Environment

The Year’s Last, Loveliest Smile

/ James Browning

The first day of fall was a week ago, but until today the weather was still very much summer like. Today is the first ‘fall like” day we’ve had. It’s overcast, rainy and cool. The following originally posted almost a year ago on October 8, 2012 shows a true ove of autumn. 
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The first chill of fall has hung around for three days now and there is change in the air. Lawns and bushes are still holding their green, but leaves are coming down. The time of autumn’s grand display is not far away when frost turns most everything into bright yellow, vibrant orange and brilliant red.

The seasons have long suited me in a different manner than is typical where Spring is the first season, Summer comes after, Fall arrives third and Winter comes at the end. Autumn is the season I love best and comes first in line for me. Fall to me is the awakening; a new beginning. Winter comes afterward as a time of growth, study and reflection. Spring growth comes with a general bursting forward followed by Summer which is just Spring in old clothes; over-grown. After all a season with two names, Fall and Autumn, must be special!

Fall has always been my favorite season. The time when everything bursts with its last beauty, as if nature had been saving up all year for the grand finale. Lauren DeStefano

Squeeze your eyes closed, as tight as you can, and think of all your favorite autumns, crisp and perfect, all bound up together like a stack of cards. That is what it is like… the wonderful brightness of Fairy colors. Catherynne M. Valente

Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns. George Eliot

Use what you have, use what the world gives you. Use the first day of fall: bright flame before winter’s deadness; harvest; orange, gold, amber; cool nights and the smell of fire. Our tree-lined streets are set ablaze, our kitchens filled with the smells of nostalgia: apples bubbling into sauce, roasting squash, cinnamon, nutmeg, cider, warmth itself. The leaves as they spark into wild color just before they die are the world’s oldest performance art, and everything we see is celebrating one last violently hued hurrah before the black and white silence of winter. Shauna Niequist

Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower. Albert Camus

Gratitude overflows on these cool days and chilly nights of Autumn. Feeling the fresh air of Fall on my skin and seeing the landscape unfold in an abundance of color is truly one of my favorite things. It is some of God’s greatest art.

Autumn…the year’s last, loveliest smile.
William Cullen Bryant

But Are We Grateful?

/ James Browning

Green-Forest-Wallpaper-green-20036570-1280-1024What an irony it is that these living beings
whose shade we sit in,
whose fruit we eat,
whose limbs we climb,
whose roots we water,
to whom most of us rarely give a second thought,
are so poorly understood.
We need to come,
as soon as possible, to a profound
understanding and appreciation
for trees and forests
and the vital role they play,
for they are among our best allies
in the uncertain future that is unfolding.
From ” The Man Who Planted Trees: Lost Groves, Champion Trees,
and an Urgent Plan to Save the Planet” by Jim Robbins

water%20sunset%20sunHere in plain sight I make a public commitment to pay more attention to the abundantly present, but mostly overlooked, building blocks of  life such as trees, water and the sun. All deserve my earnest gratitude and will receive more of it. I will look up and take notice realizing that the greatest bounty of life lies outside of me and not within my usual thoughts.

The things that most deserve our gratitude we just take for granted.
Without air we cannot live for more than a minute or two. Everyday
we are breathing in and breathing out, but do we ever feel grateful
to the air? If we do not drink water, we cannot survive. Even our
body is composed to a large extent of water. But do we give any
value to water? Every morning when we open our eyes, we see
the sun… offering us light and life-energy, which we badly need.
But are we grateful to the sun?
From “The Jewels of Happiness: Inspiration and Wisdom
to Guide Your Life-Journey” by Sri Chinmoy

As One Might Make An Offering

/ James Browning

There are mornings like today where specific inspiration for writing of my gratitude is outside my grasp. On those days I seek out a favorite writer or a poem dear or else seek out something I have not read before. On some occasions I try my hand at verse. How quickly rhyming words come or how laborious the task feels tells me how clear my thoughts are. Today in my books I found two poems I had not read before and eight lines of poetry fell together for me in minutes. As one might make an offering at the foot of an altar, I lay these are your feet today in hopes they are of good use to you.

