Monthly Archives: April 2011

Beautiful Wise Women

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“As we age, we have the chance to reinvent ourselves and to have new adventures. Arthritis took me away from painting. Now I use my artistic abilities to design clothes. As we age, our connection to our deeper womb powers increase and we are often blessed with new gifts of magic.” —Ingeborg Ten Haeff, 78

I spent part of yesterday sitting around the kitchen table with two respected and lovely women from my spiritual group, Becoming. We ate a scrumptious meal, shared different divination tools we have used, and just talked about our lives and our dreams. They shared with me a book they had discovered, Wise Women: A Celebration of Their Insights, Courage, and Beauty by Joyce Tenneson. Each photo is accompanied by a snippet of conversation from each woman photographed.

I was so filled with hope and wonder as I turned each page. Each woman was so full of life, even having lived fully. These are women squeezing the sweet juice out of each day. Each has experienced hardship; each has put forth effort persevering and thriving. These are heroes and role models. These are women I want to know. These are women like I want to be now and thirty or forty or fifty years from now. These are women who through their strong and open hearts allow the light of the Divine to shine forth into the world — and I gasp in awe at their luminescent and earthly beauty.

All hail the Goddess in All Her Forms and in All Her Names!

Things I Hate

Stephen Harrod Buhner, in Ensouling Language: On the Art of Nonfiction and the Writer’s Life, says “Everything you hate is everything you stand against. It is everything that you oppose, that you write to change, that you want to be a part of changing, that you must participate in changing in order to respect yourself. . . . Your rage against these things is what will make it possible to face the blank page, day after day after day.”

THINGS I HATE

how I can’t seem to focus on one task for long enough to get it done
that at 40 I still feel like an inexperience child
that I lost my belief in the magic of the world a long time ago (One of the things I love about myself is that I still strive to get it back.)
that I cannot bring myself to answer questions that I know but do not like the answers to
being late
making a wrong turn based on faulty perceptions
seeing the goal and having no idea how to get there
driving in circles without a map
[something that I cannot share right now]
being so concerned about losing others that I sometime lose myself
that I am slowly losing my eyesight
people who don’t care
rich people who fault poor people for their condition without any idea what it is actually like
poor people who fall for it
rude drivers
Fred Phelps and his crew
that I can’t eat all the cheese I want without gaining weight
that I just don’t quite know how to easily be myself around friends
feeling insecure
being indecisive
being interrupted
people who try to prove they know everything
the smell of old urine
feeling out of control
corn nuts
okra
not being listened to/being dismissed
not listening to or trusting myself
that I have to think about the food I eat so as not to regain all the weight I’ve lost
cleaning the house
sweating
people who are proud of their ignorance and intolerance
tiny yappy dogs
the fear I have of hidden animals with teeth

A warm, sunny afternoon in our front yard

This afternoon I am sitting on my front porch watching the local wildlife, naming the sparrows, cardinals, mourning doves, butterflies, and feral cats. Right now about twenty little birds are hopping through our unmowed yard and pecking seed under the bird feeder. We have three identifiable feral cats that live in the woods across the street — one black, one tabby, and one white with orange spots. They all look pretty big, which is surprising. They wonder up the front sidewalk toward the porch and stop suddenly when they notice me on the porch. I say “hi” and we give each other the hairy eyeball. Last year, I had a similar experience with a red fox, but I haven’t seen any of them this year.

More Things I Love

Remember about a month ago, I wrote a list of things I love because I was reading Ensouling Language: On the Art of Nonfiction and the Writer’s Life by Stephen Harrod Buhner?

I’ve been adding to that list and also working on the other lists of things I hate, my heroes, and books that have moved me. So, in the interest of sharing…

the smell of magnolias in April
early morning birdsong
wind chimes
this video
160 beats per minute
moonstone jewelry
handcrafted jewelry
goddess happy hour
wandering about to see what I can see
dancing
dancing with my husband
my husband
reading slash fanfic
riding on the train and imaging that it will just keep going past my stop for work
gin and tonics
birthday cake with big icing roses
dreaming up rituals
my mother
my mother’s partner
my family of choice
my cats
dressing up in costume
alone time
running without hip pain
getting the joke
laughing loudly
sleeping babies
my niece and nephew

Looking back at my list, I realize that I wrote birthday cake, my cats, rituals, wandering about, and sleeping babies on both. Hmmmm…