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Blessing of the Herbs and the Bees
(for the Dormition/Assumption of the Mother
of God, 2023, traditional time for blessing of plants)
Bless God for all His creation.
Bless God for the herbs of the field.
Bless God for the mints that grow.
Bless God for the bees that scoop the pollen.
Bless God for the honey they spin
to sweeten the taste and heal our wounds.
To wit, this honey pot on the table,
this Joseph Bear's morning growl:
Bless God for all of His creation!
Amen!
(Joseph MacRae, July 5, 2023, day before the Three Weeks begins (Jewish calendar), today commemorating the Golden Calf Made; Hur Killed (1313 BC). Image from here.)
In Times Like These, Sing!
I’ve been studying the third chapter of Daniel today. Nebuchadnezzar was trying to get the three young men to worship his idols and they wouldn't do it. So he had them cast into furnace, and he was looking into it, he saw four figures in their dancing and singing. Their clothes weren't even burned. Nothing. So, the king actually blessed their God, our God, because of what he saw happened and he converted. And that's one of the things that eventually led to Jews Being released to go back to rebuild their temple again.
Well these three young men, they blessed the Lord for everything that He did.
Bless the Lord, you son and moon and stars, and sing a hymn to Him, and exalt him beyond measure unto the ages bless the Lord. All the winds sing a hymn to Him and exalt him beyond measure unto the ages.
So, I was thinking, we’re at a time when we're just about where the Jews were at that time, they had been falling away from God, and going their own ways. So He allowed them to be put into captivity. And right now we're faced with several nations threatening us with annihilation and everything else.
So that's where I kind of got inspired with my song, in the wording, it’s similar. But I just remembered this one little phrase of singing to things on a King's highway. So I just thought that, you know, there's no real words to that song, you can just make up anything that comes in your head that you want to bless God for for creating. You can sing to the things on the King's highway. I'll sing to the trees and all things of the earth, I'll sing to all things on the Kings highway. And like they said, sing and exalt to Him forever.
So I just kind of went that way and you can just make up your own verses to go along with this. And I just keep doing that every time I think of something else, sing to the world to the things on the King's highway. Sing to this or sing to that, whatever I wish to give thanks for.
So that's where I got the inspiration from. And this time of need right now, especially with our country, with all these liberal laws they're trying to pass that are really against the Bible. I think it's more important for us to give praise to God every day for what we have. So anyway, that's how On the King’s Highway came about.
(Joseph MacRae, previously composed lyrics with newly added verse, June 28, 2023, feast day of the the Three Hands Icon of the Mother of God. This Icon is connected with Saint John Damascene, whom Our Lady miraculously healed of a severed hand, bidding him to use it well. "According to Tradition, Saint John wrote a hymn of thanksgiving to the Mother of God: 'All of creation rejoices in You, O Full of Grace,' which appears in place of the hymn 'It is Truly Meet' in the Liturgy of Saint Basil the Great." Today also commemorates the Institution of the Angelus. Image from here.)
On the King's Highway
For background and backstory, see here and here.
The lyrics change, go with the moment. One version is below:
Oh, I'll sing to all things on the King's Highway.
I'll sing to the birds, I'll sing to the bees,
I'll sing to all things on the Kings Highway.
I'll sing to the mountains, I'll sing to the valleys,
I'll sing to the breeze, and the river that flows.
So, l'll sing to all things on the Kings Highway.
I'll sing to the ravens, I'll sing to the bears.
I'll sing to all creatures the Lord has created,
I'll sing to all things on the King's Highway.
(Joseph MacRae, June 7, 2023. Image from here.)
Before Embarking:
A road traversing Jordan known as the "King's Highway" is mentioned in the Bible's Old Testament as the route that Moses asked permission to cross after leading the Israelites out of Egypt. This road has been in continuous use since at least the 8th Century BCE…. "We keep following the footsteps of our ancestors,"... according to Abudanah, in ancient times, the King's Highway was an important trade route connecting Arabia, the Fertile Crescent, the Red Sea and Egypt… For centuries, the road was also an important pilgrimage route. In the Byzantine period, Christians used it on their way to visit biblical sites in the Holy Land, such as Golgotha, the site of Jesus crucifixion. In the early Islamic period, many Muslims travelled along it on their way to Mecca.-–from BBC Travel, The Open Road
Joseph's Backstory:
Well, a couple of weeks ago I went to this little old mountain village church out into a place called lobster valley. It's a very small small congregation. I like the preacher there and all, and the people. They didn't have any electronics in a church. No microphones. No video cameras or nothing, it was just, they didn't have instruments. It was just all the old-timey like singing. Well when I got done, about half a mile up the road there's a turn off called Hazel Glen Road. So I was interested in if it went over the mountain and if it would hit this other highway on the other side not a real highway, a county road.
