Monday Ponderings {May 29th}

There is no personage of history whom we have the means of knowing so completely as we may know our Lord; and the object in our gospel reading should be, less to find words of comfort and admonition for ourselves, than to perceive with our minds and receive upon our hearts the impress of Christ. ♥️🌿 To know Him is life, and is the whole of life; and every thought of Him, walking in the cornfields, sitting weary by the well, moving among crowds or in solitary places, raising his eyes upon the multitude, taking by the hand the little maid, – every such living conception we get of Christ is life to us. ♥️🌿Just as, from the apparently casual touches of the painter, the living likeness grows, so, by laying upon the canvas of our hearts every apparently causal and insignificant detail about our Master, we shall by degrees gather a living vision of the Son of Man; ♥️🌿and dearer to us than any beauty on the earth or in the heavens will become the thought –

“Of Jesus, sitting by Samaria’s well,

Or teaching some poor fishers on the shore.” ♥️🌿

Charlotte Mason, Ourselves, Book 2, p. 91-92

What’s currently on my mind…

Hello 👋 friends,

Hope this finds you well. I’m pulling the old “my brain is so full I’m going to try and empty it by dumping on my blog” trick. 🤪😂♥️ Thanks for listening with your eyes and I’m sure, heart. 😌♥️ Our homeschool year is s-l-o-w-l-y winding down, we still have a field trip and a couple loose threads to tie up. Three GLORIOUS summer months stretch out in front of me full of “GREENING POWER” as Macrina Wiederkehr writes. More on her later!

I’ve been reading a lot, maybe a bit TOO much 🙃🤓📚, excessive amounts of reading escapism and excessive food have been my obsessions when feeling stressed, pressed, and down right exhausted. I’m declaring yet again popcorn abstinence 😅, more water & walk therapy, and staying far, faraway from sugar/ flour. I feel so much better when I do so. As for reading choices, I do feel I’m balancing light & fluffy (Dean Street Press books are my current favorites) with some learning (as a human, woman, Christian, homeschooler, writer, I need to always be learning!) and some hard for just challenging perspective and understanding. I recently finished the heart wrenching Grapes 🍇 of Wrath by John Steinbeck and wow, going to be thinking on that one for awhile. I’m so fascinated by the Great Depression era and the Dust Bowl currently.

The eyes of the whole family shifted back to Ma. She was the power. She had taken control. “The money we’d make wouldn’t do no good,” she said. “All we got is the family unbroken. Like a bunch of cows, when the lobos are ranging, stick all together. I ain’t scared while we’re all here, all that’s alive, but I ain’t gonna see us bust up.

John Steinbeck, Grapes of Wrath
Bittersweet Nightshade 💜🖤💛💜🖤💛

I find myself returning to favorites when stressed so I’ve been listening to Wives & Daughters with the amazing reader Prunella Scales. It’s included with my Audible account. This is my 3rd time through and there is something just SO comforting about Mrs. Gaskell’s writing. I’ve also watch bits of my current favorite movie 🎥 and I adore it. I believe “Totoro” by Studio Ghibli will calm even a hardened criminal down. 😅

Google

I’ve also been thinking about my summer reading plans. BookTube {niche YouTube category 🤓📚}has really helped me be a bit more purposeful about my choices, but I have to be very careful to balance that with margin for mood reading. I’m currently very interested in Native American/Indigenous stories, especially historical fiction/biographies/poetry. I asked for a poetry anthology for my birthday (June is my birth month!) , so hopefully 🤞🏻 I’ll be digging into that this summer.? I’m also super interested in archaeology , geography/geopolitics from a relational or conversational or “living” side. So in other words, not dry. 🤪😅 Do you have any recommendations? Someone mentioned Eric Cline, so I may try his archaeology book.

I’m also interested in Asian history, creativity memoirs (I’ve read ALOT of these, so I’m only interested in ones that will blow my mind 😂) , historical fiction on “side wars” not the World Wars, a bit burned out on those. I’m also on a search for authors similar to Maud Hart Lovelace and L.M. Montgomery. I realize the two Mauds are a tough acts to follow, but I’m looking for sweet family-centric, “life softening” type stories. So far, I’ve enjoyed some D.E. Stevenson, Susan Scarlett, and Molly Clavering. How’s your reading been going? Any books you are excited about this summer?

