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