starting the day well

Now that the mornings are just cool and not cold,I feel a pull to go out to the porch to pray the Liturgy of the Hours and begin my day.

Twenty years ago, my husband and I came to an unfinished house that we now own and as he walked through the thick woods in the back, I sat on an old piece of cardboard on the slab that is now the screened-in porch.It faces West and as I sat there and took in the trees,something stirred that I had never felt before.I never wanted to leave this spot and I had to live here.Eventually that day, we had to go back to our old house and I felt a lessening of my spirits.A slight tamping down.But a seed had been planted and within months, we moved in to our grey and white refuge.

From the porch, I smell honeysuckle,watch the turkeys graze,the bluebird search,the wind tear into the pines and  thank God that the only thing I ever remembering having such a hold on me,these acres,have become mine.

I see the startlingly tall beech with its smooth bark that I always have to pat as I go by.My friend came the other day and when I mentioned that it was my favorite,she took a picture up the trunk to its beautiful foliage.I haven't looked up in awhile and was shocked at how tall it has gotten as we have lived here together.We live in a forest as the small black/grey hawk swoops down to take a poor dove away.From the porch, not a house is visible although neighbors are near if help is needed.Do all souls need this greeness,this wild nature ?

I think that we do or the Psalmists would not have gone on as they did in this morning's prayers:
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.."How lovely is your dwelling place,Lord,God of hosts....

The sparrow finds a home and the swallow a nest for her brood;she lays her young by your altars,Lord of hosts,my king and my God.....As they go through the Bitter Valley they make it a place of springs,the autumn rain covers it with blessings.....

...Let the heavens rejoice and the earth be glad,let the sea and all within it thunder praise,let the land and all it bears rejoice,all the trees of the wood shout for joy".

Lord, you place a harvest of beauty before us and I hear the honeysuckle clapping and exulting.