life: acoustic & amplified

nights can be long

when I ride the nights ragged hours like wild stallion

when my loneliness rages with ruthless, restless, too warm turning

when heaven is that smudge of light seen beside the farthest star

when sleep is torn from my thirsty grasp

and I am left without an inch of satisfaction from the feathers beneath my head

when I open my eyes to the same shade of black I see with them tightly closed

then I embrace the disappearance of my desire to conform

my self is borderless at 3 am

my pretensions dissolve into the inky night sky

I surrender to my deepest held grief

as well as to my highest, broadest hope

as I swim to the other end of the bed

to cooler pastures

I visit the sheep

living down there among the stuff

I listen as they recite the 23rd Psalm

to reassure me as I nervously enter that strange world

I hear all the mid-night sounds from this new dimension

as my mind takes on the shape of new perspective

alert to this unusual adventure

I cry a little

laugh a little

think about the glory of love

the world turns on its axis

I breath free

I fly home

💞

Amy Lloyd

https://youtu.be/O3VPs9b_HZE

follow me

there is terrible beauty in every human heart

tell me a story that will live with me forever

love always shares

grace always wins

you can’t miss if you show up

just pay attention…

the message is always revealed at the appointed intersection

there is always more to be revealed

surrender brings me to the right miracle

at the right time the playlist repeats the best song

crazy love

flows into mystic waters

deep calling to deep

honor chooses to say yes

only to the best invitations

making the call brings me the messages I need to build the new bridge forward

there is always more than enough to share

buckets of gratitude fill and overflow

removing scales from blurry, tearful, kaleidoscope eyes

as perfect peace falls into its rightful place within

color shards blooming into new masterpieces of never before seen glory

diamonds dance on the water

flaming beauty evolves, drives me to my knees,

shedding shoes, and fear,

as I connect in prayer

holy ground beneath my naked feet

I lift my face to the sun

and free soar into the blue sky

full wing, open soul,

right along with the gulls,

who always fly in trust, never a shadow of doubt, that they are loved to the end of the universe

right here, and in every tick of time,

in, and in between, every click of the second hand,

around the bend of eternity and back again

💫

Amy Lloyd

Fī-er

i am the fire on the mountain

i am the fire by the sea

i am the fire in the forest

burning down every tree

i am the fire in the desert

i am the fire in the snow

i am the fire that will warm you

when your bones have grown cold

i am the fire for your shelter

i am the fire for your bread

i am the fire for your hunger

whenever you go to bed

i am the fire on the water

i am the fire that is near

i am the fire burning your words

consuming your doubt and your fear

i am the fire of your longing

i am the fire of your soul

i am the fire of your loving

i will never grow cold

i am the fire for your winter

i am the fire for your spring

i am the fire of your living

loving and passion i bring

i am the fire of destruction

i am the fire where you die

i am the fire of your Phoenix

as you rise, as you soar, to the sky

🐉

Amy Lloyd

Open the passage,

lay down the struggle

and lean into Beauty

Allow

the tangles to

unweave

their weary dance

and

fall to ground

Breathe

the sweet

fragrance of

rose oil

rooting

you

back to Love

Let Her have her way with you….

~ Flora Aube

new days dawning

I am showered with ideas;

how to make things happen,

how to hustle like a boss,

how to get free dinners,

free rides,

set everything on its side,

couch-surf,

a crash course on wits survival.

this tide of advice pours in,

overwhelms me.

it is not my practice

to have plans in my head.

I walk in simple faith,

expecting to receive as I go,

everything that is supposed to come

will come easily,

naturally.

I stand,

with a few figurative stones and slingshot,

following the message of the silence,

and the herons.

I trust my gut.

I am not very afraid,

more curious than anything.

I consider this a test at the outset,

I am letting go of things not meant to be,

I cannot hold what is not mine,

I accept it, tho it is always brutally hard for me.

Then something real happens,

in the midnight hours,

sheltered in uncomfortable airport corners

(as someone recently said,

comfort is such a relevant position),

conversations with all those players,

called into this adventure

with me.

a great shift,

a wondrous revelation,

a gentle birthing.

This is not the great test,

this is the most exquisite gift!

This is a bountiful and beautiful enrichment!

a going on into new green pastures!

an entrance into the grand arena,

glimpses of me at work,

my glorious future,

begun, yet not fully bloomed,

early stages,

developing as I go.

