Saturday, April 28, 2012

awaiting the birth-hour

everything is gestation and then bringing forth.  to let each impression and each germ of a feeling come to completion quite in itself, in the dark, in the inexpressible, the unconscious, beyond the reach of one's own understanding, and await with deep humility and patience the birth-hour of a new clarity:  that alone is living the artist's life - in understanding as in work.

-rainer maria rilke (1875-1926)

Wednesday, April 25, 2012

stretched

a mind that is stretched by a new experience
 can never go back to its old dimensions.

-oliver wendell holmes (1841-1935)

Saturday, April 21, 2012

granny's garden revisited

gentle lady, mother of nine,
widowed too young -
no time to grieve;
times were hard,
life had to go on.

in your golden years,
when you could take some ease,
you planted the whole front yard
of the house on clemson street
with flowers -
an outpost of eden.

you were already white-haired
and worn
when i came along.
i loved the way you poured your coffee
into the saucer for me -
laced with sugar and lots of cream.
you would pat my hand,
and say:  come sit near granny
and i would snuggle up beside you,
my head, resting on your  bosom.

i did not know then
what i know now -
how age and the cares of this world
catch up with us in the end.
how i wish i could roll back time
and join you in your garden
once again....

-stacy wills (4/21/9012)

Tuesday, April 17, 2012

an instrument of grace

everything that slows us down and forces patience, everything that sets us back into the slow circles of nature, is a help. gardening is an instrument of grace.

help us to be ever faithful gardeners of the spirit, who know that without darkness nothing comes to birth, and without light nothing flowers.

-may sarton (1912-1995)

source image: female rhino beetle

Saturday, April 14, 2012

gratitude unlocks...

gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. it turns what we have into enough, and more. it turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. it can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. gratitude makes sense of your past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow.

-melody beattie (author, b. 1948)