Planning Camp Athena

I've been working on the outline for next weekend's retreat with my gals from the Ax Collective...in the quest for some inspired material I came across fabulous camp crafts via Design*Sponge, which featured Derek and Lauren from The Curiosity Shoppe, one of my favorite online haunts. These images are ALL theirs...and I can't wait to forage some sticks and craft up some God's Eyes. Don't you think the leather wrap lanyards are way cooler than the old hard plastic ones?

Finally, for a bit more substance, I discovered this poem from one of my favorite authors:

For Strong Women

By Marge Piercy

A strong woman is a woman who is straining
A strong woman is a woman standing
on tiptoe and lifting a barbell
while trying to sing "Boris Godunov."
A strong woman is a woman at work
cleaning out the cesspool of the ages,
and while she shovels, she talks about
how she doesn't mind crying, it opens
the ducts of the eyes, and throwing up
develops the stomach muscles, and
she goes on shoveling with tears in her nose.
A strong woman is a woman in whose head
a voice is repeating, I told you so,
ugly, bad girl, bitch, nag, shrill, witch,
ballbuster, nobody will ever love you back,
why aren't you feminine, why aren't
you soft, why aren't you quiet, why aren't you dead?
A strong woman is a woman determined
to do something others are determined
not be done. She is pushing up on the bottom
of a lead coffin lid. She is trying to raise
a manhole cover with her head, she is trying
to butt her way through a steel wall.
Her head hurts. People waiting for the hole
to be made say, hurry, you're so strong.
A strong woman is a woman bleeding
inside. A strong woman is a woman making
herself strong every morning while her teeth
loosen and her back throbs. Every baby,
a tooth, midwives used to say, and now
every battle a scar. A strong woman
is a mass of scar tissue that aches
when it rains and wounds that bleed
when you bump them and memories that get up
in the night and pace in boots to and fro.
A strong woman is a woman who craves love
like oxygen or she turns blue choking.
A strong woman is a woman who loves
strongly and weeps strongly and is strongly
terrified and has strong needs. A strong woman is strong
in words, in action, in connection, in feeling;
she is not strong as a stone but as a wolf
suckling her young. Strength is not in her, but she
enacts it as the wind fills a sail.
What comforts her is others loving
her equally for the strength and for the weakness
from which it issues, lightning from a cloud.
Lightning stuns. In rain, the clouds disperse.
Only water of connection remains,
flowing through us. Strong is what we make
each other. Until we are all strong together,
a strong woman is a woman strongly afraid.

Hey Mr. Postman!

I love the magic of Christmas, no question. But what do I love even more? Valentine's Day! When I was on the school paper in junior high, one of the first articles assigned to me was the history of this heartfelt holiday. There are highly debated and dramatic stories about this holyday's origin which include Christian martyrs, Greco-Roman fertility rites, and the Pagan celebration of Lupercalia. Somewhere around the time of Chaucer, Valentine's Day became the courtly tradition we have come to know as a Hallmark holiday. Sigh. Let's go back to the early 1900's when lovers sent each other handwritten poems on lace adorned notes. Too much to ask? Let's just go back to the days when we put pen to paper and signed our names with flair. Remember, sending a "heart" via Facebook does not count, and  texting is forbidden. Let Cupid's arrow fly....

It's a Beautiful Day...

Hope

Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune--without the words,
And never stops at all,

And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.

I've heard it in the chillest land,
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.

-Emily Dickinson

Pure Poetry

I'm writing in this heartfelt holy week to spread my passion for poetry. To begin, I think that sharing poetry or words from the heart are the most lovely, personal gifts you could ever give. If you are unable to express yourself, or are simply unsatisfied with your own sentiment, it can be just as meaningful (if not more so) to write out a favorite poem or haiku.

A number of recent personal and professional projects have revived my love for Rabindranath Tagore. My dear friend Andy from ages past gave me a book called Fireflies. it is chock full of beautiful little poem meditations and floral illustrations. At the beginning of January, I revisited the text and selected this to share with friends and family:

"The butterfly counts not months but moments and has time enough."-Rabindranath Tagore

I discovered today (after re-reading the dedication from Andy), that this was also his favorite poem at the time. In addition to Tagore, I'm quite fond of emily dickinson and e.e. cummings. In fact, I'm still in love with this one {for you JS} :

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in

my heart)i am never without it(anywhere

i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done

by only me is your doing,my darling)

i fear

no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want

no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)

and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant

and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows

(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud

and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows

higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)

and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

... (e.e. cummings)

I have always been inspired by e.e. cummings use of text, lowercase letters, and page structure. Finally, I must give a shout out to Marge Piercy, My Mother's Body, as i love to read her work. What inspires you?