I’ve become enamored with the idea of what can be created when we bring people, ideas and creations together, combining creative impulses, drawing upon each other’s spark. This is the first of two posts to explore this idea. Who knows, maybe there will be more!
In the past few days, I’ve stumbled upon two brilliant creative pieces. I loved them so much, I thought I would bring them together.
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The first is this incredibly vibrant painting by Holly Friesen titled, “Dancing in the Flames”. When I asked Holly for permission to use her creation, she readily accepted. When I told her I had selected this one, she shared that it is ‘in process’. I’ve followed Holly on Twitter (@Holly59) for a while and love dropping in every now and then to see what she is working on.
I find Dancing in the Flames a stunning piece. It is full of so much feral, wild moon energy. Her body is strong and vibrant. She is open to life. As I sat with this image and read the second piece, a poem by Lisa Citore titled, “If You Want to Change the World…Love a Woman.”, I could feel the energy of both rising up to meet each other.
I came across this poem when I paid a visit to one of my favorite blogs, Awakening Women by Chameli Ardagh.
This poem spoke to me in a deeply profound way. It brought tears of recognition of something sacred that is possible when we realize, men and women, the immense sacred mystery that is woman. What might shift if we all came to love a woman, deeply, in this way. To realize woman as the gateway to life, to know we have all come into the world by way of a woman can completely shift how we see ourselves as women, how we see each other, and how we might more deeply honor and respect the mystery of life and the mystery of woman.
I contacted Lisa to see if I could put her poem her on Unabashedly Female. She, too, agreed!
So I hope you enjoy both of these works of art. What a gift each of us has to bring to this world, whatever medium we choose to create in.
We are ALL Wildly Creative Women!
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On her website, Magdalene Women, Lisa writes about how the poem came into being:
“When a fairly spiritual male friend of mine who had finally found and was deepening into committed relationship with his soul mate confided in me he was thinking of being single again, and in the next breath expressed his latest idea for raising consciousness worldwide, I wrote this poem.â€
So here we go:
If You Want to Change the World… Love a Woman
by Lisa Citore
If you want to change the world… love a woman-really love her.
Find the one who calls to your soul, who doesn’t make sense.
Throw away your check list and put your ear to her heart and listen.
Hear the names, the prayers, the songs of every living thing-
every winged one, every furry and scaled one,
every underground and underwater one, every green and flowering one,
every not yet born and dying one…
Hear their melancholy praises back to the One who gave them life.
If you haven’t heard your own name yet, you haven’t listened long enough.
If your eyes aren’t filled with tears, if you aren’t bowing at her feet,
you haven’t ever grieved having almost lost her.
If you want to change the world… love a woman-one woman
beyond yourself, beyond desire and reason,
beyond your male preferences for youth, beauty and variety
and all your superficial concepts of freedom.
We have given ourselves so many choices
we have forgotten that true liberation
comes from standing in the middle of the soul’s fire
and burning through our resistance to Love.
There is only one Goddess.
Look into Her eyes and see-really see
if she is the one to bring the axe to your head.
If not, walk away. Right now.
Don’t waste time “trying.â€
Know that your decision has nothing to do with her
because ultimately it’s not with who,
but when we choose to surrender.
If you want to change the world… love a woman.
Love her for life-beyond your fear of death,
beyond your fear of being manipulated
by the Mother inside your head.
Don’t tell her you’re willing to die for her.
Say you’re willing to LIVE with her,
plant trees with her and watch them grow.
Be her hero by telling her how beautiful she is in her vulnerable majesty,
by helping her to remember every day that she IS Goddess
through your adoration and devotion.
If you want to change the world… love a woman
in all her faces, through all her seasons
and she will heal you of your schizophrenia-
your double-mindedness and half-heartedness
which keeps your Spirit and body separate-
which keeps you alone and always looking outside your Self
for something to make your life worth living.
There will always be another woman.
Soon the new shiny one will become the old dull one
and you’ll grow restless again, trading in women like cars,
trading in the Goddess for the latest object of your desire.
Man doesn’t need any more choices.
What man needs is Woman, the Way of the Feminine,
of Patience and Compassion, non-seeking, non-doing,
of breathing in one place and sinking deep intertwining roots
strong enough to hold the Earth together
while she shakes off the cement and steel from her skin.
If you want to change the world… love a woman, just one woman .
Love and protect her as if she is the last holy vessel.
Love her through her fear of abandonment
which she has been holding for all of humanity.
No, the wound is not hers to heal alone.
No, she is not weak in her codependence.
If you want to change the world… love a woman
all the way through
until she believes you,
until her instincts, her visions, her voice, her art, her passion,
her wildness have returned to her-
until she is a force of love more powerful
than all the political media demons who seek to devalue and destroy her.
If you want to change the world,
lay down your causes, your guns and protest signs.
Lay down your inner war, your righteous anger
and love a woman…
beyond all of your striving for greatness,
beyond your tenacious quest for enlightenment.
The holy grail stands before you
if you would only take her in your arms
and let go of searching for something beyond this intimacy.
What if peace is a dream which can only be re-membered
through the heart of Woman?
What if a man’s love for Woman, the Way of the Feminine
is the key to opening Her heart?
If you want to change the world…love a woman
to the depths of your shadow,
to the highest reaches of your Being,
back to the Garden where you first met her,
to the gateway of the rainbow realm
where you walk through together as Light as One,
to the point of no return,
to the ends and the beginning of a new Earth.
