Happy Thursday! I ‘tried’ to group these by main genre topic. ♥️ I’m hoping to add more for reference! A few of these don’t regularly update, but there is a TREASURE TROVE of back posts!
Writing/General Memoir/Nature:
Poetry (among other gems):
Essays/Articles:
Home/Domestic/Family:
Reading/Homeschool:
Booktube Absolute Favorites:
Happy reading/watching! This would be a perfect place to dive into on your next rainy day! So thankful for creativity and words! 🌲♥️😍
Merrily Gareth ask’d
‘Have I not earn’d my cake in baking of it?
Let be my name until I make my name!
My deeds will speak: it is but for a day.’
So with a kindly hand on Gareth’s arm
Smiled the great King, and half-unwillingly
Loving his lusty youthhood yielded to him.
Gareth and Lynette, Idylls of the King, Tennyson
‘Damsel,’ Sir Gareth answer’d gently, ‘say
Whate’er ye will, but whatsoe’er ye say,
I leave not till I finish this fair quest,
Or die therefore.’
Gareth and Lynette
I’m slowly getting into my buddy read of Idyll’s of the King and I was struck remembering this lovely picture book version of this part of the poem. The Kitchen Knight retold by Margaret Hodges is lovely, largely due to the illustrations by Trina Schart Hyman!
Happy Monday, friends! Our weekly quest has begun! Go forth boldly and without fear! 🙏🏻♥️😍
Inspiration:
“Six feet down in the sand
There’s creatures that made a hole
Do speak, I’m begging you, please
There’s beauty outside control (Outside)”
~RM💜
My friend, Sam’s devotional about the Mundanity of God ♥️
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“Prayers of a Fool”
Cathedral carvings hidden
Full-time home hearth lovin’ forbidden
Fool, don’t do that again
Takes long, second gone, down drain, amen.
Wash, rinse, sunrise driven
Plant, weed, kiss that bruised knee
Blood, sweat, things that don’t make sense.
Paint, scribble, lock it in a drawer, forgotten.
Cathedral songs stir, long-dead-dusty, silent
Heart strings strum violent
Prayer painting skies violet.
Fool, don’t do that again.
It don’t make sense.
A.M.P. 🌲♥️
“Marilla!” Anne sat down on Marilla’s gingham lap, took Marilla’s lined face between her hands, and looked gravely and tenderly into Marilla’s eyes. “I’m not a bit changed-not really. I’m only just pruned down and branched out. The real me-back here-is just the same. It won’t make a bit of difference where I go or how much I change outwardly; at heart I shall always be your little Anne, who will love you and Matthew and dear Green Gables more and better every day of her life.”
~ Anne of Green Gables
😭😭😭 thinking about my Anne getting MARRIED. 😭😭😭 My oldest son is doing a lot and making decisions, too!! Change and them growing up is in my heart. Hard, but beautiful. ♥️🙏🏻
If I can stop one Heart from breaking
I shall not live in vain
If I can ease one Life the Aching
Or cool one Pain
Or help one fainting Robin
Into his Nest again
I shall not live in Vain.
~ Emily Dickinson
We are enjoying Dickinson again in our co op currently! She is one of my most favorite poets and I think this above poem IS my favorite by her. 🥲♥️ The prayer over my life. Here is a beautiful print of it for your home.
When Marilla had eaten her lunch Anne persuaded her to go to bed. Then Anne went herself to the east gable and sat down by her window in the darkness alone with her tears and her heaviness of heart. How sadly things had changed since she sat there the night after coming home! Then she had been full of hope and joy and the future had looked rosy with promise. Anne felt as if she had lived years since then, but before she went to bed there was a smile on her lips and peace in her heart. She looked her duty courageously in the face and found it a friend-as duty ever is when we meet it frankly.”
~Anne of Green Gables, emphasis mine
I’m nobody! Who are you?
Are you nobody, too?
Then there’s a pair of us-don’t tell!
They’d banish us, you know.
How dreary to be somebody!
How public, like a frog
To tell your name the livelong day
To an admiring bog!
~Emily Dickinson
Anne went to the little Avonlea graveyard the next evening to put fresh flowers on Matthew’s grave and water the Scotch rosebush. She lingered there until dusk, liking the peace and calm of the little place, with its poplars whose rustle was like a low, friendly speech, and its whispering grasses growing at will among the graves. When she finally left it and walked down the long hill that sloped to the Lake of Shining Waters it was past sunset and all Avonlea lay before her in a dreamlike afterlight-“a haunt of ancient peace.” There was a freshness in the air as if a wind that had blown over honey-sweet fields of clover. Home lights twinkled out here and there among the homestead trees. Beyond lay the sea, misty and purple, with its haunting, unceasing murmur. The west was a glory of soft, mingled hues, and the pond reflected them all in still softer shadings. The beauty of it thrilled Anne’s heart, and she gratefully opened the gates of her soul to it.
