taking flight // incense

i've been making observations about this faith of mine.

little by little, i'm stepping deeper and deeper into the Holy of Hollies, the place now opened from top to bottom when He whispered it is finished. and the ground shook with the intensity of how much He desired me. and now i'm shrouded in veils with Him, a tent in the wild.

and i'm seeking, floating like a mermaid with fingers through the seaweed, sinking deeper and deeper in the water until i close my eyes and let myself drown to be risen again with a new name, a moniker of Light.

:: oh let my prayer 

be counted as incense 

before You

{psalm 141:13}

why do we fear the candlelight and the whispered repeated words and the sweet smell of incense rising to the heavens in a cloud of delicate worship? it's so strange when we look at the words and somehow wrap them up in a Church-appropriate package with a bow on top and pass it out as the only way allowed.

because He went to the mountain for peace be still, and i'm following in His footsteps, or at least i'm learning how to walk that way. for now, i'm riding on the Lion's back like a lamb with a broken leg. and i have a warm blanket for those cold winter nights among the fur trees with the stars above singing His glory.

and i'm drawing a circle in the dirt and sitting there with candles lit around me. and i'm worshiping here in my wilder-ness to the One Who Sees, to the Wild-Maker who tucks feathers behind my ear and whispers

rise up on eagle's wings, daughter
and I will teach you how to fly

women :: wild-blessed

{photo via pinterest}

i speak about the wild here quite often. sometimes, i'm not even sure myself how to find that perfect grove of trees. and the smudge of dirt on my cheeks feels a little foreign, almost like a virginal bride awakening that morning to find her husband-love in her bed with a blush of blessed now.

i'm embracing that wild with shaking fingers, the wild that is woman, that is me somehow strange. the whisper of woman that was in the forefront of His mind, composed with God-Daddy smiles and sunrise-stained fingers that i cannot comprehend without weeping. because He formed me, hips and hair and eyes and mouth all in one, and whispered I see that you are good, wild daughter. 

and i can't help with the pinching and the frowning and the clumsy fingers clutching a chisel to gouge away the parts of me that He must have made wrong, the spots where the Wild-Maker slipped. and the mirror laughs and the sky cries as the Lion lets tears fall as i wrap myself in filmy black mourning cloth and block out the Light.

but He comes in the morning, like a bright-eyed groom with fresh unchanging love in His holy gaze and scissors to snip away the veils until i'm exposed and raw and maybe even bleeding just a little because pruning is pain, but it's beauty too. and then He spits on the ground and smears Heaven-made mud mixed with the Blood of the Lamb on my soul and whispers see again, for your faith has made you whole.

{photo property of DramaticElegance, taken via instagram}

He writes His name on my eyelids so when i blink, i remember. and every flicker of the eyelashes is a flicker of the Spirit-flame sent down after forty days of waiting from the day He rose. He calls me woman, He calls me daughter. and it's not a dirty curse but a whisper of admiring glory woven in Light.

and Heaven to earth is only a whispered prayer away, a half-step to glory. and for so long, i've been loving and living like fire and ice, never touching without burning and melting. but now i'm flying close to the Light and i am not burned, for the One at my side is like the Son of the Most High

so i'm leaving my shoes on the threshold because this place is holy ground, and the dirt feels good between my toes and the wild is calling my name.

run further up and further in
for this is the place of which you have dreamed
for which you have been waiting all your life.

:: be wild, dove-daughter
for your faith has made you whole

rising wild

i am a rare creature. i am a thing of wonder, a thing of push and pull and inhale exhale repeat repeat without even thinking.

it's the little and the simple parts of me combining to create something greater, something that even i cannot explain. something glorious and dangerous and precious that pushes on the edges of the world and reaches past to twist among the stars.

"'you,' he said, 'are a terribly real thing in a terribly false world 

and that, I believe, is why you are in so much pain.'"

