grafting of the burning bush

come with me

for the story of

a sudden expansion of my heart

I can feel the pulsation of me

pushing pulling straining at the chains

to break them into pieces

and the little swords pushing out

and clinking to the floor

the scars are stretching

against their constraints

this sudden expansion of territory

the supernova of this encounter

humbles me. this is sacred ground.

I bow to the greatness

to the awe I feel

I bow with my head pressed in prayer

with scriptures at my fingers

I feel the word of God inside me now

I inhale it with gulps of light

and regurgitate it like a mother bird

and add it to the palette of

paint I am mixing up.

red gold black and blue

steam is rising from my brushes

the water will not stay cool

my hair smells like smoke

and my nostrils cannot

get enough air

the wound that will not

scab over begins to dry.

as you pass through hell

with your hair on fire

don’t forget to hum the tune

to gloryland so you can find your

way through the caves

that echo

the future is unwritten.

The flame on my heart

just burns so hot

and the compost of the old

stories stinks itself onto the canvas

as muck from the paws of the wolves

that live inside me.

Pressing so hard

that first time on my heart

spiritual cpr made me breath again.

It jump started. That was when.

My words and God’s word were pressing

into our brightest scars.

Maybe our scars are aligned

and we can expand to unseen places

of the soul. oh vast capacity I seek you.

Healing is mine now and I dance.

At the easel

I paint the hearts

of fire and pray God to listen

to the prayer which will not

leave my lips.

I will not go to sleep on the questions love asks.

This inquiry into the quiet space between us

is expanded by the breath of God.

Breathe God with me Breathe God with me

Breathe God with me Breathe God with me

Press the scars of you into my tender places

until we no longer care where the scars came from

because God is

grafting the burning bush of us

into wisdom.

God’s own heart beats inside of all of us.

Wounds to wisdom hear me roar.

Last night I swallowed the burning bush

and I dreamed it became my very own heart

God’s word became my breath

our scars aligned and were grafted

into light instead of the rugged cross

our scars became the crossroads

where Jesus rose to life in

the garden and he handed us

both a rose, with thorns.

He greeted us with open wounded palms

and told us: Come unto me

and he said:

Coming unto me is coming unto one another.

I think I understand my Lord.

yanked by the hair
over the edge of my scar

on my way over that bloodied

grand canyon of my love story

I noticed all the light

coming from the scar

the light from the wound

that lights up the cosmic city of humanity

and ashes were flying

everywhere and our hands

held the embers to our breasts.

You who serve me and

through me

serve Him

and I serve the Red Madonna

who rises in my heart

a red star of ragged hope, rises.

I thirst.

This is your Mother.

It is finished.

~ Jesus

Dedicated to: D.A.T.

I know I said I wasn’t going to post anymore on here. BUT Red Madonna Radio isn’t up yet and this is still part of the old story. Ready for a new one now.

Thanks God.

Thanks you.

Thanks to life.

After 1000 Broken Vows

After 1000 broken vows

We will rise again. I promise.

Surrendering to the mystery

of knowing or not knowing.

We finally understand

that we will not do everything

we say we will.

This confession should feel like a relief.

We have transcended getting it right

when we finally get it that we won’t.

We can finally let ourselves off

our own meat hooks

when we finally know that integrity

comes and goes. 
And we just have to keep trying.

And we begin to understand

that perfection is illusively granted

and highly over-rated.

When we realize one fine day

that in the night our truths lined up single file

and went out for a midnight spree

and didn’t come home and we wake up

truthless.

Then it is time to begin again.

To invent oneself anew.

To forgive ourselves and others

and to take the armor of the heart OFF.

And Breathe. Better that the heart

be broken 1000 times than never open all.

After all the promises and all the dreams broken

open by love and effort and fervent passion -

we have many tools to choose from.

We have perspective. Experience. Humility

and longing. Oh that relentless longing.

And when those who are called to serve

break 1000 pencil tips  on 1000 almost futures

finally realize we will not be able to save the world.

We wake up. And keep waking up

to what needs to be done.

But just imagine what it would be like

if the hopeless dreamers stopped dreaming of peace?

The world might stop spinning.

It isn’t that I thought I would save it.

My job is to wipe the fevered brows 
of our restless creative musings,

not demolish the hospitals that house our sicknesses.

Though I do dream of revolution for breakfast.

