poppies

The Shifting Colors of the Day

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / Leave a comment

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Red.

Gratitude List:
1. (What made you laugh?) Listening to Sir Patrick Stewart read pop song lyrics in the voices of British Shakespearean actors on Ask Me Another last night.
2. (What startled you?) The way the scarlet of the poppies seems to reach through from another world into this one.  The way the deeper, more real red of the cardinal keeps catching my eye in the branches of trees.
3. (What awakened you?) The wisdom of friends, the dogged persistence of people
4. (What do you take for granted?) Light at the flick of a switch, water in the pipes, the trust and support of people close to me
5. (What brings you serenity?) The way light sifts through green, the play of breeze through leaves, the shifting colors of the day

May we walk in Beauty!

All That Is About to Burst into Bloom

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / Leave a comment

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Yesterday’s pictures was last year’s poppies in the rain.  This year’s picture was taken in the same week, but this is what they look like.

Gratitude List:
1. The profound effect of stories.
2. Stepping out of the doors, opening the windows, living in the big and vast and immeasurable realms
3. Teamwork and collaboration
4. All that is about to burst into bloom
5. Getting ready to turn the page

May we walk in Beauty!

Gearing Up for the Final Lap

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / Leave a comment

Poppies

This is from two years ago.

It’s the night before the last week of the first year back to teaching.  Perhaps I should create a rite of passage ritual for myself when I finish all the grading.  To be honest, I have actually planned a restful three-day silent retreat at a local monastery for two weeks from now, so that will be my ritual.

I fall in love so easily.  I get attached, you know?  This shade of purple, that white stone, the way the light falls on the wood of the mantelpiece that we rescued from Grandma’s house before it was torn down.  Oriole who calls to me from the treetops, Afil hamster who watches intently for the Farmer whom she loves to notice her noticing him, the old fuzzy-pants cat who demands more attention than I am ever able to give him.  And these new people of my life–the earnest, anxious, goofy, lively, careful, carefree, fierce, tender, thoughtful, fiery, playful teenagers who populate my weeks.  I have learned so much from teaching them, observing them, listening to them.  And I’ve gotten attached, fallen in love with their antics and their wisdom.  And some of them are flying off to new worlds.  I’m proud, so proud, and grateful.  I’m going to miss them.

Eager as I am for the coming rest and quiet and the chance to step back into the contemplative spaces inside myself, I sort of dread the transitioning, the letting go, the saying goodbye.  I long for the quiet and cling to the chaos.  Same hands, same heart doing the grasping in both directions.

Gratitude List:
1.  All that transition has to teach me.
2. How the chaos of early spring has given way to a certain grace and tidiness about the house and yard.
3. My neighbor’s poppies.  I think I am breaking a commandment, perhaps, coveting them?  No, I really do appreciate their beauty, and I am grateful that they are there–mine did not bloom this year.  I find that right now I am craving poppies with the intensity that I craved cauliflower during my last pregnancy.
4. Norm’s words on looking for hope.
5. Stormy weather.  I love a thunderstorm.  (And maybe it will bring down the last of the tulips on the poplar tree and rain the pollen out of the air.

May we walk in Beauty!

Keep Breathing

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / Leave a comment

I can’t see through green,
through this pollen-misted air
to the other side.
These are the step by step days.
Meanwhile, I just keep breathing.

 

Gratitude List:
1.  Communities of women.  Light and gentle chat turns a corner into a story, a birth story, tears, smiles, oh-yesses, I-remembers.
2. The world feels washed clean this morning after that lovely rain.  I’m still a little anxious about venturing outside while the poplar is in bloom, but breathing is a little easier this morning.
3. Poppies!  Did I say poppies?  I have a clear memory of being six years old, looking at a book of flowers of the world with a group of kids at boarding school, and everyone was saying their favorite flowers.  I really liked the rose mallow.  Then someone turned the page and there was a rich crimson bloom with a velvety black center.  That one.  And it has been my favorite ever since.
4. Ruby Bridges.  I was talking about her story with a friend yesterday.  There was a moment in our story when the world depended on the courage of a child to confront evil, to be the tide-turner.
5. Last night’s dreams. Reunions, balance, mysterious pathways, reconciliation.

May we walk in Beauty!

Wild and Precious

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“Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?”

–Mary Oliver

I woke up this morning with this line from Mary Oliver’s “The Summer Day” running through my head.

Gratitude List:
1. The new bright gold of the freshly re-painted Goldfinch Farm sign.  Sometimes a pop of color can be intensely satisfying.
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2.  Yesterday when I walked around the front of the house, I was caught by the shoulders and wrapped in a huge hug by the scent of the lily of the valley out back on the hillside.  I love the smell of lily of the valley.
3. Listening to Joss singing his pre-school songs as he played in the sandbox yesterday.  I want to cherish and respect his shyness, but I have worried that it might lead him to loneliness or a sense of being disconnected from others.  Instead, his quiet observation of what goes on around him seems to give him a sense of belonging and participating.  May it always be so.
4. The gravid peonies and poppies, buds like eggs, waiting, swelling, stretching.
5. Mary Oliver.  Her words inevitably lead me to deeper places.  Secretly (not anymore, I guess) I think of her as my–as our–priestess.  Her words mediate a connection between the mundane me and my deeper self, between me and the Universe, and Beauty.  Oh, what will you do with your one wild and precious life?

May we walk in Beauty!