dawn – Page 11 – Barnstorming

A Canticle for Advent: The Day-Star Waking

December 4, 2013 barnstormingblogLeave a comment

1. Whence is the goodly fragrance flowing,
Stealing our senses all away,
never the like did come a-blowing,
Shepherds, in flow’ry fields of May,
Whence is that goodly fragrance flowing,
Stealing our senses all away.

2. What is that light so brilliant,
breaking Here in the night across our eyes.
Never so bright, the day-star waking,
Started to climb the morning skies!
What is that light so brilliant, breaking,
Here in the night across our eyes.

3. Bethlehem! there in manger lying,
Find your Redeemer haste away,
Run ye with eager footsteps vieing!
Worship the Saviour born today.
Bethlehem! there in manger lying,
Find your Redeemer haste away.
~ Traditional French Carol

When they saw the star, they were overjoyed.
Matthew 2: 10

And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night.
⁹An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified.
Luke 2: 8-9

Stealing our senses. Overwhelmed by the songs of glory. Like the scent of a flowery field of fragrance in the middle of May, or the brightest light breaking apart the darkest night.Running, not walking, to meet the Redeemer. This is what it was like for the shepherds and the magi. This is what it is still like for us. Our Day-Star awakens and we, our senses stolen by glory, are overjoyed.

A Canticle for Advent: Dawning Ray

December 4, 2013 barnstormingblog1 Comment

1. A Babe is born, all of a Maid
To bring salvation unto us:
No more are we to sing afraid,
Veni, Creator Spiritus

2. Bethlehem, That blessed place,
The Child of bliss then born He was;
He aye to serve God give us grace,
O Lux beata Trinitas.

3. There came three kings out of the East,
To worship there that King so free
With gold and myrrh and frankincense,
A solis ortus cardine.

4. The shepherds heard an Angel cry,
O merry song that night sang he,
Why are ye all so sore aghast,
Jam lucis orto sidere?

5. The Angel came down with a cry,
A fair and joyful song sang he,
And in the worship of that Child,
Gloria Tibi Domine.
~15th century carol

The Latin phrases in this old hymn are:

I came as Creator
O light of Holy Trinity
to the focus of birth
dawning ray
Glory to you, O God

May we this day focus on the light of this Birth, this Creator arising from the created, this dawning of glory on earth.

Tattered and Tumbling Skies

November 3, 2013November 3, 2013 barnstormingblog1 Comment

The rain and the wind, the wind and the rain —
They are with us like a disease:
They worry the heart,
they work the brain,
As they shoulder and clutch at the shrieking pane,
And savage the helpless trees.

What does it profit a man to know
These tattered and tumbling skies
A million stately stars will show,
And the ruining grace of the after-glow
And the rush of the wild sunrise?
~William Ernest Henley from “The Rain and the Wind”

Yesterday a calm and steady rain
made more sodden a sullen gray dawn
when unbidden, a sudden gust
ripped loose remaining leaves
and sent them spinning,
swirling earthbound
in yellow clouds.

The battering of rain and wind
left no doubt
summer is done for good —
the past is past.
I hunker through the turbulenceto await a clear night when once again
heaven empties itself into
a fragile crystalline dawn.

The Sky Flames

October 12, 2013 barnstormingblog1 Comment

“…the sky flames, more intense.
I didn’t see it coming.”
~Patricia Hooper, from “Equinox”

…the autumn is deep.
Its pitch is only beginning, and will brighten
before the end. Brighten
into darkness,
or into spring.
~Pamela Steed Hill from “September Pitch”

The Unseen Seen

September 12, 2013 barnstormingblog3 Comments

It is in the early morning hour that the unseen is seen,
and that the far-off beauty and glory,
vanquishing all their vagueness,
move down upon us till they stand
clear as crystal close over against the soul.
~Sarah Smiley

Slow buds the pink dawn like a rose
From out night’s gray and cloudy sheath;
Softly and still it grows and grows,
Petal by petal, leaf by leaf.
~Susan Coolidge

For what human ill does not dawn seem to be an alleviation?
~Thornton Wilder

Dusky Dawn Gauze

July 25, 2013 barnstormingblog4 Comments

Veil after veil of thin dusky gauze is lifted, and by degrees the forms and colours of things are restored to them, and we watch the dawn remaking the world in its antique pattern.
~Oscar Wilde from The Picture of Dorian Gray

A Fleeting Meeting

July 17, 2013July 17, 2013 barnstormingblog1 Comment

And yet day and night meet fleetingly at twilight and dawn. And their merging sometimes affords the beholder the most enchanted moments of all the twenty four hours. A sunrise or sunset can be ablaze with brilliance and arouse all the passion, all the yearning, in the soul of the beholder.
~Mary Balogh in A Summer to Remember

Steaming Like a Horse

May 24, 2013May 24, 2013 barnstormingblog1 Comment

Why do we bother with the rest of the day,

the swale of the afternoon,

the sudden dip into evening,

then night with his notorious perfumes,

his many-pointed stars?

