Colors

In truth, I don't fit a mold; I don't seek social status or position to delineate my sense of worth or to confirm some kind of superficial hierarchy. And yes, while I would very much like to never have to worry about whether I can provide a roof over our heads, clothes for the family, or fear of being unable to satisfy impending bills, I still - even now, and every day - define us as blessed.

In truth, my heart beats to a different drum. In truth, I am alive in thoughts, conversation, discussion, perspicacity. I am alive in the tiniest miracles that happen every single day. I am alive in the people whom I meet in a grocery store line, in those I observe at work, in everyday errands, in the dearest friends who "get" my crazy heart.

I want meaning. And I crave it and demand it in every absolute expression of value and significance. I want to understand it, grasp it, champion it, and then become.

This is why I step outside to inhale the night sky, drenching myself in my endless obsession with the limitless universe and the rise of the moon. This is why I can't help myself but to breathe in the elixir of the stars and call them mine.

This is when I feel the power of "I am" the most.

For, I am.

I am is a theme song, and we all have been called to our own...

This is what I'm talking about: when our souls meet the clouds and vaporize into mist, rise with the stars, and then exceed their midst. Because the love of the Lord and His creations will overwhelm our senses and confirm inherent truths of worthiness, paths, miracles, and direction.

This is where my spirit dwells; this is where it floats. This is where the exuberance of childish laughter and the sweetness of anticipation for the smallest things, bubbles up and out from my chest in gusts of joy. This is why I am mesmerized by the seemingly mundane: my husband making dinner - his never-ending jokes, the echoes of laughter responding to such quips, and our daughter home for Christmas from college. Oh, to be together in the warmth of family! <

Yes, I could look around me to see all that is broken, weathered, undone. Yes, I harbor human wants that sometimes nag at my senses or want to argue with comparison; but I can't give them energy or allowance because I am so filled with the sweet miracles that happen every single day for us. And it is in these that I know the Lord is mindful and generous, without fault, and very much vested in timing and intention. It is in these that I am witness to His unerring love for all of His children and why I am filled, spent, euphoric.

While parts of me wonder if just being delighted with the smallest things might not just be a defense mechanism in disbelieving we could be worthy of larger things, I leave that to the purity of mindfulness and the willingness to discover, uncover, and be amenable to the excitement of future and healing. Whatever that looks like.

In the mean time, however, I am still, thankful, quiet, and content. Indeed, I feel the timing and details of all things...

This, fulfills my everything.

- Living Joy - This Carman Girl

Credit: My "On This Day" post, December 18, 2017.

Just My Soul, Spinning Snippets of a Story...

(Robert Louis Stevenson Trail, Mt. St. Helena, Sept. 2012)

Twas simply the gnome, peeking out from the dark crevice of a mossy rock, who had caused the comical ruckus in its entirety. Certainly the poor, unfortunate belching frog had come along at the most opportune moment and should be awarded his due for participation in the scheme, but the master plan was the gnome's alone and the results had been priceless. That would teach those silly humans for a while. His laughter echoed on, still disguised by the residual effect of so high-pitched a shriek, it made him fall into yet another bout of humorous aside.

Even so, he could never understand the brain within such professedly intellectual, self-assured creatures. Every day, it was one fool or another, slinging a backpack in silly shoes made precisely for "hiking." Hiking?! A recreational venture he understood to be a form of weekend diversion generally done simply for the lauding of it later to their own communities. Again, his shoulders threatened to convulse as he thought of how Clif bars, water bottles, and the buffoonery of their posture, all took a turn in the air from the rollicking results of his little ditty.

Did the humans really dare to think that they could traipse through his terrain without some kind of set-down for the allowance of their often irritating trespass? With just a hint of residual mirth, he shoved off from the cold stone, one more simple bounce from his shoulders and a self-satisfied smile teasing the ends of his whiskers.

Truth be told, Master Gnome Kittayous Disastrous (as he was known in those parts) would have done much more but for the distraction of two tiny faeries, tittering in delight across the dense foliage, ready to rout him out in an equally mischievous game. He retreated farther on a sigh... still remembering the singular sounds of the men, their clumsy footprints squashing perfectly beautiful leaves into the dense, rich, damp and earthy soil.

He should have deserved a moment or two of more fun. Those seemingly pesky, but often more delightful girly things, with iridescent sparkling wings and high-arched brows, always wanted to compete. But for them, he would have done more; still, his eyes glittered with appreciation and admiration for their tactics, noting even further that all was fair within the ancient rules of this mountain home.

With that, the gnome melted into the darkness, the whisper of his felt boots sliding into the deep, his ever-impish presence simply nothing more than the mirage of the sun, glinting off the damp and dewy lichen that grew upon towering conifers and fallen logs alike...

- Living Joy - This Carman Girl <3

Note: This girl might blog about joy, or spew thoughts from a soapbox of opinion, but her childish imagination is still alive and well. I credit my mom, Elen McConnell Wright, for any, and every, foray into imagination. During the years we were home-schooled (in my youth), each morning, my mother would leaf through a book of paintings, pick one, discuss the artist, and then ask us to write an essay or story surrounding the piece. It's because of this that my eyes soak up the scenery, and my heart beats so surely with what it is to seek, know, and enjoy -- More. <3Smiles...

Seminary

While credentials can be integral to job preparation, applicable education, however, is the vital means by which we explore theory and reason, relevancy, artistic reconnaissance, intellectual acumen, psychological conditioning, refractory questions, and the accumulation of said summations that would substantiate the innate gifts we each possess.