~Anne of Green Gables
Assault
I had forgotten how the frogs must sound
After a year of silence, else I think
I should not so have ventured forth alone
At dusk upon this unfrequented road.
I am waylaid by Beauty. Who will walk
Between me and the crying of the frogs?
Oh, savage Beauty, suffer me to pass,
That am a timid woman, on her way
From one house to another!
~ Edna St. Vincent Millay~
Millay’s poetry has been recently touching me deeply. Do you have a current favorite poet? Mine is constantly changing. I’m a lover of words and Beauty of poetry often waylays me! The other morning I stopped with great delight over my steaming coffee and knew that I was hearing the spring peepers on our little pond. It brought me so much joy. I received a Barnes & Noble gift card for Christmas last year and I’m sooo glad I picked this giant tome of her work. ♥️♥️♥️
What beauty touched you recently?
chaos & giggles
dirt & brownies
low gas & cardinals
shards of peace.
amy m. pine 🌲♥️
Golden gone
Gathered glimmers
Wood whispers
Weathered whirls
Feathering flew
Flickering fire
Unveiling ushered
Ugly uniqueness
Jay of blue jabber
Juxtaposition joy
Solemn still
Stalk slithers
Miraculous moment
Marvelous million
Soliloquy of stick, stone
Smoke sneaking
Pine prayers
Peace paupers
Caw cemetery
Crunch crackle
Heart honey-honed.
Heart hollowed heavenward.
A.M.Pine ~ 🌲♥️
tucked myself into the smallest corner of Dunkin’
cast, humble, kneel, prostrate
be a dewdrop
drive slow
savor flipping sweaters at Goodwill
thank the lady for noticing my butterfly tote
be a dust mote
drive slow
eyes close, commend my spirit to God
swirl the ice of my latte, sip
be a bubble
drive slow
smile about ridiculous puns written on paper plate to hubby
touch, smile wide, look up, look down, listen deeply
be a crumb
drive slow
keep scribbling with dull, cheap Amazon pencil
quiet and calm yourself
be a salt grain
drive slow
the dipped not drenched sumac
the crumble-y, yeast-y clouds
be a kernel
drive slow
mind your own business and butterflies
hum along with the hummingbirds
be a bean
drive slow
keep wishing on the still-here-swallows
wave goodbye and good luck to the geese
be a seed
drive slow
no place to go
know your God-go, Spirit-stay
be a pebble
drive slow
A.M.Pine 🌲♥️
Do you ever feel stuck? I was recently struck by how stuck I am, this overwhelming sense of not living in the joy and resurrection power of the Lord Jesus. I was actually listening to an audiobook, about the fictional and unflappable Mrs. Pollifax. In the first of this novel series, the widowed, aging Mrs. Pollifax, questions her worth and what she is doing with her life. Her solution is to go and do something she has always been interested in. Join the CIA! 😂 I was struck to the quick about my wallowing, woe-is-me attitudes. Where is the resurrection power being lived out in me? Why am I hiding? Why am I cowering? Worrying? Trying to control my circumstances?
His divine power has given us everything required for life and godliness through the knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness.
2 Peter 1:3, CSB
These verses in 2 Peter and Wendell Berry’s poem Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front, challenges me to live fully and wholly. To live like there is something beyond myself and my woes. 🪴🪴🪴
So, friends, every day do something that won’t compute. Love the Lord. Love the world. Work for nothing. Take all that you have and be poor. Love somebody who does not deserve it.
-Wendell Berry 🌿
I don’t want to be worry-driven, short-fused, and impatient. I want to ‘dwell in possibility’, living simply, patiently with others, myself, and the Lord. I want to rest in my daily ‘round and find my delight again in listening, learning, deeply loving. No need for fretting, guilty-thought trains, or shoulda-woulda-coulda junk. Pay attention. Walk and work out your salvation with fear and trembling. Live with an ‘expectant attention’ (mishmash from Charlotte Mason, Amy Carmichael, and Scripture) and practice living resurrection.
A thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I have come so that they may have life and have it in abundance.
John 10:10 CSB 🌷
Ask questions that have no answers.
Invest in the millennium. Plant sequoias.
~Wendell Berry ☕️
Laughter is immeasurable.Be joyful
though you have considered all the facts.
