Tag: journey

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life

Ode to my thirties

Being embraced by the first day of fall, 2023. Andonnia backed by the blue skies and green trees.

Many times reflections start with alllll of the negatives… BUT THIS AINT 35 MM FILM… so… BLESSINGS from my thirties!

There were trips. I didn’t take many trips as a youth unless it was a school conference. Shout out to that trip to NYC in seventh grade with our intercity choir! So… my thirties held visits to friends in other cities and states. It also included some passport stamps, discovering some cool places, taking stunning hobbyist photos, and enlarging my mind.

Here is the beautiful thing about the mind, don’t read brain because they are related but not the same, once it expands…it expands. The new knowledge becomes a part of your knowing and of you! Come on. That’s exciting. (The hard part is recalling the knowledge when you want to… whew ::insert a great big exhale here::).

So the three most powerful parts of my latest decade is: The POWER of GOD in my life, people, and expansion.

If I was to string together the pieces of my testimony that steamrolled my thirties we’d have to also develop those negatives, but KNOW that I know Him. I have seen Him Move for myself. I have felt His embrace. I have prayed and He has answered. Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God (Romans 10:17)… and the more you hear and study the Word, the more of God you learn. You lean into that new knowledge and in turn… activate more trust that the Bible is truth.

People. I know and have met some pretty awesome people. What I love is when I meet someone and God whispers to me that they are a gift! I’ve met musicians, politicians, artists, preachers & pastors, but the most impactful are my friends! I’m grateful for the people God’s sown into my life like seeds that bloom in DUE season.

Finally, the expansion. Mind expansion. Faith expansion. Creative expansion. Expansion of self. Knowledge expansion. Lesson expansion. I’m grateful for it.

I’ve begun to really settle into my house. I’ve been in it over a decade…but slowly I’m making changes that reflect my current pallet. My tastes are being refined. It’s the same with my life. Boundaries aren’t prisons, they are protection. The same way expansion pours in newness, it recognizes what must be pruned away or restricted. That requires a healthy perspective. Will you allow yourself to expand into your current season and assignment?

My thirties were a lot, but not perpetually bad. I am grateful for it.

Hello forties. Bring some hydration, sunshine, sweet memories, and expansion ok?

IVY OUT

Categories
life

Real Attraction

This is a lesson that I have learned about attraction based on people I have never physically met. Well I met some, but much later than the original connection. Why do I point that out, because I don’t need anyone trying to figure out if I am talking about people who are currently in my life or those who populate my past. While this applies to them as well, I really do mean people that I have gotten to know prior to meeting in person. I am grateful for it too.

For me, the initial look is going to give you some data. Is this person aesthetically pleasing TO ME, yes or no. If the answer is yes, it encourages me to want to know more about that person. In the beginning it’s very surface and shallow as far as the ocean analogy goes. What does their voice sound like, how their day is going, their likes/dislikes. But then, the tug for attraction moves into who the person is on the inside. The more I know the more the attraction is validated or not supported. What do I mean by that… when we first find ourselves attached to someone, we tend to gloss over little things. Sometimes those little things end up mattering more than we initially gave it credit for. If a person is aesthetically pleasing on the outside and rotten internally, I want a refund for the time I spent viewing the outside. I am being silly, but I am 100% serious. The physical attraction could also be invalidated by misalignment. That person can be phenomenal and still be ill matched for me. This is a concept I wish people would gravitate to more. Quit casting people into categories because they aren’t a good fit for you. Realistically most people shouldn’t be… You don’t need a million, you need your person.

Social media has granted access in a way that was foreign before. People are able to reveal or create whatever version of themselves that they want to be shown/seen. Here’s the rub, so can we. What then becomes difficult, or a daunting task, is sifting and sorting the sugar from the salt. Your eyes can’t do that. You have to experience each grain in order to sort them. Hence, experiencing more of the WHO and not the packaging. The advances of the day make the exterior a variable. That inside though, that requires a different kind of work to change. Some people don’t even think there is a need to change. THAT is what validates the attraction, the stuff on the inside.

