Buds and Blossoms

Breathe! What an absolutely gorgeous time of year Spring is! Regeneration is the glorious gift that Spring brings us each year. It is a time to let go of the winter in our hearts and to heal, to let go of the things that have kept us frozen and to open ourselves up to our life’s full potential. It is a time of abundance as color breaks forth from every limb and life is once again affirmed.

This months gorgeous Goddess is Kerry. When I spoke to her a couple of weeks ago, she was delighting in the hundreds of daffodils bursting joyfully through the earth around her property. She noted that each Spring seemed even more beautiful than the last. “But that is not possible, I’m sure it is just that we forget” she said.

I was touched by this, it is true that we forget… but I think that is because we are meant to be present in this particular Spring and so it forces it’s beauty upon us and that beauty keeps us in the now.
When we live through our personal winters, we also tend to forget about our own beauty, how alive and abundant and how gorgeous we are…
And yes, we are different than we were the last spring, but we are equally as beautiful right now… Let’s celebrate that!

Kerry speaks…

Ensconced by the healing powers of the season, the rain has become a scrim through which I wander back in my mind’s eye to revisit this annual phenomenon of burgeoning life. Ahhhhh, Sweet Spring. Fascinated by myriad springs past that we can conjure when calm of soul. In part measuring the beauty of what is now coming to life through awareness of past delight.

Reflecting on my boudoir session with Isis a few years ago, I know it is time to book another. Completely and utterly fresh, an experience that cannot be ‘replicated’ – rather a timeless document of where ‘her women’ are at the moment. We are graced by Isis’ camera.

At long last, I am whole. This is the Spring of my renaissance. When I first met Isis, I was midway through what has proven to be seven years of grief. Interesting to note that our cells are reborn on a seven-year cycle. Having lost my husband and love of my life on September 11, 2001; our twenty-five years was shattered in a heartbeat. Edna St. Vincent Millay best describes where I was then in her Letters with “Where you used to be, there is a hole in the world, which I find myself constantly walking around in the daytime, and falling into at night. I miss you like hell."

This photograph (both process and finished product) was a miracle. Isis captured me as I laughed with utter abandon and took deep delight in my sensual being. On a profound psychological level, she worked her magic and lovingly chiseled the tip of my iceberg. I was terrified that her camera would record a void. And, being voluptuous, I wondered how on earth a void could be fat...

Given my delicate psyche, Isis wisely suggested that we conduct the shoot in the security of my home. She arrived just as I was getting out of the shower. Much to my relief, this almost stranger, in her inimitable way, tenderly approached my soggy self and applied my make-up and styled my hair. All the while asking how I typically do it, so as not to impose a style that would make me uncomfortable.

We then referenced a photo of Marilyn Monroe that inspired me. I evoked the essence of this icon in my authentic version; cavorting around my home in various rooms and positions, with Isis in harmony as photographic observer.

The result is as lovely today as it was profound then.

I thank Isis for her unique ability to cultivate the goddess that had fallen through that hole. I am confident that our next photo shoot will both build upon our earlier experience and also be invigorated anew; as befits the timeless metaphor of Spring.