Posted in inspiration, tagged acceptance, anger, Benjamin Franklin quote, choice, encouragement, experience, inspiration, metaphor, misguided goals, nature, pain, perspective, positive attitudes on November 11, 2021| Leave a Comment »
Wish not so much to live long as to live well. Benjamin Franklin How good it would be to live without pain, to live without anger or foe, to languish in riches, frolic in health, and miss every effort to grow. ***
I look at my blog for this week and want to add more, tell stories. The tales move with rocks, twigs, and drop-offs along the way. Each tale has a slightly different shape and edge. It belongs to the course. Maybe someday I will understand how.
Posted in inspiration, tagged acceptance, life and death, nature, peace, poem, seasons, Valery Satterwhite quote on August 27, 2021| Leave a Comment »
Know that everything is in perfect order whether you understand it or not. (Valery Satterwhite)
THE POND
A deer lay dead in this pond last winter,
bloated, white as the ice-spotted hills.
The carcass froze, demise unknown,
while the frigid water licked its sides
until the body could be hauled to shore.
Now, a late summer breeze
remembers nothing of snow,
and warmed water fills in the emptied space.
My spirit longs to plunge under the surface,
to swim with the schools of tiny fish
under the water lilies,
to sing with the frogs,
and smell the algae and rotting things
until it finds the secret of water,
that accepts whatever space it is given.
Frozen, heated, evaporated,
eventually it becomes a pond again,
that accepts the dead and feeds the living
without question.
Posted in inspiration, tagged attitude, cancer, Dave Pelzer quote, Debby Carrico, hope, inspiration, natural miracle, nature, pet skunk, story of Lazarus, survivors on July 24, 2021| 2 Comments »
You can be a victim of cancer or a survivor of cancer. It’s a mindset. (Dave Pelzer)
Debby and nature know one another. She celebrates it and doesn’t take blue skies and artistically shaped branches for granted. I love Debby’s lack of pretense. It comes naturally. She grew up on a farm and recognizes the innate virtue of the living world.
As a child Debby had a pet skunk. Scent weaponry disengaged. At an early age she could accept the soft beauty of a maligned animal. Debby recognizes goodness in the light-and-shadow natural world. Therefore, when she developed cancer and needed a spiritual sign, nature provided the hope she needed.
Fear is a normal reaction. Pain. Severe post-treatment nausea. Then, came the result of any trauma—waking in the morning and knowing the previous day wasn’t a dream. It touches anyone who has walked through hell.
Therefore, nature knew what to do. It created art for her in a unique form, one she could see from her window. Dried leaves formed the shape of a heart on the roof of a neighbor’s house. Dried and crumbled oak. Cracked brown maple. Unidentified stems.
As new winds approached, the pattern remained. For weeks. Hope healed Debby’s spirit. Spirit filled her body, and the cancer did not stay.
Eventually, wind scattered nature’s artwork. It erased the leaf-heart. The message wasn’t needed anymore. Debby’s beating heart was going to be enough. She had purpose. She would survive.
The original photograph of the neighbor’s roof isn’t much larger than a postage stamp. The enlarged version, like life, isn’t as clear as I would like it to be. However, a little sun color highlights the miracle celebration. The unspoken possibilities.
The story of Lazarus claims he was raised from the dead. However, the rising wasn’t permanent. It didn’t put him in front of anyone in line at a grocery store. Imagine how many lines in his face he could have by now! His second burial didn’t make much of a story. His life in between? That could be another matter, possibly not exciting enough for added scribbled pages. Most of the good we do isn’t dramatic.
I am grateful for Debby. Her healing. Her presence in my tiny spiritual community. Her friendship.
Peace to all. May gratitude grab this moment, whether it be inside a place of struggle or a moment of triumph.
Posted in inspiration, tagged Alexander Pope quote, anger, imperfection, judgmentalism, nature, poem, sight vs vision on May 29, 2021| Leave a Comment »
Tis but a part we see and not a whole. (Alexander Pope)
Slices of green leaf hold drops of water,
while my camera crops the rest
of the plant from my yard.
My window seat opens a square
of flight into midday sky. Into
finespun white and gray clouds.
Blue twists through nature’s
continuous artwork,
intangible yet visible.
While the land below blends
into solid colors. Squares.
An illusion of sameness.
When I hear angry people, I assume
motives. Yet, what has been cropped
from this old man’s life?
Or young child’s future?
How long has this girl been searching
through fragile clouds of the past
for what can’t be found in the present?
I belong to the whole.
The path opens wider,
yet never gives all.
Slices of green leaf hold drops of water
while my camera crops the rest
of the plant from the scene.
I study what I see
while the whole holds all.
