Vision

I could have easily chosen Vision for my word of 2009, rather than Clarity, but Vision didn’t occur to me at that time.  The word “clarity” was what was in my mind — over and over again – and that’s what I chose.  This past week I have found a quote that illustrates very well how I want the word clarity to apply to my life.

Vision without action is a daydream.  Action without vision is a nightmare.  ~Japanese proverb

I want to take hold of the beautiful things I can see in my mind’s eye and bring them to fruition. On the other hand, I don’t want to waste my life doing meaningless things and then be filled with regret and resentment that I let the opportunity to do something marvelous slip away.

I can show you a picture of action without vision.

You might remember when I had to spend days digging out zebra grass that I fell in love with in the gardening center and then planted without any real vision whatsoever.  I was not clear.  There was no clarity on what the outcome would be.  

That zebra grass was lovely.  I still like zebra grass.  In its place.  It only took a couple of years, however, for this zebra grass to overshadow every other single thing in that garden.  It grew too big.  It fell over onto other things.  In the heat of our North Carolina summer, the blades of that zebra grass scraped and cut my arms as I tried to crawl around under it and work to find my other plants.

In the big scheme of things, the zebra grass was a small thing.  (Don’t tell my back I said that.)  What about when it comes to my children, though?  I expect that the qualities I want to see in my children as adults need to be worked in while the soil is soft and workable.  In other words, while they are in my home and under my parental authority.  This is the time to take action.  With vision.

I’ll stop there with that thought, because there are so many ways in which it can be applied, from making sure Princess of the Universe does plenty of nature drawing every week (I know what I want the outcome to be) to making a horrible financial decision that changes my ability to homeschool. 

I hope you enjoy that quote as much as I have. 

The violet in the terrarium is blooming like crazy.  I’m sorry this is blurry.  I had the flash off.  Can you see the trails on the glass where a slug has been crawling all over the place?  It’s better than T.V. 

The little puppy watches over the valley as the violet blooms high on the hill above him. 

It’s raining here today, and cold.  A picture taken last week shows many lilies coming through the ground behind the Veronica umbrosa.  After the rain this week, everything is going to come out full speed ahead towards spring.  This is the way of things here every year.  I just hope we do not have a killing frost once things really start to pop.

A little hint of more beautiful things to come.   Enjoy this day.

Lynn