inspiration « And Her Head Popped Off

Posts Tagged ‘inspiration’

abandoned

September 5, 2010

it’s just that the head is not always popping off. you know?

and so i’m abandoning yet another blog, yet another name, yet another label, and now, i’m just… me.

i’m still messing with it, adding a contact form, more photos to the portfolio, moving things around. but messy has never really concerned me, anyway.

so change your bookmarks and feeds and all, and i’ll meet you there. and while you’re at it, let me know that you’ve arrived.

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

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

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

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

Derek Walcott

Tags: i may or may not be losing it, inspiration, photo, poetry, quotes
Posted in Photography | 1 Comment »

Rumi, Music, Giveaway

August 25, 2010

***contest winner: Kelley!*** thanks for the great music, everyone! :)

WALNUTS

Philosophers have said that we love music
because it resembles the sphere-sounds

of union. We’ve been part of a harmony
before, so these moments of treble and bass

keep our remembering fresh.

. . .

The waterhole is deep. A thirsty man climbs
a walnut tree growing next to the pool

and drops walnuts one by one into
the beautiful place. He listens carefully

to the sound as they hit and watches
the bubbles. A more rational man gives advice,

“You’ll regret doing this. You’re so far
from the water that by the time you get down

to gather walnuts, the water will have
carried them away.” He replies, “I’m not

here for walnuts, I want the music
they make when they hit.”

You that come to birth and bring the mysteries,
your voice-thunder makes us very happy.

Roar, lion of the heart,
and tear me open!

(Rumi, translated by Coleman Barks)

I’m burning a smudge stick and bringing bags to Goodwill. Clearing, bag by bag, everything. EVERYTHING! This space is being cleared out, too. Renewed. So until it is, or at least until I can’t stand it anymore (no pictures?!), I’ll be posting a Rumi poem every day to fill the space of my own silence.

AAAaaaAaaand, I want to do some giveaways to celebrate the impending new-ness. I totally bombed on my first and last “giveaway,” because I promised things to everyone (isn’t that a metaphor!). But this one will have only one winner. And after I have re-earned your giveaway trust, we’ll have a few more in the “new” space.

MUSIC! The PRIZE will be a CD OR two or three, a collection of all of the songs suggested in the comments (if the numbers get out of control, I’ll just pick my favorites of the bunch). HOW TO ENTER: Leave a favorite song in the comments (1 entry). Include a link to the youtube or alternative way for us to hear it (1 additional entry). Link to this post via twitter or facebook (1 additional entry). Be sure to include your email when you comment so I can notify the winner, who I will chose via the handy-dandy Cute Kid Pulls Numbers Out Of Hat Method (on September 1st)!

Tags: how to fly by the seat of your pants, inspiration, music, poetry
Posted in Uncategorized | 15 Comments »

born into color

August 11, 2010

graphite pencil and watercolor on arches hot press paper; birthday gift for my dear friend

Quietness

Inside this new love, die.
Your way begins on the other side.
Become the sky.
Take an axe to the prison wall.
Escape.
Walk out like someone suddenly born into color.
Do it now.
You’re covered with thick cloud.
Slide out the side. Die,
and be quiet. Quietness is the surest sign
that you’ve died.
Your old life was a frantic running
from silence.

The speechless full moon
comes out now.

(Rumi, trans. Coleman Barks)

Tags: create, doodle, inspiration, non-pissy, paint, poetry, quotes
Posted in Creativity, Drawing | 11 Comments »

dancing, stillness

August 10, 2010

It happens in a pattern, becoming almost predictable. The girls do handstands, their legs sticking out of the water in a V. There is a large splash, then a small one, over and over again, everywhere. Most of the mothers try to cover their feminine curves with clingy wet fabric. There is sunscreen and waterwing-ing and squealing and running and splashing and jumping and eating and sitting and sculpting and scolding. It is all so random and recurrent that it is balanced, and the entire place is drenched with visible, audible, palpable chaos.

Surrounding the man-made lake, mirroring the vibration, the leaves tremble in the wind, and the clouds above them, and the stars above them. I notice the pockets of space between swimmers. I listen for pockets of space between sounds. I consider the imperceptible space between molecules. I breathe and feel the same stillness within me, despite the warring emotions and thoughts, despite the trembling atoms and all the chaotic processes that keep me blinking. I laugh when suddenly the loud speakers begin to play “The Space Between.”

