Sally Weaver Glick
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Sparks of Light

The Opening Season

4/29/2013

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    For the night followed by the day
    for the idle winter ground
    followed by the energy of spring
    for the infolding of the earth
    followed by bursts of unfolding
    thanks be to you, O God.

                    from Saturday Morning Prayer, in Celtic Benediction
                        by J. Phillip Newell
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Spring Dances

4/22/2013

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Goldmound spirea, living up to its name
Spring keeps dancing on the threshold, teasing us with a day of sun and warm temperatures, followed by gray, windy days and frost. But she can't hide completely. There are hints of new life everywhere.
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Pas de deux of the new and the old, in the neighbor's tulip tree
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Windflower dancing in the wind
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Another windflower, on a sunnier day
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My new lilac, about to bloom for the first time
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Buds of flowering quince in the foreground, forsythia in the background
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The Greening Time of Year

4/17/2013

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Geranium leaves
This morning I smelled the sharp, green scent of newly cut grass, thanks to the first mowing on campus. We're in the greening time -- in a few days time, the grass has gone from a dormant huddled brown to a vibrant growing green. And a gauzy green is beginning to tint the gray-brown bushes.

So today I'm celebrating green, and Viriditas, indoors and out.

From Mary Sharratt, author of Illuminations, a novel about Hildegarde of Bingen, the medieval German Benedictine abbess, composer, theologian, visionary and naturalist:
A cornerstone of Hildegard's spirituality was Viriditas, or greening power, her revelation of the animating life force manifest in the natural world that infuses all creation with moisture and vitality. To her, the divine was manifest in every leaf and blade of grass. Just as a ray of sunlight is the sun, Hildegard believed that a flower or a stone was God, though not the whole of God. Creation revealed the face of the invisible creator. Hildegard celebrated the sacred in nature, something highly relevant for us in this age of climate change and the destruction of natural habitats.
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Crabapple tree leaves
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Honeysuckle leaves
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Privet leaves
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Daikon radish leaf
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Singing in the Rain

4/11/2013

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The Elkhart Truth editorial cartoon this morning showed an outlined paint-by-number April landscape of two glum-looking people walking their dog. The color key read: 1. Gray, 2. Gray, 3. Gray, 4. Gray, 5. Gray, 6. Gray.

April indeed. But April showers also bring April flowers. The daffodils and Siberian iris are bright spots of color, even when covered with raindrops. The bridal wreath spirea is a tangle of bare branches with tiny buds of green and a king's ransom of raindrop gems. And a pair of house-hunting ducks came wandering through the back yard, perfectly content with the weather.
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Signs of Spring

4/8/2013

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The violets under my front step are blooming and fragrant, and there is a violet carpet under the bushes nearby. The mini-daffodils, barely four inches tall, have opened, and the taller daffodils are on the verge of it. Our forsythia hasn't quite burst out yet, nor the flowering quince, but they are both brimming with potential. And all along the canal yesterday, John and I spotted pairs of mallards, some scouting good nesting sites and others checking out the fast food menu, bright orange feet splashing.
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forsythia
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Where's supper? Who hid the duck weed?
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Flowering quince
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Calendar Garden Part II

4/6/2013

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Sunshine and shadow
While there were still golden remnants from last fall in the Calendar Garden this week, spring is also tiptoeing in, with yellows and purples -- witch hazel tassels, a few timid windflowers, more crocus, and lots of excited bees. The saying "busy as a bee" must have come from someone watching spring bees at work -- a still photo doesn't begin to capture the energy.
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Witch hazel tassels
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One of the enthusiastic bees, britches loaded with pollen
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windflower
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Wings catching the light, abdomen looking drenched in honey...
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Red-gold Spring

4/5/2013

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At long last, some days with sunshine and warmer temperatures, so yesterday I headed down to the Calendar Garden to see what early spring looked like there.

It's an in-between time, with a lot of trimming and garden clean-up happening. The new is beginning to appear, like the hyacinth just starting to poke up through red-gold sedum. But there are still plenty of remnants -- leaves and river birch bark and dried hydrangea blossoms, lit by warm sunlight, stirring memories of last year's autumnal reds, golds and browns.

And, unexpectedly, a flock of goldfish brightening the pond -- and nary a frog or pollywog in sight.
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    My approach to contemplative photography --
    "Pay attention.
    Be astonished.
    Tell about it."

    Mary Oliver in "Sometimes"

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  • Home
  • Spiritual Guidance
    • What is spiritual guidance?
    • When should I seek it?
    • Individual or group?
  • Groups
    • Inklings
    • 2020 - 2021 Schedule
  • Individuals
    • Spiritual guidance for individuals >
      • Locally
      • At a distance
  • Sparks of Light blog
  • Martha Mary Mosaic
  • Writing
    • In Tune with God: the art of congregational discernment
    • Resources
  • About me
  • Contact