creation's Planter – Blisswood

Of Brightness and Glory

Thank you for sharing this uplifting quote, Melania!

As God is infinitely the greatest being, so He is allowed (recognized) to be infinitely the most beautiful and excellent; and all the beauty to be found throughout the whole creation, is but the reflection of the diffused beams of that Being Who hath infinite fullness of brightness and glory. ~ Schemamonk Constantine Cavarnos; Spiritual Beauty (The Nature of Virtue – Jonathan Edwards, 1960)

Long ago, in the 7th century, St. Caedmon heard angels praising God about Creation, and the saint penned what he heard. His poem is the oldest English poem in existence. As the original Northumbrian and Latin translations were aching to be adapted into a simpler, English read…. Here is my own translation and recording of St. Caedmon’s Creation Hymn of Praise.

Wishing my Blisswood Visitors Autumnal Joy!

And… may the sight of a crisp leaf dancing upon frosty winds, the refrains of gladsome birdsong, and the heartfelt perception of silent, celestial songs which dot the blue veil of night as a starry manuscript, inspire us to ponder each day or night, some aspect of Creation’s divine, and dazzling beauty.

Come! let us magnify our Holy, Blessed, Timeless Lord, and Father of Infinite Brightness and Glory!

Recharging Our Spiritual Batteries

After completing all your tasks, turn off the phone and pray for half an hour, not longer. In this way you will be planting a “sapling”, which, after some time, will bear fruits… ~ St. Ephraim of Katounakia

Just as a cellphone needs to be recharged, so the soul is recharged in Church. ~ Archpriest Stefan Pavlenko

Try to fill your soul with Christ so that it’s not empty. ~ St. Porphyrios

Happy All Saints’ Day

A Thicket of Maiden-Hair Ferns Refreshed by Righteous Rain

Blessed Feast, and Happy Saint’s Day Emmanuelle!

Previous *All Saints’ Day* Blisswood Posts
God’s Garden ~ Posted June 14, 2020
Sunday of All Saints ~ Posted June 27, 2021
God Giveth the Increase ~ Posted June 19, 2022
Called to Be Saints ~ Posted July 11, 2023

In the New Testament we are called to be saints, and the Orthodox Church gives the title of saint to those who throughout history, have lived and died in Christ.

While Canonized (Glorified) Saints have their own feast days, there are countless multitudes of saints (since the time of Adam) who don’t have a feast day… and some of these are even nameless Saints – known only to God!

Since the 4th century, All Saints’ Day is celebrated the first Sunday after the Great Feast of Pentecost. Today we commemorate all saints from everywhere and from every time. We honour the known and unknown… Whether they be men, women or children… these shining clouds of witnesses have lived to the fruition of Holiness.

As all are alive in Christ, the saints are our friends and alive in Heaven. They are venerated, but not worshipped.

Kontakion (a little hymn) of All Saints: The universe offers to Thee, O Lord, as the Planter of Creation, the God-bearing martyrs as the first-fruits of nature. By their prayers, O Most Merciful One, through the Mother of God keep Thy Church, Thy estate, in deep peace.

Every one of us is the painter of his own life. Our soul is like the canvas, and the virtues are the paint. Jesus Christ is the image we should copy. ~ St. Gregory of Nyssa

In God and in His Church there is no division between the living and the departed, but all are one in the love of the Father. Whether we are alive or whether we are dead, as members of the Church we still belong to the same family, and still have a duty to bear one another’s burdens. Therefore just as Orthodox Christians here on earth pray for one another and ask for one another’s prayers, so they pray for the faithful departed and ask the faithful departed to pray for them. Death cannot sever the bond of mutual love which links the members of the Church together. ~ Metropolitan Kallistos Ware

All the Saints are like fragrant flowers in God’s Heavenly Garden.

May we bloom where planted, and regardless of debris from life’s storms… offer unto Creation’s Planter a fruition of Spiritual Fragrance!

