Thank You, Monet!

"I hope some day to meet God, 

because I want to thank Him for the flowers."  

--Robert Brault

Caroline in a field of white and purple daisies.

It's that time of year, or maybe it's because we just had earth day, or maybe it's because I spent some time at my favorite place, the beach, but I have this beautiful planet on my heart.


No matter where you walk, right now it's showing off.

Taken as I was driving because I was so so utterly blown away by the fleeting majesty.

In my heart, I want to be a photographer, if only to capture the momentary glory and remember...
to press it on my heart in hard times and times of deep sadness...
to know that right around me -- always within reach --
is this.

I have an irrational fondness for these tiny, tiny daisies that sprout up only at this time of year amid the regular grass...as if trying to blend in...and finding it an impossible task:

We have wild mustard blooming and those magical California poppies and lupines and iris and roses...always the roses.

I can't help myself.  

I'm in love...with this earth, with the non-stop wonders that surround me... 

with the everyday holiness.

It's sacred.

Found at a Brownie meeting...in between skit practice and singing campfire songs.

One of my most recent favorite books had the dad thinking aloud with his terminally ill teen-age daughter about our world:
"Sometimes it seems the universe wants to be noticed.  That's what I believe...I think the universe is improbably biased toward consciousness, that it rewards intelligence in part because the universe enjoys its elegance being observed."
The Fault In Our Stars -- John Green


I agree!
It's pretty obvious it wants to be noticed...

This happens every, single day.  No.big.deal.

How do we stop noticing??
How can we not tear up with the beauty?
I guess it's called taking it for granted...
but I want to stop and notice.
I want to fill my heart up with the every day glory that is only here in this moment, right now.

*****

I recently taught an art lesson to a bunch of 2nd graders.  We went to our local arboretum and looked at some bridges and wild flowers and just stopped and got quiet and paid attention.

I told them that Claude Monet painted the same bridge in London, the Waterloo Bridge, over 100 times.
This took my breath away.
I showed them the same bridge painted on three different days, years apart by Monet...
one was a gorgeous pinkish hue, fused with early light;
one was bluish in tone with a hint of fog...the blue, a light turquoise with some green tints as well;
one was a lavender, dusky and melancholy and utterly breath-taking.

I've been thinking so much about Monet's wisdom.

Nothing is the same.

Each day it is a bit older, a bit more lush, or broken in, a bit more overgrown or mowed or the tree limbs are bare or that flower is just springing up or the light plays a different way.

His passion for seeing the very same scene with different eyes has transformed me.

Seals and Crofts said it best:
"We may never pass this way again."

Just for today, let's notice.