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Tag Archives: beauty


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tiny cup. [kerri’s blog on two artists tuesday]

this flower looks like Love to me.

it is our new elsa sass peony, grown from a root that was gifted to me last fall.

we planted it carefully, following every instruction, with the eyes of the root system facing up, in exactly the right depth of soil. it was all new to us and we were eager to learn how to properly care for this amazing flower. i placed painted rocks at the site of this root and an amalia olson we also planted. and then we waited. and through fall and into cold winter and then, finally, spring, we waited.

and then, in later april, the maroon sprouts appeared. there were a plethora over by where our one other peony is – the one with hot pink blooms, a transplant from a friend’s garden that zealously grows each spring. and there were a couple tiny sprouts by our painted rocks, indicators of at least the possibility of a little success. i took photographs and was pretty excited.

these are small plants this year, only a few stems. yet they each had a couple buds – tightly wound – promises of blooms. and so we kept a watchful eye and carefully placed fencing to prop them up – these fragile stems against the spring storms.

the pink peonies exploded into being. their scent wafted through our backyard and into the open windows of our house. it is an amazing display of color, a celebration of flower!, a double peony orchestral reminder of beauty.

and then, ever so slowly, the elsa sass opened to the sun. the white bloom – like a cup of petals – in slow motion, responding to a few warmer, sunnier midwest days.

i would have been absolutely content if this bloom had simply stayed exactly like this. i was taken by its sheer beauty, its purity, overwhelmed by its sweet fragrance.

maybe it’s the state of the world, the tenuousness of our land. maybe it’s an inventory of time – both that which has gone by and that which is ahead of us. maybe it’s simply presence – the moments gazing at something so beautiful you can hardly believe its perfection. in any case – for whatever the reason – i was obsessed with this stunning flower.

this one blossomed peony – this one bud that slowly unwound its way into the world – was a light for me. it filled me up. it reminded me to breathe. and – in the most-amazing way – this tiny cup of petals lay bare the lesson to hold gently all within me.

*****

read DAVID’s thoughts this TWO ARTISTS TUESDAY

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this land. [kerri’s blog on d.r. thursday]

right between the best fried-rice-restaurant and the grocery store is a farmer’s field. i wonder how long it will be there. there is something very wisconsin about this field and it’s somehow reassuring to see it planted instead of cleared and flagged and waiting for some random building to be built.

on our drive out to one of our woodsy trails we used to pass many farmers’ fields. not so much anymore.

instead, there are massive warehouses – like a crop of giant metal and cement buildings, all trying to disguise their existence with berms created between the gigantic loading-dock-loaded warehouses and the road. as if that negates their impact on what was out-in-the-county, what was farmland, what was natural resource, what was picturesque, what was wisconsin.

i’m not sure how many national parks i have been to – there are many – i’d have to make a comprehensive list. add to that state parks and county parks and city parks and there are many places i have cherished, full of nature, beauty, legacy. i do know that there are so many more i would like to visit, to engage with, places to be in wonder. if you have ever had even a moment of stillness outside – reverent in the middle of the middle of vast beauty – you likely understand.

but in the middle of the middle of all of the chaos in this country right now, among other atrocities there is lurking an attempted takeover of our national parks. there is an administrative desire to deforest, to mine, to drill – all in the name of the almighty dollar. it is unconscionable to think of these national treasures stripped of their gloriousness. i cannot imagine the kind of shortsightedness that overrides good sense, the kind of greed that overrides the protection of these lands and the wildlife that depends on them. i cannot imagine the embrace of climate-change denialism, of the irresponsibility of environmental ruin. i cannot imagine the cavalier attitudes of people who just don’t care about anything but making more and more and even-more money.

but – even right here – right in southeastern wisconsin on backroads that used to be charming – companies riding on the oligarch-wagon have bought up land and changed the landscape. and it will never be the same.

it is incumbent upon us – as heirs of this land – to protect our national parks, to speak up, to speak out, to resist the decimation – before we lose it all.

*****

read DAVID’s thoughts this D.R. THURSDAY

EARTH INTERRUPTED VI – 50.25″ x 41″ – david robinson

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so much more. [kerri’s blog on not-so-flawed wednesday]

it goes by fast on the train – almost a blur, but not quite.

