Author: evetureknaturephotography@gmail.com

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Here I Am — I’m Yours

So, Lord, I definitely, desperately, need You to lead me, photographically with Your spiritual foundation. My gift is the being led part—I mean, the following-Your-lead part.

Let your heart expand into what it loves—into what you love. Find extraordinary connections in amazing light—but seek out the new. Don’t try to “repeat success.”

The “nations that stream to the brightness of your rising” are the wild kingdoms. You attract them. You welcome them and you love them. Pay no mind, give no mental space or attention to what anyone else is doing. You go and you do the work I Am giving you to do.

Here I am—I’m yours. So here I am: here is my heart. Here is my mind, my brain. Here is my mouth. Here are my eyes, my feet, my hands. Here are my words. Here are my songs, the notes that make music. Here is lyric and poetry; here is melody and harmony. Here are words, essays, stories, prose. Here are images. Here, the works of my hands. Here is my lifelong connection, and longing to connect, with animals. It’s all You.

 These are like the days of Noah to Me—there isn’t any animal that won’t—or can’t—teach you, that won’t come to you. My entire creation is yours, is available to you. Remember the legend of Arthur. Your kingdom is Peace. Call your nations, the wild ones. They will all come to you. From elephants to ants, they are yours. They will companion you always. They will teach you of Me.

 

 

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In the Moment

Being creative takes time. Shucks, even coming here to the page takes time. It gets harder, not easier. I feel I’m straining and rushing. My phone keeps dinging. Distractions. Sorry.

Eve, this is your life. You don’t have great swathes of time. But, please, listen. Neither does anyone else. No one in your field of impact does. That is exactly what makes you—and your work—so impactful, so special. You don’t have weeks and months to write in. You have moments. You don’t have days on end to photograph: you have moments. You don’t have weeks to retreat to put together an album: you have moments. You find Me in the Moments, in the In-Betweens. That is your life and that is your impact. That is your calling: to live a full-on connected life in the midst. Moments in the Midst, the photographer’s way, the writer’s way, the composer’s way. That’s it. That is the “it” you have found so elusive. You have thought you had to wait—to publish, to write polished essays and stories and lyrics, to create a photo book—until you could carve out great expanses of time. But your strength is in the moment. Spontaneity is your strength. Call, and having wildlife respond, is your strength.

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Joy in Grief

God, I’m tired. Pete stayed for the vet, he came around 3 pm, and Mikey insisted on crawling into his lap instead of mine. Please, I want just a few minutes, here.

Rejoice, and again I say, rejoice. Sounds almost cruel, doesn’t it? But you can hold joy and grief in your heart at the same time, just as you can hold Love–or peace–and anger in your heart at the same time. Staying open to joy, to its appearance even if sudden or fleeting in your days will help keep your grief from overwhelming you. Holding to peace and love can help keep you from drowning in anger, being consumed by it. You’ve been very afraid of drowning in one or the other or both, for a very long time. But My Spirit lives in you, and its fruit of Love and Joy and Peace has grown deep roots in you. Don’t look for a banner crop right this second in your feelings–but do look for signs of flowering and growth even in this season. I promise you they are present and they will help you through these next days.

Thank You, God. I love You, Lord.

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More on Faith and Love

The vet came, and we are going to have to put Mikey down, soon. I am thinking maybe even today. It’s wild, I journal yesterday about him, and now, this. I might’ve said, I don’t have the faith to see him healed but now, after what You said yesterday, that is not it. Is it?

Love would let him go. Sometimes Love holds on and sometimes Love lets go. True Love is discerning–it knows its time. It knows its purpose in each situation, each decision. When Love knows it is not yet time to let go, then Love energizes faith; the knowing what is best, what is most loving, gives the power for healing to happen. True Faith is believing in the reality and power of Love, in what Love can do in the world, whether it be in a sick body or a broken heart or a devastated community. And since I Am Love, Faith at its deepest and purest has eyes to see Me in every situation, to see My Hand in everything–not as Cause, necessarily. Sometimes as Cure.

