To Risk for a Butterfly

"Yellow decided to risk for a butterfly."

-Trina Paulus, Hope for the Flowers

 

It's been almost four months since I've posted anything here or even opened a draft, but sometimes silence is needed for words to come, and I'm excited to be writing again.  Combined with the eclipse and a new school and a new job, it's almost like a new chapter is opening up, and I hope that, as the moon passes over the sun tomorrow, there will be a shift that allows the universe to open up to better, happier, more peaceful things for everybody.
When I was little, my great-grandmother shared a story with me about one of her dear friends, Janet.  Janet had a deep appreciation for all of the beauty of the natural world--especially rainbows. When she was in her fifties, she spent a day with her mother and my great-grandmother.  It was a perfect day, but during dinner that evening, Janet began choking and couldn't breathe.  "She died," my great-grandmother told me. "But the next morning, there was a rainbow."
I've held that story in my heart with me for so long that I can find its essence in all of my writing, and I kept thinking of it when we were in Santa Fe this July to honor my great-grandmother. On the day of her ceremony, we were all outside, and it began raining.  Not enough to force us indoors, but enough for a rainbow, and I took it as a sign of my great-grandmother being there, with us, watching over us. (I know that not everyone is drawn to spirituality/religion/etc., but for me personally, I've found great comfort in a belief in spirits and ghosts and saints.)

"The Lotus and the Rose" by Dixie Gladstone

As for how butterflies figure into this . . . recently, I've struggled with a lot of anxiety.  My mum has been trying to help me with it, and I've been coming to the realization that it's okay to "let go." "Letting go" doesn't mean not working hard or giving up ambitions and commitment.  Rather, it's a way of opening up to trust and acceptance.  By relaxing ourselves and opening ourselves up instead of shutting down/closing off/becoming rigid, we're actually much more effective than we are when we live in fear and angst and stiffness.  My grandmother and my great-grandmother both believed in this, and on a difficult Wednesday a few weeks ago, I was at work and found a pile of "giveaway books" sitting on a dusty stairwell.  Stuffed beneath several math textbooks was a copy of Hope for the Flowers, Tina Paulus' beautiful, poignant allegorical picture book that's "partly about life . . . partly about revolution . . . and lots about hope . . . for adults and others (including caterpillars who can read)".  My mum used to have a copy of Hope for the Flowers herself, but she gave it away to a friend at a time when they really needed its love and optimism, and finding it felt like a meant-to-be miracle because it's not the easiest little book to come across. To avoid giving away too much of the plot, Hope for the Flowers is about caterpillars and their lives as they journey to become butterflies, and it makes a brilliant point about the courage it takes to become a butterfly.  I mean, think about it: you spend x amount of time as a caterpillar, and you get pretty comfortable, and then all of a sudden you're supposed to wrap yourself in a cocoon and put all your faith in the universe that you'll come out alright on the other end of the process. Anyone who has ever seen a dried up chrysalis with a dead caterpillar inside knows that getting into a chrysalis and hoping for the best doesn't always work out for our poor caterpillar friends; they really have to be brave.  But becoming a butterfly is worth the risks involved, isn't it?  If you want to make changes--real, remarkable, lasting changes that will make your life better--a  little risk is involved.  I'm not saying step into a place that is dangerous or that will hurt you just to "change" (there's a difference between "uncomfortable" and "harmful"), but try stepping out of your comfort zone sometimes.  I need to hear this just as much as/sometimes even more than anyone else does, and, as the school year picks up, I'm doing my best to embrace the opportunity to let go and open up. Take a deep breath.  You can do this.  You, too, can "risk for a butterfly."

<3 Frances

Realistic Health Goals and Letting Go of Control

Hi, friends <3.  I'm more awake this morning than I usually am, which is saying a lot because I'm typically out of the apartment by 7:20 every weekday.  Don't think that's because I like getting out that early, though--if I had it my way, work wouldn't start until much later in the day, even though I'm much more of a "morning person" than I am a night owl.  I used to be a night owl, and I still really love TGIF movie nights, but work obligations have forced me to adapt to a morning-oriented routine. I've found that getting up and dancing on Saturday and Sunday mornings has helped me to adjust because it gives me a positive association with earliness.

dancing + chocolate + books = happiness

Anyway, with my increased energy this morning (which I assure you will likely fade before my first class, lol), I got to thinking about control and societal expectations and ideas surrounding control. There's no doubt in my mind that most people have some sort of innate desire to be in control. It's comforting to feel like you've got a grip on what's going on at all times, and that makes a lot of sense given evolution. I mean, when in survival mode, control can be beneficial. It provides reassurance that things will work out at least enough that you and your family will live another day. But, like everything, control has a "shadow side," and sometimes the very things you think you need to control/are controlling end up controlling you. 

