Because joy…..

November 30, 2020 By 10 Comments

I posted a snippet yesterday and then plucked it back down again
because I’ve been a little frazzled
and I didn’t trust my words to land true.
So many swirling around like birds – not sure if they were ready to light
or if they needed to linger in flight until they perch for you to read.
So I’ll share instead what the river seemed to sing
as I watched her tumble smiling across the rocks:

That even in the noise and swirl there is reason enough,  and grace,
to gather up the edges of my hope
and shake it out hard so I can lose the fluff
and draw up solid around me what remains
like a blanket in the night
to feel the strong warm
against my heart
thumping
scared

because
of what may be coming
around that scary-looking corner up ahead
and all of the dark unknown that seems to cry danger
and warning and this is the moment just before the other shoe drops
and then won’t you feel stupid for all the joy you held foolish like a silly child
so busily enchanted in your sandbox that you didn’t see the storm in time to run.

Those are the bony fingers that come for my joy in the night,
rattling that it’s a fool’s errand to celebrate beauty
and cultivate gratitude
because shelter is not built in such ways
and
feeling it all so deeply is not a luxury
you can afford.

Better to numb it all down,
the cold wind hisses,
and brace yourself against
whatever is to come.

But as I watch the waters tumble and trust-fall undaunted down
into wild places they’ve never been,  all of that whitewater
singing fearless joy in a brave language
that I’m longing to learn,
I feel a wisdom in the joy
that rises high above the
voice of my anxious rumblings
and makes sense
of hope.

My heart settles there today,
trusting,  leaning, and tumbling headlong into the Hope
who is loving presence and tender mercy and solution and strategy and peace.
Anchoring my soul in this gives space for my joy to get loud and colorful and do the bright work
of making this moment delicious and this life worth all of the even gnarly,  often heart-breaking living.

Fight for joy in this strange season,  friend;
Don’t go ’round without it’s medicine.

“Joy is the most vulnerable emotion we experience.
And if you cannot tolerate joy,  what you do is start dress-rehearsing tragedy.”
– Brene’ Brown

Congratulations to Jeanie of Marmalade Gypsy
– your name popped up in the drawing for a copy of Tell Me Something Good

which arrives fresh from the West Coast tomorrow.  I’ll be sending it out this week!

Offering another giveaway this week – leave a comment and your name goes in the warm fuzzy hat.

 

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Of Crayons and Yarn and Lighting Candles in the Dark….

November 15, 2020 By 15 Comments

When I was a little girl I used to make books to give my family for Christmas.
It made me feel alive,  this way of putting my love onto paper with crayons and pencil
and binding together simple books with staples or yard to say a fountain of love
and I see you and you have me always on your side.
To share what I felt and saw and hoped and held dear.

I remember feeling that if I put my whole heart into  it, then I’d have nothing to regret.
Then I  could lose the fear that my voice would get snatched and leave my life unsaid.
I remember wanting so hard to say the things,  to give my heart,
to hold hands with both heaven and earth and tug the veil thin
so that the light that I heard,  the music and motion,
might warm some cold places when a chill set in.
I dreamed to paint the beauty that I felt.

It’s taken me a lifetime to become like a child again,
my work-worn hands itching to make words on paper still, but how?
Well this year life made a way,  slowed down,  and threw me a line
and I grabbed hold and started birthing something been long brewing in my heart.
Something I can offer up tangible,  like a fireside built,  where we can gather peaceful
and soak in the warmth and let it serve up some balm
that I hope may nudge breath back into hope gone tired
or burned right down to the nub.

Some of the words and images you’ve met here before,
served up fresh and easy to gift;
others are new offerings carved in the dirt of this challenging year.
I’ve felt them in my parts and prayers,  the hurting hearts all around,
and I sensed it strong to dive deep,  drawing up some singing water to share,
stringing together words and making art
because it seemed the only way I knew to get my hands messy and do something
to help light candles in the dark.

This book-making thing was way harder than I dreamed
and yet Grace showed up and did what she does
when you can’t muster the gumption but you take another tiny step anyway,
and somehow you’re swept jagged into holy current
even as your bum bruises sharp on the rocks,
and you arrive sputtering
with something
to offer up
in your hands
even
so.

Offering it to you now
with tired and giddy hands
because I really,  really want to tell you something good.

Pre-orders available now on my new website now.
https://www.singingriverstudios.com/

 

“Love is or it ain’t.
Thin love ain’t no love at all.”
-Toni Morrison

Congratulations to Cathy Burns – we drew your name!
I’ll be sending you an art journal I made.  With a whole lot of love:)
This week I’d like to gift one of my books – it will come right to your door
hopefully the second week of December.
(This thing was born to be a Christmas present:))
Leave a comment and your name goes in the hat!

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Tell Me Something Good

August 25, 2020 By 20 Comments

When life rattles my timbers and storms down hurting so hard
that my peace gets swallowed up in mudslides of un-helpful thinking,
it’s become just shy of muscle memory,  this practice,
that throws open the windows of my heart
and lets the bad air out.

