self-love

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Day 24: Kitty Belly

I was totally going to write something different — I don’t know what exactly — but something, but then I had to spend an entire hour tracking down my cat and “rescuing” her from the neighbor’s yard, which was so thoroughly fenced I could not tell how she got in there in the first place. Then, of course, once I’d found her, her plaintive cries for help turned to rolling in the dirt three feet out of reach. 

That whole process made me feel simultaneously pleased with myself for finally getting her out and, bizarrely, a little afraid that if I wasn’t so large-bodied, I would have been able to do it faster. What is up with that? Total craziness! But I realize have been carrying around for a very long time this inner protectiveness about people relating whatever I do wrong or imperfectly to my weight, no matter how illogical that connection would be. 

I got made fun of for a lot of things in school, my physical appearance being prominent in that array, and I always sort of felt like largeness was my biggest handicap in terms of being liked. Of course, at the time I wasn’t fully aware of how freakish I probably acted due to my extreme shyness, and how that undoubtedly contributed to the general state of affairs. But right or wrong, I carried away from school the strong impression that weight works against me in basically all circumstances. 

But I even though I believe(d) that, I didn’t want to let it stop me from being bad ass! I have always admired big butch lesbians and wanted to have skillz like them. Handiness, agility, physical strength, instincts about how stuff works — somehow having these qualities made up for, maybe even exceeded, whatever I felt I lacked in prettiness, a word which to me is(was) exactly synonymous with thinness. I could see — especially after I left school behind (whew! Thank God, and thank the Goddess for Girl Scout camp) — that there truly was a place for such women in the world, and indeed they could even be hot!

So did being fat spur me to become more handy? Who knows. But from this remove, I bet it didn’t keep me from having everything I needed to live the life I’m meant to live. 

Ok.  

Not a happy camper.

 

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Day 23: Sunrise Belly 

 

It’s also funny how I can be all “I’m definitely not celebrating Easter” and then end up more fully immersed in the holiday than I have been for years. I think the Friday night zikr just put me in a contemplative space about Easter and got me thinking once again about the Easter rituals’ significance in my life. Death, forgiveness, and resurrection — rebirth into a new life. At home, we started calling it “New Beginnings Day.” 

Taking in the rays of light after the Easter sunrise “Resurrection and Renewal Dance” at Starhouse on the canyon rim above Boulder this morning, I felt like I’d been through a journey this weekend, going into my shadow places of guilt and shame and sorrow — of perceived separation — and coming out cleansed, my heart washed and rinsed and wrung out hard. I felt the clean of garments pounded on the river rocks. 

Ouch. But whew. I’m so happy to be cleansed. 

At choir last week our director to introduced a new song that goes like this:

Create in me a clean heart
And purify me, purify me
Create in me a clean heart
So I may worship Thee

And one person standing near me said she didn’t like it: “Don’t we already have clean hearts?”

I didn’t disagree: I think we do have inherently pure and perfect hearts, and mostly these days I prefer to honor other people’s perspectives. But I also think that for myself at least, it’s a grace well worth asking for. There are things I hold in my heart, by means of which I keep myself from knowing and living in the full presence of the Divine. I DO want to call on a higher power to help me create a pure heart in myself and to help me release what doesn’t serve me, what prevents me from growing in joy and love. That’s the rebirth and the recommitment I feel and hope for myself this Easter. 

Guess I’m not done with this holiday, after all. I may resist — but eventually I get where I need to be.   

Careful of the cactus!

  

Standing stones, shadows, and sun rays around the Starhouse–and look, a little patch of snow!

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Day 22: Belly Visible/Invisible 

It’s funny how some days I feel like being way out there, and others I want to abandon the whole project and hide in bed. Today turned out to be one of the latter type of days. I just didn’t feel so much like being out there in the world of people. And I got myself back in an old mental wagon-track — that the world of people doesn’t want me to be “out there,” either. That the world would rather just not see me.

It’s kind of odd and oxymoronic to have a disappearing complex when you’re large-bodied. Most of my school years I alternated between feeling horribly conspicuous and wanting to be invisible, and believing that I actually was. Maybe I thought everyone was doing what I was doing, glancing over my body without its making a strong impression of its existence. 

In retrospect I suspect I’ve always been more present in other people’s landscapes than I thought.

Maybe I just couldn’t handle what I imagined they thought of me, so I told myself they didn’t think of me at all. 

I think it must be the same with me and my own gaze. I fear my judgments about myself, so I don’t let myself look long enough to see what or who is actually there.

But that’s what I’m trying to change. I’m trying to look with honest attention at this quirky, inconvenient, intriguing belly that’s not claiming to be anything other than itself. And then when I look at it with the willingness to see something positive — an archetypal image emerges — a connection to the Divine Mother, full-bellied and open and strong — a richness to explore, a life teacher, a secret map that was hidden in plain sight.

