Author: evetureknaturephotography@gmail.com

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Nourishment

Now, late in the day, I need a fresh word like fresh bread. I don’t even eat bread anymore, Lord. It’s not good for me, for my system. I’ve given up wheat.

But there are breads you can eat.

Yes, and I am grateful for those.

Part of wisdom is knowing what nourishes you, what are empty calories and what is actually detrimental to your system.

Yes, so…

So what nourishes you and what is detrimental to you is not necessarily the same as it is for someone else. You might have deficiencies others don’t have. You might have a lower tolerance than others do. You might need supplements, or to avoid certain foods altogether.

Think about this spiritually. There is music that draws you closer to Me, and music that doesn’t move you at all. There is a preaching style and there is subject matter that opens your heart, and there are other styles and subjects that close your heart. Isn’t that so?

You know it is.

The key is not to judge yourself or others but to recognize what nourishes and nurtures your soul’s connection to Me. Don’t worry about what others are eating–you choose what is most beneficial to you.

Lord, this page is. Quiet listening is. Music that affirms Your lovingkindness, that does it for me.

Don’t try to fit yourself into last year’s clothes, or last decade’s diet. You gauge the weather and choose your daily wardrobe accordingly. You don’t wear sandals in a snowstorm or your down vest in a heat wave. You carry a raincoat when a squall is in the forecast. If you pay attention, you can be clothed and fed in each day’s unfolding, in both the natural and the spiritual.

 

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Sink A New Well

Lord, what am I finishing up today, and what am I beginning or renewing tomorrow? What unfinished business do I need to tend to?

I have already arranged something greater than you could have imagined. You don’t have to figure out how about anything. Put your considerable intellect at the service of incredible inspiration. That is another way to say, let your heart lead. You have been living way out of balance, trying to analyze everything and stuffing down your feelings and fears. You need to live in heart and vision. What did I ask Jeremiah? “What do you see?” That is My question to you, spiritually and creatively. As a photographer and as a person, Eve, what do you see?

“Open the eyes of my heart” needs to be your prayer. “Renew my vision, Lord,” is the only now-and-tomorrow prayer you need to remember. You are straining to see through walls and around curves. I have Beauty for you right here. Right now. I don’t want you to pre-visualize; that is not your strength or your gift. I want you to react in the moment to what you see and feel. When I say to see with your heart, come back to your feelings. What do you feel? What emotions are prompted by what you see? How can you convey that emotional response visually, using the scene before you? You already know connection is a keyword with birds and all critters. Ask Me how to receive connecting images in the landscape too—connecting with the land’s voice, or with My Spirit through the landscape, or with the heart of your eventual viewer.

Stop and feel. Let feeling inform your seeing. Allow yourself a wider range of feeling. You might explore feeling frisky, playful, frivolous, mischievous. Think theatrically. Think character and costume and fantasy. Think party and celebration and a good time.

Lord, I keep hearing “playful.”

Yes, I want you to grow younger again. You are not immature but innocent, guileless, trusting, gentle. You are not irresponsible—you are so overly responsible you are literally working and worrying and burdening yourself into an early grave. I have much for you to do, and to see, and to experience and to enjoy—but none of that will happen for you if you continue to drive yourself into the ground. The unfinished business you have today is with you. I want you to unlock the ball and chain you have wrapped around your feet and your hands and your heart. I want you to loose you. I want you to set you free. If I told you that you were totally free, what would you do? Who would you be?

You’ve believed a lie that says you must keep pumping harder when the well is running dry. No, you need to sink a new well.

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Incubation

Dear God, before I jump into “do”—what would You say?

There is much within you, waiting to come forth. Some lies at great depth and some is just below the surface, awaiting only your attention to emerge. Incubation is all about waiting, but purposeful waiting. Waiting in the foreknowledge and assurance that powerful and wonderful changes are already underway and will soon be manifest, be visible. You are incubating now.

Incubation is not passive. A diligent mother turns her eggs, makes sure they are warm and sheltered. A diligent mother feeds herself so that when the babies hatch, she has the energy she needs to take care of both them and her. A diligent mother keeps knowledgeable about her own food sources. You are afraid that paying attention to the stirrings within will somehow harm them. This is a lie. You must heed the stirrings within in order to birth them, and in order to nurture them to their full potential.

Again I say, I did not give you this life to strip it from you How would you live each day differently if I told you that your nesting place would weather any storm and that you are destined for both wondrous migratory journeys and a stable home-base? That your calling is to combine word with image and bring hope and encouragement and healing to the broken-hearted, and encouraging vision to the newly emerging, and a sense of purpose to those seeking direction or lost in confusion? What if I said, beauty is your Bible? That your lens—your view of My world—is the Yes and Amen that I, the True Word, intend and need to speak through you?

Your eggs are hatching asynchronously: word gifts, visual gifts, and music gifts. And you have had earlier seasons of hatching, which you’ve assumed were to be your only times of bringing-forth. No, you have many seasons yet, many incubations to come. For now, pay attention to this season. Quit apologizing for what stirs within you, for those inner longings you keep trying to silence. They are trying to emerge—encourage them! They will soon have wings. Pay attention to every dream, every longing. If it is stirring within you, it is from Me. We are birthing together. Don’t let these become stillborn. Turn your eggs, feed yourself and incubate in joy.

