“Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul. Between every two pines is a doorway to a new world.” – John Muir
Nature of the week:
Shadow of the Week:
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Text and photos © 2021 Karyn Henley. All rights reserved.
“The pale flowers of the dogwood outside this window are saints. The little yellow flowers that nobody notices on the edge of that road are saints looking up into the face of God.” – Thomas Merton
Nature of the week:
Shadow of the Week:
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Text and photos © 2021 Karyn Henley. All rights reserved.
“Then laughs the year; with flowers the meads are bright;
The bursting branches are tipped with flames of light:
The landscape is light; the dark clouds flee above,
And the shades of the land are a blue that is deep as love.”
– Robert Bridges, “April” –
Nature of the week:
Shadow of the Week:
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Text and photos © 2021 Karyn Henley. All rights reserved.
“The glassy peartree leaves and blooms, they brush
The descending blue; that blue is all in a rush
With richness.”
– Gerard Manley Hopkins, “Spring” –
Nature of the week:—pear blossoms:
Shadow of the Week:
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Text and photos © 2021 Karyn Henley. All rights reserved.
Happy Easter!
“Winter passed away;
and spring,
led by the months,
awakened life in all nature.”
– Mary Shelley –
Nature of the week:
Shadow of the Week:
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Text and photos © 2021 Karyn Henley. All rights reserved.
“Sit in reverie
and watch the changing color
of the waves that break
upon the idle seashore of the mind.”
– Henry Wadsworth Longfellow –
Nature of the week – a chunk of hail beside a violet:
Shadow of the Week:
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Text and photos © 2021 Karyn Henley. All rights reserved.
Look how after the devastating winter
the new blossoms have covered the thorns,
look how tall the cypress has risen in glory.
Spirit and water have graced the rose garden
Enhancing its beauty.
What a blessed companionship!
– Rumi –
Nature of the week:
Shadow of the Week – a bird ornament on top of a shelf of plants:
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Text and photos © 2021 Karyn Henley. All rights reserved.
“Turn your face to the sun and the shadows fall behind you.”
– Maori proverb –
Nurture peace, cultivate kindness, and carry the calm.
Nature of the week:
Shadow of the Week – two vases:
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Text and photos © 2021 Karyn Henley. All rights reserved.
This time last year, I was finishing a course on how to be a book coach and starting my first book coaching job. The course was taught by writer and book coach Jennie Nash, who sends a monthly newsletter to her students. In this month’s newsletter, she quoted writer Annie Dillard. I found the quote—and Jennie’s response—inspiring:
“We are here to witness the creation and to abet it,” wrote Annie Dillard. “We are here to notice each thing so each thing gets noticed. Together we notice not only each mountain shadow and each stone on the beach but, especially, we notice the beautiful faces and complex natures of each other. We are here to bring to consciousness the beauty and power that are around us and to praise the people who are here with us. We witness our generation and our times. We watch the weather. Otherwise, creation would be playing to an empty house.”
Then Jennie wrote this: “Witnessing has always felt like sacred work to me.”
Do the sacred work. Notice. Watch. Witness creation. May each season play to a full house.
Nurture peace, cultivate kindness, and carry the calm.
Nature of the week:
Shadow of the Week – the shadow of a shopping cart falling on a paper bag:
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Text and photos © 2021 Karyn Henley. All rights reserved.
On this rainy weekend, I think of another cloudy-about-to-rain day when a friend saw his elderly neighbor at work in her garden. He called, “How are you on this gray day?” She looked up, smiled, and said, “Oh, it’s not a gray day; it’s silver.”
What is water
that pours silver
and can fold the sky?
– Hilda Conkling –
Wishing you silver on a cloudy day.
Nurture peace, cultivate kindness, and carry the calm.
Nature of the week:
Shadow of the Week:
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Text and photos © 2021 Karyn Henley. All rights reserved.