Flames of Spring Green

 

This morning my hydrangea,

bedraggled and brown,

decided Spring has arrived.

Each spindly stem,

lined with loose withered leaves,

has become a spindly candle

topped with a tiny flame of

spring-green leaves.

I shake my head. It’s December.

Doesn’t Nature know better than to

leaf out

when Winter is just days away?

Nature whispers, Enjoy my candles,

my hope,

resilience,

renewal,

reawakening,

untethered to season.

Nature is budding

just for the joy of it.

Yesterday, someone asked me,

How old are you?

Seventy-one, I told him.

Really—he said—I wouldn’t have guessed.

Really.

Yes, really.

But I, like my hydrangea,

have decided that Spring has come.

–kh–

 

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.

Silenced by the Sea in the Wind

 

On a windy day,

if I close my eyes and open my ears,

I live beside the sea,

though this sea is only waves of wind

surging and ebbing,

a rolling surf of air

swishing through pine needles,

washing over elm leaves,

splashing the fronds of bamboo.

It’s the nature of Nature

to echo herself,

the sea in the wind and the wind in the sea.

Or a bird that chirps like a yipping dog

(or perhaps it’s the dog who yips like the bird).

A leaf that echoes the shape of wings,

wings that echo the shape of feathers,

feathers that echo the shape of feelers

on a fancy, flamboyant moth.

Leaves that echo the scent of lemon

or pepper

or cat pee.

But it’s the sea in the sound of the wind

that silences me,

sparks my dreams,

carries me to distant shores,

to time outside of time.

I suspect that this present moment

is itself an echo

of eternity.

– kh –

 

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.

Text and photos © 2023 Karyn Henley. All rights reserved.

It Seems Backward

 

The morning sun is melting the frost on roofs and lawns except where there are shadows. So instead of the shadows being dark, they’re frosty white. The trunk of one of our elm trees is casting a shadow on the next-door garage roof. Its shadow is a long, rectangular streak of white frost on dark gray shingles. It seems backward for a shadow to be white. But then, nature always has something new up her sleeve, and I always have something to learn. – kh, from Noticing: 365 Days of Calm Reflections

 

Nature of the week:

Shadow of the Week:

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Text and photos © 2022 Karyn Henley. All rights reserved.

St. Augustine’s Fear—And Mine

 

St. Augustine once said, “I fear that Jesus will pass by me unnoticed.” I fear that the gifts of this day will pass by me unnoticed—the cloud formations, the birds, the fragile blooms open to the sun at this moment, the peace within this day. So as I move through this day, I hope to look for the gifts that nature has for me and linger with them. – kh, Linger: 365 Days of Peaceful Pauses

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.

Nature’s Invitation

 

Nature invites me to linger and fills me with wonder.

And wonder, I believe, is a kind of gratitude.

– kh, Linger

 

Wonder and gratitude nurture peace, so as always: Nurture peace, cultivate kindness, and carry the calm.

And Happy Thanksgiving to friends and family in the U.S.!

 

Nature of the week:

Shadow of the Week (It’s a triple shadow.):

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Text and photos © 2021 Karyn Henley. All rights reserved.

Nature. Art. God.

 

“The course of Nature is the art of God.”

Edward Young

 

Linger,

heart open,

intent on the smallest bit

of nature’s art—

a pebble,

a butterfly,

a bud,

raindrops;

let wonder widen,

dreams deepen,

hopes stretch and soar

up and out and into

the eternal mystery

that many call

God.

–KH

 

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.

A Doorway to a New World

 

“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.

Adopting a Secret

 

“Adopt the pace of Nature. Her secret is patience.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson

 

Nurture peace, cultivate kindness, and carry the calm.

 

Nature of the week – from the window at my desk, a winter sky:

Shadow of the Week – from picnic tables at the zoo on a chilly day:

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Text and photos © 2021 Karyn Henley. All rights reserved.

As a Bee to a Flower

 

“I go to books and to nature as a bee goes to the flower,

for a nectar that I can make into my own honey.”

John Burroughs

 

Here’s hoping that you find ways to make honey of your life and that others will taste its sweetness.

Nurture peace. Cultivate kindness. Carry the calm.

 

Nature of the week—my neighbor’s ginger:

Shadow of the Week:

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Text and photos © 2020 Karyn Henley. All rights reserved.