Art by Emily Balivet
This month, the new Next Chapter Book Club started, and this time it's a Mail Around, where 4 copies of the Happy Book are mailed around and the participants each get an opportunity to add our happiness to the book! I'm excited to be part of the Glee Circle (Glee?! Can you believe it?!) but it will be many many weeks before I see the book. In the meantime each Friday Jamie will be asking us what makes us happy, and anyone can participate!
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This week I am finding myself incredibly grateful for my women friends, past, present and even future. Working toward self-love has been a heavy and deep internal experience for me, and I've been feeling rather volatile. I had two emotional breakdowns this week, and both were extremely enlightening in telling me where my deep and intrinsic sense of unworthiness has come from. To be honest, despite the emotional nakedness and the pain, I truly find happiness in discovering more about myself, in the self-awareness that comes in its own sweet time. And I find that that self-awareness reveals itself most deeply when I am with those women in my life who care about me despite knowing full well what my weaknesses and faults are. It's the magical eyes that Joy speaks of on Owning Pink; it's the lamplight on my journey to self-love. No one can do it for me, and I cannot take the journeys of those I care for, either; but there's magic in holding that space for one another as we embark on our own paths toward wholeness.
***
This week I am finding myself incredibly grateful for my women friends, past, present and even future. Working toward self-love has been a heavy and deep internal experience for me, and I've been feeling rather volatile. I had two emotional breakdowns this week, and both were extremely enlightening in telling me where my deep and intrinsic sense of unworthiness has come from. To be honest, despite the emotional nakedness and the pain, I truly find happiness in discovering more about myself, in the self-awareness that comes in its own sweet time. And I find that that self-awareness reveals itself most deeply when I am with those women in my life who care about me despite knowing full well what my weaknesses and faults are. It's the magical eyes that Joy speaks of on Owning Pink; it's the lamplight on my journey to self-love. No one can do it for me, and I cannot take the journeys of those I care for, either; but there's magic in holding that space for one another as we embark on our own paths toward wholeness.
I also find complete and utter joy in finding artists whose work seems to speak directly to me; today I very serendipitously found the above print on weheartit.com and a link back to a wonderful etsy shop. Emily Balivet's work speaks to me so deeply, it's utterly gorgeous.
I leave you with a poem, from the 1998 Edition of Our Bodies, Ourselves;
Medicine is a Woman
I have walked among women, tall like mountains
that many try to climb, but never master.
I am alive today because I have encountered such
women every time I was near death and I
know such a woman will be there to walk with me
to the other side when I die.
I have been hugged by the blazing sun, purified in
the arms of such a woman. Her wisdom and
affection have been a laying on of the hands,
midwifing the delivery of my soul into creation.
When a woman walks toward you whose eyes
burn like beacons, keep still.
The Egyptian bird of magic is anointing your
heart, with the knowledge of life's possibilities,
and your power to realize your dreams.
Sink into her eyes, it is she who pollinates the
petals of desire as she slips into your life singing
a magical incantation just for your ears.
Such women walk among us. Such women walk
within me. I am such a woman.
~Linda King
I leave you with a poem, from the 1998 Edition of Our Bodies, Ourselves;
Medicine is a Woman
I have walked among women, tall like mountains
that many try to climb, but never master.
I am alive today because I have encountered such
women every time I was near death and I
know such a woman will be there to walk with me
to the other side when I die.
I have been hugged by the blazing sun, purified in
the arms of such a woman. Her wisdom and
affection have been a laying on of the hands,
midwifing the delivery of my soul into creation.
When a woman walks toward you whose eyes
burn like beacons, keep still.
The Egyptian bird of magic is anointing your
heart, with the knowledge of life's possibilities,
and your power to realize your dreams.
Sink into her eyes, it is she who pollinates the
petals of desire as she slips into your life singing
a magical incantation just for your ears.
Such women walk among us. Such women walk
within me. I am such a woman.
~Linda King