Don’t you know – we each who move in light

must also walk the dark valleys to wake up

to brightness again? It is all right to touch the strings

of disillusionment and pluck them until a pure

note comes out even if your fingers bleed.

And this is my truth:

That I have no idea what is

going on. Nor do I claim to.

I only know
that we must create and keep on creating.

That we must court our muse.

Whatever it is that is happening in our world, 
I do know what Rumi knew:

This is not a caravan of despair.

Before the mending with red thread 
and Mary’s needle – first the tearing.

And the breaking open.

Vow 1001 – I have been waiting for you.

Shiloh Sophia McCloud ©2010

Dear Ones,

I have now written 300 posts. This will be my last official post. I have loved Our Lady of the Red Thread and now it is a time for a switching over of the watch…we will be moving over to Red Madonna Radio. Will let you know when that is truly ready.

Thank you for journeying with me…I hope you will continue.

With all my heart and all the hope I can possibly imagine. With my tears in my throat I cross the threshold, this moment into VOW 1001: I CHOOSE LOVE.

Posting this right now is my vow. My ritual to say to you – to God and the world – the rest will be the best. This blog has seen me through the darkest and lightest of my 41 years on this green planet. I have learned from you and from Our Lady who I am and what my work is in the world at a whole new level.

In Gratitude I bow to you.

Shiloh Sophia

Then kings who have followed a star come from across the world and offer kingly gifts to her little wee one. She ponders all of this in her heart as she nurses her tiny baby God.

Then, imagine the fragility of a new mother at this moment. There is a decree to kill all babies in the land and so she and her baby and her elder husband travel to a foreign land where they know not a soul until the threat of danger is passed which is many many years. She knows it is because of her baby. Imagine how she felt when all children up to the age of two were attempted to be murdered in the land. What sorrow – what fear – what devastation in a time when JOY should be what is felt.

She was not even able to show her baby to her family – or to her cousin Elizabeth or hold baby John. Two cousins destined to work on the same path in life, did not even meet until their mid-thirties, two children who were saved from the massacre.

I find it quite a story regardless of one’s spiritual tradition. Today I honor her and the courage of a teenage mama.

Today is the Synaxis of the Theotokos – honoring the nativity of her giving birth to God. My holidays will continue tonight at the service in her honor. Regardless of it being the most Patriarchal church in the world perhaps, The Orthodox — the reality is also true that they never moved The Blessed Mother off of the altar. And today we honor her – millions all over the world are singing the hymns of a new mother and her little child of light. Tonight I shall pray for you and for me, and to what we are giving birth to together in 2012. If you feel so inclined, you might try to find a service in your own area, it will be by candlelight and she will be chanted to. Google Orthodox Church, your town, USA. Even if it is in Russian or Greek or Serbian, the feeling will come through.

With all my heart — and gratitude to you — my global community whom I adore a part of my very daily breath -

thank you.

I love you

shiloh sophia

p.s. my friend just sent me this clip  – Breath of Heaven

Move into one’s skin and call it home?

How does one feel good enough to yell out the window while driving very fast and listening to music that is too loud and shout love to the wind?

Today is Christmas Eve and I feel today…like I do indeed belong to my life. It is an extraordinary feeling made up of a lifetime of ingredients. Sunlight. Warm wind. This downtown cafe in Fairfax with live music every Saturday morning. The bustle of families and little ones. And a decision to be by myself right now. There are many places I could go this holiday…but I am choosing to spend it in the creation of myself belonging to myself. This is the return of the light for me this year – the dawning of Christ in my heart is that I am ok here on my own. After 16 years of marriage it is really something to approach the holidays and have it be an almost foreign experience. The only thing I could think of that would make it work was to move more fully into my skin. So I did. I rather like it in here.  My still healing heart is allowing this moment. The Red Madonna is allowing this moment of feeling filled with faith and just a sense of – I am ok. Really truly – OK. I made it.

So I wanted to write you…and send you my good wishes and feelings. Invite you to occupy your own body and life. To encourage you to belong to you this Christmas. I know it is not easy cuz I been trying it myself. But since today it is happening I had to write it. What else are blogs for?
This sense of being all alone but being connected to everything and everyone is new for me. Before I didn’t know how to be alone and be connected. It takes practice. There is light at the end of the tunnel and it is not a train, it is the Lord.

After this I will go to Vespers at the Orthodox church and go home to paint Mary and her baby Jesus in a house filled with candles.

