Beach on Atlantic Ocean

The Peace of Wild Things

When despair for the world grows in me

and I wake in the night at the least sound

in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,

I go and lie down where the wood drake

rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.

I come into the peace of wild things

who do not tax their lives with forethought

of grief. I come into the presence of still water.

And I feel above me the day-blind stars

waiting with their light. For a time

I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

— Wendell Berry

Mottle Purse Crab (Persephona mediterranea)

 

The essence of all pantheism, evolutionism, and modern cosmic religion is really in this proposition: that Nature is our mother. Unfortunately, if you regard Nature as a mother, you discover that she is a step-mother. The main point of Christianity was this: that Nature is not our mother: Nature is our sister. We can be proud of her beauty, since we have the same father; but she has no authority over us; we have to admire, but not to imitate. This gives to the typically Christian pleasure in this earth a strange touch of lightness that is almost frivolity. Nature was a solemn mother to the worshippers of Isis and Cybele. Nature was a solemn mother to Wordsworth or to Emerson. But Nature is not solemn to Francis of Assisi or to George Herbert. To St. Francis, Nature is a sister, and even a younger sister: a little, dancing sister, to be laughed at as well as loved."

~ G.K. Chesterton

Royal Starfish (Astropecten articulatus)

Stars

Alone in the night

On a dark hill

With pines around me

Spicy and still,

And a heaven full of stars

Over my head,

White and topaz

And misty red;

Myriads with beating

Hearts of fire

That aeons

Cannot vex or tire;

Up the dome of heaven

Like a great hill,

I watch them marching

Stately and still,

And I know that I

Am honored to be

Witness

Of so much majesty.

Sarah Teasdale

Passionflower (Passiflora incarnata)

"What we called love down there 
was mostly the craving to be loved. 

In the main, I loved you for my own sake, 
because I needed you."

 

"And now! You need me no more?"

"But of course not!" said the Lady; 

and her smile made me wonder 
how both the phantoms could refrain 
from crying out with joy.

"What needs could I have now that I have all?
I am full now, not empty

I am in Love Himself, not lonely, not weak. 
You shall be the same. 

Come and see. We shall have no need for one another 
now we can begin to love truly."

The Great Divorce, by C.S. Lewis

The floral structure of the Passionflower was seen to symbolize the crucifixion. The three spreading styles atop the stigma were thought to represent the three nails by which Christ was attached to the cross.

Figeater Beetle (Cotinis mutabilis)

Forgiven

I found a little beetle; so that Beetle was his name,
And I called him Alexander and he answered just the same.
I put him in a match-box, and I kept him all the day ...
And Nanny let my beetle out -
Yes, Nanny let my beetle out -
She went and let my beetle out -
And Beetle ran away.

She said she didn't mean it, and I never said she did,
She said she wanted matches and she just took off the lid,
She said that she was sorry, but it's difficult to catch
An excited sort of beetle you've mistaken for a match.

She said that she was sorry, and I really mustn't mind,
As there's lots and lots of beetles which she's certain we could find,
If we looked about the garden for the holes where beetles hid -
And we'd get another match-box and write BEETLE on the lid.

We went to all the places which a beetle might be near,
And we made the sort of noises which a beetle likes to hear,
And I saw a kind of something, and I gave a sort of shout:
"A beetle-house and Alexander Beetle coming out!"

It was Alexander Beetle I'm as certain as can be,
And he had a sort of look as if he thought it must be Me,
And he had a sort of look as if he thought he ought to say:
"I'm very very sorry that I tried to run away."

And Nanny's very sorry too for you-know-what-she-did,
And she's writing ALEXANDER very blackly on the lid,
So Nan and Me are friends, because it's difficult to catch
An excited Alexander you've mistaken for a match. 

A.A. Milne

Robber Fly (Asilidae)

There was an old lady who swallowed a fly,
I don't know why she swallowed a fly,
Perhaps she'll die...

Rose Bonne

Paper Wasp Nest

It started with seeing nature and ended with seeing God. 

It started in literature, and ended in Romans and Psalms. 

It started with walks through the grass and woods and lagoons, 

and ended in walks through the high plains of theology.

Not that nature and literature and grass and woods and lagoons disappeared,

but they became more obviously copies and pointers.

John Piper

Emerging Cicada (Tibicen cholormera)

Most of the North American species are in the genus Tibicen: the annual or dog-day cicadas (so named because they emerge in late July and August ). The best-known North American genus is Magicicada, however. These periodical cicadas have an extremely long life cycle of 13 to 17 years and emerge in large numbers. Another American species is the Apache cicada, Diceroprocta apache. wikipedia

Night

The Dark Night Of The Soul

Once in a dark of night,

Inflamed with love and wanting, I arose

(O coming of delight!)

And went, as no one knows,

When all my house lay long in deep repose

All in the dark went right,

Down secret steps, disguised in other clothes,

(O coming of delight!)

