You may not find these beautiful but today was my third time up to bat this month and I thought I was about to strike out. So finding three in the eleventh hour was certainly beautiful to me. Now that I know where they are popping up I may try one more time.
From John O’Donohue:
Beauty is the inconceivable made so intimate that it illuminates our hearts.
The Peonies are definitely the stars of the show in the neighborhood right now. They are not the most photogenic from close up though.
Today’s quote from John O’Donohue is very appropriate for our times:
Where beauty seems absent, she is often hidden and still at work in the slow industry of transformation.
A rose is a rose is a rose. But they are photogenic. Hard o miss with a closeup of a fresh rose.
Today John O’Donohue shares with us this short poem by St. John of the Cross:
I did not have to ask my heart what it wanted
because of all the desires I have ever known
just one did I cling to
for it was the essence of all desire:
to know beauty.
I was headed out the door to photograph this flower in my neighbor’s front yard only to discover her about to dig it up. Glad I got there just in the nick of time.
Today John O’Donohue continues on the theme of beauty and the heart:
Compassion and attention keep the prism clear so that beauty may illuminate our life.
Here’s something a little different. I’m thinking in terms of the beauty of simplicity. Actually, I’m all out of flowers and my hydrangea is just on the verge of blooming. Meanwhile, I have been working on my still life chops. I see this one printed large and hanging on the wall of a breakfast restaurant.
And from John O’Donohue:
The heart is the place where beauty arrives; here is where it can be felt, recognized and shared.
Another Iris for you. I think this one may be my favorite so far.
Today’s quote is from Joan Chittister:
It is Beauty that magnetizes the contemplative, and it is the duty of the contemplative to give beauty away so that the rest of the world may, in the midst of squalor, ugliness, and pain, remember that beauty is possible.
It has been either rainy or windy the last few days so hard to get out and photograph. So, I’m still milking the trip to North Mountain Park on Sunday. But who doesn’t love a daisy.
Some days I have to read pages and pages to find a good quote from John O’Donohue. Lately it has been about every other sentence.
Beauty is such an attractive and gracious force precisely because it is so close to the fractured side of experience.
Many varieties of lavender are beginning to bloom in the area.
And from John O’Donohue:
When we endeavor to view something through the lens of beauty, it is often surprising how much more we see.
This is a new flower to me. I found it blooming in North Mountain Park and fortunately they had labels. Can’t wait to see it in full bloom.
From John O’Donohue:
Beauty shines with a light from beyond itself. Love is the name of that light.
And here is the blossom from yesterday fully opened and complete with real raindrops.
And today John O’Donohue speaks of the beauty of ageing:
Rather than being a fall away from beauty, ageing can be the revelation of beauty, the time when the inherent radiance becomes visible.