Red Anemone….spotted this today….a Glimpse of the Divine….
The Great Mystery comforts me and reassures me that understanding is not always necessary.
“Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.”
— Rumi
The question is not what you look at, but what you see.
– Henry David Thoreau
PHOTO…Light Through Anemone…
Some days are really trying and I find it difficult to look beyond the sadness and weariness I feel. So many people seem to think only of themselves and not understand the truth in the old saying that “what affects one of us affects all of us”. If we try to be kind and caring and understanding and empathetic we make this old world a better place, not just for ourselves, but for everyone. I know that I struggle more than ever these days to find the faith and the courage I used to easily access in myself. I just know that I must continue to try. To give up would be the end of me and the person I have spent my life struggling and working to be. I need to lean on others who too are walking this path and finding ways to see the light. There are good deeds being done every minute and people finding the courage to stand tall in the face of ugliness. They are like beacons to me. I pray that I may find my way again.
“When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love have always won. There have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they can seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall. Think of it–always.”
― Mahatma Gandhi
Tulips!! They are from a greenhouse but beautiful and a glimpse of a Spring to come.
Musing from the Old Lady on the Sailboat…
THE AWAKENING
Every day I discover a new joy and a new wonder. Sometimes it’s been right there all along but I wasn’t able to see it. Do you ever think that there are layers to our lives and that those layers merge and reform and though the substance was there all along it takes on a new and wondrous look and feel? It’s like a kaleidoscope I used to have as a child. I played endlessly with it making new and more beautiful and unexpected delights, and yet the foundation for each was always there. I just couldn’t see the magic.
Our lives are continuous motion and ever changing. We have a choice to embrace the changes or not. Enjoy the process, enjoy the journey, for it may ultimately bring you to a far grander place.
I know sometimes this old world seems like such a mess, but if we try we just might find the BLESS in the mess. ❤️
LaceCap Hydrangea…
“The Peace of Wild Things
When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.”
― Wendell Berry, The Selected Poems of Wendell Berry
Spring has come to The Chesapeake. The mornings and evenings are still cool and delightful. I often sit watching the return of the veteran osprey to their nests and the young ones in search of a mate to make a nest and raise a new generation. I spot eagles and herons fishing, amazed at their grace and comfort and ease in their world. I admit to a certain amount of jealousy.
In that magical time just before the sun rises I hear the migration of the geese as they make their way back to Canada and pause to feed in the surrounding fields and creeks. The other day I watched a red fox as he lurked in the stillness of the brush along the water’s edge and an otter swim across, leaving lovely ripples in his wake. Along the sandy shore a ground hog lumbered along, shaking himself as if trying to fully awake from the winter’s slumber.
Living so close to Nature gives me peace. I do not suffer the world of man well at all. I cannot understand the meanness and ugliness that abounds there. Well, I understand that much of it is fear and that fear is fueled by people who know how to take advantage of this fear and give people a justification for their hateful actions.
Understanding the mechanisms does not help explain the lack of courage to educate and listen to your heart and to take risks and chances to change both ourselves and thus the world. So many people hide behind these masses of people who wear masks of evil to try and scare others into joining their journey of negativity. The sorrow I feel wells up and threatens to drown me. I have no answers. I can only do whatever it takes to survive and to help those I can as I journey. For me it is my photography and my musings. I try to make a difference in “my small, individual way”.
Primroses cont…. There are so many variations and nuances about primroses that I simply get lost in them. The dark green ruffled leaves are wonderful and rich and the yellow and pink colors on the petals of this variety change as the petals develop, making them a joy to watch.
I have another Wendell Berry quote to share with you. It deals with how we need to consider our perspective in looking at our world and our place in it. I hope you give it some thought.
“We have lived our lives by the assumption that what was good for us would be good for the world. We have been wrong. We must change our lives so that it will be possible to live by the contrary assumption, that what is good for the world will be good for us. And that requires that we make the effort to know the world and learn what is good for it.”
― Wendell Berry, The Long-Legged House
Blue Wildflower…March 18
I met a most interesting man the other day as I was simply sitting in my car with the motor idling as I waited for a friend to run in a grocery store for some white grape juice. As some of you know Zelda, my 02 Mustang, sports a bumper sticker that has a reference to Louisiana. Well, an older gentleman, working at the grocery collecting carts approached my open window. He came from behind and startled me. He started our “conversation” with ………
“Louisiana! Baton Rouge! LSU Tigers!” The exclamation marks are necessary grammar nerds because he said this in an exclamatory manner.