Happy Eve of the Holy Apostles Sts. Peter & Paul Fast!

Perceiving Divine Simplicity

Boulevard Snowdrop Flowers Signal the Nascence of Spring

Love all creation, the whole of it and every grain of sand within it. Love every leaf, every ray of God’s light. Love the animals, love the plants, love everything. If you love everything, you will perceive the divine mystery in things. ~ Staretz Zosima; The Brothers Karamazov – by Fyodor Dostoevsky

…See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labour or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. ~ St. Matthew 6:28-29

All created things are marked with the seal of the Trinity... The contemplation of nature has two correlative aspects. First, it means appreciating the “thusness” or “thisness” of particular things, persons and moments. We are to see each stone, each leaf, each blade of grass, each frog, each human face, for what it truly is, in all the distinctness and intensity of its specific being. As the prophet Zechariah warns us, we are not to “despise the day of small things” (4:10). “True mysticism”, says Olivier Clément, “is to discover the extraordinary in the ordinary.” ~ Metropolitan Kallistos Ware; The Orthodox Way

Even during a simple walk, it’s a mystery how easily the Great can be seen in the Small. Whether it be stoic flowers bursting through cement cracks, or a cheery family of four snowdrops, popping up like unexpected company – on a grassy boulevard.

God’s beautiful gift of nature is all around us.

All we have to do is to see what we’re looking at.

Happy Saint’s Day Zoe! God grant you many years!

Come, Magnify Him!

Garden bouquet, picked for a friend this week: Heather, Viburnum, Pieris Japonica, Sword Fern

Light was first
Through the Lord’s
word Named day:
Beauteous, bright creation! ~ St. Caedmon

Greetings on St. Caedmon’s Day!

This 7th century British Saint heard angels sing, and recorded their heavenly hymn which became the earliest English poem in existence!

Previous Blisswood post shows the ruins of the ancient Whitby monastery where St. Caedmon lived.

After reading St. Caedmon’s Hymn from these Latin, Moore/Leningrad Northumbrian Dialects/Bodleian West Saxon sources and translations – this poem achingly called to me, asking to be adapted further.

I translated it into a more contemporary old English and put my adaptation to the ancient melody of the 13th century Byzantine Hymn: Defte Lai.

My version of St. Caedmon’s Hymn with Sheet music here.

Below is my version of St. Caedmon’s Creation Hymn, rusticly sung and recorded, accompanied by my faux-lyre (ukulele) using the chords: Fm; Cm; and B♭m.

Come magnify Him,
Creator of the firmament,
Author of each and all,
And glorify His purpose;
Love, Invincible.
Come and honour Him,
Protector of Fair Paradise,
Holy, Mighty, Immortal,
Architect, Omnipotent;
Father of Glory.
Blessed, Timeless, Lord,
Thou hast established Thy wonders,
Before middle earth* was formed,
Or adorned with Thought of Mind;
Lord, God Almighty!
For the sons of men;
Thou formed the Roof of Heaven!

* Middle earth (not just a Tolkien invention)- it means the world, the middle enclosure – which exists between heaven and hell. From Middle English middel-erde, and Old English middangeard.

I’m grateful for the heavenly hymn St. Caedmon has bequeathed to us, and his role in the early English Orthodox church… From his beginnings as a humble shepherd – to his subsequent life as a meek monk in a great, historic, monastery.

When the song of the lips becomes the song of the soul, we’re able to – bit by bit, acquire a small, uplifting, repertoire of prayerful Psalmody from the heart – by singing anytime praises to the Glory of God!

Heavenly Snowdrops

…but the righteous will thrive like a green leaf. ~ Proverbs 11:28

Yesterday’s walk was exhilarating!

Cheerful Snowdrops are springing up everywhere!

Old English names for Snowdrop flowers are Christ’s Flowers, Purification Flowers, Candlemas Bells, and Fair Maids of February. They are named as such, in honour of the ancient (upcoming) feast day of The Meeting of the Lord in the Temple! (February 15/2)

God’s Gift of Nature physically and spiritually nourishes us.

