tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-65675645409041115322024-03-12T22:56:38.149-04:00Maitri's Heartmaitrilibellulehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13209739470133507700noreply@blogger.comBlogger317125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6567564540904111532.post-38366670206484691442013-07-01T19:15:00.000-04:002013-12-05T21:29:43.358-05:00Well, I'm all packed and heading over to the new site. Click the suitcase to follow me there!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://www.maitrilibellule.com/" target="_blank"><img border="0" height="300" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-aj4BvKZ-mJU/UdILT49QxdI/AAAAAAAAIJk/fF7XXBUKyoU/s400/BeFunky_VintageColors_1.jpg.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Yes, Maitri's Heart and I are leaving on a jet plane. The whole blog, all the archives will be there in a drop down menu at the bottom of the right hand column. Peter, Paul and Mary are going to sing us over... </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/Fa3h3pnhg8s?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
I want to thank all of you who have followed me here since 2007 and I assure you this is NOT an ending, this blog will continue on in the new location. I surely hope you will join me there and leave me notes and say hello. It isn't goodbye, it's a whole new way to say hello and a whole lot of exciting things to come.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
I love you all so much!!!</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
C'mon now, click on the suitcase, you can help me carry some things over there!</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Come on pugs, let's get to gettin!</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
... to be continued at...</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><i><a href="http://maitriatdragonflycottage.com/">maitriatdragonflycottage.com</a></i></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-SAPI3pp9MZo/UdIMy9LEorI/AAAAAAAAIJ0/YlBX4qCXILg/s1600/BeFunky_2012-09-17+13.jpg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="281" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-SAPI3pp9MZo/UdIMy9LEorI/AAAAAAAAIJ0/YlBX4qCXILg/s400/BeFunky_2012-09-17+13.jpg.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: #cc0000; font-size: large;"><i>"C'mon now, you can follow me over..."</i></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: #cc0000; font-size: large;">Sampson</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: #cc0000; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
maitrilibellulehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13209739470133507700noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6567564540904111532.post-5775948788774444332013-06-21T21:07:00.000-04:002013-06-23T09:05:30.080-04:00Big M, Little M ~ It's time for Maitri to take care of Marcia...<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-cIBLo2Rlyk8/UcThWV_pGVI/AAAAAAAAIFE/jIbua8VY-Ow/s1600/BigMLittleM.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="388" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-cIBLo2Rlyk8/UcThWV_pGVI/AAAAAAAAIFE/jIbua8VY-Ow/s400/BigMLittleM.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Oh, my dear, I left you all alone.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
When I changed my name to make a whole new identity for myself in the world, a place where I could feel whole, could feel true to the woman I wanted to become, I hadn't realized that the little girl who had felt abandoned her whole life would be abandoned once more. When I think of it now it breaks my heart.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
I was Marcia. She was the one who was sexually abused for her whole childhood. She married a lovely man and had 3 children she adored. She was an artist and a writer, who grew up on horses and saved kittens and puppies and hamsters and mice, wild birds and squirrels, and she was the one who never learned how to play. She was too afraid. She hated playing games as an adult because anything that she didn't have control of terrified her.<br />
<br />
Marcia was the little girl who was adopted, and through her entire childhood never felt as though she fit in, always felt like the little girl with her nose pressed to the glass on the outside looking in, wanting desperately to be part of the happy family inside. She would never be part of that family, and when, at 26, with 2 babies of her own, she searched for and found her biological mother, believing, with her innocent heart, the heart that so deeply loved her own children that she would die for them without even thinking, it never occurred to her that the woman who gave birth to her wouldn't want to know her, especially since she had gone about it very quietly, discreetly, never wanting to hurt anyone or cause any trouble. She found out these things --<br />
<br />
She and her middle daughter looked like her biological mother.<br />
She had 6 half brothers, the first of whom was born one year after she was given up for adoption.<br />
She was a product of rape.<br />
Her mother hated her and wished she had never had her. She told her so. She said that if she had been able to have an abortion in 1953 she would have.<br />
That her biological mother would threaten to kill her, and be so graphic about the way that this would be done it sent her reeling in shock, and into years more therapy than she had already had.<br />
<br />
How much more abandonment would there be?<br />
<br />
I can tell you the rest of her story, but in this moment I only feel the deep, stabbing pain of remorse. In July of 2005, after my divorce, I went to the courthouse and changed my name, legally. It meant a lot to me. I wanted to wipe the slate clean, leave the abuse, the abandonment, the neglect, the terror, the pain, behind. I signed the papers. I became Maitri Libellule.<br />
<br />
But what happened to Marcia?<br />
<br />
I never really wondered until today. I have wondered why this bi polar madness that I live with has swelled all out of proportion and daily nips at my heels and seems to get worse with each passing week, and then, oh dear God, then it came to me. Perhaps it is not being bi polar as much as it is having buried alive a part of myself and she, Marcia, who was left for dead, has been clawing her way up out of the grave I buried her in.<br />
<br />
Dear God.<br />
<br />
Oh my God.<br />
<br />
I hadn't meant to erase her. She would always live inside of me. I simply wanted to embrace a beautiful name that held all of the spiritual teachings that mattered to me. The teachings of loving-kindness, of compassion. I wanted a name not tainted with a childhood filled with hidden darkness when she, the seemingly privileged child, to everyone who knew her, including family, lived through horrors no one would ever know. Shreds of dark fibers from the nightmares of those days would cling to her through marriage, and motherhood, and her young adulthood into middle age. How would it ever be possible to step out of the darkness into the light?<br />
<br />
I thought I had the answer.<br />
<br />
After a 6 year separation we finalized the divorce. Upon legally changing my name Marcia ceased to exist. You will not find her in any legal records. Maitri Libellule was born and Marcia slipped away, except... except of course she never really died. She has been living inside of me with a broken heart. How many times would she be cast aside, by birth, by chance, by circumstance? I left her, but she was still clinging to part of me.<br />
<br />
Am I bi polar, or am I a woman who cut off half of herself and is being chased by her other half through nightmares and daydreams, in the pathways between the two poles of her brain? Will I only find peace, will I only ever be well if I go back and meet her face to face, embrace her, tell her that I love her, and bring her with me? The day that I signed the papers and became Maitri a black curtain dropped down on all that came before, inside of me that is. I still had my beloved children, and all of the outer trappings of life, but I had tried to kill my other half, not intentionally, but effectively had I done so, and not for the past 8 years have I understood what this gnawing, gut-wrenching pain was.<br />
<br />
Next month I will be Maitri for 8 years. Is this why the last months have been so desperately difficult? Has Marcia been crying out, begging me to reach out to her, to bring her along so that my two halves could once again be whole?<br />
<br />
Can Maitri love Marcia and still be Maitri? I think that is what I need to know.<br />
<br />
Perhaps for me the bi polar journey is as much about reuniting both sides of myself as well as dealing with the biochemistry that rules my brain and must be reigned in like wild horses lest they go off in opposite directions and never come back to the middle again, or, perhaps, and I think this is far more likely, I need to reach out to Marcia, to embrace her, to hold her, to love her, and finally, acknowledge the she that is me. I need to weave the two halves of myself together. I think more than the pills I swallow every day this might be the most important answer of all.<br />
<br />
Tonight I will warp my loom and begin to weave. I will weave together the two halves of myself before they are rent apart for good. I have been terrified by the struggle through each and every day as it became harder and harder. I did not want to be one more woman who went mad. I have too much to give. I want to live.<br />
<br />
I am opening up my arms tonight and welcoming Marcia into my warm embrace. I love her. She is me. This is very hard work, but this is the summer that will transform my life from broken pieces into a whole. I will weave a tapestry where both of us will be woven fine. Big M will take care of Little M. It's time someone does.<br />
<br />
I have been desperately searching for an answer, and she has been inside of me all along...</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
maitrilibellulehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13209739470133507700noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6567564540904111532.post-77027951972075614032013-06-20T05:50:00.002-04:002013-06-20T05:57:16.620-04:00Sitting with the changing tides inside of me, sharing honestly...<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-tuvtT318Ag8/UcK6QkAjvjI/AAAAAAAAICQ/h3Bs5MutOgk/s1600/womaninchair.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-tuvtT318Ag8/UcK6QkAjvjI/AAAAAAAAICQ/h3Bs5MutOgk/s400/womaninchair.jpg" width="336" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
The one thing that you will always get from me is honesty.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
I do get afraid, but I am not afraid to share my truth, or perhaps, better put, I know I must share my truth, because there are too many of you out there that need to hear it. You tell me so.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
The pendulum has been swinging wildly, I am waiting for it to come to the center and rest. I am getting closer. The difference between me, I suppose, and other people, is that you are seeing process, not just product. I am capable of producing, of finishing, but I go very deep and shine my searchlight in every direction before finding the thing that I am looking for, I cast my net so wide for fear of missing that which needs to be included, the right way to say it, to engage people with the idea that I hold in my heart, that I sway too far this way and that. </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Is it all about being bi polar? I don't think so, but that is surely part of it. </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
I do know that my work is about helping people come to terms with fitting <i>out</i>, embracing that concept if it is true for them. But it won't come by way of blue-footed boobies (They were in the last entry that I took down if you didn't read it. Just say that I was looking for a light-hearted way to approach an often difficult and painful subject. The intent was good, but it did not fit.). I love them, I might have a stuffed booby here on my desk to cheer me, but he won't be the emblem for the flagship enterprise. If I spoke too soon I am not afraid or ashamed to say so, but I will move slower as I head toward this goal. And I will share all these missteps with you because maybe you will accept yours, if you have them, a little more easily, and love yourself, despite it all, along the way.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Somewhere between 3 and 4 a.m. I woke up with an uneasy feeling, a panicky one, and I held onto my wee pug, baby Tanner, cuddled next to me, and I tried, hard, to go back to sleep, but it was haunting me, it was wrong. In the wake of moving house, taking this blog to the new site, perhaps I have felt as though I were flying without a net and tried to create something solid to stand on. But life doesn't work that way, so what I will do is slow down and move forward a little slower.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
I am going to have the new website. I am moving this blog, but Maitri's Heart must needs continue as it has because what it represents is one woman's heart, wide open, for all the world to see, wild shifts that might seem embarrassing to some but to me are part of my fragile humanity and if I bring it all to the light I will not lose my way. I won't hide these missteps. I will make them, as we all do in our own way when we are building a life, but I will own mine publicly because someone else out there is sitting there feeling so alone and so afraid they don't know which way to turn. They are filled with fear, shame, and maybe even self-loathing for once more stepping out, and falling back, for all the world to see.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
If you are that person, dear man or woman, you are not alone. We are here together. As the fear rises we will catch it in a net. We will take it out and sit it gently on our lap. We will stroke it and tell it it's okay, we are here with it. Love your fear, embrace it, don't run from it, don't hide it, love it tenderly, and then sit it in a soft basket filled with downy quilts and cover it lightly. </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
You have taken care of your fear. I have taken care of mine. Now we can move on.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
I believe that more dreams have fallen by the wayside because people have great bursts forward, they stumble and they fall, but instead of getting up, dusting themselves off, and taking a deep breath, being very very gentle with themselves and accepting where they are, and knowing that it is all part of the process and if they just keep getting up and moving forward they will get there, fear or shame causes them to drop their fragile dream and run from it, hoping not too many people noticed them stumbling on the way.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
You have seen me stumble. You have seen me fall. I'm sure you will again, but you will see me continue to get back up and keep moving forward. You can too. Come on dearheart, it's okay, it's part of being human. Take my hand, we can do this. </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
I am tenderly cradling my book, <i>Tending Grace</i>, and I know that I will finish it. It is about fitting out, because I do, it is the gentle story of me, getting here, to this place, and moving forward to the next. It is the story that I will tell first, it is the heart of Maitri's Heart, it is the truth of my life. Digging deep I find my truth, and I must needs keep finding my way back to this soft gentle place. It is not flashy. There are no blue-footed boobies here, but there are pugs and parrot and a growing garden and loved ones and what more is there? I have all that I need. I am blessed, and I am grateful.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
And so once again I move forward...</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-t4CeHU6kaA0/UcLQWSsS5aI/AAAAAAAAIEU/D7Yx0ebLrrE/s1600/MaitriSz4.4.16.09.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-t4CeHU6kaA0/UcLQWSsS5aI/AAAAAAAAIEU/D7Yx0ebLrrE/s1600/MaitriSz4.4.16.09.jpg" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
maitrilibellulehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13209739470133507700noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6567564540904111532.post-91008742789293976652013-06-17T17:03:00.001-04:002013-06-17T17:03:53.550-04:00The Heart Speaks If We Listen...<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-cmr17EX7RJI/Ub9n8Xrb1aI/AAAAAAAAIAw/A9r6CBaFt7k/s1600/BeFunky_BlankSpiralHeart235.jpg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-cmr17EX7RJI/Ub9n8Xrb1aI/AAAAAAAAIAw/A9r6CBaFt7k/s400/BeFunky_BlankSpiralHeart235.jpg.jpg" width="393" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br />The days following my last post have been peaceful. </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Have I worried or been afraid if I will be alright, if I will be able to make an income, if I can trust what I believe, with my whole heart, to be true?</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
No, no, and no, I have not been afraid, and yes, I trust. </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Do I wonder how it will all happen, am I filled with hope, do I get a little shy around the belief in myself needed to create what I believe I am here on this earth to create?</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
I wonder, I get a little shy, I smile, I get a little fidgety, my heart flutters a bit... in excitement, because I know that I can survive and from that place of knowing, from a place of sitting, very still, and in a quiet meditative place taking time to listen to that still small voice within, all of the answers that I need are coming, floating up one at a time. I don't need to see the whole picture now because I couldn't do everything at once anyway. I get quiet, I listen, I pray for guidance, I trust the answers.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
One thing that has really come up for me in an amazing way is the realization that when I stop trying to do what I think I'm supposed to do in a way that works for others, that I have been encouraged to do, only to become afraid and frozen and shut down, when I gently release those ideas of how it should be, and stop criticizing myself because I feel that I should have been able to, and sit with it all for awhile, really releasing it all, something shifts. What happens is that when you listen very closely all that you need is already there inside of you. Yes, there will be outside things that you need to learn or do to see those dreams into reality, but those things are easy once you have confidence in yourself and your dream. I never had that confidence. I was waiting for someone else to tell me that it was alright.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
I am alright just as I am, right now, in this very moment. I am not afraid of hard work. I can do what I need to do. To that end I am already creating a website that will be in place to create income in a way that I feel good about that is separate and apart from the work that I hope will one day be my full time work, but it is all connected and true and authentic and part of my soul. It has to do with gardening, and more than that I am not yet ready to share. Too early. But I will say that in finding a way that I can create income now, with gifts and talents that I already have, enables me to breathe a little. Too much pressure put on heart~work to be the sole means of income just kills the very soul of the enterprise. It is too much for it to bear. It will never see the light of day if you crush it with expectations it cannot hope to live up to as it is just getting up on its wobbly newborn legs. Let it grow unfettered and free. My work will be from home but it will be the equivalent of a day job that feeds one's passion, and as it is about gardening it is also a passion. </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
When we focus so completely on one way of looking at things, or achieving our dreams, we limit ourselves in such a way that we are almost surely dooming it to failure. I have cast my net wide, become expansive with my notion about what can be my work in this world, have begun to look at what for me are more practical and perhaps a little less dreamy pieces of the puzzle but still all part of the dream. All of the parts support the whole. I have stood back, taken a good look at my life, and saw that there was so much more there than I had ever given myself credit for. I am amazed by my own abilities, by the gifts and talents that I have that I never thought about using because I took them for granted, and as all the parts and pieces are moving closer together I see that they are all part of the same tapestry and they are woven fine. Woven together my life begins to look both possible and doable and in a way that will make me happy. I thought anything less than being able to fully and solely achieve my soft little dream was, well, not selling out, but taking away from the potency of that which I had hoped to create. No, when we take care of one part of our life it creates a vibrant energy that spreads through the whole life at hand. A mystical, magical, mysteriously awesome experience.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
That I have found this, almost by accident, to be true for me is a revelation, and it is true for you too.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
How often do we find ourselves living by others shoulds, oughts and musts? What happens if we gently let all of those things fall away -- scary, entering the unknown, actually trusting ourselves -- and let those little fragments break free and float up to the surface? Those little pieces of dreams that we have pushed down so hard they might never have surfaced again. And they might not be easy to retrieve but it is so worth taking the time to try to reconnect with them. Do this...</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Find a little time each day to sit quietly, to be with yourself in a comfortable, peaceful place. It may be for 10 minutes at night when you are actually in bed before you go to sleep. </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Sit, close your eyes, breathe, and picture your beautiful heart opening up, slowly, maybe just a little. In whatever way is comfortable for you tell your heart that you are ready to listen, to receive the messages that are meant for you to hear. Imagine tiny little notes escaping from the opening and floating up, up, up. Try to read what these little notes say, it may be a word, a phrase, a picture. These are the messages your heart is sending you, and will keep sending you, until you are ready to hear them. You may not be able to read them yet. Come each night with a willingness to listen. It is your life that you are listening to. It is your soul trying to call out to you to bring you back to the place of innocence and longing, dreaming and hoping, wanting dearly to have or do or be or achieve that special thing we held so dear before the loss of innocence, when everyone around us gave us a hundred reasons, a thousand, why it could never be so. Look at the faces around you. How many look sad? How many are walking through life with the weight of long lost dreams weighing them down?</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
