Today is the first day of spring in the Northern Hemisphere. The birds are beginning to return to the trees and play on the ground. Their songs are frequent, soothing. When they sing you can hear the Earth’s love for them in their song. It’s as though the birds are celebrating the earth’s excitement and joy as it awakens to the hopes for buds and flowers. The same kind of hope when your body longs to return outdoors and feel the sun against your skin.
This relationship of the birds and the earth is one deeply rooted in love and connection. They love each other; they are connected to one another. The birds sing the song of the Earth’s heart.
You are blessed to hear this love song. This love becomes a part of you. How blessed you are.
(Side note) The tiny bird in the picture is an Eastern Bluebird. I discovered the little bird in my trees today. Bluebirds bestow spiritual gifts of happiness and goodness. They also are an invitation from nature to you: Spend more time in nature. Go outside. There is much happiness for you there.
Last week I felt a strong sense of the presence of Grace in our lives. There is so much each of us hold: both pain and joy, sorrow and hope, loneliness and togetherness. There is also much beauty in our choice of how to open our hearts, to feel, to experience life. This is where Grace happens: in both the beautiful and difficult.
This prayer/poem is my gift to you. May there be openings in your life where you can feel and experience Grace. Grace is freely given always just because you are you. You are Beloved.
A Prayer for Grace
Grace is falling falling from the skies; it comes in thunderous waves of rain and bright rays of sun that embrace the land everyone and everything are within its reach and touch.
Grace is rising rising up from the earth it comes in the songs of the birds the beauty of the flowers and trees inviting you to come closer to see with your own eyes to touch with your own skin to feel within your own body.
Grace is speaking speaking from the Spirit of Creation from the tender mouth of God, that dwells inside every bud, every wave, every beam of light, every person, every creature, every particle of life.
Grace is LOVE birthing, resurrecting, opening, healing You.
Grace is MERCY accepting, embracing, forgiving, loving You.
Grace is yours: it is your gift of God’s great Love for you freely given, alive, everywhere, within you, and always upon you.
Amen.
Blessings of Grace upon you today and always, Erin
May you always feel the sun on your back, and the wind in your hair. May you always find joy in the songs of the birds, and the touch of the grass between your toes. May you always be blessed with love all around you, now, forever, & eternally. Amen
I want to share with you a beautiful experience I had this summer. We all need beauty in our lives, but experiencing beauty and awe, seem to be exceptionally important this year with all that is going on in our world both close and far from us. This August my family and I were blessed with the gift of raising a Monarch from our garden. We watched her hatch from an egg, eat her way to becoming a large plump caterpillar, change into a chrysalis, and then into a magnificent creature of flight.
Our beautiful Monarch stayed in our garden for 3 days drinking the succulent nectar of my flowers. She had previously been with us for 26 days as she began as an egg to her birthing into a butterfly. Spending almost a month together we become family to one another. My two year old cried when we had to say good-bye. Possibly she stayed because she wanted to ease his grief; she had love for us as we did her. Maybe she stayed because as she flew into the garden the flowers and milkweed seemed to be a familiar place of love and connection for her: it was where her mother danced and gave birth to her. The flowers also hold the memory of previous generations of Monarchs who drank from their nectar and thus the flowers also have a great love for her, knowing her as a parent knows their child. We, people, creatures, nature, all of creation are connected through this magical web of energy and love. When we see this, and believe this we become part of the great family of creation. This connection of love invites us and allows us to begin to heal and remember who we truly are.
September and October are the months of TheGreat Migration.
The Monarch we were blessed to raise is from the “Super Monarch Generation.” She lives about 7 to 8 months compared to the other Monarch’s who are born after her in the spring (March/April) through the beginning of August. (Each of those generations only live about a month at a time). Additionally, she is flying about 2,400 miles from my home in Massachusetts to the Sierra Madre Mountains in Mexico to live atop trees at elevations of 2,000-3,000 feet. These creatures with such tiny wings, flying such distance are truly magnificent. Can you imagine being in the mountains and witnessing the beauty of all of them together, all the vastness of the trees, sky and peaks? The lifespan, endurance, and flight of the Monarchs born in August are a mysterious, beautiful gift. These creatures are a symbol of what we are all capable of, but have yet to fully understand.
May we watch these beautiful creatures and learn from them: to have hope, to keep trying, and mostly to believe in the mysterious and wonderful. They have so much to teach us.
I hope you enjoy these photographs of her. And I hope you make the time in your life to notice the connection you have with nature, and that nature has with you.
Have you ever raised a butterfly at home before? Do you have a favorite kind of Butterfly?
Today my family and I were walking in our neighborhood and this magnificent Red Tailed Hawk flew low over us a couple times. I always carry my camera with me and was blessed to capture this magical bird as it soared, wings open wide…
Hawks are known as Spirit messengers, and as I gazed upon this photograph, the message I believe the bird is inviting us to experience is Peace.
Our world feels very upside down right now, but nature in its divine design reminds us that there is balance and harmony at the center of all things, including us. This is peace: being centered, feeling whole within ourselves…
So look into the skies. Let the blue light of day calm you and as it does let yourself fly: dream again, hope, and feel the love of creation holding you upon its breath.🦋
May the Earth bless you with something wonderful, something that speaks to your soul.
Bless our earth Thank you [Earth] for all the love you bestow on us each day. You awaken our souls to healing You calm our grieving hearts and give us a place to put our pain You fill our hearts with hope with the dawning of the morning light You bless us with gentleness as our ears are filled with songs of birds In your presence we feel divinely loved and full of gratitude deep in our hearts.
I’ve thought of many things I want to write. Many things I want to share. I didn’t realize how tired my mind and body would become over these days of staying home with my family of five. So I haven’t written much lately…But I have still thought of you, and sent blessings to you…🦋
In the early days of March, when life suddenly changed, I think my body was running on adrenaline. And my mind was so alert, that all the words and emotions I felt came out freely upon the paper. Your welcome acceptance of receiving blessings and stories I’ve shared has been such a gift.
Thank you.🦋
I have many things I still want to share with you.
How have your days been? Where have your thoughts been taking you? Are you still allowing yourself to hope & dream?
The other day, my family and I walked along a beautiful hill by our home. I asked my daughter to run up the hill so I could take her picture. As I watched her run, I had an awareness of memory, a feeling of freedom, from my childhood: the wind blowing in my hair, the sense of leaping into the great wide sky, and imagining I could fly. Later that night, I sat for awhile and thought about how tired I’ve been. How I’ve lost my sense of feeling carefree. I actually, cried a deep ache I was feeling that night. I guess I was holding in too much grief. But the next day I looked back through my photos and saw the one I’m sharing with you. Something about the edge of the sky and my daughter running towards the top of the hill, opened my heart again. As I listened to my heart I heard my inner child whispering to me, whispering to the inner child inside each of us:
“Don’t be dismayed…
Remember when you were free, my child
and run with your dreams,
ready to soar into the arms of hope,
the light of possibility…
The world is still calling to you.”
So give yourself a simple gift today…Remember your dreams…and let them awaken something marvelous inside you…
…and, Rekindle the fire of hope in your soul.
I hope you keep dreaming. I hope you find ways to let your spirit soar!
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