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 ~ 🌲♥️
I sometimes think the worst thing a young person can feel is when you can find no answer to the question of what you are supposed to do with this life you’ve been given. At moments you’re aware of it balanced on your tongue, but not what comes next. Something like that. I can now say that another version of that happens in old age, when it occurs to you that since you’ve lived this long you must have learned something, so you open your eyes before dawn and think: What is it that I’ve learned, what is it I want to say?
Niall Williams, This Is Happiness, p. 13-14
…let your compassion come to us quickly, for we have become very weak.
Excerpt from Psalm 79:8, CSB
I love finding random journaling prompts on Pinterest and really enjoy looking back at lists I’ve made!
Currently: 🍂
Reading…
My main focus this month is dipping into my massive stack of Victorian literature (one Victorian inspired in that stack!)for an online event called Victober! Community reading of literature published in the UK during Queen Victoria’s reign {1837-1901}. I set aside many other things to be apart of this lovely reading focus. It’s honestly become a highlight of my year for the last few years! I’m reading poetry from Tennyson, Emily Bronte, Oscar Wilde, and George MacDonald. I’ve dipped into Queen Victoria’s childhood diaries a teeny bit, too. I’m slowly rereading Our Mutual Friend. My favorites have been the drama in Charlotte Mary Yonge’s The Three Brides (Kindle) about three newlywed SIL’s thrown together under their new invalid widowed MIL, Shirley by Charlotte Bronte, and Return of the Native by Thomas Hardy with the audiobook read by Alan Rickman.
I’m supposed to be reading Niall Williams’ This Is Happiness with my IRL friends, but got distracted by the Victorians! 🤣
I’m also dipping into various things for study and to keep up the homeschooling co op classes I’m facilitating, mom’s group, a writing commitment and our own homeschool. The opening chapter of The Medieval Mind of C.S. Lewis was fascinating and so lovely.
Watching…
I’m on a bit of a social media purge so missing my Booktube watching, 🤣 but I did watch “Harry Potter and The Sorcerer’s Stone” with two of my older kids. It’s the only one of the movies I truly love.
Playing…
I honestly love my journaling. They bring me SO much joy. 🤩
Trying…
I’m ‘trying’ to find balance?! with all our outside activities, homeschooling, cultivation of relationships, and taking care of myself. It’s not working well 😅🥲, but one has to have something to keep aiming for even if they miss continually. 🙃
Looking forward to…
Continuing Victober and hopefully watching the BBC miniseries of “Our Mutual Friend” this month?! and next probably. It’s long!
Dreading…
Hmmm, deadlines are necessary evils, but they can be stressful for me. Leadership is stretching for me. Unfinished household projects. The great clothing change-out. The usual. 😅
Obsessing Over…
All things Victorian! I made these recently! It was difficult, but so fun! I’ve loved noticing one of my favorite autumn things…glancing in the rear view mirror and seeing the leaves swirl up, dance, come ‘alive’!
Learning…
So much through facilitating our co op highschoolers through The Divine Comedy and realizing that worry can be pride, I’m saying I know more than God. 😬🫣😅🙏🏻
Drinking…
I’ve been making half pumpkin spice flavored coffee with regular dark blend and it’s so great! I drink it black and it’s just a hint of pumpkin flavor. I don’t loooove flavored coffees, but this is gooood. 🎃
Loving…
My hubby and I took a 4 day trip north in celebration of our 23rd anniversary which was in September. We enjoyed history and nature together!
Hating (or rather Broken Up About)…
All the relational tensions, loved ones going through illnesses, marital pain, financial stress and just the general feeling of the absence of love 💕 permeating the air. 😞🙏🏻♥️Oh, Lord, come!
