My dear one said she felt like we needed a reminder - and so she weaved beauty and peace out of words once again.

Here - go read: 

 

"Then reach for the door. Step out into the light. Step into Not Alone. Lay claim to the gifts you have been carrying around unused. Pull them from your filthy, tattered backpack, brush your crusty, matted hair from your tear stained face, and offer them up.

The world is waiting."

 

1. From the wise folks at zenhabits : Creative Inspiration: The Pulse That Beats Within Us All

"It doesn’t matter whether you are an architect, gardener, or bus driver, everyone has the ability to find the distinct beauty embedded deep inside their daily grind. The problem isn’t capturing our creativity, as individual inspiration is a steady pulse that beats within us all. The problem is keeping those embers hot once we have them in our grasp."

2. Worth reading sideways for: crush

3. Yes, that’s it exactly. Plus, extra points for being green.

4. From the delicious Jen Gray, inspiration, kick in the pants style: the not good enough lie

"this is your life.
enough already.
you have beautiful things to share with the rest of the world.
now giddy up and get a move on."

5. From Magpie Girl: Lessons from an Artist: On speaking with authority about what you do.

"The authority to name yourself lies within yourself"

6. And lastest but not leastest: from the no nonsense side of one of my most lovliest of love-love-loves in the comments section of my last entry:

"less talk. more do."

Damned if she’s not right…..

I have two projects that have been percolating in my brain for quite some time. I think (with tentative hope but filled with self-doubt) that they could be wonderful - allowing me to stretch and grow as an artist and as an individual.

Both projects are inspired by this two year journey of awakening and authenticity. Both are extremely personal and rooted in my soul. Both would combine photographs and written word; bringing them together into a combination of art and activism that makes my spirit soar.

These projects tease at my brain, pull me into daydreams and visions of what I could create. A website and blog? A gallery show? A book? I can see these things already, in a fuzzy, hypothetical way. I imagine their texture and depth and impact. But then I push these dreams down and away, even avoid them entirely for weeks at a time. Why? Because the very audacity of this vision frightens me. A book? Really? Who am I to even dream it?

But even as I run away, these dreams grow more complex and more finely developed. As if the project itself is driving the process of its own becoming, and I am merely the medium for a deeper force. This is clearly rooted in a source so deep within that it is also far beyond, and I cannot take ownership because it is so clearly composed of everything and everyone.

But now suddenly, there are possibilities, connections, wisps of potential appearing out of nowhere. A grant application that must be submitted in the next two weeks. A fabulous local company interested in partnering with me to bring this project to fruition. And so the visions become more whole. They take on a shape and weight and solidity they didn’t have before.

Now I can really see it - the placement of impactful photographs and well crafted words on a stark white page. The tones and texture of perfectly converted black and white images. I can feel the weight of pages turning in my hands. I can visualize the fonts even. I know what the paper looks like. And in the brief moments that I am bold enough to allow myself permission, I can see myself standing in the middle of an urban gallery space (in a fabulous dress and killer heels, naturally) with my community swirling around me, taking in the end result of months and months of dreaming and work.

But I cannot quite convince myself that I can do this. That I am worthy of this.

It took me several years of hard, hard work to call myself a photographer. Although I’ve been writing for years, I’ve only just begun to call myself a writer. I spent a lifetime denying the existence of creative force inside me, and it has been infinitely difficult to accept and nurture it and allow it to sing and dance and move through me. There is something so exquisitely vulnerable about claiming this for myself; of accepting the drive to create and then to release it all and just sit and wait.

It is far easier to minimize this idea, to avoid that nagging sense that this time I’m actually meant to follow through. As long as it only exists inside me it is safe, I don’t have to risk judgment or failure, and I can tell myself that someday maybe the time will be right. I can convince myself that the idea is not good enough or important enough, that I don’t have the proper skills or experience or near enough talent, and besides, - clearly I’m not organized enough to pull it off! And so I talk myself out of something that I desperately want to do. The stories I have told myself for far too long have taken root in my heart. I have given them a power I know they do not deserve, but I don’t quite know how to conquer their hold on me.

For over a year I wore a custom designed necklace made by the amazing Janet at Jewelry for the Soul. I didn’t take it off once. It’s a simple but beautiful silver rectangle stamped with the words “BE BOLD”. For a long time I needed that necklace, it was my talisman – giving me strength during days and weeks and months that I barely knew how to survive. And I would hold the pendent on that simple necklace and repeat those words like a mantra ; giving myself the courage to believe that I could be bold enough to not only survive, but thrive.

At some point, as life has settled into a pattern and routine lulled me back into complacency, I took off the necklace. After I post this I’m going to go find it and put it back on – because right now, I need the reminder to be bold in a totally different way. If I’m going to closer my eyes, open my heart and take the leap to do this, I need to be bold in a way I’ve never been before.

And I do need to do this.

So I post this in celebration of boldness, of vanquishing the demons that convince me to live small. I post this in the honor of laying claim to my authentic self and to the giant leaps and grand vision that demands. To embrace the potential and the risk of unwrapping my heart and offering it to the world in the purest way I know. In the name of trusting that what I offer is perfect and wonderful and that the people who need it will embrace it, and me, in ways I could never imagine before beginning.

