If You Want to See Birds

“If you want to see birds, you must have birds in your heart.”

I think, too, that if we want to see peace, we must have peace in our hearts. If we want to see kindness, we must have kindness in our hearts. If we want to find calm, we must carry it within.

Nurture peace. Cultivate kindness. Carry the calm.

Nature of the week – A bluebird visited this week, which is a rare event. I barely got a picture of him before he flew away. Yesterday, he and his mate returned carrying grassy twigs and made themselves at home!

Shadow of the Week:

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Simple Things

Posted by karynhenleyauthor

“If the simple things in nature

have a message that you understand,

rejoice, for your soul is alive.”

– Eleonora Duse –

Nurture peace. Cultivate kindness. Carry the calm.

Nature of the week:

Shadow of the Week:

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The Wings of Spring

Posted by karynhenleyauthor

“Birds in the green of my garden,

Blackbirds and throstle and wren,

Wet your dear wings in the tears that are Spring’s

And so to your singing again!”

– E. Nesbit, “May Song” –

Nesbit’s poem reminds me of a quote from Victor Hugo: “Be like a bird perched on a frail branch that she feels bending beneath her, still she sings away all the same, knowing that she has wings.”

Nurture peace. Cultivate kindness. Carry the calm.

Nature of the week:

Shadow of the Week – a vase of peonies that a neighbor left for me on my porch:

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Turning Toward Day

Posted by karynhenleyauthor

“There is a budding morrow in midnight.”

– John Keats, To Homer –

The world is going through a long, difficult night. But heads up, eyes looking ahead – there’s a time when night will turn toward day and, even though it’s still dark, light will begin to return.

Nurture peace. Cultivate kindness. Carry the calm.

Nature of the week:

Shadow of the Week:

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The Deep Gift of a Flower

Posted by karynhenleyauthor

“To me the meanest flower that blows can give

Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.”

– William Wordsworth, “Intimations of Immortality” –

Nurture peace. Cultivate kindness. Carry the calm.

Nature of the week:

Shadow of the Week:

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Music, Dance, and Change

Posted by karynhenleyauthor

When the music changes,

so does the dance.

– African proverb –

Maybe it’s time to change the dance.

Swing, sway, stomp,

make it wild,

make it wistful,

make it wondrous,

make it wishful,

make it fully yours,

keeping time with the music

that comes from the depths of your heart

and sings of goodness and grace,

love and hope.

Nurture peace. Cultivate kindness. Carry the calm.

Nature of the week:

Shadow of the Week – toy dinosaur (my grandson visited this week!):

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The Silent Promise of Cherry Blossoms

Posted by karynhenleyauthor

“Out of the dusk of distant woods

All round the April skies

Blossom-white, the cherry trees

Like lovely apparitions rise. . .

Like silent promises of peace,

Like hope that blossoms in the heart.”

– Laurence Binyon, “Cherry Trees” –

Nurture peace. Cultivate kindness. Carry the calm.

Nature of the week – cherry blossoms:

Shadow of the Week:

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The Walk to Take Today

Posted by karynhenleyauthor

“The place to observe nature is where you are:

the walk to take to-day is the walk you took yesterday.

You will not find just the same things.”

– John Burroughs –

This is sometimes quoted as, “To learn something new, take the path that you took yesterday.”

Nurture peace. Cultivate kindness. Carry the calm.

Nature of the week:

Shadow of the Week:

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What Remains to be Feared?

Posted by karynhenleyauthor

“In the course of my work this last long winter, I have experienced a truth more completely than ever before: that life’s bestowal of riches already surpasses any subsequent impoverishment. What, then, remains to be feared? Only that we might forget this! But around and within us, how much it helps to remember!”

– Rainer Maria Rilke, A Year With Rilke –

Remember life’s riches. Nurture peace. Cultivate kindness. Carry the calm.

Nature of the week: