This video broke my heart. Again.
Please tell me how this video makes you feel.
With Fashion week recently in the news, there’s been the predictable chatter about body image and the messages that designers are projecting on the runway. So much of media’s portrayal of body image has an aesthetic of the very thin. not exactly news.
Recently the lovely Jennifer Lawrence reported that “In Hollywood I’m obese… I’m considered a fat actress.” Mmm, that is some mighty svelte fat, if you ask me. As a certifiably obese woman, I find this mind-boggling, even though it’s old news. Way back in 1992 when Columbia pictures slimmed down their logo I knew we big girls were in trouble.
So today I offer you the Het Nationale Ballet (Dutch National Ballet) performing Groosland, 1989, choreography by Maguy Marin
Yesterday I did a cool one-day workshop called Storyweaving, which is a unique method of working our creative subconscious to reveal and retell the stories we live by. The workshop leader is Carol Burbank, my dear friend, and I’ve had the privelege of watching her grow as a teacher and healer (and I helped her create the web site. **iz proud of her & me**). Check out her site for upcoming workshops, classes, talks and more.
We gathered in the morning and got started with some meditation. It was a nice group of four, all of us women of a certain age who are moving bravely into life changes.We worked with group story-telling and then made ‘self portraits’ to discover images, themes, tools to help us with our current transformations.
At that time my art piece revealed a protective angel-self who held my hurt and depressed self. You can see her, held in the angels’s heart, at left, curled into a tight dark ball.
At the time, I judged the self portrait as ‘art’ and was embarrassed by the sugary fairy angel. But in time I became very grateful for her energy watching over me. It was a tough year last year, and there was much healing to do in the dark of winter.
In the first, I wanted to get the literal idea of the body as temple (in Hawaiian: hei’au) out onto the page.
I was obviously working with feeling large and heavy, going for a sense of sacred and ancient goddess. Hawaiian is one culture that honors the fat body as beautiful. I have a pretty hard time doing that, but in working on this I began to enjoy the lumpy lava body, her serenity, and all the lush gifts that were brought to her.
Once I got that idea out, it was easier to work more dreamlike way, less cerebral control. I chose colors and drew without looking for about half of the picture. This one reveals a flowing, evolving bright rosy energy.
There’s a sense of moving hands, red with life energy, and growing embrionic and vine-like growth. It’s luminous, expansive, moving. No more hiding now, it’s all about unfurl and grow.
Since we are always writing our story, it’s important for me to resist the old gloomy myths that hold me back from all the good I can do.
