Nature is such a source of solace for many of us.  Imagine a place right now where you have gone to rest in the grace of the world and experienced freedom and the peace of wild things.  Breathe in the beauty of this memory.

Consider that Creation is the original icon revealing the face of the Holy

Nature is a holy text for me, an icon, a window to the divine presence at work in the world. Just as we spend time gazing upon an icon or our beloved, we can also allow our gaze to be drawn to nature, this most holy and splendid of sights. I can spend hours meditating with ocean waves lapping the shore, contemplating the ancient witness of grand red cedar trees, delighting in geese flying in patterns of support.

Gazing is an act of loving reverence, a perspective that opens me up to transformation. Icon spaces invite me to linger, to relish, to admire. I imagine those ancient poets who wrote the psalms of creation, celebrating God’s grandeur and mystery. Nature is an icon that slowly shifts beneath my gaze, revealing a God who is constantly creating. From this viewpoint, I become aware of a holy presence, the Great Artist, at work in the world around me, and I begin to connect deeply to the divine slowly at work within me, crafting and shaping my life, inviting me here this day to sit in stillness and witness to the beauty of the world.

~Christine Valters Paintner

I create the possibilities for light- always remembering that it’s simply about allowing….

inquiry for today~ may you hear a new language with each old soul remembering…..

how you can trust

When despair for the world grows in me

and I wake in the night at the least sound

in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,

I go and lie down where the wood drake

rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.

I come into the peace of wild things

who do not tax their lives with forethought

of grief. I come into the presence of still water.

And I feel above me the day-blind stars

waiting with their light. For a time

I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

~Wendell Berry