A blessing, (also used to refer to bestowing of such) is the infusion of something with holiness, divine will, or one's hope or approval.
Here is a beautiful blessing I heard for the first time this weekend.
Pueblo Blessing
Hold on to what is good
Even if it is a handful of earth
Hold on to what you believe
Even if it is a tree that stands by itself
Hold on to what you must do
Even if it is a long way from here
Hold on to life
Even if it is easier to let go
Hold on to my hand
Even if I have gone away from you
Blessings appear in many different forms and exist in most, if not all, cultures.
Here is a beautiful Irish Blessing.
Lastly here is an artistic depiction of a blessing by Visionary Artist Willow Arlenea.
The artist's description of the painting: "An elder woman is blessing a young woman during a coming-of-age ritual. While bathing in the cleansing springs words of advise and support are offered to her. The elder woman channels cosmic energy from the source through her bowl of flower petals. This energy spirals around the maiden, protecting and supporting her through this transition."
Write a blessing for something or someone in your life and share it here.
Perhaps you already have a favorite blessing and you would like to share it.
On August 26, 1920 Congress passed the 19th Amendment and women finally obtained the right to vote. The 19th amendment states "The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex."
The passage of the 19th Amendment was due to the many women and men who worked diligently within the Women's Suffrage movement. A powerful film that captures a small segment of time within the movement is called Iron Jawed Angels.
Here is a clip from the film.
In 1971, Rep Bella Abzug led the effort in Congress to officially designate August 26 as Women's Equality Day.
According to the website of the National Women's History Project (nwhp.org/resourcecenter/equalityday.php):
"The observance of Women's Equality Day not only commemorates the passage of the 19th Amendment, but also calls attention to women's continuing efforts toward full equality. Workplaces, libraries, organizations, and public facilities now participate with Women's Equality Day programs, displays, video showings, or other activities."
WOMEN'S EQUALITY DAY
This resolution passed in 1971, designating August 26 of each year Women's Equality Day:
WHEREAS, the women of the United States have been treated as second-class citizens and have not been entitled the full rights and privileges, public or private, legal or institutional, which are available to male citizens of the United States; and
WHEREAS, the women of the United States have united to assure that these rights and privileges are available to all citizens equally regardless of sex; and
WHEREAS, the women of the United States have designated August 26, the anniversary date of the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment, as symbol of the continued fight for equal rights: and
WHEREAS, the women of United States are to be commended and supported in their organizations and activities,
NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, that August 26th of each year is designated as Women's Equality Day, and the President is authorized and requested to issue a proclamation annually in commemoration of that day in 1920, on which the women of America were first given the right to vote, and that day in 1970, on which a
nationwide demonstration for women's rights took place.
Consider doing something special to celebrate Women's Equality Day this Thursday, August 26th.
Share what you plan to do or return after Thursday and leave a comment sharing what you did.
What are your thoughts about women's equality?
Had you already seen the movie Iron Jawed Angels? Did it have any impact on you? Did it change the way you thought about voting?
Love may well be one of the most written about, most discussed, most sung about, most pursued experiences of all time.
Take a moment to consider what the Beatles thought about love in this video:
Or consider what Engelbert Humperdinck has to say about love in the song Love Is A Many Splendored Thing:
Even the Bible provides a very detailed description of love:
How do you define Love?
Have you experienced one or more love stories in your life? Do you have a favorite quote about love? What about a love poem? Have you every written a love letter? Have you read any good books about love?
Leave a comment and share your thoughts.
There is an author named Gary Chapman who has written a number of books about love. A few of the titles are: The Five Love Languages: How to Express Heartfelt Commitment to Your Mate, The Five Love Languages: The Secret to Love that Lasts and The Five Love Languages of Children.
Gary Chapman worked as a marriage counselor for more than 30 years and during the course of his work he identified five love languages: Words of Affirmation, Quality Time, Receiving Gifts, Acts of Service, and Physical Touch.