In dark when no one knows,

When all my house lay long in deep repose.

And in the luck of night

In secret places where no other spied

I went without my sight

Without a light to guide

Except the heart that lit me from inside.

It guided me and shone

Surer than noonday sunlight over me,

And lead me to the one

Whom only I could see

Deep in a place where only we could be.

O guiding dark of night!

O dark of night more darling than the dawn!

O night that can unite

A lover and loved one,

A lover and loved one moved in unison.

And on my flowering breast

Which I had kept for him and him alone

He slept as I caressed

And loved him for my own,

Breathing an air from redolent cedars blown.

And from the castle wall

The wind came down to winnow through his hair

Bidding his fingers fall,

Searing my throat with air

And all my senses were suspended there.

I stayed there to forget.

There on my lover, face to face, I lay.

All ended, and I let

My cares all fall away

Forgotten in the lilies on that day.

Saint John of the Cross

Translated by A.Z. Foreman

Arabesque Orb Weaver (Neoscona arabesca)

In 2007, A Giant Spider Web began to form in an East Texas State Park. Several different types of spiders worked together This is one of them. I took this picture in the park where this phenomenon took place. It made world wide news. You can read more about it here:

http://spiderjoe.com/giant-webs-2007

An excerpt from the news:

If you hate creepy-crawlies, you might want to avoid Lake Tawakoni State Park, where a 200-yard stretch along a nature trail has been blanketed by a sprawling spider web that has engulfed seven large trees, dozens of bushes and even the weedy ground.
But if you hate mosquitoes, you might just love this bizarre web.
“At first, it was so white it looked like fairyland,” said park Superintendent Donna Garde. “Now it’s filled with so many mosquitoes that it’s turned a little brown.
“There are times you can literally hear the screech of millions of mosquitoes caught in those webs.” …

Crow Poison (Amianthium muscaetoxicum)

"Fueled by a million created wings of fire

the rocket tore a tunnel through the sky and everybody cheered.

Fueled only by the mystery of warm, moist soil, and a beckoning sun,

the seedling urged its way through the thicknesses of black -

and as it pierced the heavy ceiling of soil and launched itself up into outer space -

no one even clapped."

Marci Hans

Tiny Bluet (Houstonia caerulea)

If only the flowers, little as they are,

could know how deeply wounded is my heart,

they would weep with me

to heal my sorrow.

If only the nightingales knew

how sad and sick I am,

they would gladly pour out

their refreshing song.

If only they knew my woe,

those golden stars,

they would come down from aloft

and speak comfort to me.

They can none of them know,

one only knows my sorrow;

she herself has made the rent,

has rent my heart asunder.

Heinrich Heine (1797-1856)

Water Oak (Quercus nigra)

The Oak Tree and the Reed

A reed got into an argument with an oak tree. 

The oak tree marvelled at her own strength, 

boasting that she could stand her own in a battle against the winds.

Meanwhile, she condemned the reed for being weak, 

since he was naturally inclined to yield to every breeze.

The wind then began to blow very fiercely. 

The oak tree was torn up by her roots and toppled over, 

while the reed was left bent but unharmed. 

Aesop's Fables

Tent Caterpillar (Malacosoma americanum)

And as soon as Aaron spoke to the whole congregation of the people of Israel, they looked toward the wilderness, and behold, the glory of the Lord appeared in the cloud.  And the Lord said to Moses, “I have heard the grumbling of the people of Israel. Say to them, ‘At twilight you shall eat meat, and in the morning you shall be filled with bread. Then you shall know that I am the Lord your God.’”

  

.... And when the dew had gone up, there was on the face of the wilderness a fine, flake-like thing, fine as frost on the ground. When the people of Israel saw it, they said to one another, “What is it?”  For they did not know what it was. And Moses said to them, “It is the bread that the Lord has given you to eat.  This is what the Lord has commanded: ‘Gather of it, each one of you, as much as he can eat...

And Moses said to them, “Let no one leave any of it over till the morning.” But they did not listen to Moses. Some left part of it till the morning, and it bred worms and stank. And Moses was angry with them. Morning by morning they gathered it, each as much as he could eat; but when the sun grew hot, it melted. 

Exodus 16

World on Fire

BARTER

Life has loveliness to sell,

All beautiful and splendid things,

Blue waves whitened on a cliff,

Soaring fire that sways and sings,

And childrens's faces looking up

Holding wonder in a cup.

Life has loveliness to sell,

Music like a curve of gold,

Scent of pine trees in the rain,

Eyes that love you, arms that hold,

And for your spirit's still delight,

Holy thoughts that star the night.

Spend all you have for loveliness,

Buy it and never count the cost;

For one white singing hour of peace

Count many a year of strife well lost,

And for a breath of ecstacy

Give all you have been, or could be.

Sarah Teasdale