A Beautiful Thing

A Beautiful Thing – Poem on mixed media

Have you ever seen a crimson rose? I have only seen them in photos, but never in real life. They are beautiful and have a deep, rich color. So deep that sometimes they can even resemble the color of blood.

It’s meaning is two-way, signifying loss, death and mourning, as well as rebirth and love. It makes me think of a love that is committed and passionate. One that is willing to sacrifice for the good of another. One that is even willing to die for another. This type of love is a rare and beautiful thing.

Have you ever experienced a love like that?

Eternity in her heart

There is a verse in the book, ‘Ecclesiastes’ that says, “It is beautiful how God has done everything at the right time. He has put a sense of eternity in people’s minds. Yet, mortals still can’t grasp what God is doing from the beginning to the end of time.”

I believe in eternity, and that there is more to existence then just time and space. More than just the material and physical. More than just the few years we have here.

What do you think? Do you believe in eternity? That there is something beyond our life experiences?

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I am back. After a week and a half with very little internet access, I am so happy to be home. How did we ever live without the internet? Hahaha. I’m looking forward to catching up in the blogosphere. 

The above piece was inspired by a piece I found on pinterest. I am very proud of it and can’t believe that I created it. It turned out perfect for what I had in mind.

Heart Change

Life is all about making choices. It’s also about living in the moment, because that’s all we really have. We need to notice the beauty in moments. Even the tough ones. One thing I’ve learned is that I am constantly changing, growing, learning and transforming. The other thing I’ve noticed is that it’s not of my own doing. I look to someone higher and greater than me for that transformation.

I’ve also learned that I don’t need to believe and accept what popular culture preaches. Actually, a lot of it I reject. This post I wrote a while back is an example of that. I used to believe so much, just because of what society and popular culture preaches. Allowing truth and light to enter my heart and mind, to transform me, to fashion me, to change me, and to heal me has been revolutionary. The great thing is that it hasn’t stopped. This tranformation is continual and will continue until the day I die.

Do you notice the beauty in moments, even the hard ones? Do you allow yourself to learn through life experience? What are your views on society and culture, and it’s effects on your thinking and actions?

Sun Love

 

Can you imagine what would happen to a tree if it didn’t get sunlight? The sun is absolutely necessary for most trees to grow and flourish. It is needed for photosynthesis to happen, and in turn sugar is produced, which feeds the tree oxygen and then is released into the air (source). We need oxygen to breathe – to live.

The above piece serves as a spiritual allegory for me. When the sun doesn’t shine, I’m weak and droopy. My colors aren’t vibrant, but more like monochrome and depressive. I need the sun. When I’m far from it I suffer depression. I get tired and fatigued. I get irritable.

I want to be that big, lush, tall, strong, mature, beautiful tree. I guess that means I need to keep turning my face toward the sun and allow it to do its work.

How about you?

 

Autumn – Creative Collaboration

Before I go on, I would like to sincerely ask for your forgiveness of my mistake within the above poem. I had changed the third stanza, and forgot to take out ‘to’ before ‘anew’. It should read, ‘allow your senses to speak anew’. I will blame it on the fact that it is night-time and just finished putting my kids to bed. I spent a long time trying to mount this within the photo, and now the photo has been saved with the poem in it. Please accept my sincere apologies. 

This poem was written in response to Neha’s ‘Autumn Collaboration Calling All Poets, Bloggers & Creative Minds – Bring in your colours with fall‘ prompt over at Forgotten Meadows. I was excited about doing it at first because I have not done many poems about the different seasons, or nature. However, after reading Lorrie’s beautiful poem, ‘The Fall’, I thought I wouldn’t be able to write anything that would do this project justice.

Today, as I was on my ‘reflection’ walk after my run, I thought about it a bit more. Different ideas came to mind as I was considering a bit of the conversation I had with Lorrie on her blog.  The autumn is a time of transition and leading up to a time of death. However, even though the leaves are falling to their death, they are changing into beautiful colors. It makes me think of the physical beauty of youth, and how we are always trying to preserve that. However, true inner beauty is something that grows and develops over a lifetime.

It also made me think of death, and being prepared for it. Autumn is a time of preparation. Gathering food, wood, supplies, and what have you in order to prepare for the harsh winter ahead.