I think a lot of depression comes from closing our heart so tight and determinedly not listening because we feel that it isn't safe, that what we hear will be frivolous, or impractical, that we will be made fun of, that we aren't up to the task, that we let them sink to the bottom of the sea of our soul. I think more people than less die with broken and lost dreams in their heart. Is there anything sadder? What if you try and it doesn't pan out the way you had imagined? Well, what I am finding out so far -- and I am still very early on in this journey -- is that once you trust enough to make a start you may not come, in the end, to the place you thought you wanted to go, but most likely you will come to the very place you are supposed to be, or at the very least you will have come closer, and be more fulfilled, than you would have ever been without trying. </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
It's only your life. Do you want to die without trying? All we can do is try, but the very act of believing enough to try is positively life changing, it changes your perspective on everything else around you, every little corner of your day is a new, brighter color simply because you are allowing hope in again. I think belief in ourselves is the hardest part. Then, step by step, it gets easier. There will surely be times when fear rises, we are human, but come back to your night-time meditations with your heart. The messages will keep rising and direct you back to your course. Once you have opened that door it is not easily shut.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
It is never too late. It is never, ever too late.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
I am just beginning. I am the little horse trying to stand up on wobbly legs, but I am determined to keep on, and to share my journey here with you. There is strength in numbers. Why don't you leave a comment below this post, and you don't have to share what your dream is, but perhaps just say<i>, "I'm with you Maitri, I am ready to listen to my heart, I will not die with my song unsung, I am ready to begin."</i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
It is a journey, not a destination, but it is easier when you know that you are not alone. We have to follow our own individual paths, but we can walk parallel to each other, we can wave to each other and offer a hearty, "Atta girl, keep on keeping on!" to one another. </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
I'm waving at you now. Will you wave back at me?</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Mk6xYRTwf3E/Ub922f5sQSI/AAAAAAAAIBA/hg9hQLJMV0Q/s1600/MaitriSz4.4.16.09.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Mk6xYRTwf3E/Ub922f5sQSI/AAAAAAAAIBA/hg9hQLJMV0Q/s1600/MaitriSz4.4.16.09.jpg" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
maitrilibellulehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13209739470133507700noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6567564540904111532.post-21532263574165261352013-06-15T09:06:00.000-04:002013-06-16T16:05:28.784-04:00I Found My Way Home...<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>Be it ever so humble there's no place like home...</i></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-7Ch3PWu_A5k/UbxQ2IglbkI/AAAAAAAAH_k/dCrpzXYsPTE/s1600/redpinkleftsideofporch5.15.13_1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="231" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-7Ch3PWu_A5k/UbxQ2IglbkI/AAAAAAAAH_k/dCrpzXYsPTE/s400/redpinkleftsideofporch5.15.13_1.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>The front porch at Dragonfly Cottage</i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>Dear Ones,</i></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
The last couple of weeks have been an intense and scary roller-coaster ride around and through the bi polar pathways that start in my brain and run through my life. I sat down two nights ago trying to figure out what had been going on and I realized something that was so important I don't know how I could have missed it, but one thing that I know for sure is that bi polar or not I will always find my way home. Home to myself, home to that which is real and true for me, and this is what I discovered...</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
There are many ways to create a life and a business today and all are good and have value for those who fit with the current paradigms. I do not fit. I have written here that we -- those of use whose life must needs be lived outside the box -- need to learn how to be comfortable with fitting <i>out </i>rather than fitting<i> in</i>. I was trying desperately to fit in, and it's just not me. To that end I removed the last 2 blog entries about writing and teaching because they came from a place that while authentic at one time no longer work for me. I can cook them up but I could not continually dish them out. I am not that intense, over the top wild writer anymore and, as I read it, I must say, I was a bit unnerved. I don't know where that came from. I am a very good teacher, I taught my writing classes for over thirty years and had waiting lists to get in my classes. We went deep, for sure, but I am a much gentler soul than that, and as time has gone by I get softer, and gentler, and quieter. I cannot work with people one on one. I left the world for a reason when I decided that Dragonfly Cottage would be my home, my sanctuary, where I would create a life that would be the safe haven that I need, but also I want, in my deepest heart, to help others find their way home, to themselves, to what is true and real for them even if no one else understands it. It is what I am doing here. It is what I want to share with you.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-URVd5U7u8lo/UbxWGDz9EbI/AAAAAAAAH_0/wSFXBcviIYE/s1600/TannerSamChestMorning_2013-06-14+10.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="231" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-URVd5U7u8lo/UbxWGDz9EbI/AAAAAAAAH_0/wSFXBcviIYE/s400/TannerSamChestMorning_2013-06-14+10.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>Tanner and Sampson just waking up -- on my chest!</i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Yesterday morning I woke up, as I always do, snuggled in with my 3 pugs, and Sam and Tanner were right on top of me, firmly planted on my chest and tummy, two sleepy pug boys, my sweet loves. I am a simple woman, my animals, my garden, my writing, my art, solitude and silence, prayer and meditation, reading, and sending love notes out to the world through my blog and the books I want to write and the podcasts that I am now doing, this is the way I want to live my life, this is what I have to offer, and yes, I have to find a way to create income to live on but it has to be my way, a way that can sustain me in a quiet gentle way that does not set off solar flares that awaken the sleeping dragon inside of me. I have so much that I want to give, so much that I can give, and yesterday I started doing just that. I am creating my own paradigm for how I can live my life, tend it gently using the gifts and talents and elements of my life that I have that keep me at peace and help me create what is real and true for me now, and what I think, I hope, will reach others and be something that might help them as well. I want to help you, dear readers, to feel less alone. I want to help you see that if I could find and create a life that works for me you too can find and create one that works for you even if no one else in the world understands it. I want to create safe space for you in my books, and perhaps there will be a community online, I'm not sure, it is a possibility, but first there is so much more that I have to create. I am doing this for me, and I am doing it for you. If what I have to offer can be a help, a comfort, for you, I will be blessed a thousand fold, and my life will have purpose and meaning.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
I will also be working on my novel as well as my book about the 100 Ladies. I will be creating art to sell, not only the drawings that I have been doing that I will use to create merchandise to sell but in this beautiful, peaceful place I am finding my way into I am finally returning to my fiber art as well. So much of me has been taken up trying to do things that I thought I was supposed to do that I dropped the thread that connected me to all that I loved to do. I will be weaving and hand-spinning yarn and doing free form crochet and upcycled art, nature art, and more. Soon I will be re-opening my etsy shop, maybe by the end of the summer when I have had time to create enough to fill it. Oh my, it feels good to have found my way home to my true self and the life that I have known all along was the one I was meant to create.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-QqOQSt0SuLc/UbxZvigmIYI/AAAAAAAAIAE/9rblDZ-MIoE/s1600/BlueSalviaGreenGarden2013-06-14+10.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-QqOQSt0SuLc/UbxZvigmIYI/AAAAAAAAIAE/9rblDZ-MIoE/s400/BlueSalviaGreenGarden2013-06-14+10.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>Tall blue salvia opening up in the green cottage garden...</i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
In the next few months much of my life will be spent in the garden. Just now I have a number of plants to plant, and a great many bulbs, hundreds of gladiolas and a great many lilies. Two boysenberry bushes arrived yesterday and I can't wait to plant them in my studio garden on my deck where herbs, roses, fig and berry bushes, and so much more are growing. I look out these windows here where I am writing on so much beauty, the bright flamingo pink deck overflowing with new little plants shooting up, a host of wild birds at 3 feeders, two, just on the other side of these windows so close that I can almost reach out and touch the tiny birds that come to these two, the chickadees and the nuthatches, rosy finches, and even downy woodpeckers, and so many more. All of the things that I have wanted to do, that I came here to do, are the things that hold the keys to creating the income that I need to create. A flood of relief came over me and I cried. The weight of the world had been lifted off my shoulders.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-RAZAIv6-bMI/Ubxa5rRyRzI/AAAAAAAAIAQ/UlZpUpmxwl8/s1600/studioherbgarden6.14.13.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="323" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-RAZAIv6-bMI/Ubxa5rRyRzI/AAAAAAAAIAQ/UlZpUpmxwl8/s400/studioherbgarden6.14.13.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
Finally, yesterday I set up the PDF for the book I will definitely publish and I can say that with confidence because it is just this, the book of my heart, coming out of the world that I have created. The pages are a warm rosy pink, each 8x8" page outlined, a little box to live within, to write my stories, share my art and photographs, and mostly, in sharing my life here at Dragonfly Cottage, I hope to help you see that if you haven't already you can create the life that is one where you can sink into with ease and relief, grace and peace. There is so much I want to share with you and I have to do it in the way that I know best how to do it. It is not unlike <i>The Contemplative Way</i>, the quarterly journal that I published on all blue paper under the auspices of The Blue Hibiscus Press.<br />
<br />
This may end up being a quarterly journal too and it will be full of notes and quotes, resources and stories of animals and gardens, of one woman finding her way through the maze of life as a bi polar woman to a sanctuary that she created, that I created, to be able to share the gifts that I do have. We all can do this. I want to invite you into the cottage in the way that I can. I want to welcome you to my home through the pages of this book, the first in a series. Yes, that's just it, it is the first book in a series and I am so excited to bring it to you. Would you like to share this journey with me and be guided gently into a life where you, too, can find your peace? I hope you will come with me. Oh, dear ones, I hope you do. There will be journal exercises -- gentle ones -- and so much more. I want to reach out to you and offer you all that I have to give, all that is inside of me. It is time. Oh yes dear ones, it is time.<br />
<br />
From this beautiful place, this gentle place of peace and calm, I send you so much love. I offer you my heart, like an open book. The pendulum had to swing wildly in every direction until, dazed, confused, afraid, and hurting, through prayer, meditation, silence and solitude I was able to come home to myself. It is only from this place that I truly have anything to offer, and I am ready to offer it to you.<br />
<br />
I wish for you many blessings. I send you so much love...<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-wsbQ1h-g_Uo/Ubxj75kxZ6I/AAAAAAAAIAg/KE7cvwNdjgM/s1600/MaitriSz4.4.16.09.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-wsbQ1h-g_Uo/Ubxj75kxZ6I/AAAAAAAAIAg/KE7cvwNdjgM/s1600/MaitriSz4.4.16.09.jpg" /></a></div>
<br /></div>
maitrilibellulehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13209739470133507700noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6567564540904111532.post-15259241788129387112013-06-07T22:41:00.001-04:002013-06-07T23:06:52.115-04:00Harnessing That Bi Polar Energy, A Renewable Resource ~ Dedicated to @kseniaanske ...<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-2JUGOXUWbBY/UbKC3nwaanI/AAAAAAAAH9s/-7TPiuL4sXQ/s1600/BiPolarEnergy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-2JUGOXUWbBY/UbKC3nwaanI/AAAAAAAAH9s/-7TPiuL4sXQ/s400/BiPolarEnergy.jpg" width="220" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>It began like this...</i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Like over 50,000 others on Twitter I have been inspired by the incredible <a href="http://www.kseniaanske.com/bio/" target="_blank"><i>Ksenia Anske</i></a> whom I "met" there, as one meets, tweet by tweet, in this now not in the least bit unusual medium. This amazing woman/writer/Twitterologist has published one novel, and not only self-published it but she offers you her writing for free right on her website. (Yes, you can download her books for free. You can also buy them on amazon. But first she just wanted to give them away entirely for free.) Her work and what she is doing with it, as well as the amazing phenomenon she has become on Twitter tweeting her way through the day as she writes, now working on her second novel, and encouraging others far and wide to do the same, "Write-Write-Write!" has me all fired up and more excited than I have been in a long time about just-plain-writing. Writing for the joy of writing, for the thrill of it all, because you can't NOT write, because you write like you breathe, because words are your LIFE, because reading and writing are all that matter. <i>Because...</i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
I have been saying this and writing this and <i>teaching</i> this for nearly 40 years <i>but I forgot</i>. I have written in magazines, newspapers, been published in anthologies, had 3 small presses and written a dozen novels that didn't sell but I always wrote with a passion, a desire, and a fervor that nearly set my hair a-fire. I was known for this, until I didn't know it myself anymore. What happened to me?</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Somewhere after leaving my decades long marriage I fell through time and space and lost myself so completely that for someone who picked up a pen at 9 and wrote her way through a lifetime of pain and confusion and depression and whatever else life handed me I lost the thread, over a decade I unravelled, and writing left me. Oh yes, I've blogged, but I stopped writing books. It didn't matter if books were not published -- and if I'd had the option to self-publish, the kind of options that are available today, some of them might have been published and I think I would have been proud of them -- no, it didn't matter that they weren't published, what mattered is that I never had any trouble writing them. I'm not talking about quality, or publishability, I'm talking about the zest for it all, and somewhere along the line I lost it.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Enter Ksenia Anske on Twitter. Now, mind, we don't really know one another, we've just tweeted, or <i>re</i>tweeted as it were a few times, but her energy is contagious and it has reignited a passion for writing in me I'd lost without knowing it. Thank God. Just in the knick of time. And it's so much more than that. </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
I had nearly written <i>myself</i> off, so terrified have I become over the fact that being bi polar seems to have become more of a struggle as the years have gone on to the extent that I have worried that I wouldn't be okay, okay as in able to make a living and take care of myself. It's really been a very scary time and every day is a bit of a Sisyphean task to push myself up the hill through the hours only to roll back down and have to start over the next day. What I hadn't realized was that the <i>not</i> writing was making it all worse, and I couldn't get my groove back, not until Ksenia. I am on my knees thanking God for that woman, and I can pretty much guarantee you a lot of other people are too. </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Okay, so what is the point of all of this? With my new found inspiration I pulled out a novel I have been starting and stopping for years. It is an odd little novel that I have great affection for but every time I start it I get just so far and I think, "Yegods, this is, well, it's... what would people think?" And the thing is that now I don't care, I just don't care. Life is too doggoned short to care so much that I don't write and if I don't write it just won't bode well for my life as a whole. It's just that...</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Well, you see I got the novel out, I dusted it off, I set a timer and I wrote for an hour. BAM! Something inside of me like a sleeping dragon woke up and went WILD. I was laughing while I wrote. I was prickly with fear and shivering with delight. I startled myself and I just WENT for it. This set me to writing everywhere, Facebook, Twitter, you name it, that I was going to write this novel and tweet the dickens out of the whole process and, and, and...</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
And then it hit me. I was riding a wave of bi polar mania and it scared the hoo ha out of me! And it stopped me in my tracks. And then I realized that I have done nothing but be stopped in my tracks for over a decade. And if I have to surf the wild waves to write this book I'm going to do it. </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Now, here's the thing. I am on medication. I may get manicy in moderation but I get a grip fairly soon. I don't drive my car off a cliff, I don't take drugs or go on alcoholic benders, no, I just get razzle-dazzle excited (and sometimes buy too many pens or books or art supplies or plants for the garden) but the thing is that if I'm gonna <i>have</i> to be bi polar then gosh darnit I'm gonna USE it! Why not harness that bi polar energy?</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
So my plan is to set that timer for 1 hour a day, and no, I haven't done it today but I can promise you that as soon as I publish this blog post I'm going to do it and here's why. I'm going to do it because I have to, because I need to show myself that I can stick to something, that I can finish something, that I can DO something, and that joy, that over the top sheer reckless exhilaration I feel when I am working on that book is something that I need to harness and store up inside of me. I need it, like the solar lights that I have all over my yard that soak up the rays during the day and glow at night, I need to write this novel and let that part of me kick up it's heels and write whatever I want to write, as big and bold and wild as I want to write it, because, properly harnessed, within the framework of that hour each day, I will be charging the solar battery in the center of my being so that I can move through the rest of my life and create the business I need to create to take care of myself and yes, maybe save my very own life.<br />
<br />
There is a lot written now that bi polar disorder has entered the mainstream mental health arena about all of the writers and artists through time that were bi polar and how they created in such angst that they did such things as cut off their ears or kill themselves leading a lot of people to wonder if you had to be crazy to be an artist at all. Can you be "healthy" and be an artist? Well, I think that's not the point, not for me anyway. The point is that I believe you can be bi polar and create and have a happy life. I think you have to be aware, very aware, and take good care of yourself, and use those energies in a way that moves you forward. Within the confines of that hour I can be as flippin' manic as I might be writing this story that screams to be born, but then... Then the timer dings, I save the document 56 ways to Sunday, I kiss a pug, and I go on about my life. Every single page that I write is an affirmation that I can do it at all, and that affirmation is something that is spreading through me and into dark corners that I thought would never see the light of day. I knew it before but I forgot. It's writing I need. Writing will save my life.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
And no, I'll leave it to Ksenia to tweetly-deedly-doo all about the writing process on Twitter and elsewhere. I will be there soaking up her tweets and thanking God that I stepped into "the twitterverse" and found her. And I will rip though this novel without stopping or looking back. I'll say anything I darned well please any way I want to. If, in the end, it is something that with time and editing and work becomes a book that I feel that I can publish, well, wonderful, but it's the act of writing it, of finishing it, that I most need to do, and so I am. By the time you see this my timer will be ticking and I will be pounding the keys fueled by bi polar delight.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>Skyrockets in flight, it's bi-polar-delight, I'm harnessing bi-polar-delight.</i> (If you're old enough to recognize the song that inspired this you can sing it out loud with me just for fun!)</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Thank you Ksenia. Now I'm setting my timer. It's time.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>Weeeee doggies!<br /></i></div>
maitrilibellulehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13209739470133507700noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6567564540904111532.post-55085568228371654102013-05-30T19:47:00.003-04:002013-05-31T14:09:33.375-04:00Now that I'm Free To Be Myself, Who Am I? ~ Mary Oliver<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-obOgta6Uiq0/UaeWi1xytKI/AAAAAAAAH80/yWfjLJ6uswc/s1600/Banner200.5.12.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-obOgta6Uiq0/UaeWi1xytKI/AAAAAAAAH80/yWfjLJ6uswc/s400/Banner200.5.12.jpg" width="260" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
I came across this Mary Oliver quote this morning and it brought me up short. I just sat and stared at it. </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Last night, between 11 and 12 pm, I started, stopped, and deleted no less than 5 attempts at a podcast. I have not missed a scheduled podcast since I started even though I've gone from every day to every other day since they have gotten so much longer, time for listeners to have time to listen and for me enough time for the well to fill again so that I feel I have something to say, to share. While my podcasts are not on the edge of your seat exciting. simply gentle musings from <i>Dragonfly Cottage</i> about the days here, the pugs and the parrots, the garden, my writing and art, thoughts about life, last night it felt like everything I came up with was gibberish, and, I must admit, it sounded like meaningless meandering all over the place. I could not get my brain on straight! The question that I had been grappling with all day was a version of just this, <i>Now that I'm free to be myself, who am I?</i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i><br /></i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
By last night I was exhausted to the point of tears trying to figure out what it was that I was that I wanted to do with <i>my one wild and precious life</i><i> </i>(One of my all-time favorite quotes, also by Oliver, <i>"Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?"</i> the last two lines of her poem "The Summer Day."), and I'll be doggoned if I could tell you.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
I have written here, there, and everywhere about my 100 ladies, and I love them, and fully intend to continue with that book and their work. I have grappled with trying to write my book on being bi polar, <i>I Will Not Go Down That Rabbit Hole</i>, but after pulling it out, dusting it off, connecting with it strongly, after getting an amazing amount of feedback and thank you's for sharing it I became afraid again, not that I couldn't write it but, as self-care is absolutely essential for me, the dark place that I would have to live in for the year or however long it would take me to write it would mean that I would have to live through the pain and struggles that I face almost daily, twice. Once in the living of it and again in the writing. It is just not a place I feel it would be healthy for me to go. </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Then a few comments came in about part of a book that I have started over and over again for years, <i>The Road To Dragonfly Cottage</i>. This is not just a journey to a physical place but a spiritual journey that began after leaving my marriage at 45 in April 1999 to the present, and there is a lot in that book as I have conceived it and in the numerous drafts I have written to date that I feel has merit, might help others as well as be a record of both a spiritual and psychological journey of a woman coming to midlife and beyond while struggling to create a life that has purpose and meaning.<br />
<br />
All of these projects are important to me even while I know <i>Rabbit Hole</i> needs to just rest for now, but my most pressing concern that comes up and up and up is that writing a book is not enough at a time when I really need to create an income. And so the idea of creating a community where I might bring the wisdom and experience that I have into a forum where I can help other women is what I have come to, but how best to go about it? Thank goodness I have Dori Etter of <i>Inspired Income</i> to help me do just that.<br />
<br />
So after contacting Dori on Tuesday to tell her that I was finally ready to have our one-on-one session to start moving forward with this work, and I will next Tuesday, I started plotting and planning, and yesterday I made up a list of all of the things I have done in my life that I can bring to bear on this new work and I was overwhelmed. It was a life review of sorts and there was so much that it left me reeling and feeling somewhat depressed and melancholy about times gone by, as well as tender towards all of the things that I have done. And, too, what I came to is how little we credit ourselves for our own experience, knowledge, and wisdom earned over the years. I think most of all I love having come into my crone years and fully embrace that I am a wisdom keeper, a truth teller with the battle scars and stripes of glory that we all have, in our own way, as we grow into midlife and beyond.<br />
<br />
<i>Who am I?</i><br />
<br />
I was a daughter and a wife. I am a mother and a grandmother, a friend and a lover of so much of the world and very nearly every one I meet, everyone that is kind and gentle and loving I embrace with my whole heart, even if I can't do it in person I have a lot to give and receive from where I am.<br />
<br />
I was a childbirth educator for ten years teaching natural childbirth classes to countless couples, and after having my 2nd and 3rd babies at home I got more and more involved in the homebirth movement and became a lay midwife. I was a La Leche League Leader and counseled breastfeeding mothers for over a decade and nursed my own three children for long periods of time. We homeschooled our children and grew as a family through so very many experiences and so much over so many years. After 25 years we would separate and just short of our 31st wedding anniversary we divorced but my husband and I have had a very gentle, kind and loving parting and celebrated birthdays and holidays and weddings and deaths and births together over the years. My family, including my ex-husband, are the dearest people in the world to me.<br />
<br />
As a survivor of long-term sexual abuse and suffering from a handful of mental health diagnoses, and having had nervous breakdowns and been suicidal, and having come through the worst of it to the place where I now work vigilantly at self-care, managing medications and working with a therapist for four of my nearly six decades, I have gained so much insight and wisdom about being a survivor, about healing, about struggling, nearly losing the battle, but winning the worst wars and daily finding my way over the hurdles and through the valleys, I have been on a shaman's journey, and with a lifelong spiritual quest from being raised Catholic, to studying Buddhism for four decades, as well as Native American spirituality, being ordained a Christian minister, studying, deeply, the monastic traditions, and finally coming to peace with God in what I call <i>Direct Communion</i>, I have a knowledge base that spans a multitude of spiritual traditions, that has brought a richness to my life and which carries with it so much depth, and color, and passion for living a life of spiritual service that I know I was born to do just this, to be of service in the world carrying the message of the name I took legally a decade ago. Maitri, the Buddhist teaching of loving-kindness and compassion, and that we must first have it for ourselves to give it to another. My work is centered in compassion and loving-kindness in all that I do from day to day relations with others to my writing and art to the work that I will do with women for the rest of my life.<br />
<br />
Having taught journal-keeping classes for thirty years, first with my childbirth couples and then, after apprenticing Katya Sabaroff Taylor whose wonderful approach to journal keeping changed my life, to studying with Ira Progoff, the founder of <i>The Intensive Journal Method</i>, and Natalie Goldberg author of <i>Writing Down The Bones</i>, and becoming friends with the woman who was my favorite writer and became my mentor and muse in the last years of her life, May Sarton, all the way up to this last year when I have studied and worked with SARK, Susan Ariel Rainbow Kennedy, who has taught me so much, read my writing and encouraged me every month since last July, and inspired me to do all that I have wanted and meant to do, in fact was born to do, yes, all of these people have stood me in good stead for what lies ahead.<br />
<br />
I have learned the power of our stories. Writing and sharing our human stories is the most powerful thing that we can do and the recording and sharing of our lives with others and leaving that legacy for the generations to come I truly believe is the great legacy we will have left when our days on this earth have come to an end. Writing and sharing my own story, teaching, helping, and encouraging others to do the same, and gently midwifing women through the birthing of their deepest, most authentic self, and learning to fully love and embrace who they are may just be the most important work that I can do.<br />
<br />
I am also a Reiki Master, a Shambhala Master Healer, a long time gardener connected to the earth more deeply than almost anything else, and I have had a lifetime of working with animals, rescuing them, as they rescued me, and living with a multitude of pugs and parrots and more over the years. Colette wrote,<i> "My poetry is earthbound."</i> My poetry, my life, my work, my love, my whole being is both earthbound and spirit-led. I am a child of the sun, the moon, and the stars. I carry within me the innocence of the newborn that I have never lost throughout it all as well as the wisdom of the grandmothers which I have truly earned. I am near tears writing this. I am all of this and so much more.<br />
<br />
As I write this I truly encourage all of you to do just this. Start with the quote at the top and keep writing. Write for days, for weeks, for the rest of your life. Embrace and love and celebrate all that you are, and keep evolving and becoming and celebrating every single facet of your life, every battle scar and stripe of glory that you have rightly earned. As Walt Whitman wrote, <i>"Celebrate yourself, Sing yourself!"</i> and in this blog entry I have and going forward I will and I will help others to do the same.<br />
<br />
I have answered the question. I am ready. I will meet with Dori next week and I will begin. Soon I will open the doors to a community that I will spend the rest of my life building and nurturing, where I will teach, and listen, and offer all that I have, all that I am, all that I know, and I will learn from the women who come to me, and I will love and cherish them with all of my heart.<br />
<br />
In writing this I have found my answers, I have found my peace, I have finally, fully understood who I am. My heart is soaring. I am on my knees thanking God and my spirit has sprouted wings and my soul taken flight. I cannot wait to start this work. The best part of my life is about to begin.<br />
<br />
<i>Oh yes. I am ready.</i><br />
<br />
With all the love in my heart I embrace each of you with the warmest regard and sending the deepest blessings to all...<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-XzjGzol8ndw/UafgEaQsTdI/AAAAAAAAH9E/cjBTJaVqDiM/s1600/MaitriSz4.4.16.09.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-XzjGzol8ndw/UafgEaQsTdI/AAAAAAAAH9E/cjBTJaVqDiM/s1600/MaitriSz4.4.16.09.jpg" /></a></div>
<br /></div>
maitrilibellulehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13209739470133507700noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6567564540904111532.post-38473411418127935182013-05-29T14:33:00.002-04:002013-05-29T14:33:55.058-04:00Can You Wind This Ball of Yarn?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-tE1hPN1EP44/UaZHy36hXjI/AAAAAAAAH8k/SU9QHW6yb6k/s1600/BeFunky_CandylandBallInHand.jpg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="290" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-tE1hPN1EP44/UaZHy36hXjI/AAAAAAAAH8k/SU9QHW6yb6k/s320/BeFunky_CandylandBallInHand.jpg.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><i>The Ball of Yarn...</i></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">How to: Make a new friend, catch up with an old friend, get to know someone you have known for a long time but not really KNOWN...</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Invite them for a cup of tea (or coffee, or a glass of wine, whatever suits) and, this is the most important part, have a ball of yarn ready and set it in the middle of the table.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">After the pleasantries have passed and you are comfortable with one another you are ready to begin. </span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Move your chairs together and sit with your knees almost touching. One of you will hold the ball of yarn while the other will take the end piece of the ball of yarn and beginning slowly unwinding it and making a new ball on your side. While you wind your ball tell the person opposite you everything you admire about them, everything you would like to know about them, how they inspire you, intrigue you, tell them anything and everything you can think of. Tell them how much you appreciate that they were willing to take a step forward with this friendship. You can laugh and giggle and whisper and cry and any other emotion that rises is fine. When you get to the end of the ball, stop, reverse order, and let your friend respond to everything you just said to her. </span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Switch chairs. This is important because you are switching gears, modes, the ball of yarn is on the other needle so to speak. Now she (or he) will tell you everything that you first told her, and so on. When the ball ends, you answer. </span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">If you are feeling very close and things are really opening up and you are in a beautiful space you might pass the ball back and forth for hours. Having the yarn to wind makes it easier. Gives you a task to break the tension of staring at the person nervously not knowing what to say. You can just look at the yarn, constant eye contact isn't necessary. Keep winding, make a beautiful ball.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Now, if you can do this you will be one of the rare, extraordinary people as will your friend and this will be a friendship to cherish for a lifetime. In today's world where a dinner can't be had without someone texting or checking their e-mail, if you can pass the ball of yarn back and forth, raveling and unraveling the mysteries of the person before you and offering them your open heart in return a miracle will have occurred. </span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Can you wind that ball of yarn? Do you dare?</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>© 2013 Maitri Libellule</i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i><br /></i></div>
maitrilibellulehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13209739470133507700noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6567564540904111532.post-11572751645722562162013-05-28T18:39:00.000-04:002013-05-28T19:54:16.424-04:00Rose and the Stories of The One Hundred Ladies and How I Hope They Can Change The World...<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-RwufNOCKjZ8/UaUr5ZeA5yI/AAAAAAAAH8M/8PhnIuvsBe0/s1600/BeFunky_OldPhoto_4.jpg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="381" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-RwufNOCKjZ8/UaUr5ZeA5yI/AAAAAAAAH8M/8PhnIuvsBe0/s400/BeFunky_OldPhoto_4.jpg.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<i><span style="color: #c27ba0;">Rose, the cantadora, who sings the songs (stories) <br />of the 100 Ladies...</span></i></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
I started <i>The 100 Ladies Project</i> because they insisted on being born. I wasn't sure where they would lead me but I knew that they wouldn't steer me wrong, and they haven't. They have led me into a place where art meets writing, where stories come from deep inside of me from a place of time beyond time, and in the most unique and unusual of the women's stories there is a universal truth. The 100 ladies message is that every woman, in her uniqueness, in all of who she is, is an amazing miracle and brings with her myriad blessings and gifts that, when shared with other women, can create a tribe of women who can band together to create a worldwide movement. 100 women helping 100 women helping 100 women and so on into eternity. They mean to plant seeds that will bloom generation after generation. Their stories will never die.</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
I am a cantadora, a wisdom keeper, I sing the songs and tell the tales of women who have come before me, and those who will come after me, and those who are inside of me. I sing the lives of women I have known and women who have influenced, delighted, taught, and inspired me through their books and art and music. I write the stories that come in dreams and those from waking visions. Sometimes the lady comes first and sometimes her story but they come together, hand in hand, and their stories are more powerful linked together. United we stand, divided we fall, the ladies mean to band together, through space and time, and reach out to other women around the world. They want to hear your stories. They want to pass the talking stick until all the stories of all the women of the world are told. Their work will never end.</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
How do I hope to structure the real world work of these ladies? These are some of my ideas, and I am in the process of giving birth to more than a project, but a movement. I have always tried to leap into what should be long range plans before the time was right and this time I plan to move more slowly and grow into all that I hope to do but I can tell you that what I would like to do is to create a community where women can hear these stories, and learn the medicine, the wisdom, that Rose has come to teach, and start with a bi-monthly journal wherein subscribers, women committed to helping grow this community and help other women, will receive one of the ladies stories every other week. After the story Rose, the wise woman, teacher, and guide to the ladies will share the wisdom learned in this woman's story, and will guide a discussion in a forum created just for members. The forum will be like a cottage with many rooms where women can meet to discuss all manner of things from living their daily lives, to trying to find their way in the world and the path and work that are right for them, to how to build a life that is perhaps outside the norm but is the life they can best live to survive and thrive and grow the living garden inside of them even as they grow one in the real world.</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
I see the community of women gardening together, sharing seeds and stories, plans and dreams. Cooking together, sharing recipes and teaching one another about the foods and spices and traditions in their own corner of the world. These activities may be metaphorical and hold the energy of the activity, the nourishing quality of these activities that women have have taken part in in their daily lives since the dawn of time until recent generations. It is a call to bring back this energy and spread it, one woman to another, until all women know that their stories have merit and that in sharing them on they will change the lives of their children and their children seven generations into the future. </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
I have a dream, not unlike the theory of <a href="http://www.wowzone.com/monkey.htm" target="_blank"><i>The Hundredth Monkey</i></a> which Ken Keyes wrote about in his book of the same name. When enough monkeys shared the knowledge it spread through the tribe until the hundredth monkey learned the lesson and the collective energy shot through the tribe and soon around the world. <i>What if...</i></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<i><br /></i></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<i>...</i> one woman told her story and encouraged the next woman to tell hers (and as each woman shared hers she share the one that came before her) and each one carried these stories and this wisdom forward and on and on until all women knew all of the stories and the collective wisdom spread across the land and around the world and women found the commonalities at the same time they were enriched by the differences. We are all one. Together we can change the world.</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
I am creating something that each woman who joins will receive. It will be, I believe, a revolutionary way to change the world, one woman at a time. I am more than excited. I am in awe of the power of women everywhere. This is an idea that is growing inside of me, the seed of a movement, or a gentle revolution based in love and kindness, in compassion and in the genuine desire to change to the world for all who come after us. It is my hope, my dream, my plan, my mission. And there is so much more.</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
The 100 Ladies are on the move. Look for more news here. I hope by September to be ready to open the doors and begin to grow the tribe. Some of the work will begin to go out through the summer. If you are reading this I hope you will join me. We are part of a great lineage. Our mothers, our grandmothers, and back and back and back. Our daughters, nieces, neighbors, grandchildren and on and on into the future, and their families and friends and the whole world around them. </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<i><br /></i></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<i>Each one, reach one. That is the message of the 100 ladies. It is time to hear their stories. Let us begin...</i></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<i><br /></i></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-4OlxDjiaMzg/UaUUfsfGbEI/AAAAAAAAH78/sV-fQwnUS_Y/s1600/RoseMaureenCarmen.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="132" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-4OlxDjiaMzg/UaUUfsfGbEI/AAAAAAAAH78/sV-fQwnUS_Y/s400/RoseMaureenCarmen.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<i><br /></i></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
maitrilibellulehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13209739470133507700noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6567564540904111532.post-64726112025822504962013-05-22T22:27:00.001-04:002013-05-23T11:03:30.188-04:00It's time to go scary deep with my writing. I'm going to tell it all. I will not got down that rabbit hole...<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-FxnftfI_Uog/UZ1kSuz0_tI/AAAAAAAAH6o/jOTrgyRtbbg/s1600/libelluleEcrit2013-05-22+19.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="165" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-FxnftfI_Uog/UZ1kSuz0_tI/AAAAAAAAH6o/jOTrgyRtbbg/s400/libelluleEcrit2013-05-22+19.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>La libellule écrit... </i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>(The dragonfly is writing.)</i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i><br /></i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