I think of meditation, of stillness, of how it remains among the chaos and the noise, this pervasive stillness, this infinite silence. And then I think of the following song, because of the lyrics: “we are all notes in this eternal song / god plays his flute, we all dance along,” and its overall reference to meditation. The dance and the stillness, all superimposed, it makes me feel crazy (CRAZY!), in a good way.

(This also embarrasses me to think about because dammit, now every time I think of Trevor Hall, I will think of the concert on Friday night. The crowd was awful and really small, the music was wonderful, but I was so moved beyond reason that I offered Trevor a dread bead as he passed me in the hall on his way out. I mean, what? Why is that OK? From my nappy dread to yours? Because I feel the words you sing, and we have matching hair? This is when maybe the ego could have stepped in and helped me save face? But no. It did not. And Trevor looked at me, raised a finger dismissively, and said “one second…” and then did not come back. And so now I am going to stop talking about Trevor Hall, for goodness’ sake. Right after this blog post.)

Tags: in which i get a little woo-woo, inspiration, kids, Motherhood, music, nature, non-pissy, swearing is big and clever, zen-ish
Posted in Uncategorized | 9 Comments »

whale song

August 3, 2010

A fish swims through the sea,
while the sea is in a certain sense
contained within the fish!
Ah, what am I to think
of what the writing of a thousand lifetimes
could not explain
if all the forest trees were pens
and all the oceans ink?

(mewithoutYou, the dryness and the rain)

i haven’t been dreaming for weeks. dammit, i always dream. but i woke the other day with a faint memory of an image that was the ocean. then there was a quote (a couple, actually) on twitter about the ocean that moved me, and a link to a song that referenced the ocean. then i put my ipod in and heard a song that i hadn’t yet listened to, which ended up being about the ocean. and the public tv show i sat down to watch with shortcake, while listening to the song about the ocean, was . . . about the ocean. i’m a little bit annoyed with the whole sign thing, and i fought with my ego regarding the agenda here (trip to tahiti, anyone?), but i thought, ok ok fine. got it. ocean. fine.

then a package arrived in the mail. a gift from pixie, torch-bearer-sister-parachute-medicine-woman-extraordinaire, beautifully crafted by lauren: a necklace, called “whale song,” with an abalone shell pendant. lauren listed the beads and explained their unique properties, all extremely relevant to me right now. and the abalone shell, of course: “intimately connected to the sea . . . harmony . . . tides of emotion . . . trust in intuition.” she also made a sachet of herbs and crystals for me that contained the same wonderful things as her dream pillows.

so, you know, i cried. a lot.

in colorado, i bought a turquoise necklace from a native american woman parked at a mountain pass. i let it absorb the energy of the mountains, the peaks and valleys, and knew that it would always remind me of the awe i felt there, the connection to Creation, to the earth’s natural power and beauty. so now, apparently, i am collecting the elements, because this talisman is ocean. and it is washing over me, through me: the tides, the currents, the refracted light, the jagged teeth of the sharks, the whale songs, the warm salt water, the remnants of a sunken ship.

i took this picture for pixie and lauren, planning to just crop out the face. yyyyes. i am aware of the puffy eyes and dark circles. they were well earned. (as were the unplucked eyebrows! and also that notch on my nose. and also the poor exposure.) but there is something so raw and honest about how wrecked i am in this photo, and the strength i feel regardless, that i’m showing you all.

: (wrecked)

pixie also led me to this poem. and so i’m paying it forward.

The Invitation by Oriah
It doesn’t interest me
what you do for a living.
I want to know
what you ache for
and if you dare to dream
of meeting your heart’s longing.

It doesn’t interest me
how old you are.
I want to know
if you will risk
looking like a fool
for love
for your dream
for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn’t interest me
what planets are
squaring your moon…
I want to know
if you have touched
the centre of your own sorrow
if you have been opened
by life’s betrayals
or have become shrivelled and closed
from fear of further pain.

I want to know
if you can sit with pain
mine or your own
without moving to hide it
or fade it
or fix it.

I want to know
if you can be with joy
mine or your own
if you can dance with wildness
and let the ecstasy fill you
to the tips of your fingers and toes
without cautioning us
to be careful
to be realistic
to remember the limitations
of being human.