Starting…
Revamping my prayer time again! Needed something fresh! Journaling and alternating spots I’m reading in the Bible. Old Testament, New Testament, and Psalms. Currently added a Proverbs of the Day! Love finding the one that matches the day of the month! ❤️🙏🏻
Thinking…
About our life’s work?! and about the resurrection of my poetry scribblings and collage art, what I need to sacrifice to make it happen. Thinking about the movie “ Dead Poets Society”, which I watched for the first time a couple months ago. 🥲
Feeling…
Not sure. 🤔 Overwhelmed a bit 😵💫😉😬😅, but also inspired by the gorgeous autumn weather and all the lovely knowledge and life ripe for the picking. It’s right here for the taking.☺️♥️
Praying for…
My heart to be knit closer than ever to my Jesus and a listening heart to be wide open for others and for all the beauty here and now in this moment. For all the suffering near to me and far from me. 😞♥️🙏🏻
How about you? What’s currently beating in your heart? Let me know your answers to these! ♥️🍂Happiest October! 🎃 🦇 🕷️ 🕸️ 🍁
September begins and now already ends…🙃🤪
It’s a strange feeling to be glad for their wings, but sad that my older children’s faces aren’t peering at me as I read aloud. Bittersweet. Three down, four to savor! 🥲
Our year has begun well, kind of on “a wing and a prayer sort of way”, but with a gentle hopefulness.🌾
I think one of our favorite moments so far have been continuing a reread through the Little House Series (we are waiting on the audiobook for These Happy Golden Years), puzzles, and traveling to the site of Little House in the Big Woods for a Laura Ingalls Wilder Festival. A bit touristy, but lovely all the same. Now we’ve been getting into the tv series from the public library and it’s bringing back my childhood nostalgia of rushing home from my little private school for an episode with snack. 🥹♥️
We’ve also enjoyed jumping into our Charlotte Mason co op with both feet and just soaking in all the riches the other mothers have prepared for us! Shakespeare (King Henry V), folk song/hymn, Composer (John Williams!), Picture Study (Camille Pissarro!), Clay Modeling, Swedish Drill, Microbiology, and my favorite, Nature Study (we are using a lovely book called Sundial on the Seasons by Hal Borland). I’m helping with Highschool Literature (The Divine Comedy! – stretching me, let me tell you!), Poetry (Alfred Lord Tennyson), and the younger students Geography co leading with another mom.
What richness! What a gift!
My personal goals and projects were going SO well in June & July, but I fell off the habit wagon 😅 in August after SO many family things. I’m struggling to keep up on health, writing, pen pals, crafting goals & stuff. Anyone else? I have some outside obligations that I’m prioritizing (maybe TOO many?) and I’m struggling with very little mojo to keep up my personal things. I end up reading 📖 😅ALOT and watching people talk about reading. 🙃I ❤️🔥 Booktube! Any help on how to tackle getting back into these life giving things WHILE homeschooling? 🤪🫣😵💫😍
What did you love about your toe-dipping into the ‘25-‘26 home educational year? We have sooo many lovely books and things on the docket and I’m struck by the immense blessings at me and my children’s fingertips. Who knows what will be in all the pages, behind the door to the natural world, and in the relationships we will form? ❤️🔥🌿I wait prayerfully and with great anticipation. ♥️🌿
~
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 🌲♥️
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? 🌿🌷✨
Hello, Friends! ☕️♥️
I’ve really been leaning into my phrase ‘expectant attention’ during this beginning space of the year. How are you doing? I’ve been soooo enjoying trying new reads, mainly from the library, on my Kindle especially, and pulling a few things off my shelves. I have finished a few Winter ❄️ list items, but I’m not stressing it. The reality of the online book world is that it’s easy to rush or feel F.O.M.O. and it’s so refreshing to buck all trends, lists, etc UNLESS these things are bringing me joy. The truth is *whispers* that most of this isn’t that important in the grand scheme of life. I can let it go at any time and pick it up again.
I got my journal a bit later in January, so my opening pages are a bit empty, but it was so fun to put in a few things the Lord has been showing me through all the inspiration I’ve been seeing and trying to deeply pay attention to!
I also began my 2025 Daily Pocket Moleskine! Sigh. It brings me so much joy. ♥️❄️☕️🥰 Not pictured is my reading journal which I adore scribbling and glueing in! Books stacks everywhere are getting a bit of a pruning today, but I’m so grateful for my stuffed home library and my public library. I’ve been freely quitting books that aren’t for me, EXCEPT my poetry selections and spiritual devotions. I definitely put more effort into those. Here are a few snaps of bookish loveliness. 🥰♥️
That’s all, folks. 😅♥️ I’ve been just plugging along at all our homeschool responsibilities and trying to keep ahead of dishes and keep enough food on the table for these giant kids (read: mainly the 19 & 17 yo boys 🤣)!! I have some writing due soon and poems for my February poem postcard challenge. It’s freakishly cold 🥶 here and yet, I’m doing ok. God is faithful to send us little flashes of beauty and wonder in the midst of the mundanity. ♥️🥰
How are you? Reading or creating anything? Anything specific bringing you joy? 🥰 Bless each and every one of you. Happy Saturday! ♥️☕️📬💌📚✒️📝♥️❄️✨
We must choose singleheartedness ~ where we desire Jesus above everything else – above all our other “lovers”, our false Edens, our passing comforts.
