Windflower Hollow

Morning Peek

 
This is my view in the morning when I stick my nose out to see what the weather is. The black bird cage I bought at a junk shop to create a love bird ambience for my son's wedding. The garden wedding was rained out so 170 people crammed into the house and love birds, Chase and Rosalie, took their vows in standing room only. The wedding didn't turn out how I planned it, but no one attending has forgotten that day. The old metal glider is the bird cages closests friend. I love the wide arms on the adirondack chairs, good props for coffee cups and wine glasses depending on the time of day. It's always a good time to sit on the porch.

A Small Journey

 

 
 
This is the prayer spiral in my backyard. You enter it through the pergola that my son, Chase, built for me. The spiral is a simple form of a labyrinth. It's a way to take a small journey or pilgrimage, to the center, the "holy of holies" and back again. It is a wonderful tool for prayer and meditation. The difference between a maze and a labyrinth is that a maze has blind alleys. A labyrinth's path will always move you to the center and back out. One can begin the journey and just trust the path. I love to walk it and, most of all, just look at it.

Late Summer in the Hollow

 

 
 Rain- glorious rain- Everything is just so green.

Just be love...

Dear Reader,

    Are you still there?  It has been so long since I’ve posted, I fear that the words are being released into “the cosmic void” as Kathleen Kelly says in “You’ve Got Mail”.  But forgive me, please… the summer doldrums.

    Recently, I came across a faded note jotted in the flyleaf of my bible dated 1993 – I was at Living Waters, a refuge center in North Carolina that offers retreats and summer camps for children.  Sue Wiatt, aka Mama Sue, founded the refuge in the early ‘80s, I think, but we didn’t discover it until 1989.  This discovery changed the course of our family’s life.  It opened our hearts to the reality of the Holy Spirit as a person and introduced us to His ways and power.  Mama Sue was an extraordinary person of faith and vision, always ready to speak encouragement to us with twinkling eyes that were both sharp and gentle.  And, when in her presence, she grabbed my arm as I motored by her on my way to “meet, greet and mingle” with the other "retreatants".  I was helping out, you know, with hospitality – note: no one had asked me to.  Anyway – Mama Sue stopped me in my tracks and beckoned me to lean in close.  She looked into my eyes with such tender regard and a glint that shined a spotlight into my soul…  She said, “Vicki… don’t go around loving everybody… just be love.”  It shot through me like a lightning bolt.  Just Be love?  What does that mean?, I wondered.  I chewed on it for a week or two and then it drifted to the bottom of my mind to rest in the silt there.

    Seventeen years later, it has sprouted fins and has swum to the surface.  Flapping and jumping it has arrived concurrently with a spiritual season of change.  Pruning, stripping and simplifying are the theme these days.  So why does this charge from Mama Sue surface again now?  What is the connection?  I’m thinking it has to do with letting myself “off the hook” so to speak, wriggling free of false guilt and false responsibility.  Somehow, I have believed, all my life, that I am responsible for everyone’s happiness.  If everyone around me is well and happy, I can allow myself to be happy.  Well, the chances of that happening are slim to none.   So then comes the guilt for 1. Failing to make others happy; 2. Failing to be happy myself when I’ve been so blessed.  Oy vey!  Such a mess.  Now that I’ve seen the lie, now what?  I am confessing – saying out loud – “this is a lie”.  Praying, “Deliver me, Lord, from the lie.  I fall out of agreement with it and embrace Your Truth on the subject.”  Happiness, I realize, is an emotion, a fleeting phenomenon – but joy is the fruit, or evidence of the Holy Spirit.  The Spirit of God in me is a River of joy.  I can choose joy at any time, while happiness is circumstantial.  Furthermore, I tell myself, I am not the Savior of the world, not even just my little world.  I cannot make choices for other people.  I can hardly choose for myself.  So can I… just let go?  I am willing to let go of false responsibility and false guilt.  And now I’m practicing it – every day – hour by hour.  So, in that stumbling forward, there is a beginning of walking unencumbered and eventually of running freely.  I cast off the weight of the law and perennially falling short of it.  Then gratitude for the gift of repentance, forgiveness, and restoration starts to bubble up from the most hidden spring in me.  Love begins to flow – to flow in me, through me, out of me.  And I can just breathe…

and just be…

and just be…. love.

My Beloved

 

This is a design I created for bookmarks for my friend Meredith to give as favors at her beautiful mountain wedding.  I used aged paper and added color with pigment and chalk inks.  Green is the color of life, teaching healing – blue, the color of revelation, the anointing, the heavenlies ~

 

The peacock feather with the “single-eye” speaks of focused devotion and the fern is a symbol of sincerity.  The “dots” are vintage tatted flowers.  “My Beloved” is a phrase from the scripture, “My Beloved spoke and said to me, ‘Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away!’”  Song 2:10

 

Even though it was Meredith and Jon David joining in the covenant of marriage, the invitation is open to all who will hear the Voice of the Beloved...

New Day Greening

Bless to us, O God,
this new day greening.
Let its hope
rise and run
like the circling path
of Sun,
and in its setting,
let us find…
peace…
rest…
for body,
for mind.