(c) Lisa Citore
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Oh Julie – This painting is just beautiful and the poem. the poem. the poem… Ive copied it out onto a separate document and Im studying it over and over.
Such a gift you and these two brilliant artists have given to us today.
Thank you
Thank you for another great post, Julie.
I know Holly’s wonderful work a little from following her, too, on Twitter. The poem is new to me. It’s a powerful and challenging piece to read in the middle of a marriage separation and I turned away from it at first, but it spoke too directly to me to allow that. It reaches me in beautiful and also very uncomfortable ways and I’ll have to sit with it until I hear clearly all the notes it strikes. It makes me want to write a response, perhaps several, from the different voices of maleness in me. I’ll get back to you… 🙂
Thank you too for your own words which have created the container for these two pieces to rest in. They are full of grace, as ever.
Amy, yes, two brilliant gifts by two brilliant artists. Thank you for sharing your thoughts, dear one.
Tom, Thank you for sharing your deepest feelings here. I so value your different voices of maleness, something I can’t know, but am so willing and honored to hear, especially coming from you, a man I know is of great integrity. I am sorry to hear of your separation, a very challenging time. Your turning back to read it is a testament to your integrity, following that which speaks to you…something only you can know. Blessings to you. I look forward to hearing from you when the time is right.
This moved me to tears, thank you. The power of the combination of these works doesn’t enhance them, it creates a new experience of depth.
Mrs. Which, I’m so glad that came across. That we can put two creative acts together and something new, a new experience emerges. Thank you for stopping by and sharing your insights. These are two powerful works – and, together they bring forth something deep and moving. Blessings.
Dear, dear Julie, I just came over here to get the link to Budding With New Life – and WOW — I got the link, but got knocked sideways (in a good way- grin!) by this new post!
Both the poet and the artist (and, of course, their phenomenal work!) are new to me, so I’m bowing in gratitude to you for pointing to them…and Julie, the blending – the combination – and what swirls up out of that – oh gasp! I am sooo blessed.
I too am moved to tears. Thank you for sharing all of it – your words, your essence, Holly’s artwork, and Lisa’s poem. Beautiful way to start the weekend.
“Love and protect her as if she is the last holy vessel.
Love her through her fear of abandonment
which she has been holding for all of humanity.”
Wow Julie, thank you so much for sharing both pieces. So moving! Bowing to the power of the Feminine in our lives.
I want to keep the poem by my bed and Holly’s painting side by side so they can continue to dance together. They are growing roots in my heart. There is such richness in it all. Ah, thank you for deepening in our hearts the love for the Feminine in all its glory!
Oh so lovely!
Such a succulence of soul in the colors and figure of the woman. The poem is beautiful, too.
Thanks for sharing.
“If you want to change the world… love a woman
in all her faces, through all her seasons
and she will heal you of your schizophrenia-
your double-mindedness and half-heartedness
which keeps your Spirit and body separate-
which keeps you alone and always looking outside your Self
for something to make your life worth living.”
Oh my.
In my early teens, I occasionally set aside a few minutes to create a space for my future self to come back to. Then when I was 15 and starting to experience maladies in the above-quoted lines, I stood in the Atlantic Ocean (a rarity for this Chicago girl) and created the space – but this time asked my future self to tell me something that would make me feel better. Over the years, I have sometimes wondered what those words would be, and have rejected a few promising ideas that came to mind but didn’t feel right. Then this past August, at 51, I was in yoga class in my now-home, Athens GA. The teacher had a play-list for our session, and the Supremes’ “Some Day We’ll Be Together” came on while I moved and breathed. Of course I’d heard the song many times before, but it hit me with the force of an ocean wave that these were the words to say to my 15-year old self, and she responded. That “some day” is now. We are together, my past and future selves. Our life is worth living.
Thank you Julie for sharing this poem!
Beautiful Julie,
I know I do nothing greater when I really love in this way. I am also moved to share this saying:
When you look at a woman and all you see is a woman, you have missed the woman. But when you look at a woman and don’t see a woman, then you really see the woman.
Love to you,
Charlie
Charlie, That is so beautiful. We can all love in this way, can’t we. Hope you are settling in… Love, Julie
Thank you for speaking these words truer than true. At 55, it is easier than ever to stand firm in the reality that you have articulated so beautifully, so clearly. My outer goddess dances as my inner goddess smiles, in patient timeless awareness of that which is truth. Any man who wishes to experience the depths of love and live, can discover it only when he realizes this in himself: All you need is love. Love is all you need.
what a wonderful poem to read! it fed ma soul!
Julie, I’m so glad you posted this again because I missed it the first time. This poem is astounding, in reading I could feel the electric pulsing in my system, such words of truth and of longing, these words speak like echoes of my soul. Thank you dear.
I may have never ready anything more beautiful.
hi,
i am kashif ;
i liked ur painting but can u explain if love has true aspirations of feelings in the soul of the human body as ur painting shows a wonderful beauty of the women body inspirating every sexual human being.overall, just imagine ur the beautiful women in the painting and the world beleives u as the most attractive and beautiful women of the world what would u explain the world about love in four words.
Wow, completely blown away by that poem. Tears-streaming-down-my-face kind of blown away. I so won the partner lottery in this area. My guy has loved and seen me thoroughly for almost a decade and I am who I am today because of his love. Because of him steadfastly holding the space for me to shed the societal bullshit that trapped me in my youth. Amazing. Thank you for sharing this.
Hey,could you please email this to me so i can email it to someone.i have failed to find the email point