Posted in inspiration, positive thinking, tagged acceptance, appreciation, choice, determination, encouragement, experience, family, gratitude, J.M. Barrie quote, learning at any age, nature, perspective, positive attitudes, wisdom in unexpected places on May 31, 2018| 1 Comment »
The life of every man is a diary in which he means to write one story, and writes another, and his humblest hour is when he compares the volume as it is with what he vowed to make it. (J.M. Barrie, novelist and playwright)
Random, dead, moss-covered wood. I’ve felt a kinship with it at times. Yet, the fallen logs create artistic patterns. Hollow centers offer homes for wildlife.
My husband and I walked under a lacy shade of branches. They protected the ground from the late-May heat. The pattern of dead and alive seemed to ramble, aimless. Nevertheless, there was a wholeness to the scene.
Recently, my husband and I attended an event. I am intentionally vague about whether the event was a picnic, graduation, family reunion, or none of the above. The setting was accidental; the story reveals a story within a story, the one that occurred instead of the one planned.
One of the guests passed out after a possible seizure. An individual honored at that moment ran to her defense. She saw the need for a 911 call. Two of the attendees were nurses and two were doctors. They assisted the fallen person more thoroughly than the paramedics did.
After the ill guest was taken to the hospital, any separated groups bonded. A different story developed based upon mutual care and love. We met as friends, not strangers.
I hoped to hold onto that intimate feeling forever. Then I totaled my car the same day my husband and I returned home. A tree won when the accelerator stuck…or I missed the brake…or fate decided my time with Little Beige should end. I don’t know what happened. This incident was the first in my years behind the wheel. It doesn’t matter how the accident happened. My 2005 Toyota will soon become junkyard fodder.
Like the dead branches my car has a history. Soon to be buried. I am okay, relatively anyway. So is my husband. We were not physically injured.
Neighbors arrived immediately. With offers to help. With support. With the difference between rotting in the moment and survival.
The story changed. I am not the only character in my tale. Nor, am I the only heroine. And that is what makes the difference. Sometimes, simple actions may have saved someone more than anyone will ever know.
Thanks to all who take that extra step forward.
Posted in inspiration, positive thinking, tagged appreciation, choice, nature, peace, perspective, political discord, positive attitudes, relationships, respect for all people, Rod Steiger quote, self-awareness, understanding on February 17, 2018| 1 Comment »
(screened vision, black and white, not easily read and slightly off-center)
The most important thing is to be whatever you are without shame. (Rod Steiger)
Even if I had the X-ray vision of the Superman I watched long before flat-screened TV and Netflix, I doubt I could understand human motivation. Friendships with the folk who share a similar sense of empathy, are easy. Those who can’t see a relationship between weapons and death, are difficult for me to figure out.
Someone I know tells a story about direct experience with an individual wielding a gun—at her. No pause for recognition of her experience, the person she tells continues with a statistics-game. No awareness of the damage done by violence.
Yet, this man is worthwhile, genuine in what he does. I have no intention of turning away from him. Argument proves nothing.
A photo taken through a screen isn’t the same as a picture taken in the cold and ice—as it develops. The picture isn’t the same as the photographed space.
Life continues without a set pattern. I need to be who I am, speak my own truth and respect the truth of another. Sometimes this respect is as difficult as seeing through two separate screens, made of vastly different experiences.
Peace. Five letters, each one separated by centuries of misunderstanding. Nevertheless, an essential goal. For all.
Posted in positive thinking, tagged choice, compassion, experience, gratitude, inspiration, nature, peace, perspective, positive thinking, respect for all people, Tahereh Mafi quote, the homeless, understanding, winter, wisdom from unexpected places on January 14, 2018| 1 Comment »
All I ever wanted was to reach out and touch another human being not just with my hands but with my heart. (Tahereh Mafi)
Snow. A four-letter word. Not in a vulgar, but in a testy sense. Nevertheless, I know I’m blessed as I feel and hear warm air rise from the furnace. My husband kept a thick, warm coat in the back seat of the car until we saw a homeless man who could use it. Socks next maybe. Some packaged food…
Inside the house I wheeze. Yet, I have the medications necessary to recover. Outside, who knows how long I would last?
A cardinal stops to snack at the birdfeeder. A squirrel gorges on the feed. I look at my belly and suspect I have more in common with the squirrel.
The snow melts and then promises to appear again. Need never melts completely. However, compassion isn’t a job; it’s a way of life.
