penneylaneonline

I love that a rainbow inspires softness in the thought life of people looking at it. Why is that do you think? I don't know about you, but for me, it's the ethereal way that the washday hues are hung out across the sky, over a valley, in the sea or any other place we least expect to see it. A rainbow neither billows on the breeze nor whips about trying to escape the clutches of a fawning wind, it is past, present and future all at once. It has no reason to push in and demand attention, it simply... Sign in to see full entry.

Fear has a way of immobilising us in a way that's more debilitating for our soul and well-being than anything else I know. It is well practised in its capacity to cripple our confidence long term if we let it. We can experience it in one form or another, whether as procrastination, low self esteem or bullying to name a few, but worse than those is its ability to distort our view of ourselves, other people (even those we love) and the world around us. Fear is the worst kind of hunter, its only... Sign in to see full entry.

My thoughts seem frozen mid sentence as the chill from a cool wind blows across the suburb where I live. They stuff their rolled-up fists deeper inside their pockets, walking at a brisk pace now to get the blood flowing. Goodness, its cold. Overhead a grey-templed Sydney sky is unmoved by anything and anybody, alot like a suburban Bank Manager toying with you as he feigns a reluctant loan approval, but gives you what you want and what he always knew he would... a variable or fixed headache... Sign in to see full entry.

Wind has a way of clearing the cobwebs from around our hearts in the same way that water can cleanse it. Her errant and capricious nature make her the life of the party on days like this. Right now she's ruffling the locks and tresses of the trees outside my window. She's mischievous and some like Tritonia Iridaceae in particular, mind. Alot it would seem. Something about the way she musses up the tidy locks of my favourite macadamia nut tree (also known to me as *Himself) has me beaming. It's... Sign in to see full entry.

I felt like sharing small morsels with you to stave off the hunger pangs: " Courage has roots. She sleeps on a futon on the floor and lives close to the ground. Courage looks you straight in the eye. She is not impressed with power trippers, and she knows first aid. Courage is not afraid to pray, even when she is not sure who she is praying to. When Courage walks, it is clear that she has made the journey from loneliness to solitude. The people who told me she is stern were not lying; they just... Sign in to see full entry.

Consider this. Imagine that. What if? There is a definitive moment in Kathleen Kelly's (played by Meg Ryan's character in "You've Got Mail") thinking. She says, “sometimes I wonder about my life. I lead a small life, well, valuable but small and sometimes I wonder, do I do it because I like it, or because I haven’t been brave. So much of what I see is like something I read in a book, shouldn’t it be the other way round?” I think about the last time I asked myself such a life defining question... Sign in to see full entry.

Have you ever marvelled at the wonderous facility we have as human beings to be instantly transported back to another time and or space at the mere 'whiff of something?' I have, it's an uncanny sense. Take for instance, Daphne (Daphne Odora) and Star Jasmine (Trachelospermum jasminoides). Their scents remind me of my father and the onset of summer. I'm intrigued by how we make our associations since my father was a man of the land. Perhaps it's like the stuck record. I recall a story once about... Sign in to see full entry.

There's something quite moment-defining when we feel our spirits lift, soar for however long it takes us to soar on its wings and deliver us up from out of the everydayness of our lives. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate 'everydayness' it has kept my feet blessedly muddy and fleshes out my dreams, but, there is something about feeling the sun on my face or being surprised by the feeling of joyfulness that must be felt to be truly appreciated. I like the way the afternoon sun licks at my toes, the... Sign in to see full entry.

When the sun hits my backyard it comes in dappled cheer. Today, for the first time in days it's sunny. I watched a small gecko scamper up the side of a brick wall, chasing down an industrious, some might say, tenacious ant whose task at the time were simply to get to the small crack in the mortar. Have you ever felt like that ant? So totally unaware that in the bigger scheme of things unknown dangers lurk and we, like it [the ant], are, it would seem, kept safe. And for what reason? Sheer luck?... Sign in to see full entry.

Autumn has a way of softening the human heart like no other season. It's a time in which there is a quiet, unobtrusive turning over of the heart's soil and despite those seemingly modest machinations, we are left in no doubt a difference has been made, deep in our soul. How? I don't know exactly. It seems to come in the guise of a quiet hopefulness, a resolute inner confidence that when Spring does come there will be a heady rush of colour, there will be answered prayers and there will be life... Sign in to see full entry.

The overnight rains have had an unusual effect on the bird life here in the suburb where I live. There's an orchestral banter that borders on near hysteria or maybe it's just an expectancy of something to which we humans are not privy that makes me feel for the moment, left out. It comes and goes that banter, in waves of busy, excited chatter on the one hand and whispered twitters on the other. Nevertheless, privy or not, they are comforting sounds here in the city. I live in the shadow of a... Sign in to see full entry.