Whether or not you are in a relationship or are a parent it can be interesting to explore and discover your own love language. Do words of affirmation from a friend or loved one make you feel loved? Perhaps someone spending time with you is how you prefer him or her to show their love. It could be that flowers or a thoughtful gift mean a lot or someone doing a kind act and helping you with something touches your heart. You could also be a person who needs hugs and kisses to know that someone loves you. Quite often most people are a combination of two, three or more. Learning the love language of those around you can be very helpful in understanding what others need in order to feel loved.
I leave you with two final thoughts.
One is a beautiful quote by Shiloh Sophia McCloud and it graces many of her works of art and publications ~ "May love be at the center of all our choices."
And the last is my belief that there is something greater than us all in this world. There is some spirit, magic, energy, what have you, that connects us, that links us, it is that Red Thread that is woven through the Universe, it is that which links us to one another, and when we are connecting to that higher place of consciousness, permeating throughout that magical woven web of spirit, is LOVE.
Art is defined as: 1. Human effort to imitate, supplement, alter, or counteract the work of nature. 2. a. The conscious production or arrangement of sounds, colors, forms, movements, or other elements in a manner that affects the sense of beauty, specifically the production of the beautiful in a graphic or plastic medium. b. The study of these activities. c. The product of these activities; human works of beauty considered as a group. 3. High quality of conception or execution, as found in works of beauty; aesthetic value. 4. A field or category of art, such as music, ballet, or literature. 5. A nonscientific branch of learning; one of the liberal arts.
Art can be viewed very subjectively. Al Capp, an American cartoonist and humorist, had this to say about one type of art "Abstract art is a product of the untalented, sold by the unprincipled to the utterly bewildered." That is really just his opinion though, as there are many who would say they love abstract art.
This past year an amazing traveling art show called the Art of the Brick by Nathan Sawaya came to town.
Nathan creates all of his art using little plastic legos. The same lego toys that children have been playing with for years. Some of his creations are three-dimensional and life-size. Others are more flat, such is the case for the portraits he creates.
I can appreciate many forms of art and I thoroughly enjoyed and was amazed at Nathan Saway's creations. Yet there is some other element that makes art touch one on a deeper level and leads the admirer to really connect with a painting or sculpture or perhaps even piece of music. I experienced the "WOW" factor when I walked into Shiloh McCloud's gallery The Wisdom House in Mendocino. It is the only word that could come out of my mouth for several minutes. There was an immediate draw to her paintings. Do you connect with a certain artist, type of art or medium?
Is there something in particular that has touched upon the "WOW" factor for you?Besides Shiloh's art there are a couple other women artists who work touches me on a deeper level. I would like to share a couple of samples of their art.
Queen of Hearts by Melissa Harris
Love who you want.
Dress how you choose. Eat what you like. Give your mind a rest and Let your heart be your guide.
“Do one thing everyday that scares you.” ~ Eleanor Roosevelt
“You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience by which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, 'I lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.” ~ Eleanor Roosevelt
"Fear is not something to be conquered or eliminated -- or even tackled, for that matter" writes Harriet Lerner, author of The Dance of Fear. "Instead, we may need to pay close attention to its message."
Another passage from The Dance of Fear states, "We may believe that anxiety and fear don't concern us because we avoid experiencing them. We may keep the scope of our lives narrow and familiar, opting for sameness and safety. We may not even know that we are scared of success, failure, rejection, criticism, conflict, competition, intimacy, or adventure, because we rarely test the limits of our competence and creativity. We avoid anxiety by avoiding risk and change. Our challenge: To be willing to become more anxious, via embracing new situations and stepping more fully into our lives."
The message I take from this passage is that we can't outrun our fears. We can't vacuum them up and throw them away. Fear is part of being human. It is more about what we do with our fears. Do we let them control us? Do we sit in the chair tapping our toes when we really want to cut loose and dance? Do we stay in a daily rut instead of signing up for that class, pursuing that dream job, starting our own business, moving cross country or asking a certain someone out on a date?
What if we embrace our fears and do it anyway? What if we say to ourselves every morning "This may be my last day living. What do I want to accomplish? What do I want to do with these precious 24 hours?"