The Taj Mahal is BEAUTIFUL. It’s also a giant tomb. Look at people. Really see them. See yourself. Know what you know. Investigate and search until you sort salt from sugar for self. Weigh your attraction by that.

IVY OUT

Categories
life

Saying goodbye to this year…

I say goodbye to this year with a stoic reverence. Minding my perspective, much like the rain washing through Houston today, 2020 exposed a lot that needed care. Racial wounds in this country have been festering since it’s birth. America was once home to Indigenous people who both respected the land and humanity and two groups of Europeans. Those were sent here for punishment and those who sought refuge from persecution. Those groups quickly turned into the problem for both Indigenous people and Black people. Why BLACK and not an ethnic identifier? We were stripped of it and our humanity was also attempted – but both Indigenous and Black people are resilient. Cameras and social media have exposed much about antebellum lovers. Covid-19 made the entire globe stand still. A deadly germ, unseen to the naked eye, put a stop to the business and busyness of life as we know it. Toilet Paper and Cleaning Wipes became a thing if want and desire as cleaning became a focus again. Opportunists drove up prices and people finally began to appreciate those on the front lines of SERVICE. Yes, medical professionals, transportation personnel, grocers, farmers, ranchers, warehouse workers, and finally teachers. Teachers, who never got to stop working, became a wonder. Parents, a child’s first teachers became more active on education and technology became the conduit whereby lessons were pipped into home like water through screens. The myths about “the perfect child” were bashed against the rock of toggling of children under one roof with distractions. Employers that would have previously never allowed their operations to shift to “work-from-home” status QUICKLY shifted so that things could continue even in the presence of a pandemic. The term “new normal” surfaced and even I have dripped these words from my mouth slowly like molasses from buttered pancakes, and even now I shudder deep within my being. Nothing about this life has ever been normal. I am allergic to status quo. I was never invited to that table. I was allowed to build it, yes, but no one drew out a seat for me there. 2020 has broken what was referred to as normal. I should like to thank her for that. Because we will never be what we were before. We still aren’t out of the manacles of this germ’s clutches. And with that, I will end this is a reverent moment of silence for all of those who are no longer with us on this side. For those who have entered heaven’s gate I send peace and condolences to the families.

::🙏🏽::

Ivy Out

Categories
life

Pink Note, Treble and Bass

It’s been a long time since something could move me to a place of drifting so deep in art

That the hemoglobin in my veins take a back seat to this feeling

This place that I drift in

 wraps itself around me like a strait jacket

Long enough for me to stop fighting and just exist in one with where I am

It envelopes me long enough for me to realize that it’s familiar

I belong here

Justified in the brilliance of notes on staff, I intrude in on the conductor

I am a part of the music, the missing element in the symphony

I have become less of the rest and more of the stem on an eighth note

In conjunction with breathing

I hear

I feel

The music creating a stir in my vocal chords, lost in the beauty of sound

I speak words in tune, not quite singing yet

Some would call it poetry

It’s just the language I speak.

Hope that someone can interpret for the commoners

Or those common to English. This doesn’t have restrictions and rules

It just is.

I just am.

Present in this moment that I am breathing music. I am being music.

The melodic state of being.

Then something hits me.

It is the evolution of a key change. A game changer.

It’s love.

Love can make minor chord clashes seem like symbols

Staccato glitter sprinkled among the staff like the beauty of shattered glass

Reflecting amber light from dawn

It’s a beginning.

Love can color music and paint pictures that even those with untrained eyes can see

Defying logic, love even makes science bearable.

Unapologetic and without permission, it invades space and time

Love is a continuum of life

Opposite of existing, it springs to, in and through all who are willing

For the unable, it disables their ability to analyze until it is acknowledged

This place is familiar because I was created here.