Nonetheless, for getting out of the way for a while (when the seeing and being seen is too much), I’m so grateful for the woods.

Trees, thank you.

More Colorado eye candy.

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Day 21: Ancestral Belly 

In all the repertoire of the Dances of Universal Peace, my very favorite favorite favorite of all is the Aramaic Lord’s Prayer zikr. In the Front Range dance community the opportunity usually comes around twice a year: the day before Thanksgiving, and Good Friday. I am usually off visiting family on Thanksgiving so Good Friday is sometimes my only chance to do this practice in a group setting for a whole year. 


Well, tonight was the night! I love it so much. From the first section I’m usually thinking “It’s already far too short!” But then by the time the gathering is over, somehow it’s ten o’clock. What most people (especially in Colorado) would consider a decent time to go home. But I just wish we could go all night. 
I think that Saadi was really channeling the Christ energy when he composed this piece. And then I had the privilege of taking a workshop on the Aramaic Lord’s Prayer zikr with another woman who was truly tapped in to that wisdom source (and who also played the accordion amazingly). When I sang the piece with her, I was viscerally transported to the early days of Christianity. I felt like I could really taste the bristling, buzzing energy of that time. 
In fact if there is one thing from Christian mythology that it reminds me of, it’s Pentecost. Tonight when we began the chant (a multi-section musical rendering of the Lord’s Prayer, aka the Our Father, using the Aramaic words believed to have been spoken by Jesus when asked by his disciples, “How shall we pray?”) I felt my attention drawn to the space above our circle. There was quite a lot of space above us in the high-ceilinged Masonic lodge where we were gathered, and I felt how full it was with the Holy Spirit. I thought of the tongues of fire, but really it was more like a swirling cloud of fire.
For myself, for my own practice, I did my best to stay in my heart and out of my head, to sing the energy that I felt moving through me, and to open myself to the voice of Jesus if there was a word for me tonight. The ritual included a lot of encouragement to surrender, to let go of the old, bow down within and to rise up changed — “moving in a new way.”
When I turned within I felt like a galaxy. When I rose, I danced with abandon. 
The Aramaic Lord’s Prayer zikr feels like lightning passing through my body and at the end I feel a little shaky and a little exposed, like a new-hatched eagle chick, feathers still wet from the egg. And now I’m back to driving around Boulder, doing my business, navigating the regular world when I feel like I just stepped off a camel caravan from an ancient desert. I guess all I can say is: LOL. 
Now it’s time to put the cloak back on and turn from “crazy pilgrim” back to mild-mannered professional. But am I ever fully disconnected from that other life? I don’t think so. The wild-eyed mystic is always hiding just behind the veil. My practice is to be both. Both are the true me. And sometimes, in very special company, they can both come out at the same time. 
If you celebrate any holidays, Christian, Jewish, Pagan, or other this weekend, may they be beautiful and full of love. 
 

Not quite all of my public zikr attire. I snapped this after the main event, in a side room, with a little less fabric on.

 
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Day 20: Yoga Belly 

It’s become a tradition at my workplace to take a break from computer stuff and do one minute of plank pose. Of course there are no mirrors and I have no way of checking my posture. So I decided to take a picture of my plank at home. Results: Interesting.

  

I have to say that I’ve thought about what my body must look like when I am doing yoga many times–pretty much any time I do yoga, to be specific. “Am I accidentally flashing people? Gosh I hope not ” is probably the main thought going through my head about it, but there’s also some “Where do I put my belly in this pose?” mixed in. Like in child’s pose (below–well, my large-bellied version of it, anyway). I kind of have to do it differently. The belly has to fit somewhere. 

Of course the majority of people around me in any yoga situation are not what you would call remotely large-bellied. In my mind, my continual delusion is that they are all on some level thinking I can’t do it, which makes me both anxious and attached about so-called “doing it right.” And it makes me extra nervous about asking for help. There’s just more self consciousness, all in all, than I would like to admit. When is outside judgment real? When is it made up? And when, if ever, does it matter? I guess it really doesn’t.  

As to my plank, I had been wondering how well I was doing at keeping my rear end in check. I can see now that it’s better than I feared, not quite as good as I would like. But now I have more information, I can work on that. My arms, though, feel strong. And the way the belly hangs–well, it’s just not something you see every day. 

I find the picture oddly compelling. It almost looks like I’m flying. And the light is around me … And the shape of my body is perfectly beautiful. In a strange sort of way. 

Child’s pose, my version.

Sometimes (mostly) I look at myself and say “Oy! So round!”

