Us and the Moon

In the beginning, I danced alone. Under the stars and above the sea, I danced in the shadows of my own love. The moon kept me company as I fell into my own rhythm, my steps carrying me wherever I wanted to go. My body moved to music that I made in my heart and it was a sound that only I could hear.

In the daylight, I longed for the moon again. The sun had a funny way of pointing out the consequences of my solo dancing. He would shine his light on my feet and show me the dirt and redness that accumulated on the soles. I would tuck my feet beneath me and hide them, proudly keeping a secret that only I, and the moon knew.

At last the moon would come up and the sun would sleep, and back to dancing I would go. One night, I saw a shadow. I strained my eyes to see, but with only the little bit of light from the crescent of the moon, I barely make out the shape of a human. As I danced my way over towards the shadow, I saw a sliver of your face and I felt something inside me that I had never felt before.

Your hair hung in your face and I could not see your eyes. I had been dancing alone for so long that it did not dawn on me to ask for your hand. Instead, I kept my eyes closed and danced tiny, elegant circles around you. You did not join me, but instead stayed sitting, watching me dance to music you could not hear.

On the second night, I spotted you quite quickly, despite the little light that the moon shed. I could feel you this time, somewhere deep in my heart. Again, I danced over to you and extended my hand. You nodded no, and as you did, your hair gently moved out of your eyes and I could see you. I saw deep into your soul and into your past lives. I saw your love and your pain and your desire to watch me dance. And so I did. I danced my tiny, elegant circles around you, but this time I saw you nodding your head to the beat. You could hear inside my heart.

On the third night, I anticipated you. Without looking for you, I danced over and extended my hand again. This time you accepted. I began to move and you planted your feet, bare like mine. You stayed in place as I danced around you once again, my hand still held inside yours. I twirled and laughed and opened my eyes as I spun glorious circles around you. Our eyes met and I saw you light up with me in your view. In that moment, your soul opened up and I took in a deep breath of you inside me. This only made my music play even louder.

This moonlight dancing went on for quite some time, until time came around to a full moon. On this night, I did not even look for you because as soon as the moon came out you were standing in front of me, this time extending your hand to mine. We danced together, first to the music of my heart and then to the music of yours. We combined steps and under the light of the perfectly circular moon, magic happened. I could hear inside your soul and you could hear inside mine. Soon, I felt my body lift. I looked down and saw that you had placed your feet under mine, and we were dancing as if two pairs of feet had become one. You held me close and together we twirled around in my glorious, elegant circles that were being danced by you. Together we created sound and movement that echoed from the depths of our hearts.

And every night since then, I have met you in my dreams. Sometimes we twirl my favorite circles and other times we take turns listening to the sweet rhythm of each other’s music. There are times when the music quiets and I can only hear the methodic sound of your beating heart. I lay with my head on your chest and my eyes gazing up into yours, the hair from the first night, no where to be seen. And this is how it is. I can hear inside you and you can hear inside me and together, we take one another on glorious adventures that only you, I, and the moon know about. Our scared space is our world, and in our world we share the beauty of our souls mingling as one dancing figure, seemingly nothing more than a shadow under the stars, and above the sea. But to me, your love is the reason my music plays so loud and why I dance such peaceful, beautiful shapes in the light that flows from our combined hearts.

Sexy Starts with Me

Sexy is a word I have struggled with in the past, mostly because I have not really known what it means, both in general and in regards to myself. I guess I can point out what I think is sexy, or what society thinks is sexy, but feeling sexy is a whole other story. So, I recently came up with the idea that sexy must be something that comes with growing up and gaining confidence. After all, I have never run into someone that is down on themselves and considered them to be sexy, thus leading me to believe that sexy is not all physical, but has emotional components as well. So, that was one missing piece to the puzzle, but I was still looking for something else. So I turned to the dictionary for moral support and these are the definitions I found.

Sexy - 1. concerned predominantly or excessively with sex

2. sexually interesting or exciting; radiating sexuality

3. excitingly appealing; glamorous.

This then led me to look up the word sexual.

Sexual - 1. of, pertaining to, or for sex

2. occurring between or involving the sexes

3. having sexual organs or reproducing by process involving both sexes

So, by definition, sexual is someone who likes sex, likes to reproduce, and isn't afraid to show that. And sexy, by definition, is someone who is interested in sex, is exciting because of that, and just basically radiates sex. Now I think I get it and am onto something.

When I was in my early twenties, I considered sexy to be mostly a superficial and surface thing. I would never have considered emotional maturity, self-confidence, or spirituality to be sexy or sexual qualities. But now, years later, I am not as drawn to "sexy" based on anything tangible. And in regards to sexy and me, if sexy is anything like loving, then I need to find myself sexy before I can fully relate it to someone else. So I think I will start with my own definition of sexy...