“Mystery” by Kenneth L. Patton
Only those who do not know
where’s the home of mystery
look outside the day to day
you and I and all can see.
Mystery is in our minds
hid behind the quiet thought,
under feet, upon our tongues,
anywhere it is not sought.
Mystery is not outside,
But inside the ears and eyes,
in the clasping of the hand
in our unsurprised surprise.
Mystery, bold on the top,
out upon the ample air
hides itself successfully
just by being everywhere.

“If I Knew You & You Knew Me” by Nixon Waterman
If I knew you and you knew me,
If both of us could clearly see,
And with an inner sight divine,
The meaning of your heart and mine,
I’m sure that we would differ less,
And clasp our hands in friendliness;
Our thoughts would pleasantly agree,
If I knew you and you knew me.

“We Want” by James Browning
We want to know the unknowable,
To see what can’t ever be seen.
We want to hide from high and low
With only joy; no sadness in between.
Like flapping arms expecting to fly,
We run through life mindlessly fast,
Pretending sincerely we won’t die,
But only for our time do we last.

This line appears on my screen as the first gaggle of honking geese go flying over my home signaling the certainty of the change of seasons. So much I have to be grateful for, but at this moment I chose to express only two: 1) my thankfulness for great writers that have inspired me since I was a child; 2) the cooler days of fall are here. To openly be grateful for a thing or two makes me feel full of life as I embrace the new day.

I’m not young enough to know everything
J.M.Barrie

The Year’s Last, Loveliest Smile

/ James Browning

The first chill of fall has hung around for three days now and there is change in the air. Lawns and bushes are still holding their green, but leaves are coming down. The time of autumn’s grand display is not far away when frost turns most everything into bright yellow, vibrant orange and brilliant red.

The seasons have long suited me in a different manner than is typical where Spring is the first season, Summer comes after, Fall arrives third and Winter comes at the end. Autumn is the season I love best and comes first in line for me. Fall to me is the awakening; a new beginning. Winter comes afterward as a time of growth, study and reflection. Spring growth comes with a general bursting forward followed by Summer which is just Spring in old clothes; over-grown. After all a season with two names, Fall and Autumn, must be special!

Fall has always been my favorite season. The time when everything bursts with its last beauty, as if nature had been saving up all year for the grand finale. Lauren DeStefano

Squeeze your eyes closed, as tight as you can, and think of all your favorite autumns, crisp and perfect, all bound up together like a stack of cards. That is what it is like… the wonderful brightness of Fairy colors. Catherynne M. Valente

Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns. George Eliot

Use what you have, use what the world gives you. Use the first day of fall: bright flame before winter’s deadness; harvest; orange, gold, amber; cool nights and the smell of fire. Our tree-lined streets are set ablaze, our kitchens filled with the smells of nostalgia: apples bubbling into sauce, roasting squash, cinnamon, nutmeg, cider, warmth itself. The leaves as they spark into wild color just before they die are the world’s oldest performance art, and everything we see is celebrating one last violently hued hurrah before the black and white silence of winter. Shauna Niequist

Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower. Albert Camus

Gratitude overflows on these cool days and chilly nights of Autumn. Feeling the fresh air of Fall on my skin and seeing the landscape unfold in an abundance of color is truly one of my favorite things. It is some of God’s greatest art.

Autumn…the year’s last, loveliest smile.
William Cullen Bryant

The Rain Is My Dear Friend

/ James Browning

Sodden clouds, intermittent wipers and home, sweet home

I love the rain.

I don’t mean I grudgingly appreciate its ecological necessity. I don’t mean I’ve learned to tolerate it. I don’t mean I wait it out, flipping through the calendar to see how many more pages until the sun might break through. I mean I love it.

