Ask

Sunflowers

My declared flower

Easy to like

Without asking

Without demanding too much

Without needing enough

All this time

When I am a surprise delivery, two dozen roses, with a heart-stopping, knock-me-on-my-knees note, heart erupting wanting of a woman.

Wildflower?

Shower me with a goddamn garden.

Mirrors

I want to travel to the farthest corners of the untouched Earth, so that one day, I may meet the Universe herself; face to face.

Refugee

I am a refugee. I come from a place where I am no longer. I have traveled for far too long and thousands of miles from where I began. I have been pushed by an outside world to move my roots. To sever my lineage in order to survive. 

I have been told that I am not enough to be the keeper of this skin. I must find a home elsewhere from the spirit the ancestors brought me in. Discomfort with the unknown, I tell them. This is why you fear. I am pushed out all the same. My voice is muffled by my tolerance for adapting.  I leave my heritage to find another. To silence their tantrums. To silence my voice so I may save my body. 

I am a refugee. Looking for a home. Adopted everywhere I go, and knowing I am the only home I will ever need. It is my choice. Mine has been forgotten long ago. I am a refugee. I carry my home. And try to see Home everywhere I go. 

Loud noises disguised as power, push us out. They are much too weak to sit with their own disdain. They dress us in their disdain's costume and then act horrified at the sight. Lashing out and pulling history's roots. 

They don't know our blood is in the soil. 

They don't know we are the nucleus of this breathing organism. 

We are refugees on the surface. 

We are the source of all in the underbelly of this life. 

I am a refugee. Mother Earth moves me. She is asking us to wake man up. To heal her for our own good. She cannot nourish our bodies and souls while we abuse her. Don't they see that pushing source leaves darkness in their wake? What is left when Earth herself becomes a refugee from the land you steal?

I am a refugee. My soul freed itself from your economic enslavement.  Seeing beyond your nose is the most assured way for flourishing. We are not here for you. We are here for each other. Global citizens. We will devour your boundaries with the love we have for each other. We will rise up and settle into lands wherein our souls answer to song. Our roots run deeper than your greed. We are forever connected and solidified in integrity. You cannot destroy us. We will rise taller. Louder. United. The only suppressed voice will be that of darkness. 

Yes, we are refugees. Not victims, but refugees of your broken systems and greedy policies. We are refugees of hatred and short sightedness. We are refugees of small hands that will not extend to lift my brothers and sisters up. We are refugees of all inhuman acts. We are refugees, kept from our home and from each other long enough. We have had enough. This is our planet. These are our sacred lands. Our sacred waters. Our divine ecosystems and animals. Our sacred relationships with one another. Our HOME.  

Aging

This tenderness of aging. 

A communion of surrendering into self. 

Walk Through

The time has come, darling

Your restless desire has grown too vivid to pretend those patterned ways are necessary 

The call is clear

And this time; This time, you shall cross

You will leave the staleness of your imposter behind and finally answer the beaconing heart

Expand those lungs to quell anxieties of constriction 

They will life and float your rooted feet

Dare to open that heart beyond the borders you have drawn

It is time to honor it

The heart is designed to hold so much more you have ever entrusted it to hold 

Only then will you trust the vastness of another heart; to finally melt and be held. 

Give in to the clear longing for love that consumes

It is the only love worth fully surrendering to 

Offer your soul as the artist it has been begging you to be 

Life awakens with your devotion 

It brings offerings in recognition of the undercurrent of your veins 

Towards a life you have tasted in your secret desire 

A life you have always wanted as yours

Finally declaring the mystery and the always-known, in time to greet you

As yours and yours alone 

The tender meeting of yourself 

Walk through, my sweet

Walk through 

Yes

We are more afraid of feeling fear than navigating the heights themselves. We hesitate to allow mysteries of new sensations. Not because it is difficult or loaded with strife. Not because it is a painful threshold to cross. Not even because we have no guarantee of our hopeful result. 

No. 

We pause and stare at the unfolding ahead because we know it is an effortless surrender; and in an instant, the familiar would forever change with our whispered, and oh so excitedly declared, 'yes'. 