It also made me think of life itself. About where we place true importance. About what time we are living in. Are we living in the now, noticing our moments and the beauty that lies in each one? Or are we wishing for what already was and has since passed? Or are we always looking to the future, hoping and longing for something better?

Just a few thoughts. Would love to hear yours.

Pingback: Daily Post Daily Prompt: Autumn Leaves

Your butt is too small… WHAT?

Photo credit: Sparkpeople.com

Your butt is too small… WHAT?

Have you seen the movie, “My Life in Ruins”? It’s about an American woman who loves Greek history and culture and has recently lost her teaching job in Athens.  She took a job as a tour guide (that she hates), while applying for and hoping to get another teaching job.

I really enjoyed the movie, not so much because of the plot itself, but because of certain values and quotes expressed throughout it.

One of them is, “Your butt is too small.” Can you believe it?

Now why would that be one of your favorite quotes? you may ask.

Because I am one of the many women in the western world that has fallen prey to the never-ending search for physical perfection.

Are you overweight Staci? No.  Do you exercise regularly and eat healthy? Yes.  Do others  consider you unattractive? No.  In fact, most people think I am thin.  My in-laws think I am skin and bones.  At one point my husband told be that I was becoming ugly because I was losing too much weight.

Now don’t get me wrong.  I don’t have an eating disorder, take diuretics or exercise too much.  I just strive for the western world’s idea of physical perfection. So what’s wrong with that?

A LOT!

Perfection doesn’t exist.

Unfortunately, the media and fashion industry preach their message and we buy into it.  We have been deceived to believe that a supermodel’s body is what is beautiful and ideal.  Supermodels need to be taller and slimmer than the average girl(1) and many of them go to extreme measures to ensure that this standard is met.  Unhealthy methods to control weight, such as anorexia and bulimia, lead to health issues and possible death(2).

But I would like to get back to, “Your butt is too small”. I’ve always had an unhealthy relationship with my butt.  I was chubby as a child and teenager and called fat in school.  I even had an ex-boyfriend that would tell me “I love you” in Tagalog, only later to find out that it meant, “you’re fat”.  Talk about putting a damper on a girl’s self-esteem.

When I lived in Hong Kong, I went shopping one day for a pair of pants.  While looking in one store, the attendant came up to me and said, “These pants are good for you because you have fat legs”.  Now, I was already feeling down that day so you can only imagine how I was after that.

Right before moving to Brazil, I was talking with a friend about this fixation for a smaller butt and dissatisfaction with mine.  She went on to tell me a story about the late Amy Carmichael, female missionary to India in the late 1800s, early 1900s.  She had brown eyes but wanted blue.  She would pray and ask God to change her eye colour and was disappointed because it never happened.  Later however, she realized that her brown eyes were what helped her gain entrance into India.  My friend then said to me, “You see Staci.  God has called you to Brazil.  Brazilians like bigger butts.  You’ve been given one for a purpose.”

The ‘perfect body’ is subjective. The western world values thinness.  I was curious to find out what other cultures around the world consider beautiful.  The following are some examples from http://www.cosmopolitan.com/hairstyles-beauty/weird-beauty#slide-2 :

• Kayan tribal women in Thailand consider super-long necks beautiful and elegant.
• Karo tribal women in Ethiopia scar themselves because it is sexy.
• Mauritanian women want to be large.  Some even send their daughters to camps where they’re forced to eat 15,000 calories a day.
• The Masai tribal women of Kenya value long stretched ear lobes.  It is considered beautiful and women will use stones and pieces of elephant tusk to accomplish this.

So you see, beauty is really in the eye of the beholder.  I don’t think I will ever reach the western world’s idea of perfection.  And if I did, I would have a very unhappy husband.

What are your views on the way the western world views beauty and perfection from a physical standpoint? Are you trapped in this mindset? Or do you come from a different culture that thinks differently? If so, I’d love to hear what your culture considers physically beautiful.

