Welcome back to SunnyRoomStudio and the Summer Sun series — this is the final post in this series, ending with Lucky 7, of course. We’ve covered some interesting ground since June 8th: summer as a kid (how to rekindle that feeling); focusing on your spiritual dimension when dealing with people from your past; the seasons of life, their fleeting nature; the Eckhart Tolle retreat at the Omega Institute; celebrating the heart of summer; and the beauty of a Zen rock garden.
Breathless, we flung us on the windy hill,
Laughed in the sun, and kissed the lovely grass.
~ Rupert Brooke, “The Hill”
In Dakota, we enjoy plenty of beautiful prairie grass this time of year — its wheat-colored tassels wave in a summer breeze in a resourceful kind of way. I even planted some this year along a fence to the north. And of course it comes in many varieties, colors, and so on. Its extremely hardy and often used as an ornamental touch. This site Prairie Grasses features a short video you might enjoy called “Tallgrass Sights and Sounds.”
Previously in SunnyRoomStudio I focused on aspects of prairie wisdom from my book: Where the Heart Resides: Timeless Wisdom of the American Prairie.
- Wisdom does flow from our surroundings, and growing up with far-reaching landscapes, fields of prairie grass, and the heritage of Dakota at my side was influential, to say the least. And, thus, my spiritual path was launched well before I was even aware of that concept, per se. The simplicity of a wide open vista is compelling, and as a young girl, my grandmother taught me to appreciate the quiet stature of nature in all it many guises.
Sometimes I wish she was still here. What would she think of our world today? I wonder.
Although a quiet woman, Anna seemed to understand all the things in life I knew I would want to understand someday. If the day was hot, sunny … wear a hat. If the weeds were growing in the garden … get our your hoe. If the walnuts had dropped to the ground … pick them up. If the apples were ripe, bag a few to share with your neighbors. If the fan was broken (no AC in her home) … take a nap or read some Tennyson. Maybe make a glass of lemonade or find some ice cream in the freezer. One of her favorite sayings was, “keep the peace.” It was wonderful advice, one our world could certainly take to heart. Anna was the ultimate Zen master … in retrospect.
- What are you doing this summer to “keep the peace?”
- Who is still alive in your memory … still giving you advice even though he or she is gone in the physical sense?
Special memories reveal our values, our hearts, our souls.
Seeing death as the end of life is like seeing the horizon as the end of the ocean. ~ David Searls
