life: acoustic & amplified

going on with no end

We are but dust and this is a dust eating world but we are stardust and we blaze the courage of stars and we will go on without end.

Ann Voskamp

All essences of sweetness from the white

Warm day go up in vapor, when the dark

Comes down. Ascends the tune of meadow-lark,

Ascends the noon-time smell of grass, when night

Takes sunlight from the world, and gives it ease.

Mysterious wings have brushed the air; and light

Float all the ghosts of sense and sound and sight;

The silent hive is echoing the bees.

So stir my thoughts at this slow, solemn time.

Now only is there certainty for me

When all the day’s distilled and understood.

Now light meets darkness: now my tendrils climb

In this vast hour, up the living tree,

Where gloom foregathers, and the stern winds brood.

—-

The Vast Hour by Genevieve Taggard

He wore moonlight on his shoulders

shining so casually around him in the highest style

Stars living in his eyes

rarely sleeping even on the brightest of days

there he sat, as tho waiting for me,

on a brilliant green lotus pad

surrounded by pink flowers

as my favorite golden ball

sank into the muddy water

I burst into tears

as I had never been allowed to swim

and had no way of retrieving my most precious memory

given to me from my best friend before she moved away

Then, to my great surprise, he spoke,

with a beautiful voice I had heard in my dreams

so many nights before this encounter

words which would become framed

like a masterpiece in my memory

His words were poetry

His laughter music

as he offered to fetch my ball –

if only I would kiss him first…

Dozens of frogs had offered the same on other such evenings

and then had hopped away

to make the same offer to the next fair lass

to come along with a bouncy ball

the pond was filled with balls of all colors and sizes

patiently waiting for the promise to be fulfilled

And tho I had heard it so many times before,

This time my heart knew it was true

as I bent to kiss his froggy lips

His kiss stole time and my heart

beats were dancing all across the starry milky way

I had waited a lifetime to touch this particular skin

so much smoother and silky than I had thought it would be

I was caught in the brilliant moonglow

unable to look away

as he jumped with little splash or drama

barely causing a ripple in the smooth surface

and soon came swimming back

holding my golden ball in his throat

He deposited it at my feet

then turned to thank me for my trust

‘the gift is great’, he said,

‘you are ready for true love to find you.’

And as I walked away

I knew twas true treasure I had been given

My heart was ready to give and receive what love will bring.

Now I was just waiting for it to find me.

🐸

Amy Lloyd

A kiss is a lovely trick designed by nature to stop speech when words become superfluous.

— Ingrid Bergman

a

oh the humanity

“My mission, should I choose to accept it, is to find peace with exactly who and what I am. To take pride in my thoughts, my appearance, my talents, my flaws and to stop this incessant worrying that I can’t be loved as I am.”

— Anais Nin

I’m finding the thing about letting go of the illusion that it could have been different vexing, provocative, and potentially transformative. But not easy. I’ve been chewing on it since you posted it.

– William Robertson

FITTING IN

Square peg, round hole.

I attempt to mould myself to shape

only to revert,

and have to try again to fit.

So, I wonder about giving up.

Unlearning all that I have learned to conform,

and maybe stand out instead.

Yes, today

I dropped the mask,

as I once again tripped.

But no grief.

I think I learned instead

that growth might be mispresented.

That true gain may be in the releasing of pretence.

The safe definitions,

and distracting finery

to disguise our differences,

what need do we have of these?

Yes, I wonder about

shedding the trappings of success,

stored for false assurance.

And instead, undressing,

stepping out and owning

the full sum of my truth.

Square peg, round hole.

Humility, that hard honest lesson,

has a welcome voice,

‘Accept yourself’, it says.

‘Allow shame to fall.’