I keep coming back to this: 

What is there to fear when we are so deeply rooted to this Earth? The highest of heights will be our new shelter. The ground will rise up to meet our feet. It is nothing new. Simply that time time, this season, it is. 

Our spirit has always held us at our landing and it will never stop encouraging us to fly. 

Again

You'd do it again
You'd try again
Even though you lost the idea of what you had
Even though you landed on a different planet
You'd try again
Kicking and screaming, you would
This time
This time you would lean back
You recognize that there are no reigns to hold
No powering through
Show up softly and clearly
Be present when life steps forward
It will

It does every time
Show up with knees knocking and heart pounding
Show up with spirit yearning and eyes thirsting
It won't be what you think
It will always be better and smarter
It will be exactly what you need
and nothing like what you would have done for yourself

Do it again
Living, really living, demands it

It will feel like madness
Footprints you have never left before
Unexplored lands
Under the new sensation; it's still you. It will always be you.
You will never be lost enough to lose the traces on your hands or the map in your eyes

Open again
Try again
Be Loved
Again

How could I?

How could I be this naïve to ask for love?
To pray for its softness and fire so that I may melt all of me, finally into you
How could I be so foolish to ask for love when I wouldn't know love other than a fantasy?
A dream I dream every night and most days, because the more I unravel and see of myself, the clearer you get

How could I dare beg of the stars and study the tides for your coming, when I have never felt your arms around me, fingers intertwine, or my head on your chest?
When I can hardly remember how it feels to find home in anothers' heartbeat.  


How could I? How can I possibly sing or write or color the pages of a wish for you when i haven't felt the kiss of your mouth upon mine?
When I haven't lured or been lured into another's soul properly and feverishly

I know nothing of love
I beg the Gods of its grace but I know nothing
To anticipate your love is a disservice to it
Asking for an idea of a force far greater I could conjure, and yet it is a human's condition to salivate at the thought of food

I have wondered about this deep love
A thirst quenching messy hair lost in heaven kind of love
Shake life alive again
That kind of love
And here I go again, giving words and context to a person, a spirit yet to declare itself

Thanking you before you have even obliged.

How could I be this naïve to float at the thrill of you when your entrance has yet to be made?

Desire

Oh, Desire. 

You propel me forward and my impatience plays its tricks. 

I question your arrival. 

I question my worthiness of you, pointing to the time it has taken to receive you. 

The expectation, questioning a Divine inevitable unfolding. 

Measuring my value against the mounting expectations between sun rises and sets.

Then again, creativity can only live where unfinished process exists. 

As I am. 

As we all are; Divinely unfinished

Creativity is given life in the space of the unresolved. 

Isn't the defined, where possibility ends? 

If we are to meet our desires, may it be with an exhilarating reflection of the endless possibilities in each of us. May we only know of our desires by following our overflowing joy of unearthing curiosities. May we fall in love with our mysteries. 

The greatest desires meet us as though we have known them our entire lives; and they simultaneously  become a gift far greater than we could have designed for ourselves. 

We trust the wonder at our feet. 

I'm learning. Desire, I'm finally learning. 

Allowing a timing that shocks our logical minds and inevitably knocks our socks off.  

Allowing to keep growing with space and connection; 

silence and touch. 

The unknown and felt. 

Living and breathing. 

Never fully arriving. 

Forever unfolding...

As It Was - As It Came to Be

Don't let the voices steer you away

Especially your own 

Do it now

Before you are even close to ready

At the onset of the vision 

Do it all too seemingly prematurely 

That is where you allow the magic to find you

Where the reason is most pure

Directly connected to your essence 

Where the heart is loudest 

Before the virtue of the mind takes over and alters its form;

stagnating all opening

Honor the Divine calling in its glory by obliging 

A moment's pause in pondering the outcomes will only vanish the possibility. 

And oh, what a bitter taste and robbery of a heartbeat, when the moment has passed. 

The moment, leaving you, just as you abandoned it by waiting in vein. 

Regret is a muddied tunnel, useless in visiting. 

A mouthful leaving you hungry. 

Lest when its ghost insists on paying a visit, as a gift for the next time you should hesitate to taste the dream dripping from your chin. 

What I could have been. 

How tall I could have grown. 

How gracefully I could have lived. 

