tribe :: being seen

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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.

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// 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. 

steak and potatoes

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i spent last night with my parents. 


not the whole night, but enough of the night to have steak and potatoes and chocolate ice cream, and laugh until we wept with too much joy overflowing from the corners of our eyes. 


and then i leaned against the counter and talked to my mom. 


and we talked about the baby, and about everything else that comes in between. and we talked about life, like we haven't done in what feels like ages. life has been rushing and i feel like my family connections have gotten a little threadbare since the beginning of two dark purple lines. 


but we're all doing a show together this spring. mom and dad and me and baby too, all on stage together for the first time since i was thirteen. and connections form with theater lights and velvet curtains, just like they used to do when i was a child and i had my first tied pair of ballet ribbons draped over my arm. 


did you know steak and potatoes and chocolate ice cream and so much laughter could do so much? 


i think i'd forgotten. because i think i've allowed myself to retreat, to dwell too much and live too little. to wrap too many shaking fingers around fears and cling just that bit too tight. 

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going home feels good sometimes. at the end of night, we got in our car and drove back to our little apartment with bills and laundry and pizza rolls in the freezer.


but going home feels good sometimes, to steak and potatoes and chocolate ice cream and the warmth of familiarity when things are too much to handle on our own. 


because two are better than one. and a bundle of sticks are better than two. and we're making our own stick bundle now, turning two to three, and five to six. 

well the sun is surely sinking down

but the moon is slowly rising

and this old world must still be spinning 'round

but I still love you

:: you can close your eyes :: brooke fraser ::

and so now i'm singing lullabies to the baby in my stomach, the same ones my mom sang to me when i was a little girl. and i'm repeating familiar melodies over and over again. 

cross shadows and repeated lines.

and steak and potatoes and chocolate ice cream. 

{thank you everyone for your patience with me as i figure out this pregnancy and my body's new way of life! giveaway winners from January are going up in a matter of minutes on the original post, and the new giveaway is up as of tomorrow morning!}

connection in the Sovereign

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when i tell people that i blog, sometimes i get the strangest looks. when i mention a friend that i have made, how dear she is to my soul but our only connection has been the one that flutters through cyberspace, the looks intensify.

because it doesn't make sense, if you give it too much thought, and if you don't understand.

how does it work, exactly, for women of every walk and every age and every standard to merge their souls and bare their hearts to one another?

does connection take face to face, hand to hand, and breath to breath?

or is it about heart more than flesh?

because there is love that radiates 

from screen to screen. 

there are voices that ring together with laughter over steaming coffee mugs, and then there are the clusters gathered to weep and mourn a broken heart with tears that flow in brokenness, despite the distance.

there is connection. 

this i promise you.

this is the blending of earthy and sacred. i've said it before, and perhaps too often.

but, oh, God became flesh, and gold became straw.

and connections become invisible and fingers touch and grasp together.

these sisters, these seekers that stand together with one hand stretched to Heaven and the other pressed to qwerty keys, they understand.

this is sacred connection of the strangest type.

this is Sovereign sisterhood.