Last crisp leaf shivers
dangling in the frosty breeze.
Don’t let go just yet.
– kh –
Don’t let go of hope. Don’t stop reaching for peace. Don’t give up on kindness. Don’t let go just yet.
Nurture peace, cultivate kindness, and carry the calm.
Nature of the week:
Shadow of the Week:
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Text and photos © 2023 Karyn Henley. All rights reserved.
“Go to the pine if you want to learn about the pine.”
– Matsuo Basho –
Five pine trees stand in a line across my back fence. I used to think of them as the skinny kids on the block, but they’re not kids. They were here before I was. So I’m now calling them the five elders. They are thin and as tall as a four-story house. Two of them lean east; the others grow straight up. I think they’re Eastern White Pines or something related. They produce long, scaly cones, and their reddish-brown, rough, furrowed bark holds a sticky resin with that distinct, clean, crisp pine smell. Their thin, feathery needles grow in fan-like groups that wave to me when a breeze blows through. And when the breeze turns into a stiff wind, these five elders are good at slow-dancing.
Go to the pine to learn about the pine. Go to whatever or whoever creates peace to learn about peace. Go to whoever shows kindness to learn about kindness.
Nurture peace, cultivate kindness, and carry the calm.
Nature of the week:
Shadow of the Week:
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Text and photos © 2022 Karyn Henley. All rights reserved.
Once in a while, I reread this encouragement from an online interview with Charlotte McConaghy, author of the novel Migrations. I share it here, hoping it will encourage you, too.
The interviewer asked, “What does hope look like to you?” McConaghy answered, “It looks like all those little moments of kindness and generosity. It looks like taking the time to consider our impact on this world and what we want it to be. It looks like making those decisions, the daily choices that are small things for individuals but add up to big change when we all take part.”
Nurture peace, cultivate kindness, and carry the calm.
Nature of the week:
Shadow of the Week:
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Text and photos © 2022 Karyn Henley. All rights reserved.
“What we choose to carry, in the end carries us.”
– kh –
Choose kindness, choose gratitude, choose peace.
Nature of the week:
Shadow of the Week:
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Text and photos © 2022 Karyn Henley. All rights reserved.
“As a man is, so he sees.” – William Blake
Be peace and see
possibilities of peace in the world.
Be kind and see
kindness that shines
like a lighthouse in the fog.
Be calm and see
calmness beyond the clamor.
Be and see.
Be and see.
-kh-
Nurture peace, cultivate kindness, and carry the calm.
Nature of the week:
Shadow of the Week:
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Text and photos © 2022 Karyn Henley. All rights reserved.
“Habit is a cable;
we weave a thread of it every day,
and at last we can not break it.”
– Horace Mann –
May we make a habit of spreading peace and kindness and carrying the calm.
Nature of the week:
Shadow of the Week:
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Text and photos © 2022 Karyn Henley. All rights reserved.
Whatever good we do,
Whatever kindness or hospitality we provide,
Will cast a larger shadow
Than we may ever see or realize.
– Diane Walker –
Nurture peace, cultivate kindness, and carry the calm.
Nature of the week: 
Shadow of the Week:
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Text and photos © 2022 Karyn Henley. All rights reserved.
“Write injuries in sand, kindnesses in marble.”
– French proverb –
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.
“The soul that is kind and intends justice
discovers more than any wise man.”
– Sophocles –
Nurture peace. Cultivate kindness. Carry the calm.
Nature of the week – zucchini blooms:
Shadow of the Week:
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Text and photos © 2020 Karyn Henley. All rights reserved.
Never let your kindness keep you from being honest.
Never let your honesty keep you from being kind.
(adapted from The Artful Edit by Susan Bell)
Nurture peace. Cultivate kindness. 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 © 2020 Karyn Henley. All rights reserved.