I grew up thinking that the word “exquisite” was snooty: a word made up of the most rare consonants, and only to be used by the rarefied.
“Exquisite” had some vague connection to polished gemstones, strung on gold chains, around elegantly-adorned women’s necks.
“Exquisite” was a relic, an old-fashioned word, to be used by the doddering gray-haired ones. And here I am with my own ample patch of gray hair and not nearly as swift or steady as I once was. So is this why the word is suddenly cropping up like weeds everywhere in my writing? How is it that this outmoded language has begun to show up (repeatedly) in my manuscript, in blog posts, in email notes … even out of my mouth in the most unexpected moments?
It is because of this earth.
Nature.
All things growing,
blooming, leafing, crawling, flying, scratching, swimming, planted and rooted, foraging,
blowing.
This blog is obsessively filled with six years of nature reveries, praises, poems, images, experiences, expressions, paintings, and passions delighting in the exquisite natural world. Beautiful, amazing Earth!
But “exquisite” is now in great company with other obscure words that have more recently crept into my expressions:
lovely.
sumptuous.
grand.
marvelous.
rich.
wondrous.
brilliant.
awe-inspiring.
This new lexicon comes directly from the unfathomably vast treasure trove of the natural world. The gratitude and blessings (two more long-ago-unfamiliar words) we can experience from daily abidance in nature are nearly inexpressible in everyday terms. No wonder we reach deep, wide, far in clumsy attempts to shape into sentences that which is so much vaster than the boundaries of alphabets:
this exquisite, pearly, gem-filled natural world.
All blog images created & photographed by Jennifer J. Wilhoit unless otherwise noted. Please circulate images with photo credit: "©2018 JenniferJWilhoit/TEALarbor stories. AllRightsReserved."
