Our Universe Adores Us

Our Universe Adores Us

I believe that when we talk about love, or we talk about someone (or something) in love with us, then we are driving this subconscious narrative that it is a love that has peaceful and gentle way about itself… safe and in many ways predictable.       Often, I think we want to believe in love, but we want to believe only in a love that fits our own narrative.   We want love that is coherent with our human timeline,  moral code, and practical / reasonable / logical perspective.      That construct of imagined love….  I am certain is not fully love.        If we keep walls surrounding what is possible for a universe's love… then we limit love to a very unimpressive and suffocating box -  one that refuses to expand beyond the perception of feeling of our present human moment.    It keeps love small,  it keeps us saying,  “Yes!  No!  Yes!  No!”       Deciding what IS love,  and not allowing love to crush us  from all sides.       To maintain this sort of love..  or demand that the universe adhere to our fragile construct of love..   is like standing knee deep in the ocean, demanding that the waves only lap gently at our shins.    You are in the ocean!   Give way to the ocean..   experience what the ocean is capable of -  or step out of it.     

I believe the Universe absolutely adores us.    I think it is head over heals for us.  
But I believe that its loves staggers the mind.   It operates outside of a congruent timeline, outside of an amiable code of conduct, outside of logic and practical assumption.   
It’s a love that can break you, it can tear away your safety and your efforts..   it is not a delicate, fluffy love (as my brother calls it).   Maybe it can be gentle and sponsoring..  but it has no allegiance solely to those qualities.   
Isn’t that exactly what we would want from a love? 
A way of affection that isn’t delicately wound taunt around our emotions or our fickleness.    An uncontrived, consuming, roaring love. 
I am ending this year convinced even more, that the universe is secretly plotting our victories..    but my vision for how that happens has been entirely re-imagined.   

Andrew Tipton

OBEY YOUR INNER LONGINGS

Reclaiming our identities in a world that seeks to normalize our human experience. 

 (thought) - When we rise up in the mornings, we should take a moment to recollect what it is that we adore about life.. and what we adore about ourselves.  and whatever we discover, we should pursue it, in some way, without exception. -  

I was driving today, cruising my way down the mountain on my way to create new music on the dulcimer.  I have the overwhelming urge to find an empty space and get lost in the deliciousness of my own musical inclinations.   In the scruffy seat beside me sits my Fender amp, and my small gourd of yerba mate tea.    I'm heading to the studio loft in Southside - the autumn washed leaves are hanging heavy from the branches overhead.    Reds, oranges, dusty yellows.  Clinging to the warmth of early November.     The winding turns of the Ochs highway, whips my old jeep left and then right and I can't help but grin wildly.     
I begin to realize, on this twisting commute, what my soul is aching for...   exactly what it is that, somewhere deeply, I tremblingly crave from existence.
"I want freedom,  I want creation, I want to write music, I want sincere dialogue, I want true love, I want perpetual intrigue, I want to build treehouses in California,, I want to live simply and eloquently.... "      Spontaneously I find myself repeating this list of "desires" to myself.   The essence of who I am.. and who I seek to be,  flows from my lips.    it feels like there is a direct line from the intensity of my heart, straight to the physical world!  I feel ferocious, joyful, vibrant, complete.   The burst of energy that comes from simply "speaking" what I believe about myself, feel intense and clear.  
I realized it has been so long since I allowed myself to SPEAK outwardly (loudly) about my intentions ... and when they spilled out... each one felt 'certain' and 'clear'.     
Perhaps WE always know what we are made of.  

We MUST speak to ourselves about what we DESIRE.   We MUST say to ourselves (EVERYDAY) what it is that we are built from, tell ourselves the story of our captivation with life's mysteries - whatever those my be.    We must speak up during our driving, or walking, or daily normalcy.. and scream inside our hearts to shake loose the dust that gathers on our dreams.  

We live in a place that seeks to limit our expectation and affection for ourselves.   We are taught that we must choose from stories that already exist.    I do not agree to that!    
Our identity is not tethered to the life story of anyone else...  not in the past or present.  
We do not have to agree to the life-choice of anyone else. 
We are making the future right now..   we are the edge of the unknown, the edge of "never-before".
Obey the part of yourself that you ADORE..  pursue it relentlessly! 




Andrew Tipton

The Path to Santeelah Lake

Remain open to intrigue and intuition. 

Follow the path that ignites your heart.  
Take uncommon paths
and
constantly remain uncertain of why you came,  and what you expect to find.  

