Sunday, June 7th, 2009

One day, if you haven’t already, you are going to discover that you are beautiful.

Very, very beautiful.

And I pray, that on that day, you will be granted by the loving universe a great deal of courage, and grace…because it takes that to know your own beauty…and to walk through this world, discovering it over and over again.  Because after you know, it always comes back to you.  Even after the darkest night, or sometimes within it, when you feel your very ugliest, your beauty will begin to shine through and burn away all the heavy fabrics that obstruct it…like the sun.  When you have seen the sun, you can never deny its existence again…no matter how dark things look.  Even the darkness speaks only of light.

But this isn’t the beauty, however special, that we one day stumble upon in the mirror, or see a flash of through someone else’s eyes.  These too are gifts beyond measure…but the beauty I am speaking of is a soul beauty that arrests you in a moment deep within, and unexpected.  A soul beauty that crushes forever everything you thought you knew, and leaves you breathless.  A beauty that will make you marvel forever in the secret shock of its revelation.

I wish you courage because as soon as the ecstasy overcomes you, there may follow a tidal wave of shame.  You will want to cover everything you saw inside you, and deny its existence even to yourself.  But you won’t be able to.  Not ultimately.  It will coerce you and seduce you with its truth and realness until there are no protests left.  You will realize you are naked in the light, and clothes will never be the same…even if you put them on.

You might be appalled.  It is one thing to feel good about yourself but seems entirely another to become this beautiful creature that you have seen yourself to be.  And you know you will never be able to touch that beauty unless you open it to the world…and at first you may not know how…you may strive fruitlessly to find others who can meet you in that place, or vehicles to put it into art or words or to paint it onto scenes it doesn’t fit with…until finally…finally…it will spill out of cracks and find its way to the ocean.  And then your life will be one stream of creative endeavors and moments of connection as rare as gold, and your life a golden tribute to that preciousness.

And then your blossom, all of it…the seed, the straining sprout, the potential of the bud, the epic opening, and the complete surrender with petals falling away…all of it is beautiful, over and over again…

Hang on…I know the ride is rough sometimes, but you are going to see things soon you never thought you would see.  Dreams will be coming true that you’d forgotten you had even dreamt, long ago, in a reverie of lifetimes past…a moment of conclusion and sweet resolution is arriving on wings of the heart’s prayer.  And when it is calm again you will see further than you ever have before, and eternity will roll through you like a long lost friend…and you will know it is speaking just to you.  And knowing your true beauty, you will let it in…

Love, Jennifer

Saturday, May 16th, 2009

I do admit that I am, for the most part, a social butterfly.  I love people.  I love talking to people, and listening to everything they have to say.  I love watching people, from cafes while I drink my coffee and write.  I love to engage with people, making peace with the constant risk it is to reach out, or to be vulnerable, or to try in vain to make a connection…no matter how many people are in the room.  It is worth that risk for me.

But I must also admit that spring fever has me.  Its got me wrapped around its little finger and I have found it is absolutely useless to resist.  And oh how she is inconsistent that goddess of spring who has her spell on me.  She rains and shines, and rains and shines…like me.  She makes a jumbled mess of me, and I have to believe it is a beautiful mess since I have so embraced its tide.

So sometimes I find myself running around like the blood rushing through my veins, and like everyone else I watch freneticly expressing the start of new life everywhere around and within them.  And then I fall, and my social graces fail, and I belong only in the garden, or behind comforting walls.  Winter isn’t quite done with me yet.  I belong only with what is animal, and human seems too foreign and I have somehow forgotten the language that works in that world.  I open my mouth and those who know me expect my usual babbling-brook expression, but nothing comes out.  Only a few petals fall, quietly, from my lips.

I always know when the inner world is calling.  It always calls, but sometimes it is so rich and so in need of my presence to start new and to thrive, that I must be compelled completely to its pages…to sit with its words, and then to forget them in the blank spaces where they are open to the sky…that I must be compelled to its forests, glowing with enchanted vines and mosses…full of secrets whispered only if I get very, very quiet.

Madness is a part of beauty and brilliance.  I think the quiet and the madness are found in the very same place, and both speak of the same things…they just take one another to decipher the meanings….the shelter and the pounding rain against your skin…the shell and the aching emergence to explore beyond it…the cave and the open rock beneath the blazing sun…

Now is the time to keep both near…the opportunities to shine and the places to restore your light.  Things will come this summer that absolutely blow your mind and heart wide open…things you never even imagined could occur for you in this life, and it is important to care lovingly for, and yet not to stifle, the beautifully exposed sprout that is growing in your glorious heart right now.  Just keep opening, and closing, at your own beautiful rhythm, and trust it…like a flower, or a jellyfish, a bird flying, or a sea anemone…you are becoming, with every breath.

Just keep breathing, and love your own beautiful movement.  When the fruits finally come, you will never have tasted anything like them…they will bring tears of joy to your Soul.

Love, Jennifer