Posted in One-Word Wednesday

One-Word Wednesday 2/4/25

“Yes!”

Y tree in the farmhouse yard.

I have this quirky (weird?) habit of noticing trees or bushes or sticks that are somehow divided into the shape of the letter Y.

Why the emphasis on Y, you ask?

Well, one time HR and I were hiking in the woods somewhere or other, and I was not feeling well. I might have been a tad frustrated at not feeling the way I wanted to feel.

I looked up from my self-pity and saw a bush that looked like a Y. Undoubtedly a very similar situation to Moses, the wilderness and the burning bush in the Old Testament.

For some reason, the Y bush made me think of the word “Yes.”

Which prompted me to think of what I wanted to be … Yes.

I wanted my health, my good health, to be “Yes!”

I can’t remember if I actually felt physically better after my Awakening in the Woods, but I do recall feeling better mentally. And maybe even laughing a bit at my childish wanting.

But the practice somehow stuck. And I see Y’s everywhere!

So …

Yes! … to good HEALTH.

Yes! … to daily opportunities to be KIND to others.

Yes! … to DEEP BREATHING and healthy lungs.

Yes! …

What would you like to say “Yes!” to today?

(P.S. I see Y’s in chicken bones too. Remember the pulley bone?)

Posted in Joy in Nature

Tuesday Trees

Recently, Robert, and I were in Atlanta for their annual Pride Festival. One morning we ventured over to the always-magnificent Atlanta Botanical Garden.

In addition to over 10,000 pumpkins (!) on display (I’ll block about that a little later), there was a new exhibit, “Enchanted Trees” woven through the garden’s incredible natural landscape.

Here’s one:

Garden Website

Amazing Beauty!

Posted in My Saturday Evening Post

My Saturday Evening Post: 4/12/25 “Night Light Life”

Robert and I were walking through Telfair Square here in Savannah last night after dinner. The statue-laden Telfair Academy (the first public art museum in the South, 1888) shone incandescently, perhaps a bit eerily, exuding both pride and remorse in our city’s problematic past.

I paused and gazed up into the heavy, meandering limbs of the ancient Live Oak trees, limbs laden with both desiccated (for now) resurrection fern and new, brilliant green spring leaves.

Death and life together.

The street light could not illuminate all their crevices.

“Some of these trees have to be older than the academy itself,” I thought, as we walked out of the past. “If only trees could talk!”

A light breeze kneaded the old and the new together, causing an audible whispering in the leaves.

And that’s my Saturday Evening Post.

Posted in Monday Moaning or Monday Marveling?

Monday Moaning or Monday Marveling? 2/10/25

Marveling this morning, remembering our beautiful visit to the Cummer Museum of Art and Gardens in Jacksonville, FL last Friday.

It is one of our favorite art museums anywhere, but this time, because the weather was so beautiful, we decided to simply hang out in the gardens.

Pink camellias

Robert and a BIG oak tree …

Me, pausing by a reflection pool …

HR too …

See him?

Roses in February.

The gardens make up the “backyard” of the museum, along the mighty St. John’s River, with downtown in the distance.

MARVELOUS!

I think it’s important, perhaps now more than ever, that we finds things that cause us to pause and marvel.

Posted in Five Friday Happy Bringers

Five Friday Happy Bringers 11/25/22

My weekly list of a few “joy inciters” in my life. A Friday Gratitude Journal, of sorts.

1. My Thanksgiving cranberry sauce!

Just the color alone makes me happy.

2. Having hands and fingers (even with my arthritis) which enable me to chop onions for Thanksgiving dressing, shake hands with strangers, pick up granddaughter Isabelle and hold hands with HR.

3. The novel I am currently reading in my study chair about a Black American woman caught between her privilege and her identity.

4. This little tree near us who is losing his beautiful leaves. But see how he is standing proud in spite of his de-clothing

I took his picture to help him feel special.

5. Peanut butter.

May you have a weekend for which to give thanks.

Posted in Monday Moaning or Monday Marveling?

Monday Moaning or Monday Marveling? 9/19/22

Walking to beautiful Forsyth Park here in Savannah, HR and I came upon this old Spanish Moss-covered tree we had passed many a time before.

But this time, the tree beckoned us over.

“What,” I asked, still not sure what was going on.

“Why do you all walk past me, ignoring me, disrespecting me? I have been here long before any of you arrived.”

And for the first time in, well, forever, I saw the tree as a living being. A fellow creature on planet earth.

A tree who “sees and understands.”