynhenleyauthor

“Art has something to do with

the achievement of stillness in the midst of chaos.

A stillness which characterizes prayer, too,

and the eye of the storm . . .

an arrest of attention in the midst of distraction.”

– Saul Bellow, quoted in Writers at Work, edited by George Plimpton

Find your place of stillness, your prayer, your eye of the storm. Rest in it, embody it, for you are a work of art.

Nurture peace, cultivate kindness, and carry the calm.

Nature of the week:

Shadow of the Week:

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Paths

Posted by karynhenleyauthor

“Paths are made by walking.”

– Franz Kafka –

Walk paths of peace, cultivate kindness, and carry the calm.

Nature of the week:

Shadow of the Week (windowsill):

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Winter’s Welcome

Posted by karynhenleyauthor

Winter welcomes,

beckons,

invites us to

pause

on the brittle brink of the year,

witness

the shimmer of the season,

listen

for undertones of time passing

on icy tiptoe,

breathe

the crisp air.

Drink all of it.

Deeply.

Deeply grateful.

– kh –

Wishing you peace and grace in the new year!

Nurture peace, cultivate kindness, and carry the calm.

Nature of the week:

Shadow of the Week:

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Feel the Stars

Posted by karynhenleyauthor

“. . . feel the stars and the infinite

high and clear above you.

Then life seems

Almost enchanted after all.”

– Vincent Van Gogh –

In this busy holiday season, take time to feel the stars, sense the infinite, and rediscover the enchantment of life. Wishing you joy and peace!

Nurture peace, cultivate kindness, and carry the calm.

Nature of the week:

Shadow of the Week:

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The Dancing Breath of God

Posted by karynhenleyauthor

“I talk of branches dancing in the wind

but what I mean is the breath of God.”

– Rumi –

Feel the wind. Listen as it tiptoes past in a whisper, or waltzes with swaying branches, or twirls like an ice skater, scattering sparkles of frost in wild abandon. Watch. Listen. Feel the breath of God.

Nurture peace, cultivate kindness, and carry the calm.

Nature of the week: