Saturday Poem

Among the Rocks

Oh, good gigantic smile o’ the brown old earth,

      This autumn morning! How he sets his bones

To bask i’ the sun, and thrusts out knees and feet

For the ripple to run over in its mirth;

      Listening the while, where on the heap of stones

The white breast of the sea-lark twitters sweet.

That is the doctrine, simple, ancient, true;

      Such is life’s trial, as old earth smiles and knows.

If you loved only what were worth your love,

Love were clear gain, and wholly well for you:

      Make the low nature better by your throes!

Give earth yourself, go up for gain above!

 

--  Robert Browning

one old and one new

by Lauren Spencer King for ArtBookStand

There are impossible scribblings in nature, written neither by men nor by devils ... Who knows whether this tumult of triangles inscribed in stone, first brought about by nature and then by art, does not contain one of the secret cyphers of the universe?

Roger Caillois, The Writing of Stones. 1970.

Apophyllite specimen from bijoux et minéraux.

Recipe: Natural Home Cleaning

All-Purpose Cleaner
1/2 cup vinegar
1/4 cup baking soda (or 2 teaspoons Borax)
1/2 gallon (2 liters) water
Mix all ingredients into water in bucket. Store and keep in spray bottles.

Tough Scrub
1 cup baking soda
1/4 cup salt
10 drops citrus essential oil
5 drops tea tree essential oil
Combine all the ingredients and store in an airtight tub.

Dusting Spray
1 cup distilled water
3 drops essential oils
Combine in a spray bottle and use with a cotton cloth.

Degreaser
1/2 cup lemon juice
1/4 cup baking soda
5 to 10 drops citrus essential oils
Combine to make a paste and use a damp cloth to wipe off.

Glass Cleaner
1/2 cup white vinegar
1 gallon warm water
2 tablespoons lemon juice
Mix in bucket, store solution in spray bottles.

All found via Kinfolk. The glass cleaner is a gem!
(image by me)

Home Play

Mysteries, Yes

Truly, we live with mysteries too marvelous
to be understood.

How grass can be nourishing in the
mouths of the lambs.
How rivers and stones are forever
in allegiance with gravity,
while we ourselves dream of rising.

How two hands touch and the bonds
will never be broken.
How people come, from delight or the
scars of damage,
to the comfort of a poem.

Let me keep my distance, always, from those
who think they have the answers.

Let me keep company always with those who say
"Look!" and laugh in astonishment,
and bow their heads.

—Mary Oliver

Movement is something that happens while you are getting something else accomplished...

These images made me giggle at first, but then they bought to mind a little something Katy Bowman had to say in this podcast for Liberated Body and now I think these vintage ladies were on to something....

"Remember you are an animal walking around in a zoo. Reflexively your body is always trying to conserve energy. The decision to shuck convenience has to be a choice. You are going to have to choose to get out of your couch and sit on the floor. You’re not really in a cage, you’ve put yourself in- there’s no lock, it’s habit. You can go outside whenever you want.

Movement is way easier to get in your life than exercise. Exercise takes time away from your family living. It takes a drive, a shower, a special outfit, equipment. It’s not as easy as. “I’m making breakfast anyway, I can make it on the floor? I’m walking on this path anyway, why don’t I just walk on the grass just 6 inches to the left? I’m going to the bathroom anyway, why not put my feet up on this squat platform?”

Because movement is not exercise, you have the potential to move all day long. I have no more time, I’m doing this podcast now so I could be sitting in front of my computer, or I could be standing and doing a calf stretch, and squatting a bit. Once you start thinking that way you can really move all day long even if you can’t go anywhere....

...The real difference between exercise and movement would be anytime you are doing movement for the purpose of reaping a health benefit, that’s exercise. While movement is something that happens while you are getting something else accomplished."

--Katy Bowman via Liberated Body.

a piece of quartz

My brother once showed me a piece of quartz that contained, he said, some trapped water older than all the seas in our world. He held it up to my ear. ‘Listen,’ he said, ‘life and no escape.'

Anne Carson, Plainwater.

"You can ask yourself, What’s it like to be me? You know, the only way we’ll ever know what it’s like to be you is if you work your best at being you as often as you can, and keep reminding yourself: That’s where home is."

— Bill Murray

Sunday Tune

HAPPY INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY!

Sunday Tune

HAPPY INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY!

Saturday Poem

Phenomenal Woman

Pretty women wonder where my secret lies.

I’m not cute or built to suit a fashion model’s size   

But when I start to tell them,

They think I’m telling lies.

I say,

It’s in the reach of my arms,

The span of my hips,   

The stride of my step,   

The curl of my lips.   

I’m a woman

Phenomenally.

Phenomenal woman,   

That’s me.

I walk into a room

Just as cool as you please,   

And to a man,

The fellows stand or

Fall down on their knees.   

Then they swarm around me,

A hive of honey bees.   

I say,

It’s the fire in my eyes,   

And the flash of my teeth,   

The swing in my waist,   

And the joy in my feet.   

I’m a woman

Phenomenally.

Phenomenal woman,

That’s me.

Men themselves have wondered   

What they see in me.

They try so much

But they can’t touch

My inner mystery.

When I try to show them,   

They say they still can’t see.   

I say,

It’s in the arch of my back,   

The sun of my smile,

The ride of my breasts,

The grace of my style.

I’m a woman

Phenomenally.

Phenomenal woman,

That’s me.

Now you understand

Just why my head’s not bowed.   

I don’t shout or jump about

Or have to talk real loud.   

When you see me passing,

It ought to make you proud.

I say,

It’s in the click of my heels,   

The bend of my hair,   

the palm of my hand,   

The need for my care.   

’Cause I’m a woman

Phenomenally.

Phenomenal woman,

That’s me.

 

-- Maya Angelou

Saturday Cartoon

Good use of chair!
Gifs by Donald Christie for Ally Capellino.

No Guts, No Heart, No Glory

I went to see No Guts, No Heart, No Glory by Common Wealth Theater at The South Bank Centre last night (it's on as part of the Women of the World Festival) and I HIGHLY recommend going to see it.

It is a site-specific performance (originally staged in a boxing gym in Bradford) based on interviews with Muslim Female Boxers and collaboration with the five actors in the piece. Although the performance represents a young Muslim female experience, I think it's content will resonate with anyone who has ever been young, has a body, fears, frustrations and dreams (i.e. all of us).
From a movement perspective it was just pure joy to watch, especially the mesmerising steps of boxer Saira Tabasum, and it was beautiful to see the mapping of these young girls thoughts matched with such a riot of movement...body and mind united.


No Guts, No Heart, No Glory from Common Wealth on Vimeo.

Sheila Hicks

sheilahicks.com

Image found via LOVELY goldlionaz

'Brogis need to recognize...'

J.Brown's latest blog post is a smart, kind and much needed reflection on men, women, sex, yoga, teaching and more...read it in full here.

"There is a lot of conversation in the yoga world these day about the “yoga body” and the empowerment of women through yoga. And then there is a backlash of “Broga” classes being marketed where men can be men and do their yoga without having all those empowered women around. We must bridge this gap. Both men and women need to abandon these unhealthy notions of beauty and gender. Both men and women need to learn how to have genuinely mutual relationship to one another.

But lets be clear, men are more to blame. As Holland so eloquently states: “For we are the inheritors of an ancient tradition, going back to the origins of the great civilizations of the past which have so profoundly shaped our consciousness and fashioned the dualism that lies behind our efforts to dehumanize half the human race.”  It’s up to us to either continue carrying the torch for hurt and dysfunction or be courageous enough to forge a better way."

-- J. Brown

The House on Coco Road

For this years International Women's Day I am doing something each day this week to honor and recognise the women that help move humanity forward.

Today I backed 'The House on Coco Road' by Damani Baker through kickstarter. I am all for people telling their families female history!

Making Space

Making space, friends and peace with how they feel. Love this...

 "I don't know if I continue, even today, always liking myself. But what I learned to do many years ago was to forgive myself. It is very important for every human being to forgive herself or himself because if you live, you will make mistakes- it is inevitable. But once you do and you see the mistake, then you forgive yourself and say, 'Well, if I'd known better I'd have done better,' that's all. So you say to people who you think you may have injured, 'I'm sorry,' and then you say to yourself, 'I'm sorry.' If we all hold on to the mistake, we can't see our own glory in the mirror because we have the mistake between our faces and the mirror; we can't see what we're capable of being. You can ask forgiveness of others, but in the end the real forgiveness is in one's own self. I think that young men and women are so caught by the way they see themselves. Now mind you. When a larger society sees them as unattractive, as threats, as too black or too white or too poor or too fat or too thin or too sexual or too asexual, that's rough. But you can overcome that. The real difficulty is to overcome how you think about yourself. If we don't have that we never grow, we never learn, and sure as hell we should never teach." 

— Maya Angelou

Veronica Ryan

Veronica Ryan

"For most of history, Anonymous was a woman."

— Virginia Woolf

Claire Curneen

Works by Claire Curneen

I choose, just a crown

I’m ceded—I’ve stopped being Theirs—
The name They dropped upon my face
With water, in the country church
Is finished using, now,
And They can put it with my Dolls,
My childhood, and the string of spools,
I’ve finished threading—too—
Baptized, before, without the choice,
But this time, consciously, of Grace—
Unto supremest name—
Called to my Full—
The Crescent dropped—
 Existence’s whole Arc, filled up,
With one small Diadem.
My second Rank—
too small the first—
Crowned—Crowing—on my Father’s breast—
A half unconscious Queen—
But this time—
Adequate—
Erect, With Will to choose, or to reject,
And I choose, just a Crown

-- Emily Dickinson 

The Bolivian grandmothers' handball league

“There are days my knees hurt from rheumatism, but when I play it goes away,”

-   Rosa Lima (second picture), 77, during a game.

images from aljazeera

On a Columnar Self

On a Columnar Self—
How ample to rely In Tumult—
or Extremity—
How good the Certainty That Lever cannot pry—
 And Wedge cannot divide Conviction—
That Granitic Base—
Though none be on our side—
Suffice Us—
 for a Crowd—
 Ourself—
and Rectitude—
And that Assembly—
not far off From furthest Spirit—God—

-- Emily Dickinson.

Found via Esther Gokhale musing on the posture of Emily Dickinson and a young mother from Burkina Faso.