:: emilie autumn 

but that's what growth is. it's pain, it's the push of life to emerge from beneath the thick rich-scented earth to burst through green and bright and full of promise.

a friend wrote two Aramaic words that rang in my soul for days after. talitha cumi. and i couldn't help but ponder these words and the Man that said them soft into the ear of a little girl whose breath had left her altogether. and then it came back. because He spoke it so. 

and that is the power of the cry of arise spoken by the One who vanquished storms with a word. they were simple words, familiar to the ear but strung together in a way that was far more foreign than it ought to be. it sinks wonder into my heart, but why? why should life returning at the word of the Son be anything but expected, but known, but anticipated with bated breath?

so i tie a string around my finger and remember.

this world is not where i belong, my hunger is for another place. a place where the wild and the wonder are the common and the expected, where the wind is the Breath of the Most High and the sun pales in the light of the One who spoke before time was ever born.

because i am the wild one, the daughter of more than grace, but of Water and Bread and Blood. a rare thing, a real thing.

bursting.
questing.
:: rising

shared

sometimes i wish i had camera-eyes. recorder ears. 

that all i had to do was blink and freeze every perfect moment, to turn around and download and share with those i love

because there are things i crave to share. 

but the words fall too short. 

i bite my feeble tongue because it cannot do what i wish it could. 

i can't press the glory of these sights. these sounds. oh, i ache to express fully. 

sometimes i wonder why God made us unable to speak our visions. why can we not simply let our lips part and flood this world with all we've seen. why must some things remain silent?

i want to use my tongue to paint the scene. the way the moon glows and the stars sing just so. the richness of the heather and lilac against my cheek. the kiss of wind in that perfect hair-ruffling instant. 

these are moments that i cannot share. 

this is between me and God.

this is sharing intimacy unlike any other with the Lord of Heaven. 

i am not sharing these things with Him

because He is sharing them with me. 

a gift, a moment, a sight so perfect. nothing on this Earth, not a scrap of this beauty, can compare to this realization that this is from Him. 

and so this music in my ear

this sight before my eyes

this moment which i crave to sink into my skin and glow from my core

these are intimacies with the King of Kings. with my Daddy God. 

this is the preciousness of privacy. 

countryside

It is only in the country that we can get to know a person or a book.  ~Cyril Connolly

i grew up on a farm.

or rather, i can't remember any part of my childhood life outside of my parents' countryside home.

i grew up in silence. in serenity. with nature. with animals.

surrounded by nothing but beauty, no matter the season. 

no traffic sounds or honking horns.open fields and white fences. slopping hills and soft green grass.

little kittycat mews and snuffling equine neighs. metal grate fences and gravel-dirt paths. the mooing of cows and the echoing cry of a faraway night train.

barefoot in the backyard

daisies in my hair

i always thought i was a city girl. my teenage self envied the town life that my friends told me about, being surrounded by friends and walking to get ice cream or see a movie. 

i hated the country. i wanted a city lifestyle. and when i grew up and said i do, town life became my life. barely a ten minute drive from my childhood home, but oh, so very different.

no more cows or corn fields. now i have traffic under my window, and streetlights on every corner. 

but i know better now.

now i look for occasions to take my husband

also a country boy

and go back home.

to spend hours under my favourite old maple tree in the backyard, curled up with a book and one of my feline companions. 

apple cider and a knitted blanket around a smokey-warm fire in the charcoal pit with my family. 

with autumn coming close, i anticipate those upcoming golden-toned afternoons more than anything else. 

and then comes silver-sprinkled winters that conjure ideas of candy canes and steamy mochas by the fireplace. but that's another post for a later day. 

i may live in town now, perhaps even with the rest of my life. and i love my cozy apartment, and my town-life with my husband...please don't mistake me for even a moment. 

but the country holds my heart. 

natural.

I only went out for a walk and finally concluded to stay out till sundown, for going out, I found, was really going in.  ~John Muir

It's raining today.

Again.

I don't really even know how much rain we've had this summer, but it's been an incredibly high amount. How many times have I awoken to the shuddering crash of thunder, followed by a blinding jolt of zig-zag electricity?

More than I can count.

It's actually raining outside my window right now. I can hear the rush of the cars through the puddles on the street, the damp whisper of the leaves in the wind.

But it's not raining in my head.

In my head, I'm wandering through green hills, rolling and speckled with ruins that speak of days unseen for a thousand years.

It's not raining there. It's sunny, blue skies with the most beautiful whisper of clouds across the skies. I'm not saying I crave perfection. I just crave the utmost glories of nature.

Rain, stay if you must.

For in my head, you are merely the soundtrack to the Jane Austen vision flowing behind my eyes.

I crave the natural.

I crave the green.

(This post was written draftless. No editing, no stopping, no saving for later. I wrote as I wrote, and stopped when I stopped. This is the meaning of draftless.)