Here is an excellent blog by the talented Miss Hava.  She paints actual fashion photos, but with a different perspective.  Truly amazing:

http://fashionvictimstories.wordpress.com/

1 http://teenadvice.about.com/od/girlstuff/a/modelinggirls.htm

2 http://www.academia.edu/1172572/Fashion_Industry_and_Media_Today_The_Negative_Impact_on_Society

A Beautiful Chaotic Mess

 

Sunshine
Happiness
Love
Smiles
Everywhere I look
Beauty for miles and miles

Anxious
Worried
Stressed out
Hurried
Mind is racing
Heart is chasing

Peace
Purpose
Stability
Security
Emotions all over
Reason trying to take over

I am who I am
And will always be
A beautiful chaotic mess
But firm in thee
Sometimes I wander
And lose my way
Bring me back to you
Bring me back today

Do you ever feel like this?  How do you deal with the chaos that happens in your mind sometimes?  Do you ever feel emotionally out of control?

Penny for your thoughts hmmmmm…

Photo credit:  Getty Images www.bigquestionsonline.com

Drinking in my days

Drinking in my days
Capturing each moment
Don’t let them slip away
Noticing them sway
One into another
Some light as a feather
Some heavy as stone
In every single one
A lesson to be learnt
All beautiful in its own way
Living in today

This poem accompanies my last post, “Now is all you’ve got”.

Any thoughts? What did you get out of it? How did it make you feel?

Photo credit: B. Forsman

B E A U T Y

B E A U T Y

I   AM  BEAUTIFUL

Ok, we’ve all heard it before.  True beauty isn’t what’s on the outside, our physical appearance.  True beauty is what is on the inside, and this is true.  I know that I aspire to excellence in character, even though it often doesn’t seem like it (my hubby and kids can tell you some ‘not-so-nice’ stories).  The Bible also talks about how “charm is deceitful and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised” -Proverbs 31:30.  Women can be very powerful by using their beauty to entice men or for selfish ambition to get what they want, unfortunately.  Of course we should never try to make ourselves beautiful with the intention of attracting the attention of some man that’s not our husband or because of our greediness or covetous desires-using our beauty as a tool to get what we want.  I do, however, have to wonder why I feel so yucky and down when I don’t look beautiful or when I don’t put any effort into my physical appearance.  I can’t help but think that if God is the author and designer of beauty and if he made women beautiful, with breasts, soft skin and curves, then what’s the problem with paying attention to how I look, dress, or physically present myself.

I remember when I was doing a music school in Australia, the girls/young women generally didn’t really take care of their appearance or place much of an importance on it.  I remember overhearing one girl say to a group of friends something along the lines of how she doesn’t dress nice in day to day life because when some special event did come along and she dressed nice and put that extra effort into her appearance people would think she looked AMAZING!  My husband thought that that way of thinking was ridiculous (he’s Brazilian and generally Brazilian women don’t think that way).  I didn’t think it was ridiculous, however, I did think that it was kind of a mentality or way of thinking that had developed amongst this certain group of people.  Throughout the duration of my school, I always took care to dress and present myself in an appealing way.  Not for anybody else’s benefit, but for my own.  I had one girl send me a note once, along with an old skirt of hers that I really liked, and on the note it said that she wanted to give me that skirt as a gift and that she thought that I was such an elegant woman.  I was really blessed by that comment.  All because I took an extra few minutes in the morning to place an importance on how I looked.

So what I believe it comes down to is that human beings are extremists.  We have a difficult time sometimes being balanced.  Yes, the Bible talks about true beauty coming from within, but God is also the maker, creator and designer of beauty and has made women beautiful, and men appreciate that.  What man doesn’t want to see his wife beautiful, taking care of herself, and enhancing her natural beauty creatively?  I know that when I do my husband takes note and appreciates it.  He tells me I’m beautiful.  And what woman doesn’t like to hear from her husband that she’s beautiful?

Don’t get me wrong though.  I don’t believe that beauty is just simply appearance.  There can be an extremely attractive woman with bad character, and because of her character, she becomes unattractive/ugly.  My husband once told me that if he sees a beautiful woman smoke, she’s no longer beautiful.  Physical beauty isn’t anything without purity and good character.  But physical beauty becomes the icing on the cake to a woman of purity and good character.

What do you consider to be true beauty?  Please leave a comment and let me know what you think; I’d love to know.