Anyway, about two and a half miles out you come to the end of the houses. And there's a sign that says "end of county maintenance", then you're on a one lane gravel logging road that goes up over, and goes along, crosses a stream and goes up over a mountain. And eventually it's a county road on the other side, to go from the valley to a town called Florence on the ocean.
Well, anyway, I pulled off on this one little pull off overlooking this stream, I believe it was probably Lobster Creek maybe. And I dropped the tailgate, was sitting on it, on my truck, and it dawned on me there was something missing here. I should be doing something. I was looking at all around, the forest. It was trying to recover from all the total devastation of the logging that has been going on up there for the last 40 years. And it was really, it was recovering itself.
And I was thinking that, no, something's wrong, missing here. So then it dawned on me. And then I had a chance to buy this cheap guitar at a close out sale and I says, this is what was missing up on Glen Road that day, I needed to be up there on the tailgate singing to nature.
So, somewhere along the line these lyrics had come to me, and I added on a bit over time.
And this is kind of my tailgate song. The lyrics will change depending on where I’m at because I'll be looking at different things. But this to me is just going to be what I call a tailgate song, sitting on the tailgate of my pickup truck enjoying nature and giving this. The only thing I can really give back to nature is just a song. So let it be, I'll sing to all things on the King's highway.
For lyrics, see here.
(May 31, 2023, feast day of Mary, Mediatrix of All Graces (and traditional date of the Queenship of Mary), the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Our Lady of Banneux (above), and Saint Petronilla. On Jewish calendar today, Rebbe's parents wed (1900). Image from here.)
Something Big
(for the feast day of Mary, Mediatrix of All Graces;
remembering Joseph in 5th Grade, Tacoma, WA)
This motherhood of Mary
in the order of grace
continues uninterruptedly…
Hail, full of grace
immensity in smallest place
moongown, roses crown…
but how?
“I want to do something big!”
class clown stops–-spots camelias-–weaves,
school’s statue to receive, trend set:
no morning now to forget
her Queen
*Permission for saying a special Mass and Office in honor of Mary Mediatrix was granted on January 12, 1921, by Pope Benedict XV--this date also, as would have it, honoring the Milkgiver Icon of the Mother of God. Related, from Saint Bonaventure: 'As the moon, which stands between the sun and the earth, transmits to this latter whatever she receives from the former, so does Mary pour out upon us who are in this world the heavenly graces which She receives from God... As a child cannot live without a nurse to suckle it, so no one can be saved without the intercession of Mary'.
[crossovers/synchronicities here, here]
(April 30, 2023, Sunday of the Holy Myrrhbearing Women, feast day of (above) Our Lady of Perpetual Help/Mother of God of the Passion Icon, of Our Lady of Africa, of Saint Onenn of Brittiany, Saint Marie of the Incarnation Guyart, Saint Hildegard the Empress (Supporter of Saint Saint Lioba), Saint Sophia of Fermo, Blessed William Southerne, Blessed Dede Plani. On Jewish calendar, Count "Twenty-Five Days to the Omer" Tonight. Tonight also ushers in tomorrow's May Day celebration. Image from here.)
April Showers
…being my preference.
Joseph’s being May flowers.
April, from Latin aperire "to open",
mid-12c. replaces Old English Eastermonað–-
fertility goddess, or May flowers-to-be,
so between you and me,
spot an opportunity
for truce.
*From prompt: Freewrite as inspired by etymology of “April” ; From Lisa Freedman’s BreathReadWrite, April 30, 2023.
(April 19, 2023, Orthodox Bright Wednesday, and feast day of Our Lady of Lyons and of (above) Saint Emma of Saxony. On Jewish calendar today: Omer Day 13, Jericho's Wall Collapses (1273 BC) and Rebbe's Call (1991). Image from here.)
How the Garden Grows
[We] carry within us
an orchard…
–Li-Young Lee
and if hours be flowers
are minutes the powers
for their bloom? If so
step slow
into this
one,
turn to Joseph, says
a good life it’s
good food,
friends,
flowers
and that problems, like petals,
you cup them in your hands
turn them upside down,
they drop into God’s hands–-
new fruit then, in
good season.
*From prompt: Freewrite as inspired by etymology of “flower”, and by “Flowers” by Cynthia Zarin and “From Blossoms” by Li-Young Lee. From Lisa Freedman's BreatheReadWrite, April 19, 2023.
(Guest posted from Wendy birde to Joseph bear, on his birthday : ) Image from here . ) Have Yourself a Merry Little Birthday* Have yourse...
