Grace And Miracles ( my two words for 2014 )

Consider starting a "Grace and Miracles" journal and write down whenever love, grace and miracles show up on your path. It happens more than you know. ~ Illuminating Souls

1:53 pm, 1, 1- 2014 

 eyes closed, I sit amidst the languid celebrating whooshing' rustle of tree leaves quiet with the preternatural afternoon silence of nature. 

I love silence. I hate babble. Silence is a way of saying : We do not have to entertain each other. We are OK as we are. Me and my trees.

2nd day of 2014 3:19 pm 

My books and such in front of me but I am not ready. In a moment, perhaps. Right now it is the breeze from outside that sways my mind..slow and threshing..it makes me think of the sea.. low winds rippling the sea of wheat...I must start I know..in a moment..meanwhile my cerebral floats free..I mentally chase butterflies. 

~ my Facebook Journal snippet 

3rd day of January 2014 - Early in the morning. "Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ

January mornings are orchestral! Everything is cool: Light in its softest penetrates through walls and windows as it steals through trees and leaves across pavement and grass. Life becomes velvet. Soft and comforting. Gossamer. Even the breakfast pancakes feel like cashmere. "Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ

And right now what's on my mind...

Let me tell you, it feels I'm taking one step into the world. A new world. Different from yesterday, from an hour ago, from a minute ago. A world where I am in my own true skin: free, brave, notorious in my passion, plucky with wisdom and audacious in endeavours. 

 Last night I was standing in the middle of my kitchen when all of a sudden, a diaphanous joy coursed through me. It wasn't a rampant faith on sparkles, but a thin satin shimmer that felt light on the skin, good, calm, reassuring. In my mind my little pink cells chattered, "this year is your year of authenticity! Go on, be flowery, be brave, dress in your poetry!" 

There is no tentativeness to this thought. 

Maybe I've come of age finally. Like a classic wine corked, hibernated and shelved for its proper year, could it be that I too am' sweet, ripe and pleasurable for the becoming moment of pouring? Could it be that finally I can relax and trust in the aged goodness of my being? It sure feels so.  

Grace and Miracles. 

♥ "a list of wonder-fulls!" ♥

 Johan Messely

♥
Now this is the kind of light I want to possess in  life--> sunny wonderful, vibrant - a painting, picture, a thought, an idea, a vision quite easy to replicate in my home where sunshine is a' plenty!. I am absolutely smitten!

---->Taking from the title of this post,  I was going to gab' on about a list of things, objects, beings, ideas that inspire me. BUT no way  can I go with that right now. No sense. It would bear more weight  if I acknowledge that at this very moment, I feel a deep throbbing  hurt. Writing therapy is what this is about.

Somebody very dear to me has said something very mean --> to my face, aiks, agh! Undeserved. However, I am humble enough to acknowledge that, I too, have one time or two or three or four and so on in life,  most especially when I was a young,  unwittingly done a misdeed or uttered a darn selfish callous word towards another. In short, I am throwing no stones.

 Which leads me to the conclusion that one of the most heroic and bravest acts in the world must be the sublime, genuine act of forgiveness; the  absolute, without grudge or judgement forgiving of someone who has hurt, sliced and cut you deep. More so, towards  one who would not because of pride, even accede to the offense.

TRUE, I was verbally maligned but no real crime was committed. Yet, my tears flowed relentlessly ( still do) and a physical pain that seeped to my very veins was what I had to bear. With awe and reverence I think of those  able to forgive in spite of injustice. This is a great lesson on love for me. This is what it means to forgive 70x7. I still remember the words of the Lord.

 To the person I love who has offended and distressed me so, I wish no harm. Yet, I do know that someday, this very person will experience the repercussions of the same great grievance I was subjected to. It will happen....such is the way of the world.  I'm quite afraid I have but to sit back and see. I will love and heal and do pray that at that time, to  have the right words of comfort and wisdom to make things right for this love of mine. What a great lesson on unconditional love to have had today. Pardoned much, I pay forward the grace.

Tomorrow is a new day and  I look forward to it with much reverence and thanksgiving. My soul is as illuminated by that wonderful painting above by Johann Messely.

Another blessing I've enjoyed today in spite of the drama, was a few lovely book purchases I made at my fave bookstore. All books authored by my fave  Maeve Binchy, Currently, I'm halfway through Heart and Soul. Come to thinkof it.."Heart and Soul"..exactly what everything was about today.

Heck, no, I don't have a "list of wonder fulls' to enumerate this moment..but my heart and soul is filled with the peaceful knowledge that I have so generously forgiven,  and more sublimely, ( allow me to say)  I am a loving being. That, I must conclude,  is the most wonderful wonder of all.

Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ♥¸¸. ,•ღ. of gardens i remember•ღ. ℒℴνℯ♥¸.•*”Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ♥

Hear this....

"In My Neighborhood" 

~ Photo By: Roselle Quin

"Many of us have made our world so familiar that we do not see it anymore. An interesting question to ask yourself at night is, What did I really see today?" 

~ John O' Donahue, Anam Cara, A Book of Celtic Wisdom

Now and again when I walk the path leading out of our leafy lined subdivision, I am  inclined to stare at this house wishing it were mine. I could do so many things with a gate like that: maybe hang a gigantic flowery wreath, maybe paint it cream or white or a kind of patina green, maybe put in an ornate bronze knocker. It looks familiar actually, and it just occurred to me why.

Yes, I remember when as a child I would visit my "Papa Lolo's" house ( my late grandfather's elder brother) and the gate was a beautiful massive woodwork that looked very much like the photo I took.  Tucked beyond the imposing gate was a handsome garden home - in all manner and sense of the word garden! I'm not talking manicured lawns or dainty scented florals or delicate herbs. No. My grandfather's bother, just like him, was a truly ardent and very gifted gardener -- both possessed that perennial green thumb magic and could fashion what could pass for forests! Abundant fruit bearing majesty of trees, nothing less!

During visits, the gate would dramatically be opened and visitors were welcomed to a surprising oasis of a tropical forest garden with the house in all its red shingled bungalow Spanish splendor wrapped covetously around its wild green grounds. Mesmerizing! The lushness was opulent; the house itself so uniquely married to the luxuriant scene with its old fashioned red clay flooring, tall wooden walls, open wood beams and supported by a stone walled foundation resplendent in rustic romance. Everything was an enthralling splash of all possible hues of green, brown, rust, earth and nature --> complete with cats. A lot of cats!

It was an expansive home with no modern conventional door. Instead,  the house ushered you first into a porch, and then inside pine wax scented confines through a slate wooden sliding entrance that stayed open to the sight of Eden, more or less throughout the day. It was quite literally like living smack dab in the woods.  Very enchanting. The drone of a hum-drum world outside was drowned by chirps and rustles and cicadas. The ordinary road with its wonted living ceased to ostensibly exist, and one might in drinking in the impressive change of scenery, be taken to think of fairy elementals commonly (and quite seriously) regarded as a living part of nature in those days. 

And those days are gone. 

And it makes me wonder what became of the forest home of my grandfather's brother. All relatives have migrated to different parts of the cold western hemisphere and last I heard the house had been sold. Nobody lives in the old town anymore. Ah, but anyway, that picture above, it gives back precious memories of charming childhood days and transports me to an era when I could so casually wander and lose myself under the canopy of garden trees. Leaves quite a cheerful gentle feeling really.

And this is what I see...

Taking from what I just wrote, I know how my week will go by -- soothing, gentle, refined and angelically revealing.  I feel assured and guided, full and powerful. I have traveled a distance and arrived.  There will be matters to think of, but answers will manifest and peace will prevail. There will be plenty of sunshine to grow plants and dreams. And in the late late afternoons deliciousness will waft from my kitchen. And in the evenings there will be good food and stories and merriment around my table. And before late into the evening a spot of peace with me and my book. This is my garden of a life. This is my Lady Prism living. 

by my bedside

"I want to be with those who know secret things or else alone." ~ Rilke

Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ Delighted the sun (finally)  begged indulgence and my room is a cheerful yellow lucent glow where it touches ( insert smile)! Most heavily without mercy an affront by nature - continuous pouring day after day stretching for more than a week. Granted the cool spate was something of relief, nevertheless, an  insipid  sensation of dampness and gray can heartlessly bore into the pores of one's soul. And true, was it not a few occasions wherein I found myself in the brink of morose? And R said, and much do I agree, that for a lady with  geniality of heart, I accept morose and any expressive taciturn  ( when it visits) with a tenacious grip.

Ah, but today the sun is dancing! Pollens everywhere are rejoicing, spamming themselves in prolific bursts puffed up in the air, reveling in the triumph of light, twirling where the breeze may, then softly landing where chance commands. Quite like my thoughts. 

 My mind in theatrics buttered by the companion of  shadow friends in residence within pages. It was last night when I took this. Yes, as the rains lightly yielded its marble remnants, peacefully I was accompanied by my July opus of inspiration. My muse whispered, "capture the essence of it."  I'm glad I did. ( Insert smile.)