In other cheerful news 😅, I’ve been thinking about these lyrics and how so much of our world and culture is fake & dead ☠️😂. There’s a part in the MV, where the artists are with sand, water, wind, fire…and it just touches me deeply about the finiteness of this all. It’s floating and blowing away. The artist Suga smiles at the flames and as a Christian woman, I want to smile at the hard things of this world, not in denial or despair, but in a realization that it’s the spiritual that really matters. All else is going to be gone. As a pilgrim just passing through this place, I find joy in knowing that the suffering that so many are going through is finite. Catholic poetic and mystic, Macrina Wiederkehr’s book of poetry and short devotions called, “Seasons of Your Heart: Prayers & Reflections” has been so lovely, hopeful, and inspiring, touching on some of these very themes. A Christmas gift from my friend. I’m hoping to get more of her writings soon.

Amazon

I’m the slowest soul to try new apps etc 🙃, but I finally got the Libby app and have been so happy checking out audiobooks and kindle things from the library! Yes, you do have to wait longer, but it’s so convenient and inexpensive. I’m trying this above manga series via Kindle and the library. How cool is that? Guess what? The manga pages turn the opposite way in Kindle, too! 🤯🤣My 4 yo son and I planted some moonflowers after I bought him a book for his birthday about them. I really hope they grow and we can watch them bloom in the evenings! 😍😌♥️Speaking of birthdays, our birthday “season” is done here at the end of July and *whispering*, I always sigh in relief. 😂♥️

Do you have ‘heart homes’? I’ve been thinking about the places that have really meant something to me over my life. Of course, there’s big amazing places, like Prince Edward Island and The Lake District, Cumbria 😏, but smaller, intimate places that I’ve visited that spoke soul-speak straight deep down. I have a few and had a chance to travel to them recently. I also often realize that the place God’s given me to curl up in currently is a stunning place. Right at my fingertips, right out my door.

Otherwise, here’s a list that swirling in the gray matter 🧠 , my love and desire to know more of tamaracks/larches and birches, Julie Cameron’s Walking in This World”, my favorite from her, my penpals, Hetty Feather series I want to check more into, loving the first audiobook, wanting to learn more about watercolors, pen & ink illustrations, thinking and loving Moon Jumpers by Janice May Udry and all the magazines to catch up on. Also, how in the world can I resurrect a floundering writing practice? By writing, of course, Amy. 🤯🤪😅🤓 I’ll leave you with more reading and nature photos, thanks for being here. Please chat with me below! What’s on your mind? 😍♥️ Till next time, grace and peace through beautiful Jesus to you!

Writing ✍️ inspiration
Magazine backlog to soak in! ♥️♥️♥️
Amish plows ♥️

Monday Ponderings {March 6}

…Lord of my merry cheers,

My grey that turns to gold,

And my most private tears

And comforts manifold,

‘Tis wonderful to me

That I am loved by Thee.

excerpt from “Brooding Blue” by Amy Carmichael

||nourishing newness||

release your hold,

your icy grip off of

Saint Valentine’s wrist,

Janus, you selfish giant you,

you two-faced, greedy,

grasper, holding at

arms length from us

your children, the hint

of green, your snowy

finger still extending

over the land, but your

days are numbered

white witch melt

warmth will rule

once more

A.M. Pine, originally for Peace Poem Project 2023. Drawing from this well.

||living loved||

I cracked the Montana mug

I lost the swallow earring

flea market finds from my man

is this all marriage is

feeling cracked & lost?

but that’s how hope crawls in

through the cracks & crevices

in small corner light is found

loneliness is lumped & kneaded out

not unlike what that

potter did with the clay

back in Montana

turning something

rough into a little something

different one day

the beader who set

my earring soaring

didn’t see a marriage

celebrated as her

dangling art pierced through

my earlobe

the cracked & loss

a little more whole

A.M. Pine, originally written for Peace Poem Project 2023

-drawing from this well ♥️

||winged words||

•blank page, cut hand

ink dribbled off edge

down onto palm of mine

mingle with blood

can they course through

both vein & pen?

