Five On Friday: Snow, Flowers, Poetry, Tea and Other Blisses

ONE: SNOW 

"Stillness is the flower of winter,

all hope waits beneath a blanket of white"

UNKNOWN

It hardly seems possible January has come and gone in a snap of the fingers. Christmas seems light years away, even though it was only two weeks ago I finally got everything put away. It feels like a lot has happened and nothing has happened.

There were many cold, grey, often snowy days. And during those deepest, darkest weeks we hibernated like bears, or perhaps it was more like our neighbourhood squirrels who, smart fellows, were nowhere to be seen on those frigid days. While they nestled in their hidey-holes, we hunkered down by the fireplace, snuggled under blankets, sleeping away colds and flu, reading books, watching movies, and preparing the simplest of meals. We barely ventured out except to shovel the walks and feed the 'livestock', also known as filling the bird feeders and topping up the heated birdbath. Life at its most basic and we were glad for it.

TWO: FLOWERS

“Sometimes a girl

just needs to buy herself some flowers.”

When the weather turned much milder last week, I ventured out to do a bit of shopping. Getting a bunch of cut flowers was at the top of the list. I didn't dare risk it during those really cold days but I was in need of something to fill spaces left empty when Christmas was packed away. And so a bouquet sits in the centre of my dining table, delighting my aesthetic senses every time I come into the room.

Out in the garage the other day, Rick noticed a tulip bulb starting to sprout in one of the many pots we planted last fall. Surely not we said, but going to see for myself, yes, there it was, a lone sliver of green poking out from the potting mix. We do hope Peace Rose, also in the garage hibernating, gets no ideas to follow suit. After all, it's only January in Alberta, Spring is still a l-o-n-g way off.

THREE: POETRY

“To read a poem in January is as

lovely as to go for a walk in June.”

JEAN-PAUL SARTRE

Lately I've been hungry for poetry and, as a result, my poetry collection is gradually growing. I used a Christmas gift card to order my latest addition and it arrived the other day: The Singing Bowl (don't you just love that title) by Malcolm Guite, poet-priest and Chaplain of Girton College Cambridge (UK). This collection, first published in 2013,  includes poems "that seek beauty and transfiguration in the everyday...the poet seeks to celebrate the world of which he is made, find heaven in the ordinary and echo a little of its music."

I was smitten with the first poem I read, and I think I'll stay with it for a while before reading more. Titled Singing Bowl, my writer's soul resonated with its beautiful lines, and so I want to share it with you. For a real treat you can listen to Malcolm Guite recite it HERE. It jumps off the page as you listen.

Singing Bowl

Begin the song exactly where you are,

Remain within the world of which you're made.

Call nothing common in the earth or air.

Accept it all and let it be for good.

Start with the very breath you breathe in now,

This moment's pulse, this rhythm in your blood.

And listen to it, ringing soft and low,

Stay with the music, words will come in time,

Slow down your breathing. Keep it deep and slow.

Become an open singing bowl, whose chime

Is richness rising out of emptiness,

And timelessness resounding into time.

And when the heart is full of quietness

Begin the song exactly where you are.

FOUR: AFTERNOON TEA

"Now stir the fire, and close the shutters fast,

Let fall the curtains, wheel the sofa round,

And while the bubbling and loud-hissing urn

Throws up a steamy column, and the cups

That cheer but not inebriate, wait on each,

So let us welcome peaceful evening in."
WILLIAM COWPER, 1794

According to my little online research, the custom of drinking tea dates back to the third millennium BC in China. It was first popularised in England during the 1660s by King Charles II and his wife, the Portuguese Infanta Catherine de Braganza, and it wasn't until the mid-19th century that the concept of 'afternoon tea' first appeared.

I have always been drawn to these lovely lines (above) from William Cowper's The Task: Book Four 'The Winter Evening'. They evoke a simple life pleasure that so many of us can and do relate to. On these cold winter days, it's nice to imagine sharing tea with family or friends in a cottage with a stone hearth where warmth and contentment keep the outside world at bay. Although I neither have a stone hearth or shutters at my windows, I do know the anticipation that builds when cups clatter in saucers and loud-hissing kettles throw up their steamy column. Make no mistake, 'tis bliss.

FIVE: COMMONPLACE BOOKS

Commonplace books (or commonplaces) are a way to compile

knowledge, usually by writing information into books. ... Such books are
essentially scrapbooks filled with items of every kind: recipes, quotes, letters,
poems, tables of weights and measures, proverbs, prayers, legal formulas.

WIKIPEDIA.ORG

Along with drinking pots of tea and reading stacks of books these past weeks, I've also started going through some of my earliest commonplace notebooks. These house my decades-old collection of quotations and excerpts from things I'd read: phrases I loved the sound of, things I wanted to remember, advice I didn't want to ignore.... These bits and pieces jotted in an old spiral notebook have given me glimpses of the woman I was becoming, echoing what I did and thought about at the time.

I'm interested to see that many sayings still resonate even after all these years, perhaps because the subject matter is still important, it still matters to me. Because many of us love quotations, I'm sharing a sampling with you. Sorry, some have attributions, others do not -- I'm better nowadays at keeping track of where I find things or who said them.

• Life is too short to be the caretaker of the wrong details. ~ Alexandra Stoddard
• Eat small portions but taste everything.
• Fill friends' lives with sweetness.
• Make an 'open-hearted' home.
• No one is wise enough by himself. ~ Titus Maccius Plautur, c. 200 BC
• Perseverance is not a long race; it is many short races one after another. ~ Walter Elliott
• Some pursue happiness -- others create it.
• Strengthen yourself with contentment, for it is an impregnable fortress. ~ Epictetus, 1st century AD
• Much unhappiness results from our inability to remember the nice things that happen to us. ~ W.N. Rieger
• What do we live for if it is not to make life less difficult for each other? ~ George Eliot
• A (wo)man's harvest in life depends entirely on what (s)he sows. ~ from Book of Galatians
• Arranging a bowl of flowers in the morning can give a sense of quiet in a crowded day -- like writing a poem or saying a prayer. ~ Anne Morrow Lindbergh

To end the list, I want to share a paragraph from a 19th century book My Dream of Heaven by Rebecca Ruter Springer. It leapt from the page when I read the book many years ago. It is something I want to think about these days when it seems so easy to spout off, and sometimes not all that kindly, about any and everything going on in our world. I want to mind my words and actions and consider the possibility that they may have farther reaching consequences than I can ever imagine. 

"... If only we could realize while we are yet mortals, that day by day

we are building for eternity, how different our lives in many ways

would be! Every gentle word, every generous thought, every unselfish

deed, will become a pillar of eternal beauty in the life to come..."

REBECCA RUTER SPRINGER

Dear Lord, give us strength and grace to carry our mantle of compassion and goodness and kindness every single day. Let us walk in the beauty of Your grace ...  and remind us one day at time, sweet Jesus, that living graciously matters.

 * * *

On that long note, I'm wishing you a beautiful weekend.
Thank you, beautiful friends, for visiting today. 

Hugs,

Brenda

xox