If you can learn to live from Love, let Love be the foundation for everything you do and think and say, you will have the kind of faith that can move mountains–if moving a mountain is truly what Love needs to happen! You can also have the kind of faith that moves you–that inspires you to take action, all based in Love. So you see, letting Mikey go is an act of Love, and therefore, also an act of faith, an assurance you are doing the best thing.

But it still hurts.

(Gently) Yes, little one, I know. I better than anyone know the hurt Love experiences in the world. This is little comfort to you now, but the world I envisioned, the world I first created, the world where Mikey is now, has no hurt, no time, no limit, no end. It is only and always Love. Mikey has simply returned to that which he was created to inhabit all along. He is the one who is Home; you are the one still absent. Remember how I said yesterday, Faith connects others to Me through your Love?

Yes. What did You mean, exactly?

If you can believe, you will experience the connection to everyone you have ever loved, who has passed from sight, but is with Me, alive, in joy. There is no separation within Myself. You really do inhabit parallel universes–that is one way of phrasing it. The more you can open yourself up to eternity, the more of eternity you will experience in your earthly life. You have had moments of this, dreams of this, flashes of this. These were not anomalies. In a real sense, any sense of separation you experience–from Me, from those you love–is the anomaly. Love Is. Mikey is now held in purest Love. Allow your heart to rest in this knowing, if only for brief minutes at a time, and that knowing will comfort you beyond your mind’s understanding. And you will experience what you call “faith”–walking the bridge that connects you to Me, and to others. You pictured a tightrope, high, scary, windy. See how solid it really is? See how beautiful the country? You have glimpses and then the vision fades. Be not discouraged. Just feel the Love.

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Love and Faith

I rescued a locust yesterday, on its back on the deck and I thought it was dead. But I picked it up and it gripped my finger…I put it on a branch and all of a sudden, a whir of wings and gone! Yay! That was joy. I was thinking ahead as I was writing this, thinking, what happened? And quick the answer: Love happened. Aha. Yes. So, it’s Love, then, that heals? Not faith?

Love is the engine. Faith is the caboose. Faith seems to fail when it tries to drive without Love. Love energizes Faith. Think of it like this–

Lord, I can’t think. Mikey is crying, and I just had him out.

Listen and look with Love. What does he need?

I think he needs my attention. And breakfast.

So, faith without love would say to ignore him and keep bending over the page, waiting for some mystical revelation. What does love say?

Love says, stroke his ears and get up and feed him, which is what I am going to do…Ok, I’m back.

And what happened?

Well, he’s eating. He’s content.

And here you are, with Me, quiet again. Love undergirds your entire life, when you are living fully connected to Me. While Quiet helps you focus, you were not disconnected when you made the choice to pause and tend to his needs. Look how many examples there are of Jesus leaving His quiet time and place to serve the needs of the crowd. You need both. You need time devoted here, yes. But you can’t LIVE here, on the page. This time is meant to empower you for the rest of your day, where you live in community with others. This time is meant to fill you so your love can overflow. That’s what I mean by faith is the caboose. Faith is Love’s bridge in the world. Faith connects others to Me through your Love.

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Growth in Heaven

Lord, I want to know about heaven. Do we still grow, there? I mean, we are somehow ageless, but do we still grow?

With every human born, heaven grows. “Heaven” in the collective grows in its capacity to love and care, just as an earthly family does when a new baby is born. Do you think brilliant ideas are limited to earth only? Do you think creativity dies when eternity begins? There is much you cannot understand or conceive until you arrive. But know this: Heaven is a shorthand word for Life. And where there is life, there is growth.

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List What You Love

I have some time-space in my days. What should I be doing? I keep putting on the brakes and trying to accelerate simultaneously. All this does is rev the engine, waste gas, and create a rut! Or should I just put it in park, take it out of gear? That’s a choice.

