We have forgotten the virtue of sitting, watching observing. Nothing much happens. This is the way of nature. We breathe together, simply this. For long periods of time, the meadow is still. We watch. We wait. We wonder. Our eyes find a resting place. And then, the slightest of breezes moves the grass. It can be heard as a whisper of prayer.
— Terry Tempest Williams, Finding Beauty in a Broken World
Notes: Quote: Thank you Beth @ Alive on all channels. Photo: Clemens Fantur
So true as an observer I tune in to those words
And as a Master Craftsman it pours out into your work here:
https://skm1963.com/2016/07/29/punching-through-sutherland/
and here
https://skm1963.com/2016/07/23/after-the-rain/
and everywhere…
Wow! A Master Craftsman indeed.
A very calming post. Thank you for sharing, :o)
Agreed. Thank you Patricia.
What a nourishing start to my day. Thank you David!
Reblogged this on It Is What It Is and commented:
Beautiful photography … excellent posted. I needed soothing …
how beautiful…the wind as a breath and a prayer…both holy.
Beautiful and now SKM has another follower as my wife and I begin planning a trip to England and Scotland for next year.
Dave your offering seduced me to ponder…and when the tiny wild strawberries shine bright red, blackberries mellowed, dripping their juice, staining the lower leaves purple a display of colorful flowers in full bloom, the air heavy, a cool evening breeze meanders along catching, carrying, lifting aloft the mingling scents…gifting me with the Joy of Summer’s Scented Bloom…
Swept away by your description Christie. Thank you.
Thank you, Dave 🙂 this has been my summer reality for many years, the mingling scents…yesterday I ate wild blackberries in the morning, picked moments earlier into a cereal bowl…lightly rinsed with whipping cream over about a third of them…the garden bed is so welcomed, I use it for my PT exercises, reading in the morning, the cats and dog lounge, off and on throughout the day, they retreat under it for shade in the heat of the day, or they come inside for the air-conditioning (they don’t like the outside when the weather is not just so perfect, the cats rarely go out if the ground is cool or wet they have their favorite perches around the house)… the garden bed, so great for stargazing, too we’ve seen several shooting stars and I saw a fiery comet blazzen’ toward earth two or three nights ago.. blissful for sure 🙂
How beautiful, and also very true. Thank you, David.
Yes. Thanks Helen.
We can find beauty in this broken world. Beautiful description. 🙏🏻
Yes….
I need more of this. Must find this book.
Interviewed Terry a few years ago. She is great. Love her words.
Wow. Would have lived to have been a fly on that wall.
Yes David, I was a radio interviewer for 9 years. She also gave a reading at a local bookstore with a wall of windows facing over a brackish saltwater inlet, and as she began to speak, a Great Blue Heron took wing and flew past. This was not lost on any of us, Terry included. She’s such an advocate for avians, anyhow.
Wow. Amazing. Your beautiful description of the moment reminds me of a piece by Berry:
There is not only peacefulness, there is joy. And the joy, less deniable in its evidence than the peacefulness, is the confirmation of it. I sat one summer evening and watched a great blue heron make his descent from the top of the hill into the valley. He came down at a measured deliberate pace, stately as always, like a dignitary going down a stair. And then, at a point I judged to be midway over the river, without at all varying his wingbeat he did a backward turn in the air, a loop-the-loop. It could only have been a gesture of pure exuberance, of joy — a speaking of his sense of the evening, the day’s fulfillment, his descent homeward. He made just that one slow turn, and then flew on out of sight in the direction of the slew farther down in the bottom. The movement was incredibly beautiful, at once exultant and stately, a benediction on the evening and on the river and on me. It seemed so perfectly to confirm the presence of a free nonhuman joy in the world.
~ Wendell Berry, The Art of the Commonplace: The Agrarian Essays of Wendell Berry
Love Wendell Berry. One of my faves. Yes, the Great Blue Heron is a sight to behold. I miss it, too, living in Hawaii. Though I did spot a Night Heron cruising low offshore yesterday. 🤗
Hawaii. Nice. You are blessed.
Love, the W.B. offering.