Never Stop Becoming

"There are parts of me, I only recognize from photographs."   -  Sarah Kay

Key Largo + with love.

 

 

Andrew Tipton

Flower Sweetbreads & Peppers

Approaching the moment we live in with sacredness;  respecting not only ourselves but our exhertion and our motions.
 Just because a moment is common, makes it no less sacred.
 Just because a moment is necessary, makes it no less sacred.
We try to move through spaces that we find meaningless, but its our view that changes everything -
we may offer sacredness to a moment, or we may attempt to withdraw ourselves from it..
we will face the moment either way. 

A freind taught me this..
 I watched her slender hands slicing red peppers on my wooden chopping board.    Not in a way to be finished - she did not rush or become hurried.     Instead, each slice was distinct and purposeful..    with absolute presence and respect for what she was doing.
It was a moment in which I experienced tremendous inner reflection..  to see love expressed towards the simplest task..  is breathtaking. 

Andrew Tipton

Songs for mending.

"Let it go, let it slip away.
Let it fall, everyday.
You should know you
Can let it go."


Trent Jones.

Admired by the Sun

 

Ryan and I threw together some gear and decided to go climb the cliffs in Cheaha a few weeks ago..      Sleeping beneath the winter stars, grilling sweet potatoes and jalapeno-sauteed steaks in the embers of a hand built fire, coaxing a little music out of the cold night sky..    everything simple, and everything that creates expansive thoughts.    

   After an afternoon of climbing rock faces..  our hands aching, our legs bruised and scratched, we both perched ourselves on a few boulders overlooking the valley...  both of us watching silently as the sun melted into a blue horizon.    

As we sat there staring out across the wilderness, I felt this warmth radiate through my body.. 

  something lifting, rising from our joy and exhaustion.   The best way to describe it, is to say that it was an overwhelming awareness and pleasure of my own humanity.   I felt certain, I felt significant..  in the most simple and yet dis-ordinary way.    I was glad with myself..  glad to exist on earth in this (human) way.  To climb and taste food, and wander and laugh and be aware of vast colors..      That seems common and trivial..  but I wonder if the rocks think so?   Or the if the sunset looks back towards us in the evenings and admires us too?    Because we are beautiful in our own right..    this is a remarkable experience - to be human.    I believe we admire many things about life sometimes, and forget to consider ourselves as well.       

 

   I have never been appreciative of my humanity before..      but that is changing.  

 

    

Andrew Tipton

Skipping Stones

some. ones.   become our skipping stones, make splashes, on our surface and sink deep. deep. deeply. inside us.   we are not THE arm or THE toss..  but the water that resides in chiseled spaces.  attempting the discovery of our reflection.        

Andrew Tipton

Going There

We talked about making it. Up.
about taking the world's ways and shifting them around to fit, our delightful messy thoughts
, new ways that take us to places that nobody has ever been to.   And we did. 
Do you remember?   Going there.    Where nobody else has taken anyone along.  For the ride.
Open- ended.   
Never demanding more than the afternoon had to offer..   because the moment was always better than somewhere else with someone else.    I could believe in a thing like that.    
Laughter beneath the shade of pomegranates..   laying on our backs and sipping
strawberries. from each other's lips we both found truth and virtue.   And ourselves came alive too, that year.   I wandered free of the trees.. and found an open mind to play.inside you. and me       
We came up with the origins of life and defined the appropriate distances between strangers. to touch
   somewhere deep inside.   felt good.  
oceans melted,  the moon covered its eyes, the years turned into thunderstorms.  we got soaked
up with each other.  all the way through and through. 
a human.  never fully heals from such goodness.
blessings leave scars on your heart.  too 
and I feel them now.  clearly.
 because
it was never like this.
there is always time.
until there is no
more. time. 
 

           
Andrew Tipton