Dear Friends,
The "homework" for our recent Yearly Meeting Staff retreat was to bring an object that represented a spiritual takeaway/lesson/gift from our work experience throughout the pandemic. Possibilities included something we learned about ourselves, our work, or God in this time. It was a wonderful prompt.
What would you bring? I shared my little orange-flowered clay vase from Gateway Arts, an art collective near and dear to my heart.
Back in the spring, I started filling it with little bits of things from the yard and garden, delighting in how the size really made me celebrate individual sprigs of lavender, ferns, and grape hyacinths. Such beautiful little perfection. I walked around the yard like I was on a quest. Buddy would spy me and say, "What are you doing?"
Very soon, I noticed how much joy my orange vase brought me. So I dug out three more little ones—all glass—and started filling them, too. Buddy soon noticed these miniature arrangements scattered around our house and exclaimed at how much he loved them. Pretty quickly, I think he started actually looking for them. I filled them with chive, sage, and rosemary blossoms, bright Zowie Zinnias, black-eyed Susans, columbine, thistle, salvia, lady's mantle, and ferns. I scouted out blossoming daisies, astilbe, and crane's-bill geraniums, and nothing over 5 inches tall.
My little vases have given me a spiritual practice of looking for beauty—little bits of beauty—almost daily. They either need more water or more plants , both of which require me to take the time to look. Occasionally I’ve found that 3 out of the 4 vases are sitting on my kitchen windowsill empty, waiting for me to fill, and I’ve come to appreciate the gentle warning this situation beeps. My days are out of balance. I need to pause, get my kitchen shears, and go outside. Gratitude, joy, and a momentary bit of centering are always part of that time. In tending to my vases, I am tending to my spirit.
The length of this fall season has extended the options of flowers and greens in the garden. I’m grateful for the nasturtiums, marigolds, and asters still here. At some point before long, though, there will be far less color in the yard. I’ll shift to sprigs of holly and winterberry and maybe even the canes of red-twig dogwood that the deer haven’t yet eaten. I want—rather, need—to carry on this practice through the winter. In the midst of all that is going on in the world beyond my garden, my little orange vase has reminded me that looking for—and finding—beauty in unlikely places is good for my heart and soul.
With love, and gratitude for the Hope and Light that I find in you, too,
Gretchen