This is the best—

throwing off the light covers,

feet on the cold floor,

and buzzing around the house on espresso—

and, if necessary, the windows—

trees fifty, a hundred years old

out there,

heavy clouds on the way

and the lawn steaming like a horse

in the early morning.
~Billy Collins from “Morning”

Gloaming Fades to Dawn

January 21, 2013January 21, 2013 barnstormingblogLeave a comment

When night is almost done,
And sunrise grows so near
That we can touch the spaces,
It ‘s time to smooth the hair

And get the dimples ready,
And wonder we could care
For that old faded midnight
That frightened but an hour.
~Emily Dickinson

In the moments before dawn
when glow gently tints
the inside of horizon’s eyelids,
the black of midnight
waxes to mere shadow,
the fear forgotten for but a few hours.

Gloaming dusk
fades into gleaming dawn,
its backlit silhouettes stark
as the darkening earth
slowly opens her eyes
to greet a new and glorious morn.

Dead Daylight

August 21, 2012August 21, 2012 barnstormingblogLeave a comment

photo by Josh Scholten

“Every trace of the passionate plumage of the cloudy sunset had been swept away, and a naked moon stood in a naked sky. The moon was so strong and full, that (by a paradox often to be noticed) it seemed like a weaker sun. It gave, not the sense of bright moonshine, but rather of a dead daylight.”
― G.K. Chesterton

It is not the real thing, only a reflection of the sun’s brightness and warmth and energy. Still we believe in lunar paradox, willing to put faith in what cannot give or sustain life. Naked, the bluffing moon puts on a poker face to fake the light of day. It looks real but is mere phantom.

We are seriously seduced by moonshine, unconcerned about its origins.

It is time to go to bed for the real sun rises early, chasing away the overnight imposter, welcoming a new and vital dawn.

There can be nothing dead about it.

photo by Josh Scholten

I come from Pacific Northwest farmers going back four generations: the daughter of teachers, married to a son of farmers. We have raised three children who are making a difference in the world in their professional lives and as people of faith.

While keeping my eyes and heart open to the extraordinary things around me, I have worked over forty years as a family physician as well as a steward of the small farm we call home.

What I harvest in words or pictures finds its way here.
I welcome your messages and comments sent to emilypgibson@gmail.com

…whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. … And the God of peace will be with you. Philippians 4: 8 -9

What is my only comfort in life and in death? That I am not my own, but belong—body and soul, in life and in death—to my faithful Savior, Jesus Christ.
~Heidelberg Catechism

Instructions for living a life:
Pay attention.
Be astonished.
Tell about it.
~Mary Oliver

To do the useful thing, to say the courageous thing, to contemplate the beautiful thing: that is enough for one man’s life.
~ T.S. Eliot

A man should hear a little music, read a little poetry, and see a fine picture every day of his life, in order that worldly cares may not obliterate the sense of the beautiful which God has implanted in the human soul.
~Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

To live is so startling, it leaves little room for other occupations.
~Emily Dickinson

I believe in God as I believe that the Sun has risen, not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.
~ C. S. Lewis

Remember this. When people choose to withdraw far from a fire, the fire continues to give warmth, but they grow cold. When people choose to withdraw far from light, the light continues to be bright in itself but they are in darkness. This is also the case when people withdraw from God.
~ Augustine

Hello, sun in my face. Hello you who made the morning and spread it over the fields…Watch, now, how I start the day in happiness, in kindness.
~ Mary Oliver

The seed is in the ground. Now may we rest in hope while darkness does its work.
~ Wendell Berry

Nothing will sustain you more potently than the power to recognize in your humdrum routine the true poetry of life.~ Sir William Osler

But the effect of her being on those around her was incalculably diffusive: for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts, and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.
~George Eliot’s final sentence in Middlemarch

If the world were merely seductive, that would be easy. If it were merely challenging, that would be no problem. But I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day.
~ E.B. White

Geese appear high over us, pass, and the sky closes. Abandon, as in love or sleep, holds them to their way, clear, in the ancient faith: what we need is here. And we pray, not for new earth or heaven, but to be quiet in heart, and in eye clear. What we need is here.~~ “The Wild Geese” Wendell Berry

Let it come, as it will, and don’t be afraid. God does not leave us comfortless, so let evening come.
~ Jane Kenyon from “Let Evening Come”

You can only come to the morning through the shadows.~ J.R.R. Tolkien

Look for what you notice but no one else sees. ~Rick Rubin

If you want to identify me, ask me not where I live, or what I like to eat, or how I comb my hair, but ask me what I am living for, in detail, ask me what I think is keeping me from living fully for the thing I want to live for. ~ Thomas Merton

This life therefore is not righteousness,
but growth in righteousness,
not health but healing,
not being but becoming,
not rest but exercise.
We are not yet
what we shall be,
but we are growing toward it.
The process is not finished
but it is going on.
This is not the end
but it is the road.
~Martin Luther

Ten times a day something happens to me like this – some strengthening throb of amazement – some good sweet empathic ping and swell. This is the first, the wildest and the wisest thing I know: that the soul exists and is built entirely out of attentiveness.
~ Mary Oliver

It is not your love that sustains the marriage —
but from now on, the marriage that sustains your love.
~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer

She has done what she could…
~Mark 14:8

What do you mean? Do you wish me a good morning, or mean that it is a good morning whether I want it or not; or that you feel good on this morning; or that it is a morning to be good on?~ J. R. R. Tolkien from The Hobbit

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