I create here

He who makes beautiful things out of us purposed me for this place

No seatbelts or safety precautions

No limitations of negotiation necessary

I have fallen with no need to feel the foundation of someone else’s ground

I can forever drift here

I can exist here

I can cast my ballot for permanent citizenship in a place where colors burst

From executed staffs that govern many instruments

On the canvas of my eyes and glitters sparkles over the dash

The pace between birth and return

Home.

-PhoenixSole

Special love and adoration sent to a friend whose notes won’t leave my head and the short story “I Wish I Was a Poet” by the late and great Alice Childress. 

Ivy Out.

 

Categories
life

PACK EARLY

There are sooo many things that I really wanted to share, but I will settle on short and sweet. 

When you begin to pack for a trip to a new destination you can take one of two approaches. You can meticulously plan ahead and pack with time to spare…or you can rush and throw things together. The latter usually accounts for things left behind. Things of value and purpose. 

Why do we treat our lives in the same manner? Most of the time people long for destinations and things without being ready to transition there. If you want to work…generally you acquire skills needed to complete that work. If you want to cook a dish, it can’t be done without the ingredients. If you want to be married, it’s time to burn the black book. There is ORDER in preparation. (I could segway into people asking God to bless them but living however they choose…but I won’t)

Psalms 37:5 – COMMIT EVERYTHING YOU DO TO THE LORD, TRUST HIM AND HE WILL HELP YOU. 

If the steps of a righteous man are ordered…there are things YOU must do FIRST. 

 

**Disclaimer: THIS BLOG WAS FOR ME!**

IVY OUT

Categories
life

Honest Hearts

Music has mood changing abilities. Isn’t it amazing that you can hear upbeat music and either smile or feel aggressive (depending on your taste). Or how you can walk into a yoga studio or to a spa…and non verbally laced tones will tickle eardrums and soothe your soul. Music can create an atmospheric change that wraps its arms around you like a cashmere sweater.

Music can also paint images of love on the back of your eyelids. The desire of most women…was the Cinderella love story. I don’t think I recalled dwelling on the “maid” conditions, the horrible temperament of the step mother, the jealously and envy of the sisters, or even the sadness of the absent from the body father, just the love story.

Do we as adults forsake the “other” part of a good love story. The background and foundational knowledge of personal growth. Do we miss the character building and etiquette of maturity? Could you imagine a violent Cinderella? Someone who blamed everyone for everything, was physically aggressive, and a bully? Conversely, what of a Cinder that would have turned back to rags in front of a heartless prince? One who had the audacity to verbally reprimand her existence. What then?

I thank God for maturity. For not pulling me out of this valley of singleness before I (or then soon to be suitor – or soon I hope, lol) was ready to meet each other. I still believe that fairy tales come true, because the story writer has my heart in His divine hands. The soundtrack in my heart is gratitude. The song on my lips is thanksgiving. The temperature of my essence paints “welcome” on the air I breath. I can hear the strings playing…

Ivy out!

Categories
life

Who’s your secret you?

I read something on a social network today that got my attention…”The Secret Life of…”

Seriously, with hyperspeed Internet, networking, and telecom, you mean to tell me that people still keep secrets? After “the lingerie secret” came out…ok now…

I Kid, but honestly, are you hiding your greatest self? Are there gifts, talents, hopes, and dreams that have been implanted inside of you? Is your best “you” dormant? Sometimes, out of circumstance or fear, we hold back our greatness for the “sake of others”. I truly believe that Marianne Williamson was on to something when she said, “AS WE LET OUR OWN LIGHT SHINE, WE UNCONSCIOUSLY GIVE OTHER PEOPLE PERMISSION TO DO THE SAME”. How brilliant a concept!

I don’t know everybody, but SOMEbody needs to know that we are waiting. We are waiting for the best that you are! There is a barrage of greatness in a fusion cell waiting on your permission. Give birth to that greatness so that the past due brilliance doesn’t turn into a cancer of “I should haves” or “I wish I would haves”.

Your gifts WILL make room for you. It’s time to acknowledge them!

Ivy Out