Photo-Heart Connection, journal love, and Weekly Photo Challenge

This is a catch-all post for three different fun projects: the Photo-Heart Connection, some journal photos that a group of friends and I are all posting and sharing, and the WordPress Weekly Photo Challenge.  I hope it doesn’t get too long!

My choice for the Photo-Heart Connection for July was tough… on the return flight home from Chicago last week, I took many photos of clouds from my little window seat.  There were so many different types and colors all layered together and I thought it looked magical.  The one below looked sort of like a little tunnel from a stormy situation into brightness.  Then I got to my car and was exiting the parking lot and saw the one immediately below, with a lovely rim light giving special contrast to the separation of the grey clouds and the bright blue sky.  And I drove through those storm clouds and rain toward sunshine where I got to reunite with my sweet girl.

* * * * *

“Journal writing is a voyage to the interior.” ~ Christina Baldwin

Some friends are doing a party this week of pictures of our journals… we were chatting in our Facebook group about being obsessed with them.  I learned I’m not alone in admiring them, buying them, and then not wanting to sully them with my scribblings.  This could probably be a post in and of itself, but I already have next week’s posts scheduled so we’ll just include it here.  

There’s just a sense of promise, of beginning, of possibility with a brand new and beautifully covered book, don’t you think?

All these pretty covers and yet I began by using boring spiral notebooks…

 I have several travel journals where I pasted ticket stubs, brochures, cards, etc. and wrote about all the inspiration I was seeing around me.  I even found an old Lira note.

I’m sure you all have a journal or two, right? If you like, share how you use them (or not) and what they mean to you.

* * * * *

The WordPress Weekly Photo Challenge is PURPLE.  Well, by the time you read this, I’ll probably be behind again, but here ya go…

My favorite color!

 

Whew! Have a lovely weekend, friends.  Come back on Monday for a post I’m excited to share with you about how a tiny shift in persecutive can change absolutely everything!

A little poetry

Love After Love

The time will come
when, with elation
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror
and each will smile at the other’s welcome,

and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,

the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.

~ Derek Walcott

Since beginning Inner Excavation and NOW YOU, I have been thinking about what version of myself I project into the world around me.  I think it’s different dependent on where I am or who I’m with.  Who is my true self? Do I even take the time to know her?

Sweet Darkness

When your eyes are tired
the world is tired also.

When your vision has gone
no part of the world can find you.

Time to go into the dark
where the night has eyes
to recognize its own.

There you can be sure
you are not beyond love.

The dark will be your womb
tonight.

The night will give you a horizon
further than you can see.

You must learn one thing:
the world was made to be free in.

Give up all the other worlds
except the one to which you belong.

Sometimes it takes darkness and the sweet
confinement of your aloneness
to learn

anything or anyone
that does not bring you alive

is too small for you.

~ David Whyte

Don’t you just love that last bit?

Happy Monday, friends! Make it a good one.

The beauty of you: self-portraiture

you are a child of the universe,
no less than the trees and the stars;
you have a right to be here.
and whether or not it is clear to you,
no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

~ Max Ehrman

This week I began a new class… on self-portraiture.  Aaarhgh.  Coindidentally, Chapter 5 of Inner Excavation (“I look closer”) is also about self-portraits and “a personal journey of discovering new ways to see yourself.”

The new class, NOW YOU, is 6 weeks of lessons with Kristin Zecchinelli and Meredith Winn (Shutter Sisters and all around awesome women and photographers).  Each week we will be exploring a different way of seeing ourselves through our viewfinders.  Their “ultimate hope is that you gather tools along the way that will have you loving YOU right NOW.”

I highly recommend reading this post by Liz about how powerful the gift of letting yourself deeply see yourself can be.  She says, “This is the practice of finding and using creative self-care every day so that when the hard stuff stacks up, you can lean into those tools and feel supported.”  How we think of our bodies is powerful stuff… check out this post from Sunni Chapman on Roots of She.

