Imagine A Woman

Oh the Joys did it again. Check out her post from today.

But I'm stealing this.

Imagine A Woman
Patricia Lynn Reilly

Imagine a woman
who believes it is right and good she is woman.
A woman who honors her experience and tells her stories.
Who refuses to carry the sins of others within her body and life.

Imagine a woman
who believes she is good.
A woman who trusts and respects herself.
Who listens to her needs and desires and meets them with tenderness and grace.

Imagine a woman
who has acknowledged the past's influence on the present.
A woman who has walked through her past.
Who has healed into the present.

Imagine a woman
who authors her own life.
A woman who exerts, initiates, and moves on her own behalf.
Who refuses to surrender except to her truest self and to her wisest voice.

Imagine a woman
who names her own gods.
A woman who imagines the divine in her image and likeness.
Who designs her own spirituality and allows it to inform her daily life.

Imagine a woman
in love with her own body.
A woman who believes her body is enough, just as it is.
Who celebrates her body and its rhythms and cycles as an exquisite resource.

Imagine a woman
who honors the face of the Goddess in her changing face.
A woman who celebrates the accumulation of her years and her wisdom.
Who refuses to use her precious life energy disguising the changes in her body and life.

Imagine a woman
who values the women in her life.
A woman who sits in circles of women.
Who is reminded of the truth about herself when she forgets.

Imagine yourself as this woman.

Copyright 1995 Patricia Lynn Reilly

Laughter gives us distance. It allows us to step back from an event, deal with it and then move on. -Bob Newhart

Orf, you're the man. Thanks for this.

THIS

So I'm reading this book. Off and on while in the pool trying to keep the skin from actually melting of my [big-boned...what?] skeleton. It's hot here.

Book is called "Bleachy-Haired Honky Bitch: Tales from a Bad Neighborhood" by Hollis Gillespie. I know. Not everyone is as amused by colorful language as I am lately. It's just a silly memoir that helps me remember my life is not the only one that borders on the absurd and pathetic on a DAILY BASIS. And a lot of finding blessed humor in it is really just paying attention.

The book itself is not all that great or I would have finished it by now. But I'm aware that my maybe unusually, to quote a friend, cryptic (?) and darker posts may have rang some alarm bells. I am fine. Just finding my way after a whole lot of changes in the past year. There are no regrets, even after having my heart handed back to me on a platter. Even though I ignored the warning signs that in hindsight are unmistakable.

Anyway, I've been paying attention. To every feeling instead of pushing them away and hoping they'll either go away on their own or allowing distractions to lull me into believing I can deal with them later. I believe this is something I need to work on and it has not been easy. At all. Struggling with anger and honest sadness is not something I'm very familiar with. But I could never give up the comfort of words. And I read this: "I sensed then that later I'd become familiar with how painful it is to bleed life back into an atrophied part of yourself, to come alive after the comfort of deadness." And it made me sigh, "Huh. Ok then. Not just me."

Alright, enough already. I'm pretty sure, that one of my favorite sources of giggles (if he read my blog, which I'm sure he doesn't) would remind me I am way too Emo, he's sick of me bleeding all over, I'm a loser and that not even Jesus loves me. And then I'd call him an a**hat and remind him I embrace my loserness. And life goes on.

Thank you friends.

Why It's Impossible to Take Myself So Seriously...

I got email from Runner's World Magazine yesterday with this subject, "Are You Fat?". They obviously have not been reading my blog seeing as how I addressed this with a t-shirt awhile back.

Anyhoo, B had an idea involving the Brady Bunch.

Throw out some favorite episodes...and I'll attempt to rank them based on comments. All 4 of you. GO!

We've already got "Marcia, Marcia, Marcia" and "Porkchopsh and Appleshaush". And I"m also throwing in the one where they sing and Bobby's (?) voice goes through the "change".

PINK

For Her. Mother, wife, daughter, sister, mentor, friend. I have not walked in her shoes. But it is possible that a life can be divided into a "before" and "after". Today is the day that line gets blurred.

Angels on shoulders.

She steps *blinking* out of the darkness...

I've got a serious mope going on... I'm getting really good at it too. Please pass the black eyeliner and bad hair.

So I think it's probably time for a top 10 list. Anyone want to throw out any themes? Summertime fun? Back to school? Why it's harder to put a heart back together at age 35 than it was at age 20?

My silly brain also cracked up at this little advertising tidbit from my inbox this morning...

"Moody friends. Drama queens. Your life? Nope! - their life, your story. Play Sims Stories at Yahoo! Games."

Sign me the hell up!