The ram in the bush is revealed,

glimpses of my own heart song.

It is enough.

I return to wait for what is next.

I’m not sure of anything… except…

in three intense days,

of three, even more intense, weeks,

with this, my most recent resurrection

new things within my inner landscape

have been revealed once again,

I fly toward a new dawn forever changed

💞

Amy Lloyd

listen

“…If you want to be intimate

You have to listen

If you want to listen

You have to let go

If you want to let go

You have to trust

If you want to trust

You have to be intimate

If you want to be intimate…”

( ~ Maya Luna)

I used to wait for a sign, she said, before I did anything. Then one night I had a dream & an angel in black tights came to me & said, you can start any time now, & then I asked is this a sign? & the angel started laughing & I woke up. Now, I think the whole world is filled with signs, but if there’s no laughter, I know they’re not for me.

Waiting for Signs – Story of the Day – Story People

Prints here: https://shop.storypeople.com/products/waiting-for-signs-prints

a little zine of encouragement

A field has to be broken open before it can grow anything.

– Ann Voskamp

wearing pain so close to the skin

brutally displayed on arms, legs and necks

topical grief, as yet unprocessed

waiting patiently to be subsumed within a shattered heart

carrying an unknown feeling

can be so hard to understand

tears drown our morning

watering flowered pillowcases each night

tides carrying us here and there

life blooms upside down

inside out

torn from headlines

of familial disasters

wait in hope, my friend

all is not lost

the windmills of the gods are grinding away

ever so slowly

yet the hourglass will never stop running

the fine sands of Father Time continue

the winds will change direction

you will smile again

and live to share your truest love another day

the promise is always

Yes and Amen

the sun is just beginning to shine through the clouds

we will run, laugh and jump in puddles

together

before this day is through

🌞

Amy Lloyd

easy questions for Sunday Morning coffee time

What falls out of me naturally?

What kind of woman lives at my core?

What music arrives with me as I enter a room?

What is the highest desire I want most?

What am I willing to do to get what I want?

What makes me feel delicious?

What particular things spark my joy switch?

What do my hands itch to touch, feel, carry forward?

What music jazzes me, dazzles me, rattles me, discovers me, uncovers me?

What joy drives me, stops me in my tracks, floods me, starves me into leave my comfort zone?

What is my greatest desire?

My ecstatic pleasure?

My most sensual movement?

My highest form of worship?

💞

Amy Lloyd

Who

would decry

instruments—

when grasses

ever so fragile,

provide strings

stout enough for

insect moods

to glide up and down

in glissandos

of toes along wires

or finger-tips on zithers—

though

the mere sounds

be theirs, not ours—

theirs, not ours,

the first inspiration—

discord

without resolution—

who

would cry

being loved,

when even such tinkling

comes of the loving?

💞

Grasses by Alfred Kreymborg

bring me joy…

We shall never have more time. We have, and have always had, all the time there is. No object is served in waiting until next week or even until tomorrow. Keep going day in and day out. Concentrate on something useful. Having decided to achieve a task, achieve it at all costs.

-Arnold Bennett

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

giving = receiving

receiving = giving

that to fly free and ride the shining sunbeams

means trusting yourself completely

even in the uneven spaces

the hard edges pushing against us

knowing my own face allows me to forget

opens my soul to sheer beauty

I find myself on 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

everything opens when I step forward

into this confident choice of knowing

into this very bursting moment of joy

into this perfect snowflake of eternal beauty

created just to melt

unseen by mere mortals

yet and still forever imprinted into this worlds history

just because

all because

in every which way because

simply because of love

✈️

Amy Lloyd

When you were poor

you did not sprawl among poppies

on the banks of the stream

singing, “I am rich! I am rich!”

No, friend, you did some work.

And now that you are on fire

with thirst for the Beloved,

do you fall on your pillow

like a bee into the rose, mumbling,

“I drown in the nectar of love”?

No, friend, you work.

You become this fire,

the thirst itself,

and do the deeper work

of begging!

– Fred LaMotte

“In the end I am not interested in that which I fully understand,

the words I have written over the years, are just a veneer.

There are truths that lie beneath the surface of the words,

truths that rise up without warning, like the

humps of a sea-monster, and then dissapear.

