Harvest Blessings

“I sing of brooks, of blossoms, birds, and bowers:
Of April, May, of June, and July-flowers.
I sing of maypoles, hock-carts, wassails, wakes,
Of bridegrooms, brides, and of their bridal cakes.”
-  Robert Herrick



“My soul is in the sky.” 
 

   William Shakespeare 

    A Midsummer Night's Dream

 

"Brew me a cup for a winter's night.
For the wind howls loud and the furies fight;
Spice it with love and stir it with care,
And I'll toast our bright eyes,
my sweetheart fair."
-  Minna Thomas Antrim 

“There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,

There is a rapture on the lonely shore,

There is society, where none intrudes,

By the deep sea, and music in its roar:

I love not man the less, but Nature more,

From these our interviews,

in which I steal From all I may be,

or have been before,

To mingle with the Universe,

and feel What I can ne'er express,

yet cannot all conceal.”

 

George Gordon Byron



Religion is a candle inside a multicolored lantern.

Everyone looks through a particular color, but the candle is always there.

Mohammed Naguib

 

"Winter is the time for comfort - it is the time for home."
-  Edith Sitwell

snowy day...

 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/12/03/alexey-kljatov_n_4373888.html

 

 

 

If we never experience the chill of a dark winter, it is very unlikely that we will ever cherish the warmth of a bright summer’s day. Nothing stimulates our appetite for the simple joys of life more than the starvation caused by sadness or ...

 

 

desperation. In order to complete our amazing life journey successfully, it is vital that we turn each and every dark tear into a pearl of wisdom, and find the blessing in every curse.
~Anthon St. Maarten



 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 our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow.

 

Melody Beattie

 

"Full moon shining bright
Midnight on the water
Oh Aradia
Diana's silver daughter"

The Human Seasons

 

Four Seasons fill the measure of the year;
There are four seasons in the mind of man:
He has his lusty Spring, when fancy clear
Takes in all beauty with an easy span:
He has his Summer, when luxuriously
Spring's honied cud of youthful thought he loves
To ruminate, and by such dreaming high
Is nearest unto heaven: quiet coves
His soul has in its Autumn, when his wings
He furleth close; contented so to look
On mists in idleness--to let fair things
Pass by unheeded as a threshold brook.
He has his Winter too of pale misfeature,
Or else he would forego his mortal nature.

 

John Keats

Dear Ancestor



 "Your tombstone stands among the rest
Neglected and alone
The name and date are chiseled out
On polished marble stone
It reaches out to all who care
It is too late to mourn
You did not know that I exist
You died and I was born
Yet each of us are cells of you
In flesh and blood and bone
Our blood contracts and beats a pulse
Entirely not our own
Dear Ancestor, the place you filled
One hundred years ago
Spreads out among the ones you left
Who would have loved you so
I wonder how you lived and loved
I wonder if you knew
That someday I would find this spot

And come to visit you."

 

-Walter Butler Palmer

 

There is a harmony
In autumn, and a luster in its sky...
~Percy Bysshe Shelley


 

"Ere, in the northern gale,
The summer tresses of the trees are gone,
The woods of Autumn, all around our vale,
Have put their glory on."

- William Cullen Bryant, Autumn Woods

 

Listen! the wind is rising,
and the air is wild with leaves.
We have had our summer evenings,
now for October eves.
~Humbert Wolfe, P.L.M.: Peoples, Landfalls, Mountains, 1936

"Though a tree grows so high, the falling leaves return to the root."
-  Malay proverb  

Summer Solstice Blessings

 

A Summer's Night
by Paul Laurence Dunbar

 

The night is dewy as a maiden's mouth,
The skies are bright as are a maiden's eyes,
Soft as a maiden's breath, the wind that flies
Up from the perfumed bosom of the South.

Like sentinels, the pines stand in the park;
And hither hastening like rakes that roam,
With lamps to light their wayward footsteps home,
The fire-flies come stagg'ring down the dark.

keuka lake ny

my fairy gardens...

Garden fairies come at dawn,
Bless the flowers then they're gone.
~Author Unknown

Pan With Us by Robert Lee Frost

 

Pan came out of the woods one day,--
His skin and his hair and his eyes were gray,
The gray of the moss of walls were they,--
And stood in the sun and looked his fill
At wooded valley and wooded hill.

He stood in the zephyr, pipes in hand,
On a height of naked pasture land;
In all the country he did command
He saw no smoke and he saw no roof.
That was well! and he stamped a hoof.

His heart knew peace, for none came here
To this lean feeding save once a year
Someone to salt the half-wild steer,
Or homespun children with clicking pails
Who see so little they tell no tales.

He tossed his pipes, too hard to teach
A new-world song, far out of reach,
For sylvan sign that the blue jay's screech
And the whimper of hawks beside the sun
Were music enough for him, for one.

Times were changed from what they were:
Such pipes kept less of power to stir
The fruited bough of the juniper
And the fragile bluets clustered there
Than the merest aimless breath of air.

