Worry-Free Echinacea - Rocky Mountain Gardens, Missoula, Montana

" 'You're not worried?' 

'Worry's for people who think blowing on the dice will change their luck.' " 

-Mike & Charley in One Last Lie, A Mike Bowditch novel by Paul Doiron, p.412 Lg type

Not Earned - Echinacea / Coneflower - Missoula, Montana

"Grace is not opposed to effort, it is opposed to earning. Earning is an attitude. Effort is an action."

-—Dallas Willard (1935-2013), Hearing God: Developing a Conversational Relationship with God (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1984, 1993, 1999), 194.

Coneflower Close Up - Missoula, Montana

“At first, he talked about the flowers in the garden behind his country house in Surrey. His voice still had its Midlands accent but was soft now and barely audible. He knew the plants by name and took a few minutes with each of them: ageratum, coreopsis, echinacea, rudbeckia…”  -from Teller: A Novel, by Frederick Weisel

Coneflower Circle Poem - Missoula, Montana

"There are poems hidden in the limbs of the willow
Lines of rhyme flowing from the music of the wren
Sonnets sitting like angels atop clouds resting on hilltops
Waiting to instill those with pen and ink to script lyrics to enlighten
There are triolets among the petals of coneflowers, pink, red and yellow..."

- from Will There Be Poems? By William A. Poppen

October Beauty - Missoula, Montana

"I’m so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers." – L.M. Montgomery (1874-1942)

Me & My Shadow - Missoula, Montana

"Like the wallpaper sticks to the wall

Like the seashore clings to the sea

Like you'll never get rid of your shadow

Frank, you'll never get rid of me

Let all the others fight and fuss

Whatever happens, we've got us..." 

- Sammy Davis, Jr., & Frank Sinatra, performing

"Me & My Shadow" written by Billy Rose, Dave Dreyer, Al Jolson

 

Watch these two legends in action here.

Yellow Petals - Missoula, Montana

"...each floweret, chilled by the night air, expands its pure petals; the gentle breeze shakes from the blades of grass the heavy dewdrops." - John James Audubon

Coneflower Center - Missoula, Montana

“Christianity is full of paradoxes and this is one of the strangest. When we are centered in God alone, we are able to relate to more of life and the world, and find more meaning in them. In some way a centered life becomes wider and fuller. To form one's life around this single perspective enables us to deal with more problems, not fewer, embrace more of life, not less of it. One reason is that we're not so divided, overwhelmed or bogged down by trivia and confusion.”

― Sue Monk Kidd, God's Joyful Surprise: Finding Yourself Loved