A wish for Wednesday.......

There is a community of the spirit.
Join it, and feel the delight
of walking in the noisy street,
and being the noise. 
- Rumi  
Translated by Coleman Barks

upside down umbrellas

"upside down umbrellas,

let's catch the tears that fall, I tell ya.

I've never felt so right, though nothing's right at all.

don't close your eyes, cause we're about to fall

deeper in...  deeper into...

i love you."

UPSIDE DOWN UMBRELLAS  |  US & OUR DAUGHTERS.  (also on itunes HERE.)

We get busy and busier.  The circus swirls around us.  We sometimes forget to take the time for an afternoon date.  To embrace each other in conversation.  To build each other up with laughter.  To lose ourselves in a kiss.  To let the world disappear.  Make a promise to your beloved - to make time for being present.  And intimately interested in the love that you share.  To nurture your passions.  

Take an hour in the afternoon - and let go.  Gather the tears, and the hurdles, and the milestones - let them be woven into your story, to bind you together - deeper and deeper.  Be vibrantly in love.  Kiss like you mean it.  And watch the world disappear.

xoxo,

amanda + james

finding HOPE

"Hope is the thing with feathers, that perches in the soul, and sings the tune without the words, and never stops at all."

- EMILY DICKINSON

"You have escaped the cage.  Your wings are stretched out.  Now, fly."

-RUMI

For so long, I was praying for change.  I wanted to be somewhere else.  Be someONE else.  Instead, I kept finding feathers.  Everywhere.  I finally started picking them up.  It was just too obvious, after a while, that they were meant for me.  And my family.  They were everywhere we went.  Every session we photographed.  Every adventurous expedition we embarked on.  In the grass, up in the mountains, buried in the sand, and right at my feet.  Every time.  Before long, I had an entire collection.  Each one has a different story.  And they came just at the time when I needed them most.  There were more - but they were passed along, a reminder of HOPE, just as they had been for me.

As part of our intense search for SIMPLICITY last year, I began sorting and purging everything in our house - with a vengence.  The only things that remained were our treasures...  feathers, rocks, driftwood, dried flowers, photographs, and "husband-made" furniture.  Things that served no purpose - left first.  Things that reminded me of hurts, fears, and failures went next.  And just at those times when I was ready to give up - a feather would appear.

I never realized just how many there were - or how close I've kept it all.  A recent visitor who had never been to my home - helped me to see just what a miraculous answer to prayer I had been showered with, time after time after time.  I don't understand God's timing.  I don't understand why the learning and the growing and the moving forward have to be so very painful.  But I am thankful for the newfound capacity to do the work.  To train and prepare - for something new.  Something worth hoping for.

For here in this house - there are blessings abounding...

May your paths be showered with feathers this weekend.

xo,

amanda