life: acoustic & amplified

carry on

cut to the chase my friend

God dances us

woos us until we can’t help falling

head over heels

leave the past behind

step into a fresh page

the flow of spirits connecting hearts will heal our wounds

boil it down to the clearest truth

what does it cost to live our highest life?

distilled wisdom imparted with every word we share

simplicity (distilled beauty),

kindness (distilled love)

and authenticity (distilled truth)

are earths highest spiritual achievements

give me passion for these three gifts of grace

the light always shines out of darkness

stars are not visible in the day skies

candles never staying hidden by the multitude of bushels

the wildfire burns away the dry grasses

a fine sprinkle of salt goes a long way to the discerning tastebud

laying on of hands warms the whole circle like a cashmere sweater

we are given choices (free will)

what we choose brings us heaven or hell

don’t base your longterm goals on short-term goods

always keep in mind what you want most

think about what you are tolerating once in a while

look in the mirror to see God’s reflection

staple it to your forehead

take it with you to staple it to the foreheads of everyone you meet

carry on now

carry on

💞

Amy Lloyd

gently does it

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

You are turned wraith. Your supple, flitting hands,

As formless as the night wind’s moan,

Beckon across the years, and your heart’s pain

Fades surely as a stainèd stone.

And yet you will not let me rest, crying

And calling down the night to me

A thing that when your body moved and glowed,

Living, you could not make me see.

Lean down your homely, mist-encircled head

Close, close above my human ear,

And tell me what of pain among the dead—

Tell me, and I will try to hear.

💞

To Jake by Eunice Tietjens

Some days I am not sure if my faith is riddled with doubt, or whether, graciously, my doubt is riddled with faith. And yet, I continue to live in a world the way a religious person lives in the world. I keep living in a world that I know to be enchanted and not left alone. I doubt, I am uncertain, I am restless, prone to wander. And yet glimmers of holy keep interrupting my gaze.

❤️

Lauren Winner, Still

You’ll learn, as you get older, that rules are made to be broken. Be bold enough to live life on your terms, and never, ever apologize for it. Go against the grain, refuse to conform, take the road less traveled instead of the well-beaten path. Laugh in the face of adversity, and leap before you look. Dance as though EVERYBODY is watching. March to the beat of your own drummer. And stubbornly refuse to fit in.

— Mandy Hale

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