I know I've definitely struggled with control.  I'm a "creature of comfort" and really, really like routine and predictability.  Chaos = anxiety = ugh, and, as I mentioned earlier, society really does like to amp up the whole "be in control and everything will be fine!" mentality.  I'm still just "seeing the light" with these messages, too, so I'm by no means immune to them, but it's been helpful to be more aware of them.  I mean, look around you . . . so many magazines, articles, ads, etc., feature actors and models talking about their rigid fitness regimes or diet plans or daily schedules.  Don't get me wrong--I'm all about feeling healthy and happy and making life a happy, relaxed place for yourself, but I've been slowly realizing over the years that sometimes giving into all these media messages is really unhealthy.  Everywhere we look, there is a celebrity describing her "typical day.":

She gets up around 7:00, immediately drinks warm water with lemon, oil pulls, stretches, and then hits the gym for an intense session--weights and cardio, five to six times a week, with one active recovery day thrown in for good measure. She avoids sugars, additives, and salt, and she limits her carbs to 1/4 c oatmeal at breakfast, a sweet potato at lunch, and 1/2 c cooked quinoa at dinner (which doesn't happen any later than 7:00 because #digestion, right?).  Oh, and then there's a piece of dark chocolate (JUST A PIECE) at night if it's a Friday or Saturday. 

Okay, so now that we've read this, it's time to examine our own lives.  Just like with everything, there's a light and shadow side to this.  On the light side, we can say, "Oh, okay, maybe instead of staying up till two AM and then getting up at six AM, I can try to go to bed earlier.  That will help me feel less exhausted, and maybe my skin will clear up.  And maybe I'll try lemon water in the morning and that dance/Pilates/etc. video I saw on YouTube when I have time after school.  That sort of thing might energize me."  But on the shadow side, we can say, "Okay. No more rice. Ever. And only a 1/4 c of oatmeal, even if I'm hungry.  And I need to incorporate weights into my training now, and I can only rest one day a week, and then I need to walk for 60 minutes to make up for it . . . " This sort of thinking might make us feel "in control" temporarily, but whenever something interferes with our plan, we feel like everything is falling apart.  We become dependent on our routines and our rules, and if we can't live up to our expectations of ourselves, we fall into negativity and self-criticism.  

Is this healthy?  Trust me, darling--it isn't.

Audrey Hepburn: "Happy girls are the prettiest." (Image from smooth.com.au)

One of the best pieces of advice that I've ever received (and I admit that I need to do a better job following it) is balance.  Balance and moderation.  This advice came from a loved one who has passed on recently, and I've been trying to focus on it more because of how true it is. Complete carelessness and excessive control haven't ever benefited anyone.  Find a happy medium for yourself--a place where you can just exist and lead a full, happy life with things that you look forward to, manageable responsibilities, and some sort of meaning. The best thing about this happy medium is that you can start striving for it RIGHT NOW. You don't need to order any fancy products or sign up for a service. All you need is yourself.

<3 Frances 

Quan Yin

At some point around 10:30 last night, I found myself reading aloud from a very old book of Chinese folk tales.  Random?  Yes. Worth it? Yes.  The smell of old books is, as anyone who's ever spent a million hours in a library or thrift store can tell you, pretty perfect, and so are Chinese paintings.  Looking at them is almost like meditating, and since I'm still not all that good at meditating, I'm using them as a sort of substitute for it.

 

Anyway, one of the folk tales I found was about Quan Yin (or Guan Yin or Kwan Yin, depending on your spelling preference), the Chinese Goddess of Mercy.  She wanted to join a nunnery instead of marrying, so her emperor father tried to have her beheaded (!), but she was saved by a spirit in the form of a tiger sent by the Emperor of Heaven. Needless to say, she escaped decapitation and then "thought only good thoughts" until she became "perfect" and the embodiment of love and sweetness.  From then on, she used her goddess status to save and protect people and grant them mercy and kindness.  Long story short: she's a pretty awesome example of girl power inspiration.  I'm part Chinese (though I learned most of my Eastern religion stuff from my non-Chinese side of the family), and I've always loved Quan Yin.  I have a small wooden statue of her living with one of my hermit crabs.  Learning about her last night was major motivation to be a more consciously compassionate person. I have a lot of compassion and empathy for others that I always act on, but I'd like to be more compassionate with going with the flow of things.  We live in a world that's very GO GO GO, faster faster faster, do do do, and it's challenging to pull back and just let things BE. Let yourself BE.  Stop trying to change, and let go of control.  What you're desperate to control often ends up controlling you.

