Author: jjillgallery

Quietly seeking to meet Trust wherever Life leads, I understand service as key to gratitude and balance. Freshwater woodlands evoke the most serenity in me wherever they're found. I've shared space & time on terrain of my Ligurian and Oscan ancestors, feeling their souls guiding me, especially in silent contemplation. Today, after over thirty years of engagement in programs for children, secondary, university and adult learning, the gifts life brings on Long Island's Matinecock-Algonquin earth, I try to give & receive with grace.

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Just Let Go…

June 10, 2025

Approximately two years ago, I learned about the wispy anemone flower, the “Grecian windflower” and purchased a mixture of bulbs, unsure about their colors. I recall planting them in a large, gray container and despite some green leaves, there was nothing noticeable…until this year.

Maybe it’s the coolness of this 2025 spring, or the gentle rain again today as the Heavens weep for human ignorance, arrogance minus repentance…yet.

Yesterday morning, already late, I locked the front door and moved towards the car…a butter-yellow flash interrupted my rush. Moving towards the planter, I found three full, forgotten anemone blooms who seemed to greet me with smiles and project a message.

Their butter-yellow color suggests cheer, optimism, good fortune while the mythology reflects the long love of Aphrodite and Adonis, who was killed by a wild boar during a hunt. With several explanations for the meaningful story, Adonis dying in Aphrodite’s arms, covered with her tears, is said to represent death & rebirth. To echo Thomas Berry, Earth is a communion of subjects, not a collection of objects, and exists, survives only in Her integral functioning. Earth must be the primary concern of every human institution, profession, program and activity. In economics, for instance, the first law of economics must be the preservation of the Earth economy. A rising Gross National Product with a declining Gross Earth Product reveals the absurdity of our present economy. It should be clear, in the medical profession, that we cannot have healthy people on a sick planet. (Thomas Berry, The Dream of the Earth)

This messaging has been given consistently over mammoth stretches of time and throughout all cultures. Take a moment to stop from the rush, the noise and negativity to select your moment of letting go of predictable schedules. Impose an intentional silence and let your attention drift to listening well, feeling a moment, discerning communication, connecting with mutual appreciation and comprehending the messages transforming into your consequential action. This is how Spirit speaks.

(Find the symbolism & meaning through Nature or traditions of all cultures – https://padrepioministry.org/prayers-information/surrender-novena/ – access is infinite.)

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Sunday Revelations

May 25, 2025

French Rose-Pink faces

as I stroll through this Sunday

greet me with each step.

Memorial Day weekend brings memories. Sun is fading now behind clouds uneasy to say goodbye. This spring is cool, with so far just enough rain, yet each breath for tomorrow is unknown. Roses speak.

The more we allow the Silence of our surroundings to speak, the more our hearts can listen to the truths they beg to tell. All is a part of them as they are a part of us all. We share their time, space, beauty, life. When this becomes the gift fully comprehended…all things will transform. For this moment, we await.

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Mother’s Day Morning

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5 July 2024

When nerves become so overpowering in inflating fear that we are unable to allow our present frailties and foibles to naturally manifest, as they must, we resist the course of Nature and the natural.

https://jembendell.com/2024/07/03/no-more-warnings-needed-an-intransigent-managerial-class-must-be-sidestepped/

What happens when fear cripples? We cannot betray Nature.

On Fear – Khalil Gibran

It is said that before entering the sea
a river trembles with fear.
She looks back at the path she has traveled,
from the peaks of the mountains,
the long winding road crossing forests and villages.
And in front of her,
she sees an ocean so vast,
that to enter
there seems nothing more than to disappear forever.
But there is no other way.
The river can not go back.
Nobody can go back.
To go back is impossible in existence.
The river needs to take the risk
of entering the ocean
because only then will fear disappear,
because that’s where the river will know
it’s not about disappearing into the ocean,
but of becoming the ocean.
~ Khalil Gibran

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Blooms Before Sunset

26 May 2024

Yesterday afternoon spring flowers grinned in their silence. These neighborhood suburban streets remained abandoned, much like the beginnings of 2020 when more crucial questions let Nature breathe. Maybe people were boardwalking the beaches, cheering military air shows, or swaying from one unbeatable faithful store sale to the next that most holidays bring.