When I took the name Libellule after my divorce to honor my French heritage the dragonfly had long been my totem animal. The dragonfly represents moving out of the darkness into the light. It was in 1999. My marriage had ended, I came out as a lesbian and quickly found myself needing to enter into a cloistered world with animals and the garden, to go deep into a cocoon where all of the layers that had built up over a lifetime for self-protection were painfully tight and tearing. I was about to go through a decade and more of deep transformation. It would take me some time now to move through the darkness and into the light.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
"Ring the bells that still can ring</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Forget your perfect offering</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
There is a crack in everything</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
That's how the light gets in."</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>Leonard Cohen</i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i><br /></i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Thank God for that crack. The little bit of light that I could see kept me alive, and I was dangerously close to the edge. More than once suicide seemed my only option, but something pulled me back from the brink. In my darkest hour, the closest that I ever came, a miracle occurred. I was just at the very edge of black despair, tears were running down my cheeks, and then, just then, through my patio door flew a very large, luminescent dragonfly, golden, unbelievable but real. He stayed with me for half an hour. I was able to get my camera and he sat with me peacefully while I photographed him.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-MRr_mHqoUPA/UZ1wbFXVXwI/AAAAAAAAH64/wK2VtvBOLgE/s1600/BeFunky_BeFunky_dragonred6.jpg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-MRr_mHqoUPA/UZ1wbFXVXwI/AAAAAAAAH64/wK2VtvBOLgE/s400/BeFunky_BeFunky_dragonred6.jpg.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-4q8OxlAIUEg/UZ1wsBuuouI/AAAAAAAAH7I/QuOAOitCjNY/s1600/BeFunky_onhandwhitedoor6.jpg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-4q8OxlAIUEg/UZ1wsBuuouI/AAAAAAAAH7I/QuOAOitCjNY/s400/BeFunky_onhandwhitedoor6.jpg.jpg" width="357" /></a><br />
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-DwQ2Wcl2Jd4/UZ1wk_p1TjI/AAAAAAAAH7A/D32KFtn2PRQ/s1600/BeFunky_BeFunky_onfingertips6.jpg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="397" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-DwQ2Wcl2Jd4/UZ1wk_p1TjI/AAAAAAAAH7A/D32KFtn2PRQ/s400/BeFunky_BeFunky_onfingertips6.jpg.jpg" width="400" /></a><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-hGbSArUV9k0/UZ1w8XNfBuI/AAAAAAAAH7Q/uylOw0j6aEc/s1600/BeFunky_BeFunky_ongardenwindowsill6.jpg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="377" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-hGbSArUV9k0/UZ1w8XNfBuI/AAAAAAAAH7Q/uylOw0j6aEc/s400/BeFunky_BeFunky_ongardenwindowsill6.jpg.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
I call this extraordinary experience <i>"The Visitation"</i> and am writing a small book about it. He did not just save my life but in that moment I committed my life and my writing to spiritual good. To continuing to transform my own life and help others do the same. I have spent fourteen years trying to figure out just how to do it. I am finally discovering the answers and the way is unfolding. The time has come. The time is now.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
In January I started to write a book that terrified me. After struggling with it for some long time I shelved it. I didn't think that I could live in the place that this book might take me to write it, but in the last days, the response that I've gotten from readers about my last blog entry, "On Being A Bi Polar Artist," came from every direction. Comments here, from my Facebook friends and followers, from Twitter, and a lot of direct e-mails. It came to me once again that I had promised that dragonfly, that mystical being who saved my life, that I would be a truth-teller, that my job was to save my own life and the lives of others through my writing, and I intend, now, to do just that. </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
I am going to share with you, tonight, the beginning of the book that I started to write in January, and tonight I am returning to that book and I will finish it no matter how long it takes. I know that it can save lives because no matter how dark, how bleak it is in the telling, there is also light coming in through the cracks, and it is the story of a survivor. Suicide isn't even something I would consider now. My job is to ride the waves of the bi polar ups and downs, to survive it all, and record it so that someone else can read it and know, through the worst of it all, that if they just hold on they can make it through. </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
I am going to put the writing below and let this entry end where it ends because it leaves me almost breathless and afraid to put it here and hit publish, but this is the first step in a long journey. It is time that I return the blessing of he who saved me. It is my turn to help and to heal in as much as I can. </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
The title of the book is <i>I Will Not Go Down That Rabbit Hole</i>, and I offer it, now, to you. It is a rough beginning, but it speaks for itself...</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
~*~</div>
<div class="Standard" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="Standard" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I will not go
down that rabbit hole.<i><o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<div class="Standard" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="Standard" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Too many other
women (and men) have lost their way, the possibility of so much
more that disappeared into the ether as the last embers of their lives burnt
out leaving pain and suffering and sorrow in the wake of their deaths for all
of the people who loved them, to whom they were important, even when they could
not possibly believe that their life had any meaning, that it mattered not
whether they lived or died. I have been in that place, I have nearly been
swallowed whole by that terror, sometimes I face it every single day, but I
will not succumb. <i>I will not go down that rabbit hole.</i> I will fight with
everything that I have in me to stay alive, even on my hardest days, because if
I can hold on and share my journey maybe I can help even one other person avoid falling into the abyss. If I can then my life will have had more meaning than I can see
on my darkest days.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Standard" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="Standard" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>I will not go
down that rabbit hole.</i> I
have been teetering on the brink and my head hurts and tears are welling up in
my eyes and I am so terrified that I don't know how I will go on but I know that I
must. I will not do that to the people who love me. I will not put my children
through that. I cannot bear to wonder what would happen to these precious
little animals that share my life if something happened to me. I have the
rescues, the little ones no one else wanted, and they are so bonded to me their
own lives would be in peril if I took my own. Suicide is no longer an option,
nor do I want to go there, but the blinding terror that I face nearly every day
to some degree must be managed in some way if I am to stay afloat. I will write
this book. I will cast it, like a paper boat, out upon the water and let it
find it's course. My dream is that it will multiply and find it's way to other
tender souls who, like me, may have been one moment away from the edge when
some unknown thing intervened.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Standard" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="Standard">
</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I will not go
down that rabbit hole. I </span><i style="font-family: inherit;">will </i><span style="font-family: inherit;">write this book. These words will anchor
me to the page, will hold me in place, will tether me to this world. As long as I keep writing I will not go down that rabbit hole.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><o:p></o:p></span><br />
<div class="Standard" style="text-align: center;">
~*~<span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span></div>
<div class="Standard" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="Standard" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">This morning I got up, went to the bathroom, woke the pugs to go to the potty, and we headed out into the cold. Back in
I took my morning medication and we crawled back in under the covers for the hour
they now know I must lie down to give the meds time to kick in and me that
little bit of extra cushion before the day begins. Most days I can go back to
sleep for awhile but this morning was one of the hard ones when the cover I
tried to pull up over my trembling body was a heavy blanket of fear I could not
remove. It was only because my old teddy bear pug Sampson
was lying on top of me with my arms around him that I could hang on. Three year
old Tanner pushed up against my right side and shy little Pugsley burrowed into the crook of my knees. These pugs have done far more to save me than I
could ever do for them, but even this morning, anchored firmly in place with
their soft warm bodies snuggled against mine, I had to keep repeating over and over and over
frantic prayers and mantras in my head until I thought I might truly be going
crazy. I was afraid to lie there and afraid to move. I tried to just breathe
but quickly started repeating my prayer, an abbreviated version this time, over
and over until I could bear it no longer. </span></div>
<div class="Standard" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="Standard" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Usually I want the dogs to stay asleep,
just a little while longer, but today, the three little faces, burrowed into the
covers with their chorus of puggerly snores making me smile even through the
dark cloud of fear, worried me. Can I wake them, do I dare? But they, so
connected to me psychically that they know the movement of my mood's swift
changes, sat up almost in unison and looked at me worriedly. I was nearly
panting with relief by the time we got up, and once outdoors again, breathing
fresh air, released from the previous night's nightmares and the early morning
terror that gripped me, the day, as it usually does, seemed possible. Just
before the pugs opened their eyes my own filled with tears. </span></div>
<div class="Standard" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i><br /></i></span></div>
<div class="Standard" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>“I will not go down
that rabbit hole, I will not be swallowed whole, I will not let my life end or
worse yet let life swallow me up and spit me out, a broken thing that those
that I love so dearly will need to worry over or bear the burden of taking care
of. I must muster the courage, and find the wherewithal inside myself to live,
to be independent, not to let a string of mental health diagnoses and the
wreckage of a little girl's psyche that I try so hard to convince myself and
everyone else has been pieced back together into something approaching whole, shatter. I
will not let the shipwreck of my early life sink the life that is left to me in
my final decades on this earth. I will soon be fifty-nine and it is not too
late for me. God help me, I have got to find the way."</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Standard" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="Standard" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I am nearly
weeping as I write this but even as tears run down my cheeks I sink into them
with relief. I have written countless books trying to unearth the one in which
I could really tell the truth, not be afraid, not worry what anybody else
thinks or hold back in any way. In this moment I am fighting to save my life
and there's no more time to waste. I will not go down that rabbit hole. I want
to live.</span></div>
<div class="Standard" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="Standard" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>Maitri Libellule, copyright 2013</i></span></div>
<div class="Standard" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i><br /></i></span></div>
maitrilibellulehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13209739470133507700noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6567564540904111532.post-52898238502076959292013-05-20T17:05:00.001-04:002013-05-21T07:44:09.759-04:00On Being A Bi Polar Artist...<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-yv__dMYcswQ/UZp5x-NbvFI/AAAAAAAAH6I/LvNYm6pspFI/s1600/BeFunky_20130411_151331.jpg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-yv__dMYcswQ/UZp5x-NbvFI/AAAAAAAAH6I/LvNYm6pspFI/s400/BeFunky_20130411_151331.jpg.jpg" width="363" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i><span style="font-size: large;">Dear Ones...</span></i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
It is one of those days...</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
One of those days when I feel blue, when any energy I might have had has drained out of my body and I look around at the disarray in my studio and feel overwhelmed and helpless. Will I ever get this cleaned up? Will I have the will, the wherewithal to finish this book? I have received great encouragement from the people that I am working with, that the work is good, has meaning, could sell, and I have been very happy to hear this, comforted, hopeful, and then these times come. </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
I can't write this. It is my dark secret, I feel ashamed, embarrassed.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
I have to write this. Writing this is the only way to open the shades and let some light in. I need light.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
If even one person reads this that needs to hear these words, who might feel less alone, then this is what I must do. Throughout it all, good times and bad, hard times and times of great happiness, I have shared it all here, and my role as a truth-teller is the most important role that I have with my work because at the very heart of everything I do is the desire to help others. I have felt so alone, so frightened in my life. I have read and reread and clung to books that gave me hope, that were life rafts in a stormy sea. If I can do that for someone else, I must do it.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
The difficulty for me is not in whether or not I can write or create art, I can do both of those things and I'm confident in my ability to do so, no, the difficulties that I face are the roller-coaster ups and downs of being bi polar. As I have been in therapy for decades and now only require regular check-ins every 3 months or so to have medications evaluated and dosages tweaked, I know my body, and the medications have helped enormously, but they can't pave over the rutted roads, sharp curves, and landslides that my neural pathways and grey matter are wont to take. Things are much more even now, the swings between the poles are not severe ups and downs, but they come regularly enough that, though subtle to the outside observer, can keep me from being consistently able to get the work done at a pace and speed that I would like to maintain to finish any project , be it a book, the artwork, household chores, or other things. </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
My saving grace is the living things around me. My animals are my dearest loves and always get the best of care. They are the reason that I get up many days, to feed, take the dogs out, care for the parrots, get in any and all food and supplies that they need, go to the vet, and so on. And the dogs are the reason that I stay as stable as I do. Animals have an amazing sensibility and understanding of what is going on. My 3 pugs will practically lay on top of me when I am slipping into a sinkhole of despair. The concern on their little faces touches me deeply. I reach for them and love them to ease their worried little hearts, and in so doing I am lifted up. Time and again they pull me back into the present moment and move the stalled engine inside of me forward once more.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Too, the garden saves me, especially at this time of year when so much planting is being done, as plants come and must get in the ground and be watered lest they die, and the seeds that I plant by the tens of thousands must be kept watered to grow into the lush cottage gardens that I create. I drink in the color, the life, the lively dance of the cosmos, the poppies, the thousands of zinnias, the fragrant herbs, and am nourished, healed, and calmed by nature, the living plants, the wild birds at my feeders, a squirrel frolicking on my windowsill, a mourning dove sitting peacefully in a patch of daylilies, these things, too, are saving graces. I can move to care for the living things. I will take care of the plants and animals who need me.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
And then a tidal wave of fear comes again.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
"What will I do for income, how will I support myself if I can't get this work done quickly enough?" shouts a voice inside of me as fear runs over me. During these times, on these days, I try to anchor myself in what is concrete. I get up and clean up the kitchen. I have been putting that off for days. I get the dishwasher going, gather the dirty laundry and get a load of wash going, do my rounds with the animals and sit down with coffee. I tell myself that my plan will be that every time I get up, to go to the bathroom, to go outside with the dogs, answer the door, whatever, I will do as many little chores as I can. Last time I went out on the deck and filled the three bird feeders and blew the deck off, something I do several times a day with the leaf blower so the pugs don't eat the fallen birdseed. I got another load of laundry going, checked on the parrots in the other room, and returned to the safety of my chair here with an urgency of someone who barely made it back alive.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
That will sound like an exaggeration to you, perhaps overly dramatic. It is the often painful truth. It is my reality.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
There are times that my blood sugar drops far too low and I become shaky because I can't get up to get something to eat. I finally got up and got hummus and rice crackers. I am okay now. This happens far too often.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
At these times I feel that it is important for me to write the book I keep starting and putting off, about living with bi polar disorder, because it may help someone. I don't share any of this to frighten anyone, to try to garner sympathy, but because I know what it is like to be thrown a life raft when there is a hole in the boat and I've lost my oars and am about to sink. </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
I am working steadily on my 100 Ladies and will continue to do so. I love them dearly and it is work that has really opened up a place inside of me where beauty grows, where hope has taken the place of hopelessness, where I see so many possibilities, but I think if I use the ladies in smaller books along the way, if I can publish, even self-publish, books of stories that people can read along the way but more to the point that give me a feeling of accomplishment, that show me that a project can come to completion, then it will keep propelling me forward. Yes. I think that's it. In the way that I have to take small steps each day as a way of getting things done and feeling the sense of accomplishment necessary to keep me moving forward, so, too, would publishing small books along the way. My ladies are coming. They cannot be stopped! They have a will and a life of their own. There is no fear that I will not finish this book, it is only a concern about taking too long to finish all 100 of the ladies. I needn't wait until the end. Just writing this I see a bit of light coming in around the edges.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
I want so much to write a book about <i>Dragonfly Cottage</i>, about the road to <i>Dragonfly Cottage</i>, because it has been the road to a place where I could finally land, where I could nest and feel safe, where I could create a life that would make living possible, where I could grow and flourish, and I have been, and I want, so very much, to show other people that it is possible for them too, to find a way, a place, the necessary elements needed to create a life of meaning and substance even with the limitations of bi polar disorder or whatever else might feel crippling in someone's life. People despair when they feel as though they can't fit in. I think we need to be comfortable fitting <i>out</i>. Fitting outside the norm. Living outside the box. That is my message. That has been the road to<i> Dragonfly Cottage</i>. I have run off the road a number of times but always seem to find the path back. <i>Dragonfly Cottage</i>, creating this world here, has been life-saving for me. I will continue, all the days of my life, to tend these gardens, these animals, and yes, work with every fiber of my being to keep moving forward, to do my writing and my art, and hope it has some value to the world. </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
I think I'm okay now. I just noticed that I took the first whole breath that I have in some time. My body is relaxing. I have made it safely to shore again.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
I am bi polar. I am an artist. A writer. I will live my way through everything I need to to do my work. It's what I have to give in this lifetime. I will do it because I can. I will do it because I must. I will do it.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Thank you for being here with me, for listening. It is a greater gift than you could possibly know.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-VLo9opku7z4/UZqM2zaCabI/AAAAAAAAH6Y/c01SOi_3K7g/s1600/MaitriSz4.4.16.09.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-VLo9opku7z4/UZqM2zaCabI/AAAAAAAAH6Y/c01SOi_3K7g/s1600/MaitriSz4.4.16.09.png" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
maitrilibellulehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13209739470133507700noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6567564540904111532.post-7506653952223297542013-05-17T19:56:00.001-04:002013-05-17T19:56:03.084-04:00The rose in each of us...<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-NPIPdN5Z-vQ/UZa0YZBNsQI/AAAAAAAAH5c/rPj1mwxnbXs/s1600/Rose100Ladies2013-05-17+15.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="381" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-NPIPdN5Z-vQ/UZa0YZBNsQI/AAAAAAAAH5c/rPj1mwxnbXs/s400/Rose100Ladies2013-05-17+15.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
When I started the book <i>The 100 Ladies Project </i>I knew that it would be both cathartic and healing for me, but I wanted it, also, to be healing for those who would read it. I regularly pray and meditate before my work on this book and when I draw, as I have said here and in my podcasts, it is a mystical experience. I sit with my sketchbook and pastels and I wait. Then the placement of the head on the page finds its form, and I sit with it awhile and then all of the features come very quickly. </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
The colors that I pick up, without a plan, knowing not why, are called up by the lady waiting to be born, but this particular lady, Rose, wanted very few colors, very soft colors, ethereal, and as I began to draw her I knew who she was. </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
Rose is the embodiment of all that is holy to everyone. An angel, the Virgin Mary, any of many Goddesses, Glenda the Good Fairy from <i>The Wizard of Oz</i>, and most importantly a wise woman, a healer, a teacher. I mention all of the above because I want her to be relatable to anyone reading her story, and she will, likely, be the one lady who will appear more than once throughout the book, with many different images, though still the same colors, the same essence. No matter what spiritual path you follow or if you follow none at all, in which case she may represent a much loved aunt or grandmother or friend who has passed on but was very dear to you in this lifetime, Rose is here to be a comfort and a guide for all. She is very much a spiritual guide for me. She took shape quickly and I just sat and looked at her as if I hadn't drawn her, and meditating upon her face I fell into prayer and a quiet filled the room. Even the animals were quiet. I feel that this particular drawing may appear slightly differently to everyone who views her. She came to me as a gift.</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
I think that writers write the book that they want to read, the book that they need to give birth to so that they may realize, on a conscious level, the wisdom that their subconscious wants to pass on. After 30 years of teaching journal classes to hundreds of men and women I saw the same thing over and over. As they read their stories out loud there would be a shock of recognition. When you write quickly without stopping to read along the way, a timed writing, you've really no idea what you've really written until you read it, and reading it aloud in a group is a very powerful experience. Often my students would cry, or tear up, or having trouble going on, or even laugh, surprised at what had come up. This is the way I felt about Rose, and every time I sit with her she has a different message for me. </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
I see Rose as a gentle wise woman, living in a cottage on the edge of a beautiful wood, in communion with all of the animals around her, the deer and the robin, the dragonfly and the mouse, the snake and the bats, as well as the animals she shares her life with, her dogs and a cat, and she tends to all of the animals using herbs and natural remedies she concocts herself. </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
Rose has a beautiful garden, vast, encircling her small cottage. She grows all of her own fruits and vegetables, flowers and herbs, and there is magic all around. People come to Rose to be healed, physically, emotionally, spiritually. She is a gentle presence, ageless, and indeed never ages. Once you come down the long road leading back to her cottage and turn into the lane something happens. </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
There is a sign at the gate that asks that you leave your car there and walk in. As you walk up the long winding pathway the air changes, the powerful fragrance from the gardens fills your senses, tension leaves your body, your head clears. A peace comes over you. The closer you come to her little cottage the less you are surprised that deer are grazing with their young, very close to you, and do not look up, so used, as they are, to a safe existence with Rose, and you feel something shifting inside of you. </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
Closer still you stop, trying to see all of the gardens in every direction but they are too vast and you wonder how one woman manages all of this amazing landscape of green growing things and flowers too many to count or identify, and the very size of everything that is growing is many times larger than anything you have ever seen.</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
Finally you see Rose on her front porch, smiling, her long hair falling in curls to her waist, her skin like porcelain, like cream shaded with rose petals, her long cotton dress brushing the ground just above her bare feet, and her apron pockets bulging with, what is that? a kitten in one large pocket and the other pocket full of herbs, lavender, rosemary, and sage with blue flowers showing just over the top of the pocket. She reaches both of her hands out to take yours as if she had been waiting for you, only you, all of her life, and as she embraces you you feel nothing but love, a kind calmness, affection, and compassion. You rest your head on her shoulder for a moment and she strokes your hair. She hugs you gently and then straightens up and takes one of your hands. </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<i>"Come inside my dear, let me make us some tea and we will talk..."</i></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
No one goes into Rose's cottage and comes out the same. They have the answers to questions they didn't know they had, they suddenly know what to do about everything that has been troubling them, and they take herbs and oils Rose has made for gentle healing and to soothe, an armful of flowers and a basket of fruits and vegetables. When you were once home again and partook of the bounty Rose has given you you find that nothing looks the same as it once did, you find yourself wanting to reach out to others, with kindness and compassion, you want to heal and teach and spread the seeds of of all that Rose has taught you, quietly, and gently, to the world around you.</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
Rose has always been there, waiting for you. If you are one of those who has found your way to her it was predestined, and Rose has been waiting for you your whole life long until the moment you have arrived. </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
No one knows why they go, or, after they return home, how they got there. No one can ever find their way back again. Such is the magic, the mystery, the miracle that Rose is, and in the end you don't know if she was real or came to you in a dream, but you are changed, and there sits the basket of herbs, vegetables, and flowers, and for some, some very few, they awaken to a mewing kitten, eyes wide, sitting on their chest, waiting to cuddle and be fed, and her fur has the faint smell of roses. </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
Finally, it doesn't matter who Rose is, if she is real, if she even exists, because you know, now, what your purpose is, and you are ready to carry it out. People in the towns and villages far and wide are amazed and delighted by the gardens springing up everywhere, and by the gentle breeze that sweeps into their homes through open windows. Some hear a calling, deep in their soul, and they head to the hidden cottage to find the answers to their questions, and come back home to do the work that they were meant to do, healed and healer in one. </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
No one ever questions Rose's existence, where she was or why she came. There is no need to know. They move through the years, their arms outstretched, and welcome those who come with love, and the cycle continues, the mystery remains. There is the possibility of Rose in each and every one of us. Your search ends when you find the secret garden within.</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-1Klh7W_KYPM/UZa8ttQsV2I/AAAAAAAAH5s/rhL-Azeyd6s/s1600/anilightpinkrose.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-1Klh7W_KYPM/UZa8ttQsV2I/AAAAAAAAH5s/rhL-Azeyd6s/s1600/anilightpinkrose.gif" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
maitrilibellulehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13209739470133507700noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6567564540904111532.post-6325541010255888412013-05-10T18:13:00.001-04:002013-05-11T08:13:14.133-04:00Singing The Songs & Telling The Stories of The 100 Ladies...<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-TYGe557BLi0/UY1dfdAkSeI/AAAAAAAAH0w/1HLoN9WADt4/s1600/BeFunky_2013-03-17+22.jpg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="225" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-TYGe557BLi0/UY1dfdAkSeI/AAAAAAAAH0w/1HLoN9WADt4/s400/BeFunky_2013-03-17+22.jpg.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<i style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></i></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<i style="font-size: x-large;">Greetings Dear Ones,</i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
I am writing the forward to the book, <i>The 100 Ladies Project</i>. It's still very much in process but it came to me just after awakening this morning what I should share in the forward to the book. Who are these ladies, and why am I telling their stories, what do I hope to accomplish? I needed to stop, take stock, and clearly define my purpose and direction for myself and so I am doing just that.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
It is quite an undertaking to draw and write the stories of these 100 ladies, but it is truly the most joyful work I have ever done in my life, and I think, I hope, it will matter, will reach and touch the hearts of women everywhere because it is real, it touches on truths that touch us all, some of them rooted in very painful experiences, some are survivors of abuse, some are women who have loved dearly and lost their beloved, some are delightful, joyful stories meant to uplift and others are cautionary tales, but all are written from a gentle place, not talking about the hard things directly or in painful detail because it isn't necessary. I have done that kind of writing and I am done with it. Now I want to be a cantadora, telling stories that help and heal and can be passed on.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
These ladies are part of a great lineage of women who came before and women who will follow them. They hope to make the way a little gentler, perhaps easier, or even to provide comfort for the women who read them, This is my deepest wish, my fondest desire. They have so many stories to tell, and so as they take shape on my sketchbook pages, rising like steam from hot pavement after a rain, they come as gifts that I could heretofore not have imagined. I am filled with gratitude. They are teaching me things I need to learn, they are allowing me to share a lifetime of experiences and truths that have not come easily but might be a gift that I can pass on to others, they are guardian angels, mentors, muses, and guides. They are you, they are me, they are everywoman, at least in some aspect, a smidgen here, a bit there, and these stories are not just for women. I think this book could help men understand the women in their lives better - mothers, sisters, aunts, grandmothers, lovers, wives, or their own daughters. This book is for everyone.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
I will further explore my journey with the 100 ladies here, what I am learning, what I hope to accomplish. If you want to ask questions, share your feelings, or even tell me the kind of stories that you would like to read, need to hear, please leave comments here, I really want to know. When the story is ready the lady arrives, sometimes vice versa, but one way or another my ladies keep coming forward with their truths. I am simply the scribe at their feet. ready and wiling to record them and pass them on to you.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
With much love to one and all...</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-2SNsQ5r12ms/UY1neVOK04I/AAAAAAAAH1A/m0wGsAGY0w4/s1600/MaitriSz4.4.16.09.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-2SNsQ5r12ms/UY1neVOK04I/AAAAAAAAH1A/m0wGsAGY0w4/s1600/MaitriSz4.4.16.09.png" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
maitrilibellulehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13209739470133507700noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6567564540904111532.post-74301613468395499302013-05-05T17:17:00.001-04:002013-05-15T22:21:27.860-04:00The Story Of Jasmine and Marietta, Two Best Friends With Secrets...<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-_wIbkB_JV9c/UYbAkdGaLBI/AAAAAAAAHzE/vmufmA2gz6I/s1600/BeFunky_JasmineMariettaBFFs2.jpg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-_wIbkB_JV9c/UYbAkdGaLBI/AAAAAAAAHzE/vmufmA2gz6I/s400/BeFunky_JasmineMariettaBFFs2.jpg.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>Jasmine & Marietta at 14</i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Jasmine and Marietta went, as they did every year, for their birthday luncheon, to a little tearoom overlooking the Chesapeake Bay. They met when they were 14 and always brought the picture taken of them together the year that they met. Two freshmen in high-school they were brought together by eye issues. As they always did they reminisced, looking back with the wisdom of old age, at that tender time when every barb hurt as the other kids mocked and made fun of them. They didn't talk about bullying in those days, kids were just cruel.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Marietta: Jazz, I always used to think it was harder for me because I couldn't hide my eyes. They called me fish eyes, and googly eyes, and stopped and stared at me making their eyes as big as they could, and then would burst out laughing. You were so beautiful I didn't think you had a care in the world and I couldn't figure out why you were so nice to me. (She smiled tenderly and reached over and stroked the hair that still hung over Jasmine's left eye, now silvery grey but charmingly curly still.)</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Jasmine: I always used to feel sorry for you, you know, about your eyes, which I thought were beautiful, and probably saw the world better than most people, and I admired the way you didn't try to hide, you just looked them square in the eyes and made yours bigger and I'd laugh when you'd go, "BOO!" and dash at them as if your eyeballs could reach out and grab them. After a while they left you alone but I still never wanted them to know my secret.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Marietta: I know Jazzerling, but what you had to deal with was worse, because the boys loved what they saw until they...</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Jasmine: ... found out.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Marietta: I know honey.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Jasmine: I only went on one date and when that boy screamed when he kissed me and...</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Marietta: He was a jerk.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Jasmine: But he told everyone, and no one ever asked me out again, and the girls treated me like a pariah, as if they could catch what was wrong with me if they stood too close.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Marietta: If they could catch what you had they'd have caught a bigger heart, and a kinder countenance, and they'd have known compassion, and they would have moved in the world with more grace.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Jasmine: I don't think they could catch that. I think they were afraid to catch the fear in the one eye they could see.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Marietta: But we had a bigger secret later.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Jasmine: We surely did. (Laughing) That would have startled the doodly-doo out of them.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Marietta: Ha ha, doodly-doo bug...</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Jasmine: But we didn't talk about that in those days. I wish we'd been able to.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Marietta: But it didn't stop us from loving one another.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Jasmine: No, it didn't. (Blushing)</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Marietta: They never cared to know anything about who we really were, so why should they have known about that?</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Jasmine: No, you're right. They didn't need to know. I've been happy with you all of these years. Your eyes saw straight into my heart and didn't judge me when you knew. </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Marietta: Oh, I knew so much more than that honey. I knew all I needed to know.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Marietta bent over, pulled the hair back that covered Jasmine's left eye, and kissed the empty socket on the scarred skin that covered it. They rose together and Marietta pulled the chair out for Jasmine. They walked out into the sunshine, down the street arm and arm, and Jasmine leaned her head against Marietta's shoulder. They didn't mind that the tea room they first went to together was now shabby, the cabbage rose patterned wall paper yellow and curling at the seams. To them it still looked just like it did when they were girls, feeling all grown up and blushing and flushing, their cheeks hot, hoping no one would notice. They would meet for tea once a week and go to their respective homes with their head filled with dreams of tea and scones with clotted cream and lemon curd and each other. That was as racy as it got in those days.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
The next year Marietta stood in front of the old tea shop waiting for Jasmine but she didn't come. Jasmine had died four months before and the tea shop had finally closed. A tear ran down Marietta's cheek, her huge eyes brimming with tears, and she bent down and put the pink rose that she carried on the worn mat in front of the locked door. She kissed it first, and against the rose she set the picture of she and Marietta at 14. </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
My beautiful one-eyed girl. I'll meet you for tea soon and we won't hide to have anymore...</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-7gOWrf0cQ5E/UYbIn87c8XI/AAAAAAAAHzU/cNzPO5r8ALU/s1600/bluebirds.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="137" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-7gOWrf0cQ5E/UYbIn87c8XI/AAAAAAAAHzU/cNzPO5r8ALU/s320/bluebirds.gif" width="320" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
maitrilibellulehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13209739470133507700noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6567564540904111532.post-14060231211600233072013-05-04T21:03:00.000-04:002013-05-04T21:03:04.840-04:00Maureen ~ Selkie By Day, Mermaid By Night...<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-oGjFxXGDkhM/UYVfBJ7hjgI/AAAAAAAAHy0/Kv9jxQlVqvU/s1600/Maureen2.VintageColors_4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="335" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-oGjFxXGDkhM/UYVfBJ7hjgI/AAAAAAAAHy0/Kv9jxQlVqvU/s400/Maureen2.VintageColors_4.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br />
<br />
She is a selkie by day, a mermaid by night, she knows this too be true.<br />
<br />
Nights were scary before she grew her tail, frightening things grew too large when the sun went down and the stars in the sky didn't light her way. She was a little girl, she was afraid.<br />
<br />
One night, when bad things were happening, all of a sudden Maureen looked up at the stars and WHOOOSSSSHHHHH she was swept out of her body. Out of her body into an ocean of stars, star fish, the deep blue sea, she felt her legs fuse together and the movement, back and forth, once terrifying, became her tail swishing, moving through the waves, going deeper and faster, now nobody could catch her! There were starfish in her hair and a seaweed and everything looked blue and green and soft and hazy.<br />
<br />
When she awoke the next morning she saw that she had slipped out of her tail and she walked awkwardly on her legs as any selkie does when they come ashore. Things had happened in the night that were not part of her daytime life and it was best left deep down in Neptune's land.<br />
<br />
As night approached Maureen could feel her legs prickling. She knew it was time to grow her tail again. She could swim deep and fast and down and down and she never had to be afraid again. No one could catch her under the sea with the scales of her tail glinting in the eyes of the silvery fish around her. She closed her eyes and dove back down and down and down.<br />
<br />
The next morning the selkie got dressed and took her little book bag with her, happy to leave her tail, and the night, behind.<br />
<br /></div>
maitrilibellulehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13209739470133507700noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6567564540904111532.post-41344652034992174612013-04-28T20:57:00.000-04:002013-05-15T13:25:39.662-04:00Olivia, A Study In Black & Blue ~ The 100 Ladies Have Come Awake Inside Of Me Again To Tell Me Their Stories. I Have Missed Them...<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-zxPTvMF4mZE/UX27qHNRMoI/AAAAAAAAHyY/Y2m-jnpz3zY/s1600/BeFunkyCropBottVintageColors_1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="398" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-zxPTvMF4mZE/UX27qHNRMoI/AAAAAAAAHyY/Y2m-jnpz3zY/s400/BeFunkyCropBottVintageColors_1.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
She is frequently blue, very often black and blue, because she is always walking around with her head in the clouds. Early in her life, as a child, trauma caused her to disconnect from her physical body. She told her therapist that it was as if her spirit were floating ahead of her with her body bumping along on the ground behind her. This realization came to her in a dream and she was shocked. She had always had trouble with her weight, but it was her body that had the weight problem, not her. She saw them as separate entities, her body and herself. When her therapist said, not unkindly, "Olivia, what you are doing is a socially acceptable form of suicide," it shocked her to her core. She stood in front of the mirror that night, naked, and poked herself gently with her finger, surprised to feel the soft flesh of her stomach. She turned this way and that. She was nearly 50 years old and she was meeting her physical body for the very first time.</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