What performance in song is to me,

is finding a way to tempt the monster to the surface.

To create a space where the creature can break through what

is real and known to us.

This shimmering space, where imagination and reality intersect.

This is where all love, and tears, and joy exist.

This is the place, this is where we live.”

-Nick Cave – 20,000 Days on Earth

know thyself

Our “I”s.

They are multiple.

We shuffle them

often as we like.

They can tag us.

We can untag ourselves.

We’ve got our

to-be-looked-at-ness

oh we have

got it.

We peer and cross.

Go lazy.

We’re all girly.

We’re pretty selfie.

We write our poems.

We write our manifestos.

While sitting in the photo booth.

While skipping down the street.

We think: if only my camera

could see me now.

There is a tranquil lyric

but we recollect emotion

with the speed of the feed.

We pose to show

the spontaneous overflow

of powerful feelings.

There are no more countrysides.

There are no more churchyards.

We smudge our vistas.

We flip the cam around.

What is burning in our little hearts?

Hashtags of interiority

licking like flames.

We had been reflective.

We have been reflected.

📷

Manifesto of the Lyric Selfie by Becca Klaver

Remind me again—together we

trace our strange journey, find

each other, come on laughing.

Some time we’ll cross where life

ends. We’ll both look back

as far as forever, that first day.

I’ll touch you—a new world then.

Stars will move a different way.

We’ll both end. We’ll both begin.

Remind me again.

😘

William Stafford, from Stories That Could Be True

“…You can trust the promise of this opening;

Unfurl yourself into the grace of beginning

That is at one with your life’s desire.

Hold nothing back, learn to find ease in risk;

Soon your will be at home in a new rhythm,

For your soul senses the world that awaits you.”

🌎

-John O’Donohue

This morning sky hits me full in the eyes
scrapes its colors across my heart
removing the scabs of pain
filling me with the salves of glory and holy glow
beauty softens my crippled steps
my wrinkled brow unfurls
I relax into my own amazing skin
this face worn and lived in
like comfortable shoes
reflecting in the mirrored waters
silvered and serene
alive in this scene of splendor
this dream of my determined direction
blood and bones of my stubborn calling
purposed love heals this hurting world
the thrill which was gone
has returned from its lonely wandering
the darkened streets of this old towne
and greets me at my own front door
ready to accompany me on new adventures
there are things to do
people to meet with deliberate eye contact
moving beyond superficial language
intimate words to be spoken to souls connecting
conversations built in real time bliss
laughter is holy spirit’s medicine
pouring out as spoonful’s of honey
on throats sore and choked with words unspoken
flowing tears are made of God
salt releasing those squatting daemons
living large within our temples
structures built on unlimited grace amazing
on a day like today anything could happen
this is the day which will answer all my longings
this is the day where everything begins and ends
this is the day I’ve patiently waited to inhabit
this is the day I’ve learned to give thanks for…
just as it comes
for better and for worse
for all there is and could ever be
the dazzle of light
the shadow of darkness
romance contained within every divine comedy/tragedy
notes making sense only within the grand symphony
rising and falling as our epic stories continue on
music is everything….everything is music
“break a leg”
[play on]

❤

Amy

soften in

One’s destination is never a place, but always a new way of seeing things.

— Henry Miller

Who sits with the knowing that God’s belief in you is even stronger than yours in Him?

Nothing capsized, except my composure

running full tilt towards my future

with my heart on my sleeve

the sizzling summer sun setting

on my illusions of control

I trip and fall into my own shattered illusions

I wander crowded hallways

singing a few hallelujahs

‘I could have been a contender’ (Brando voice)

long lostness slaps me in the face

(It is what it is added to each line of the 23rd Psalm)

hot, wet swamp water

quicksands my day

I go down without any blazing guns

there is no glory in my aura

I have found the hard edge of my least comfortable zone

sitting on a sore spot

with nowhere to go

After this day is done

I gratefully find my polka dot sheets

even in this place out of the mainstream

mania rules these days and nights

I embrace the whole shebang

tho some days it’s a struggle to remember my name

much less yours

tomorrow comes early with everything I need

God always patiently waiting to kiss my freckled nose

softening my heart with murmurs of love

and tells me everything is going to be alright

😘

Amy Lloyd