There are all kinds of beautiful moments in life.  Most  every day is full of them. I look for them diligently and am rarely disappointed. It seems that whatever we set out to look for, we usually find and so I think , it may as well be something lovely that I seek.  Usually, I just need to get still-and there it is right before me.

This week is an especially busy one for me. I have all sorts of obligations right now and the rabbit patch is a bit more demanding this time of year, too.  Grass is growing and so is the garden.  The flower beds are waking up and so are the weeds.  No matter  the “state of the rabbit patch nation” and all of the world around it, I get still and quiet anyway.

When I got still on Monday, I saw children catching tadpoles  and it made my heart glad.  They were very serious in their work. I watched them peer into their little buckets for a while and then they poured those little tadpoles right back in the same pond they came from. I remembered doing the same thing a long time ago.  It was a good thing to be reminded of .  I felt like something lost was found- and it was.

Honeysuckle is blooming .  Old abandoned barns, half-gone fences and every patch of woods around is decorated with the sweet smelling blossoms. The evening air bears witness to the presence of the beloved  wild honeysuckle vines.  The vines sold in the civilized nursery must be a very distant cousin to the ones in the woods.  The wild variety is far superior in fragrance.  They grow as they please, and some people complain about that -even so the one that cuts and tears the vines can not help but smell the sweet blossoms.   I have a place where honeysuckle grows wild because I love it like that.

I love clover too .  The flowers are good for honey bees and the scent of clover is shamefully under rated.  Clover smells like green and sweet all mixed up.  Little girls make necklaces and crowns with the lowly flowers and wear them proudly. People complain about clover too, but I let mine grow for a good long while.  In evening, the rabbits come out and eat clover in the moonlight.  It is a beautiful event to see.  If I were a rabbit, I would do the same.

The iris is back.  Someone before me planted them and so my heart is grateful for a stranger, that loved flowers too.  Mine are shades of blue and lavender.    They look like a  living watercolor with their soft colors. Some way or another, there are irises in the edge of the young woods of the rabbit patch.  It is a charming mystery , and I have spent a fair amount of time wondering about it.  If there is such a thing as a wild iris, then I know where some grow.  Sometime, in the dead of winter, I will remember the iris.

There is an art to living well and the older I get, the more I reflect on that. It seems we spend a good part of our life collecting.  These collections add up, and then we begin the process of discarding what has lost its’ appeal.   Finally, we understand that “All that glitters, is not gold.”

 Time has a way of defining authentic “shine” for us.  

When days are busy and complicated, it is good to get still, even if it is just  for a brief moment . It gives you a chance to find your  shine – Mine , is when wild things are blooming and rabbits are playing in the moonlight. 

 

                                                            Live Happily Ever After