"Hello," she said shyly, and she looked in awe. Tears ran down her cheeks, this time not tears of sadness but tears of love, she felt a tenderness toward that which she had refused to recognize as her own. Her body had been subjected to so much abuse she did not believe that it was something that she could love. Socially acceptable form of suicide. Good Lord. She was not suicidal, she didn't want to die, she just wanted to rid herself of that which had caused her so much pain. She hid from it, she thought she had grown past the abuse, but it was there, lingering in her body still. The biggest shock of all was that the abuse was continuing, but this time it was self-inflicted, she was trying to kill it, and in doing so she was killing herself. The unrelenting pain was not the result of childhood abuse, it was a result of that which she held onto, however unconsciously. It was on that night that Olivia decided to take the first steps toward loving herself. She turned this way and that. She looked at her large dimpled thighs, her very large hips and bottom as she called it, only this time she looked at them as if they were a curiosity separate from herself. When she looked in the mirror she never saw herself as heavy because she had healed and grown enough to love herself and she was growing into the place where her spirit could no longer take the journey without the rest of her. Her body and soul needed to meet one another and make friends. </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
She began the journey that night, but it would be a long one because it was less about what she ate than the integration of these two parts of herself. It was a bumpier journey than she would realize and often it frightened her, but as time went along she began to change color, slowly, ever so slowly, and she found herself wrapping her arms around her body, hugging it, her heart expanding to encompass it. Her tears dried and she knew that she would make it, some way, some day, somehow.</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
It was on that night that she truly understood that having compassion for others without having it for herself was not true compassion, not in its fullest sense, for she had to love herself in order to love others, to understand them, and if she was to be of service to others she had to start with herself. She fell on her knees and prayed. </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
Olivia talked a lot about the present moment, but she could only be present if she let go of the past and tended to the now. She remembered the line from the Dr. Seuss book that she had read to her children, read so often she had memorized it. "The time has come, the time is now, Marvin K. Mooney will you please go now." It was Olivia's time to go, to leave the place of the land of disconnect and travel to the land of integration. What a strange and wonderful world she began to find as the two halves of herself began to come together. She was no longer black and blue, she was all the colors of the rainbow, and for the first time in her life she felt beautiful inside and out. It was when she began to walk in the world as a whole woman, heart, mind, body and soul woven together as one that she could do the work she was born to do. She looked at others, now, with true compassion, and she never looked back again. Divine acceptance of herself was the key to the door she had never been able to unlock. She opened the door and went inside. She was home.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
maitrilibellulehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13209739470133507700noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6567564540904111532.post-78259410911299568412013-04-20T13:54:00.001-04:002013-04-20T14:25:41.078-04:00The Process of Grief... On Losing My Tiny Blind Pug Penny...<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<i>My darling baby girl, you are forever in my heart...</i></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-K1c6gOw4SS0/UXLVmBCwpCI/AAAAAAAAHx0/Mp25FTfOnMc/s1600/BeFunky_2013-02-16+11.jpg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="211" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-K1c6gOw4SS0/UXLVmBCwpCI/AAAAAAAAHx0/Mp25FTfOnMc/s400/BeFunky_2013-02-16+11.jpg.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; font-family: inherit; line-height: 18px;"><br /><br />Early this morning I cried so long and so hard and so uncontrollably I didn't think I could stop. I grabbed the Penny who isn't here in my arms and kissed her and rocked and rocked and rocked nearly hysterical. And </span><span class="text_exposed_show" style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; display: inline; font-family: inherit; line-height: 18px;">then there was a kind of peace and calm and I believe I felt her with me. And then I laid down with my 3 boys and hugged old Sam tight and held on for dear life. And in my mind I prayed and asked Penny to show me some sign that she was with me, and in the place she normally lay when I am on my side, up against my breast with his head pushed into tiny Penny's spot, was gentle. shy little Pugsley, and he gave me kisses and kisses and then snuggled up to me. I felt that Penny sent him along to say, "They boys will take care of you now..." And now, ever since I've been up Peaches is with me, attached to me, in her own way, like Penny used to be. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span class="text_exposed_show" style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; display: inline; font-family: inherit; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span class="text_exposed_show" style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; display: inline; font-family: inherit; line-height: 18px;">My animals are healing me...</span><br />
<span class="text_exposed_show" style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; display: inline; font-family: inherit; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span>
<span class="text_exposed_show" style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; display: inline; font-family: inherit; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-lukKOMHCEFI/UXLSN6w0qUI/AAAAAAAAHxc/xGbtebaZjvA/s1600/BeFunky_Grunge_1.jpg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-lukKOMHCEFI/UXLSN6w0qUI/AAAAAAAAHxc/xGbtebaZjvA/s400/BeFunky_Grunge_1.jpg.jpg" width="300" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span class="text_exposed_show" style="background-color: white; display: inline;"><span style="color: #37404e; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span></span>
<span class="text_exposed_show" style="background-color: white; display: inline;"><span style="color: #37404e; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span></span>
<span class="text_exposed_show" style="background-color: white; display: inline;"><span style="color: #37404e; line-height: 18px;">“Hope is the thing with feathers</span></span><br />
<span class="text_exposed_show" style="background-color: white; display: inline;"><span style="color: #37404e; line-height: 18px;">That perches in the soul,</span></span><br />
<span class="text_exposed_show" style="background-color: white; display: inline;"><span style="color: #37404e; line-height: 18px;">And sings the tune without the words</span></span><br />
<span class="text_exposed_show" style="background-color: white; display: inline;"><span style="color: #37404e; line-height: 18px;">And never stops at all.”</span></span><br />
<span class="text_exposed_show" style="background-color: white; display: inline;"><span style="color: #37404e; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span></span>
<span class="text_exposed_show" style="background-color: white; display: inline;"><span style="color: #37404e; line-height: 18px;"><i>Emily Dickinson</i></span></span><br />
<span class="text_exposed_show" style="background-color: white; display: inline;"><span style="color: #37404e; line-height: 18px;"><i><br /></i></span></span>
<span class="text_exposed_show" style="background-color: white; display: inline;"><span style="color: #37404e; line-height: 18px;"><i><br /></i></span></span>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span class="text_exposed_show" style="background-color: white; display: inline;"><span style="color: #37404e; line-height: 18px;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Zc6gMn5VIGY/UXLcrvuU-pI/AAAAAAAAHx8/ivIGvcIipZk/s1600/BeFunky_CrossProcess_2.jpg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Zc6gMn5VIGY/UXLcrvuU-pI/AAAAAAAAHx8/ivIGvcIipZk/s400/BeFunky_CrossProcess_2.jpg.jpg" width="400" /></a></span></span></div>
<span class="text_exposed_show" style="background-color: white; display: inline;"><span style="color: #37404e; line-height: 18px;"><i><br /></i></span></span>
</div>
<span class="text_exposed_show" style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; display: inline; font-family: inherit; line-height: 18px;">
</span>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
maitrilibellulehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13209739470133507700noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6567564540904111532.post-15157177241878066152013-04-05T20:09:00.000-04:002013-04-12T17:47:35.680-04:00Hannah was not "just an accountant." Few people knew this but at night she flew over the stars...<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-gxiNibrmc40/UV9SRtraTdI/AAAAAAAAHss/ZuLHXk2IsWo/s1600/BeFunkyHannahCroppedBlog.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-gxiNibrmc40/UV9SRtraTdI/AAAAAAAAHss/ZuLHXk2IsWo/s400/BeFunkyHannahCroppedBlog.jpg" width="393" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>Never judge a book by her cover...</i></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Hannah used to think it was sad that no one seemed to notice her, that they considered her "just an account," the mousy, quiet woman who sat in the corner, working hard, and while a nice sort of woman had little to say, though she was always pleasant. In school Hannah had been the straight "A" student who didn't fit in with the cool kids and was too shy to even join the after school clubs that she would have liked to, but she had a secret. Hannah had special powers and she felt this was something she should keep to herself.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Hannah went in to work every morning with her hair pulled back tight in a bun, her black glasses with the heavy frames dwarfing her pretty face, and she wore one of three suits, a black, navy, or grey, with sensible pumps. She wore hose which didn't seem to be the fashion anymore and was quite unsettled by the women who came in dressed casually wearing no stockings and the most peculiar looking shoes. They called them BirkerUppers or some such thing but they were certainly not suitable for a place of business, of that she was certain.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Hannah wasn't invited out by her co-workers who thought that she was probably so dull she'd fall asleep at the table and be an embarrassment to their friends. What in the world would Hannah have to say. They imagined her going home and eating saltine crackers with canned soup, having a cup of tea, reading Jane Austen and then going to bed, probably with a cat.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
If they only knew.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Hannah gathered her things, shyly smiled, ever so slightly, at the few co-workers who were still there when she, almost always the last to leave, gathered her things and headed home. She took the subway, staring out the window, making up countless stories about the other passengers and smiling to herself, knowing that they would never know. When she finally reached the doorstep of her brownstone she picked up the paper, pulled the mail out of the box, squealing with delight as she walked through the door, tossed her briefcase over the back of the sofa, kicked off her pumps and screeched, "Gracious Me Mr. Toggles! Look what came in the mail!"</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
On these days, when special mail came, Hannah was beside herself, but still took time to carefully undress and hang her suit up, put her pumps in the closet, and grab one of her favorite things to wear around the house. It was one of her brightly colored tie-dye dresses that went down to her ankles. She didn't bother with shoes, she didn't see the point. She set her glasses on her dresser, took down her bun, and shook out her waist long curls. She then went careening through her untidy little home making airplane wings of her arms as she tilted this way and that "flying" around furniture over to Mr. Toggles tank -- she never did anything at home without Mr. Toggles -- and as she took off the lid of the tank, greeting him with "Who's Mama's little man?" she reached her hand slowly down into the tank and let him slither up her arm, curling around it and coming all the way up until they were nose to nose. Mr. Toggles was a corn snake, and large for his size, a little over four feet, and the love of her life. He was an albino corn snake with a beautiful coral pattern against cream white skin, and red eyes, and he only had eyes for Hannah. She had raised him from a baby and had no trouble at all with raising a steady supply of mice to feed him, watching him with glee as he polished off a live mouse. </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
This night Mr. Toggles curled around Hannah's arm and shoulder and made himself comfortable while she sat at her big table in the middle of what probably should have been a dining room but was a studio of sorts filed with art supplies and fabric and books stuffed in any which way, and tonight as she opened the padded envelope and let a pile of new rubber stamps and brightly colored stamp pads cascade across the table her mind was running in a thousand directions. She reached for her big journal, a fistful of colored pens, glitter and glue, and a stack of old magazines to tear apart and she started in, writing and stamping and cutting and pasting and painting and dreaming, and writing more stories about her life, the life that she had created, that she lived in in her head and within the 4 walls of her little brownstone. Hours passed before she was finished and Mr. Toggles had been sleeping happily against the warmth of her body the whole time. He was a great comfort to her. </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
At 11:00 she closed everything up and put Mr. Toggles away, stroking him for a few minutes and staring into his glowing red eyes with love. She put the lid on his tank and a dictionary with a couple of bricks on top -- he was an escape artist, the little rascal -- and ordered Thai food to be delivered. She ate it while watching a horror film -- she just loved those -- and then got ready for bed. This was her favorite time of the night. </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Hannah put on her long flowing pink satin nightgown, opened her skylight, and breathed in the cool fresh air. It was a perfect night. Once again she would slip out of the skylight and fly so high she would look down upon the stars, and as she did she would drop the tiny crystals made of stardust in a rainbow of colors over the houses below. It was the most important job that she had, sprinkling dream-dust as she called it. She sprinkled extra dust, the prettiest, sparkliest crystalline powder that she had, over the roofs over her co-workers. She loved to hear them talk about their dreams the next day, but she never looked up, never smiled, and kept her attention focused on the work at hand. </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
When you are a magic maker it's best never to let on. It's best people never know. It's important to guard their dreams, as she had her own since she was a small child. It was the most important work that she did. She took this job very seriously.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Tonight she would go home and have an early dinner and explain to Mr. Toggles that she would be out longer than normal. It was to be a perfect night with so many stars the sky would be lit up like flashing neon, and what she had in store for the dreamers was something they would never forget...</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Xnh8a6-fVmg/UV9k4oFh0UI/AAAAAAAAHtA/RG-8q9I3iiM/s1600/BeFunkyHannahVioletBlog.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Xnh8a6-fVmg/UV9k4oFh0UI/AAAAAAAAHtA/RG-8q9I3iiM/s400/BeFunkyHannahVioletBlog.jpg" width="387" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
maitrilibellulehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13209739470133507700noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6567564540904111532.post-86127695571955341342013-04-02T06:27:00.001-04:002013-04-12T17:45:50.133-04:00Meet Janine... (Updated as the day drifted along...)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-FQDFQ0JXFB4/UVqyYa1-FNI/AAAAAAAAHsM/ZnqqjgIiU24/s1600/BlindJanine.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-FQDFQ0JXFB4/UVqyYa1-FNI/AAAAAAAAHsM/ZnqqjgIiU24/s400/BlindJanine.jpg" width="393" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; font-family: inherit; line-height: 18px; text-align: left;"><i>Janine has been blind since birth, but it has never kept her from loving life. She loves laying in the grass and feeling the sun on her face, and wearing nubby sweaters. She loves to touch and feel everything, and she will touch your heart... </i>♥</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; font-family: inherit; line-height: 18px; text-align: left;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; font-family: inherit; line-height: 18px; text-align: left;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; font-family: inherit; font-size: large; line-height: 18px; text-align: left;"><i>Dear Ones,</i></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; font-family: inherit; line-height: 18px; text-align: left;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; font-family: inherit; line-height: 18px; text-align: left;">I put the picture and little caption for Janine up when I awoke from a bad dream before dawn and needed to do something to shake my mind out of that place that sometimes won't let go of you so easily even when you are awake. I think I just needed to put Janine here because she is such a comforting presence, and I have learned something very interesting, and deep, and special about this process...</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; font-family: inherit; line-height: 18px; text-align: left;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; font-family: inherit; line-height: 18px; text-align: left;">As you know by now if you have been watching this blog I start with an image I have drawn with pastels in an 8x8" sketchbook and then take that image into a photo manipulation program and play with it, coming up with lots of different colors and usually some pretty wild images will result. But with Janine, there were far fewer images than normal and they were all gentle and not wild or taken too far from the original.I realized, again, how real these women are to me as they appear, and that I felt especially protective of Janine, and not because she was blind -- she does very well thank you very much -- but there is something very tender and innocent about her and she doesn't belong in wildly manipulated, pop art images, for example. She is just a simple soul lying in the grass in the sunshine in her nubby sweater. I think the poems of Emily Dickinson are running through her mind. I think she knows Emily's poetry far better than any of us who are sighted ever will because she lives in the bottom of the words where each curve of a letter is like a hammock she can lie in and swing in the breeze for awhile. She digests Emily's poems and they become part of her in a way that is visible if only you really know Janine.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; font-family: inherit; line-height: 18px; text-align: left;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; font-family: inherit; line-height: 18px; text-align: left;">"Janine drinks tea, not coffee, but she has a vast array of very good loose teas in beautiful china that she has purchased in a second hand shop down the street from her. The proprietor of the shop,<i> "A Place Your Grandmother Would Have Loved,"</i> is one of Janine's dearest friends, Maxine, who is 81, and very elegant in the vintage attire she always wears, will call Janine and say, almost breathless, "Oh, Janine! You simply MUST come to the shop THIS instant. I have to show you the new cups I just got in," and Janine will grab her straw hat, and cane, and her Golden Retriever, Lucy, and she will head out down the street practically skipping. Sometimes Lucy gets a little nippish with Janine because once she's had one of those cup conversations she would fairly sail into the middle of traffic if Lucy didn't have a firm grip of the situation.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; font-family: inherit; line-height: 18px; text-align: left;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; font-family: inherit; line-height: 18px; text-align: left;">Today Lucy and Janine arrive Maxine grabs her and hugs her so hard she knocks Janine's hat off, and she hands Lucy a biscuit and sits Janine down in an old rocking chair that is over-sized and comfortable. Janine holds her hands out in just the shape made for holding a cup and Maxine gently sets the cup in Janine's hands. She waits for a few moments for Janine to feel the cup, and Janine takes her time, sliding her finger around every curve and through the little handle, feeling the weight of the cup and the delicacy of the porcelain. She needs a little time to dream and think of all of the teacups she has read about in the Victorian novels that she loves so well, and when she sits back in the chair and relaxes, holding the cup to her heart, Maxine slowly describes the cup to her. This cup is covered with overblown old peach colored roses on a cream background. It is quite old and unusually made for it's time. And Maxine tells Janine as much as she knows of it's provenance -- she already knows that Janine will buy this one -- and Janine rocks and smiles, slightly, while Maxine embellishes the tale of all of the places the cup has been, all the tables it has sat upon with the teapot beside it. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; font-family: inherit; line-height: 18px; text-align: left;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; font-family: inherit; line-height: 18px; text-align: left;">Maxine puts an old, scratchy record on the Victrola in the corner, Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata, and after carefully wrapping the cup and putting it in a box tied with ribbon she pours Janine a cup of Elderberry tea and they talk until late afternoon until Lucy begins to nudge Janine insistently. It will be dark soon and Lucy wants to shepherd her mistress home. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; font-family: inherit; line-height: 18px; text-align: left;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; font-family: inherit; line-height: 18px; text-align: left;">There will be another day, and another cup, and tonight will be a night for dreaming."</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; font-family: inherit; line-height: 18px; text-align: left;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; font-family: inherit; line-height: 18px; text-align: left;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; font-family: inherit; line-height: 18px; text-align: left;">How can I not fall in love with these women? I know them so well...</span><br />
