Here are a few of the many paths near the main convent and Jane D’Aza. Right now the flowers are spectacular, and I tried to capture a little of it. Most of the colours are purples and pinks and there are entire beds of iris around as well.

This is looking down at the creek which meanders all over the campus, there are multiple bridges of different sorts. One year a tree fell across one and smashed it– fortunately no-one was hurt. The rest are some photos I took on a couple of my walks while here. Enjoy!

The first thing I saw upon entering the upstairs room I was to be in was a lovely arrangement of roses. I am quite fond of flowers in general, and roses in particular– this variety had a beautiful gradation of colour as you can see. More than that, it showed an attention to detail and warm welcoming spirit of those at Jane D’Aza. Someone took the time to go out and pick the roses to put in the room I was to stay in, and that meant a lot.

The actual room was much larger– indeed quite spacious! This is just one corner of it. Within is a feeling of airy contemplation, except for the bed which creaks. I find that quite amusing, though, and it adds a touch of the antique to a somewhat modern looking space which I appreciate. There is a little writing desk at the window as well from which I am currently looking out at what was a raging storm a few minutes ago but has died down to a gentle pattering.

Those of you who know me understand how deep an interest I feel in trees– that was even my first word as a child. I marched up to my parents, pointed at one outside and said very distinctly “Tree!” and so it has been ever since. I was pleasantly surprised to find two gorgeous ones right outside the window and more down the drive as you can see from the view I took above.

So far I’ve been learning a lot about the practical organization and running of the convent, and about the formation process in general. Everyone is extremely obliging as I fumble about! I really enjoy the bookends of morning and evening prayer each day as well.

In the time of morning’s opening
The sun rose up together
along with the stars that were in fellowship

We often thing about difficult times we go through as being darkness, and indeed the traveller had gone through the deep dark woods. But now we see that, despite a wild animal in the path, the sun is beginning to rise. I’m sure we have all been up at some point when the first beginnings of dawn were appearing– at first it is not spectacular. The darkness simply seems to gently lift– we can see better. Often we want hard stuff we’re going through to suddenly burst out in light and everything to be okay again, but that usually isn’t what happens. We just notice one day that it isn’t quite as dark as it seemed before. It is important to notice this early beginning of morning.