Be Still And Know

It's amazing how much of the world we live in we miss when we live internally as we do.

I always feel the most at peace in nature.
I have this little chair outside that overlooks the garden in my backyard.. I look at squirrels collecting nuts, neighborhood cats taking naps in my canopy and bushes, I admire the little webs that spiders make in the trees, like canopies, a village, a community.

My ideal place of peace is somewhere, deep in the wilderness, like a peaceful redwood glen. Where I could soak in the sun and the coastal air, and read or write, or just nap amongst the moss..

There is nothing quite as humbling as being somewhere where you feel small, enveloped......rare.

My dad used to drag me into nature a lot as a kid. Being a kid, I begrudgingly would go, wishing I was home with my barbies and nickelodeon, but my dad always had me outside.. whether it was mountain hiking, roller blading by the bay, mountain biking on christmas morning... (really happened, I have the scars to prove it)..

He always got me out into nature, and I think it was something I had to grow to appreciate. When I was 18 and moved to Northern California from San Diego I was somehow mesmerized by it. .. I began to have a love affair with it.

As a child I remember traveling to my grandmother's house.. She lived in a little town of about 1000 people in the North part of this grand state, and her environment was soo vastly different than the bustling city by the freeway I knew..

Every morning my grandmother was up before the dawn.. she would feed her many cats, pull weeds, do laundry, dust.. she was immaculate.. in every way.. and yet there was never anyone around to witness it. I assume she was a lot like me.. anxious in cluttered environments..

But it kind of feels like the effort was all in vain.
It was something to do however and anyway I digress..

The final thing she would do before she rested was feed the birds.

When I would wake up around 8 or 9 o clock, I would always find her sitting on her back patio.. She would have the newspaper, a cup of coffee and be rocking back and forth in her chair, usually with a cat in her lap and her dog at her feet...

I would join her and we would watch all the birds come down to eat the feed she had laid down on a mound in her back yard.. sometimes she would let me throw more seed down and we would just sit there.. watching them... counting the blue jays, and the ravens, and the mocking jays..

We would watch the cats crouch in  the grass and attempt to pounce a flock a of scurrying birds... and we would laugh and be at peace...

the only sound around us would be that of her wind chimes and the mellow hum of hummingbirds drinking nectar from her hanging feeder..

she fed the nature around her.. (literally) and it fed her soul... as it does mine..

One my stays with her I would go rock sliding, nature walking, tad pole collecting.. we would swim in the river, hike along creeks...

it was magical.

My grandmother died in 2007.. it will be 9 years next month.

She was one of my best friends, Not a day goes by I don't think about her.. She fed the whimsy of my childhood more than most people I have known...

after her passing.. I came straight into Jesus' arms.. I was brought to ultimate devastation, and in that moment, I found Him.. I can't explain how.. but I did..

My mother and father growing up were not spiritual/religious people by any means

I went to catholic church with my grandmother when I would visit her but I detested everything about it. The one thing I liked about it was the priest.. who ended up being a child molester...

I was sort of turned off from the "institutionalized" church after that..

When I was 15 my father married my stepmother; a lutheran..  as a way to "bond" I went to church with her on Sundays... It was alright I guess.. I more enjoyed the social aspect of sunday school and youth events however... and the BOYS.

after awhile.. it seemed the next step to take would be baptism...

so that's what I did.
I got baptized..

At one of the meetings with the pastor leading up the easter vigil service where I would be baptized I remember expressing doubts... this embarrassed my stepmother and I immediately took them back and went through with the baptism .. I remember my knees shaking... uncontrollably they shook as I was baptized in that fountain.. but after that I stepped away from the church.

Pretty soon all my moral fiber went out the window.. I fell into a deep depression in my late youth/early adulthood and I made less than great decisions... in the people I hung out with, I was promiscuous, got into drugs... the whole shebang..

my life was in a downward spiral... I didn't even recognize my own reflection anymore. I described myself as a "pile of makeup" roaming about the Earth. "Makeup" being the great facade that I was existing peacefully within myself.

I was in the deepest pit, and then she was GONE... and everything went blank for a moment.. when I opened my eyes and my mouths to speak... the words "I need Jesus" came to my tongue.

only my mind and body were not on page with this.. my spirit.. the HOLY SPIRIT took over.. and I was not my own anymore.. there is no other way of describing it.

there was no turning back..

Oh man I wish I could bottle it and give it to the world.. but I can't.. my Faith is something completely unexplainable.. and there is no way people could know who I was then and See who I am now, and not themselves somehow believe.

I remember being on the way to my grandmother's funeral and out of the blue my father says to me (choking back tears) that my grandmother had always said I had a lot of Faith...

I wondered in that moment how she could know... When I hadn't even known this about myself..

and I never did understand that until..

Early in adult life my dad took me and a boyfriend of mine for a hike up a mountain in Sequoia national park...
When we reached the peak and looked out there were nothing but clouds below us,..
The Sun was setting and the colors bounced off of other peaks that breached the blanket of cloud..
I looked out in wonderment at it all and I felt warm... and safe... and small..... my spirit was filled up and in that moment... I knew..

"Be Still, and KNOW.. that I am God"

He is Big, and we are small.
The planet around us is a gift, given to us from the divine, and He is a beautiful artist.

God talks to people in different ways, depending on how they will hear Him..

whether it's  a burning bush like Moses saw
or Nature, or Music, Art, other people.... (think Joan of Arcadia)

but in order to recognize Him, we must first open our hearts, open  our minds, open our spirits.. to soak alllll of it in..

and when you do..
it's glorious I tell you.

Glorious.



Be blessed friends. XOXO