Ana Lisa de Jong

Living Tree Poetry

June 2018

THE INNER LIFE

Our time is hungry in spirit. In some unnoticed way we have managed to inflict severe surgery on ourselves. We have separated soul from experience, become utterly taken up with the outside world and allowed the interior life to shrink. Like a stream that disappears underground, there remains on the surface only the slightest trickle. When we devote no time to the inner life, we lose the habit of soul. We become accustomed to keeping things at surface level. The deeper questions about who we are and what we are here for visit us less and less. If we allow time for soul, we will come to sense its dark and luminous depth. If we fail to acquaint ourselves with soul, we will remain strangers in our own lives.

John O’Donohue

Excerpt from BEAUTY

The hardest thing about hard times is this: You know you’re not in control anymore. (But ask yourself something: Were you ever?) You have to make big changes before you’re ready or suddenly question what you thought you knew. But it’s possible to turn even the most upsetting situations into opportunities for growth if you can muster enough willingness, trust, faith, patience and surrender. Here’s why these qualities are so essential if we are to transcend our troubles.

Willingness

This is the all-important ingredient for making it through tough times. You must be willing to do what you believe you cannot, and acknowledge what you’ve avoided. Yes, this can be painful, but when you are unwilling to see things—and people—as they are, you can’t deal with the problem, and I can guarantee your situation will be prolonged.

Trust and Faith

Very often people confuse these two principles, but they’re very different. Trust is the belief that you can get through anything, and faith is the energy that grows from that trust, helping you carry on until things get better. You can’t have the latter without the former.

Patience

This is the capacity to accept and tolerate difficulty without anger or sorrow—and it’s your lifeline when you find yourself in the midst of a hard time. In the same way that we are unable to rush the sunrise or the unfolding of the seasons, we can’t force ourselves through a challenging experience in less time than we need to learn, heal or grow. Patience makes our difficulties pass as gently as possible.

Surrender

It’s not about giving up or bowing down. It’s about holding on to the knowledge that something bigger and more powerful than you is at work beneath the surface of your experience, and that it will take you exactly where you need to be. Now, in hard times, surrender is probably the greatest challenge you will encounter because it’s so hard to accept uncertainty. But that, my beloved, is the point. You don’t know what’s to come, but you must know that whatever happens, you will be okay.

💞

Iyanla Vanzant

Read more: http://www.oprah.com/inspiration/increasing-resilience-get-through-hard-times#ixzz5HIRYuiOX

Jeff Brown Quote memes from Pinterest / Jeff Brown books available on Amazon!

watch it

Watch, for signs,

angels,

surprises that come as you glance to the side.

Watch for the humming birds,

cardinals,

field of corn growing high in the field,

Light chatter of sounds coming from the other side of the fence.

Watch for the wave of the wind,

The torch of the moon;

The swell of the bud

Before bursting into blossom.

Hold onto the catch of your breath,

The moan in a sigh,

The distress of a longing,

The amazement of grace.

Watch

From a respectful distance,

For the peace fill prophets,

The saints saturated in heaven,

For the days you would die to know God as Beloved,

Shorten your life

In a window of time,

Where your hopes and dreams

Are all that you see and all that you know

Watch and believe that for seconds,

You are named, you are blessed, you were born

For God alone.

Beauty,

Rev. Donna Knutson

is it possible to shut your mouth?

could you stop pontificating?

are you really an expert on your chosen subject?

what if you opened a doorway into the holy hush?

oh so quietly walked up a new flight of stairs into God’s wonderland?

what would happen if you were silent, even for a minute?

would your world fall apart

if you held your tongue for 60 seconds?

or

would you be overwhelmed to see your true brilliance in the silence that followed?

would you suddenly see all the answers clustering there on your doorstep?

would you finally glimpse eternity out of your sideways glances?

will I, or the world, ever know the answer to these questions?

probably not

and so it goes…

I base my actions on the answer to the truth of:

It is what it is

it’s a good day for some jazz

and a big day to have a good day

a perfect day for taking care of my own business

in my own unlimited living space of silence and shadows

just to inform you…I no longer try

I just AM

top o the morning to you

salutations and hello sunshine

what a lovely way to learn

to let go just a bit more!