What time did I say it is?

You said not to ever doubt my purpose. And when the tide turns…which to me implies the light changing and time to take the foot off the brake, or the car out of park.

You can take your foot off the brake and coast, or drift. That is not the same as driving. And you need to steer as you drive. You need to stay on course. Stay on your main road. This isn’t a race. This is a journey. This is a road trip. You love adventure, you love new places, you love new experiences. You’ve been putting the brakes—for a long time—on what you love. You’re afraid you will only be disappointed. Why don’t you list what you love, starting with close to home.

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Creative Inspiration

If Your mercies are new every morning, are there words for each day? Fresh bread, every morning? I have been—again—reluctant to “wish.” What if I wish amiss?

 

Think of wishes like this. Imagine for a minute you had a patron, one with unlimited resources, not only of funds, but of Time. Of energy and health. With the contacts to open easily any door of opportunity. Imagine that patron just met with a shy but very gifted pianist and that together they talked music, talked about a small outdoor concert and an open-air innovative recording studio to combine nature’s music—as it occurred in real time—with the piano. The pianist leaves inspired and encouraged to make the music Heaven always intended that she make. Your eyes meet; hers are shining.

Now it’s your turn. And others will come talk to Me after you do. And you will return—later today, tomorrow, the next day—and together we will refine and shape and polish and fulfill and add to and create new. And so will I with all these others. So tell Me, your Patron: what do you dream?

Do you have a story for me? For me to tell, I mean?

I do. I have many more stories for you.

You do?

See, you’re smiling. Your eyes are shining. You’re letting yourself imagine, a little. I want you to imagine a lot. This is how our partnership works. I inspire—then you, with My help, synthesize and bring into form. Then you share with the larger world.

You have forgotten a middle crucial step in breathing. You breathe in. Then, that oxygen—and spiritually, My Spirit—fills every part of your body, your life. It energizes, enriches, enables movement. Then, you breathe out—you release that oxygen, that inspiration, now transformed and in a form that blesses others, just as carbon dioxide enriches the trees and plants. See how connected it all is? Let the oxygen fill you first.

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Growth

You know, God, I have so much. That seems to have turned into a block of sorts. How can I imagine more? How can I “wish” or reach for more? I know the kinds of miraculous provision You supply. What gives me the right to put myself standing in that line again?

 

Because as you grow, you require “more” in order for that growth to continue. Children cannot wear last year’s shoes. A high-schooler cannot use his third grade bat and glove. Trikes give way to training wheels and then bicycles—and eventually to cars. It’s not selfish; it’s the natural order.

But, Lord, isn’t there a point where growth stops? Where you start diminishing, sliding backwards?

 Not diminishing as much as shedding—ready to transform. You are not yet in that place—in fact, you are nowhere near that place, in your own life’s journey. So let’s engage in some “wishful thinking.” Go ahead. What would you be? What would you do? What would you have? Just play a little. Please. I can’t reveal, if you “can’t imagine.”

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Connection

Lord, what would You say? Come to the silence, quiet my chatter, that is what these morning pages are supposed to help me do. Inner knowing to me means hearing from You. It means receiving when I don’t know.

You don’t follow Me by rote—You follow Me instead by “wrote”—by My word made real to you, spoken to you. I have never spoken fear to you. So don’t be afraid. Don’t be afraid of displeasing Me. You want, you seek, to make something tangible, something to help communicate and reinforce My presence with you, and with others with you, to help spark their faith in My goodness and My power to heal and restore—and My willingness to do so. The ingredients you are choosing connect you to the idea (and ideal) of connectedness to all living beings, and to living in peace.

You are making a new oil—an Oil of Peace. Your life of connection is peace, is a life of peace. Love is the bond of peace for you—and for Me. Under your Tree of Life are all the four-footeds, and the wingeds rest in that Tree’s branches, all at Peace. Eve’s Eden indeed.