Sally Weaver Glick
  • 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

Sparks of Light

April Prayer

4/24/2015

0 Comments

 
Picture
The green tide is rising -- verdant green grass, gauzy green bushes, trees either still bare or decking themselves in fancy fringes and furbelows.

The following poem, April Prayer, by Stuart Kestenbaum, struck me as fitting well with these April photos:
    Just before the green begins there is the hint of green
    a blush of color, and the red buds thicken
    the ends of the maple’s branches and everything
    is poised before the start of a new world,
    which is really the same world
    just moving forward from bud
    to flower to blossom to fruit
    to harvest to sweet sleep, and the roots
    await the next signal, every signal
    every call a miracle and the switchboard
    is lighting up and the operators are
    standing by in the pledge drive we’ve
    all been listening to: Go make the call.


Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
0 Comments

Signs of Spring: Tassels and Such

4/16/2014

0 Comments

 
Picture
More of the spring roller-coaster ride. Friday was warm and lovely and John called from work and said, "Let's have a picnic supper." So we did, walking through Witmer Woods down to the college cabin. We found a number of trees with tassels of various sorts. And one lone sock, left on a campus sidewalk, presumably while the owner reveled in walking barefoot through the grass.

The warmth brought the daffodils out -- just in time for the cold temperatures and inch of snow early this week. But today the sun is shining, the daffodils are still bright yellow, and I've spotted a fox sparrow running from bush to bush in my backyard (first time I've ever seen one here -- and he's going too fast for a photo).
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
0 Comments

Signs of Spring: Muck and New Life

4/13/2014

0 Comments

 
Picture
Spring is the bright white and gold of crocus pushing their way up through green pachysandra in a sheltered window well. Spring is also the muck and mess of dirty piles of snow slowly melting on a gray cloudy day. It's a path through woods that are still wintry gray and it's sun on last year's sunlit leaf hanging by this year's bud. It's the mud in the middle of the path and it's the new life tentatively emerging.
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
0 Comments

Purple and Yellow 

8/17/2013

0 Comments

 
Picture
Lavender
   Lavender's blue, dilly, dilly,
    lavender's green.

Or so the song goes. To me, lavender looks, well, lavender -- a light purple, on gray green stems. A very soothing combination of colors, and one that is thriving in my garden at the moment. Several bouquets are drying on my porch as well, filling the air with soothing scents.

Sunflowers and daylilies cast bright golden notes, and play with sunshine and shadow. I'm taken with the mix of blooms and buds on my spikey purple plants, and with their fragrance -- lavender, sage, and mint in these photos. Mint and lavender are cool and elegant, but the sage is more fuzzy and amusing.
Picture
Sunflower
Picture
Sage
Picture
Daylily
Picture
Laughing sage
Picture
Mint
0 Comments

Blooming Prairie

6/23/2013

0 Comments

 
Picture
The coreopsis are still gilding the prairie plantings on campus, but the arrival of the next batch of performers is imminent -- there are buds everywhere you look.
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
0 Comments

Prairie Light and Shadow

6/20/2013

0 Comments

 
Picture
Judy M tells me that another name for the spiderwort is Trinity Flower -- for obvious reasons. They continue to bloom amidst the prairie plantings on campus, where I've been enjoying the interplay of light and shadow on green leaves and flowers. There are a host of buds just about to burst into bloom -- an ever-changing canvas.
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
0 Comments

Spring Dances

4/22/2013

0 Comments

 
Picture
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.
Picture
Pas de deux of the new and the old, in the neighbor's tulip tree
Picture
Windflower dancing in the wind
Picture
Another windflower, on a sunnier day
Picture
My new lilac, about to bloom for the first time
Picture
Buds of flowering quince in the foreground, forsythia in the background
0 Comments

Singing in the Rain

4/11/2013

1 Comment

 
Picture
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.
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
1 Comment

Signs of Spring

4/8/2013

0 Comments

 
Picture
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.
Picture
Picture
Picture
forsythia
Picture
Where's supper? Who hid the duck weed?
Picture
Flowering quince
0 Comments

Spring Paradox

11/25/2012

0 Comments

 
Picture
Snowdrop blossoms, coming up through old leaves and a layer of snow.
Palmer continues his seasonal metaphor for the inner journey by turning from winter's dormancy to the paradoxes of spring.

Spring is the season of surprise when we realize once again that despite our perennial doubts, winter’s darkness yields to light and winter’s deaths give rise to new life. So one metaphor for spring is “the flowering of paradox.” As spring’s wonders arise from winter’s hardships, we are invited to reflect on the many “both-ands” we must hold to live fully and well – and to become more confident that as creatures embedded in nature, we know in our bones how to hold them.

The deeper our faith, the more doubt we must endure; the deeper our hope, the more prone we are to despair; the deeper our love, the more pain its loss will bring; these are a few of the paradoxes we must hold as human beings. If we refuse to hold them in hopes of living without doubt, despair, and pain, we also find ourselves living without faith, hope, and love. But in the spring we are reminded that human nature, like nature herself, can hold opposites together as paradoxes, resulting in a more capacious and generous life.
                                    A Hidden Wholeness, p 82 - 3
Picture
Above, a dead and decaying log -- filled with moss, lichen and tiny mushrooms. The close-up is below.
Picture
Picture
New growth and a clematis bud, on last year's vine, and the remnants of a previous year's flower.
Picture
Silver maple keys and a Japanese maple seedling, on old bark chip mulch.
Picture
Dogwood blossoms, full of spring sunlight.
0 Comments
<<Previous
    My approach to contemplative photography --
    "Pay attention.
    Be astonished.
    Tell about it."

    Mary Oliver in "Sometimes"

    Enter your email address to receive email updates:

    RSS Feed

    Archives

    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    July 2017
    May 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    August 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012
    May 2012
    April 2012
    March 2012
    February 2012
    January 2012
    December 2011
    November 2011
    October 2011
    September 2011

    Categories

    All
    Advent
    Alberta
    Babies
    Bee
    Berries
    Birds
    Branches
    Bread
    Broken And Blessed
    Buds
    Butterflies
    Calendar Garden
    Calendar Garden
    Cancer
    Candles
    Canning Jar
    Caterpillars
    Children
    Clouds
    Color
    Colors
    Consolations
    Darkness And Light
    Dawn
    Dawn Mist
    Death
    Deer
    Dewdrops
    Dried Plants
    Dried Plants
    Family
    Fence
    Fire
    Fishslippers
    Flowers
    Frogs
    Frost
    Gestalt Pastoral Care
    Glory
    God As Potter
    Grasses
    Heidi
    Hildegarde
    Holy Week
    Icon
    Ignatius
    Insects
    Julian
    Lament
    Leaves
    Lent
    Light
    Light And Shadow
    Light And Shadow
    Mary
    Moon
    Mountains
    Names
    Ocean
    Pathways Retreat
    Patterns
    Peace Lamp
    Plants
    Poetry
    Prairie
    Prayer
    Rain
    Raindrops
    Reflections
    Retreat
    Retrospective
    Rosebuds
    Roseleaves
    Rose Leaves
    Sandhill Cranes
    Seasons
    Seeds
    Shore
    Snow
    Song
    Spring
    Stones
    Sunrise
    Sunset
    Sunshine And Shadow
    Sunshine And Shadow
    Tesserae
    Transitions
    Trees
    Turtles
    Vegetables
    Water
    Winter

Website thanks to Weebly -- all rights reserved
  • 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