When education is sought only as a means to an end, it ceases to yield value; for those who seek its letters as merely a mark of recognition on an otherwise meritless resume, such fool themselves, gravely discounting the pursuit of excellence and mindful intelligence, in favor of abysmal ignorance, printed upon the disenfranchised despondency of an often argued, dissected, and comparison-driven paycheck.

Ergo: greed. Yield: artificial need. Epilogue: certain depression.

While universities should be respected and lauded as foundations of formal achievement, it is only through a mindset that would voraciously seek the continuation of learning - as if through a child's eyes (with curiosity and an insatiable need that could never be harnessed, bridled, nor confined) - that such could ever successfully contend against the propagation of incumbent rhetoric or disingenuous dogma.

Knowledge is an infinite quest, granting each of its students an unerring library of thought and consideration, experience, and idealism -- yes, a vast and veritable prolific garden of intractable truth.

True education not only encourages singular thought and the allowance for the possibility of untried consequence, but it also relishes and supports any and all of the above as a significance that would and could contribute a mark upon this world.

In layman's terms: I suspect that one could learn a vastness of wisdom and knowledge by simply interviewing one of our elderly, truly receiving their life's actualization over and above any kind of prideful mark embossed upon shiny letterhead.

Let that sink in.

Drenched in humility.

For while there will always be one who solely seeks income, there will equally stand alone a spirit who is mindful, soul-filled, ponderous, and yet so incredibly floored by even the most humble inheritance.

In this world, we either have the choice to seek gain, or reap meaning to enjoy eternity.

Living Joy - This Carman Girl

Prognosis

I suppose this is a war cry of sorts: we are who we are, and it's not up to us to prove someone else's variant, mistaken perception of us - ever. 

When in every moment we are engaged in the truth of our own souls, it is enough; and so, to disregard the naysayers and climb ever onward! The only groups worthy of any notice, whatsoever, are those who are vested in uplifting (rather than sidelining) in the often socially acceptable mire of stasis, complaints, accusations, and mire.

I SAY: Put on your running shoes, and drink in PURE OXYGEN.

GRINS. I DO. Oh, it's Glorious. Own your truth.

Living Joy - This Carman Girl

Petals

My soul is filled, joyful, thankful. I cannot help but feel the power there is to be found in personal choice, thought, accountability -- in gratitude for the smallest things, and how the shift from comparison to compassion, broadens the scope from a simplicity of merely being, into a conscious realm of active living. 

This is why my spirit springs from my heart, loud with joy, and perhaps overly expressive. It's in interaction, service, and the privilege it is to have loved and learned, wept and laughed, found myself in the midst of heartache, and yet risen to the other side in perfect appreciation for what was then, and is so miraculously now.

Regardless of circumstance.

In defiance of darkness.

In a pool of light and truth that separates all that might whisper doubt or fear as not turbulence to consider, but reminders of what diligently sustains foundations of grounded well-being.

To stubbornly decide upon hope, day after day -- every thought, every moment. Every time.

It's invitation to rise up to embrace the unknown -- through any and every heavy storm, searing heat, frozen landscape, or parched earth. To accept such with an openness of heart and a willingness that would seek meaning from the gradient shades of perspective gained through inclement weather.

It's to disallow pride to yield to humility; to give, to receive, to love, to honor, to forgive, to confide, to cherish.

It's delicate rosebuds polished with diamond droplets, waiting patiently for their moment to blossom -- neither anxious for the morrow, nor envious of other lovelies basking in their own crowning beauty. These never think to fear the inevitable peak when petals will fall, and they must meekly relinquish cloak and gown, until the next time.

It's the shining testimony of God's resplendent earth -- semblant metaphors bearing fruit, cheerfully confident in exercising truth and ownership, cognitive of timing and living their glory, wise to the present, and yet willing to bend to the ebb and flow of birth and growth, life-cycle and change.

It's to soak up the rain, and to live in laughter.

Living Joy - This Carman Girl

Fall Leaves

Sometimes, the wind serves as a reminder that there's opposition in all things. And that's not only okay -- but, paramount. Truth cannot be conjugated and/or absorbed until such a time that it presents itself without mercy as to its notice. While parodies or excuses of truth might proliferate and abide, honest truth - above guile or mal-intent -- remain. Period.

For truth, of itself, is unchangeable: not for the season, condition, perception, history, emotion, etc.

No, truth exists of its own accord; and, as I've blogged before, wisdom is its advocate. To embrace its gifts and receive such bounty is to release enclaves of blame in favor of perspective and harmony.

Offerings.

Living Joy - This Carman Girl 

<3

Stillness

To serve is mindful, humbling, and yet renewing. We may not be able to change the world, but to make someone's day might change theirs. Either way, we are forever changed in the process. 

Living Joy - This Carman Girl

Silhouette

Women who own their authenticity, and fully grasp the inherent divinity of their individual creation, are those who shun gossip and decry demeaning behavior. These are the powerful women, the soft-spoken women, the influential; these are women who are not fueled by popularity, but by grace. They return light and easy smiles in meekness and kinship instead of floundering in backbiting, negativity, or scorn.

So, let us all rise up into such truth; for when we've owned ourselves, then there's nothing to prove, but everything to support and love.

To stand in strength, solidarity, ownership, and renewal.

This is to command life. #UnapologeticallyLivingLarge #InspireOthers#FuelGrowth #SingIt #RebelChoir

Living Joy - This Carman Girl