~Wendell Berry 🪺
I’m determined in my heart 💜 to choose again (and again and again) Jesus’ joy and resurrection power. Just making conscious choices that I know help me pay attention and relax into the Lord. Prioritizing my quiet time. Going outside. Holding online things very lightly, getting dressed in comfortable clothing I love, doing a little summer mom learning project with a IRL friend, taking good care of myself and my family, finishing little projects I love, and doing small, short trips. Not giving into overconsumption in any area of my life – frantic reading, buying random stuff, food, media, but a soaking in the Life-Giving Abundance of Jesus!
You reveal the path of life to me;
in your presence is abundant joy;
at your right hand are eternal pleasures.Psalm 16:11 CSB
•heart, resurrect•
not hard, just
a deep death, rise again
chip corroded life-rust
if not now, when?
broken, now bloody birth
owner determines worth
who’s are you?
name, not what you do
down you lie
heart, flat you die
rise soul, into air
barn-swallowed by His care
A.M. Pine 🌲♥️
I will give you the treasures of darkness and riches from secret places, so that you may know that I am the LORD. I am the God of Israel, who calls you by your name.
Isaiah 45:3, CSB
And as they sang, the fear and the suffering of the long winter seemed to rise like a dark cloud and float away on the music. Spring had come. The sun was shining warm, the winds soft, and the green grass growing.
Laura Ingalls Wilder, The Long Winter
Shadows and coolness, Lord,
Art Thou to me;
Cloud of my soul, lead on,
I follow Thee.
What though the hot winds blow,
Fierce heat beats up below?
Fountains of water flow-
Praise, praise to Thee.
Clearness and glory, Lord,
Art Thou to me;
Light of my soul, lead on,
I follow Thee.
All through the moonless night,
Making its darkness bright,
Thou Art my Heavenly Light-
Praise, praise to Thee.
Shadow and shine art Thou,
Dear Lord, to me;
Pillar of cloud and fire,
I follow Thee.
What though the way is long,
In Thee my heart is strong,
Thou art my joy, my song –
Praise, praise to Thee.
Amy Carmichael, Edges of His Ways
I’ve been thinking about shadows. Without the darkness of life, how can we see the light? It’s easy to forget my deep need of Jesus when things are smooth and relatively calm. I love strolling under cloud shadows and how they seemingly race across the road. The sun bursts out eventually, drenching all that was dim for a moment. I want to remember that even though my back is bent with my burdens, He is there with me, His presence making them light. How are you today? Weary and heavy-laden? Under dark shadows of life? He has given us His divine power for everything pertaining to life and godliness. The Light flickers and flares in the shadows. ♥️🌿
dense shadows
blindfolding
dark drinks hope
strike match
flicker of faithlight
look straight
into the eyes
of Shadow
arrow of The Light
slices through
A.M. Pine 🌲♥️
If the old earth could wash herself and begin again so often and so humbly, why could not a man do the same?
- A City of Bells, Elizabeth Goudge
What are motherhood, art, our very life but second chances, beginning again, over and over? ‘Second-chance’ is a term that the book industry labels romances that have the same couple making another attempt at a relationship. This is a very narrow definition. We take second-go-arounds at multiple things DAILY. Our faith walk, being kind, loving on those tough to love, and asking forgiveness over and over again. There are so many wonderful stories and art that when you dig deep, focus on a chance to begin again. I want to focus my attention on a few of these with an expectant heart for what truth the Lord wants to show me. I’m not sure how this will play out as I have so much swirling in my heart. A couple of stories that really jump out to me are Marilla, Matthew, and Anne’s from Anne of Green Gables, Valency from The Blue Castle, Jocelyn from A City of Bells, and Mary from The Scent of Water. All these people have been given a chance to start again or at least begin to truly live. I actually made a huge list of stories from books and films that mean a do-over and fresh mercies to me. I was so surprised by how many of my favorites fall into that category!
2nd ~
my hundredth and one
second chance,
leaves curl into bud
faithfully once again
A.M.Pine 🌲♥️
Hello, Friends! 🌷🌷🌷Happy Spring!
I’m excited to start a new little ‘something something’ here. Just as we celebrate National Poetry Month, Letter Writing Month, (thanks for telling me, Kim!), Easter, and soak in the earth coming alive. A month to celebrate newness, resurrection, and the wheel of seasons turning again. I have a few things I’m simmering, so I hope you are as encouraged and inspired as I am about a freshness blowing through the windows…
How ‘bout you? Anything brewing in your heart? 🌿🌷✨
A.M. Pine - Hearth Ridge Reflections 