alive to silence ::

the words of the prophets are written on the subway walls
and tenement halls, and whispered in the sounds of silence. ~ paul simon

i've plunged into the deep and in the mess of things, i carry a secret fear that i've forgotten how to write. how do you spill sentences, craft beginnings and endings out of the intensity of living? what needs to be said and why does it matter?

i'm left spinning and there are so many things i want to say but articulation (and time) trip(s) me up. so i'm left with the heady desire to sink into the earth, to pour myself out on the forest floor and melt into softness while the wind brushes across me like a silken dress and every sense becomes alive to silence.

::

i hope to write more this weekend but in the meantime, how are you, beloveds? also, i decided to join monica from bohemian twilight on her senses shared tour, because the simple act of stopping to consider each sense is like meditation for me. it stills, calms. i need this SO much. will you do the same for me? share your senses in the comments?

so much love.


senses shared:
read:  "there is more than one way to orphan a child." ~ brennan manning
taste: breakfast for dinner, and the avocado was perfect.

see:  exquisite art by my friend janae.

hear: the quietness of an evening home with my husband.

smell: clean laundry

touch: soft skin

think: how am i going to get it all done. 
feel: tired and overwhelmed, but hopeful.

icon ::

icon. by my lovely friend janae.

the rhythms pulse through me and i sway, eyes half-closed in trance, a curious kind of waking to the primordial heartbeat of eden. these sacred days, they nestle together, one after another the faithful pressing of brush strokes onto the portrait of a sacred life.

in one such moment, this breathtaking image slips into my hands from one who has slipped into my heart forever.

i wanted to create you an icon, she writes,  

a point of prayer, meditation, encouragement, guidance & strength as you continue into your year of fearlessness. 

she is a warrioress through & through ~ she is You. 

i weep when i read this prophecy-prose and as i see myself reflected in the strong lines of this warrioress, her ink both gentle and brave, the curves of her garnished with eternal light and the flames of her circle blazing strong. i weep to see myself mirrored through the soul-eyes of another with such love poured out, this gift surprising and unexpected, and myself?

... wholly unworthy.

::

you have dawned with the first morning of the earth, with sun-spilling radiance and you, beloved, dancing alive along her rays. we shimmer, bathed in sacred illumination. thank you for this, for you, for meeting me along the sojourn and pouring yourself out in holy offering. you have honored me with an eternal honor.
i love you. 
xo,
rain ::
_____

question for you: i'm thinking of getting this portrait permanently inked onto my skin. calf? thigh? where do you see this stunning beauty?

real lasts for always ::

“What is REAL?" asked the Velveteen Rabbit one day... "Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?"

"Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you. When [someone] loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real."

"Does it hurt?" asked the Rabbit.

"Sometimes," said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. "When you are Real you don't mind being hurt."

"Does it happen all at once, like being wound up," he asked, "or bit by bit?"

"It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't often happen to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept.

"Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand... once you are Real you can't become unreal again. It lasts for always.”

― Margery Williams Bianco, The Velveteen Rabbit or How Toys Become Real

::

artist Lisa Falzon

portrait of a warrioress :: the life artist

this is my beautiful friend, the life artist. i'm nestling her into my pages because i want her here (and she said i could). i'm thinking of you, my dear. i wish you were across from me, next to me. today, especially, for the healing aura of your sunshine would slip into my bones and warm me up from the inside out.

you are a warrioress among all warrioresses, tapping out your rhythms along the beams of the earth. you've made all the world your womb and you dance in the holy sanctuary, flinging love to the one who names you and the ones who gather at your feet.  

you are a warrioress among all warrioresses, pounding out your hallelujahs to the heartbeat of creation; you capture and recapture me with your siren song, like when you wrote this here? you, the reluctant spiller of prophecy-prose, you press your words into life itself. you are living poetry and i read this:

God-painted leaves dance their colors under the wet in a lover's waltz with the subliminal brush of a wandering by, hands-in-his-trouser-pockets-with-a-whistle kind of breeze. They know it is their highest praise just to be and I am noticing, my eyes eating elements and landscape like soul-food. It is my own high worship, the watchfulness and mindfulness. The listening. ~ erika morrison