Sexy, for me, is being genuine and real, true to myself and other people. Sexy is hot steam pouring from the shower and midnight stars above the ocean. Sexy is my strand of hair that falls in my face as I lean over, and sexy is my laughter echoing from the inner child of my soul. Sexy is making love in the early morning hours and sun kissed skin after a day in salt water and sand. Sexy is when I share my feelings and pour my heart out and whisper good night in my lover's ear. Sexy is the natural curves of my body, the chicken pox scar on my stomach, my long eyelashes, and the moles that only I can see. Sexy is when I write in my office in the early morning and drink juice from a mug with my name on it. Sexy is when I take photos of what I find to be lovely. And sexy is knowing myself from my ears to my toes and as far deep as my soul goes. Sexy is about loving myself and feeling free, motivated, and deeply loved. Sexy is what happens when I really love myself, and feel brave enough to share it with the world. And most of all, sexy is something that comes from within myself.

So for now, I am putting aside my make-up and taking down my mirror. My validation is going to start coming from the inside because I just love myself that much. Because now I know that first comes the loving, and then comes the sexy.

I've wanted, for so long, to be able to relate to this word, though now I realize that it is so much more than that. I have become very connected with the loving part of myself, and now I am ready to explore myself even more. So here I go, hand in hand with my loving, on my journey to finding sexy. More updates to come.

A Journey to the Center of my Heart

I woke up on my 27th birthday, just a few weeks ago, and everything felt different. I sort of chalked this up to being some kind of weird birthday energy, and continued through my day. The feelings of love, however, had an idea of their own. All day I found myself overcome with happiness and would cry, though they were tears I had not felt before. By the end of the day (a very heartwarming, spiritual day filled with self-love), I realized something very important. I love myself. I love myself to pieces in fact. It was the first birthday (and possibly the first time ever that I can remember) where I felt so much unconditional love for myself that I actually cried. I felt (and still feel) so happy to be me. I fell asleep that night with tears in my eyes, thinking there must be something wrong, and if not that, then I must be really close to my period. Either way, I felt in love. The next morning, I woke up crying as well and so I pulled out my journal and just let it all out. I felt this sense of love, gratitude, happiness, love, motivation, excitement, and so many other things. I felt like I was holding my heart in my arms and was surrounded in a bubble of white light. And this is how I have felt since that day.

Love is an interesting thing for me. As a child I learned that love means taking care of someone else and making them happy. I can remember always wanting to make everyone around me happy. I did not learn until later on, about four years ago, that in order to be able to take care of others, I first needed to care for myself. I viewed taking care of myself as loving myself. About six months ago, I realized that to love myself is so much more than to just care for myself. Love is more than taking a shower or cleaning my house or staying on top of my laundry. Love is self-nurturing, self-forgiveness, fun, playing, relaxing, resting, tapping into and allowing my creative side to show, dancing, and just really listening to myself. Love is not just about caring for my body, but also about caring for my mind. So, is it ironic that since I have begun to learn about love, I have completely stopped writing? A little. I used to write a lot as a kid, but mostly stories about the sort of life I wanted to lead. This stopped when I was about ten, and after that I would write only about wanting a boyfriend. Then when I finally did have a boyfriend, I wrote my heart out, but it was all very dark, sad, negative, and mostly had to do with how much love hurt. When I got into the relationship that I am currently in, I felt love, but I could not write about it. I felt like my muse for writing was pain. I had no idea how to write about love and things going well in my life. So aside from a few birthday cards here and there, I had given up on writing, until now of course. Suddenly I want to write only of love, both of life, myself, and my love for other people. I want to pour my heart out and allow others to read it. I want to share my love for myself and my views about love, life, and the world and my own experience as a human. I am coming out a "shell" that I created a long time ago, and I am making myself vulnerable and it feels so GOOD. So this is my journey, and I invite anyone to follow along and watch me write my way through my process of finding my way to my heart, and staying there.

Photo Session (#1 of the Season)

So, as a way to keep a commitment to myself, I am going to track my photography (and other) adventures in here. I think it might help me stay on track and will help me with getting back my creative energy that I deeply miss. Last night, around 5:15pm, my friend and I visited one of my favorite locations in Loa Angeles. Nestled deep in the Pacific Palisades is a tiny park that overlooks all of PCH, from Santa Monica to Malibu and all that's in between. We were trying to make the sunset, but we missed it and I thought I had missed out on all of that "magical" sunset light. What I found when I got there was much more incredible than what I had been anticipating. It was the first time in almost two years that I had gone out with my camera, with the sole purpose of taking pictures. I instantly found my groove again and had no problem snapping as many photos as my near-frozen, ungloved (cold, rainy spell in LA this week) hands would allow. I was lost in my camera and in myself. I looked around and suddenly everything had a purpose and could be a meaningful photo. I found myself looking through my lens as I did the first time I ever picked up my camera. I let myself fall into a trance of creativity that not even the coldest wind could have brought me out of. Eventually, I did leave, but I have had the same giddy feeling since then. I have it back. And now, I feel unstoppable...