Tag Archives: Paint box

Luminous life

White flowers offer us luminous, glowing life in a garden.

They bring a cooling refreshment to my soul. Many years ago I read about moon gardens – gardens to delight by moonlight.

I have planted many white and light colored flowers to capture the glow as the summer night settles in. Like moonlight itself, there is a kind of comfort from their glow in the dark; fragile beauty lighting the night.I’ve also learned that some plants only give out their fragrance in the dark hours.

Sometimes the fragrance of love can seem most fragile and exquisite in dark hours too. Even as a long distance watchman, I could hear it, sense the beauty and the fragrance, hear the heart cry as another beloved family member slipped from the darkness of this life into brilliance – luminous, glowing beauty beyond our knowing.

How precious is Your lovingkindness, O God! Therefore the children of men put their trust under the shadow of Your wings. They are abundantly satisfied with the fullness of Your house,

And You give them drink from the river of Your pleasures. For with You is the fountain of life; In Your light we see light. Psalm 36: 7-9 NKJV

Ordinary?

It was an ordinary trip to the store when a casual glance at a porch stirred the faintest of memories – play time on a porch under the peasant false sky of blue ceiling.

And so I’ve been thinking of blue, and sky.

Blue can be calm and comforting wrapped in old denim and chambray or soft baby blue blankets. But then, blue is authority in uniforms and robes of royalty. There’s blue in Antarctic ice and blue in flame; feeling blue sadness and the cheery blue sky of sunny days.

Blue touches earth in blossoms and takes flight in butterflies and birds that make my heart soar heavenward.

The vast sky is an ever changing palette of shade and hue. How many ways we try to describe it! Powder blue, azure, heavenly blue, sky blue, navy, celestial blue, indigo, cobalt, azure, periwinkle, sapphire… The shades are clear or hazy, murky, stormy, threatening, comforting, cold…

Blue wraps my world in beauty.

Paint Box – yellow

Recently a writing prompt surfaced in an old journal and drew me in again – Color.

I find that the spring light makes color more vibrant, more uplifting to my soul.

If you had asked me about yellow, well, at first I wouldn’t have much to say except it is a cheerful color. But reflection tells me it is woven through my adult life – a favorite dress in soft yellow, then yellow gingham curtains and yellow walls in a baby’s room, a fun yellow car, bouquets of dandelions in a chubby fist, a yellow bike, vintage yellow crocks in the kitchen… a touch here and there.

The yellows of early spring glow. More memories glow too: puckery lemons with peppermint stick straws at the Flower Mart in Baltimore, Mom’s lemon meringue pies with toasty brown peaks atop creamy fillings – best fresh from the oven… Do you have memories in yellow? Do they bring happy smiles to your face now?

Paint Box – Greens

Spring explodes like a paint box come to life; spilling across the browned winter weary landscape. First, the greens come.

I recently learned a new word. Viriditas. My high school Latin teacher would be amazed! Viriditas means “greenness” – vitality, lushness, verdure, fecundity, growth. I am grateful to Mandy for sharing this word and its connection to Abbess Hildegard von Bingen (1098-1179). It seems a perfect expression of the living green captured by the soul as the light dances over grass and leaf life.

He makes me lie down in green pastures… He restores my soul.