(Monday is Moon Day. What are the tides of your week calling you to?)
There is a tenderness in your being
a yielding
A place so open a mere whisper
evokes awakening
The softness of your Body
The gateway to all you will become
the pathway back to all you where
the opening to everything you are
Honor the warm flesh of you
this meeting place of the divine and human
(Day 30. #11. Last day of my being seen at 50 series.)
I want to write something big and important but what I am feeling is quieter and still forming.
I am coming of age.
Where I question less and trust more.
Where I am so much more interested in the perfection inherent in my imperfection than I am in getting rid of it.
Where life slows down because I get more present.
Where I am becoming the women I want to grow old as.
And I want more.
I want to feel life steeping me into deeper beauty.
I want my eyes to hold what they they see with greater love.
I want my hips to move freely, releasing the power of flow into the world.
I want my skin to feel the sensations of living as the exquisite braille of the Divine She.
I want my lips to gently kiss your life awake.
I want my hands to shake us up because there is magic between us that must ignite.
Magic that can only happen together, as we see ourselves and each other. Magic that will light the shadows and leave no room for anything other than radiant living.
This series has made me bolder. I needed that. So much more to come…
If it touched something in you, thank you for being open. Will you let me know?
Want to read the rest of this series? It is all here.
(This is the 10th post in my series “being seen at 50“)
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In the corner of a very long day,
when I am more tired than I have been in a very long time,
I find a smile just for myself.
It is the warmth I most need.
This is the moment when I know.
The patience and care I have wrapped myself in
as I look at the shadows and fears of changes brought by time,
have taken the harshness out of self judgment,
leaving truth behind.
Allowing love to grow.
(This is the 9th post in my series “being seen at 50“)
I have been on an extended quest to find the perfect red lipstick. A few days ago it was time to complete the quest. No more indecision. Time to choose my Red.* Because nothing is quite the same as red lips, and what they are I want more of.
Bold, sensual, willing to be noticed.
On a day where I am bone tired from lack of sleep, frustrated by computer glitches and unexpected demands on my time, the addition of red makes a difference. Especially on a day when only I will see it.
I sometimes forget the simple pleasures of feminine beauty rituals.
Finding the right shade of lipstick, luxuriating in lotions and potions, the perfect nail polish. When life gets busy, actually when my mind gets overly busy, I discount my simple pleasures as not being serious, important, relevant enough. I get all fussy about the politics of beauty, the patriarchy, age appropriateness, blah, blah, blah.
The thing is I love the art of beauty. I love makeup. It is sweet balm to flesh often drained by the harshness of life. It is adornment as sacred ritual.
The truth is I don’t much care if I use makeup as a divine expression the of the Feminine or as shield against the judgments of society. Both are equally valid motivations. What I care about is whether my lipstick, my hair color, my work, my relationships- how I am living my life- is bringing me closer to joy and my truest self or taking me away. Then I can choose what I want with clarity.
I know the surface confidence that comes with looking good, and I know it seeps down and allows the deeper layers of self to rise up and shine. I also know that those deeper layers shining adds radiance that no makeup counter miracle product could ever hope to match.
What is real is that the outer and inner of us are always growing the other.
So find your Red. Wear it proud. Have it feel good.
*My current red is Stila Natasha color balm lipstick, in case you are curious.
(This is the 8th post in my series “being seen at 50“)
*******
Reflections count.
They are sometimes clear and sharp, jarring you out of complacency.
Sometimes faint, almost mist.
Those moments when you are not looking but see anyway, the ones where truth catches you by surprise- revealing the backstage beauty of you that everyone else always sees.
And loves you for.
I would love to hear from you. If you want to share anything go here or e-mail me at sandi@lusciouslife.com.
(This is the 7th post in my series “being seen at 50″)
*******
Here I am in the middle of my 30 day “being seen at 50” project. As I sip my tea and sort images of myself, I am also teasing out some old, old, old beliefs and patterns. And finding my inner revolutionary.
As the days go by I have been more and more riddled with sabotaging doubts about why I am doing this project. Is it relevant, what are people thinking, why did you say 30 days?