Andrew Tipton

Bioluminescence

Swimming in the ocean near Cape San Blas.    





Come roam among my secrets.
Grasp
my warm hand in yours,
fingers intertwined,
and become the
fox,
the hunter of God's subtleties.
Be the one
I turn toward in the midst of my dismay
and perfect aloneness.. 
and
be the one
I say,
"Here, look at this magic here!!!"
And they will be our secrets. 
The ones that only belong to us.
Two.
We will swim in the them.
Have you considered this? 
:GODLINESS.   Ohhh0ooh.. 
it's reconsidering what to make of us. 
WE.  You + Meeeoowwww. 
it's the OPEN MIND.  the wide sprawling ocean in the night,
The concoction of stars
shimmering, enchanting, encircling our skins. 
Bio-Illumination. 
Supernovas for another galaxy.
Thrust, swim, arms and whole selves.
Drip drip drip... a million flecks of tiny light cascading from our bare
shoulders
Splendidly from our chests.
The fox sees these things. 
These are the secrets.  For my partner, lover accomplice;
eager and longing for subtle and astounding ventures.
The deep and unseen moments,
where I privately feel god's warm kiss upon my neck
(and I want you there),
upon the sea shore.
The two of us among god's mystic spells..  ahh..  
the gentle enormous smile
of
supernatural adoration.






Andrew Tipton

For the Ones who Take Up the Empty Spaces

Standing On My Roof During The Storm

I feel in a constant state of visceral inclination.  
I feel enraged, and yet buried beneath intense calmness.   
I feel engulfed and devoured,
and wholesome.  

This afternoon, I picked up my camera and climbed out of a window onto my roof in the pouring rain..  and the wind from enormous black storm-clouds blew my long hair in all directions.   My eyes squinted as gusts of wind whipped me and howled around me.  Cool winds and water spraying through the sky onto my body.   Drips on my lips.. and into my mouth.    Ohhh!!!  it was so genuine..  unrehearsed, uncalculated.  The storm came at sunset, and took the place of the sunset.   It was marvelous to behold.   
We are taught to "close the windows"... keep out the storms, stay dry...  and when our instincts say, "open the window and climb out into the rain"...  our reasonable self tries to deny that sort of thing!    It says,  hell no!!      Listen we are in need of this sort of self that defies practicality and rational justification..  not for the sake of social defiance.. but for the sake of remaining hungry and true..   its that genuine self that is seeking out what improves our souls.   Maybe this genuine-self has us climbing out onto a roof in the rain... maybe not..  Maybe it has us doing something completely predictable and ordinary at times!      But we've got so much in store for us if we'll be attentive to its longing and direction.    Genuine action is superior to any other action..   you can feel it vibrate every cell and vessel.      The actions we are capable of, when we leap out of our minds and into our genuineness..   are tremendous.   




Andrew Tipton





 








 

Lose Cleverness

The trees right now in the Great Smokey Mountains, are blooming,   and they are the most intense shade of greens.    The rivers are rushing down the mountains.     The Elk are feasting on the moss and foliage at the edge of meadows.    





Andrew Tipton

Punta Mita Surf Lessons

Conversation Over the Roar

We are living proof of ourselves.    We are living proof of what we have agreed to become, of what we need, of what we want.     In the downtown streets of Chattanooga,  I played music in the loft today,  I plugged in my amp,  opened the windows, and turned on our flickering rows of cheap string lights..  I put my hands and fingers to the strings and just let out goodness.       And there was no hiding here.. no shame.. no darkness and hostility..  only the feeling of being accepted and desired.  Both by myself, and by God.      Admiration from across the room as well... wearing underwear and a grin.    

Andrew Tipton

Devour Me

Andrew Tipton

Higher Self Part 1

At the end of this year I found myself. 
I am covered in sawdust and smoking a cigar.  Its 2am in the morning, I'm standing in the doorway of our family's woodworking shop...  leaning against the doorframe and staring up at the stars above the tree line.    I've been working on design projects all night..  piecing together walnut and cherry; shaping and creating smooth joints and edges.   discovering the slyness of grain, the seductive aromas of freshly planed timber.       I can hear my Fleetwood Mac album starting to skip..  there are my empty bottles of Victoria beer and scraps of crumpled sand paper.
As I stand there..  I grin to myself, and contemplate what inspiration brought me here tonight?   
I feel like part of a higher self - a deeper and more vivid version.  



Andrew Tipton