“you are beautiful,” painted on the side of an old building.

in the middle of all the ugly going on right now, it is a good reminder: not to lose – or forget about – our own value, our own light, our own beauty.

somehow the most basic gets distorted in the chaos. somehow we put our joy to the side, we drop our view from the kaleidoscope of exquisite, we forget that this one and only moment is ours and we are here for it.

we simply cannot allow the turpitude to rob us.

there is so much more.

we need intend to keep the glorious close.

transcendent.

“beauty will save the world.” (fyodor dostoevsky)

*****

read DAVID’s thoughts this NOT-SO-FLAWED WEDNESDAY

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the exquisite. [kerri’s blog on flawed wednesday]

in these days we are waking very early. our old dogga is hungry, maybe a little stiff, needing to get up and get us moving. and so we do. we open blinds and let the sun rise through our windows. we sit with our coffee against pillows in a bed we have now lowered closer to the floor for dogga. we listen to the birds and our pond gurgling. it is quiet. really quite exquisite.

we wake to the beautiful barebones of this universe – and sit in appreciation, silent as we listen and absorb the dawn of this next day. we are both very, very aware of this gift of time, this gift of stillness. we revel in the simplest of things for it is the simplest of things with which we surround ourselves; our budget is squishy-tight and we try our best to abide by the premise of ‘less is more’.

and it is in those moments – the moments of rays across our quilt, coffee in our hands, dogga at our feet – the moments of listening – that i can’t understand.

i can’t understand how anyone – particularly any person in any influential position of leadership – can wake up in the morning with evil-agendized intent in their heart. i can’t understand the superficiality of wanting-it-all, needing-it-all, having-it-all. i can’t grok the indecency of plotting against persons, peoples, missions, goodness.

i wonder how it is that one can wake so conversely differently, full of dreadful scheming. i wonder how it is that those people are of the same humankind. i wonder what twisted them, what broke their connection to morality, what tore the silken filaments of the recognition of unconditional beauty from them. what maelstrom enveloped their souls and trapped them in an eddy of cruelty.

we sit on the deck and look to the sky through the mixup of branches above us to the north. dogga lays nearby and the sun is sinking lower, the dusk sky an ombré canvas.

and – like many of you, i suppose – i still can’t understand. and it still doesn’t feel real.

but it is. and there are those – waking up yesterday, today, and – with nothing stopping them – likely, tomorrow – the textures of our woven universe unimportant, their own needs driving corrupt obsessions of power and control, their view of the world – this country – dark, their actions ruthless and cavalier, each of them impervious to the exquisite.

and the barebones of the universe sigh deeply, grief spilling into the technicolored chiaroscuro sky of dawn, the ink of dusk.

*****

read DAVID’s thoughts this FLAWED WEDNESDAY

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the imperative of peace. [kerri’s blog on k.s. friday]

dreamy.

many other adjectives came to mind to eloquently describe lake tahoe, but dreamy seems to fit the best right now.

in the way that sometimes happens with monumental beauty, i instantly felt a sense of peace descend over me…exactly what i needed.

for this has been a time. and i – like you – am filled to the brim, yearning for something different, something that builds up and does not tear down, something that is positive, filled with grace and not negative and filled with hatred. already, this is all exhausting. already, i am exhausted. we – all of us – have lost so much. and, though hopefully this will change – something will stop this destruction of our sea to shining sea – things will never be the same. betrayal has left its mark on us.

and so, the sight of this lake in the distance, as we approached, up close and personal, was balm for my spirit and i felt it wash over me.

some places are like that. you instantly feel a kinship with the vista, grounded by its simple, natural beauty. after all, this is merely mountains, forest and lake. nothing manufactured, nothing contrived, quietude with the potential for a tranquility that is so very powerful.

we do not live near this stunning landscape, but we do live in a landscape of our own. and i know that we must look to it for salve, for soothing us, for a balance of goodness against all the evil being perpetrated upon our country. clearly, we need to deal with the reality of what is happening here. clearly, we need to rejuvenate from the reality of what is happening here.

i think we need do that any which way we can.

there is a lot ahead of us. everything we have known is grotesquely distorted and people we have known have actively participated in that. it is the stuff of bad dreams. and we each are waking up to the horror of it all. as we brush the real-life nightmare from our eyes and wake to another day of fighting to keep our democracy, it is incumbent upon us to bring strength and resolve and a bit of peace from which we might draw these.

we will be looking everywhere we can for that peace, to join with it. it is an imperative.