I love everything about it. I love falling asleep under a down comforter in the dead of winter with the windows thrown open to the hiss of rain. I love waking up to the soft aqueous light that is a painter’s dream and listening to the rush of water in the culvert. I love the thrum of rain against the house on a dark afternoon with potato leek soup simmering on the stove. I love the fine mist on my face, the way my skin feels soft and pliant and new in the rain. I love thinking of words to describe the thick, sodden sky: pearl gray, dove-gray, iron-gray, pewter, ashen, silver, smoke. I love my big green, knee-high Wellies. I love the intermittent wipers on my car.From “I Love the Rain” Laruen Kessler originally published in Oregon Quarterly  Winter 2001 http://laurenkessler.com/essays/i-love-the-rain/

I have posted two blogs in the last year and a half that were homage to rain. Like Ms. Kessler, I too love the long-lasting showers that quench the thirst of nature and awaken the happy part the child within me.

How long has it been since I walked in the rain just for the fun of it? About 10 hours! The good feeling that comes to me when raining fills a day goes back to my childhood. I have no idea how those times got fixed in my mine as so wonderful when I was little, but am grateful they did. It is an extraordinary feeling.
https://goodmorninggratitude.com/2012/03/20/onto-houses-and-my-windowpane/

I really do love the rain and the misty, overcast days when the hours are drizzled away. I feel safer on such days as even the robbers and burglars are not as likely to be active on a day when it is raining. There is such comfort for me from the constant drizzle and occasional thunder. I feel closer to life, softer inside and memories flow easier for me with a sweeter taste on such a day.
https://goodmorninggratitude.com/2011/05/01/loving-the-rain/

“Rain Sizes” by John Ciardi

Rain comes in various sizes.
Some rain is as small as a mist.
It tickles your face with surprises,
And tingles as if you’d been kissed.

Some rain is the size of a sprinkle
And doesn’t put out the sun.
You can see the drops sparkle and twinkle,
And a rainbow comes out when it’s done.

Some rain is as big as a nickel
And comes with a crash and a hiss.
It comes down too heavy to tickle.
It’s more like a splash than a kiss.

When it rains the right size and you’re wrapped in
Your rain clothes, it’s fun out-of-doors.
But run home before you get trapped in
The big rain that rattles and roars

Expressed simply, the rain is my dear friend. It cleanses me. It renews me. It enriches me. I hold rainy days in such high gratitude where I place things most precious to me.

The richness of the rain made me feel safe and protected;
I have always considered the rain to be healing — a blanket –
the comfort of a friend. Without at least some rain in any given day,
or at least a cloud or two on the horizon, I feel overwhelmed
by the information of sunlight and yearn for the vital,
muffling gift of falling water.
Douglas Coupland

Muffling Gift of Falling Water

/ James Browning

Often I have written about my love of rain and how it fills a crack in my soul like nothing else. A long, soaking shower makes me feel safe and protected for reasons I have never fully understood, but I love the feeling just the same. Maybe probing for the why of it would mess it up any way.

This weekend where I live is forecast to have the two days of the first good rain we have had in a long time. The land around is dry and parched. Everything green is suffering and lots of it is only barely clinging to life. So today I celebrate in advance the life-giving rain that is on its way.

From “Rain in Summer” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

How beautiful is the rain!
After the dust and heat,
In the broad and fiery street,
In the narrow lane,
How beautiful is the rain!

Across the window-pane
It pours and pours;
And swift and wide,
With a muddy tide,
Like a river down the gutter roars
The rain, the welcome rain!

The clover-scented gale,
And the vapors that arise
From the well-watered and smoking soil.
For this rest in the furrow after toil
Their large and lustrous eyes
Seem to thank the Lord,
More than man’s spoken word.

