Last weekend I went over to pick up my best friend for a fun trip to the garden center. She opened the door snarly – not directed at me, just one of those mornings when the dogs, kids, husband weren’t cooperating and she’d lost patience.

And, she said, “I’m not in the mood to buy flowers. But I’ll come.” Grudgingly. Cuz I said I would.

Then we walked into the center, one of those enormous outdoor festivals of brilliant color, outbuildings filled with geraniums, the more delicate herbs, annuals like you’ve never seen before.

Within five minutes, maybe less, my friend had on a smile as brilliant as any rose.

Flowers have incredible power to lift our spirits, make the sun shine, improve our emotional health. With an immediate happy impact.

What about you? Do flowers have power over you?

 Today I want to share with you some recent flower drawings.  All three drawings are of familiar flowers.  I have done drawings of each of these plants previously.  Also each of them is relatively well know to most people.  So, I don’t feel the need to give you a lot of information regarding them. 

As well, although there are only three different types of flowers here, I have included five pictures.  With the Gladiolas I have included two versions as I have with the Calla Lilies but only one version of the Poppies.  Since each of these flowers is presently blooming away in various parts of North America at this time, I have taken the liberty of calling them May flowers.  These flowers combined could make a beautiful crown for Our Lady or a lovely bouquet to lay at her feet.

Now, just a word about each:

A poppy is one of a group of a flowering plants in the poppy family, many of which are grown in gardens for their colorful flowers. Poppies are sometimes used for symbolic reasons, such as in remembrance of soldiers who have died during wartime.  Poppy flowers have 4 to 6 petals. The petals may be almost any color, and some have markings. Before blooming, the petals are crumpled in the bud, and as blooming finishes, the petals often lie flat before falling away. A whorl of stamens is in the center of the flower.

Gladiolus (from Latin, the diminutive of gladius, a sword) is a genus of perennial bulbous flowering plants in the iris family (Iridaceae). Sometimes called the sword lily, the most widely used English common name for these plants is simply gladiolus. The genus is distributed in Mediterranean Europe, Asia, Tropical Africa and South Africa. The center of diversity of the genus is located in the Cape Region of South Africa, where most species were discovered.

Here is the same drawing which has been changed by applying the software called “Colour Enhancement”. 

[In this case, I took the original drawing and applied the "Oil Paint" software to it and then decided I really preferred this version to the original.] 

Zantedeschia aethiopica (common names Calla lily, Lily of the Nile, Easter lily, Arum lily, Varkoor (an Afrikaans name meaning pig’s ear), is a species in the family Araceae, native to southern Africa in Lesotho, South Africa, and Swaziland.  Zantedeschia contains calcium oxalate, and ingestion of the raw plant may cause a severe burning sensation and swelling of lips, tongue, and throat; stomach pain and diarrhea may occur.  Keep it away from children.

The same drawing but after the software called “Colour Balance” has been applied.

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STARRY NIGHT

A friend sent me a pps of photographs taken by a highly specialized photographer who has devised a way to take timed shots of the night sky in such a way that the stars are clearly defined even though the earth is moving during the 1/2 hour or so that is required to get the photograph.

As well, this photographer has developed something he calls “light painting” which obviously enables him to paint the rock formations on the ground so that they are visible in colour which would not be the case in a normal photograph of the night sky.

I wish I could have copied the entire photographs; however, some of them were the length of 3 – 8 1/2 x 11 sheets of paper in order to show the complete picture of the Milky Way.  If you would like to see these photos for yourself, send me an email and I will forward the pps to you. 

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SUKI AND SALLIE

Well, as Suki sleeps away another Sunday afternoon, I am reflecting on
what mischief she has been up to these past four days that you might find of interest.  Mostly life has been pretty routine over these past days with Suki doing her usual things in her usual way.

Once again, she spent countless hours lying in front of the window waiting for the pigeons to arrive.  Often, she fell asleep there in what I would consider to be a most uncomfortable position.  It did not seem to bother her as she slept soundly and was able to awaken and growl menacingly as soon as the sound of pigeons (or gulls) penetrated her sleeping brain!

Suki also continues to sit for periods of time each day in front of the big, black ”S” on the wall.  Most often she goes there right after finishing a meal or a snack.  She sits very still and very close to the “S” and truly it does look as though she is praying — so much so that each time I see her doing this, I am reminded to say a few prayers.  I am serious.  She reminds me of those older ladies I see at Mass sometimes who are dressed all in black and wearing a lacy head covering of some sort.  They sit there so still — their bodies completely at peace — apparently very deeply into whatever form their prayer takes.  That is just how Suki looks as she sits quietly in front of the “S”.  It is almost like the Lord uses her to remind me to pray!  Very strange. 
I, on the other hand, have been sleeping more than usual.  In fact, sometimes now I actually quite suddenly fall asleep sitting at the computer.  I will be working away on something, apparently fully conscious, only to wake up 15 minutes or so later with imprints from the keyboard across my forehead and a garbled mess on my screen.  This sort of unexpected sleep has often occurred over these past years when I have been sitting in the recliner or lying down, but that is almost to be expected.  But this new thing is really funny!

It was happening while my friend, Brenda, was visiting and one evening she walked into the bedroom expecting to see me working on the computer, but instead she found me face down in the keyboard.  When she called my name, I jerked upright quickly and said something like, “oh, I wasn’t asleep, I was just praying!”  What foolishness as it was obvious to her that I had been sound asleep.  I wonder why it is that we so often feel like we have to say “oh, I wasn’t asleep, I was just resting my eyes, etc.” when we are caught in a situation like that.  Obviously, I had to correct myself to Brenda and say “Of course, I was asleep.  I don’t know why I tried to pretend I wasn’t.” 

I have noticed that so many of us try to deny being asleep when it is so obvious to those who see us that we have been asleep.  I would love to have some input from others on this in an effort to understand better why we do this — even those people who would  normally never tell a fib.  So, if you have any thoughts on the subject, please let me know.

So I come to the end of another posting for my blog.  I will be posting again on the 10th and will be presenting another icon of Our Lady in honour of her month of May.  I hope to post all the icons of Our Lady that I have been working on over the past months, but have never gotten around to sharing with you.  It seems that no matter what I am working on, I always have an icon of Blessed Mary on the go.  I may only spend a short time each day working on it, but it just doesn’t feel right not to have a new image of her underway no matter what else I am working on.
By the way, today’s Gospel contains one of my favourite statements from Our Lord:  “Apart from Me you can do nothing.”  I really like to meditate on this powerful comment which is true not only for me but for every single person on this earth — no matter how they feel about Our Lord — no matter if they hate Him.  What amazing love that is.

And so I pray as I finish this posting:  “may we all be aware of the completely undeserved, incredible love and mercy of God which surrounds us each and every moment of our lives.”  Amen.

This is another beautiful Instant Art Print from an 1855 Botanical Book in my collection. This one is wonderfully Monochromatic with all of the various Green shades in it! There is a High Resolution Printable as well as a an option with the Flowers on a plain white background.