I have found that taking a risk and doing something that is out of my comfort zone can reignite my creativity, my zest for life and inspire me to new heights. After tandem skydiving I felt incredibly alive and walked on clouds for days. When I boarded a plane to go study in France for a year I was honestly scared, but I was also thrilled to be doing something incredibly different and challenging.
Share an experience that required you to overcome a fear? Is there something you want to do right now that is daring and risky? Commit to doing one thing this week that scares you and share what that one thing is going to be!
Activity ~ Visualize that you are no longer afraid. Make a list of things the new FEARLESS you would do. Here are a few ideas:
Go to a hot springs with some girlfriends and dive in the water naked. Take dancing lessons. Tell the truth to your family about being molested as a child. Really belt out a song on karaoke night while sober. Apologize and try to heal a relationship. Tell the people who mean the most to you that you love them, while staring them in the eyes. Ride your bike without any hands. Take a trip by yourself. Stand up for yourself when someone is rude. Apply for your dream job. Go skydiving! Ride in a car, the windows down, your hair flying and your feet hanging out the passenger window.
“The family. We were a strange little band of characters trudging through life sharing diseases and toothpaste, coveting one another's desserts, hiding shampoo, borrowing money, locking each other out of our rooms, inflicting pain and kissing to heal it in the same instant, loving, laughing, defending, and trying to figure out the common thread that bound us all together.” ~Erma Bombeck
If I ever write a book about my family it will be called either The Brady Bunch Gone Bad or Cracks In My Rose-Colored Glasses.
When my parents married, my dad already had three children and my mom already had two. When they married they had two six-year-olds, one five-year-old and two four-year-olds. I came along in 1969, quite by accident, when the youngest were seven years old.
I idolized my older pack of siblings even though I survived numerous hazardous experiences while in their "care", such as being fed a poisonous concoction of mushroom and various plants from the yard in my playpen (I had my stomach pumped at the hospital), being served Boones Strawberry Hill (screw-cap) liquor at the ripe age of 4-years-old (so much that I vomited), being dragged along on wild car rides with non-licensed under-age drivers or at the age of ten being part of a rip-roaring, multi-person, fist fight at an outdoor wedding.
For a good portion of my life I really did wear rose-colored glasses and only focused on the good stuff. While that was a rather positive and nice place to reside it wasn't completely honest or real. When I became a mom myself four years ago, suddenly I found myself looking at things with new eyes, and in essence, I began to develop cracks in my rose-colored glasses. I met with two different therapists for about two years and during that time I experienced some powerful self-exploration and contemplation of my childhood and my life. I also began to process some deep residual anger that had been stuffed for many years.
Today, when I think about the possibility of someone serving my little 4-year-old twin daughters some cheap Strawberry Boones liquor the mama bear in me still begins to growl a bit. I would never want my daughters to experience some of the things I did when I was just a little girl and I know that those early experiences have molded some of my protective ways, and possibly over-protective ways, into my very being.
Yet I have been finding my way back to having a sense of humor about my childhood, my family and some of the truly crazy and even horrendous things I have experienced in my lifetime. Being able to look at one's life experiences as adventures, perhaps even grand adventures in some cases, or as great material for stories or a wild memoir, allows one to make peace with the past.
If you were going to write a book about your family what would it be titled? Do you have a close family? Do you come from a large or small family? Any significant memories or stories? Have you read any good books about families?
A family memoir I really enjoyed reading and would recommend is called The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls.
Here is a short video of Jeannette talking about the book and her mom.
"friends: us. always. travels. stories told and a few kind lies. lots of laughter and a little chocolate. secrets shared and tears shed. kindness with time in between. dreams and awakenings. long roads, healing and quiet comforts. wicked mischief and wanton hilarity. time and always us: friends. always." ~ Mary Anne Radmacher
"A woman needs close friends who she can turn to every day (and night) of her life. It may not be the same person each day because, like our lives, friendships are dynamic. But I hope that your best friends---even if the list is serial---offer you the unique sense of intimacy, trust, and reciprocity that will allow you to feel loved, understood, needed, supported, challenges, and inspired.
