Singular Beauty

redrose
old red rose

Today I am choosing to celebrate the first day of summer by focusing on the singular beauty of individual flowers. Technology remains a mystery to me, so I’m not quite sure how I arrived at these images. I only know I felt a strong urge early yesterday morning to get out my camera and record what I found about me, not wanting to miss recording the moment. And these emerged. Perhaps it’s the early morning light that allows their presence to fully illumine themselves in such spectacular beauty. But I enjoy the mystery too much to ever actually try to figure it out. What enchants me most is that these photos, when they come, remind me of painting on black velvet. Only much better. 🙂 Enjoy.
orange-yellowrose
variegated rose
butterflybush1
butterfly bush
rose3
gorgeous new climbing rose (with company)
favrose
simple, simple, and an all-time favorite rose

The Summer Day by Mary Oliver

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean–
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down,
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.

I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

~ Mary Oliver

rockrose1
rock rose
lily
lily
hydrangea
hydrangea
peptorose
I call this my Pepto Rose. I do.
mallow
mallow
butterflybush2
new butterfly bush (Needs to be planted soon!)
red-pkrose
another heirloom rose
yellowflow
remind me!

Love and summer blessings!
Kathryn xoxoo

14 Responses to “Singular Beauty”

  1. Your blooms are fantastic,
    as is your garden,
    thank you for sharing it with us.
    ~Brooke
    http://creativecountrymom.blogspot.com/

  2. Hi, Brooke, and welcome! Thank you for the visit. I’m glad you enjoyed the pics. Kathryn xoox

  3. Thank you for lifting up my heart today. Lovely photos. I won’t tell you how you got them. leave the mystery but I assume you have a setting on your camera for flower close-ups. Mine does. Hugs from central Ohio.
    I’m reading the Seven Daughters of Eve and think I’ll require it for my Intro Biology class and move Darwin’s Voyage of the Beagle to the Intro Geology class. It’s every bit as good as you said it would be. Imagine, real science written in a way that anyone could follow it, like a good story. Quite a trick for something like DNA. All you have to do is read technical papers in places like Nature and Science to see that most publications are written to the 12 other people in the world doing that research. Oh, for clear and concise technical writing! Happy Tuesday. Love, Julie

  4. Hi Kathryn!
    You have captured the feeling of the longest day with the poem and the photos. These beautiful images reminds me of the long twilight and are themselves a poem to light and the glories of Summer.
    A perfect meditation for today.
    Love and Summer blessings!
    🙂
    Philip

  5. Hi, Julie! So glad you enjoyed the walk through the garden one flower at a time! Also glad to hear you are appreciating Seven Daughters of Eve. [For readers who missed that post, see:
    https://plantwhateverbringsyoujoy.com/?p=3623 ] As for setting anything on my camera, uh, nope. 🙂
    Love, Kathryn xoxo

  6. Good morning, Philip and many thanks for the kind lovely reflection! So glad you liked the images. Kathryn xoox

  7. Gorgeous post, mom! What spectacular photos!
    Wishing you, and your dear readers, a most Beautiful and Blessed Summer!

    Love you,
    Antonia
    xoxox

  8. Hi, Antonia! Thank you! I’m glad I get to share some of my lovely flowers with you while you are traveling! Awww, cyperspace! Thank you for the well wishes for summer. You, too!! Love and hugs, Mom xoxoo

  9. Oh gorgeous pictures and a poem by my current favourite poet! Perfect. That was a nourishing post.

  10. Hi, Deb! Welcome! What a lovely comment! Thank you so much! Kathryn xoxo

  11. the pics are so beautiful, I could almost catch the delicious aromas…..
    nice to see YOU surrounded in so much beauty,aloha, p

  12. Hi, Pamela, and thank you! I give thanks for each and every precious blossom! They come and go and every one gives me nurturance and deep satisfaction. What a blessing! Love, Kathryn xoxo

  13. A friend sent me here because she knows I love flowers and Mary Oliver. Beautiful pictures and wonderful words. I’ll be back.

  14. Hi, Nan, and welcome! Thank you for your visit this morning! Please thank your friend, and I look forward to your visiting again! Kathryn xoox

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