Be Your Own Beloved #25

Every day, I am taking a self-portrait in conjunction with Vivienne McMaster's Be Your Own Beloved e-course. Sometimes it takes me longer - like a month - but I'm dedicated to finishing this project!

Being My Own Friend

Today's assignment is to take a photo inspired by being my own friend. Vivenne also asked us to look at our photo and tell ourselves something we see in that photo that is positive, so this assignment has a really wonderful self-love vibe. This photo was actually taken during one of my many self-care walks. I also had been playing around with blur and focus (thanks to another assignment from Vivienne) and this is one of the photos from that experiment.

I've been wearing this tarnished, tattered heart since Mother's Day, which is a very difficult day for me to get through due to a variety of reasons. I didn't really realize why I needed to wear this heart, until I looked at this photo and realized it was a symbol of self-soothing during a really painful time. This funny little heart feels like such a perfect object to represent my fierce heart that has been through so much. It's kind of twisted and a little warped and the gold is wearing off and yet I just ADORE how it looks and it feels so good to wear.

Nature Goddess Hippie Child Cartoon Girl

I also love that my hyacinth hair comes through so beautifully in this photo, as well as all my moles and freckles. I take a lot of candid photos, where I am not looking at the camera, so I get a lot of these "looking off into the distance" photos, which I also really adore. There is a peacefulness and a calm in this images that translates directly to my soul and I just love it.

I've included the second photo because I feel kind of embarrassed about it and that's a good photo to include in a post about self-love! This is another blended photo which includes me doing a very nature goddess-like pose. The picture of my face was run through Toonpaint, to get that cool, comic illustration look. This witchy goddess is a very big part of me and I don't like being embarrassed of her. I want to invite her out more!

We Are Love

8th Anniversary card I made for my husband

8 years ago today, my husband and I jumped in the ocean and sealed our life commitment to each other. My father, a Unitarian Minister, among many other things, signed the license and we were hitched! My man and I have a very creative, crafty kind of love, so it makes sense that we both made each other cards to celebrate. My card opens up, but the insides are kind of naughty, so I'm keeping that private!

When we became engaged, we went to visit the infamous Hugging Guru, Amma. When we told her we were soon to be wed, she said something to one of her translators and he said, "Amma says, instead of saying 'I love you,' say instead, 'we are love.'" Than he nodded his head and smiled. It was the most perfect blessing we could have possibly received. And it really is the perfect thing to say - because the idea that "I" can give love to "you" is an illusion. The only choice is either to be love, or not be love - to emanate love and embrace it, or not. Try saying it with people you share love with. It's fun!

Be Your Own Beloved #24

Every day, I am taking a self-portrait in conjunction with Vivienne McMaster's Be Your Own Beloved e-course. Sometimes it takes me longer - like a month - but I'm dedicated to finishing this project!

Photo walks as self-care

In today's assignment, Vivienne asked us to take a photo walk as self-care. This is something I do quite regularly, so I decided to blend and play with images I already have from my photo walks. I happen to live in one of the best cities for good gardens, so I regularly pick a new neighborhood to walk around and take pictures of beautiful plants and gardens. This inspires me and energizes me on so many levels. In this photo I am sniffing a rose (which I than ran through the ToonPaint app to get that great illustrative look). I then overlaid this image (using another favorite app, Blender) onto a picture of a fruit tree I took on a different walk. I love how it came out!

Making time for walks can be tricky sometimes, but they are so good for my creative soul, as well as my physical body.

Be Your Own Beloved #23

Every day, I am taking a self-portrait in conjunction with Vivienne McMaster's Be Your Own Beloved e-course. Sometimes it takes me longer - like a month - but I'm dedicated to finishing this project!

Purple Blur

Hey! Two days in a row! I'm on a roll! Today's assignment is to explore focus and blur. Since I am only taking photos with an I-Phone, I was thoroughly stumped as to how to keep one part of the photo focused while keeping the rest blurred. I ended up having to do it afterwards. And I have SO MANY photo apps, that I honestly cannot remember which ones I used here (yes, I often double-up on the photo manipulation)!

I'm actually starting to think it would be really lovely to get a REAL camera, since so many of my photos are too small to print and will forever live only online, but that would mean I would have to admit that I might actually be a Photographer and I'm not ready to own that quite yet. I'm working on it! And in many ways, this photo really captures my unsureness about it all. What's coming down the path towards me? Am I ready for it? My intention is to be as ready as possible for whatever comes next!

