there is simply this moment, as it is

4.8.18 ~ Sandhills Horticultural Gardens, Pinehurst, North Carolina

Spirituality is life itself. Being life. Being this moment. Not as a practice or an attainment or something an imaginary person does in order to get somewhere else, but just because it’s What Is. It’s the natural state, the ever-present, ever-changing thusness of Here / Now. The part that falls away (if we’re lucky) is the search, the endless search to “get it,” to become “okay” at last… the belief in (and identity as) the psychological self and its problems and the endless attempts to cure them.As I see it, there is no end to awakening, no end to spiritual exploration and discovery, no end to devotion and celebration and wonder… but what can end (and only now) is the search to fix “me,” to unstick “me,” to enlighten “me,” to finally get control (by understanding how the universe works, by getting The Answer, by finally vanquishing all “my” neurotic quirks and tendencies and solving “my” problems). When all of that ends, there is simply this moment, as it is. Boundless and free.
~ Joan Tollifson
(Facebook, July 18, 2017)

spring blossoms

4.8.18 ~ Sandhills Horticultural Gardens, Pinehurst, North Carolina

Science has never drummed up quite as effective a tranquilizing agent as a sunny spring day.
~ W. Earl Hall
(Always Look on the Bright Side: Celebrating Each Day to the Fullest)

4.8.18 ~ Sandhills Horticultural Gardens, Pinehurst, North Carolina
4.8.18 ~ Sandhills Horticultural Gardens, Pinehurst, North Carolina

April
Comes like an idiot, babbling, and strewing flowers.
~ Edna St. Vincent Millay
(Selected Poems of Edna St. Vincent Millay)

4.8.18 ~ Sandhills Horticultural Gardens, Pinehurst, North Carolina

Blossoms will run away —
Cakes reign but a Day,
But Memory like Melody,
Is pink eternally —
~ Emily Dickinson
(The Poems of Emily Dickinson, #1614)

4.8.18 ~ Sandhills Horticultural Gardens, Pinehurst, North Carolina
4.8.18 ~ Sandhills Horticultural Gardens, Pinehurst, North Carolina

Spring comes on the World —
I sight the Aprils —
Hueless to me, until thou come
As, till the Bee
Blossoms stand negative,
Touched to Conditions
By a Hum —
~ Emily Dickinson
(The Poems of Emily Dickinson, #999)

4.8.18 ~ Sandhills Horticultural Gardens
Pinehurst, North Carolina

A little Madness in the Spring
Is wholesome even for the King,
But God be with the Clown —
Who ponders this tremendous scene —
This whole Experiment of Green —
As if it were his own!
~ Emily Dickinson
(The Poems of Emily Dickinson, #1356)

4.8.18 ~ Sandhills Horticultural Gardens
Pinehurst, North Carolina

Beneath these fruit-tree boughs that shed
Their snow-white blossoms on my head,
With brightest sunshine round me spread
Of spring’s unclouded weather,
In this sequestered nook how sweet
To sit upon my orchard-seat!
And birds and flowers once more to greet,
My last year’s friends together.
~ William Wordsworth
(The Complete Poetical Works of William Wordsworth)

4.8.18 ~ Sandhills Horticultural Gardens, Pinehurst, North Carolina

Every spring is the only spring — a perpetual astonishment.
~ Ellis Peters
(Spring Meditations)

4.8.18 ~ Sandhills Horticultural Gardens, Pinehurst, North Carolina