We rejoice in the sun’s warmth on our face and refreshing gentle breezes that sweep away cluttered, wintry thoughts.

Through a single flower, we remember all is God’s Handiwork, and that Nature is a Secret Gospel.

Spiritual Fragrance abounds! And… regardless of debris from recent storms, we notice it’s the new and verdant growth that bears the precious blooms in God’s Garden!

Sometimes – a glimpse of Paradise is right outside our back door!

Happy Saint’s Day Maximos, God grant you many years!

Shiny and New

Cleansing rain makes all seem shiny and new again! ~ Kilauea, Kauai 2023

Let my teaching drop as the rain,
My speech distill as the dew,
As raindrops on the tender herb,
And as showers on the grass.
~ Deuteronomy 32:2

Praise the Lord from the heavens;
Praise Him in the heights!
Praise Him, all His angels;
Praise Him, all His hosts!
Praise Him, sun and moon;
Praise Him, all you stars of light!
Praise Him, you heavens of heavens,
And you waters above the heavens!
~ Psalm 148:1-4

Praise the Lord… Even when its raining!

I love seeing raindrops spill off leaves and bead onto flowers like great globes of iridescent jewels! This beauty is reminiscent of Hope. For, amid afflictions and perhaps stresses of daily life, rest assured – our contrite tears that may fall, are gathered by angels and laid before our Creator’s Feet… Those same Precious Feet which trod Eden’s dusky paths – still fragrant with Petals from Paradise.

It’s said somewhere that we first need the rain before a rainbow appears.

Rain may fall as a gentle mist, or it can be bitingly painful. But, when God’s Beautiful Promise in the sky appears, when that rainbow holds out its shining hand to you, take it… And walk joyfully into the Sonshine of Divine Consolation.

It’s so easy to praise the Lord! For, God’s cleansing LOVE truly makes everything shiny and new again!

Forests Within Forests

I discovered my first moss forest, around the age of 6, after attempting an exuberant cartwheel, and taking a nose-dive into a shady emerald pillow of puffy moss. Its mini forest seemed like a microscopic jungle, with perhaps millions of tiny tree-like spore stalks! If one were an actual fairy tale giant, this would be (no doubt) how one would view the world from on high.

When walking through nature I marvel at the many layers of forests. There are forests within forests. I may be in a forest, but, there on the nursing log laying beside the trail, is another kind of forest! Moss is an ancient organism, and has many uses. It’s amazing.

Truly, the so-called little things in life, when noticed, are actually Huge. Cosmic.

St. John Chrysostom says, “Nature is our best teacher.”

Indeed.

God’s Gift of Creation is intricately and mysteriously connected.

Let us open the noetic eyes of our heart to discover the extraordinary in the ordinary.

The world is more than we know.

Withinnan

Our garden’s Johnny Jump Ups (Winter Pansies) thrive and flourish in brilliant autumnal Sonshine.

Withinnan is an Old English word (before 1000 A.D.) referring to a motion “from within”.

The Cause of all things, through the beauty, goodness and profusion of His intense Love for everything, goes out of Himself in His Providential care for the whole creation… He relinquishes His utter transcendence in order to dwell in all things while yet remaining within Himself… ~ St. Maximos the Confessor (The Philokalia)

Nature is the Secret Gospel!

The Mystery of Creation is all around us!

By opening our noetic eyes, we see God – withinnan the Beauty of His Holiness.

Kinship of Creation

Scene from recent walk – ship sailing through diamonds.

When the night is dark
the stars shine brighter
here and ev’rywhere

The dawning Dayspring
connects all His Creation
through the Created

Flora, fauna, earth,
air, water – in us, in them –
a sacred kinship

What a beautiful day the Lord has provided!

May His glorious, Gladsome Light beam on you…

And through you…

Reflecting all the way…

To the other side of this amazing world!

With love in Christ.