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On The Edge

Lord, why am I fatigued?

 

Seriously? You are asking Me why you are fatigued?

Look in the mirror. Pull back and watch your life as you would watch a movie about someone else. What would you say about the character who is you?

Driven, Lord. I’d say driven. Obsessed, even.

 My word says, Be Still and Know. Not, Be Frantic and Know. You are on the edge of a breakdown and you don’t even see it. You are right at the precipice—physically, emotionally, spiritually. Everyone around you sees it. Who are you trying to prove yourself to? The one with the most stress loses.

 So, Lord, here I am.

And Here I Am. But you have not let Me be I AM, your I Am. You have thought you needed to be I am—and especially for everyone else: I am efficient, I am calm, I am a good friend, I am faithful, I am kind, I am loving, I am creative…and you are all those things. But who, Who, is I AM for you? You ask Me for strength and for wisdom so you can continue to be “I am” for all those people. I want to be I AM for you. You ask Me, what can I do? What can I give? And I keep saying, Receive. Let’s increase the flow in your life. You are trying hard to be the riverbed and the spring. Not out of ego but out of a misplaced sense of duty and obligation, as if you had to prove both your love and your worth. For a little while, the only Believing Mirror I want you to look into is Me, not My Word, which you still interpret through older, poisoned voices, but My Eyes. Let My Eyes become your Believing Mirror. Let Me show you what I see, and what I foresee, what I envision.

First, you don’t generate the power, the electricity, the current—I do. Let Me clean off the terminals, the connections, that have become corroded. My cleansing is gentle and with you consists mostly in removing old layers of fear and guilt and shame which have no place in your life today. They are like barnacles; they slow you down. And when you try to pry them off yourself, they only make you bleed and ultimately suffer more.

 

I did not plan humanity for suffering. I planned humanity for bliss. That is why the goal of Buddhism is bliss; otherwise the goal would be increased suffering which anyone but the mentally ill can see is wrong. Buddhism has it almost all right. Life can be hard because of humanity’s choices, not by My design.

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Ripple Effects

God, I still get so impatient. I’m so sorry. Can you help me be better?

Not if by better you mean that you devalue everything you’re doing or thinking. This is an awkward, in-between stage for you, where you are transitioning from discounting everything “you” – your likes, your wants, your dreams, your plans, your work. It seems as if you are over-emphasizing those because for years you gave them zero place, no importance, so any attention now feels selfish, self-centered. I Am asking you to be self-centered for a while. Pull your focus back, away from everyone else, and let yourself relish what you think, what you want, what you love. Dream Big Dreams and Make Big Plans. I Am a Big God. In the words of TreeBeard, let’s do some Big Things together. And for that, you have to focus on you, on your life. Center there and we shall ripple outward with great and wonderful impacts on the world.

 

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Heaven

Lord, I was thinking, if I died today, who in heaven would be there, to meet me, I mean? If I think of eternity as timeless, then people not yet born, people not yet died, could be there, but that complicates things. I was imagining, say, 20 years from now, and a heaven where even those who hurt me were there, were sorry, were healed themselves, and we could have in Eternity the relationship we didn’t have—couldn’t have—here.

Your first vision of heaven was as a place of healing, of reconciliation, of peace and love and forgiveness, a place of restoration and joy. Not judgment. Not regret. A place where all is put to rights, in body, mind and spirit. Do you think you can out-vision Me? Do you think you can out-imagine Me? Where do you think this vision comes from? In your vision there is only peace, not punishment, not torture. There are, literally, no more enemies in your vision. All swords, even Mine, are plowshares. You didn’t dream this on your own. You are tapping into the deep vein of My Love, My Peace. For those who must have vengeance, My Blood satisfies. But you have gone deeper even than this. You’ve gone to the bedrock of “seventy times seven.” That is why you don’t focus so much anymore on My Cross. That’s why you focus on My Rising. You picture Me alive, not dying.

 

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Unbridled Joy

I am way over three pages, playing catch-up. And You would say…

You are still so rule-bound. Julia Cameron advises three journal pages. Louise Hay devises a number/color system. You tend to adapt to a lockstep pace—and then you hate it. You chafe at it. You need flexibility, you need freedom, to thrive. You keep turning yourself into a caged animal, into a circus performer. No, no, a thousand times, no. For all the Yes I have spoken over and into your life, this is My grand No.

But…but don’t I have to have a schedule? A routine? Especially now?

Your schedule leaves no room, no time, for surprises. For serendipity. For spontaneity. For play. And thus, very little opportunity for genuine creativity. You are living in a sandbox when I have given you the beach. You are living in a playpen when I Am giving you the world, My world. Look every day for your larger purpose. Look every day for My Presence, manifest. That is what the hearts are about, signs you can share. You won’t have the same set schedule every day, and you are going to love that. Let yourself love that. And yes, it is okay to have some time both at the house and outside by yourself—how else will great songs and stories get written?