I reached across the quiet to imagine the garden plants’ thoughts. This year the sage sprouts full, pale lavender flowers on every stem, guaranteeing a bouquet of savory leaves for summer dishes of garlic sage butter for pasta to offer me memories lasting through winter risottos.

A childhood woodland past shadows my path as the small Mountain Laurel displays bright red buds, ready to spring into bright pink spring flowers. An occasional yellow leaf with blight reminds me this woodland plant needs special care in an unpredictable suburban neighborhood like this one. Apparently, we aren’t much different in that respect.

A newly purchased groundcover, Saponaria ocymoides (Rock Soapwort) reaches across barren, rocky dirt bringing pale pink flowers of prolific blooms that one can only pray will multiply and spread. Isn’t that the ultimate hope for all the goodness we try to accomplish?

And finally, after three years of questioning, the roses return with vibrancy and love, as if to guarantee that despite their absence, our directives as misfits that many learn to discover, we still grow among them, and are Loved.

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Seeking Trust at Dawn

18 May 2024

Walking in the backyard predawn silence of this suburb, I hear the cooing of a mourning dove before any other sound. This year, after several others of seasonal instabilities, the purple clematis bursts grand with a determined hue of strength – this, despite the cool spring temperatures, clouds, rain…

The flowers’ brilliance widens across its trellis, faithful blooms this May in an overshadowed portion of an otherwise unremarkable periphery garden bed.

This moment of color and sound helps me find hope and gratitude in the extensions of a life of questioning, facing this void alone, always seeking to trust. And I’m deeply grateful for the wisdom, kindness, light, and friendship that may pass to me each day, keenly aware of all it means as my arms and heart remain open.

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Everywhere

14 April 2024

For some reason, last night was rough – the cold wind, spring trying to break through, daughter’s birthday, questions of where life will be going with this crumbling all around, at home, abroad..Lives in the Balance.

Then I turn on TV in the evening and feel the news that Iran strikes Israel at 4am their time. Escalation? Some retaliation? Thoughts of children and their images imprint on what’s left of my imprisoned mind bring me to supplication and prayers of tears for what’s left of this humanity lost.   

Still grateful for a night of almost sleep and quasi rest, I remember 2003 and the public ridicule for warning against war..this…by colleagues and self-defined ‘friends’.

Choosing Nonviolence is a lonely, parched road on forsaken grounds, those of a humanity refusing to see beyond its own reflection. Difficult, oftentimes excruciating, yet, one that assures the spiritual Highground from which we all rise and recede.

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Today’s Visit

28 March 2024

Torrents of rain continued up the East Coast and lingered over Long Island all day today. Sometimes stronger showers, sometimes cold drizzle but always weighing heavy, an impassible slow-moving storm system on this dragging day.

In the morning, by chance, I found a Holy Thursday celebration in Rome on Vatican Media. Pope Francis in Rome at a correction facility, Rebibbia Prison, and this year, he washed the feet of only women. The humility in his words and actions exemplified heartfelt service to be learned through His Example. To witness this, in a precarious world that we are witnessing today, brought me tears.

In 2021, during the winter of the pandemic, I met Maria. She was collecting bottles and cans for recycling in the neighborhood. We met, exchanged introductions and thus began a connection. Now, in 2024, I make it a point to call, reserve my cans and bottles for her biweekly pickup, along with any food or household items I may find during weekly shopping trips. She always stops by 1pm if she can make it. Today, I called in the morning to confirm her arrival. No answer. I left a few text messages, but no reply. The usual 1pm hour came and went, but no sign or return call from Maria. Then by about 1:40pm a message. “I am around…I’ll be there.”