💞

Amy Lloyd

can we retain it?

another mother forgets

the stillness of a summer evening

the beauty of food shared in lovely company

shaking in excitement for a moments glance

never to be remembered in the hours just following

what’s the lesson

for those left holding the memory?

how will it ever be enough?

how can this moment ever be enough?

will those who can remember,

remember to let go?

will those who remember,

remember for when they

come to the place of forgetting?

💞

Amy Lloyd

Setting intentions

If I accept the fact that my relationships are here to make me conscious, instead of happy, then my relationships become a wonderful self-mastery tool that keeps realigning me with my higher purpose for living.

~ Eckhart Tolle

A letter to my heart:

thank you, dear heart,

for being so brave,

for the courage to stay open,

for giving, and receiving, love,

for taking me into battles

and winning wars with your ferocious strength

for valiantly defending your fragile tenderness

for loving your own terrible beauty

for revealing your deepest darkness to the light of discovery

and laying open your wounds to the healing air

for being willing to walk into heartbreak again and again,

knowing what you do.

For, even when you are shaking afraid,

you always shout,

‘YAY!’

‘Yes’

‘Let’s dance’

and

‘I gotta have more cowbell…’

Thank you for your life giving work

your refusal to quit

your belief in the way I live

I adore you

I honor you

I cherish and bless

your amazing work

in my chest,

in my world,

in my relationships,

and in my wanderings.

I give you the gift of the best me,

in every moment we have together,

the brightest shining light,

I can be

we do good work, girl,

you got the beat,

Oh, skip it, Let’s roll!

Yours forever true,

❤️

Amy Lloyd

come to the alter

supernatural

misty mountains

white veiled mysteries

shadowed hawk

colors of God hang like ragged curtains

trees crowned with falling beauty

made even more spectacular

through weathered waters

everything in life is grace

grace is everything

🔥

Amy Lloyd

Houses of shy holiness

Softest mist hanging in tall treetop cathedrals

I head west towards my own disappearance

Moon-face nodding agreement

Love is all that will ever remain of my lifetime

Sunrise pours liquid gold perfection over blue water

Sky kisses and safe roads taking me home

Showering the people I love with love

Making a wish so I can make it come true

Pennies fall from a heavenly weekend

Everything must go

All crossroads leading to full circle moments

Merging into melted hearts and new beginnings

For 8 years I’ve craved those fried green tomatoes we always ordered

The picture you sent me fills me with happy

<has me salivating like Pavlov’s dog>

I drive along with happy thoughts

headed in both directions at once

There is more of God than we can ever know

There is more goodness than anything else in the world

Surrender to where these smooth roads are taking you

Trails of purple hearts are for beautiful feet

open hands receive all they need

to be filled and to fill others

💜

Amy Lloyd

http://youtu.be/mqkQ-3OsMpo

circles of love

I create my first circle at 4:37a

Standing in the silence

shadows and light reflected

allowing the deepest internal work

of unknowing to gestate

seeds, yet to crack,

words, yet to come,

deep calling to deep

the greatest spiritual mystery

there is no explanation

for when, or how,

the Phoenix rises triumphant

after waiting in the cold dark

for so long seemingly dead

not yet ready

or knowing how to bloom

into the colors of new dreams

with roots spreading as maps

across the pages of unwritten future

I am letting go of all my clinging

dead flowers thrown away

I am opening a fresh book of paper

erasing the old black ink staining my fingers

No longer needing to cling to what didn’t work

ready to be reminded

this is a new day full of beauty

creation is ever changing to meet me in this very moment

everything is coming into balance

I am satisfied with what is

right in this moment

I am eager for more than I could ever imagine

in the ones upcoming

the sun is faithfully coming up

as I return to my bed to sleep

💞

Amy Lloyd

You have traveled too fast over false ground;

Now your soul has come, to take you back.

Take refuge in your senses, open up

To all the small miracles you rushed through.

Become inclined to watch the way of rain

When it falls slow and free.

Imitate the habit of twilight,

Taking time to open the well of color

That fostered the brightness of day.