Near at hand,
From under the sheltering trees,
The farmer sees
His pastures, and his fields of grain,
As they bend their tops
To the numberless beating drops
Of the incessant rain.
He counts it as no sin
That he sees therein
Only his own thrift and gain.

Already I know people and the landscape will be more joyful next week than today. The green will burst forward for all to see and the outdoors will be a more pleasant place to work and play. Gratitude will be due Mother Nature and I have already begun expressing my part.

The richness of the rain made me feel safe and protected;
I have always considered the rain to be healing — a blanket —
the comfort of a friend. Without at least some rain in any given day,
or at least a cloud or two on the horizon, I feel overwhelmed
by the information of sunlight and yearn
for the vital, muffling gift of falling water.
Douglas Coupland

Other blogs about rain:
Loving the Rain « Good Morning Gratitude
Loving the Rain Part II « Good Morning Gratitude
Mother Nature Gone Crazy? « Good Morning Gratitude

A Small Change of Perspective

/ James Browning

Last year here in Oklahoma many record high temperature records were set. This year is shaping up to be another record summer with heat frequently above 100. All across the country people are bearing unusually hot temps.  The overly warm days is just about everyone’s favorite thing to grumble about. My gratitude for my air conditioning is at an all time high!

Sometimes a small change of perspective can alter one’s thinking and mood. I found the following images to attempt that for me before I head out into the heat this morning. 

The first fall of snow is not only an event, it is a magical event.
J. B. Priestley

The future lies before you, like paths of pure white snow.
Be careful how you tread it, for every step will show.
Anonymous

There is nothing in the world more beautiful than the forest
clothed to its very hollows in snow.
It is the still ecstasy of nature, wherein every spray,
every blade of grass, every spire of reed,
every intricacy of twig, is clad with radiance.”
William Sharp

There is nothing in the world more beautiful
than the forest clothed to its very hollows in snow.
It is the still ecstasy of nature, wherein every spray,
every blade of grass, every spire of reed,
every intricacy of twig, is clad with radiance.”
William Sharp

 Sunshine is delicious, rain is refreshing, wind braces us up, snow is exhilarating;
there is really no such thing as bad weather, only different kinds of good weather.”
John Ruskin

Just a few simple photographs of snow, winter, cold and fun are enough to shift my perspective this morning.  I am grateful!  Before I know it, winter will be here and my wishes will be for a hot day like today. 

So comes snow after fire, and even dragons have their ending.
J.R.R. Tolkien

Pictorial Expressions of Gratitude

/ James Browning

If a picture is worth a thousand words, then here are 10,000 words to express my gratitude this morning.

    

 

 

  

   

  

    

 

As I discovered these images each one provoked a positive emotion within: one of gratitude for life; for the ability to see, feel, hear, touch and smell. I hope they bring you a similar sense of awe, beauty and thankfulness.

Forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet
and the winds long to play with your hair.
Kahlil Gibran

What the Mind is Prepared to Comprehend

/ James Browning

…to understand the dream, is to know what a dream is made of.
What it is made of is simple: Thought.
To understand thought, and its relationship to dreams
is to understand the Dreamer.
You are the Dreamer.
This is your dream.
But do you realize it…?
Written in 2003 on physicsforums.com by “TheDreamer”

My concept of reality is how I personally perceive all that I sense and nothing else. No one sees or has even seen the world and what it contains exactly as I do. My philosophic mind knows that is a completely accurate statement, while my ego argues with me even as I type. It tells me some people have a more realistic view of the world than others and declares to me it is one of them. There is no way to prove or disprove my ego’s stance and it absolutely does not matter. My ego distorts everything! So I assume it is always twisting its view either a little or a lot.

Some perceptions do fit in the world of man better than others but that proves nothing. Just because people agree does not make what is perceived true or accurate.