I am curves and contours, 

soft curls and sunspots.

I am a head tilt and a smile

with that one side dimple.

I am freckles and creases, 

proof of youthful summers spent outside.

 

I am curious, musical, creative,

a lover of words.

I am a seeker of a quiet corner.

I want to be known, nurtured, and loved.

OK so the poetry aspect in Inner Excavation is getting easier, thank goodness! That one only took a few minutes. 🙂

Self-portraiture, at least on day 1, feels selfish and full of self-judgement.  I am far from the self-aware point that Kristin and Meredith (and Liz) describe to be self-care: “a form of therapy, an artistic expression, a long deep look at what makes us who we are.”  The promise of all these things is keeping me going.  I also guess that some day I will want to remember the smoothness of my hands without wrinkles or the brown of my hair without the grey.  I want to appreciate and love my body for what it is now.

I deleted so many pictures in this mirror session except for this one; a face of frustration and doubt.

Lessons learned:

• Quiet your inner critic as much as you can.  When you look at the photos, let go of how you feel about them and try not to make any judgements about yourself.  (I know…)
• Crop out any distractions in the photos, like a red cup on the table behind you, so that the eye is drawn to you and the background disappears.
• Try other fun ways to capture yourself besides looking directly at yourself… perhaps your shadow or reflection, part of your face, your hands, or your closed eyes.
• Keep in mind that while you may not like how you look today, you may be glad to have these pictures 10 years from now.  It may be a privilege to look back at your younger self.

Inner Excavate-along: I gather and I see me

On to Chapters 3 and 4 of Liz Lamoreux’s Inner Excavation: Exploring Your Self Through Photography, Poetry and Mixed Media.  Liz is leading a couple hundred of her friends through seven weeks of inner excavation on Flickr, on her blog, and through subscribed posts.  I’ve met some wonderful new friends already through this process and am enjoying seeing how they progress through the prompts.

In chapter 3 (“I gather…”), Liz prompts us to look at what we gather to ourselves and what we are drawn to repeatedly that fills the world we inhabit, gaining insight into who we are and who we want to be.  She asks “who are you?” “what inspires you?” and “how do you nurture yourself?” She is pushing us to “find clues and claim the truths within our thoughts that become tangible on paper.”

I chose to work on the writing exploration segment of this chapter, answering these questions “in poem” about the images and textures of my world right now.

I enjoyed a rare few minutes of quiet when my daughter fell asleep in the car last week.  When we got to our destination, I picked up a scrap piece of paper (yes, my car is a mess!) and jotted this down…

Having looked into our past in Chapter 2, Chapter 4 (“I See Me”) is about where we currently “stand in our lives.” I had fun with a photography series that literally captured my path… my feet and the ground beneath me, “playing with the idea of being rooted in the moment.”

I will be starting a self-portraiture class soon (“Now You“), which is not at all about the photos but more about how we see our authentic selves, and I am nervous.  It’s very difficult for me to be comfortable in front of the camera.  Liz reminds us here that we are in control of how we see our own beauty.  “Give yourself permission to let go of [the assumptions you might have about what photos of our bodies have to look like.”

In the poetry section, we “delve deeper into what the body says, how the body feels, what the body knows.”  It’s a way of looking at ourselves in a different light.

Here are links to previous chapter posts: “I begin” and “I seek.”

Inner Excavate-along: I seek

On to Chapter 2 of Liz Lamoreux’s Inner Excavation: Exploring Your Self Through Photography, Poetry and Mixed Media.

Liz is leading a couple hundred of her friends through seven weeks of inner excavation on Flickr, on her blog, and through subscribed posts.

Chapter 2 is titled “I Seek…” She prompts us to seek clues from the past: where do we come from? Where are we? Where are we going? Liz writes that “through the senses, we can tiptoe into memories and suddenly find ourselves unearthing aspects of a moment we never thought we would remember.”