... and i weep that i want my highest praise just to be, and you say:  

so, be.

and in this be-ing and be-coming you have come alongside, and would you look at us? we be together and you speak healing and life, always life, pouring over and into and nourishing the secret sparklings of the soul with your life-artist breath of God.

you are a warrioress among all warrioresses, and you are wild-abandon-beautiful and i love you to all the moons and stars and galaxies and black holes and nebulae and yes, i had to look up how to spell that, and also?

happy birthday, love.

erika's birthday is on friday. 

will you take a moment to whisper something sweet?

________
 the life artist comes by her name an unusual way. she says: The WAY that is defined by the voices of holy, devoted friendship attached to The Voice that spoke my knitting together. Twenty friends (plus a few more) with the rough and tender fingertips of the Spirit, told me it was okay to say, “I am”; to believe in the un-earthing of truest self; a self named not by parents of flesh, but Parents Triune. And I believe, I believe that God would give a name to His children.  What earthly parent, even, wouldn’t do that? These double-dozen friends and Father held me and heart-deep-traveled with me while we jointly explored what the mixture of my dust looks, feels, moves, breathes, contributes, speaks like. I wept myself dry; discovered myself unbelievable; broke my pride-back six-ways-to-resurrected-Sunday. And the name heaven gave me awoke from slumber in my belly, yawned deep and opened eyes new to the world. Not a thing has looked the same since Father blew His breath on the dormant seed of myself . . . Life the voice whispers strong . . . I need you to be Life . . . The weary world needs to see My Life.

life and rain

For this reason I am passionately audacious about LIFE; living. You know, the kind when and where you’re awake – in all respects.  I gather stories and symbols and Spirit interaction from my microscopic, mundane and mystery filled moments.  I live with the great hope that each molecule, every word, every choice, each individual thread of circumstance, gesture, dance, phrase, laughter, soul-crack, brow-pain, sea, mountain, rain, shine . . .  is woven together intricately and deeply with a deeper story of love, as expressed by The LIFE of Jesus.

I thirst, I hunger, I hurt in my chest to relish, to swim in the secrets beneath the foundations of terra firma, the true secrets, the ones that reveal the abysmal wildness, the hold-your-heartbeat paradox, the delicate and affectionate connectedness of the great human family to one another and most importantly, to The Great I AM and Giver-of-LIFE Himself.

::

this is volume 2 in the portraits of a warrioress series. to hear more, visit prelude to a portrait. would you like to join my warrioress tribe? sign up here!

when you are a mother without a child ::

source

if  only you could see me now. 
i stand outside you; i am trembling. 
i curl my toes inside the earth.

so many of you mamas, you don't know how i live through you. i see your babies and i smile here in the dark. i read your stories. i blow kisses and wipe my eyes. i'm a thousand fierce kinds of tender, and will you let me hold her while you sleep? we will snuggle gently, and i will read:

:: 

oh my dearest love,

source: pinterest | petite biet

did you know you were a dream of mine? you, with your enchanting eyes and sunny smile, i named you Someday and tucked you into my heart. you're going to grow me up, aren't you, little one? teach me all the secrets of life? yes, i know you are.

we name all of our dreams Someday, don't we? we cradle them ~ you ~ in our arms and leave no place on your sweet baby head unkissed.

but maybe i put too much pressure on you, darling, to be for me what i needed to be for myself. i said i would let you live all free-and-free-spirit, but you know? maybe i entangled you with my need to be a free spirit of my own, to feel starlight against my face and dangle my feet off the sides of the moon.

i said i would teach you that grace is not found in black and white, but maybe i needed to learn that grace is not found in black and white. i said i would let you dance to your own rhythms in life, but maybe ... just maybe i needed to sway to rhythms of my own. i wanted you to be a beautiful life-artist, fully alive, chasing light with every fiber of your being. but maybe instead i needed to come to life, be a wild, with-abandon-beautiful artist flinging love into the sky, all light-chaser and dark-dweller.

and maybe this dream of you showed me how.

i thought i could heap upon the altar of you all the nurturing, nourishment, healing, wanting, and tenderness that is within me to give, and then i wouldn't be a lie. i could match your hunger to my fullness and redeem my own starved heart through yours so i wouldn't stand here filled to bursting, and aching with it. is that it? did i dream you into being, not for the sake of your own sacred living but instead, to heal myself? will you forgive me, love? i soak up your grace like a desperate garden and a story spills forth ...