What followed was a quick exchange where I named a city in Louisiana and he named their football team. He knew them all, even Lake Charles, responding correctly with McNeese Cowboys. This exchange lasted several minutes and then he wandered off to gather more carts.
Our meeting was so brief and yet so much fun. I realized he was a special man who enjoyed his job and life. Our chance encounter left me smiling.
A few days later I was gathered with friends and we were exchanging witty stories. Just as I took a breath to tell my tale my friend Mike begins his tale. Now Mike has been a live aboard here at Holiday Hill Marina for two winters. His home is down in Norfolk and he drives a car with Virginia plates. He told a story about an elderly man he chanced to meet in the Food Lion parking lot. This man simply started naming cities in Virginia and their football teams when he noticed those Virginia plates.
I have since discovered that this delightfully jovial man knows everything there is to know about college football and enjoys meeting people and sharing his vast knowledge. I was told that he is not able to live alone and still lives at home with his mother. She drives him to work each day and picks him up.
He is a treasure and I am reminded that each of us is special in our own way and I am thankful to have made his acquaintance.
“If you celebrate your differentness, the world will, too. It believes exactly what you tell it—through the words you use to describe yourself, the actions you take to care for yourself, and the choices you make to express yourself. Tell the world you are one-of-a-kind creation who came here to experience wonder and spread joy. Expect to be accommodated. ”
― Victoria Moran, Lit From Within: Tending Your Soul For Lifelong Beauty
Natural Healing ….This is the center of a Gerbera Daisy I chanced to meet today.
Take no revenge that you have not pondered beneath a starry sky, or on a canyon overlook, or to the lapping of waves and the mewing of a distant gull. ~Robert Brault
Today I woke up thinking about resentment and how harboring resentments can lead to anger and anger often likes to find its way down a river of pain that hardens into revenge. Don’t make the mistake of thinking this will destroy the resentment. It will only be destructive to the soul. It will turn you inside out and when looked upon directly it is obscene and ugly. Banish resentment with forgiveness, forgiving first yourself. Zahn
Greenhouse Primrose…Light, Love and Laughter to all of you….
“People tend to be generous when sharing their nonsense, fear, and ignorance. And while they seem quite eager to feed you their negativity, please remember that sometimes the diet we need to be on is a spiritual and emotional one. Be cautious with what you feed your mind and soul. Fuel yourself with positivity and let that fuel propel you into positive action.”
― Steve Maraboli, Unapologetically You: Reflections on Life and the Human Experience
I tend to stay away from politics on FB because I have little desire to enter into arguments with my friends and I know from experience that most people are not willing to entertain the possibility that their thought processes could be faulty and they close themselves off to open thinking and change.
That said I do want to write about a subject I think of often.
FEAR:
It has always appeared to me that the most powerful emotion of mankind in these days is fear.
Fear of dying, fear of illness, fear of abandonment, fear of loss of loved ones, fear of flying, fear of being in public, fear of being alone, fear of not having enough money, fear of becoming homeless, fear of loss of your stuff, fear of not having enough to eat, fear of having too much to eat, fear of war, fear of alien invasion, fear of aliens (of all kinds), fear of loss of status, fear of looking like a fool, fear of not fitting in, fear of spiders, fear of the unknown, fear of snakes, fear of the known, fear of close spaces, fear of wide open spaces, fear of ………………..FEAR
Many religions have used the fear of hell very effectively over the centuries. When people allow fear to dictate their actions I think it often clouds their judgement. Should we not live through love instead and allow that to motivate our actions instead of some notion that we will face eternal damnation if we do not follow the dictation of some religious doctrine?
Politicians are particularly adept at using fear as a motivator. They tell us to hate or to fear specific groups: conservatives or liberals, Republican or Democrat, Muslims or Jews, immigrants or the poor, people of a race different from ours. Do they do this to help the public or to protect us? I don’t think so at all. They do it to divide, to profit or to get elected. Do not be misled by the rhetoric of the powerful who wish to control through fear. Fill your heart with positive thoughts and trust it to guide you. You cannot see the path where it might lead you, but I believe it will be a brighter and more beautiful one than the darkness and chaos where fear and hate will take you.
FloraZahn 