~ John Eldredge, Resilient
•joy•
he’s here now
in lowly splendor
just like Isaiah vowed
a teeny mender
letter of law
now joins spirit
star saw it all
gazing down, lit
on a face full
of love music
blood paused to lull
till time to spill it
•🎄♥️❄️A. M. Pine 🎄♥️❄️•
Merriest Christmas!
Dear Friends, hello again! I thought I’d catch up on my prompts by using them for more introspection and planning. Most of these areas, besides the marriage-focused ones, I will be including my children as we learn together. You are invited to join me in spirit or in your own planning…read on, if interested. ♥️❄️🎄
In the New Year ~2025~ I’d like too…
Light Candlelight in my marriage relationship and invest in my friendships deeply:
• planning dates, trips, times of prayer together with my husband, I’d love to jot down memories from these times and print off photos etc as a memorial of gratitude for God’s faithfulness.
•I’d like to reprioritize pen pal notes of encouragement, coffee dates with family and other friends, texting people who come to mind in prayer, local, and church women’s groups I’m in. We need one another more than ever.
The color of Green reminds me of hope, health, and creativity! It’s my favorite color 🍏🌿🌲🌱🍃🪴
•I’m planning on a few set creative challenges, especially using Bella Grace and Conscious Creativity for ideas.
•Figuring out a healthy way of living tailored to my needs and season of life and then being faithful to it.
•visiting my creative “heart homes”, if I can, occasionally or at least once next year. A special coffee shop, cabin, specific nature spots, and yes, Barnes & Noble. 😂 I love dreaming and planning at these places and it gives me something to look forward to! Yes, my major heart homes are the Lake District, Cumbria, England 🏴 and P.E.I., Canada, 🇨🇦 but no plans soon for returning there. 😉🥰😍😂
My Reading life is a life-giving to me. I’m intentionally keeping it simple this year with two challenges and open-ended possibilities.
•my first challenge is to start reading all Kate Howe’s current Victorian Literature Favorites as a project for myself. I actually haven’t finished or read many of these and thought it would be fun to challenge myself with some deeper reading.
• I absolutely love Chantel’s open-ended word categories this year, so hoping to plug in what I read there. I may not do them in the months assigned, but will look at them throughout the year.
• I was so inspired by this video talking about ideas for this gal’s reading journal. I don’t pre set up most of my journal pages except in the opening, preferring to work on them as the year progresses. I’m hoping to tweak some of her ideas to work for my journal.
•I want to tie on my Apron of home keeping and hospitality in a new, fresh way this year. Sometimes this means making a meal for a new mom or dropping off a bouquet of sunflowers you grew. It can mean more than hosting in your home. I have an older house with one small bathroom. How can I use it to bless my hubby, children, and those around me? This isn’t an easy area for me, so I want to grow. I’d like to put some effort in helping my husband fix a few things and focus on a small, container flower garden on my older deck, as a way of extending our home this summer. I’d like to host bonfires in fine weather, as we have a lot of outdoor space. Praying for the Lord’s leading. I’m setting up my little to-do planner/memory book in anticipation! I feel like I’m being asked to focus on ‘Taking Heed/Paying Attention” as my phrase for the year. I found a quote by Charlotte Mason, my educational philosophy heroine, that uses the phrase “expectant attention” and it hit me like a lightening bolt. I want to pay attention to the Lord’s still small voice in expectancy for all the glorious Truth and Love He has for me.
•I’d love to take to the Forest and field more. Nature walks and returning over and over again to numerous nearby favorites has blessed us immensely over the years on rotation. We truly strengthen our relationships with each other and walk away with little bits of beauty that keep on giving. These usually just cost me a bit of planning, a lunch thrown in a bag, and a little gas for an unmeasurable amount of Joy.
•Lastly, I want to really revamp and dive into my Scriptures this year. The Holy Bible is my life map and I honestly, adore it. I don’t understand it and it’s hard to read at times, but by faith, it will not return void in my life. I’d like to try a bit more focused journaling around it and I was so inspired by Doris’ journal here. She’s not using it for prayer and Scripture items, but I feel I could adapt some of it.
How ‘bout you? Do you have a focus or goals for 2025? I’d love to hear! 🥰😍
May your book be good and your drink hot! 😍🥰🎄❄️♥️
A.M. Pine - Hearth Ridge Reflections 