Loving you

Shiloh Sophia

The Red Madonna starts tonight at midnight and I am so excited to have a whole year in which I KNOW I will be working with my own sacred practice and guiding and encouraging a whole community of women to choose their own practices through creativity, prayer, paint and possibility. If you want to come…there is still time to get there when the doors open. It is a yearlong community experience that you can pay for monthly. I shaking in my red cowgirl boots.
Blessed Solstice to you. I am READY for the return of the light!
Love,

Shiloh

http://www.theredmadonna.com

Have you heard her voice in your heart?

The hidden feminine is coming to light in the world and inside of us.

And with Her, She brings all the ways She has never been truly hidden from us.

Our work now is to let Her into the cave of our hearts.

Pilgrimage with me to Her sacred lands and broken hearted valleys.

Take up your walking stick and your medicine bag and gather with me

Her symbols and signs of healing, transformation and insight.

The alchemy of Her presence awakens within us and she reweaves
that which has been lost and fragmented with the red threads hem of Her garment
so that we can live in the heart of gold instead of the heart of sorrow.

Journeying with the Red Madonna is pilgrimage home to remothering ourselves.

I woke up super early and am filled with buzzing energy of joy at what I get to do each day. That is the truth. Now don’t get me wrong I work 8-10 hours a day and I am the phone and computer too much like the rest of you…but interspersed with all of that there are many other blessings I get to be a part of…here are a few of them. Each of them is an invitation to do your own creative spiritual work.

Come paint with me and Elizabeth Gibbons in San Francisco this weekend – The Beaded Lady dedicated to Our Lady of Guadalupe!

Ready to launch your GREAT WORK in the world? www.shilohsophiastudios.com/the-great-woman

JOIN me for 12 Months with The Red Madonna

Join me, my mama Caron McCloud and Sue Hoya Sellars for the TREE OF LIFE RETREAT

As I ponder and plan my year of Great Work and The Year of the Red Madonna something fascinating happened for me. I began to think about what I could DO THIS YEAR to make 2013 the year I really want it to be. A sabbatical to paint and write and pray. So the moves I make this year…are part of making that year possible. What is your 2012 about? And what about your 2013? Would you like to end your 2011 with a decision to honor yourself —  I sure do.

Below is a writing about FORM. I am obsessed with FORM. How ideas manifest into reality. Part of my life assignment is to support others in creating form – what is YOUR FORM?

Sending you blessings today….and a giant heart felt invitation to come paint, plan, pray and ponder with me…. The ravens are calling me to tea on the back deck beneath a blanket of light mist colored love.

Signed in mist,

Shiloh

Come paint with me and Elizabeth Gibbons in San Francisco this weekend – The Beaded Lady dedicated to Our Lady of Guadalupe!

Ready to launch your GREAT WORK in the world? www.shilohsophiastudios.com/the-great-woman

JOIN me for 12 Months with The Red Madonna – membership is FREE

Join me, my mama Caron McCloud and Sue Hoya Sellars for the TREE OF LIFE RETREAT

According to Ben Shahn in The Shape of Content

Form is formulation—the turning of content into a material entity, rendering a content accessible to others,
giving it permanence, willing it to the race.
Form is the very shape of content.
Form is the visible shape of content.
Form is the right and only possible shape of a certain content.
Form  in nature emerges from the impact of order upon order…
Forms in art arise from the impact of idea upon material…
Form is not just the intention of content; it is the embodiment of content.
Form must be a penetration of inner relationships, a constant elimination of non pertinent matter
both of content and of shape.

Form is based upon a supposition, a theme.
Form is a marshaling of materials, the inert matter in which the theme is to be cast.
Form is a setting of boundaries or limits, the whole extent of idea, but no more, an outer  shape of idea.
Form is the relating of inner shapes to the outer limits, the initial establishing of harmonies.
Form is the abolishing of excessive materials, whatever material is extraneous to inner harmony,
to the order of shapes now established.
Form is thus a discipline, an ordering, according to the needs of content.

My love, fascination, devotion to Our Lady started over 14 years ago. She is one of those special ICONS that once you connect with, it is almost impossible not to connect with Her everywhere. We can find so many references to her in North and South America….whether it is on a motorcycyle tank, tattoo, dollar-store candle or on the wall of a cathedral. She is one of the presences that invite you right where you are.

This year She invited me to spend it with Her….and I shall invite you as well to become a member of The Red Madonna Sisterhood….

Learn more about my 13 month offering to spend the YEAR with the Red Madonna!