Draw alongside the silence of stone

Until its calmness can claim you.

⁃ John O’Donohue

in the world between worlds

where the shimmering abstract

holds all the secrets within us

words are absent

no scripture exists

there are no definitions

as there is no need for such things

in our eternal knowing

we are ever-being known

the mystic colors of God fill us

unseeable in this earthly realms obscured vision

they hold us there

where we don’t need to be understood

or understand anything

we are simply

all we could ever hope to be

we are the lover and the beloved

eternal love

eternally loved

complete

You in I

I in you

one

Kneel there in silence as long as you can

Then, when you feel that you cannot take the glory one more moment…

Hold yourself there in that place

for one more heartbeat…

❤️

Amy Lloyd

favorite places

Daises above and heart cloud in blue sky photos by me 😊

Is it

the season?

the sky?

the sea?

or simply new shades of blue

writing love poems across across sky?

💞

Amy Lloyd

Why does this written doe bound through these written woods?

—Wisława Szymborska

My handwriting is all over these woods.

No, my handwriting is these woods,

each tree a half-print, half-cursive scrawl,

each loop a limb. My house is somewhere

here, & I have scribbled myself inside it.

What is home but a book we write, then

read again & again, each time dog-earing

different pages. In the morning I wake

in time to pencil the sun high. How

fragile it is, the world—I almost wrote

the word but caught myself. Either one

could be erased. In these written woods,

branches smudge around me whenever

I take a deep breath. Still, written fawns

lie in the written sunlight that dapples

their backs. What is home but a passage

I’m writing & underlining every time I read it.

–

Written Deer by Maggie Smith

Robin O’Neal magical photos above @ Lindner Park

A few seconds before happiness

tore poems from my heart

it occurs to me

once again

that everything is grace

both sides of the gift are equal

that to fly free and ride the shining sunbeams

means trusting your pilot completely

even in the uneven spaces pushing against us

knowing my pilot opens my soul to sheer beauty

to rivers of adventure cutting through my grids of protection

through my grasping of thin shreds

through unnecessary issues of control

I am suddenly aware

the gates to the kingdom live right here

open when I step forward

in this confident level of knowing

in this bursting moment of joy

in this perfect snowflake of eternal beauty

created just to melt unseen by mortals

forever imprinted into this worlds history

just because

all because

in every which way

because of love

✈️

Amy Lloyd

just feel it

writing poems in the dark

the soul stills to wonder

the heart grows quiet in worship

I stand within this circle of amazing grace

the breeze grows cooler with every whispered word

in the distance grapevine tells its tangled stories

the last joyful crimson stripes of day

fade to bluest black of restful slumber

silently awaiting mornings cheerful coming

All I can do is feel

I am praying

🙏🏻

Amy Lloyd

ee Cummings

advice to a student poet:

A poet is somebody who feels, and who expresses his feeling through words.

This may sound easy. It isn’t.

A lot of people think or believe or know they feel-but that’s thinking or believing or knowing; not feeling. And poetry is feeling-not knowing or believing or thinking.

Almost anybody can learn to think or believe or know, but not a single human being can be taught to feel. Why? Because whenever you think or you believe or you know, you’re a lot of other people: but the moment you feel, you’re nobody-but-yourself.

To be nobody-but-yourself-in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else-means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.

As for expressing nobody-but-yourself in words, that means working just a little harder than anybody who isn’t a poet can possibly imagine. Why? Because nothing is quite as easy as using words like somebody else. We all of us do exactly this nearly all of the time-and whenever we do it, we’re not poets.

If, at the end of your first ten or fifteen years of fighting and working and feeling, you find you’ve written one line of one poem, you’ll be very lucky indeed.

And so my advice to all young people who wish to become poets is: do something easy, like learning how to blow up the world-unless you’re not only willing, but glad, to feel and work and fight till you die.

Does this sound dismal? It isn’t.

It’s the most wonderful life on earth.

Or so I feel.