can winged words

life blood be

ink that oxygenates

black to bloody red

soaring over pulsating sea

red & black scribbles

across wide, white expanse

staunch the wound

bleed the ink

my heart is lanced •

A. M. Pine, originally for the Peace Poem Project, drawing from this well.

Monday Ponderings {January 23rd}

…Oh, it is well to waken with the woods

And feel, as those who wait with God alone,

The forest’s heart in these rare solitudes

Beating against our own.

Close-shut behind us are the gates of care,

Divinity enfolds us, prone to bless,

And our souls kneel. Night in the wilderness

Is one great prayer.

excerpt from “Midnight in Camp” by Lucy Maud Montgomery

Monday Ponderings {January 16th}

O God, along with sunny days, life brings its nights of ills…and if fearlessly I face these nights, my soul in rapture thrills…

Each time I face life’s disciplines, unbowed and unafraid…then deep within this heart of mine new courage is displayed…

When disappointments come my way, don’t let me run and hide…for if I stand with head erect, then courage will abide…

It’s not what happens to me, God, but what I do with it…that helps determine whether I shall fall or rise a bit.

“Don’t Let Me Run and Hide” by George Bilby Walker, The Quiet Time: A Collection of Prayer-Poems, p.20

||on my mind||

•flamboyant feet•carhartt clavicles•winged words•living loved•grave gratefulness•pilgrimage path•long lingering•dirt death•soul soup•nourishing newness•single step•ugliness underneath•deep drought•creator’s creation•ravenous ravens•sojourner’s song•brewed breath•crushed comfort•yeasty yearning•hearth hopes•flowers first•purifying poetry•charcoal clinging•silhouetted self•death depth•wayfaring woman•soaked seed•milled manure•winnowed wine•loamy light•cruciform crush•affection advent• “speaking silence”*•indigo image•skeletal skies•seafarer’s seasons•pride pestle•ground grain•peeled pear•juiced joy•

Some of my inspiration:

RM’s song “Wildflower”*, the ritual and smell of grinding coffee, reading Joy Clarkson’s Aggressively Happy, watching a murder of crows in a stubbled corn field, reading Live No Lies by John Mark Comer, the new year approaching, and rereading The Broken Way by Ann Voskamp.

Happiest 2nd Day of Christmas 🎄 ~ Monday Ponderings {December 26th}

BLESSED are those who die for GOD

And earn the Martyr’s crown of light;

Yet he who lives for GOD may be

A greater Conqueror in His sight.

A.Proctor, The Cloud of Witness

Monday Ponderings {December 5th}

…Our bartered, busy lives burn dim,

too tired to care, too numb to feel.

Come, shine upon our shadowed world:

Your radiance bathes with power to heal.

excerpt from “O Radiant Christ” by Ruth Duck, from Biola Advent Project

“The desire to give”: poem & Ansel Adams intertwine…

::where does this pathway go?::

“Beauty Glut” by A.M.Pine

Beauty glut, beauty bright

maybe I’ll crack open

and my seams

will spill out

a little light

cause I can’t

hold this all

sieve myself

rend myself

funnel

channel

squeeze myself

fill up

spill out

faucet

spigot

shower

keep the beauty

flowing

conduit

current

carry

receiving

repackage & repurpose

from me to you

from you to me

from Him to us

from us to Him

blood & beauty spilled

nail holes & hoarding hurts

beauty & blood spurts

gasping

glut groaning gifts

growing gains

beauty born

give & it shall be given

“Art is both love and friendship and understanding: the desire to give. It is not charity, which is the giving of things. It is more than kindness, which is the giving of self. It is both the taking and giving of beauty, the turning out to the light the inner folds of the awareness of the spirit. It is the recreation on another plane the realities of the world; the tragic and wonderful realities of earth and men, and of all the interrelations of these.”

Ansel Adams, p.37 Ansel Adams: An Autobiography, emphasis mine