Artistry !

An artist who wishes to keep his work to himself, is not being fair with that which he received from the present moment, nor with the inheritance and teachings of his forefathers. If we leave the grain stored in the granary it will go bad, even though it was harvested at the right time. When the harvest is over the time comes to share, without fear or shame, your own soul.  That is the artist's mission, however painful or glorious.
-Paulo Coelho, Warrior of the Light, Volume III

Prodigal, you have given me love - therefore I to you give love! O unspeakable passionate love. - W.Whitman

Have you outstript the rest? are you the President? - W.Whitman

Definition; Empowerment

The power is yours

honour and glory

and power

and power

and highlights

and starts

and tributaries

and strength through

weathery storms

and      

    the seed –

the conception –

you could carry on

in the midst of adversity –

Could even win.

You press a cool stone against my

forehead with your palm and say shh,

your fingers resting lightly in my hair,

your eyes closed.

Praying, maybe.

You gave me that stone, and whatever

was written on it, I never saw,

became part of me. I carry it everywhere.

I've been spirit lately - a three-day image of a hollow me, all colorfully pixellated edges, fading from this plane. It takes me from myself and allows me to stand up straight and be light. I remember this physicality is not everything, the end, or anything for that matter, so I walk about blessed because I'm in Him. It started with a paragraph I wrote a friend:

Jars of clay has a song called ‘Boys’ which is amazing. Their whole ‘The Long Fall Back to Earth’ album is very good. One of the lines in Boys is ‘not to undermine the consequence, but you are not what you do.’ You are a product of God’s faith, made by Him, for Him, like Him, and so Him. There’s no distance between you and him, between me and him, between you and I, because the spirit is IN us. We are IN GOD, so GOD. I am Creative because he is creative; I am able to do miracles because the world has no hold on me; I am strong because He is strong; I can love because I am loved; I AM IN LOVE. As long as we think we can fall away from him, we do. Thanks for the padding on the ‘I still love you’, but I’m not worried about it. There is a way to freedom. What I consider ‘my struggle’ (note the ownership, and so definition of self) is my way to freedom, and as I overcome I grow in light and my life becomes more full because I’m more present in Him and so there for every moment. I change. I grow light. I am becoming because as God expands so do I. Put off your small mindsets regarding who you think he is, and try to take in, not even who he is, try to take on HIS eyesight; how He sees. It changes everything.

and this:

I can’t go into the male/female thing right now. But age cannot be questioned. If you were a minute older than me you’d be my elder. For me to recognize and maintain this is to keep things holy in my life. I could equalize us, but that just raises me up. Whatever knowledge I have you can absolutely glean from, but if I think for a second I have more than you, I am becoming like God because somebody needs me wants me and I’m suddenly justified by the goods on earth…identifying with all the stuff that I got from other people.

I only have any real idea of who I am when I am looking into God. Everything else is just distraction. I am less me, less human, when I am moving in God because I don’t have to do good or bad or right by anyone – I’m  not impressive because God’s impressed with me and I don’t need love because I’m filthy with it. I’m lighter and brighter because the earth has less hold on me: I’m not a victim of circumstance, but served by it all. This is how miracles happen – my ideas of earthly limits begin falling away and I see God for who He is: consistent, pure love and rectification. That’s me. That’s you.

Who are you? Where do you find yourself? Not just in the earth, because circumstances come and go, but your headspace: are you at peace or are you in a muddle? God's got order for you, a saturation that settles out the sediment and purifies your conscience and next step. He's easy and accessible. This is what Faith is for - liberation. This is what Grace is for - enabling. Be strong.

The Pursuit of God

The following is from A.W. Tozer's The Pursuit of God. Read it with an open heart and discerning spirit; real work can begin through this.

    Self is the opaque veil that hides the Face of God from us. It can be removed only in spiritual
experience, never by mere instruction. We may as well try to instruct leprosy out of our system. There must
be a work of God in destruction before we are free. We must invite the cross to do its deadly work
within us. We must bring our self-sins to the cross for judgment. We must prepare ourselves for an
ordeal of suffering in some measure like that through which our Saviour passed when He suffered
under Pontius Pilate.
    Let us remember: when we talk of the rending of the veil we are speaking in a figure, and the
thought of it is poetical, almost pleasant; but in actuality there is nothing pleasant about it. In human
experience that veil is made of living spiritual tissue; it is composed of the sentient, quivering stuff
of which our whole beings consist, and to touch it is to touch us where we feel pain. To tear it away
is to injure us, to hurt us and make us bleed. To say otherwise is to make the cross no cross and death
no death at all. It is never fun to die. To rip through the dear and tender stuff of which life is made
can never be anything but deeply painful. Yet that is what the cross did to Jesus and it is what the
cross would do to every man to set him free.
    Let us beware of tinkering with our inner life, hoping ourselves to rend the veil. God must do
everything for us. Our part is to yield and trust. We must confess, forsake, repudiate the self-life, and
then reckon it crucified. But we must be careful to distinguish lazy “acceptance” from the real work
of God. We must insist upon the work being done. We dare not rest content with a neat doctrine of
self-crucifixion. That is to imitate Saul and spare the best of the sheep and the oxen.
    Insist that the work be done in very truth and it will be done. The cross is rough, and it is deadly,
but it is effective. It does not keep its victim hanging there forever. There comes a moment when its
work is finished and the suffering victim dies. After that is resurrection glory and power, and the pain
is forgotten for joy that the veil is taken away and we have entered in actual spiritual experience the
Presence of the living God.

Lord, how excellent are Thy ways, and how devious and dark are the ways of man. Show us how to die, that we may rise again to newness of life. Rend the veil of our self-life from the top down as Thou didst rend the veil of the Temple. We would draw near in full assurance of faith. We would dwell with Thee in daily experience here on this earth so that we may be accustomed to the glory when we enter Thy heaven to dwell with Thee there. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

Quote Me

The light will disturb us when we're comfortable, and comfort us when we're disturbed.
We turn to Spirit for help when our foundations are shaking,
only to find that it is Spirit who is shaking them. - Dan Millman

Act happy, feel happy, be happy, without a reason in the world.
Then you can love, and do what you will. - Dan Millman

What if you slept, and what if you dreamed,
and what if in your dream you went to heaven and there you plucked a strange and beautiful flower,
and what if when you awoke you had the flower in your hand?
Oh, what then? - Samuel Taylor Coleridge

The important thing is this: To be ready at any moment to sacrifice what we are for what we could become. - Charles Dubois

The seed of God is in us:
Pear seeds grow into pear trees;
Hazel seeds into hazel trees;
and God seeds into God. -Meister Eckehart

The faithfulness of one taps a dam.
The faithfulness of two rings out loud.
The faithful gathered together dives down deep where no man can hold anything.