We are not abandoning Eve the Photographer, Eve the Image-maker. But finally after decades, you will, your life will, integrate all of you, all of your talents and gifts, all your creative expressions and longings. No longer will worry or even concern about financial solvency dominate your thinking and feeling. As that becomes a non-issue, your mind and heart shall be freed to be creative, wildly passionately joyously creative! Joy is contagious. And My broken world needs it. That is your job. That is what you bring to the table. Unbridled (see the imagery? horse running free?) joy. You can have peace and passionate joy all at once. And this is the year you will experience and exude both, in spades.

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Pray for New Things

Lord, You keep talking to me about change, and about fresh. But Ecclesiastes says there is nothing new under the sun. Right?

What about “His mercies are new every morning” in the Psalms? What about Isaiah’s “Behold I am doing a new thing?” What about the “I make all things new” as a final promise in scripture? What about those?

You have to discern who is talking when you read sacred words or words that purport to be sacred. “A tree is known by its fruit,” remember? There is a fatalistic cynicism that masquerades as religion. Some of the tenets of that belief system are that human actions are pointless, that everything that happens is pre-arranged and that humans are merely puppets in some Divine morality play. That belief system bears fruits of despair, apathy, helplessness, and hopelessness. Does that sound like a tree of My planting?

How about this? Every human born has limitless potential to be unique and to offer the world a fresh perspective on life, on love, on joy. Every expression of personality, every latent talent, every overt impulse to creativity are all gifts of the Divine ensconced in humanity. The great challenge for every human born is to become. To become the best self possible.

Lord, then what about tragedies? What about kids born in poverty? Born in abuse? Born into the drug culture? Born in war-torn villages? Born sick from day one? What about them?

Do you think My Love for these, for those the world would term “the least of them” is less than My Love for those born into wealth? Into health? Into loving, caring homes? Do you think I rank-order by circumstance?

No, of course not. But I think so many have the odds against them before they even start out. And it’s not fair. I’m sorry to say it that way. But take me—I was born late, to a family that very much wanted a child. I was loved, cherished, taken care of. I had so many advantages even in being born to older parents. And I had difficulties too, like no grandparents because of that. But my folks really wanted me, and I have carried that knowledge, and their telling me I was special, all these years. So I had a head start over so many others.

And you have felt guilty for your advantages. Isn’t that true? You have felt ashamed of having such love, and over being gifted in the areas you are. Listen to Me. Every child is gifted. Every child born is loved by Me. But I don’t wave some magic wand and send a child into hell on earth or heaven on earth. Children are conceived naturally, and not everyone who conceives is an ideal parent. Inherent in that conception is a spark of divinity that includes creativity, personality, and the capacity to give and receive love. Some have those gifts cut short before they can even be opened. You have heard there is great joy among angels when someone decides to change their path for good, for the better. Well, there is also great sorrow among angels for every injustice, for every life cut short before its potential is realized. Eventually, on humanity’s last day, there will be no more tears. That is the day of rejoicing that is coming, for all of creation.

But what about now? What do we do about now?

Follow your heart. Follow your path. You love to pray—pray for newborns, pray for foster families, pray for communities where drugs and gangs have taken over. Pray for peace. And don’t buy into the cynicism that says nothing can change, or that there is no possibility of newness in these homes, in these families, in these communities, in these villages, in these nations. Pray for New Things to increase and abound. Pray for a spreading ripple of grace and mercy, of kindness and compassion. Pray for hearts to rule hands and heads. Ask, and watch how you receive. For your very act of asking can change the flow of events, can alter circumstances, can reveal choices to others that might otherwise go unnoticed and unheeded. Pray for miracles of enlightenment. Pray for aha moments all over the globe. What do you have to lose? Try praying instead of lamenting, and see what happens.

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Intercessory Prayer

Okay, that was great—I am asking, God, for Miracles. Nothing is too hard for You. Now I breathe in the joy experienced.

See how quickly you turned from asking for yourself, for yourself and Pete, to asking for others? You are an intercessor for you have an intercessor’s heart. Do you think I will answer only those prayers you pray for others, and not the ones you pray for yourself? Do you think I mean to exclude you from the kingdom? From Kingdom blessings? I Am inviting you in, not shutting you out.

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More on Rhythm

I feel a little blinky yet. Need to make my smoothie, shower, make to do lists. What I really need–always–is to hear from You. 

The thoughts of future upset, of attacks, do not serve either you or Me. They assume you will be alone, unguided, unprotected. They confuse your earthly and heavenly sources, and they forget Who I Am—Who I Am in your daily life.

I am asking you to live out your daily life—all of it—from a position of trust in Me and connection to Me. I am asking you to listen for My Heartbeat in each day, and to match your rhythm of thought and action to Mine. In this way, compassion will balance joy. Action will balance rest. Outflow will be balanced by inflow. In fact, inflow has to be at least double the outflow: inflow to sustain you, and inflow to share with others.

So again, the keyword is Receive. And for right now, what I want you to receive is rhythm. Let’s slow the tempo now. Let’s have some soaring symphonic experience and expression.