I ignored the best parts of me. 

I clipped my wings. 

I sewed my tongue. 

Music for on one else to hear; turned into factory inspiration hymns. 

I hid. 

I hid my one precious spirit. 

Have I forsaken you? 

Tell me how I can love you. 

How can I begin to repair the silencing I have made of you? 

The oppression I projected onto you. 

How can I proclaim your beauty to the world? 

I hope I can help your fair skin trust in the sun again. 

Tell me were to begin again. 

In the delicate sweetness of ripe nectar already lived. 

Guide me to raise the ground to meet your footing. 

I am here. 

I am finally here. 

This balance; Acknowledging as life is here now, dancing with this friction. 

The questioning of what could have been, pulling away from what is. 

Back and forth, pulling away from feeling unsettled. 

Only to someday notice that this seemingly backwards force, was actually positioning for a trajectory towards your evolution. 

Finding yourself elsewhere where you thought you would be. 

Finding yourself where a soul more expansive than you had envisioned

You were destined to meet this moment now. 

Where the tenderness of what could have been, bows to life as it was. 

Where with every breath, you discover yourself allowing a new life to happen for you. 

In your honor 

As it came to be

Honoring Ourselves

My son was born an artist. I've felt it long before I had the proof by watching him. Before we met, I knew. He is a wonder. Feed him love and watch him fly. He comes alive when he expresses himself. He lights up. When he creates by playing a part, or speaking in an accent, or making up a song, there is no right or wrong. In that moment, his life is his. His spirit is untouchable. His Universe belongs to no one else. He hides it from no one.

He's been drawing lately and he's good. Remarkably good. This isn't just mama talkin'.

Lately, his head has been interfering with his process. He stops, gets frustrated, shuts down, and starts measuring his value. He says he can't draw. He succumbs to the questioning he's confronting. He does that with math. Always a right and a wrong answer. His heart doesn't speak that language, you see? He overwhelms himself at the thought that he needs to be a certain way under certain subjects. It's not natural to him. It's not natural for any of us. We have just forgotten.

My heart breaks. It breaks because I can easily relate to the feeling. I realize that it's my adult relating to the growing person inside of him. I recognize that I'm observing my child filling with fog, we adults work so hard to clear. The fog of questioning and worrying about our worth. The fog that freezes us from being freely us. We become experts at watching it come and fanning it thinner. If we even find the courage to try at all.

It becomes my duty to remind him. To open a window. To bring him back to what will always be true. This is the child we need to continually nourish and listen to. The knowing voice we must allow to lead the way.

You are enough.

Please make art with your life and tell us about it. Surprise yourself. You are a wonder. A continuously unfolding masterpiece. Let the unknown guide you. an exquisite life is in living the questions. Playfully. Imperfectly. A child does not measure how much they don't know. They laugh at the nonsense of mistakes. They find themselves in awe of what they discover at their feet. May you bow to your inner child; always in awe by what is at yours.

'...to the child whom this grown-up once was. All grown-ups were children first. But few of them remember'     ~ Antoine De Saint-Exupery   ~ The Little Prince

I hope you allow yourself a lifetime of remembering

Bohemian

Choose again.

 Begin again.

With your open heart. 

With your brave love. 

Create what you want to see. 

We are free. 

We don't need to compensate for a past that is no longer. 

Start anew. 

Equipped only with knowledge that experience brings. 

Let that be your guiding light. 

This life you have tasted. 

Gather up the art you desire. 

Decorate your world as you've dreamed it. 

You were born for this. 

Not for the life you lived yesterday, but for the breath you are given right now. 

Begin again. 

With every breath, begin again. 

Much Love, 

Steps

One step in front of the other.

That's all. 

The rest is not up to you. 

Now go. 

Let that beautiful heart of yours lead the way. 

The universe will say yes, darling. 

Every time. 

All you have to do is ask. 

Ask and show up for your answer.

Much Love, 

Dear Love,

Dear, Love. It is there. We will meet in that space where we don't seek. The timeless place where we don't work or perfect. It is where desire becomes a curiosity without attachment. It is the playground of visions and admirations, free from burdensome results or voids to be filled. A space where I actually forget all about you, love, by the purposeful distraction of living joyfully.

