I pray I’ve done my work so, that when I’ve gone from here, in all the turmoil through the wreckage and rumble, when someone finds themselves digging through the ruins, they’ll find me. Somewhere in that wreckage, they’ll find something they can use, that I left behind. And if I’ve done that, then I’ve accomplished something in life.
James Baldwin 💫
💭The Price of the Ticket
✨Artwork by Michelle Lake
Healing does not mean wallowing in or identifying with injury. Nor does it mean defensive inaction. It means having the courage to see, acknowledge, grieve, and repair the holes ourselves (with, if we are fortunate, loving help from others). It means moving on, patches and all.
Marion Woodman 💫
🪽Coming Home to Myself
✨Artwork by Trudi Sissons
The day you manage to stay calm in front of whoever provokes you, when your silence is the right answer, the day you manage to stay calm in the face of the storm.
In the face of noise and foolish words, then you will have achieved the greatest of your successes, to dominate yourself.
It is no longer about winning or losing, being better or worse, having or not having the coveted reason,
it is not even about triumphing over others, it is about the fact that,
finally, you have reached the top of a very high mountain, and it is to conquer you, prioritize yourself and put your mental health first,
your emotional intelligence.
Observe and look around you, don’t judge anymore, just observe the unhappiness, the lack of self-esteem, the burdens and pains that others must carry to live tending other people’s lives, to be aware of the lives of others.
The more you love yourself, the less you will care about the projection in someone else’s eye,
the more you love yourself; you will focus on improving yourself and only you.
Author Unknown
art | Ana Neima
#midwivesofthesoul #ananeima
“It’s better to be looked over than overlooked.”
“When women go wrong, men go right after them!”
“When I’m good, I’m very good. But when I’m bad, I’m better.”
“I only like two kinds of men: Foreign and Domestic.”
“I wrote the story myself. It’s all about a girl who lost her reputation but never missed it.”
“It ain’t sin if you crack a few laws now and then, just so long as you don’t break any.”
“Ten men waiting for me at the door? Send one of them home, I’m tired.”
“To err is human, but it feels divine.”
“Few men know how to kiss well. Fortunately, I’ve always had time to teach them.”
Mae West was one of the most controversial movie stars of her day; she encountered problems especially with censorship. She once quipped, “I believe in censorship. I made a fortune out of it.” She bucked the studio system by making comedy out of conventional beliefs, and the Depression-era audience admired her for it.
One of her boyfriends and life long friends was the African American boxer William Jones, nicknamed Gorilla Jones. When management at her Ravenswood apartment building barred him from entering, she solved the problem by purchasing the building and lifting the ban. (IMDb/Wikipedia)
Happy Birthday, Mae West!
“We are at a critical point. We have a very narrow window of opportunity to get it right, and to get it right, we first have to imagine a new world, story by story. Historically human beings use stories to explore our place in the world: we tell stories about it. Sometimes they’re scientific stories. Sometimes they’re philosophical stories. Sometimes they’re songs or movies. Sometimes they’re fables or morality tales. We need to tell new stories to describe who we are in relation to the land, to honor what’s been lost, to help us understand our kinships, to affirm what we care about, to explore the difference between right and wrong, moral and immoral.”
Kathleen Dean Moore 💫
✨Artwork by Laurie Kaplowitz
“Until you heal the WOUNDS of your past, you will continue to bleed.
You can bandage the bleeding with food, with alcohol, with drugs, with work, with cigarettes, with sex, but eventually, it will all ooze through and stain your life.
You must find the strength to open the wounds,
stick your hands inside,
pull out the core of the pain that is holding you in your past, the memories and make peace with them.”
-Iyanla Vanzant-
Photo: Pinterest
Archaeology for the Woman’s Soul
Corina Andronache
One day you will realize that happiness is not what your house looks like, but how you love the people within its walls.
Happiness is not finding success by a certain time, but finding something you love so much time itself seems to disappear.
Happiness is not thinking you have earned the world’s approval, but waking up each day and feeling so at peace within your own skin, quietly anticipating the day ahead, unconcerned with how you are perceived.
Happiness is not having the best of everything, but the ability to make the best of anything.
Happiness is knowing you did what you could with what you were given.
Happiness is not something that comes to us when every problem is solved and all things are perfectly in place, but in the shining silver linings that remind us of the light of day is always there, if we slow down enough to notice!
~ Brianna Wiest
~ Image via Pinterest
No Matter What They Say
You do not have to get over it.
You will carry your grief
and be carried by loss
in any way the carrying happens.
As if you had a choice.
Grief builds rooms inside you
no one else will ever see,
rooms with doors
only you can pass through
filled with songs or silence
only you can hear.
Rest here. Or dance here.
Shout. Or whisper. Rise
like milkweed seeds on the wind.
Or lie. Here, you can only do it right.
Here, there are no other eyes
or ears to tell you what to do
or how long it will take
or what choices to make.
And if you are weeping, weep.
And if you are dry, you are dry.
The rest of the world
can talk about stages
of grief and how it should be,
but you, you do not have to listen.
~ Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer
[Image: Sarah Treanor]
Don’t ever
shame yourself
for showing up,
admitting or sharing,
only to be shutdown
or even ghosted.
To want to reach out
and describe your struggle
and be understood
is better than holding
it all painfully inside
and to never be seen.
It’s all humanly real.
The risk to be
honest and open.
The exposure from
connecting outside
vulnerability.
The enormous courage
it takes to let your
truth be revealed.
And know in turn,
not everyone can respond
in the way you expect
and believe —
or perhaps at all,
sometimes.
But, don’t ever
shame yourself.
Don’t diminish
your light
for expressing
or become conditioned
to not ask for help
in your time
of great need.
~ ‘Don’t Shame Yourself’ by Susan Frybort from the book ‘Look to the Clearing’ Poems to Encourage, Susan Frybort
~ Art by Jeanie Tomanek
“I love accountability. I love when you’re honest. I love when you can come to me and free your mind, heart, and spirit. I’m a sucker for heart to hearts. I love being bonded by emotional intelligence—no pride, no ego, no secrets. I love raw connections.”
The beauty of accountability resonates deeply within me. There’s a profound admiration for honesty, for the courage to bare one’s soul and share the depths of one’s being. Heart-to-heart conversations hold a special place in my heart, forging bonds grounded in emotional intelligence and authenticity.
In these moments, pride and ego dissolve, giving way to raw, genuine connections.
I cherish the liberation that comes from open communication, where vulnerabilities are embraced, and secrets find solace in the light of understanding.
These raw connections, devoid of masks or pretense, are the threads that weave the tapestry of profound human relationships.
❤☀
GreatCosmicMothersUnite 