Here is something I wrote her in 2004 — I wanted to share it with you today. Light your candles. Pour your tea and sit a while with Our Lady…see what sparks She lights in your heart…

Shiloh Sophia

our lady of everything

precious mother

hail, ma abundant

so full of grace

blessed art thou

among all mothers  and daughters

we who know you

beyond titles and concepts

blessed is the life-giving fruit

of your tree of life womb

wholly mary-ma

mother of god

praise you

for praying for us

now and in every hour of our need

you love us with everything you are

holding us in your

eternal embrace

beloved cosmic matrix

from which i came

wrap me as a babe

in your blue robe of stars

rock me on your seat of wisdom

sing me your songs

of rose petals and justice

dance christ’s love into my bones

keep me, precious mother

cradled in your milky way

our lady of faith

may i walk the path of truth

that sets me free

teach me

how to share your love

with my earthly family

blessed be our

mother of everyone

our lady of everything

shiloh sophia mccloud 2004

Strands of colored light

were strung between my heart and yours

and I followed the pattern of sprinkled light

right to your door.

You let me in because you saw

the light under the door of your heart.

I can see those colors twinkling between

the poetry and reality of us.

The quality of a sun dappled morning.

Little songs with no words we sang

and soft clucking sounds only doves can hear

things which cannot be seen in the flesh

ring my soul like bell

that vibrate the universe

with tears of longing – and yes despair.

There is a rip in the veil

that let your stars come through

but now they are gone

and the black hole where

you were has swallowed my breath

leaving my body to move

breathless.

The bumble bees that

made you honey are no longer

buzzing and have gone

to some other hive

and the honey on my tongue

lingers and has the color of

sunlight on wet skin

and as much as I wish it would go

its bitter sweetness

catches me unawares

and the lights of you land on my

hands like jewels of love

I will never wear again.

Sitting in the unkissed

dusk of us I understand

those of us who travel

between the worlds

carry the burden of light

across broken thresholds

and sometimes we don’t

get to know why.

We just must go on

moving in light

even when darkness

presses the edges of our hearts

into shapes that

have no human name.

You’re invited to a powerful conversation I am having with two of my girlfriends, who also happen to be my coaches, Amy Ahlers and Christine Arylo.

This call is created especially for people ready to have 2012 be THE YEAR you live your vision – not just talk about it or try to squeeze it in on the weekends or struggle daily to make it all work!  But actually live it everyday – giving your GREAT WORK and living your GREAT LIFE!

Imagine 2012 being that kind of GREAT YEAR for you!

Activate YOUR VISION! Be here… December 7th @ Noon PT.YES! I am there

Today, along with the other two spiritually and creatively powerful women leaders co-leading this call with me – Amy Ahlers and Christine Arylo – I am living my visions and delivering my message and Great Work into the world.

And we are inviting YOU into a tribe of GREAT WOMEN ready to do the same!

Because as we go into 2012, living anything but your vision, doing anything less than your Great Work just isn’t something you can afford any longer…

It’s time to take a STAND for your highest calling!

If you’re unable to make the live call, we’ll also be sending out a recording, so you can listen in at any time! Go here now to receive your unique call in number))

If you are ready to make your life’s vision a reality, then join us for this dynamic call, a ritual of activating your Life Vision into form…

You’ll leave this call with an invitation to take immediate action on behalf of LIVING YOUR VISION

Discover:

• Why it’s so hard to manifest into physical form the vision and passion you feel in your heart and see in your soul… you are not alone.
• What support you really need to live a life where you are giving your gifts and receiving abundance… the

Experience:

• A guided visualization through the golden door of your ‘Great Work’ to discover the missing pieces you need for 2012 to bring in your life vision.

Create:

• A working description of your VISION, instead of continuing to tell yourself Big Fat Lies like “I don’t know what my work is” or “I don’t know how to get my work and message into the world.”

Act:

• Leave the call with your 4 most essential co-creative go forwards, bringing you closer to taking a STAND and declaring the Truth:

“I am living my vision.”

“I am giving my Great Work.”

“I am receiving the life I’ve always dreamt of.”

This is too juicy to be missed!I’m ready to live my Great Work

If you are ready, are here! See you on the 7^th.

With love,

Shiloh, Christine and Amy

On a mission to serve Great Women ready for Great Lives

This call on the 7^th is more than a call, it is an activation ritual – can you hear us knocking on your door? Open up and say YES! I will be there!