I cannot seek for you when I am pouring my heart onto the page before me, and living in abandon of any time and measure. This holy space, where I give of myself free from the hesitation that judgement brings. You see, it is the same hesitation that has stalled our love. I release it and live in the lightness of experience without strategy. It is where the flow of life captures me and I willingly unravel to its unknowns. There, where love intoxicates my breath, with all of its chaos and uncertainty.

Our art is a rebellious laugh in gratitude that spirit is finally leading the way. It is there, in that space of clearing where we shall meet. Because in that liberation of celebrating what brings us life, we can see for miles. And though we may have exchanged many times in passing, this my sweet, is the sacred space where love becomes, us.

Future

I'm flirting with the notion of falling in love with not knowing.

Thanksgiving

Today is your day. To those who have crossed my path. The gratitude I celebrate is because of you. You are my friends, and by virtue of your love, my family. Home. 

Today is all about you. Your second birthday. Because this friend would not be where she is without you. And life is particularly amazing with you in mine. 

Light

The healing power of light, surrendered laughter, and untethered love. 

Without your permission, joy evaporates the heaviness. Turning the load of the impossible feat you carried, into nothing else but finding yourself here. Now. 

These moments, no matter how small, have been known to give freedom to hope. They have released the declaration for good! Despite the thick surrounding, giving way to the light still in you is an assured reminder of its shameless power. Joy sends you off with a smirk and a calm knowing, you will move forward. You will take a mightier step, right where you left off. 

I rise

Out of the huts of history's shame
I rise
Up from a past that's rooted in pain
I rise
I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into daybreak that's wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise.
I rise.
I rise.

     ~ Maya Angelou

I give myself. I extend my hand. I offer my sweat to lift the chins of those who have kept their down for far too long; for those who get through he day to afford their survival.

I offer my gifts inspiring purposeful living.
I loudly brave my heart, bowing to the meaning through my art; i will lift you until you find some through your own.

I give my voice for those who have lost trust on its landing.

I will speak loudly for those whose hearts' whispers have been muffled by posturing speakerphones.

I give myself.

I give my humanity.
Though it's been tested and battered. My spirit stands taller than my bones.

I shall rise above the prostitution of integrity chose for the mirage of safety.

I shall rise above the reaction of fear and the intimidation against equality.

Noise cannot dampen my wings.
It will not disturb my peace.

This thunderous spirit will emerge to meet yours in our healing.

Love will overwhelm to the mind's doubt and to the heart's surmise.

I rise.

Be a Blessing in Someone's Life

Be a blessing in someone's life. 

You will ease any questions relating to your purpose on this planet, when you lead with this intention. You will never know how many living beings have been deeply touched because of you. You may never truly grasp how expansive the wonder you radiate. 

It is not for you to quantify. 

Your magic is sparked by your trust. 

Be a blessing in someone's life. It is the heartbeat of all meaning. 

There, you will find the blessings in yours. 

Questions

A question is the birth of a whispered answer, yearning to be seen. 

Listen. 

Trust. 

It will appear. 

Let Silence find you. 

Or better yet, be so overwhelmed by noise, yours or external, that you seek the richness of quietude. 

Allow my restless mind to find peace so that my heart may speak its purpose. Oh gentle heart, remind me that opening is the only way to see and to be seen; to love and to be loved. 

It is the epicenter of our existence. 

In the despair of the discomfort, remind me that my body responds as it is told. 

In silence, the whispers of intuition can melt the brick and mortar I carry around as a body. Noise makes for heavy wings. And flying deems a lightness and a conviction, leaning into the unknown; leaning into those relentless winds. 

Embody your questions and brave an answer. Hesitation delays our experience of your medicine. Radical love is needed. Declared empathy and compassion cannot exist without your oxygen. Our presence of light must be louder than the shadows of fear.

Love can melt steel. 

Love can transform. 

We are starved for it, and aching to give it away. Live the exchange now. It is how we shrink the suffering. We must stand united in the transformation of uplift and compassion. Loudly. Mending wounds. Deflating darkness. Creating a new possibility. 

We are the answer. A supported collective. Honoring life by creating with the same paint brush that created us, and all living beings. We are the call to any question.