But now and then I say, “Wow, I sure am glad I have this body. It’s just one of the innumerable gifts I’ve received from my creator to equip me perfectly for this lifetime’s unique journey.” This body has most definitely impacted the development of my personality in ways both obvious and unimaginable. So, it goes with everything else about me. It is the package. What else can I do but love it and be grateful?

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Day 18: Interlude of Gratitude 

I just want to take time today to say thank you to all of the people who have been so nice to me throughout this project! You’ve been so incredibly kind, and thoughtful, and supportive. I feel totally held in love as I do this project, which is so amazing to me. Thank you, and thank you for letting me know that you’ve seen this and been interested. The sweet messages and encouraging words and good vibes have really kept me going when I was second-guessing myself. 

I have to say that many apologies have crossed my mind since Day One, but I made up my mind at the outset not to give in to the urge to apologize. I felt very embarrassed foisting my bare belly on the unsuspecting public (of Facebook especially–people I may have to actually see!!) and like I needed to say I was sorry. I decided, though, that constant apologizing is one of the habits of self-judgment and self-consciousness that I wanted to practice breaking. I understand if anyone doesn’t want to look at this–and I respectfully invite them to not look. 

On the other hand, I feel like if any one person out there may have been helped by this blog, or may stumble upon it in the future and find that it says something that helps them, I’ll be pleased beyond measure. And from what people around me have said, I think that’s possible. 

Ultimately, though, it does have to be for me. Reflecting on my belly in a public venue with words and pictures–it seems a little crazy to me–but also like there’s some magick in it, some alchemy. Being out on a limb is a very spacious feeling. Anything can happen. 

What strikes me again is how powerful it is to be confronted with myself in these photos. Sometimes I really recoil, I’ll be honest. I don’t associate this face, this body, with beauty. I wonder, “what’s wrong with me?” And I put it out there anyway, because what I need to resist is the impulse to hide myself from myself, to be in a state of denial, to make my body into a frightening and demonized specter by pushing away from my consciousness something that is so integral to my being as my physical body. Just forcing myself to look shatters my long-held belief that I couldn’t bear to look. I CAN bear it, and I need to, for the sake of my happiness and peace. 

  

This is me laying down in a bunch of flowers that I just couldn’t resist. I wanted to press myself against the ground. Once I was down there in the dirt I could feel my energy being purified by the earth and the leaves. My stomach looks like a yeasty loaf of white bread, but you can see I’m smiling; in fact, I can’t stop. 

It reminds me of Whitman on more than one level:

I celebrate myself, and sing myself, 
And what I assume you shall assume, 
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you. 

I loafe and invite my soul, 
I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass.


Being in the grass restores me. So does facing my fears. And so does the love of my friends. 

Thank you, thank you, and Blessed Be!

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Day 17: Sun Belly 

 

Today all I could think about was sun worshipping. 

Huh, so that’s what I look like when I’m doing that. 

Looking at myself in this position is interesting. Through this picture project I’m learning to see myself — where before I would always look away, even when looking at myself. I’m building acceptance. I still feel mixed about what I see. But I’m beginning to appreciate the power there, a little more. I’m trying to stand in that power more. 

Looking at my belly through pictures has made me more aware of my posture, too, and my habit of attempted self-effacement through slouching. I remember to straighten my spine a little more and I stop apologizing so much for being. I’m letting go of my fear of being too much, too wide, too loud, too obnoxious. Resisting probably only makes it all the more so. I’m starting to try to just let what wants to flow through, flow through. 

And let the sun shine in!

 

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Day 16: American Belly

I remember the moment when I first understood that there is a whole sector of the economy based on making perfectly wonderful people hate themselves, and more specifically, their bodies. It was my sophomore year in college in Intro to Women’s Studies. Up to that point I had not been convinced that feminism had anything important to say to me. Then I saw Jean Kilbourne’s documentary Killing Us Softly: Advertising’s Image of Women. 

For sheer change of mental direction, this was one of the films that influenced me most in my life. It’s not like it told me everything I would ever want to know or anything, but just the way it strung together SO MANY examples of conscious campaigns to instill self-hatred for the purpose of monetary gain — well — I just felt personally upset and angry on a deep level about this.  I mean, it is not ok to make people hate themselves and want to destroy themselves so that a corporation and its owners can make a profit!!! What is WRONG with our culture that we not only allow these practices but defend them above the lives of the people they hurt???

The practice of willfully convincing young people that there is a hierarchy of acceptable physical appearances, and that not having one of the top body types both leads to unhappiness in life and is a reflection of personal failure — I guess it bothers me just as much now as it did then. 

It’s become practically a cliché to point out that the models don’t even look like that, that the standard held up is not actually possible. Most people I know probably wouldn’t admit to being appearance or size prejudiced. But educational and economic discrimination based on weight or size is quite prevalent — and that’s to say nothing of what I think is much sadder, which is the persistent messages teaching young people, who don’t yet have the capacity for sorting propaganda from helpful survival information, that their bodies are bad and that they are bad people for having bodies like that. 