<br /></div>maitrilibellulehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13209739470133507700noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6567564540904111532.post-69186690733748081082013-03-31T20:33:00.000-04:002013-04-12T17:48:29.182-04:00I Have Begun To Believe In My Own Dreams (And you can too!)...<div style="text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-0EDbGxwH1vA/UVhuKvNyv-I/AAAAAAAAHqo/QU8OYVwrS0Q/s1600/MaitriSpeaksNeverQuit.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-0EDbGxwH1vA/UVhuKvNyv-I/AAAAAAAAHqo/QU8OYVwrS0Q/s400/MaitriSpeaksNeverQuit.jpg" width="400" /></a> </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i><span style="font-size: large;">Dear Ones,</span></i>
</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
What a time it has been, a time of revelations, explorations, celebrations... one month short of my 59th birthday, I have found my way into the life that I believe I was meant to live. After longing to see my art become part of my writing process and, paired together, to use them as a means to send love and healing out into the world, to write books and sell products that would help women believe in themselves and especially women past the meridian of midlife, many of whom have given up on their dreams, I have realized that it is more than possible and I am on my way. As it says on the header for the new site which will be up in the next week or two, the work was inspired by Grandma Moses who said, "If I hadn't started painting I'd have raised chickens." Well, I think you can do both. You don't need to give up one to have the other. Today we can do it all, and I'm here to tell you that once I hit 50 and beyond my whole system heaved a sigh of relief and I felt like I was able become my real and authentic self. Still, it has been a real journey to get here.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-uMJFqW4iKtc/UVigv2fEX6I/AAAAAAAAHrA/dHN5RL4LJZI/s1600/MakkingArtRaisingChickenshEADER.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="100" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-uMJFqW4iKtc/UVigv2fEX6I/AAAAAAAAHrA/dHN5RL4LJZI/s400/MakkingArtRaisingChickenshEADER.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
The first major work coming out my my new business is "The 100 Ladies Project." You've seen some of the ladies here. There will be 100 of them and they are banding together to help women everywhere. Their slogan is <i>"Ladies Helping Ladies."</i> I am working on the book about the hundred ladies, 100 different pictures that I draw and then use photo manipulation programs to show the many colors that we women possess and to learn to celebrate all of our colors. Each lady will have a story, and beyond the book there are many products I am designing and a movement that I plan to grow into a non-profit venture. I am very dedicated to the idea of being able to do my work and support myself while at the same time, through my work, helping other women around the globe.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-B3j9ROD0o3Q/UVigZpPfJDI/AAAAAAAAHq4/vo6n_go7h64/s1600/100LadiesProjectBanner.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="133" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-B3j9ROD0o3Q/UVigZpPfJDI/AAAAAAAAHq4/vo6n_go7h64/s400/100LadiesProjectBanner.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
It was February 20 when I sat down with pastels for the first time never having used them before and never having done anything but doodle. I didn't have confidence in my drawing because I could barely, as I always said, even draw "a stick figure." I thought if it didn't look realistic it wouldn't be accepted. Oh, how many women in the world are held back from going for their dreams because they feel that what they do is not good enough, and it's really sad because we all have something unique to offer the world and all we need is the confidence in ourselves to leap into the middle of all we've ever wanted to do. I have begun to change that for myself and in my deepest heart it is what I want most to do to help other women.<br />
<br />
Too, when I was in school as a young child, a dreamer from the start who lived outside of the box (which I still do today), I would draw tree trunks purple and the leaves blue and the sky orange and the grass pink. I was in heaven but the nun would come around, rap me on the knuckles and say "That's terrible, you know that's not right. you'll never be an artist," and that was enough, as it has been for so many children, to make me lose belief in myself. I was in my 40's before I ever started doing little pen and ink and watercolors but they were odd little things that lived in my journals that I never showed anyone. I'm not sure what happened a month ago when I sat down and learned to draw my own way, these funky women with huge eyes, big lips, and crazy expressions, but every one is a unique individual to me and I have fallen in love with them. It has become important to me to tell their stories so that other women might see pieces of themselves in their stories and realize that they are not alone in their myriad feelings, that you don't have to fit inside any box to live a happy life, and you don't have to be accepted by society to come to an acceptance of yourself where joy and happiness can be found. Self-love is at the root of it all.<br />
<br />
When I imagined what I might be able to do it was never this. I was a writer, and I have tried a thousand different ways to tell my story, but a story about childhood abuse, and mental health issues that broke my heart and made it very difficult to live in the world, became too painful to tell. I was told by teachers and mentors that the writing was good, but living in the place I had to be in to tell that story kept me in a place that felt too dark and made it terrifying and depressing to face the page. And then I found my ladies, or they found me, and I realized that I could deal with issue in their stories that were, if not always lighthearted, perhaps parables about living in the world with whatever issues you might have that have held you back and realizing that they are no reason to hold you back, that somewhere inside of you there are the seeds of dreams that can be planted and fertilized and grow into a beautiful garden. I know that that garden lives inside of you and my greatest joy will be to hear from women, to help shepherd them along toward realizing those dreams. If I can do it believe me when I say that you can too.<br />
<br />
And so I begin this journey and you can find the story of my journey, and the products and courses and eBooks that I plan to develop in my quest to help you and other women like you, and all kinds of women in every color of the rainbow. You can join my Facebook page (the link is above on the right) or follow me on Twitter to hear updates. and I will let you know when the website is up because it will be the place where you will find all kinds of information about what is coming up, there will be a special section for <i>The Hundred Ladies Project</i>, daily banners like the one at the top of this entry that you can share for free on your Facebook pages or in tweets or anywhere you like. They are being made for sharing. They want to be in the world to help other women.<br />
<br />
I am sending you so much love, I am here to help you find your way into the life of your dreams as I am finding my way into mine, and one day we will commune together in a community I am creating and be there for each other with resources and chatting and support to help one another.<br />
<br />
Also, I started a newsletter some time back and it came to a dead halt because I knew it wasn't right and I wasn't sure what should go in them. I didn't realize that I was in that gestational period where this work was waiting to be born. Now I am so excited to share a number of things, a great many things, and one of the things I am now, finally, starting is a free eBook for everyone who joins my list that will serve as a jumping off place for you to start on your own path.<br />
<br />
Here's to celebrating all that you can become. We are travelers on a journey together. You are about to have the ride of your life. If you haven't yet started -- and I'm sure many of you have -- you will not believe how exciting it is. I am just at the beginning of realizing my dreams. I am on my way, and I'm only just beginning, but believing in myself and that my dreams deserved to be realized and birthed and shared in the world was the jumping off place.<br />
<br />
I believe in you. Believe in yourself, and let'd do this together.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-V3yNIqLqKsg/UVjTEyf7chI/AAAAAAAAHrQ/AqozcxJicyw/s1600/MaitriSz4.4.16.09.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-V3yNIqLqKsg/UVjTEyf7chI/AAAAAAAAHrQ/AqozcxJicyw/s1600/MaitriSz4.4.16.09.png" /></a></div>
<br /></div>maitrilibellulehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13209739470133507700noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6567564540904111532.post-90431846462875561992013-03-19T21:45:00.000-04:002013-04-03T17:59:44.942-04:00Getting To Know Trudi ~ An Artist's Progress & Process...<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
Trudi was a pushy girl but she was aching to be born...</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-jwObvL3kTAw/UUj60SS3thI/AAAAAAAAHn8/0n1ByOakI24/s1600/Trudi3.19.13.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-jwObvL3kTAw/UUj60SS3thI/AAAAAAAAHn8/0n1ByOakI24/s400/Trudi3.19.13.jpg" width="385" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br />
I looked at my sketchbook today and then at the calendar and realized that it will be one month tomorrow since I did my first pastel. Ever. I have purchased them before, couldn't get up the courage to use them, and they got lost somewhere along the line. Then I bought some awhile back and dawdled. And then on February 20, 2013, I opened the box of pastels, and a sketchbook, and set to with a vengeance. I feel as if I were shot out of a canon with a pastel in my hand! Nothing has overtaken me like this in I don't know when, maybe ever. I am startled by the intensity of my desire to draw but it's not just a desire to draw it is as if I am being called by these women I am creating to get them out of my head and onto paper as quickly as possible. Maybe I'll make more space in there.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
My process has been to do a drawing every few days, and then one a day or sometimes I would work on one for a couple of days, and then in the last 24 hours two of them emerged and I was more than a little startled by this but I had no choice, the urgency with which Trudi wanted to emerge left me no choice.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
How does this happen? Where does it come from?</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-IH_84cceAVA/UUj_r-6SxMI/AAAAAAAAHoE/98Em4LUzi9k/s1600/BeFunky_2013-03-19+19.jpg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-IH_84cceAVA/UUj_r-6SxMI/AAAAAAAAHoE/98Em4LUzi9k/s400/BeFunky_2013-03-19+19.jpg.jpg" width="385" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Maybe, at almost 59 (on April 30), there is a tsunami of art held back for nearly six decades that are pouring out because at this juncture there are an a boatload of women who have been waiting to be born. Did I know them in another life? Are they parts of myself? I'm sure the latter is true to some extent because I seem to know them intimately. I am not drawing things that I see like my parrots or pugs or garden or the sea, I am being called to birth these rather odd ladies and I'm thinking by the end of the year there will be an army of them. This is the third time I've said it and I know that's bad form, but it is indeed startling. I would never have guessed that when I finally started to draw this is what would come out. And the first few drawings I did were very gentle, madonna like women, very soft and nurturing, and then, Lordy Moses, out popped a vibrant, and one must admit, rather odd, being that had huge eyes and big lips and even while the rest of them are different these features are always the same and I swear I have no idea why. I never thought, "Gee, I'll draw a bunch of women with big eyes and lips," I just do. I draw the outline of the face which is always different, and then I sit there for a bit, and then I begin. The eyes come first, the lips, the nose, all almost exactly the same, and then away I go. Today it was Trudi. I knew her name before I started and I have no idea where that came from.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
And then came the fun of playing with the original with a photo manipulation program. I have always loved them and played with them but now every image has an increasing number of variations and I think I'd sit up half the night making more and more if I didn't get a grip. I'm fully aware that this fever of drawing comes, in part, from my manic side, but since I am bi polar type 2 which is the depressive side of things, and since I have been depressed pretty much of the last decade and more and able to produce less and less of anything at all for a very long time there is also the excitement that being productive brings, and unlike manic episodes replete with destructive behaviors, this seems to be very healing, and joyful in a healthy way, and leading to what I believe will be an ever blossoming body of work that will head in more directions than I know I can imagine in this moment. Manic perhaps, but this is a very good thing. And I'm grateful. And I have said prayers of gratitude. This is not something I have done in my loop de loop phases before. Yes, it's a very good thing.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-CXO4xwrrlHk/UUkBAMrg1EI/AAAAAAAAHoM/tTsoTSCTkvs/s1600/BeFunky_Sunburst_2.jpg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-CXO4xwrrlHk/UUkBAMrg1EI/AAAAAAAAHoM/tTsoTSCTkvs/s400/BeFunky_Sunburst_2.jpg.jpg" width="385" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
That the images are often peculiar, and might be seen as a bit alarming, even the darkest of them make me happy. Maybe that's because I am acknowledging and accepting parts of myself that I have tried to hide or push down or away most of my life. Parts of myself I have been criticized or ostracized for, and, too, from childhood on I realized that I was a chameleon of sorts. I would change, not to project a false version of myself but because I wanted to fit in or disappear or not stand out. Maybe I am looking at all of these chameleon creatures I have been in the past in an unconscious effort to integrate them and just come to accept them and move in the world as my authentic self, just who I am, no matter where I am or who I'm with. </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Or maybe, having been too serious and too scared most of my life I'm just cutting loose and having fun. I think that's more likely. Or maybe both are likely, and I'm fine with that.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-GLNUzgoTKW4/UUkCPqAljLI/AAAAAAAAHoU/Rx7zOPmePQs/s1600/BeFunky_OldPhoto_11.jpg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-GLNUzgoTKW4/UUkCPqAljLI/AAAAAAAAHoU/Rx7zOPmePQs/s400/BeFunky_OldPhoto_11.jpg.jpg" width="385" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
I have become a journeywoman, an aprrentice to the art of art, and I am happy to pay my dues by moving through these early stages of discovery. I have been self-taught in everything I have done in my life, an ardent autodidact, and I am finding my way with this too. I haven't taken an art class and I don't want to. I don't read books or watch videos on how to use pastels, and I may not be using them in what is considered the "proper way" if there even is such a thing. I am like a child discovering all of the treasures in the back yard, the dandelions and little stones, the wildflowers and ladybugs, and manys the time I nearly squeal with delight when one of the features turns out uneven or askew because that's what we are, we are imperfect in our aspect on every level, we are human, and that is as it should be. </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
And I feel these women, their vulnerabilities, the many layers and colors and textures of them. Trudi is shy, and a little in awe of the people around her, she is an innocent, and yes, she is easily startled. She is whimsical and disarming and her eyes change back and forth between green and blue and her colors change to blend in with the landscape, or people that she is around, or mood. She is a late blooming artist, she is bohemian and bookish, and you would most likely find her sitting in a corner of a cafe writing for hours over endless cappuccinos, oblivious to the world around her, with a pile of books beside her, her journal, and a fistful of colored pens. I'm not sure why she doesn't have pugs, she has an Irish Wolfhound named Danny Boy and she sings the song to him as they are both prone to melancholia. She has a black and white cat named Gertrude and a goldfish named Eloise. She doesn't know if the fish is a boy or a girl but she liked the name Eloise. She bought beta fish before Eloise but they tended to jump ship and Gertrude ate them. This was not a good thing. Trudi likes girls, not boys, but she is too shy and afraid to let anyone know. She doesn't think there's anything wrong with it but she has had such a hard time fitting in her whole life that she doesn't want to add one more thing to the list, and she likes her solitude. Little does she know that this is going to change sooner than she thinks, and despite her certainty that no one could possibly love her, especially what with the Irish Wolfhound who takes up most of her double bed, and Gertrude who likes to sleep on her head, and Eloise whom she talks outloud to all day long, and that she sings a lot, off key but with gusto, well, she is absolutely certain that no woman would love her. She is about to get the shock of her life. </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
And I know so much more. I may write a play about these characters, or a novel. I think Trudi misses the horses she grew up on and she wants cowboy boots, turquoise ones, and a cowboy hat, but she figures she has to have a horse to have those. This is a great disappointment to her. But she did get the little vintage camper that she has wanted for ages, and obsessed about, and spent too much money on, but fixed up really cute. The thing is it sits in her back yard and she sits in it out there and dreams of all the places she doesn't go. She will soon head out west with Danny Boy, Gertrude, and even Eloise, because the mystery woman is a go getter and finally gets Trudi to go. Some places at least. More places than she usually goes or ever thought she would. </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
I know these people that I create. Really well.</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-CHm9nL-bjoc/UUkQxUS5mFI/AAAAAAAAHoc/HWxEo_x7W5c/s1600/BeFunky_PopArt_10.jpg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-CHm9nL-bjoc/UUkQxUS5mFI/AAAAAAAAHoc/HWxEo_x7W5c/s400/BeFunky_PopArt_10.jpg.jpg" width="385" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
The only trip Trudi ever took -- and this surprised everyone who knew her -- was to New York to see an Andy Warhol exhibit. She bought lots of posters and excitedly took them home but they didn't go with her vintage furniture which she got at those old grandmother's antique kinds of shops and even if they looked a little oldish and maybe a tad frayed here and there she loved all of her old furnishings and whatnots dearly because she was an orphan who grew up in a foster home that had plastic on the furniture and plastic runners in the hallways and she was often scolded for touching the nice things. This depressed her and she swore one day she would have a house she could really LIVE in. And that's what she got. But the Andy Warhol pictures didn't fit and so she rolled them up and put them in the back of the closet but, disappointed that she couldn't hang them, she walked around for days pretending to be in one of those posters, she imagined Warhol painting her but she wasn't a soup can. In the end she thought this was a very dark and disturbing period of her life and told no one about it. Pretend that I didn't tell you. She burned the posters late one day in the rusty trash can in the alley after it got dark and promptly forgot about it. She was soon into her Barbra Streisand phase and watched Funny Girl a lot, bought all of the albums, every single one, real albums, not cd's, it was back in the day, and she sang all the songs over and over -- she knew all of the words to every single song that Barbra ever sang, ever -- and she was thrilled that her nose was a little crookedy if not quite having the flair that Barbra's has. </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
This phase lasted a very long time. A very long time.</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-drR-gajBCtg/UUkTC5AoJ3I/AAAAAAAAHok/e1Lk7Z6kljg/s1600/BeFunky_ColorPinhole_1.jpg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-drR-gajBCtg/UUkTC5AoJ3I/AAAAAAAAHok/e1Lk7Z6kljg/s400/BeFunky_ColorPinhole_1.jpg.jpg" width="385" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
(She especially loved the song, "I'd Rather Be Blue" from Funny Girl and even bought roller skates to skate around on her hardwood floors while she was singing it. She came to a bad end one day and her Barbra phase was over and she burned the roller skates in the rusty trash can in the alley after dark. There was a full moon. She felt wistful, and wondered if she could really give Barbra up, but she was still badly bruised and her elbow was broken and she didn't think she could take any chances.</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
If anyone could love anyone like her she would be startled to pieces. Yes, she gets startled a lot too.</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