So now I start talking myself into it….

Sometimes I feel like an inspiration catcher, put myself out into the world just to catch snippets of grace, things of beauty, breaths full of wisdom….and to pass them on.

This came my way today - and how could I not feel inspired after reading words like the ones on this print:

“i want to enter your sacred ground,
to hold you in the depth of your spirit,
to be surrounded by the mists of your soul
and to soak in the essence of you.
it’s a giving and a taking i honor quietly,
solemnly. if your door is open, i am there.”

I love that she named her business “Bone Sigh Arts”…those words are a sigh, a giant exhale, right from her core and right to mine.

I’ve only just had time to look through some of her prints - I can’t imagine what other treasures lie within.

we talked
just the other day
about our public writing spaces
and how they relate
to us, and reflect our
soul
our place in this universe
our way of being
and if it really even
matters
(does it?)

and you said
you felt like your
chosen name
was fitting
that your rough edges
were a part
of your definition

But let me tell you
that I don’t see you
like that
have never seen you that
way.

no, my sweet
to me you have always been smoothness
and rounded corners
like a smooth grey
wishing stone
heavy and warm
in my hand

and that no matter
what life has throws at you
(and it’s thrown you some crazy shit)
you absorb what you need to
and gently discard what does not serve
and that your compassion for others
is only matched by the
exquisite compassion you reserve
for yourself

no jagged edges in your aura
dear one
you are a rainbow
of sea glass
bits of azure, garnet,
cobalt, aquamarine
translucent glass and fine bone china

and the bits that were smoothed off
when you crashed through your ocean home
were only hiding
your true purpose
your complete grace
your beautiful soul

thank you for
being willing to break
in order to become.

On February 15th 2008, openly gay 15 year old Lawrence King was shot and killed by a fellow classmate. Following several years of taunting, teasing and bullying because of his orientation and appearance, he was killed because he asked another boy to be his valentine.

On December 7th José Sucuzhañay was walking arm in arm with another man in NYC. Several men in an SUV yelled “look at those faggots!”, and proceeded to beat him with a beer bottle and a baseball bat, kicking and punching him as he lay on the ground. José later died from his injuries. The man he was walking with? His brother.

Last December, a California woman was getting out of her car when she taunted by 4 men who said they knew she was gay. She was assaulted, kidnapped and brutally gang raped. How did the men identify her? She had a rainbow gay pride bumper sticker on her car.

I have a rainbow sticker on my car too.

A year and a half ago, as I was just beginning the tentative process of coming out, I wrote this:

“In this new space that I find myself, the tragedy of Sean Kennedy’s death hits me on so many different levels. As I sit here writing this blog post, I suddenly realize that at some point I will be the target of prejudice and hatred. Perhaps - if I’m lucky - not directly, but certainly indirectly. Maybe it won’t happen to me personally, but certainly it will happen to someone I know and care about. I might be blessed and never have anyone say anything to my face, I might not lose any friends, and I might not alienate my beloved family.

But I will know - because I cannot avoid this knowledge - that there are people who will hate me simply because I am being true to myself. People who will stare, whisper and turn me into a thing of curiosity if they get a chance. People who will work hard to exclude me, to limit me, to marginalize me; politically and socially and personally. People whose bigotry and ignorance are so strong that they are sometimes moved to commit unspeakable acts of cruelty and violence. People who cannot see through their own bias to catch a glimpse of the humanity that connects us all.

There are people all around me who already hate me (they just don’t know yet that it’s me that they hate) simply because I no longer align myself with the prevailing cultural notion of exclusive heterosexuality. Doesn’t matter that I don’t exactly know how I do define myself – all it matters is that I’m no longer a part of that club. Although there are no outward signs of this inward transformation - I am already ‘other’. I feel this in a profound way.

If I continue this journey of truth (and really, there is no choice but to continue) there is almost a guarantee that this will become a part of my experience. It might be up close and personal, or it might be at a distance, but it will be.

I live, for the most part, in this liberal utopia – where it is easy for me to forget that much of the world is filled with intolerance and narrow-mindedness. I have chosen to surround myself with people who understand that true equality can know no exception, and who believe, as Ghandi said, that “we must become the change we want to see in the world”. I have, over time, distanced myself from individuals who have rationalized their prejudice with convoluted “truths” taught to them through their religion and education and upbringing.

My little corner of the world is my safe haven. And that’s all well and good as long as I stay in this corner. It’s also nice and easy when I’m not doing a damn thing to rock the boat. But now I’m ready to break free, to own myself, and my truth. As I prepare to step out of my little corner I ask myself, what now? “

Ten and a half years ago, 21 year old Matthew Shepard was killed in a brutal hate crime. Today, one in six hate crimes is motivated by the sexual orientation of the victim. Tomorrow congress is expected to vote on the passage of the Matthew Shepard Act. I urge you to take a moment today to call your representative and ask that they vote to pass this bill.

“Frat boys drunken, screaming, leaning out the windows of their Daddy’s SUV ‘hey, are you a faggot or dyke?” and I wonder what would happen if I met up with them in the middle of the night”

Andrea Gibson, Swingset.

The bumper sticker stays on my car, because fear cannot win. Please make that call.