By 2pm, I noticed someone at the door. Maria was standing at the front door, drenched from the rain rolling down her raincoat. She met me with a broad smile, seemingly without a concern or care in the world. “My car broke down. This is my son.” Next to her, a tall, lean adolescent boy, maybe about 14 or 15 years old with a gentle, kind gaze smiled at me. I extended my arms with a full bag of groceries and placed it in the young man’s grasp.

There he was, still smiling as he accepted the bag. Maria stood alongside him, very proud of the young man accompanying her, helping her maneuver this moment in their life, on this recreation of this Holy Thursday – the last visit of Jesus with His Disciples, in acceptance of both the positive and negative and appreciating life as it unfolds with smiles, kindness, and a gentleness that struck me as a level of spirituality that is rare these days. “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of God…” Matthew:5

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Nothing By Chance

23 March 2024

As I waited for an arrival home tonight, I knew friends were due over for a catch-up visit, so I decided to bake something. After some deliberation I finally settled on something quick, easy, tried and tested.  I had a recipe I hadn’t used in years – Tahini oatmeal cookies – 3 ingredients.  Tahini, brown sugar, oatmeal and a dash or two of cold water. Mix & bake. I had found the recipe on one return trip from Italy in a flight magazine. They reminded me of yet another coincidence- a kind, soft-demeanored priest who used to preside over an Eastern rite church that I attended many years ago. He baptized family members. When in the midst of dark days, no insurance coverage, teaching layoff without recompense or recognition, and nowhere to turn, he was one of three good Samaritan souls who entered into the swirling fears to be of comfort. As I stirred the batter, my mind recalled my 3 year old daughter pushing the 911 phone buttons to relay information from me to emergency services so that an incapacitating compound fracture could be potentially healed. Without question, this priest arrived and took care of anything that needed to be arranged.


This Middle-Eastern priest helped me through some very dark days. He was shunned in later years from the church. I had heard rumors… But none of that mattered then, and as I reflect, it matters even less now… The kindness and compassion he always gave meant more to me and I am sure to so many others when feeling alone and confused, unloved and lost.

When we care for and about others, a part of their culture is also shared with you. Growing up, I had the gift of learning about differences – ethnicities, cultures, mannerisms, preferences, lifestyles…almost an introduction to an ever-changing universe of transformation. To find the beauty in diversity is to appreciate creation, to be open to Love wherever It is made manifest.

The spontaneity of a tahini cookie recipe brought all those memories of a kind, generous, loving priest willing to care flooding back to me.  I pray for him wherever he is, as I am grateful that he and others reach into darkness to bring others Light, Peace, and direction.

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An Evening of Contemplation

17 March 2024

Taking a walk on the evening of St. Patrick’s Day, I absorb the quiet in my neighborhood. Beautiful weather likely facilitates crowds at parades and people probably gather locally and in Manhattan for loud celebrations. Here, all is overbuilt, but serene.

Mockingbirds caw, laugh, mimick, upsetting the calm that seeks to be – much like the chaos that has been unleashed lately by humanity’s disregard for their own outlined path of stewardship.

Know Thy Place. Walk humbly. But instead so many impose, struggle to keep balance and tend to overrun, dominate, with little regard for others. Build bigger, taller, charge more, regardless of the overload on the system. Signs are visible in the neighborhood. Borders and boundaries stretched to limits, just because…paid in cash

The land will swell, rise, and fall. Sink holes will open to engulf and swallow neighborhoods because laws have been transformed for pieces of silver, as Earth is betrayed.

And the leaders in their neatly pressed business suits, dry-cleaned with toxicity, will feign ignorance and invent excuses. While many who have heard, listened, countered, and remembered for years will recognize and continue to proclaim their truth as laws change to bend for bankrolls.

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