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Saturday, March 20, 2010

wood and shells


Tonight I'm putting a bunch of amazing jazz albums on my computer from the library, soaking in all of them, thinking about the rooted sense of self that finally seems to be emerging from me. For many years I experimented with every kind of look, color, hair, music, etc. Trying on characters that seemed to be a part of me but enlarged, exaggerated, playful. I think every creative person does this to some extent, to play with your sense of self and see what you can become before shapeshifting into a new version to experience that and so on. Sometime within the past year I have come to grow roots into my solid sense of self, something pure and authentic that has always been there, waiting for me to come home to, a kind of sanctuary of self with a candle burning in the window that says- welcome home friend. It's a secure feeling, that even with life's uncertainties I'm at home within me. I'm wearing more and more wooden jewelry because I'm really feeling like I've got roots and it feels very natural. Wood and shells, colors of the sea. When I first went solitary, not looking outside of myself so much, I felt panic and fear which I had to perservere through. It was rough waters, I won't lie. But something happened, I started to realize my spirit is pretty amazing and I didn't come here to fall apart over human relationships, or to loose myself in an array of whatever-of-the-moment. The tree started to grow roots, buds formed and I can now see... finally... that blooming is inevitable.

Wednesday, March 3, 2010

Powerful, Inspiring Women - Frida Kahlo


Not so long ago I made a conscious decision to, on a regular basis, influence myself with the art, music or dance of women whom I find powerful and inspiring. This came on the heels of feeling absolutely disgusted with the vast majority of fashion magazines and other popular entertainment we are pummled with constantly. There is no place for powerful or artistic women in modern entertainment. She is cut, butchered, rearranged, disempowered and left to lie bleeding at the feet of a man as he walks away. I could go on but I'll get back to my evening. Tonight's chosen feature was The Life and Times of Frida Kahlo. I am so enchanted with Frida, her highly personal art, her style, the way she always wore fresh flowers in her hair. It's like she stepped in through from another world and though she was not immune to pain by any means, her mantra was always vitality and life. The last painting she ever did, 8 days before she died, was a still life of juicy watermelons cut in various ways. At the bottom, carved into a slice she wrote -"Viva la Vida" ... Long Live Life.