Saturday Nice . . .

 

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A South wind brought the smell of country things,

New furrows in the sun and gaudy wings,

Lilies and buttercups beside a pool,

Green pastures growing where the earth is cool.

The West wind brought the salt of stormy seas,

It blew against my face and in the trees,

Made little sounds like children in their sleep,

Bringing to us the stirrings of the deep.

The North wind hissed above the frozen snow,

Bringing vast silence, Northern lights aglow;

Long bitter wastes where stillness reigns complete,

Mocking the little noises of our street.

The East wind brought us fog and gusts of rain,

Beating like hands upon the windowpane,

Grey mists and sodden streets and dripping caves,

Bedraggled flowers in their sheltering leaves.

And when October gales blow cold and high,

We shut the door and let the wind go by;

And turned our backs and pulled the shutters tight,

Glad of warm rooms and shelter from the night.

~Edna Jacques, Winds

Beside Still Waters, 1952

I have always loved the wind. All kinds of wind.  Gentle breezes that tease your hair, and raging winds that take your breath away. To me they are the evidence of the presence of a power that is much higher than you or I.  I think of the Disciples out in a boat on the raging seas calling out to their sleeping Master, saying "Carest thou not that we perish?" And his response to the wind . . . "Peace. Be Still."

And the wind obeys. Even the wind obeys. It stills and the Disciples look at each other and wonder, what manner of man is this that even the winds obey Him . . . 

I woke up this morning with the hymn running through my mind, Master the Tempest is Raging. And I have been thinking about the many times in my life that the Master has calmed the tempests in my life.  

Master, the terror is over, 

The elements sweetly rest; 

Earth’s sun in the calm lake is mirrored, 

And heaven’s within my breast; 

Linger, O blessed Redeemer! 

Leave me alone no more; 

And with joy I shall make the blest harbor, 

And rest on the blissful shore.

No, when asked how I know He is real. I just point to my life and the tempests He has served to calm. How can I deny it.  I cannot. He is the strength that carries and calms me and in doing so . . .  blesses me.

 

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"In the morning when I arose the mists were hanging over the opposite hills, and the tops of the highest hills were covered with snow. There was a most lively combination at the head of the vale of the yellow autumnal hills wrapped in sunshine, and overhung with partial mists, the green and yellow trees, and the distant snow-capped mountains. It was a most heavenly morning." 

~Dorothy Wordsworth, Friday 10 October, 1809

Sister to the great poet William Wordsworth, a poet and diarist in her own right. I can picture the very spot I believe that she was writing about. I was lucky enough to visit Dove Cottage on the edge of Grasmere in the Lake District. The two of them spent much of their lives living and writing in the Lake District in various abodes.

Dorothy kept a remarkable journal during the family's years at Dove Cottage. The journal was published in 1897 as The Grasmere Journal, providing intimate details of the family's daily life and of their visitors. Wordsworth often took poetic inspiration from his sister Dorothy's journal. An entry in her journal from 1802, remarking upon daffodils near Ullswater, was the inspiration for his poem "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud" in 1804.

I felt greatly inspired walking through the rooms of this cottage, which was not really all that big.  Wordsworth moved into it with his Sister Dorothy in 1799. They were later joined by Wordsworth's wife and her sister when they married and then three children quickly followed. I wondered at how they all coped living in a home which was really not very large.  But  . . .  I could easily see how it was very inspiring to their writing. Built almost into the hillside on one side of the lake, you could see quite well over to the other side and I just felt in reading this excerpt from her diary this morning, this might have been the view she was describing. 

Oh, how wonderful it is that I have had such an opportunity as to walk the ways of some of the great poets.

 

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I was reading yesterday on Diane Schiffer's IG page how she accidentally ordered too many flowers with her grocery order.  She often does this . . .  orders too many flowers and then is scrambling to find spots for them in her home.  I think perhaps it is not really an accident.  Perhaps.  But how wonderful to be able to fill your home with blooms. 