They were pipes of pagan mirth,
And the world had found new terms of worth.
He laid him down on the sun-burned earth
And raveled a flower and looked away--
Play? Play?--What should he play? 

“The moon is always jealous of the heat of the day,

just as the sun always longs for something dark and deep."

moon time...

Moonlight
by Sara Teasdale

 

It will not hurt me when I am old,
A running tide where moonlight burned
Will not sting me like silver snakes;
The years will make me sad and cold,
It is the happy heart that breaks.

The heart asks more than life can give,
When that is learned, then all is learned;
The waves break fold on jewelled fold,
But beauty itself is fugitive,
It will not hurt me when I am old. 

 

Synthesis by Mara Berendt Friedman

 

“Be not ashamed women, ...

You are the gates of the body,

and you are the gates of the soul.”

~Walt Whitman

 

“Re-examine all you have been told...
Dismiss what insults your Soul.” 

~Walt Whitman 

 

The struggle ends when the gratitude begins.

~Neale Donald Walsch

Spellbound Fredrick George Cotman   Faeries, come take me out of this dull world,
For I would ride with you upon the wind,
Run on the top of the dishevelled tide,
And dance upon the mountains like a flame.
 ~William Butler Yeats, "The Land of Heart's Desire," 1894



Spirit, Healing, Creation

 

The eagle is symbol of the zenith.
A great reminder of your own ability to soar to great heights.

Eagles are messengers from heaven and are the embodiment of the spirit of the sun.

http://wdfw.wa.gov/wildwatch/eaglecam/video_lw.html

Blessed Ostara

"Again rejoicing Nature sees
Her robe assume its vernal hues
Her leafy locks wave in the breeze,
All freshly steep'd in the morning dews."
-  Robert Burns 

 

"The wood is decked in light green leaf.
The swallow twitters in delight.
The lonely vine sheds joyous tears
Of interwoven dew and light.

Spring weaves a gown of green to clad
The mountain height and wide-spread field.
O when wilt thou, my native land,
In all thy glory stand revealed?"

 -  Ilia Chavchavadze, Spring

Irish Blessing

 

May the Irish hills caress you.

May her lakes and rivers bless you.

May the luck of the Irish enfold you.

May the blessings of Saint Patrick behold you.

 

 

"In winter's cold and sparkling snow,
The garden in my mind does grow.
I look outside to blinding white,
And see my tulips blooming bright.
And over there a sweet carnation,
Softly scents my imagination.

On this cold and freezing day,
The Russian sage does gently sway,
And miniature roses perfume the air,
I can see them blooming there.
Though days are short, my vision's clear.
And through the snow, the buds appear.

In my mind, clematis climbs,
And morning glories do entwine.
Woodland phlox and scarlet pinks,
Replace the frost, if I just blink.
My inner eye sees past the snow.
And in my mind, my garden grows."

- Cheryl Magic-Lady, Winter Garden

 

"Announced by all the trumpets of the sky,
Arrives the snow, and, driving o'er the fields,
Seems nowhere to alight: the withered air
Hides hills and woods, the river, and the heaven,
And veils the farm-house at the garden's end.
The sled and traveler stopped, the courier's feet
Delayed, all friends shut out, and housemates sit
Around the radiant fireplace, enclosed
In a tumultuous privacy of storm."
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

 

Come, and allow the warmth of Brighid's hearth to embrace you.

Allow the light of her flame to guide you.

Allow the love of her blessing to protect you.

May Brighid's love and light nurture your path.

 

Blessed be this season of Imbolc!

Santa Lucia

St. Lucy/Lucia is one of the only saints celebrated by the overwhelmingly Lutheran Nordic peoples (Danes, Swedes, Finns and Norwegians). The St. Lucy's Day celebrations retain many indigenous Germanic pagan, pre-Christian midwinter elements. Some of the practices associated with the day predate the adoption of Christianity in Scandinavia, and like much of Scandinavian folklore and even religiosity, is centered on the annual struggle between light and darkness.

The Nordic observation of St. Lucy is first attested in the Middle Ages, and continued after the Protestant Reformation in the 1520s and 1530s, although the modern celebration is only about 200 years old. It is likely that tradition owes its popularity in the Nordic countries to the extreme change in daylight hours between the seasons in this region.

The pre-Christian holiday of Yule, or jól, was the most important holiday in Scandinavia and Northern Europe. Originally the observance of the winter solstice, and the rebirth of the sun, it brought about many practices that remain in the Advent and Christmas celebrations today. The Yule season was a time for feasting, drinking, gift-giving, and gatherings, but also the season of awareness and fear of the forces of the dark.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Lucy's_Day

The Spider’s Web ( A Natural History)

 

The spider, dropping down from twig,
Unfolds a plan of her devising,
A thin premeditated rig
To use in rising.

And all that journey down through space,
In cool descent and loyal hearted,
She spins a ladder to the place
From where she started.

Thus I, gone forth as spiders do
In spider’s web a truth discerning,
Attach one silken thread to you
For my returning.

 

E B White (1899-1985)