As I get older (and wiser?), I am more interested in the stories of those who came before me.  Looking through some old photo albums for pictures of me to compare my young face to the almost-identical face of my daughter (uncanny really!), I was reminded of time spent with my father’s parents.  When I worked on this prompt a year ago, I wrote this post about exploring the senses, this post about noticing the here and now, and this post about memories of my grandmother.

Here I have some photos from her wedding album and some words that this prompt inspired (click on each thumbnail if you’d like to be swept into the 1940s):

Sense memories

She is a woman of soft linens, long nightgowns, and decorum, her thin body of sharp bones draped with beautiful fabrics and jewelry.  She thinks nothing of playing on the floor with her grandchildren… spreading out couch cushions to jump on or cards for Go Fish.

I sit in the front seat of her long Buick, spacious and velvety, as she drives me to Marshalls for what feels to me like a shopping spree from heaven.  She knows what looks good and what is proper.

She tends to her garden, walking on the long path or stepping stones, pointing out elephant ears and naming flowers, picking mint for my tongue.  I love to follow, marveling at the tree leaves that fold at my touch.

She has a countertop filled with glass jars of licorice, mints, and candies, a drawer of spearmint gum and always a bowl of mixed nuts with nut crackers placed nearby.  A hall closet is full of shoes, velvet bags with delicate clasps, and blankets, all smelling like her.

Her nightstand is small, the glass top holding pictures in place forever.  Every morning, this is where she paints her features, a magnifying mirror reflecting back her soft skin.  She is not dressed until her lipstick is in place.

She reads the newspaper every morning at the white wicker glass-top kitchen table, a porcelain cop of coffee and her gold-sequined cigarette case not far from reach.  She passes on a biography by Camella Sedat that I still have.  I now have her favorite book, The Little Prince, describing a love and loneliness that she must have known.

I remember there was always a freezer full of food and rice unlike any other, a Sephardic blend of flavors.  “People come from miles around” to this kitchen.  Vanessa, the cat, slinks nearby… young in her 17 years.

I was treasured there, with my grandparents.  I remember the scents of perfumes, soaps, lipstick, and mint.  She gave me gifts of bath beads and silky nightgowns.  Presents for everyone, even though it was a birthday for one, our names written with elaborate curves.

I imagine her youth and young adulthood.  My grandfather’s courtship.  Raising four children while her husband worked so hard.  Happy times and lots of smiles.  By my childhood, they were separate… my grandfather in a cave of radio stories and books of Jewish folklore and Talmud; my grandmother in her cozy bed with the TV news blaring and books all around her.

A memory comes forth unbidden… That last Passover seder with her, near the end of the night when most people had stopped following along and she and I volleyed responsive readings from the Hagaddah.  I feel my eyes fill with tears just as they did then, remembering the love she poured into my childhood and how much I will miss her when she’s gone.

How much of my memory is true? Were she here now, I would ask her about her early days living on the farm, what her parents were like and how she met my granddaddy.   How did she get through her days ironing and cooking, working in the hosiery shop, writing and being active in the community? What was her driving philosophy? What were her disappointments? I would love to put my sweet daughter on her lap and let her paint her nails as she did mine so long ago, or decorate her in beads and purses and shoes, creating a new generation of memories.

In case you missed last week’s post, “I begin,” here it is.

Weekly Photo Challenge: Close

The WordPress Weekly Photo Challenge is CLOSE.

Close. It’s a feeling, it’s a proximity…it’s people, it’s a place, it’s objects. They’re close. 

“they do not kiss
but they both want to
instead their feet touch and so do their arms
it is electric magic
their tiny arm hairs tingling
happily lying together
the sun warming them
watching sky through green-leafed gum branch
close enough to hear each other breathe
sweet togetherness
this lazy lying down dance of love” 
― Brigid Lowry, Guitar Highway Rose

What comes to mind for you?

