Courage, Gaiety, and the Quiet Mind

Happy New Year!

“Give us grace and strength to persevere. Give us courage and gaiety and the quiet mind. Spare to us our friends and soften to us our enemies. Give us the strength to encounter that which is to come, that we may be brave in peril, constant in tribulation, temperate in wrath and in all changes of fortune, and down to the gates of death loyal and loving to one another.” – Robert Louis Stevenson

Nurture peace, cultivate kindness, and carry the calm.

Nature of the week:

Shadow of the Week—a rope fence at the zoo:

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Easing Change, Quieting Fear

Posted by karynhenleyauthor

“Kindness eases change.

Love quiets fear.”

– Octavia F. Butler, Parable of the Talents –

Nurture peace. Cultivate kindness. Carry the calm.

Just to clarify, I’m not talking about the peace of ignorance or the kindness of platitudes or the calmness of inaction. I’m talking about a reservoir of inner peace, kindness, and calm that strengthens, balances, and guides our thoughts, our words, our actions.

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.

Mercy, Pity, Love, and Peace

Posted by karynhenleyauthor

“For Mercy has a human heart,

Pity a human face,

And Love, the human form divine,

And Peace, the human dress.”

– William Blake –

May mercy overflow your heart,

may compassion wear your face,

may love take your form.

May you be clothed in peace.

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.

Loving Well, Praying Well

Posted by karynhenleyauthor

“He prayeth well who loveth well

Both man and bird and beast,

He prayeth best who loveth best

All things both great and small.”

– Samuel Taylor Coleridge –

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.

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:

If you want me to send these thoughts to your email each Sunday, simply sign up on the right.

Love Like a River

Posted by karynhenleyauthor

“Those who don’t feel this Love

pulling them like a river,

those who don’t drink dawn

like a cup of spring water

or take in sunset like supper,

Those who don’t want to change,

Let them sleep.”

– Rumi –

Peace is waiting for you – and joy and wonder and goodness and grace. And Love. Don’t sleep.

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.

For my longer posts on the art of noticing, link here.

Mountain-Still

Posted by karynhenleyauthor

“The wind howls, but the mountain remains still.”

– Japanese proverb –

Be mountain strong. Keep standing for love and kindness and peace even as the winds of the world howl.

Nurture peace, cultivate kindness, and carry the calm.

Nature of the week – at Cheekwood Botanical Gardens:

Shadow of the Week:

If you want me to send these thoughts to your email each Sunday, simply sign up on the right.

For my posts on the wonder of life, link here.

Valentine’s Best Secret in a Riddle

Posted by karynhenleyauthor

What can be divided endlessly and still not diminish?

That secret is not so hard to guess, but there’s another secret that Valentine’s Day will keep forever: how it began.

Some say that Valentine’s Day began with two saints in the early Christian church, both named Valentine, both said to have been martyred on February 14. One was a priest who secretly married couples after the Roman Emperor Claudius commanded that young men not marry (because single men were supposedly better soldiers). Another was a Christian jailed for not worshiping Roman gods. Children loved him so much that they tossed notes through his barred window. Since the Old French word galantine, meaning gallant or lover, sounded like Valentine, some say that people equated one or both of the St. Valentines with galantine and began to celebrate lovers on that day.

Other people say that Chaucer began the Valentine tradition when he wrote that birds started pairing off on February 14. (At that time, the calendar was different from the one we have now; their 14th was our 24th, which is closer to spring in the Northern Hemisphere.) So the day was celebrated as a time when couples got together.

It seems that Valentine’s Day will keep its beginnings a secret. But love’s best secret?

“Only love can be divided endlessly and still not diminish.”

– Anne Morrow Lindbergh –

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Nurture peace, cultivate loving kindness, and carry the calm.

Nature of the week :