returnings
words that have held, and hold, still.
these words of mine that I find myself returning to, time and time again.
— And so I am. Wide and expansive. Moving through rhythm with the quickening of the wind. (in every lifetime, make me a woman)
— Devotion as in, the source is me. It has always been, because of Who dwells within me. (the site of my origin)
— Life is not happening to me, it is happening in collaboration with me. What I think, what I speak, what I believe all informs the way that life unfolds for and around me. (offering plate 005)
— Here, in this dwelling place of my being, I am but a vessel carrying movement, carrying history, carrying preludes, carrying entries, carrying exits, carrying questions, carrying answers, carrying restraint, carrying surrender, carrying contradictions, carrying harmony — all while concurrently willing these things into existence/breath/being. (for as long as I can remember myself)
— I am at the feet of my own mercy, here. I must be gentle in the spaces. In the pause. In the limbo. As a preservation of my yearning. (a reckoning)
— So place me into the rhythm of life, and dare I dance, dare I cry, dare I laugh, dare I bleed. Dare I feel the very texture of being. (offering plate 005)
— Language is an ecosystem. It can be where the light enters or where it leaves us. (all my language)
— It is almost as if I will never stop being lost, quite just the same as if I will never stop being found. (offering plate 002)
— All this life I got left inside of me, just waiting for me to exhale. All this prayer dancing on my tongue, just waiting for me to believe in the force of my amen. (with a heavy heart, but a beating one)
— For it is not what breaks us, but it is how we find ourselves on the other side of chiseled bone, how we dislodge what aches, carry it to the river, set it all free. (offering plate 003)
— We ought to be concerned enough to bear witness to each other. (the dissonance)
— One day I look back and realize that I made it to the other side of my prayers. I continue praying, continue making it through. (in case you need a reminder to live)
— I am a woman woven into the intricate details of life, love, and laughter. Of grief, ache, and sorrow. (everywhere I go, there I am)
— And yet — i have always been in need of me. (through the ashes, into amens)
— In all of these languages, I am mine. Mine to nurture. Mine to witness. Mine to bear. I must tend to the magnitude of me. (a reckoning)
— Mourning is not the absence of morning. My ability to experience genuine joy deepens the more I tend to my grief. In fact, it depends on it. (knowings)
— Life yearns for me in the same way that I yearn for it. Longs to give me that for which I am hopeful, that for which my soul craves. It yearns to fill the ache, tender the bruise, extend to me more than what I’ve acquired for mere survival. (life yearns for me)
— I disarm the wars by dancing through them. Praying through them. By screaming down the walls of Jericho in my name. (water through warfare)
— I’ve witnessed how love can be wider than that. I think we all crave to belong to each other. To accompany and carry each other through the revolutions of life. (there is nothing new under the sun)
— Soft, yet my soul is fire. Delicate, but I carry a blaze. (fire and water, wind and rage)
— I am scripture, in breath and in bone. My wounds and scars and heart are annotations of the life I have lived, of the ways I have loved, of the wars I have waged. (the remembrance of me)
— I will move between the cities and countries of these wounds with my words and with my heart. Remaining human, remaining tender, through it all. (from the wound)
— I have no doubt that we are supposed to be tender — fragile, even. It is what is required of us. To be deeply human, we must break, sometimes down to the bone. And it is there, in the marrow, that life tends to unveil the purpose that lies beneath the ache, the chaos, the yearning. (to be and remain tender)
— And you just keep on being your own body of water, your own river, your own flood, your own type of steady. (you ain’t supposed to be doing all that holding)
— Stop all that carrying on, meaning let it end with you. Let your wrath bring it to shambles. (stop all that carrying on)