:: once upon a time, a little girl lived within a speckled forest. she loved her forest;

source: tumblr

long fingers of warm honey sun slipped through towering pine and spilled across her feet. every day she explored her world to the rhythms of a mysterious song which always flowed around her.

her path had many stones. the pretty ones which sparkled like amber and amethyst, and the smooth ones that felt cool in her hand, she gathered into a special place. but she tripped on the rocks, the heavy jagged boulders that sat in her way. whenever she fell, the sun disappeared, the trees grew dark, and her skin became cold and etched with scars.

sometimes, she'd sit in the dark as her skin wept into the sand, and she'd pull out her secret collection of stones and hold them up to the sky. it was then she could see them blink with light kept from the sun, as though their hearts held promise of something beautiful to come. and as long as she could see the light, her soul stayed alive.

::
maybe you were the beautiful one to come, holy little dream child, even the someday-dream of you. this letting go is hard, but i think you let go of me, first? and as i make my graveyard a garden i breathe to you these sacred words in a healing kind of promise:

We never cease to be with child. Those of us who have birthed, and those of us who never have. We may make spaces within us for all of humanity, for their dreams, their stories, their hurts, their lives. Do we not, over the years, line our lives with the stretchmarks of love?

The privilege of carrying a soul is always ours. We may choose to never let our wombs languish empty. Always we may open and welcome another person to find nourishment and comfort within the empty places we have made just for them. ~ ann voskamp

and, sweet angel baby, just so you know, i'm not sad anymore. i've learned to listen and i've learned to sing, for dark and hollow spaces have a song all their own. this love-lined womb of mine will birth life, again and again, even if you, dearest, never come to be.

i will keep pounding out my sacred warrioress path, and you will go the gentle way of dreams.

 :: And we of empty uteruses still swell, making ourselves homes. ~ Ann Voskamp ::

source: tumblr

:: this post is dedicated to my friend elora who is currently raising funds to adopt a motherless child. ::

linking up with sarah's practices of parenting:

the way of light ::

tumblr. photographer unknown.

 “Re-examine all you have been told in school or church or in any book, 

and dismiss whatever insults your own soul; and your very flesh shall be a great poem, 

and have the richest fluency, not only in words, but in the silent lines of its lips 

and face and between the lashes of your eyes, 

and in every motion and joint of… your body.” ~ Walt Whitman

 ::

several months ago i wrote about my first experience with nia:

as i've journeyed into a gentler, grace-based approach to life, a surprising inclination to holistic self-care has unfolded beneath my feet. it feels different than the old ways, has a different voice. tender. nurturing. no shadowy remnants of shame, pummeling me into less shape than before. 

on sunday, tears sprouted with the first rhythmic chords of yulunga and stayed with me as i stumbled along unfamiliar paths. it felt raw, tribal. powerful, and yet oh so healing.

a healing way.

i've always known that the healing way, for me, involves that which moves me and rests me.

moves, with grace, and rests with grace.

at this point in my life i take each step organically, tasting, feeling, sensing,
whole body praying, 
seeing what comes next.

and this, this i loved. 

the days since have washed over me in gentle, sacred waves, one after another, drenching me with gifts, transforming everything i know and see.

whole body praying

but how do you write about something that is fluid and alive? something that breathes all on its own and cannot be framed in human language? how do you place your hand within the aurora?

source

::

i've tried to write about certain things for a long time. i've left many posts unfinished. usually, when a topic is this hard to pin down, i know that it's still marinating and unfolding in the quiet womb of darkness.