“now he walks in quiet solitude the forests and the streams / seeking grace in every step he takes / his sight has turned inside himself to try and understand / the serenity of a clear blue mountain lake…” (john denver – rocky mountain high)

*****

PEACE © 2004 kerri sherwood

read DAVID’s thoughts this K.S. FRIDAY

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where holy is. [kerri’s blog on k.s. friday]

i’m not sure that i can point to the moment when i realized – with every fibre – that the truly holiest moments were not the ones in buildings called churches.

it is a moment for which i am grateful, perspective-arranging and a welcome addition to my secular vocabulary – the word “holy”.

i spent many decades creating the atmosphere in churches where people might tune in to the emotional of faith – that which they could not palpably touch but which they could feel, they could intuit, they could impart to others. through music that i specifically chose – after research, after studying the narrative to be used, and after much listening and evaluating if a piece might touch hearts – open or closed – i shaped the music of services – the everyday and the special holidays, the celebrations of joining together and the inevitable release of people to the next dimension – to freely acknowledge spirit as it flowed and to try to gently grace others with it through music. to try and encourage an openness to the spirit that breathed into the place and maybe into them, into a place inside them where they needed the sweet assurance. whether i was aware if it did or not was not my only measure of success. providing the tenor of possibility and holding space for holy and their experience of holy was my job. there were moments when the last strains of a song or piece of music lingered in the air over the congregation, moments when a choir of singers, paused in a rest between notes sung with dedication and commitment to each other that you could almost see holy in the hush – the sun shining through, its rays touching each person. but over the course of these decades of time spent in these buildings, i was inordinately disappointed – even stunningly – time and again – by the hypocrisy to which i was privy. true faith is as true faith does, holy is as holy does, i was reminded, over and over. disillusionment was – and still is – a repeating theme.

out on the trail, as the clouded sun shined through the winter landscape and reflected onto the river, i could see – once again – how holy turns up in the purest of moments, the simplest, the least contrived. we have been gifted by the universe – and whatever deity we each individually feel or – perhaps – in which we might believe – with the extraordinary: a world full of beautiful.

beautiful is a descriptive word – easily understood as describing something of beauty. and that is all around us. the reaching of people to people in times of abundance and in times of need, kindness to and embracing of our neighbors despite differences, the love between any and all, regardless of anything, nature and its astonishments. our holy is all around us.

for those of you who are invoking your – supposed – religiosity to validate your vote – and your support – for the cruelest chaos that is this new administration, those of you who are spouting righteous religious drivel to prop up your bigotry, i would venture to say you may have missed the point. sheer hypocrisy has taken over your holy.

holy has not only left the building, but it has clearly left your soul.

*****

read DAVID’s thoughts this K.S. FRIDAY

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eyes open. [kerri’s blog on not-so-flawed wednesday]

these days – even if you shut your eyes really tight – squeezing your eyelids so that you can see nothing – you cannot block it all out. i’ve tried. it doesn’t work.

like you, well – some of you – i am horrified by the fast and furious devastation – the epitome of meanness and ugliness cast upon us, upon this nation. there are no words to describe it all.

so i open my eyes instead.

and i look for things of beauty. anywhere. everywhere.

the sage green was a balm to the eyes in a landscape mostly brown. the folds of veiny leaves drew me to it – tiny crystals of dew glinting what little light there was on a drearily grey day.

the photo shoot wasn’t prolonged – only six photographs – but each one is somewhat dreamy – this fuzzy plant off-trail in the underbrush was stunning. i was glad to have noticed it. its presence gave me pause – to breathe.

this is the only way i’ll get through all this.

by keeping my eyes open to anything of beauty on or off trail. anything at all. anywhere. everywhere.