Thunder

 

I woke early to the sound of rolling thunder. Wandering into the kitchen, the pre-dawn sky was punctuated by silver blue flashes of lightning. I pulled back the drapes on the big window that looks out over the prayer spiral. Pinging rain on the chimney kept rhythm for coffee brewing. Breathing deeply, I realized that the house was full of the Lord. Perched in the old wicker rocker, I drank in the aroma of dark coffee and His warm presence. The scripture about the voice of the Lord thundering and splintering the cedars rose to my consciousness. How can He be a raw, unharnessed power and a gentle peace? He is a mystery…a discovery that never ends. The boundaries are unreachable. At the same time, this concept is both unsettling and comforting. I cannot control God, bend Him to my wants and will, even when I quote scripture and try to pin Him down like an insect in a shoe box. The house trembles under rumbling thunder and I am face to face with the fact that He is a dangerous God. As C. S. Lewis said of Aslan, the lion, the Christ figure in THE LION, THE WITCH, AND THE WARDROBE, “ …’Course He isn’t safe. But He’s good. He’s the King, I tell you.” Well, then, I’m in a pickle. I am in love with a dangerous God. Rain pounds on the tin roof, shooting off the sides like rapids. Trees bend under the wind and weight of water. The King is good and He is sovereign. He can be trusted. And I do trust Him explicitly…in my spirit. But my soul- mind, will, emotions- is a tattered flag in a hurricane at times. But, then, the anchoring Presence of the Holy Spirit in me sends out the order of peace: “Breaker, breaker. He is good. He is sovereign. All is well.” And so it is…for the Wild Romancer is in love with me, too.

Red Flags

I went to the doctor Friday to get results from blood work and it was not great news… really high cholesterol and three red flags on the liver panel. So now, a flurry of testing has begun and I am propped up in my bed, hunting and pecking on this computer, trying to sort out my thoughts. The truth is that I’ve not taken very good care of myself….pushing hard, not sleeping well or long enough, subsisting on coffee, pastry, and Sprite.  Stress is a part of everyday life… every day… e v e r y  day. It helps if one actually owns up to it, instead of stuffing it so far down that one’s shoe is lumpy. Starting each day with unresolved stuff (anger, disappointment, bitterness) is like tying a bag of garbage to one’s leg… the one with the lumpy shoe.  It’s a bad situation speeding in the wrong direction. Meanwhile, we are doing “FINE!”  as we are running around like a crazy person-with a gimpy foot- trying to make all those in our circle happy, well, secure, and totally satisfied. Mission impossible. The strain of not being able to fix things for others makes me forget that nobody ever asked me to.  Things…I…have got to change. I am going around the house of my life throwing open its windows and doors, letting out all the old, rotten stale air of co-dependent striving. Today, I intentionally, deliberately  LET GO. I am asking for strength, grace, mercy to be willing to be willing to CHANGE. Oh my. Jesus take the wheel.

Cotton Candy Mornin'

 

 
This morning, I walked out into the yard a little before seven.  The sky was cotton candy-pink and purple stripes. Glorious. I tried to make  a picture, but it couldn’t really be captured by my camera. While I was out there, four geese in v- formation flew over me..honking and carrying on. They were making their morning trek to the pond on the other side of the piney wood. I love their daybreak song; it sounds like five year olds gone wild on party blowers. You know, festive.  Eventually, I went back I inside, dripped a cup of coffee, put dishes in hot, soapy water(my therapy), and gathered my stuff around the old 40’s chair with the wide arms. Sitting down, I remind myself that Jesus loves me and desires my company. It’s a good thing that I know that’s true according to the Word, because today I don’t even want to be with me. I just feel like a mess… a hot mess, as Rosalie says. Today, I am just going to have to camp out on the truth til it percolates up to my heart. Read in 1Peter4, “…think of your sufferings as a weaning from that old sinful habit of always expecting to get your own way. Then you’ll be able to live out your days free to pursue what God wants instead of being tyrannized by what you want” (the Message).   In myself, I want to feel assured that everyone is well and happy and prospering. Then I can allow myself to be settled and at peace.  Well, that’s NEVER going to happen. I am tyrannizing  myself with control, fear, self protection and perfectionism.  I repent again. I choose to receive the grace and power You died trying to give me. There is a stubborn, resistant, arrogant streak in me a mile wide. I confess it as sin and fall out of agreement with it. I BIND MY MIND AND HEART TO YOURS, Lord Jesus. Now self, say thank you and get to the day.

Bluegreen Sound

Bluegreen sound…the new sound. The sound of seeds-drinking the hidden water-swelling in the warming earth- bulging with life within death-browned walls. In the quietest part of the night,- when creatures breathe watchful slumber,- the husk cracks open and the sound pierces the darkness. The light within cannot be contained one moment longer. Soft scratching comes from under the decaying leaves.. the sound of pushing- of pushing the root down deep to the river bed- of pushing, pushing the tender stalk up to the moonlit air. At daybreak, the magnet sun pulls the green thirsty life toward itself- and for the first time, the tiny shoot looks around and realizes it was never sleeping alone.