I’ve been a redhead for a few years now. Until recently, when I died my hair brown to fairly closely resemble my natural color. I noticed my hair was behaving nicely one day as I was getting ready for bed. So I snapped a couple pictures of it.

By the way, I can lift one eyebrow.

Then I took the clips out. Ooh sexy hair.

and then I put my hair back for bed.

This morning a friend on Facebook posted this link.

http://toddlerplanet.wordpress.com/2012/01/22/how-did-we-get-here/

I went and read this post by the strongest bravest person I’ve seen in quite some time.

If you have a moment to click through and read about her journey and send her some healing thoughts or prayers, you won’t regret it.

For me, the comments are what got me.

When I read it there were 245 comments all saying something very close to the same thing.

Dear Susan, we love you. You are surrounded and bathed in love. You are lifted in healing light. We are thinking of you and sending you love and prayers.

The love I could feel coming off the screen was very nearly palpable, but that wasn’t what got me.

You see, my mother was named Susan.

Reading comment after comment about how Susan is loved and lifted in the light hurts a little, but mostly heals my heart.

Dear Mama,

I love you.

You are surrounded and bathed in love.

You are lifted in healing light.

I am thinking of you and sending you love and prayers.

♥

Stop procrastinating. Go write a post.

go see melissa. don’t stop!

My shoes are boring.

Plain, old, boring tennis shoes that have seen better days.

My son however has pretty awesome shoes.

I found these cool shoes at Goodwill one day.

We got a ton of use out of them, but the side of one finally blew out a couple weeks ago. So off to the shoe store we went.

Actually we went to 3 stores because we didn’t see any that we liked.

Eventually we gave up finding some we liked and looked for some fairly plain ones that didn’t suck.

So that we could do this:

Helpful, isn’t he?

Why are my shoes not like these?

My shoes are so boring.

Within our body we have seen that thinking a medicine will work has a measurable effect on it working, even if it is a placebo. As long as there have been humans, there have been examples of good thoughts or prayer having affected healing when other options have failed. Recently there has been scientific research showing our interconnectivity as humans. Not in a warm, fuzzy New Age way, but measurable, provable effects.

So I’m setting my intention here.

Many of us are bruised and battered today. We have been beaten up, knocked down, rolled over, and dragged under either physically or emotionally. Put through the wringer until every last drop of energy or hope has been squeezed out of us.  I am sending you mine. Right now. Close your eyes and imagine that you can see it. Streaming across the universe like a beam of light. I imagine it pools at your feet like a glowing puddle, just waiting for you to reach down and grab it. Reach down and grab it. Wrap it around you like a warm blanket to protect you against the cold. Wear it as a bandage to hold together those wounds that feel as though they may never heal. Throw it over your shoulders as a cape to lend you superhuman strength against those burdens you cannot lift. Fashion yourself a shield to carry for protection into the fray. Grab hold of it as a lifeline, knowing that I will never let go of my end.

May you be bathed in healing energy, held tenderly in love’s light, cradled and lifted in hope’s hands.

Whatever else happens today, know that I am loving you through it. That my heart has room enough for you to hide inside. That my shoulders are strong and soft for leaning on. That tomorrow the sun will rise and the ocean’s wave will continue to wash up on the shore.

usually at this time of year

we cast our gaze out forward

considering the turning of the wheel

a chance to start once more

to change those many annoying faults

to change ourselves from what was

to what we think we ought.

remember as we move forward

in this strange, wonderful life dance:

“there are no mistakes, only variations

some are intentional, some are not”

you are exactly where you are

supposed to be on your path.

so treat yourself with some tenderness

and then give some away, too.

the world can be harsh sometimes

loving each other softens the edges.

But that doesn’t make it okay for people to bandy about words like fat or obese.

I’ve heard Oprah say that it’s one of the last things it’s okay to discriminate against. I agree that many people seem to be harshly judgmental about overweight people and fairly callous in their use of words about it. If you wouldn’t walk up to them and talk about their fatness or obesity, then don’t, please, talk to me about it. Or talk around me about it. If you wouldn’t walk up and talk to me about my weight, then please don’t talk to anyone else about it. If you can engage me (or them) in a respectful dialogue about your concerns about my (their) health, then you’ve done a lot more to promote healthy behaviors than ever will be accomplished by name calling.

And that’s what it is.

Name Calling.

Maybe you say obese because that is a medical term and that makes it okay. Yeah, it really doesn’t.

I’m overweight. I’m heavy. I need to increase my fitness and yes, decrease my fat. But many times weight issues (too little or too much) are about far more than just eating. They are complex topics that are intertwined with emotions and power and control as well as hormones and genetics and lifestyle.

There are beautiful people of every weight, shape and size. So let’s try to be a little more aware of the power of our words. Let’s try to give each other the benefit of the doubt and treat each other with kindness first and foremost.

I have always been an artist, but only recently have I felt like I’m starting to come into what I’m supposed to be doing as an artist. (I suppose that’s the point of the art degree.) So it’s only been the last few months that I’ve made an internal shift that allowed me to stop saying that I’m trying to be an artist. Now I can just say that I am an artist.

What that means for me is that I get to take part in this magical process where I see the world around me in unusual (so I gather) ways. To me the world is full of shapes, forms, patterns, and colors that I look for and see everywhere. So I take that in and then it gets mixed around with things I’ve seen before and some I’ve imagined to form some new idea which I then get to manifest into reality. Magic.

As I look ahead to the new year, my “resolutions” haven’t changed much since last year. I intend to do more.

Source

~*~

More loving.

More playing.

More exercising.

More art making.

More traveling.

More cleaning.(boo!)

(Now that’s some cleaning I can get behind.lol)

Source

]]> http://2bdancing.wordpress.com/2011/12/31/the-art-of-living/feed/ 2 2bdancing 330315_310212128990068_100000038490372_1281033_349817026_o 374935_319674348043846_100000038490372_1308803_2016373118_n life is art art quote picasso http://2bdancing.wordpress.com/2011/12/26/smoked-oysters/ http://2bdancing.wordpress.com/2011/12/26/smoked-oysters/#comments Tue, 27 Dec 2011 03:55:06 +0000 Brook @2bdancing http://2bdancing.wordpress.com/?p=1321 ]]> I realized today that I have a lot of memories involving oysters. Which seems a little odd, but whattaya gonna do?

My Grandparent’s Annual Christmas Eve Oyster Stew Party was a big part of my childhood. The other oyster tradition is a little thing that my mom and I always did. We both love smoked oysters, but when I was a kid we didn’t have a lot of money and those were definitely not on the regular menu. Every year on Christmas there would be a tin in each of our stockings. I always make sure Santa knows that he’s supposed to bring me one still.

I’ve spent many a Christmas apart from my mom over the years. Since my parents shared custody of me, I was often at my dad’s on school vacations. Later, I grew up and moved away. Being apart from my mom on Christmas is something I’m used to. Plus, now that I’m the person responsible for the majority of Christmas happening at our house, it’s a busy whirligig of a week with not enough sleep and too much shopping to really take any time to reflect on the ghost of Christmases past.

But, today the pace has finally slowed. I sat here eating my smoked oysters and missing my mama.

Sleep in Heavenly Peace, Mom.