what the silence taught me

{my space, unafraid of clutter}
photo property of dramaticelegance

i've been practicing silence this week. i didn't press myself hard one way or the other, and i refused to let legalism be my governing force. i simply let myself sink down, down into the ocean-rushing.

oh, the things that happened when i stopped shouting and let the Light soak in deep.

we met a new place, a white cottage tucked into the urban wild. we put our names on a piece of paper and let the Lion prepare to sing us a new word :: home. and oh that space has potential, and my fingers can twist gently around the banister of a place called mine, and his, and ours, and His, too.

dearhearts, we're buying a house and making it home. 

the irony is, i finally found my space here. tucked between the kitchen sink and the front door, there it was. i think He was waiting for me to exhale, ending up with my forehead on the table with ink on my fingers and paint in my hair, before He slipped this new space into my grasp.

i learned to embrace
:: and i learned to sever. 

i learned to cut and rip and take something mysteriously called "whole" and make a new kind of wholeness from the pieces. there's nothing wrong with reaching out and finding the secret messages humming deep within a secret place.

oh, let us know Him.

His going forth is established as the morning;

He will come to us like the rain

:: hosea 6:3

{via pinterest}

i'm excited about August. the last month in our place of almost four years. it's a page-turning, a severing embrace. it's bittersweet, i'll admit. but oh, am i excited.

it's like i'm finally seeing the design among the broken pieces. because July was so deep and full of grief, so full of shattered bits that didn't feel smooth like seaglass but were jagged enough to gash and scar. but then i realized that there was something beautiful coming. it's a birthing, a labour in blood and
tears and even some breaking deep inside.

and then Life streams forth, and glory is born. i've been fired like molded clay, not made hard but made strong. a few feathers floated to the ground, but my wings are still beating strong in the wind.

the silence taught me to grasp tight while i sever. the silence whispered to me of strength. because He was not in the fire or the wind or the crushing storm. but that still small voice, that hush-holy selah...

the Lion found me in the silence and spoke a hard thing into my soul.

it is coming.
and i am eager to breathe.

sometimes it takes darkness and the sweet

confinement of your aloneness

to learn

anything or anyone 

that does not bring you alive

is too small for you.

// david whyte :: sweet darkness \\

stepping into silence

{photo of me by photography by Kjelse}

{over the next several weeks, maybe even months, i will be writing here and there from elora's thirty days of prompts. this is something that i have never done before, something raw and fresh and gorgeous and potentially painful. so please, be gentle with me. you can find all posts i have written from these prompts here}

:: what are you waiting for?

for Story 101, we are entering our week of silence. this is our time to step back from the internet, our time to breathe, our time to embrace our writer souls. honestly, with the amount of time i spend on the internet every day, this prospect is slightly terrifying. 

:: but maybe that's what i was waiting for.

see, as a stay-at-home mom, the internet has been my retreat. it's the only "getaway" i have from my life as momma. but maybe it's holding me back. maybe i'm waiting for something that isn't going to happen. maybe i'm waiting for my life to go back to the way it used to be // before my precious little wailing warrioress came into our lives. 

i'm never going to have that life again.
and that's okay.

because Marian is my new life. this is normal. this is my radiant normal beautiful new life. this is my gift. this is my now.

so maybe this week of silence, this time of resting away from the internet {in part}will be my first step toward embracing my new place. i know i need to stop fighting what is. i need to stop waiting for the new house to find my space. i need to stop waiting for this illusive magic moment before i accept the pen that the Lion is pressing into my trembling fingers.

:: i can start writing that chapter now.

in some respects, i'm still bristling at this concept of internet silence, even if only in part. it was always a punishment, a stripping away of something that connected me to a world that always seemed so far away.

{photo of me by photography by Kjelse}

but i am seeking ways to heal my eyes from that past view. i am hoping, daring to reach up for that scarlet rope hanging in the window. it feels so dangerous to hope. i am still recovering from the loss and confusion and heartbreak that this year has already brought me.

but there has been such joy there too. and that is worth the hoping and the risking and oh, the releasing.

there will hopefully be a lot of returning to the journal in this week of selah. a lot of art, a lot of postcards made and sent. a lot of breathing.

oh dearhearts, won't you gather around me here?

pray for the Song of the Lion to permeate my soul? pray for strength and deep, deep grace? pray for Life, for Light, for Glory. 

pray for rest. 
pray for selah. 
pray for silence. 

{don't forget about the self-care giveaway taking place here. i would love to bless you with some tender gifts, precious ones.}

tribe :: being seen

{via pinterest}

i think i have found the most beautiful word :: tribe. 

and honestly, it's a word i used to hate. there was this movie we watched when i was younger. i don't even remember the name. but this woman called her children "the Lacey tribe" and never told people all their names because "life is short and time is precious."

and it made me feel strange, unsettled, even when i was eight. because why wouldn't time be precious enough to list off your own children's names? why lump them into this vile thing...this tribe?

and then i realized something for the very first time, just yesterday, at almost twenty-three years old :: being part of a tribe is about being known.  to take the idea and make it about being identity-forgotten, to strip away the you-light from this candelabra of tribehood, is to destroy the very essence of what it is to be.

because the Lion sang tribes into existence from the soul of the man who wrapped himself in fur and lied, who worked fourteen years for love, who dared to wrestle in the hour of his unknown. and from him there came twelve, and from one came the One. and there is something so precious, so unique about each tribal voice that led to the breathing of the Most High.

being in a tribe, finding your circle and your family of exhale :: it's about being see. it's about gazing and locking eyes with another, the brush of fingers over your cheek to leave a soft painted blessing on your skin.

{via pinterest}

// because you're seen. 

it's not about being smooshed into some sort of grey-hued mass where you blend in, where you simply are. it's about the circling of arms around you as sisters braid your hair and wind your neck with colour. and there in the caves with the soft lap of the water against the stones, the light flicking and the Light flowing from He-Who-Sees gathered in their midst. 

we see you, unique one. 

we know your name. 

and i know theirs. because i'm their family, and they are mine. and we take the time to see their lives and call each soul by name. just as the Lion who sang the stars, one burning flicker of light at a time, and whispered their names in the darkness. 

dearest daughter, 

I have known you long.