Be Your Own Beloved #22

Every day, I am taking a self-portrait in conjunction with Vivienne McMaster's Be Your Own Beloved e-course. Sometimes it takes me longer - like a month - but I'm dedicated to finishing this project!

Lavender Hyacinth Hair, you are mine! With HUGE thanks to MJ Hahn.

Hey! It's been exactly a month since I was able to accomplish my last photo for this project! If ever I doubted that my Totem Animal is The Snail, I now have proof (but that's for a different blog post). The next assignment from Vivienne is to take a picture inspired by this quote:

"People often say that 'beauty is in the eye of the beholder,' and I say that the most liberating thing about beauty is realizing that you are the beholder. This empowers us to find beauty in places where other have not dared to look including inside ourselves." ~ Salma Hayek

Once again, I was paralyzed by this assignment. I have a long history of difficulty in practicing self-love. It's gotten better, by leaps and bounds, but when faced with the direct request of seeing my beauty as the beholder, I was frozen.

Meanwhile, I was starting to notice some serious grey hair coming in at my temples. I'll soon be 41-years-old (which is SHOCKING to me) and I'm starting to feel the shift in our culture where women "of a certain age" disappear from view - they are no longer "attractive" and therefore they don't deserve to be paid attention to or take up space. My friend Tam once said that she wanted to start a covert spy group of women over 40 - no one would notice us so we could get away with everything!

And, quite frankly, being a fat woman, I've always been somewhat excluded from the "cult of beauty" that women are harassed into joining from about age 9. This both liberated me and shamed me as a growing girl and woman.

Side view of all the purple power.

So, as I was contemplating my grey hair, I started to ask myself, "Tristy, girl, what do YOU want? How do YOU want to look?" I knew I wanted a big, drastic change. I wanted a SHOCKING transformation. I wanted to celebrate who I am now, celebrate my new glasses and be the beautiful, witchy nerd I know myself to be. So when I consulted with my amazing hair stylist (the multi-talented MJ Hahn - Check out his great gothic horror podcast/writing!) he suggested TWO big changes - getting bangs and getting some lavender highlights. I was nervous, but I felt so ready! So I said yes!

And now you see the results! And as I was looking at these photos and staring at myself in the mirror (asking "is that really me?") I realized that I was truly beholding my beauty. Not just because I have lavender hair, but because my new do reflects the silly beautiful joy I feel in myself. It reflects the "I don't care how society looks at me" feeling I've been having lately - which surprisingly, has lead me to some really deep, self-love. I'm seeing my beauty and really appreciating it in these photos and that can only lead to more and more self-love. Exciting!

Happy Pink Moon!

Photoshoppin' by Dan Macken

Tonight is the Full Pink Moon, named for the herb moss pink, or wild ground phlox, which is one of the earliest widespread flowers of the spring! And yes, that's my face in the moon above, surrounded by Pink Phlox and a handsome gent making a toast!

Tonight's Moon is also called:

• Planter's Moon
• Peony Moon
• Flower Moon
• Wildcat Moon
• Moon When Geese Return in Scattered Formation
• Growing Moon
• Seed Moon
• Awakening Moon
• Full Sprouting Grass Moon
• Egg Moon 
• & Full Fish Moon (because this was the time that the shad swam upstream to spawn).

ENJOY!

Be Your Own Beloved #21

Every day, I am taking a self-portrait in conjunction with Vivienne McMaster's Be Your Own Beloved e-course. Sometimes it takes me longer - like a week or more, but I'm dedicated to finishing this project!

Witchy Nerd Gets New Glasses

Today's assignment is to capture a photo that celebrates our individuality. This made me laugh with delight because this process of self-portrait-taking has really helped me connect with my unique voice. I have been laughing myself silly coming up with crazy scenarios to take pictures of and delighting in how strange and clownlike I can be. I used to be really embarrassed of how silly and strange I can get, but this process has taught me so much about loving myself at a deeper more authentic level.

I recently needed to get new glasses and I have been dreaming about getting cat's eye glasses again. I wore them for fun in my early 20's and then I never felt brave enough to do it again. Through my process of learning to embrace my quirky weirdness, I went ahead and got new, granny-style, cat's eye glasses. I love them! I love them so much, I actually can't stop taking pictures of myself wearing them! So when I read Vivienne's assignment for today, I knew exactly which picture I wanted to choose. "Witchy Nerd" has been my new, self-chosen moniker of late. It fits what I'm interested in right now and how I feel in my new glasses!