Posts Tagged "Julia Marks"

A Saint

Ida It’s funny, choosing my own grandmother to be a saint. She was my nemesis as a child.  The person who stood between me and myself.  Who did her best to block any affirmation and acknowledgement coming my way. It is funny because just the writing of the above sentence caused an image to flash through me.  It was of my grandmother as a child herself. Second to the youngest.  Three older sisters, one older brother.  I know from...

The Beloved

Connection It is the smoothing out of the path that lies before me. It is the complete rearrangement of my structure. It is my being set free. It is my complete capture. It is fullness. It is fulfillment. It is the heart of quietness, and the hand of eternity. It is the movement of life itself; the opening of what seemed to be the end. It is the beginning that occurs every second. It is wonderment and amazement; a child’s first...

To Restore

Echoes When I think of restoration, I think of destruction. First, something doesn’t need to be restored if it hadn’t been wrecked in the first place. But second, once something is restored, it can be wrecked all over again. Like a child’s building made of blocks. Up it goes. Down it comes. So what is the point of restoration, then? To a child, making infinite buildings after infinite demolitions is the fun of...

On Seeds

Transformation So, at first it’s easy. Growth. Green. Life. Creation. All sorts of good things. But what happens when something you don’t want comes up in the middle of your garden? Weeds, say. Weeds come from seeds, too, you know. But forget weeds for now.  They are, after all, minor annoyances that you are meant to pull up and destroy. What about a plant that you thought would be good—a plant you committed to taking care...

On Retreat

Walk Away It’s a battle term—retreat. It is the opposite of attack. To remove oneself from the fray. To hide amongst the trees, out of the sunlight, off the plain of conflict. It means to drop your weapon; to run, empty-handed away. It means to stop fighting; to stop thinking about fighting, even. Retreat. We want to think of it as a time of rest, of serenity, of knitting our frayed souls back together. But it’s really...