Photo Friday: textured flower images

“I know a bank where the wild thyme blows,
Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows,
Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine,
With sweet musk-roses and with eglantine.” 

~ William Shakespeare, “A Midsummer Night’s Dream“

“People from a planet without flowers would think we must be mad with joy the whole time to have such things about us.” 
― Iris Murdoch

“Let us dance in the sun, wearing wild flowers in our hair…” 
― Susan Polis Schutz

“In joy or sadness flowers are our constant friends.” 
― Kakuzō Okakura, The Book Of Tea

“I will be the gladdest thing
Under the sun!
I will touch a hundred flowers
And not pick one.” 
― Edna St. Vincent Millay “Afternoon on a Hill”

“In the end” by Tara Sophia Mohr

In the end

you won’t be known

for the things you did

or what you built,

or what you said.

You won’t even be known

for the love given

or the hearts saved,

because in the end you won’t be known.

You won’t be asked, by a vast creator full of light:

What did you do to be known?

You will be asked: Did you know it,

this place, this journey?

What there is to know can’t be written.

Something between crispness of air

And glint in her eye

And texture of the orange peel.

What you’ll want a thousand years from now is this:

A memory that beats like a heart—

A travel memory, of what it was like to walk here,

alive and warm and textured within.

Sweet brightness, aliveness, take-me-now-ness that is life.

You are here to pay attention. That is enough.

-Tara Sophia Mohr

In the End is one of the poems featured in Your Other Names, the new book of poetry by Tara Sophia Mohr.

For more information about Tara, visit her website. And for more information about her book visit the Your Other Names web page. 

(photo is mine of a Westin Resorts destination guide book cover.)

On infinity, awe, and sunlight – and a poem by Tony Hoagland

Every so often, I read The Writer’s Almanac with Garrison Keillor.  Ha!  I wish I were reading it with Garrison Keillor.  I can just imagine…

He posts a poem every day, and a few months ago, he put up a poem that I have been thinking about ever since.   It’s titled “The Word” and is written by Tony Hoagland.  I pasted it here, but you can also visit it here.

The Word

by Tony Hoagland

Down near the bottom
of the crossed-out list
of things you have to do today,

between “green thread”
and “broccoli,” you find
that you have penciled “sunlight.”

Resting on the page, the word
is beautiful. It touches you
as if you had a friend

and sunlight were a present
he had sent from someplace distant
as this morning—to cheer you up,

and to remind you that,
among your duties, pleasure
is a thing

that also needs accomplishing.
Do you remember?
that time and light are kinds

of love, and love
is no less practical
than a coffee grinder

or a safe spare tire?
Tomorrow you may be utterly
without a clue,

but today you get a telegram
from the heart in exile,
proclaiming that the kingdom

still exists,
the king and queen alive, 
still speaking to their children,

—to any one among them
who can find the time
to sit out in the sun and listen.

“The Word” by Tony Hoagland, from Sweet Ruin. © University of Wisconsin Press, 1992. 

Hineni. I am here.

“Hineni” by Rabbi Rami Shapiro

Hineni.  Here I am.
A little bit nervous, a little bit self conscious.
After all, whom am I talking to?
And what have I done?
Am I a sinner in search of grace
or a saint seeking salvation?
Am I so evil
or so good
as to warrant this season of introspection?
And yet here it is, and here I am:
this time of change and correction.
this heart of confusion and contrition.
Oh, if I could change!
If I could be so sure of myself
that I no longer had to imagine the sights of others;
to be so loving of myself
that I no longer had to ration my loving of others;
to be so bold with myself
that I no longer had to fear the bravery of others.
Oh, if I could change
there is so much I would change.
Maybe I will, but it scares me so.
Maybe I won’t and that should scare me more,
But it doesn’t.
So let me pray just this:
Let no one be put to shame because of me.
Wouldn’t that make this a wonderful year?
Hineni. Here I am.