Night after night darkness enters the face of the lily which, lightly, closes its five walls around itself, and its purse of honey, and its fragrance, and is content to stand there in the garden, not quite sleeping, and, maybe, saying in lily language some small words we can’t hear even when there is no [...]
Archive for July, 2007
Silence Can Feel Like Praise
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Just Lying on the Grass at Blackwater I think sometimes of the possible glamour of death – that it might be wonderful to be lost and happy inside the green grass – or to be the green grass! – or, maybe the pink rose, or the blue iris, or the affable daisy, or the twirled [...]
Open Doors
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-Christine Valters Paintner@ Abbey of the Arts (doors from top to bottom: Rock of Cashel, Strokestown Museum Gardens, "Out of the Blue" in Dingle, Cottage in Dingle, Church on Dingle Peninsula)
Daily
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These shriveled seeds we plant, corn kernel, dried bean, poke into loosened soil, cover over with measured fingertips These T-shirts we fold into perfect white squares These tortillas we slice and fry to crisp strips This rich egg scrambled in a gray clay bowl This bed whose covers I straighten smoothing edges till blue quilt [...]
Awe and Wonder
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Both photos are by Jack Finch from the Science Photo Library In the first few days of our trip through Ireland I had this dream: My husband and I are on a cruise through Alaska and go up on the top deck in the middle of the night. The sky is black with a thousand stars glittering across it. [...]
Holy Play
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Last summer my husband and I went to Kauai for two weeks. It was a beautiful trip where I absolutely fell in love with sea turtles. We started to notice as the days passed there, the most common car on the island was a yellow jeep. We started to point them out and create a silly game, saying "screamin' heebie-jeepie!" [...]
Gifts of the Morning
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We hit a record 98 degrees yesterday, but thankfully this morning is cool and delightful. Tune and I went for our usual walk and I fell in love with a vine blossom and it reminded me of a classic Mary Oliver poem. The Summer Day Who made the world? Who made the swan, and the [...]
Listening Point
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If you head over to Listening Point today, you can see a photo I took in Ireland in a wonderful forest near the ruins of Cong Abbey accompanied by one of my all-time favorite poems (which I posted here about a year ago, but it seemed time to bring it out again). And while you're [...]
Living Out the New Creation
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I have a deep affinity for crows and ravens as they seem to connect two important parts of my life together. Ravens and crows are a part of the same Corvidae or Crow family with ravens being larger and perferring wilder places. Saint Benedict (whose Feast Day is today) is often depicted with a raven by his [...]
Tweet
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Summer has hit Seattle with a vengeance, brilliant long days filled with breezes and sunshine. It is supposed to hit an unusual 97 degrees here tomorrow, heaven help me. I am not a big fan of summer's heat, I much prefer the cozy cool days of fall and winter. But I do appreciate the playfulness [...]
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