and so her soles bleed into soul

// image via pinterest //
one word-become-flesh has left her feeling broken in days most recent.

she is caught behind hedges of doubt, and fear, and the phraseology of but what if i'm not good enough? 

do you hear her, doubt? do you hear her, fear? do you hear her, what if's? 

she is fierce. she is woman. she is brave-heart, despite all her fears.

/ / / 

will you be sure to remind her of that when she has long since forgotten it to be true?

because she is beautiful and brave, despite it all.

/ / / 

so she begins to harness her fears - climbing the hedge wall, she brandishes the word brave-heart upon her fragile flesh.

but fear is still inside her. she's become impregnated with it.

so she begins to scream aloud with every waking contraction, every fear she knows she has yet to birth.

she knew this day would come, after she had come to know life's peace, life's embrace.

/ / / 

fear has found her.
fear will try and break her, choke her, shove her down.
and the earth shakes with her labored cries. 
fear. it stills her . . .

but these lowly fears will make her more than free; more than a conqueror in the end.

for she is trudging into uncertain terrain, her newly branded feminine skin her only map.

/ / / 

she holds power over step after step after step, though she will ask you for permission still. 

and so she walks on, conviction seared into her flesh, through hedge paths and intense labor pains.

/ / / 

can you hear her quickened footsteps now?

for she is pounding the earth beneath her feet with the utmost determination.

/ / / 

do you hear her brave-heart cry, with all its lungy, rigid, thrumming aliveness?

bravery becomes her compulsion, her story birthed, written in the dust laden paths of wildly uncharted steps, and fears made flesh.

and so her soles bleed into soul.

/ / /

she is brave-heart.
she is one made free.
she is on the move.

fear.  must.  flee.

and so she casts her doubts aside, and walks further up and further in.

finding holy in dirt and basil and sloppy word tripping

photo via Pinterest

"heaven knows we need never be ashamed of our tears, for they are rain upon the blinding dust of earth, overlying our hard hearts. i was better after i had cried than before -- more sorry, more aware of my own ingratitude, more gentle."
  charles dickens // great expectations


i believe that sometimes you just need to give yourself the permission to cry your guts out. today was this sort of day. the cry over everything from looking at art pieces, to listening to your wedding music and reminiscing, to klutzyness gone awry in the kitchen kind of day.

yes, today i have cried over everything. and you should know that i hate crying. 

it makes me feel less put together or less than, or, well, pathetic in a sense really. that is, until i cry and release and remember that whatever magic therein lies within those tiny salty spheres actually does free my heart and make me feel whole again.

the release heals. embracing the gift of imperfect moments heals you, if you'll let it happen organically.

i hate crying because it makes me feel silly. but then there is that specific sort of tear-action that shows up through frustrated laughter, and it heals. i don't know why it does, so please don't ask me.

today i was doing dishes and knocked a dish towel into my spice jar rack, which then made the basil jar fly off of the rack. the basil jar spiraled in mid air until it took on its last spin and landed with a must-be-broken whack on my lovely white floor. there was dirt-spewn white flooring and herbish leafy green flakes splayed about and my frustration spread all over. 

i then decided that i could either get angry about the basil that i had just flung all across my kitchen floor, or i could just as easily laugh through tears and find some sacred holy prayer-talk time with the Eternal One while i cleaned the mess of herbs and the mess of me up simultaneously. 

and so that is what i did. i started cleaning; sweeping and weeping. i started praying. i re-started that friendship talk with God all over again. i started laughing through the tears. i gave myself permission to find the sacred and holy in the little things - even in the frustration and accidents and all. i found grace too.

it's the little things, like a plethora of dirt on your floors and escaped basil and sloppy word tripping over your own sincere whits-end-prayers that heal.

let yourself heal today, by clinging to the hem of the only one who can truly heal your resistant heart. it's a brave-heart release, i promise you.