Earth’s Crammed With Heaven

Yesterday I was reminded of one of my favorite quotes:

Earth’s crammed with heaven,

And every common bush afire with God

But only he who sees, takes off his shoes

Every time I read that quote (from Aurora Leigh by Elizabeth Barrett Browning), it reminds me to open my eyes and see the grace available to me in the beauty of nature.  Many times, I take nature for granted.  When I pay attention, the nature’s gloriousness really amazes me.  I wanted to take some photos yesterday evening.  It was threatening to rain and I didn’t want to go too far from shelter.  So, I went out to our backyard to see if anything was happening out there.  I had very low expectations, because I thought all of our flowers were finished blossoming.  I was happily surprised to find some interesting subjects for photos.  (As always, click on a photo to see a larger version.)

The flowers on this plant are such a wonderful, intense shade of pink.  They really stood out against the green behind them.  The plant was like a little fire burning in the garden.

Our bleeding heart plant has been blossoming for months.  One or two little blossoms are still hanging on.  This flower strikes me as so tenacious, like a little fighter that is not willing to give up.  The rain has poured down in sheets over the last couple of days, but still the blossom holds on.

I don’t know what the little yellow flower is.  The blossom looks a little like a pansy, but it was on a tall stem.  It is actually in my neighbor’s garden, which is right behind ours.  This tiny flower seems to have its own little personality.  It seems kind of sad with its wilting leaves and its petal tipping over as if it is waving goodbye.

With all the rain lately, our garden has a snail problem.  Normally, I hate to see these nasty creatures in the garden.  With a camera in my hand, though, I noticed how beautiful the snail was.  I like all the textures in this photo – with the smoothness of the snail’s shell on the rough wood of the fence and the light peeking through in the background.

I’m going to end with this photo of our Buddha.  He happily attends to our garden and all its visitors.  His smiling face reminds me to enjoy each moment that I spend outside.

I found so many surprises in our garden last night.  Maybe because I had low expectations, everything was a delight.  I loved being outside among the flowers.  Last night, I found earth crammed with heaven right in my own backyard.  Luckily, I remembered to take off my shoes.