I do so love flowers. I have fake flowers. They never grow old, or fade, or droop, or die. But constantly delight me, day after day, week after week, year after year.  I have a huge potted fake red geranium and two smaller ones, and I have a vase of very realistic looking poppies which sits on my dining room table. It is only when you get really close to them that you realize that they are not real.  Or at least that is what I think anyways. They seem real enough to me.  And they delight me every bit as much as real ones would.

 

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Little bits of Christmas are creeping into the shops, by stealth . . .  but I am not ready to let go of October just yet. I am enjoying it far too much. The sights of rows of pumpkins and squash. Corn stalks, yellow and drying in the fields.  Baskets of apples with their heady scent.

Ghosties and ghouls hanging from branches, drifting back and forth in the wind as the leaves laying beneath the trees dance their October reels.

It just brings me so much joy.  There will be plenty of time for Christmas when November makes its startling debut, but in the meantime  . . .  pumpkins and squash, ambers and golds . . .  they are bringing me far too much joy.

 

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November has never been a month that has brought much joy into my life. Grey and dismal for many years it only reminded me of my second husband's drunken escapades and the heartache they caused. Remembrance Day was never a day for me to remember the fallen dead, but only a day to dread what was coming at the end of his military parade. Too many days I lived in fear, I thought to change that with the last husband, by getting married on that day.  Replacing a day rifled with sorrow with something sweet and for a time it was, but now it is only a nasty reminder of something horrible. 

On the 6th of November it will be five years since I landed back in Canada and made a new beginning. Perhaps that should be a day of celebration for me. A day when I can replace all of the nasty memories with something sweet. Not everyone is blessed to be able to have such a new beginning and to be able to wipe the slate clean and start as fresh as I did.  I look around me now and can see how very clearly, I have been blessed. 

Maybe I should throw caution to the wind and throw a party.  It should be a celebration of fresh starts and new beginnings.  And there will be cake.

 

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Me, bounding into the future with joy and abandon.

No more tears.

 

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I love Herdwick Sheep. They always look like they are smiling and they have very loving, friendly, and cheerful dispositions.  The fact that they have wool growing on their faces rather than hair makes them look almost as if they are smiling, very teddy bearish. 

I remember seeing a whole flock of black sheep once. It was outside Chirk Castle in Wales.  We were with Peter and Audry Lee on one of our walks. I thought it was pretty amazing to see one black sheep, let alone a whole flock of them. 

I just looked out my window and look what God has blessed me with this morning. A rainbow!  Harbinger of fresh starts and new beginnings!  What a beautiful sign!  Grace. I know it was meant just for me.  It's gone now. I had only a short opportunity to see it and I did.  What a blessing.

I have always loved rainbows. People spend their lives looking for the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.  I am living in the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.  Beauty that appears at the end of the storm.

I mean . . . what more proof do I need?  God is real and He is mindful of me. And I am mindful of Him. He sees me and I see Him. I am on the right path.

And with that I will leave you with a thought for the day  . . . 

A thought to carry with you  . . . 

☾ ° ★° * 。  

• ˚ ˚ ˛ ˚ ˛ • •。★★ 。* 。
° 。 ° ˛˚˛ * _Π_____*。*˚
˚ ˛ •˛•˚ */______/~＼。˚ ˚ ˛
˚ ˛ •˛• ˚ ｜ 田田 ｜門 ★

*The bad news is time flies.

The good news is, you're the pilot.

• ˚ ˚ ˛ ˚ ˛ • •。★★ 。* 。

(From my calendar this  morning.)

In The English Kitchen today  . . .  Two Big Chocolate Chip Cookies.  Oh boy. These are amazing. The recipe makes only two bread and butter plate sized cookies and they are fabulously, dangerously delicious!

I hope that you have a wonderful weekend. Thank you for spending some of it here with me this morning.  Be blessed. Don't forget!

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And I do too!