*****

read DAVID’s thoughts this NOT-SO-FLAWED WEDNESDAY

 

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in the same palm. [kerri’s blog on k.s. friday]

“our forever work is to learn to hold the brutal and beautiful in the same palm.” (suleika jaouad)

i am trying to learn to list to the beautiful. lean into it. curve that way. take that path. abruptly turn, if need be.

in these fraught times, these times of brutal, we are finding how we wake – how we start our day – is crucial. we are fragile, maybe just like you.

and so we watch through the mini blinds, through the screen and storm window, as – out across the deck, reflecting on the sunroom windows, just past the awning over the back door – the sun – rising over the lake – climbs to a place where its rays sneak around houses and gardens and reach out and out, brushing our windows.

and we can see it.

we watch as it intensifies and moves up, up. a tiny gift for us to hold.

and then – as we sip coffee – one of us quietly comments on how truly beautiful it is. and our day is officially started.

*****

taking stock © 2010 kerri sherwood

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read DAVID’s thoughts this K.S. FRIDAY

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a feather in the sky. [kerri’s blog on two artists tuesday]

though there was a feather in the sky

and i collect feathers

i had to leave it there – in the blue

to let it float

and land in someone else’s sunglasses

though there was a feather in the sky

and it granted me a wish

i do not know if it will be granted

before the wind carries it off

a wispy cirrus genie

though there was a feather in the sky

it is elusive and evanescent

i saw it – which made it real

but its fleeting quills were bending as i watched

and i saw all of its life pass by

as the feather lost its shape

and could no longer be a feather

for its soul was becoming the next thing

the wind morphing it, streams of vapor swirling

into perhaps a mountain or a unicorn

or something flat like a fallowed meadow

before it explodes into flowers

and then, no one will know that it was a feather

except i will

and now you

and so it counts

though there was a feather in the sky

and i collect feathers

i had to leave it there – in the blue

*****

read DAVID’s thoughts this TWO ARTISTS TUESDAY

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our tracks. [kerri’s blog on d.r. thursday]

like you, maybe, i woke up on tuesday, sickened. the scourge has impaled the nation and i am stunned beyond belief. though i know we – personally – will be working at keeping on keeping on, the fallout of less than 24 hours was mind-blowing. which i know was the point. shock and awe, as they say.

in the tracks of our future we need to decide just exactly what we wish there. the present tense cannot be that which we leave in our wake, for this twisted leadership’s twisted governing will – most definitely – be the end of humanity as we know it. it is hard to grok this kind of cruelty.

in this time of grieving for our country, our democratic ideals, rights and freedoms on the chopping block to be desecrated, a moral center devoid of morality, the heaviness of depression and dread move in like a thick fog – difficult to see through to the other side. this is stifling, intense, horrible.

and so, maybe, i know how you feel. and sitting in this “collective depression” (john pavlovitz) is necessary – for the moment. we need spend time looking back, looking at now, looking down the road. we need spend time in the middle of it all. there are no easy solutions, i suspect. but each inch of the road forward counts and the tracks we leave will tell the story of our attempt to find balance and peace and goodness. it is the fundamental one-foot-after-another.

even as i write this i know that i don’t know what i’m talking about. not really. i have not lived through such a time. i am – like you – newly embarking on a trek heavy with the baggage of an administration steeped in hatred, retaliation, corruption. to think i know anything about such things is overstating, hyperbole. i – like you – have been mostly fortunate to live – most of my life – in a country with laws, checks and balances, at least a few grains of fairness mixed in. but here we are. and, though 77 million people voted for this maniacal cadre, more did not – through their vote or their silence.

anne frank embraced hope, “i don’t think of all the misery, but of the beauty that still remains.”

ralph waldo emerson’s words remind, “life is a journey, not a destination.”

when i come out from under the quilt, reopen the blinds and step out, i know that we will consider carefully our path as we go. we will step lightly and intentionally. we’ll not carry the fancy luggage with leather-edged nasty executive orders and gleeful manifestations of greed and malfeasance with us.

we will carry the scroll of our constitution and its good will from here and now to next days and the days after – our tracks will not be shameful indicators of the worst of us nor will they embarrass us. instead, they will be steady and strong and will tell the story of this journey for “whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly” (martin luther king, jr.) and we have a legacy to choose.

*****

read DAVID’s thoughts this D.R. THURSDAY

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