today i've been feeling a bit overwhelmed. among many things, i realize that i struggle with truly standing up for myself and for my voice. in the past, i've always been the one to graciously acquiesce and step aside for others; in shame i thought i had nothing worthy (or even interesting) to offer while everyone else did. or in the name of charity and dying-to-self, i let people bully and bull-doze me and push me out of the way. it's ok, God sees me, i would say. if i got frustrated, i would remind myself of sacrifice and humility. and i always worried that if i tried to stand my true ground, to rise up strong and steady and lift my voice, be my true self, and say what i want or need to say, that i would end up doing just what was done to me: running people over, treating them as though their voices don't matter, as though they, in the very essence of their being, don't matter.

redwoods. love them. source: tumblr.

i guess i don't know what it looks like to rise up strong with deep integrity and grace and with clear resolve saying, here i am. this is me. i love finding people who are, and maybe i grow a bit stalkerish (i'm sorry!) because i'm desperate to learn their secrets, really the secret to living unapologetically true to who they are.

so it feels like i'm fumbling along all clumsy and stuttering. i don't know how to declare the truth that i am tall and beautiful. that my body is built for strength and i am made to rise like my beloved trees, rooted dark and deep in the forest but rising bravely towards the light. dancing in the light. i am made to dance, to let the spirit-wind move within and between and all around me. i have things to say, even if it's only for myself or for God or for the sake of the words themselves.

war-path 

this is why i'm diving into fearlessness and why i'm embracing my inner warrioress. every day i've grown stronger. over the past two months i feel like i've spun around the universe a thousand times and aged a thousand years. this is what keeps my tongue disoriented, uncertain how to unpack the last few weeks into something describable. maybe i don't need to. maybe it's something for me, part of my intimate journey with myself and abba::amma. i do know that the fear is gone. my word? unafraid? this past week, even, has completely dissolved those pesky and tenacious roots that insisted on clinging for so long. there might be phantom fears sometimes, just like there are phantom shames ~ those memories of what used to be. when you are used to the furrows and lines along your heart, when you have your mind memorized (is it any wonder we use the phrase, know it like the back of my hand?) and certain patterns of thinking like an old familiar path ... when it's all smoothed over and the scenery changes, it's like becoming reborn. everything is new and you have to get your bearings. but i'm standing. my bones rejoice. there are some choices i need to make, mostly practical ones, that will make a difference in how i dance my dance. how i pound my warpath but i'm alive and i love living like i never have before.

wow ... this turned out MUCH more stream-of-conscious than i anticipated! if you've read this far, bless you! i may have more writing like this now interspersed with the lyrical i love. i'm not making rules for myself. i'm not writing to compete, or to have followers, or to get others to agree, or even to make others love me. i've let go of the fear of what will they think? will they think i'm an effing b, maybe? and sometimes the feeling of feeling lost in the shuffle, lost in the crowd ~ not good enough ~ leads to the phantom fear of becoming drowned out, but it's only when you look at the waves that you start to panic about them. i want to grow unrestrained and to quietly expand with years and eons of earned wisdom.

so this is me, in my mess and in my beauty, the unconventional glory of rising without apology and accepting the path i'm given. it's really about owning my journey. i didn't realize what would happen once i felt unafraid, and that's where i am now, sitting here blinking in amazement and wonder.

i want to thank all of you, too. so many of my reader-friends, with your love and prayers and thoughts, have listened patiently as i've fleshed this out and as my voice has wavered. i'm gloriously human ~ not apologizing like the old days, because i'm created to be human, to be fully human in the image of abba::amma ~ and i know it won't always look pretty or feel good. my friend and i were talking about how healing hurts, and even the living of a healed life ~ old scars get caught in the way sometimes. but they are battle scars and make us all ever so much more unique and beautiful. they make our story, and no matter what, we each have our very own story and no one can take that away.

so, my loves, thank you for enchanting me.

:::

i'd love your thoughts. this turned out to be, actually, really vulnerable for me! my writing isn't perfect. i've used too many adverbs and passive phrases. i rambled. it's kinda boring. i didn't say anything concrete. maybe i was too dismissive. what if people don't like it. maybe everyone will leave me. i'm a fraud. see i do care too much. maybe i'll be fucking shaking with fear tomorrow.