The flower spider found himself lost upon an expanse
Mother’s Day is coming soon, and I’ve been thinking about my mother’s pies.
She made them regularly after she retired. She made a wide variety, mostly fruit.
To name a few: gooseberry pie, apple pie, peach pie, pumpkin pie, pecan pie, and rhubarb pie.
Her crusts were always home made and hand rolled with a rolling pin. She was an expert.
Recently I’ve been going through all my family pictures. My mother had many glamour pictures taken throughout her life. Though, the picture I was seeking was of her in her early seventies proudly displaying some rhubarb stalks that she had grown.
My mother was never one to sit for long. She always wanted to be moving and doing.
This picture captures her essence that I remember most fondly.
Tributaries of a monster river can wander away into the woods and form reflecting pools.
Some move ever so slowly; they can appear still to the undiscerning eye.
Water loving trees find their way to the river’s edge. Seedlings can root in the byways of the wandering tributaries.
Their roots sink deep into the mud, and they grow beside these reflecting pools. Some roots can grow so big and strong they can break rock.
To an observer the line between the real and reflected can become blurred.
I ran across a bag of wooden spools the other day. They were in a box of odds and ends that had made it into our garage when we were cleaning out my mother in law’s house of forty years. She has been gone for many years now, and yet her memory is still alive in various things we still have around.
The wooden spools are all bare now. All the thread was used up in antique wares. I’m sure they were saved in hopes of being made into future crafts. They could be used since their simple beauty was still apparent. The wooden spools had been made from dead biological life, and thus they still had value.
Long before the wood was cut and shaped, it pulsed with life and color, and with a continuous exchange of gases from within and without. These spools are cylindrical in shape with a hole that runs from end to end. They can be linked together to form a chain. They can be made into decorations, and strung around a living tree, still breathing and growing. They can be assembled with other materials to make a vehicle since all spools can roll.
There is a big hand in all of this, coordinating, designing, and engineering all of it. A mind is needed to oversee it all. I call this mind, God, and I like to sit and contemplate his intentions. I think God is the original, the first and the ultimate one to recycle and reuse. To him the Blue Planet is a woman, and she is still a work in progress for him. His mind has become entangled with hers, and he cannot let go of her, at least not yet. His death will be her death and vice versa.
I took this picture long ago. I am thankful for my creative eye and my sense of whimsy.
Now I am thankful for my sense of humor because this makes me laugh.
Seriously, I am more thankful for my husband and my daughter. They keep me grounded in reality.
Time marches on.
I am thankful that this Thanksgiving I am learning to trust my faith again.
movingforwardslowly 