And then there is my personal Kriptonite, “Aren’t you being conceited?”
This last one slays me, leaving me open to all of the worst kinds of self doubt, self censure, and self judgment. It has the power to derail me in an instant, leaving me questioning myself and overriding both my intuition and concrete proof. (Intuition that says that the more we women see ourselves the more we deepen our power; proof this is having impact by the the amazing, supportive comments and acts of self portrait courage being shared.)
This one line “Aren’t you being conceited?” is a replay of a deeply wounding moment in 5th grade. My father accused me of thinking myself better than my classmates when I showed pride in my academic success.
I had unknowingly crossed a taboo of good, humble, appropriate girl behavior.
I was doing well, knew I was doing well, and the gravest transgression: I was proud of my intellect and achievements. I felt good and powerful!
I was taken down for it. I came to understand that I was not good and powerful, certainly not particularity smart, but the worst kind of girl. Proud, vain, self centered, thinking myself better than others.
Point taken. I took this new truth deep into my spirit and a burning tar of shame descended. I would no longer outshine, out perform, over reach what was proper good girl behavior. “Aren’t you being conceited?” became my inner check point, the gatekeeper that saved me from falling prey to the horrible female flaws of vanity and calling too much attention to oneself.
Except it didn’t save me at all. It kept me contained and second guessing myself. Twisting and pretzel-ling myself to walk the fine, often impossible line between being true to my desires, talents and gifts, and constraining myself as not to be seen by the world as thinking too much of myself.
Of course I would confront this particularly nasty self sabotage as I work my way though this series. A series of “selfies”, the name itself conjuring images of conceit for me.
Yet here is something I know, from my own experience and years of coaching women.
We long to be seen.
We need to be seen.
By the world, but most importantly by ourselves.
Not because we are vain or narcissistic. But because we matter. We are here. If we will not see ourselves we get lost in a world that reduces us to “fuckable” or irrelevant. Pretty and cute and therefore worthy of notice, or invisible. Able to do business like a man or too emotional to handle the stress. Self sacrificing or selfish.
Young and beautiful and therefore worthy, or old, worn out and pushed aside.
A selfie is a claiming of space. A declaration of “I am here, look at me, see me” in this moment. I am sexy hot. I am bone weary. I am having the time of my life. I am suffocating in my too small life. I am bored.I am showing up, see me.
This is courage. This is claiming one’s self.
This is my act of defiance to the internalized rule that says I should not be visible. It is an act of defiance in world that may judge me a narcissist, since to post pictures of myself for no other reason than because I want, even demand, to be seen, is not humble. It is proud. It is attention seeking.
So be it. I know the truth. Some may call it vanity or conceit.
I call it self revolution.
I crave looking into my eyes and your eyes and embracing our visibility, our courage to be seen as we are, in a moment of life.
What is your revolution, your defiance of some outdated, internalized rule of how you should be? Power waits for you there.
*******
(Want to read the rest of the series? It is all here.)
I would love to hear from you and, if you have been following, you know opening my comments is an issue right now. So if you want to share anything go here or e-mail me at sandi@lusciouslife.com.
(This is the 6th post in my series “being seen at 50″)
*******
I broke a mirror last week.
The symbolism of a broken mirror/broken image is not lost on me as I make my way though this 30 day project.
My attention is drawn to the shelf behind me that holds pills, tinctures, herbs and prescriptions. My personal blend of natural and allopathic healing.
And it says so much. My body needing help and the all the places it comes from. The fragmented view I have when I only see part of myself. The mysterious story that is told though fully seeing just that fragment.
It is personal, intimate, comforting and unsettling at the same time. My world in a moment, that to anyone else is unremarkable and quietly ordinary. Yet, fascinating to me as it begs to tell me an important story.
Me, at 50, with a shelf of medicine, seeing myself in a mirror shard, in black and white.
Feeling the story that wants to be told.
********
(Want to read the rest of the series? It is all here.)
I would love to hear from you and, if you have been following, you know opening my comments is an issue right now. So if you want to share anything go here or e-mail me at sandi@lusciouslife.com.