"Let the magic happen. It’s always there. Abundance and love are always there. Believe in the highest good. There is a higher essence to everything. The realm you’re in has a heaviness that mutes energy. You can penetrate through it, no matter how dark and heavy. Sometimes it has nothing to do with karma. Just don’t forget to keep it open. Don’t get too bogged down…Prosperity can happen at any time. I want to give you everything that you need.-Kuan Yin"
-Beneficial Law of Attraction: The Manifestation Teachings

 <3 Frances

Body Image

Before we start, let's take a page from the Positive Bunny notebook:

During the summer, it can be easy to get swept up in the wave of aesthetic pressures and expectations enforced by the media.  I'm noticing more and more now just how much of the media is driven by advertisements and the need to "sell" things, and while I do admittedly enjoy movies and magazines and even some television shows, I always have to make a point of it to remember that most of what is shown in the media is highly edited. Advertisements and photo shoots, etc., don't show us reality--they show us an artistic interpretation of it, and they often intend to sell us something.  I keep thinking of an episode of Mad Men when Don and Peggy are trying to develop an ad for a so-so product and someone realizes that the best way to market it is to make consumers feel like there's something "wrong" for them that the product can "fix."  By nature, we are generally unsatisfied with ourselves, and our insecurities enable media messages to swoop in and convince us that a) our flaws are unacceptable and b) they can be cured (for a price, of course).  I'm not trying to point fingers or be a hater (I enjoy finding the right shade of concealer just as much as the next person does), but it's really very sad when media messages and advertising get so stuck in our heads that we lose sight of what's really important and develop completely distorted perceptions of what's "normal" and "real." Our standards become skewed--all of a sudden, we think that anything other than a toned physique and unblemished skin is unacceptably imperfect, and sometimes we even become so obsessed with achieving the "ideal" that we let go of everything that used to be important to us, our physical and mental health included.  Happiness becomes less and less attainable the more addicted we become to "perfection," and what's really crazy is that the idealistic image we're striving for isn't even real. It's the result of a lot of editing and fine-tuning, and it's pretend, but we let it control our lives and make us feel guilty over normal little things like pores and wrinkles.  This needs to be the summer that we free our minds and free our lives so that we can actually enjoy them and do meaningful things with them. No, photo editing software, you are not in charge of what we think is beautiful, and we will appreciate our bodies and our lives no matter how much you want us to believe we need to look a certain way or buy a certain brand to be happy.  Image doesn't equal happiness.  Experience equals happiness.  Love equals happiness.  And a magazine ad is never going to love us. 

<3 Frances

Inspiration: Frida Kahlo

Today's inspiration is none other than the beautiful painter queen herself: Frida Kahlo.  Frida helped pave the way for women in the art world, and we can all learn from her authenticity and strong sense of self.  Her life story makes her pretty hardcore, too.  She came down with polio when she was six years old, having to spend a significant amount of time bedridden, and her right leg ended up a lot smaller than her left.  She covered this with long flowy skirts, and, after recovering, participated in sports that were normally considered only for boys.  In 1925, when she was 18, Frida was in a bus accident that broke her spine and collarbone and sent a piece of iron through her abdomen.  Because of the accident, she had to be in a body cast for several months and ended up suffering from chronic and often debilitating bouts of pain for the rest of her life, and she was never able to have children.  But instead of letting this get her down, Frida channeled her suffering into something amazing: art.  She painted her body cast and, lying in bed with nothing but an easel and her own thoughts, made herself into one of the most influential artists ever known.  Go Frida.

<3 Frances 

Positive Vibes

There's a very overwhelming part of me that still feels like it should be 6:54 AM, but it isn't.  We've "sprung ahead" on the clocks, so now that dear little hour I'm so excited to get in the fall is gone.  I hope everyone is adjusting well.  I think I'm better now, but on Sunday night I lay awake in bed for a few hours wishing I could fall asleep.  Needless to say, Monday morning = tired.  These positive affirmations that my mum found were very helpful, though.  They may not be related to fatigue or the time change, but they're incredibly inspiring, positive, and true, and I think everyone would benefit from taking a moment to fully embrace what they mean.  My favorite right now is "Bedtime Affirmations for the Soul" because that title is just so awesome.  Happy Tuesday!

<3 Frances 

Life Lessons from Maya Angelou

Maya Angelou was one of the wisest women to walk the planet, and, in today's post, I want to share a bit of her wisdom as inspiration to get the month of October off to a good start.

<3 Frances

Hope for the Orphans of Ebola

Over the weekend, I read an article about a little four year-old girl called "Sweetie Sweetie" (her real name remains a mystery) who lost both her parents and her sister to Ebola in Sierra Leone.  In the article, it said that she was living in an interim care center (ICC) with other Ebola orphans, all of the waiting out a 21-day quarantine to see whether or not they, too, contracted the disease.  Because Ebola spreads so easily, many of the children are stigmatized as dangerous and therefore are not taken in by relatives when their parents die.   At ICCs (of which there are many for the estimated 10,000 orphans), Ebola survivors trained by organizations like UNICEF look after orphans and monitor them for Ebola symptoms.