It doesn’t interest me
if the story you are telling me
is true.
I want to know if you can
disappoint another
to be true to yourself.
If you can bear
the accusation of betrayal
and not betray your own soul.
If you can be faithless
and therefore trustworthy.

I want to know if you can see Beauty
even when it is not pretty
every day.
And if you can source your own life
from its presence.

I want to know
if you can live with failure
yours and mine
and still stand at the edge of the lake
and shout to the silver of the full moon,
“Yes.”

It doesn’t interest me
to know where you live
or how much money you have.
I want to know if you can get up
after the night of grief and despair
weary and bruised to the bone
and do what needs to be done
to feed the children.

It doesn’t interest me
who you know
or how you came to be here.
I want to know if you will stand
in the centre of the fire
with me
and not shrink back.

It doesn’t interest me
where or what or with whom
you have studied.
I want to know
what sustains you
from the inside
when all else falls away.

I want to know
if you can be alone
with yourself
and if you truly like
the company you keep
in the empty moments.

Tags: etsy, i may or may not be losing it, in which i get a little woo-woo, inspiration, nature, whiney and pathetic
Posted in Creativity | 23 Comments »

striding deeper into the world

July 30, 2010

from mesa verde

by Mary Oliver

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice-
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
“Mend my life!”
each voice cried.
But you didn’t stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world, determined to do
the only thing you could do-
determined to save
the only life you could save

(p.s. no. i am not running away… not today, at least. i just found the poem to be thought-provoking.)

Tags: in which i get a little woo-woo, inspiration, Motherhood, outside, photo, poetry, soulcraft
Posted in Creativity, Motherhood, Photography | 7 Comments »

rumi, pay homage

July 29, 2010

If God said,

“Rumi, pay homage to everything

that has helped you

enter my

arms,”

there would not be one experience of my life,

not one thought, not one feeling,

not any act, I

would not

bow

to.

(Jalaludin Rumi, trans. by Daniel Ladinsky)

recently, i’ve begun to see everything in Divine parallel/connection, in a way that i never have before. there is much rumi, of course. and much, much more. i just have to find a way to tell you. which is precisely the point, the entire purpose, isn’t it?

Tags: in which i get a little woo-woo, inspiration, outside, photo, poetry
Posted in Photography | 2 Comments »

cheers

June 18, 2010

: dimples, holga

Sweet Darkness

You must learn one thing.

The world was made to be free in.

Give up all the other worlds except

the one to which you belong.

Sometimes it takes darkness and the

sweet confinement of your aloneness

to learn

anything or anyone

that does not bring you alive

is too small for you.

—David Whyte

Cheers! to the weekend, and to living, as opposed to existing. And one more toast to those who know the difference.

Tags: Dimples, film, holga, how to fly by the seat of your pants, inspiration, outside, photo, poetry, quotes, soulcraft
Posted in Creativity, Photography | 12 Comments »

mosaic

June 16, 2010

This is worth pondering. Does nature in her wisdom intentionally produce nonconformists, or find a use for them, enlisting their disparate talents in her service. Is there a place for everybody, a reason for everything, and we fail to understand some underlying cosmic logic?

Do acts that appear the most senseless to us have a rationale that we fail to appreciate? Are what we consider errors and mistakes really part of the grand design? How encompassing and integrated is the mosaic of life? Just how big and complex is this world that we define so freely and understand so poorly?

The Queen Must Die, And Other Affairs of Bees and Man – William Longgood

(thanks for the words, Lisa, and for the model, Julie!)

TAF_2709x

Tags: etsy, i just felt like i needed an extra tag, inspiration, Louise, nature, non-pissy, photo, quotes, soulcraft, zen-ish
Posted in Creativity, Photography | 7 Comments »

rain is my BEST thing

June 7, 2010

it all started like this, torrential rain in bursts, and the compulsion to fully experience it.

and then he said this, and i couldn’t not write it down.and then she remembered how fun chalk is when the pavement is wet.and so did he. and let’s just say we were deeply moved.and then:and then:

Tags: boom-boom ain't it great to be crazy, create, Dimples, how to fly by the seat of your pants, inspiration, kids, KiKi, Motherhood, Mowgli, outside
Posted in Creativity, Frivolous Nonsense, Motherhood, Photography | 24 Comments »