We all know we humans have five senses only. We use our five senses to observe the world. We call that the physical world and declare arrogantly that non-physical beings don’t exist at all. That’s similar to an earthworm that’s blind declaring light do not exist. (by physicskid from the same forum mentioned above)

A human’s sight only takes in a certain range of color and needs light to be bright enough to see things. We consider light to be the combination of colors we can see: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet. But that is just a small portion of the electromagnetic spectrum.

There is a minimum volume or loudness of a sound that most people can hear. Just as light is a spectrum of wavelengths, so is sound. Human ears have a limited range of wavelengths or pitches they can detect. When something barely touches your skin, you may not detect it or feel it like when a mosquito lands on your skin. And there are only certain chemicals and molecules that we can taste or smell.  All are only perceptions and nothing else.

As I move into my day, I will try to keep these thoughts present in my mind. They tell me that when I see things differently than another it does not make them wrong and me right. It simply means we perceive things differently. I am grateful for the reminder of this basic truth this morning.

The eye sees only what the mind is prepared to comprehend.
Robertson Davies

From Then Till Now To Summer

/ James Browning

To a good degree I have a high school English teacher named Miss Upchurch to thank for cultivating my love of poetry.  That written in lyrical rhyming form is my favorite kind as it bounces along when read almost like the beat of a song does.  Going through some old files on my computer I came across a rather obscure poem by one of my top five favorite poets;  Swinburne.  Here is the first half of his “calendar” of poetry. Being now in March we are about in the middle of the six months Swinburne writes about. In words of the poet here’s “from then (year’s start) till now (March) to summer (June)”:

” A Year’s Carols” by Algernon Charles Swinburne

JANUARY
Hail, January, that bearest here
On snow bright breasts the babe-faced year
That weeps and trembles to be born.
Hail, maid and mother, strong and bright,
Hooded and cloaked and shod with white,
Whose eyes are stars that match the morn.
Thy forehead braves the storm’s bent bow,
Thy feet enkindle stars of snow.

FEBRUARY
Wan February with weeping cheer,
Whose cold hand guides the youngling year
Down misty roads of mire and rime,
Before thy pale and fitful face
The shrill wind shifts the clouds apace
Through skies the morning scarce may climb.
Thine eyes are thick with heavy tears,
But lit with hopes that light the year’s.

MARCH
Hail, happy March, whose foot on earth
Rings as the blast of martial mirth
When trumpets fire men’s hearts for fray.
No race of wild things winged or finned
May match the might that wings thy wind
Through air and sea, through scud and spray.
Strong joy and thou were powers twin-born
Of tempest and the towering morn.

APRIL
Crowned April, king whose kiss bade earth
Bring forth to time her lordliest birth
When Shakespeare from thy lips drew breath
And laughed to hold in one soft hand
A spell that bade the world’s wheel stand,
And power on life, and power on death,
With quiring suns and sunbright showers
Praise him, the flower of all thy flowers.

MAY
Hail, May, whose bark puts forth full-sailed
For summer; May, whom Chaucer hailed
With all his happy might of heart,
And gave thy rosebright daisy-tips
Strange fragrance from his amorous lips
That still thine own breath seems to part
And sweeten till each word they say
Is even a flower of flowering May.

JUNE
Strong June, superb, serene, elate
With conscience of thy sovereign state
Untouched of thunder, though the storm
Scathe here and there thy shuddering skies
And bid its lightning cross thine eyes
With fire, thy golden hours inform
Earth and the souls of men with life
That brings forth peace from shining strife.

….to be continued….

My favorite times of year are spring and fall when subdued warmth comes in the day time and coolness prevails at night.  Those two changes of the season are living metaphors for the transitions of life.

I love every cool night where a jacket is needed that follows a day one is unnecessary.  Crawling into bed last night and first feeling the cool covers on my skin, aloud I said “this is wonderful”.  I am grateful for my growing awareness of living in the “now” that brought such a beautifully grateful moment to me.

Gratitude can transform common days into thanksgivings,
turn routine jobs into joy,
and change ordinary opportunities into blessings.
William Arthur Ward