Wednesday, March 19, 2014

Three months in . . .

It has taken a few months for this year's intention to seep in.

Relentlessly.

To meander it's way through the cracks and fill in all the little momentary voids that make up the decisions that form our lives.

Relentlessly.

To manifest itself in a overwhelmingly fierce way that keeps you from ever doubting it's existence.

Relentlessly.

As of this week, though, I have felt the pull of a new intentional habit starting to take precedence over the inertia of my year-long mental summer vacation. Before three hard-hitting actions taken today I felt as though I was still just flowing along with the occasional self inflicted pep-talk. Nope, today shit happened. And it felt good. Really good.

Relentlessly asking questions...
Relentlessly checking off checklists...
Relentlessly reliable...
Relentlessly not taking shit...
Relentlessly being honest...
Relentlessly going after whatever the hell it is I want to do for the rest of my life...
Relentlessly loving, respecting, and giving...

Plans change, lives change, addresses change, but intentions stay the same. I feel like I have hit a huge reset button on my life since leaving teaching, while at the same time finally connecting my past to my future instead of reinventing and going on an entirely new path. Super. Weird. Feeling.

Wednesday, March 12, 2014

Gayatri

In the end
when these bones

are only bones

all that matters
is how much we gave,

how much we loved.



http://www.last.fm/music/Benjy+Wertheimer/_/Gayatri

Monday, March 3, 2014

You Can't Eat Beauty

Oscar Winner Lupita Nyong'o's Speech On Beauty That Left An Entire Audience Speechless:

"It was perplexing and I wanted to reject it because I had begun to enjoy the seduction of inadequacy. But a flower couldn’t help but bloom inside of me. When I saw Alek I inadvertently saw a reflection of myself that I could not deny. Now, I had a spring in my step because I felt more seen, more appreciated by the far away gatekeepers of beauty, but around me the preference for light skin prevailed. To the beholders that I thought mattered, I was still unbeautiful. And my mother again would say to me, "You can’t eat beauty. It doesn’t feed you." And these words plagued and bothered me; I didn’t really understand them until finally I realized that beauty was not a thing that I could acquire or consume, it was something that I just had to be.

And what my mother meant when she said you can’t eat beauty was that you can’t rely on how you look to sustain you. What is fundamentally beautiful is compassion for yourself and for those around you. That kind of beauty enflames the heart and enchants the soul."