It’s been a full, full, full April… and it’s only the wee hours of the 4th day. Feels like all of this month’s 30 days of life and drama have been packed into the first few days. There’s been a lot of the kind of activity that requires long distance phone calls and extensive to-do lists and a surprise visit to Mom. So, as introverts are wont to do I began to slow my pace and outside interactions. {as best I could…}
This past week, I canceled several scheduled appointments and shifted things in and around the unexpected. But I know that at the end of the day, for me, survival in seasons of busyness {especially when there is a surprise element} requires down-time. Not shut down, simply a few extra minutes of quiet in the morning or a brief cup of tea with a book in the middle of the afternoon. It can mean the world.
One of my mini-retreats was a brief stop at the park down the street around sunset on Friday as I’d noticed that the dogwoods were beginning to bloom.
When I got home, I was refreshed and tackled more of the huge to-list. {with a short rabbit-trail to research the folklore of the dogwood.} Interesting little tree with super hard wood. According to the gardening site paghat.com, “The name is believed to be a corruption of an old Celtic word, dag or dagga, sharing the same root as ‘dagger’.” A dagge was any pointed tool, and daggawood was so hard that it could be used to fashion innumerous useful objects.
I also found out that the dogwood is considered to be a symbol of the crucifixion of Christ. The bracts from the blossom form a cross whose coloration is stained on the end by nail marks with the center of the flower forming a “crown of thorns”. The tree’s red berries stand for the blood of Christ.
Nice for the trees to time their blooms so perfectly. Nice for the sun to shine so beautifully. These images taken on Good Friday now have a deeper meaning . And the cross {the empty cross} that I wear daily will be celebrated with family today.
He is risen.