Yes, these relationships are complicated, some even bordering on mysterious, and creating them and making the meaningful ones stick takes some work. But they are as essential to our happiness and well-being as are nutritious food, clean water, and fresh air. Female friendships have their ups and down--and most of them don't last forever--but we are very fortunate when best friends are a constant in our lives." Excerpt from Best Friends Forever: Surviving A Breakup with Your Best Friend by Irene S. Levine, PhD
I drove six hours north on Friday to meet with an old friend in Florence, Oregon. She drove six hours south from where she lives in Washington state. We spent two nights in a comfy cabin and had approximately 24 waking hours to talk and catch each other up on our lives and what is happening in our respective families and children, she has an 8-year-old son and a 3 1/2 year old daughter and I have 4-year-old twin daughters. We have been friends since 1993 when we met in Aix-en-Provence, France. I was studying French as part of a University exchange program. Already fluent in Spanish, she was independently studying at the same institute to improve her French, as she was working for a British publisher there in France. We were in the same class and became friends. I had come with a large posse of Californian college students. She was there essentially on her own and while she originally came from Texas she had already lived in Mexico and Spain. I immediately admired her independence and her gift in speaking languages.
When I decided to extend my stay in France past the standard one-year commitment I had to find a new apartment and roommate and my friend Karin was also seeking a new place as she was staying on in France too. We became roommates and spent another half year living in France together. We witnessed one another's falling in love, her with an Italian and myself with a Moroccan. She was incredibly supportive when my Moroccan fiance died in a car accident and I tried to be supportive when she and her Italian parted ways.
Our life journeys continued in other parts of the world. I returned to California and she moving to Baltimore, Maryland. She came to California to visit me and then entered an MBA program in Italy where she met her husband who is Colombian. She moved with him to Argentina and then to Miami after they married in 1999. I flew to visit them in Florida when she was pregnant with her first child. They moved to Tennessee and then eventually to the state of Washington. Both of us being on the west coast now has made it easier for us to see one another once a year these past three years.
This past weekend we talked about our friendship and reminded each other what we admire about one another. We are the same and yet different. We have shared international experiences and a love of travel. We have both dated foreign men. We are both now married and have had children. We have both had our struggles with adjusting to being a mommy and have supported each other with our understanding and supportive words and nods of knowing. We also share certain social values, views on parenting and life in general that continue to fill out the nuances of our friendship. We also always remember one another's birthday.
What are your thoughts on friendship? Do you have a best friend or a close group of friends? Have you ever experienced the painful loss of a friendship? Do you have any tips on keeping a long-term friendship alive and well?
Here are some interesting books that touch upon women's friendships and relationships:
The 7 Aspects of Sisterhood by Debra J. Gawrych
Sacred Circles: A Guide to Creating Your Own Women's Spirituality Group by Robin Deen Carnes and Sally Craig
Queen of Your Own Life: The Grown-Up Woman's Guide to Claiming Happiness and Getting the Life You Deserve by Kathy Kinney and Cindy Ratzlaff Best Friends Forever: Surviving A Breakup with Your Best Friend by Irene S. Levine, PhD
Lastly here is a poem by Rev. Melissa M. Bowers
Praise to the Women on My Journey
To the women on my journey
Who showed me the ways to go and ways not to go,
Whose strength and compassion held up a torch of light And beckoned me to follow,
Whose weakness and ignorance darkened the path and Encouraged me to turn another way, To the women on my journey
Who showed me how to live and how not to live,
Whose grace, success and gratitude lifted me...
To the women on my journey
Who showed me what I am and what I am not,
Whose love, encouragement and confidence held me Tenderly and nudged me gently
Whose judgment, disappointment and lack of faith called Me to deeper levels of commitment and resolve.
To the women on my journey who taught me love by Means of both darkness and light, To these women I say bless you and thank you from the depths of my heart, for I have been healed and set free through your joy and through your sacrifice.