Credits to Daniel Berehulak, The New York Times

Anyway, I was really touched by Sweetie Sweetie's story.  She cared for her mother as she died, telling her stories and trying to feed her, and I was really happy this morning when I saw a Child Fund report saying that Sweetie Sweetie was not only free of Ebola but that she had also been adopted by a health care worker who had cared for her mother.  Sadly, though, eight other orphans do have Ebola, and there are still thousands of others in quarantine.
The reason I post about this today is that I am incredibly moved by the heartbreaking stories of the Ebola orphans.  They've suffered through things many people cannot even possibly begin to fathom, and I think that even just reading about their unimaginable struggles really helps to put things into perspective.  They've lost so much, yet they continue to have hope, and it's important to raise awareness about their situation.  If anyone wants more info on these babies/how they can help them, you can go to https://www.childfund.org/Ebola_Emergency/ or www.unicef.org/emergencies/ebola/. 
<3 Frances 

Quote Inspiration

We all need a little inspiration sometimes....

www.quoteimg.com

www.quotescover.com

www.funny-pictures.picphotos.net

www.buzzfeed.com

www.hardquotes.com

<3 Frances 

Second Semester

Midterms are over!  Thank God.  Now comes the painful "wait" period between turning tests in and getting them back, and as much as I'd like to leave my study-coma, I'm tempted to remain within it because I know that I can't let myself study any less vigorously than I did for the midterms.  #APproblems
Complaints aside, though, I hope that everyone had a nice Martin Luther King, Jr. Day.  I did some homework (and a little procrastinating, LOL), attempted to actually draw backgrounds for the characters that I draw (usually I just leave everything behind them on the paper completely blank--not any more!), and helped my mum around the house (folding laundry is surprisingly therapeutic!).  I also got to keep up with my running streak.  I've gone running for about 20 minutes every day for the past few weeks, and it's done a lot as far as anxiety is concerned.  Though I did still get one new acne for each midterm I took last week....

Because it's another back-to-work/school morning, here's some music:

The Postal Service: "Such Great Heights"

The Cure: "Pictures of You"

Jasmine Thompson: "Demons" (Cover of Imagine Dragons)

<3 Frances

Life Lessons from the Bronte Sisters

The Bronte Sisters, with their tragic lives and tragic tales, have always fascinated and inspired and saddened me all at the same time.  As it's freaking frigid outside right now, it seems the right time to curl up with a copy of Wuthering Heights.  However, as I cannot do that because of societal obligations (ugh, society!), I'm sharing a few words of Bronte wisdom instead:

I don't call you handsome, sir, though I love you most dearly; far too dearly to flatter you.  Don't flatter me.

-Charlotte Bronte

I try to avoid looking forward or backward, and try to keep looking upward.
-Charlotte Bronte

Honest people don't hide their deeds.
-Emily Bronte

If I could I would always work in silence and obscurity, and let my efforts be known by their results.
-Emily Bronte

But he that dares not grasp the thorn shall never crave the rose.
-Anne Bronte

Adoration isn't love.
-Anne Bronte

<3 Frances

Food for Thought

It's the last week of October.  Officially.  That means that, in five days, November--the month of pre-holiday anxieties, chunky sweaters, and the Macy's parade (!)--will be upon us.  But I guess I'm probably getting ahead of myself now because November is, despite its impending arrival, a good 120 hours away.  And Halloween is arriving before November does, anyway.
Oh, God.  Halloween.  I love Halloween a little bit more than I should.  And not because of the candy (which reminds me--only buy fair trade chocolate!).

Corpse Bride: a Halloween must and
one of the defining films of my unorthodox youth.

  In less seasonal news, Iris, Jill, and I were looking through poetry this weekend (because yes, we do that often!) and found a quote by Gibbons Ruark, a man who writes poems as awesome as his name. It's about the time that it takes to write a poem (or a story or anything, really), and it embodies how we feel about art in general:

"If a poet has finished a new poem and somebody asks him how long it took, he can legitimately (if facilely) recall his age and give that number of years as an answer.  Every durable poem must have the whole weight of a poet's years behind it."

Yeah.  Let that sink in a minute.  It sort of feels like their are tiny fireworks of accord going off in my chest right now because, suddenly, everything makes sense.

<3 Frances

Life Lessons from Emily Dickinson

Miss Dickinson was as wise as she was poetic...

1) Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul--and sings the tune without the     words--and never stops at all.

2) Unable are the loved to die, for love is immortality.

3) If I can stop one heart from breaking, I shall not live in vain.

4) People need hard times and oppression to develop psychic muscles.

5) Forever is composed of nows.

6) The brain is wider than the sky.

7) I argue thee that love is life.  And life hath immortality.