It started years ago while driving down the road with my husband,
the silence between us thick with a heavy worry.
I squeezed hard on the wheel and breathed aloud “tell me something good.”
He laughed and offered something – I don’t remember what.
Then I dug in and hurled into the space another something true – something balm to my heart.
Out louder – back and forth – we lobbed truth until the atmosphere
shifted and our thoughts settled into a clearwater place.

It became a thing,
sprung up maybe from a practice I’d been cultivating
of having a sit with God over whatever was brewing in my brain.
I’d get quiet,  drop down to that still place inside,  and begin to write out
whatever bubbled up from the deep.
Sometimes what landed on the page felt like gift and gold;
going back over the pages years later still feels like superfood for my soul.

So I have a big love for this practice.
Most of what I write comes from this place.
(big distinction between this rivery process and toxic positivity,
which feels like death
and doesn’t seem to grow a thing.
Like malnourished dirt.)

 Been growing up in my garden these past years
and feels ripe and ready to harvest.
I want to tell you something good,
to splash hope and healing all over bites of art soaked in love
and send them straight to the heart of you
where coals of hope may need breeze to flow brisk across the embers
until you’re standing up taller inside yourself,
and feeling more seen,  more included,
more brave in your breathing
for the deepest and dearest that you dare to dream.

Oh how I want to acknowledge you,
to tap into the big and seeing Love that sings over you sweet
and let it pass through my paints and pens and poetry,
then pass you the love-note
across the great big wide.
To let it land in your box like a gift from your future
calling back that the view from up ahead
is something that you’re gonna want to see
so lean into the wind
and hold tight to
the Love –
that you’re held,
and valued
and seen.

To hold the door for you to feel it,  bones and breath,
that this Love is looking and listening
to the faintest thought and thump of your heart;
that there’s no indifference to your place and pain.
To pass a note of warm embrace
and to hold space for the journey that is exactly and only yours.
With love and celebration.

(happy whisper)
Tell Me Something Good
– also the title of my book in the works
and looks to be available by Christmas.

“First I would write for you a poem
to be shouted into the teeth of a strong wind.”
– Carl Sandburg

I’m offering up these Tell Me Something Good bundles in my etsy shop,
and in a giveaway this week;
leave a comment and you’re in the hat:)
I’ll be sending a bundle out to Rebecca this week from last post’s drawing – geesh sorry it’s taken so long!

Always thanks  for coming around and acknowledging.
I appreciate your presence here.

 

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Of slow crawl and stretch and set fire to the night….

July 31, 2020 By 12 Comments

Been chunking on extra wood to make a bonfire
out of the coals of gratitude I tend,
stoking it to a roar
because these times.
And this week.
So here,  bright flames leaping a fury of joy for….

~ dreamy dahlias and their diverse faces,

~ safe spaces to twirl and move and dance and groove healing
’till it flows barefoot to my bones
and soothes away the sick and tired of me.

~ all the silly cards and jokes sent to my Dad as he recovers his strength
alone at home.

~ the grace and capacity to re-learn and repent and change my mind,
to tolerate the discomfort of a painful honest look
at my internalized superiority (ouch) and privilege.
and do the slow work of learning,
even when it feels at times like drinking from a firehose.

~ for permission to step back from fb and the gram as a learning tool,
from all the partials and pieces that may prevent me from thinking through thoroughly
these wildly complex ideas and thoughts,
that “there is no humility in certainty”;
that “some people never learn anything
because they understand everything too soon.”
(Alexander Pope)
For the long slow crawl of this thing.
And that it’s okay to scrape my knees.

~ for the soft breath of evening and the way the last glow of each day lingers on the ridges
before it dips down low behind the night.

~ that delicious knowing that you’re actually,  finally,  gratefully dipping again
into a sleep that may hold you for a little while.

Just sharing these short snippets because i don’t feel good.
But I’m feeling it big to write it down,  these next little words,
and send them out into the big wide……

Right now,  just especially,  try a little tenderness.

Let loose compassion
for the humans holding on.
For me that is strong creed that family,  friendship and faith community
are not places to rally around political beliefs
but to care even more carefully for the core
around which we gather
– the Love that overrides every political position.

Fight for relationship when you sense it’s getting dragged under the wheels
of the political machine.
In the end that’s what’s going to matter:   did we learn how to love.

I didn’t want to not show up.
Because my heart has a thing for you:)

“You can resist bullcrap and live to tell.
The status quo is counting on your submission but you do not have to bow down.
This will create tension,  but I’m convinced that a tension-free culture is a dangerous one.
Tension can be defined as the act of stretching or the state of being stretched.
You will feel the stretch,  you will cause the stretch in others,  and this is called growing.
If no one injects tension into the atmosphere,  we will always default
to existing power structures that operate beautifully
as long as no one puts any pressure on them.”
– Jen Hatmaker

These days I feel like g-u-m-b-y; embracing the burn:)

Giveaway!  This week it’s a bundle.
Tell Me Something Good – a bundle of made-for-you bites of art
with handwritten encouragement for uniquely you – I will spend some Rivertime,  have a soak about you
and write down what bubbles up as I listen to hear what the ripples speak.
For you.  And send them to you in a bundle.
* Coming soon to my etsy shop *

(And happy little leap to send last post’s giveaway to Sue of Elephants Child!)

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