I can't wait to see who shows up tomorrow, and to learn what story she brings with her, and I have no idea what her hair color will be or if she has ears or not, I just hope she doesn't show up tonight. Between the blue woman and Trudi I'm worn out. I'm going to go curl up under a pile of pugs and watch an indie flick. Probably an art one. That's what I do these days. I think Trudi likes them too.</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-JJ7ged1as5k/UUkUYNzdPcI/AAAAAAAAHos/OXlIJBnBSK0/s1600/BeFunky_Instant_3.jpg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-JJ7ged1as5k/UUkUYNzdPcI/AAAAAAAAHos/OXlIJBnBSK0/s400/BeFunky_Instant_3.jpg.jpg" width="385" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
"I do."</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<a href="http://www.bloglovin.com/blog/3631357/?claim=ta5tfef4t9r">Follow my blog with Bloglovin</a>maitrilibellulehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13209739470133507700noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6567564540904111532.post-85185414863057624612013-03-19T02:52:00.000-04:002013-03-19T02:52:28.955-04:00"Her Blue Period" ~ (She Made Peace With Her Blue Period)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-jKoqY0ONwio/UUf95Y_zeXI/AAAAAAAAHl0/D05RqSkztnc/s1600/HerBluePeriod3.19.13.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="383" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-jKoqY0ONwio/UUf95Y_zeXI/AAAAAAAAHl0/D05RqSkztnc/s400/HerBluePeriod3.19.13.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
The revelations, in this process that I am so deep into at this point, are like tidal waves. My fingers are stained with pastels, today, bluer than blue. I started working on this and thought of Picasso's "Blue Period" and how all artists, all people, have blue periods, and seem to want to run from them. I am not afraid of this blue period I am in because this is a joyful time. I have embraced my blue period and I want to know all of it's colors. When we stop being afraid of that which feels uncertain, of those places inside of ourselves that are a deeper shade of existence than that which we normally exist in, and sink down into all that it is, all that it feels, all of its many hues, we become more rooted in who we truly are, more grounded, centered in the reality of the truth of who we are. With this piece I am celebrating every single blue mood I have ever had, every shade, every nuance, I want to know them all...</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-fSVmf2wYAzc/UUgADH6VpSI/AAAAAAAAHmE/41DBhDbR1SE/s1600/BeFunky_Cyanotype_2.jpg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="383" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-fSVmf2wYAzc/UUgADH6VpSI/AAAAAAAAHmE/41DBhDbR1SE/s400/BeFunky_Cyanotype_2.jpg.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br />She is a lighter shade of pale, she is slipping out of even her blueness, because some days no color feels right and she is not at home inside her own skin...</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-X1aQ8tAmTDA/UUgAh51GssI/AAAAAAAAHmM/QRLZqA0Ml24/s1600/BeFunky_ViewFinder_2.jpg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="383" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-X1aQ8tAmTDA/UUgAh51GssI/AAAAAAAAHmM/QRLZqA0Ml24/s400/BeFunky_ViewFinder_2.jpg.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br />Some days when she really gets her blue on she feels bright and beautiful and is dazzled by her reflection in the mirror, the reflection that only she sees. On those days she really does feel pretty and it makes her feel shy but she keeps peeking in the mirror because she knows that it will not last. She will revel in this brighter shade of blue a little while longer...</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-dLJs_miPXY0/UUgBmGtVURI/AAAAAAAAHmY/vzNoAggykn8/s1600/BeFunky_Grunge_13.jpg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="383" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-dLJs_miPXY0/UUgBmGtVURI/AAAAAAAAHmY/vzNoAggykn8/s400/BeFunky_Grunge_13.jpg.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Then there are the dark nights of the soul when even the moon is hidden from view and were it not for the few shreds of blue she had left she would have nothing to hold onto. Those dark nights she clings to her blue as if to a raft in the sea, shipwrecked and alone, but the bit of blue she has left will keep her afloat until daylight, and she will be found, she will find herself, her brave blue self, it's always there somewhere...</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-dLPozu1h9eQ/UUgCXgYEckI/AAAAAAAAHmg/Rx4zT3s48UQ/s1600/BeFunky_Sunburst_6.jpg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="383" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-dLPozu1h9eQ/UUgCXgYEckI/AAAAAAAAHmg/Rx4zT3s48UQ/s400/BeFunky_Sunburst_6.jpg.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Some days her internal heat spikes -- women past the median of midlife know these times well -- and were it not for the blue hanky that she carries in her apron pocket to mop her brow or fan herself she might burn up completely. On these days she thanks God that she is a blue woman. It stands her in good stead when her innards are ablaze and she is dizzy from the heat.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-yeYsbBKEOHU/UUgEcnAJmfI/AAAAAAAAHm8/6Ccb9r1E6N4/s1600/BeFunky_HDR_1.jpg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="383" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-yeYsbBKEOHU/UUgEcnAJmfI/AAAAAAAAHm8/6Ccb9r1E6N4/s400/BeFunky_HDR_1.jpg.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br />Some days her nerves are more than a little jangly and the blue evens her out a little, just a little, but it helps...</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-bGHnOCnOBzQ/UUgFG6PSo5I/AAAAAAAAHnE/60TXI3Q2hsE/s1600/BeFunky_OldPhoto_4.jpg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="383" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-bGHnOCnOBzQ/UUgFG6PSo5I/AAAAAAAAHnE/60TXI3Q2hsE/s400/BeFunky_OldPhoto_4.jpg.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
There are days when she feels a little bit fuzzy and has a hard time being around people. She dusts herself off and powders her nose and hides under the covers with her powder blue pugs. They seem to reflect whatever color she is that day. They like blue. They think it looks good on them.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-9ITm31OszNE/UUgF8V8lnRI/AAAAAAAAHnM/C6aAMZ7IQts/s1600/BeFunky_Cyanotype_5.jpg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="383" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-9ITm31OszNE/UUgF8V8lnRI/AAAAAAAAHnM/C6aAMZ7IQts/s400/BeFunky_Cyanotype_5.jpg.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
And then there are the days when the lady sings the blues. She knows how Billy Holiday must have felt and she writes in her journal all afternoon to Billy crooning, and she likes the sad kind of melancholy prose the music evokes because it fits her like a glove. Sometimes the lady sings the blues, and all is well...</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-gY-AZTOb7Iw/UUgGsCrEt2I/AAAAAAAAHnY/AebXeaAMorg/s1600/BeFunky_OldPhoto_7.jpg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="383" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-gY-AZTOb7Iw/UUgGsCrEt2I/AAAAAAAAHnY/AebXeaAMorg/s400/BeFunky_OldPhoto_7.jpg.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Some people nearly drain the blue right out of her. Her irises go black and her hair starts to turn grey. She knows that her blue is the barometer of her soul and when the temperature starts dropping dangerously low she realizes that these people have no place in her life. She has learned to politely say No, and send them packing, ever so gently and certainly kindly. Some people will never understand her blue and they have no place in her life. She is finally at peace with that. She is learning to be all of who she is, and her blue days are as good as any other days, just bluer. </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
She'd rather be blue thinking of you than be happy with somebody else. She's a funny girl. And she loves all of her blue selves...</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-RczlUsTj2ac/UUgKxfoVwxI/AAAAAAAAHns/arvsx_Dny_0/s1600/BeFunky_VintageColors_6.jpg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="383" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-RczlUsTj2ac/UUgKxfoVwxI/AAAAAAAAHns/arvsx_Dny_0/s400/BeFunky_VintageColors_6.jpg.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
maitrilibellulehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13209739470133507700noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6567564540904111532.post-80418912496363708172013-03-16T18:00:00.002-04:002013-03-16T18:00:23.189-04:00She Is A Stargazer... (A Day In The Life Of A Bi Polar Woman)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Gner27XvVj4/UUTf_-qc9wI/AAAAAAAAHkQ/Q-NZ6Bao2YM/s1600/BeFunky_HDR_2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Gner27XvVj4/UUTf_-qc9wI/AAAAAAAAHkQ/Q-NZ6Bao2YM/s400/BeFunky_HDR_2.jpg" width="397" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
When I am drawing my heart opens up and I feel great tenderness for the woman I am creating. I realized that she is part of me, a part that I could not access through words, and when she is tentative I feel myself tremble a little and sit with a pastel in my hand wondering if I can do her justice, but if I can draw her maybe I can see these places in myself and heal them and let her know, ever so gently, that she is cared for and loved, just as she is. I can hold her in my arms and tell her that she is okay, and know that I am okay too.</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
I also realize that my goal in drawing these women is to reach other women in the hope that they can see themselves too in a way that they never have before and perhaps come to a place of understanding, of knowing, of realizing that these places exist and in offering them I am not only offering a piece of my heart, but hoping to help them accept and love themselves. The text to go with the photos in the little book of drawings I am creating will reflect on how the process of making art has been very healing to me, and that if they can find an activity that engages them deeply outside of themselves, as a practice, the fear will begin to dissipate and they can release some of what has long held them back and kept them from living and celebrating their whole authentic self, the one that has gifts and talents and even joy that they had not been able to find before. My dreams are big, but so is my desire to help other women as I turn the page and begin to allow the many women inside of me emerge and reveal themselves. I am so much more than I ever knew, and so is she, and so are you.</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-4EuV2N2ynCY/UUTkGzRVcOI/AAAAAAAAHkY/Px7sJ8TItp8/s1600/BeFunky_Grunge_1.jpg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-4EuV2N2ynCY/UUTkGzRVcOI/AAAAAAAAHkY/Px7sJ8TItp8/s400/BeFunky_Grunge_1.jpg.jpg" width="397" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
Sometimes I feel myself disengaging and fading from the world. I know that no one can see me, and that I don't want to be seen.</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-UPdyp9ESE5g/UUTkjCK-YkI/AAAAAAAAHkg/jtArhFlLK6c/s1600/BeFunky_Cyanotype_5.jpg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-UPdyp9ESE5g/UUTkjCK-YkI/AAAAAAAAHkg/jtArhFlLK6c/s400/BeFunky_Cyanotype_5.jpg.jpg" width="381" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
Sometimes I feel so blue and frightened as I lay in bed I don't know if I can face another day...</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-tw5rtoPq41w/UUTkyYjecKI/AAAAAAAAHko/tRsplOkiAZE/s1600/BeFunky_Pinhole_3.jpg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-tw5rtoPq41w/UUTkyYjecKI/AAAAAAAAHko/tRsplOkiAZE/s400/BeFunky_Pinhole_3.jpg.jpg" width="397" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
It takes awhile for me to surface and I am very, very quiet. I don't answer the phone unless it is someone very close to me and I fear it may be urgent, and I feel released and able to breathe again when I am able to hang up and sit with my animals in the silence.</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-TK2f_MBLik4/UUTlXzwVksI/AAAAAAAAHkw/ia5--_d5WKQ/s1600/BeFunky_Sepia_1.jpg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-TK2f_MBLik4/UUTlXzwVksI/AAAAAAAAHkw/ia5--_d5WKQ/s400/BeFunky_Sepia_1.jpg.jpg" width="397" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
There are days when I try to fade from view, I go outside and try to blend in with the trees, deep in my woods. I am a dryad, a tree spirit, and I believe that no one can see me here...</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-33W6pVY80h8/UUTl8RHknmI/AAAAAAAAHk4/XC45pM4BK4o/s1600/BeFunky_VintageColors_3.jpg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-33W6pVY80h8/UUTl8RHknmI/AAAAAAAAHk4/XC45pM4BK4o/s400/BeFunky_VintageColors_3.jpg.jpg" width="397" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Most days I can feel myself begin to emerge after a few hours of solitude and silence and I can begin to work, I will usually answer the phone, the color starts to come back into my cheeks, I can feel myself re-entering my body, I am able to hold on and know that I will get through...</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-IMyuC1KRz0A/UUTml4wCP0I/AAAAAAAAHlA/OW5YAmIzLPI/s1600/BeFunky_VintageColors_8.jpg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-IMyuC1KRz0A/UUTml4wCP0I/AAAAAAAAHlA/OW5YAmIzLPI/s400/BeFunky_VintageColors_8.jpg.jpg" width="397" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
... I feel more vibrant and alive, and relief comes over me in waves...<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-hHqHGZ0cyA4/UUTm-rwnF8I/AAAAAAAAHlQ/wY4JnxOeH6w/s1600/BeFunky_OldPhoto_7.jpg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-hHqHGZ0cyA4/UUTm-rwnF8I/AAAAAAAAHlQ/wY4JnxOeH6w/s400/BeFunky_OldPhoto_7.jpg.jpg" width="397" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
I am able to accept the darkness, and the light, I know that being bi polar I will continue to go through these cycles, but I am at peace, finally, with all of these places inside of me, and I no longer care if I fit in with the rest of the world, I know that I have something to offer just as I am, I relax into all that I am, I pick up a pastel and begin to draw...</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-KpmWuB_UQfU/UUTnv404XpI/AAAAAAAAHlY/_W_SrE3aPvs/s1600/BeFunky_Instant_1.jpg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-KpmWuB_UQfU/UUTnv404XpI/AAAAAAAAHlY/_W_SrE3aPvs/s400/BeFunky_Instant_1.jpg.jpg" width="397" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
... and I come to realize that she who is me holds much beauty inside, and joy rises, and I hear the birds sing just outside my windows, and my animals draw close and I can feel their ease. I answer the phone cheerfully, and I write with an energy I could not muster earlier. I have come through another day and bi polar or not it is a good life. I can gaze at the stars and feel elated. I am part of this Universe, I am a child of God, I am enough just as I am. </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
I will make it.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-awDJnVqTLYM/UUTo3YBgveI/AAAAAAAAHlg/O9y9kTrYee0/s1600/MaitriSz4.4.16.09.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-awDJnVqTLYM/UUTo3YBgveI/AAAAAAAAHlg/O9y9kTrYee0/s1600/MaitriSz4.4.16.09.png" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
maitrilibellulehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13209739470133507700noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6567564540904111532.post-80781600581148329522013-03-13T12:52:00.000-04:002013-03-13T12:52:48.290-04:00"Uh-Oh, I Don't Think I Like My New Perm..."<div style="text-align: center;">
I don't know about you, but I've been there. With my straight hair and a hopeful countenance I have gone into a salon and paid way too much only to come out horrified looking at the hair that took over the world and wondering how long it would take it to grow out (or should I just have it all cut off?). That's where this poor gal is. She just walked out of the salon dazed, confused, and horror-stricken. </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Uh-Oh...</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-beQJlNtGwfM/UUCrx1JxmsI/AAAAAAAAHjE/yEg64rWKiFQ/s1600/BeFunky_2013-03-12+21.jpg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="391" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-beQJlNtGwfM/UUCrx1JxmsI/AAAAAAAAHjE/yEg64rWKiFQ/s400/BeFunky_2013-03-12+21.jpg.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/--kIsu6aThlc/UUCr5zBYewI/AAAAAAAAHjM/k5Qf1qmj4FQ/s1600/BeFunky_Cyanotype_6.jpg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="391" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/--kIsu6aThlc/UUCr5zBYewI/AAAAAAAAHjM/k5Qf1qmj4FQ/s400/BeFunky_Cyanotype_6.jpg.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-dl1mE6t_1GE/UUCsBNGMxnI/AAAAAAAAHjU/XBM65eBzeoU/s1600/BeFunky_Grunge_1.jpg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="391" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-dl1mE6t_1GE/UUCsBNGMxnI/AAAAAAAAHjU/XBM65eBzeoU/s400/BeFunky_Grunge_1.jpg.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-MkTEzdTHCa4/UUCsPIrWNiI/AAAAAAAAHjc/7fZRV5gk6l4/s1600/BeFunky_PopArt_10.jpg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="391" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-MkTEzdTHCa4/UUCsPIrWNiI/AAAAAAAAHjc/7fZRV5gk6l4/s400/BeFunky_PopArt_10.jpg.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-xxke70jbckI/UUCsWIT_BVI/AAAAAAAAHjk/IWCFwDqFh2Y/s1600/BeFunky_Sepia_1.jpg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="391" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-xxke70jbckI/UUCsWIT_BVI/AAAAAAAAHjk/IWCFwDqFh2Y/s400/BeFunky_Sepia_1.jpg.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-xEnw1Wqb00w/UUCsePn3ddI/AAAAAAAAHjs/_dA2MgAjkwM/s1600/BeFunky_Lomoart_1.jpg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="391" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-xEnw1Wqb00w/UUCsePn3ddI/AAAAAAAAHjs/_dA2MgAjkwM/s400/BeFunky_Lomoart_1.jpg.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-t8No79ZzxkA/UUCsmY_7pLI/AAAAAAAAHj0/rWuvoDJBnZU/s1600/BeFunky_VintageColors_6.jpg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="391" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-t8No79ZzxkA/UUCsmY_7pLI/AAAAAAAAHj0/rWuvoDJBnZU/s400/BeFunky_VintageColors_6.jpg.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-oL0WpmuqiEw/UUCsv9SGdSI/AAAAAAAAHj8/UCtnDetfrtM/s1600/BeFunky_ViewFinder_7.jpg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="391" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-oL0WpmuqiEw/UUCsv9SGdSI/AAAAAAAAHj8/UCtnDetfrtM/s400/BeFunky_ViewFinder_7.jpg.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
No matter how many times she looks in the mirror, turning her head this way and that, hoping it will look different in different lighting or a different outfit it's always the same. </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
I've been in her shoes. Now my hair is about an inch long all over my head and shall remain so. Too many bad perms makes for a crazy fear of hair salons. I have cut my own hair for years. I will never have another perm.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
(And I promise, the next entry will be a REAL blog entry. I'm just having so much fun!)</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-WHTgWsAMVZk/UTu4TqecGFI/AAAAAAAAHhE/oHO9JH6coc0/s1600/MaitriSz4.4.16.09.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-WHTgWsAMVZk/UTu4TqecGFI/AAAAAAAAHhE/oHO9JH6coc0/s1600/MaitriSz4.4.16.09.jpg" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
maitrilibellulehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13209739470133507700noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6567564540904111532.post-49319829822826828152013-03-10T16:56:00.001-04:002013-03-10T16:56:50.252-04:00"She Saw A Spider" ~The Many Faces Of Fear...<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-o1KpiUJOIas/UTzwSsMYeqI/AAAAAAAAHhc/CtMJYRW4oyk/s1600/SpiderOrig.3.10.13.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-o1KpiUJOIas/UTzwSsMYeqI/AAAAAAAAHhc/CtMJYRW4oyk/s400/SpiderOrig.3.10.13.jpg" width="398" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-pKmTPBjZtF0/UTzwb_W4ZhI/AAAAAAAAHhk/5ucV0hNCGjY/s1600/BeFunky_VintageColors_8.jpg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-pKmTPBjZtF0/UTzwb_W4ZhI/AAAAAAAAHhk/5ucV0hNCGjY/s400/BeFunky_VintageColors_8.jpg.jpg" width="398" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-qTVJliFX-Uo/UTzwp1S52-I/AAAAAAAAHhs/vkeEnshYkKc/s1600/BeFunky_Sepia_1.jpg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-qTVJliFX-Uo/UTzwp1S52-I/AAAAAAAAHhs/vkeEnshYkKc/s400/BeFunky_Sepia_1.jpg.jpg" width="398" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-d6q559WIx4o/UTzwzH02OhI/AAAAAAAAHh0/aYFd-EOBTiQ/s1600/BeFunky_ColorPinhole_3.jpg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-d6q559WIx4o/UTzwzH02OhI/AAAAAAAAHh0/aYFd-EOBTiQ/s400/BeFunky_ColorPinhole_3.jpg.jpg" width="398" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-RNg6vYyBzfs/UTzxA4jPLyI/AAAAAAAAHh8/3VJD708bLqQ/s1600/BeFunky_Instant_11.jpg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-RNg6vYyBzfs/UTzxA4jPLyI/AAAAAAAAHh8/3VJD708bLqQ/s400/BeFunky_Instant_11.jpg.jpg" width="398" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ksChKnpgbxI/UTzxKjn7K9I/AAAAAAAAHiE/LILUPX8nIBs/s1600/BeFunky_Grunge_4.jpg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ksChKnpgbxI/UTzxKjn7K9I/AAAAAAAAHiE/LILUPX8nIBs/s400/BeFunky_Grunge_4.jpg.jpg" width="398" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-O0kEsQn67vU/UTzxZ_0lk2I/AAAAAAAAHiM/fLPpf0aAsIY/s1600/BeFunky_PopArt_19.jpg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-O0kEsQn67vU/UTzxZ_0lk2I/AAAAAAAAHiM/fLPpf0aAsIY/s400/BeFunky_PopArt_19.jpg.jpg" width="398" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-PKwcqzOLSfA/UTzxhjZ_USI/AAAAAAAAHiU/L4FPB1vJBHA/s1600/BeFunky_VintageColors_6.jpg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-PKwcqzOLSfA/UTzxhjZ_USI/AAAAAAAAHiU/L4FPB1vJBHA/s400/BeFunky_VintageColors_6.jpg.jpg" width="398" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-T44UjCrJW6A/UTzxzuVznXI/AAAAAAAAHic/TF-u6VsMbmc/s1600/BeFunky_PopArt_13.jpg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-T44UjCrJW6A/UTzxzuVznXI/AAAAAAAAHic/TF-u6VsMbmc/s400/BeFunky_PopArt_13.jpg.jpg" width="398" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-w3xI52uR8GY/UTzyJAAHG8I/AAAAAAAAHis/70SwV0is6fU/s1600/BeFunky_OldPhoto_12.jpg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-w3xI52uR8GY/UTzyJAAHG8I/AAAAAAAAHis/70SwV0is6fU/s400/BeFunky_OldPhoto_12.jpg.jpg" width="398" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Nrzh8RtNKMc/UTzy0nQ0fFI/AAAAAAAAHi0/2iyw_lt6Bvw/s1600/BeFunky_VintageColors_1.jpg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Nrzh8RtNKMc/UTzy0nQ0fFI/AAAAAAAAHi0/2iyw_lt6Bvw/s400/BeFunky_VintageColors_1.jpg.jpg" width="398" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i style="font-size: x-large;">What color are you?</i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
maitrilibellulehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13209739470133507700noreply@blogger.com0