The Sky is on Fire

"Why didn't I see this before? That my creative life is my deepest prayer. That I must pray it from my heart, from my soul. Not from my head or my need for security or approval or to gain some sort of repute. I must write from the Self. The deep true place." --Sue Monk Kidd

The sky is on fire this morning. The orange ball has exploded and spread a wash of pink, orange, red and yellow across the fall sky. I cannot capture it with my camera. Can my eye hold the image? Can my words? So ethereal—slipping through my fingers. I want to hold it, touch it, capture it, roll around and bathe in it naked to find myself washed with the colors of the roses. Fragrant and sweet. A pleasing aroma to God.

Whole. Pure. Naked. Blossoming. My body is filled with desire for this feminine being. She has spread the colors through the heavens. Who else could yield the paintbrush so lavishly? It feels erotic and exotic—washing, spreading, bursting, filling the sky with gentle and bold colors. Both. Both/and. Gentle and bold. Tender and strong. The images of God. How can we hold that God is only male or female? How can we hold that God is anything we can name? Anything we can “hold?”

The image of the sky brings me alive. Washes away the pain in my head and arm. I am slipping. Moving back into my body. For a moment or two I was gone. I was one with the sky. The pen and paper. The world. One with God. More me than the moment before and the moment after. The glimpses of heaven. The shout of purity. The paradox. The both/and. The beauty of God. How can we say he or she? Why must we define? What is our need to categorize? Good. Evil. Right. Wrong. Both/and. Perhaps they just are. Who am I to say?

The sky is on fire this morning and of course it is not.

photo by lucy 10.09.07

Where Creativity & Spirituality Meet

prompted by a lovely post @ abbey of the arts

My art is where the world slips away and comes more fully into focus. It is where I get out of my own way. To disappear in one sense, but in another to become more fully visible and alive than in any other area of my life.

The wind and I become one. The flame burns within my heart and I am consumed yet not consumed at all. The words flow freely like water down a babbling spring or rushing like a powerful torrent over the edge of a mighty waterfall.

I am firmly rooted in the ground. My feet blending into the earth as I spring forth tall and majestic like the mighty oak reaching toward the heavens. I am the gentle breeze softly whispering words of love and care. My power is building, twisting, twirling.

The wind and I become one. And so the circle continues. I am timeless, beautiful, power-filled and unique. True to my core and essence of who I am created to be. I am the earth. The Mother. Matter. Earth. Wind. Fire. Water.

I am whole. Complete. Perfect. Me.

photo by h3images--who says in photographs what i cannot say in words.

Harmony

Head and Heart. We have both for a reason. Trying to live using only one leads to imbalance. For most people it is easier to listen with the head, but the body gets restless and screams, “Hear me! Listen to Me!” Headaches. Shoulder Tension. Back pain. Ulcers.

It is hard to hold in the feelings of the heart. It wants to beat. It wants to burst and break free. And, its cohort, the mind, wants to rest. All that thinking can be exhausting. Sleepless nights. Ragged days. Endless lists. Spinning. Twirling. Vertigo.

Body, mind, soul. See the connection? If the heart is the soul; if the head is the mind; and the body is, well, the body, they should all work together. It is the ideal balance. Created by God in perfect unity and harmony.

We are finely tuned beings. So, if one part feels like it is missing or out of whack—Pay attention. Think. Feel. Breathe. Let Go. Mind. Soul. Body. Harmony.

photo found here.

sanctuary of the soul

"Deep within us all there is an amazing inner sanctuary of the soul, a holy place, a Divine Center, a speaking Voice, to which we may continuously return. Eternity is at our hearts, pressing upon our time-torn lives, warming us with intimations of an astounding destiny, calling us home into Itself. Yielding to these persuasions, gladly committing ourselves in body and soul, utterly and completely to the Light within, is the beginning of true life. It is a dynamic center, creative Life that presses to birth within us." Thomas Kelly -- A Testament of Devotion

photo by bill

opening the eyes of our soul

words from my morning prayer:

the arms of God wrap around me. enclosing me. enveloping me. telling me i am safe without words. i breathe him in. the scent of his maleness and my beauty combined. sensuous. sensual. becoming one. coming home. just breathe. breathe me in. sense me like a child taking my hand. like a dog who raises his nose to the fresh morning air. breathe me in.

safety. trust. sensual. born to be beautiful. to ache with desire and settle into trust. the pain and the glory. breathe me in. just breathe. so rich, so pure. Yahweh. breath of God. carrying me on the wind. cradled. held. met. no terror. free. free falling. held. lovely. kind. free.

These words from Henri Nouwen followed:

The desert fathers...point us toward a very holistic view of prayer. They pull us away from our intellectualizing practices, in which God becomes one of the many problems we have to address. They show us that real prayer penetrates to the marrow of our soul and leaves nothing untouched. The prayer of the heart is a prayer that does not allow us to limit our relationship with God to interesting words or pious emotions. By its very nature such prayer transforms our whole being into Christ precisely because it opens the eyes of our soul to the truth of ourselves as well as to the truth of God. The prayer of the heart challenges us to hide absolutely nothing from God and to surrender ourselves unconditionally to God's mercy. --The Way of the Heart

Praise be to God. Amen.

photo by bill