I went to eeyore’s birthday today as someone else. The night before I had an awful flu and was
unable to get my costume idea together, which was going to be a butterful
butterfly catcher. Instead, I went over with a bag of random clothes and met
some friends and spent 3 hours body painting an idea of someone else’s. It turned out to be a green leopard scarf
that barely covered my breasts and a red boa around my waist. It is pretty laughable the site of me. Of course my counterpart, whose idea this
was, looked amazing. She wore her breast
bear with green feathers around her nipples and body paint everywhere
else. The idea was to be the chakra’s,
which is a great idea! But poorly executed by myself. Next year, I will remember to be more
prepared… and more myself, and of course NOT TO FORGET MY NOTEPAD! In a
creative space as that, thoughts, and quotes, and good recommendations were
flowing and I couldn’t capture a thing. First I want to describe my interpretation of
Eeyores, and then I want to delve into a thought process that I have been
thinking about recently.
Eeyores is a magnificent one day event that happens in
Austin the last weekend of April at Peace Park.
The tree lined part of the park is scattered with groups of people
drumming, hanging out against trees and in hammocks, talking, smoking, drinking
and observing all of the crazy costumes walking amongst us. You will see fairies and elves and other mystical
creatures that look like they fit right into the scenery and then there are
costumes that look like they just don’t belong at all like walking banana’s,
penguins and robots. Most costumes are
typically hand-made and so much detail and thought go into them. The festival is not about anything more than
natural music, no amps or electricity, just hand drumming with strangers, and
people watching. These beautiful people
just walk around admiring each other’s beauty and each other presence. I was consistently amazed by all the sites I
saw every time I turned around.
This year the weather was fantastic, and a little overcast
combined with a cool breeze made me feel, of course, as if I could blow away
and dance in the wind. My costumes
should always reflect this feeling as this is how I embody Sway. Maybe next year I can try to be the wind or
something nature-y like the night sky.
All the different creative expressionist groups come out and are
available within feet of each other, hoop dancers, ecstatic dance, acro yoga, drummers;
all the communities that I love so much, all the different options so readily available
for a day of fun. Of course in my ridiculous
costume I didn’t feel up for any of it- a sign of a really defeating
costume. Nonetheless the people
observing and running into all your friends is more than enough to keep you
busy for hours at a time.
OK so the concept that I have been thinking a lot of about;
beautiful, divine women and men. I will
have to revisit this concept as I am just starting to really think about it,
but what makes a person really shine and “be beautiful.” Let’s take my bare
breasted, body painted chakra friend who bares it all, completely free and
herself. There are a lot of amazingly
beautiful women in Austin that are comfortable with themselves and allow
themselves to express their free spirits in the most striking ways. Is it pure freedom and being comfortable with
yourself that makes a person beautiful? What about kind heartedness, does that
show through all of the body paint? Was I seen as beautiful even though I felt
lack of freedom in my costume? Did it
look as though I felt as though I was trying to be someone else that I was not?
Yet, can the divine man still see a beautiful woman beyond all the hooky
costume body paint, past the red boa and green leopard top? I laugh just
thinking about it! And do other beautiful women distract a divine man from
finding beauty in a woman who is not so “put together.”
I am trying to learn how to be feel and be beautiful without
actually physically being beautiful. I
am also trying to learn how to be beautiful without being sexual. In a time when sexuality and beauty sometimes
fuses together, how can you still be beautiful within that makes your beauty
shine outward.
So here I am in someone else’s costume idea, with the idea
that we would be taking photo ops together to promote an organization. Yet,
whenever a photographer asked the more beautiful woman for a picture, it was
never together and I was never offered to be brought in. Never in my life, have
I been the other girl standing behind the beautiful girl, and looking at her in
admiration. I usually feel beautiful in
my own way, but eeyore’s really made me have to challenge my personal
perception when I show up in someone else. I did not let it ruin my time at
all. I had a wonderful Eeyore’s, but
again it made me think of this concept of a “Beautiful Woman.”
To be completely honest, I know I have a long way to go
before I really break out of my shell of being a beautiful woman. In fact, I think it would be helpful to hang
around beautiful women and learn from them.
Is this the right way to achieve beauty? Learn by example? Or is this a quest that I must self-discover
on my own? My beautiful Chakra friend told me the story of how she broke out of
her shell, and the final words to the story was, “And as soon as I let go and
bared it all, my body moved in a way I didn’t even know possible.” Or something
to that effect… and ever since she has been free and beautiful. Will I ever go
topless in public… THAT WOULD BE THE DAY. But the concept is there nonetheless,
of showing it all.
In correspondence to this post, please also watch this great 20 minute clip on vulnerability: http://www.ted.com/talks/brene_brown_on_vulnerability.html
In correspondence to this post, please also watch this great 20 minute clip on vulnerability: http://www.ted.com/talks/brene_brown_on_vulnerability.html