How can we seriously live with the consequences of those conditions?

I guess for me, when I thought of this as a corporate project, and thought of how much pain and isolation I’d experienced up to that point in life in connection with my body, and how much those experiences had shaped me as a person, my thoughts and feelings toward myself, and my beliefs about my possibilities for success or happiness,  I just got so enraged — and I guess that anger still hasn’t left me yet. People are harming themselves over this. It is not ok that we as a society let it stand. 

When I started realizing how very much of our economic system is built on people’s suffering, purposely caused, sustained, or exacerbated in order to get people to give away their resources, or be stripped of them — Of course this goes far beyond the beauty industry. It’s so deeply interwoven into the American economy. 

I sometimes think that what we need in America is a revolution in morals. We need to reach a place, as a culture, where we value caring for people and the planet over profit. I dream of seeing a time come when we can no longer in good conscience allow huge corporations to promote incarceration over freedom, chronic diseases over wellness, poison over true nourishment, and destruction over innovation, all in the name of extracting all possible resources from a targeted group. I wonder if we all just have to want it more — and I wonder what it would take to get us there. Please let me know, because whatever it is, I want to do it. 

So that’s what I meant when you said that if I could free my mind from this particular set of beliefs — if I can ever actually get there — it will be free indeed. 

May that day come. 

America, I do still love you and believe you can be better.

Day 15: Belly in the Garden
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Day 15: Belly in the Garden

It’s funny–I love plants and trees so much, and I identify so strongly with them as both friends and wisdom teachers, but despite my years in the greenhouse management program in high school, I am no good at getting them to grow. There is, however, one aspect of horticulture at which I really do excel: Clearing out the dead shit. 

Today I spent the whole afternoon in the perennial garden of the house I just moved into, taking out all the old brown leaves, sticks and stems, last year’s growth. It was amazing. There were all kinds of shoots under the thick mat of dry brush — even flowers that couldn’t be seen, they were so thoroughly covered. As I worked my way through the garden, I could almost hear the new spring plants taking deep breaths as they stretched up for sunlight. Wow! I was stretching up with them!

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My belly overfloweth

Well, here’s how that gardening is like my project of self love. My brain is so full of negative talk, of self-criticizing thoughts, it sometimes gets so that nothing else can breathe in there, nothing else can grow. Indeed, like some of the flowers I found today–there could be all kinds of beautiful possibilities in there, but I haven’t been able to see them through all the dry, dead, thorny branches of judgment.

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I don’t even know what this red guy is, but it’s awesome!

Even though it’s not the right season, I kept hearing this Samhain song in my head as I pruned:

As the trees give their leaves to the chilly autumn breeze,

I too shall give away the things that I no longer need;

As the trees give their leaves to the chilly autumn breeze,

I too shall give away the things that can no longer feed me …

It was last fall, actually, when it occurred to me that if I could liberate my mind from negative beliefs about my body, then my mind would be liberated indeed. (More on this tomorrow.) And it was then that I started trying to sing from all the parts of my body that I disliked the most–the fat parts, i.e., all of them. I did this in zikr and found … that there were sounds in there that I hadn’t known existed. 

For as beat up as I got today when I waded in to the garden and started pulling stems, and for as long as it took me to clear out the patch I was working on, the process of clearing deadening thoughts out of my mind is far longer and harder. And in fact I begin to think I can’t do it without grace. 

 But luckily, there is grace. 

Last spring (was it really only a year ago?) my now-housemate hosted an Oestara ritual in which we painted eggs with our dreams for the year and “planted” them in a corner of the very garden I was digging in today. Here’s the egg I buried:

Art and Flow, the two energies I wanted to nurture.  

Two sides of one egg

 

Art, like a tree, is still growing slowly but steadily in my life. And flow–well, you know that when we release things, we create space for other things to come in, things that are more aligned with our highest good in this particular moment. 

Today I release a bunch of old, dead sticks. I put them in the compost pile. I let the sun and rain break them down so that their richness can return to the earth and nourish that which is ready to grow NOW!

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Day 14: Belly of Spring

Spring is solidly here in the Front Range. Life force energy is friggin’ PULSATING through every atom and molecule, organic and inorganic, attached to a sentient being or not, in my vicinity.

Green things and brown things are occupying the same space at the same time. The now and the past can be seen side by side. Winter feels like something I survived — and like something that could still throw another punch. But the seeds we blessed at Imbolc are undeniably sprouting, growing, alive.

Well, blessed be!

I do have arms. They are behind my back.

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Just another reason why I heart Colorado.