Posted in positive thinking, Uncategorized, tagged an untitled poem, awe for the universe, choice, experience, inspiration, intangible gifts, Mahatma Gandhi quote, nature, positive thinking, s;pirituality on December 11, 2017| 2 Comments »
Whatever you do will be insignificant, but it is very important that you do it. (Mahatma Gandhi)
Sunday morning. My husband and I celebrate at a different church. With special friends. The minister’s topic for the day combines science with awe. He speaks about the universe. In context with spirituality.
The back row, where we placed ourselves, has little significance compared to the vastness of space, the alignment of the planets, the statistical possibilities for life to exist. Yet, I embrace the moment. Beauty lives immersed in the ugly, the grand, and the ordinary.
This church community is friendly and welcoming. “Hi, I think I saw you here once before,” a woman says, “a while back.” Wow, what a memory. I came last year, maybe. And I will return. On another special day.
Bare trees display the uneven shapes of their branches, while the seasons shift in the same semi-predicted pattern. Known. Unknown. Meshing together.
I notice the shadow
of a branch on brown grass
as if bright-sun shadows
on ground were brand new.
Both spine and chin
live in the same body
yet never face one another.
One planted seed and one kindness
grow in time and
belong to another universe.
Posted in positive thinking, tagged Albert Einstein quote, appreciation, choice, determination, encouragement, family, grandchildren, gratitude, hiking, inspiration, jewel wee, nature, perspective, poison ivy, positive attitudes, prairie grass, wisdom in unexpected places on September 6, 2016| 1 Comment »
Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand. (Albert Einstein)
I have more than enough work and projects to keep me indoors for the next century—or at least it seems that way. However, as Jay and I put clean sheets on the bed I look outside at the clear blue. And it calls to me to come outside and play.
How much worse will my back feel on a shady trail in the woods than it does now? I look at the clock. We have just enough time in the afternoon to enjoy the warm, but not-too-warm, early September.
Jay knows most of the trails in the park. He chooses one that winds through prairie grass reaching twelve-feet high. He can walk much faster than I can. Yet, as other people come through he lets them go first. “We move slowly,” he says, emphasis on the word, we. But he chooses to stay with my uneven step.
And the slow travel allows the discovery of a bird nest hidden in a bush on the side of the path. Jewel weed abounds. The stem of the plant can be opened and spread on skin to ward off poison ivy. The jewel weed acts as a guardian angel plant since it seems to follow poison ivy patches. Canopies of branches stretch across the trail. Huge bluebird houses, large enough for other birds, hide high in the trees.
We step over and into last year’s dry, dark brown leaves. Yesterdays that can’t be returned. The past. I remember when I felt I would always be 25-years-old. I acted as if each moment could be prolonged forever, too. Some of those moments ended as regrets crunched now by the heel of my shoe, especially on my right hip where the pain hits sharpest.
But, I also notice the pain doesn’t stop me. Instead it teaches me to savor beauty while it lasts.
I smile as I recall a recent yesterday: My two older grandchildren visited. Kate and Rebe healed with their presence and their humor. They pretended to find cures from a mock healing source on a Walmart Internet site. And for no external reason at all I chuckle as the trail twists and so does my aching back.
The sun shines and casts moving shadows. I call the brightness, hope.
Posted in positive thinking, tagged appreciation, choice, experience, gratitude, Hocking Hills State Park, imagination, inspiration, intangible gifts, Leon Brown quote, nature, patience, perspective, self-awareness, wisdom on October 25, 2015| 3 Comments »
The answers you seek never come when the mind is busy; they come when the mind is still, when silence speaks loudest. (Leon Brown)
I am off the grid. No Internet. No cell service. Nature presents the better show at Hocking Hills State Park. Or at least that’s what I tell myself. My husband and I have just arrived. Nature hasn’t had enough time to tell stress to cool-it yet.
The weather couldn’t be better—mid-fifties in the morning climbing to the mid-seventies in the afternoon. Few clouds. No rain expected. I ignore time. My husband and I don’t have a schedule. Our cabin provides no frills. We don’t need them.
People who go to parks tend to be friendly. Striking-up conversations is easy. Serendipity brings unexpected gifts. Since Jay loves to talk about travels, conversation with folk who have already checked out the area directs us to the better trails and the most beautiful views.
I relax—well, somewhat. The restaurant area has a Wi-Fi connection. I am like an ex-smoker opening a pack of cigarettes or a gambler entering a casino. I say I will post just this picture. Then write this message. Then…
The grid becomes gridlocked. And I need a lot of self-talk to press the off button on my iPad. Answers never come when the mind is counting likes on a post. Okay, that is only part of the problem. But I get it. I get it!
Search for
serenity. One more time.
Sun. Hemlocks. Red. Yellow. Orange.
Sandstone caves. One crow calling to another in the distance.
A single step followed by another. Peace. Harmony. Yes, it is possible.
terrypetersen 