Nature's Joy

While a spitting rain from heavy clouds taps upon the window, I look out into yet another gray December day. This time though, thinking of times that brought me joy, and answering a call from Wren to share the five greatest of these— I have found in Nature.

Finding Joy in Nature

Harder than it would seem, it is to explain joy.
For in that moment it is experienced, the intensity may be so consuming, words leave me. Once spilled, gathering them again is like trying to recapture a bagful of bouncing balloons—the harder I try, the more they escape me.
But, back through my favorite pictures I traveled—from this cold afternoon in December, to times of sunshine and warmth, color and life.
And found it all there, as I had remembered.
The times that captured my heart and left me …changed.

Day Lily in afternoon sun

Amberwing on Smartweed around pond

The experience of color--
so pure and so rich as that of a Day Lily, set ablaze in the afternoon sun. Bright and bold tones on petals so soft.
Or on wings of glass that cast a warm glow from their tips, through, to flowers below. To be able to say, “I have peeked through an angel’s wing.”

Dunce Caps in lawn each morning

To find perfect, tiny parasols between blades of grass each morning, in a lawn still filled with crystal dewdrops. Their paper-thin heads so tender and fragile, the day’s light soon turns them dark and withered.
From delicacy, they disappeared.

Jumping Spider watching from Milkweed stem

Female Wolf Spider carrying young over driveway

Becoming small, from tall.
And discovering that, in my looking, others are looking back, staring curiously at me. And living lives, just smaller--from under leaves or upon the ground…

Stamens falling from flowering grass

Being witness to a moment that will never happen again.
A leaf’s fall to the earth,
or the melt of a snowflake that lands on warm skin, just once.
For just me.

Hatching Hummingbird in Nest

Newly hatched Wren

Seeing the first breaths of a new life.
So tender, so small, so innocent.
So beautiful.

How could there not, from these, be joy?

All photos enlarge with a click.

Where have you discovered joy?