Category: femininity
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On Nurturing
Sewing Flowers, paper collage, 2023 I do not have children. And, if I am to be honest, I think that for a long time I did not believe I had a nurturing instinct. Or, if I did, that it was somehow secondary to all of the other things I should want to do or be.…
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When We Face Ourselves in Daylight
Pieces No. 14, paper collage, 2022 Every human being has the freedom to change at any instant. Viktor Frankl even now an atom in the drowning sun a wilderness on its knees invokes a whisper as if to suggest absurdity is a prelude to happiness a woman underwater is an orchid without wings don’t be…
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On Killer Instincts
You’re a Dream, mixed media collage, 2021 In Women Who Run With the Wolves, Clarissa Pinkola Estés discusses the “life-death-life” aspects of our nature—the idea that life, in its fullest form (and woman, in her fullest form) is a series of deaths and rebirths. It is this concept of “life-death-life” that got me thinking about…
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Of Sacred Seasons
This is time of year, my creativity seems to transform. Becomes almost corporeal—that is, more hands-on, more nurturing, more intensely connected to the rhythms of nature. Instead of spending my days in the writing room tinkering with poetry or experiments in collage, I find myself outdoors tending to the garden, to the wildlife that lives…
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Blink.
I continue to be surprised by the writings of Abraham Maslow. No more, perhaps, than by the depth of his interest in the intricacies of human sexuality. (Who knew?) In masculinity and femininity and their relationships to human motivation, creativity, growth, and self-knowledge. It was, in fact, from a brief analysis of male-female courtship or…
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On Erotic Self-Awareness
I believe one writes because one has to create a world in which one can live. I could not live in any of the worlds offered to me—the world of my parents, the world of war, the world of politics. I had to create a world of my own, like a climate, like a country,…
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On Wanting to Be Submissive
The deeper I immerse myself in the writings of psychologist, Otto Rank, the greater an affinity I develop for both the thinker and the man. Although, to be sure, the most interesting portrait of the doctor I’ve found comes not from his own writings, but from the diary of Anaïs Nin, with whom he had…
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On Feeling Pretty
There are certain states, certain complex, or elaborate, sensual and emotional experiences, that consistently elude description. It is as if these experiences, no matter how significant, are destined from their inception to remain feelings—to stay tucked beneath the veil of consciousness, with certain qualities rising, occasionally, to the surface where they spark a vague sense…
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On Feeling Like a Woman
After having been bogged down last week by a frenetic work schedule (not to mention the additional passing of a much-dreaded birthday, which may or may not have contributed to the current quest for “meaning”), I am grateful to be able to dedicate my time during this long Labor Day weekend to decidedly more forward-looking…
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On the Art of Femininity
I believe there is no more influential factor in forging a creative life, for women, than harnessing the power of femininity. In fact, it rankles me whenever I hear femininity dismissed as “absence” or “ornament” (especially when women do it) because I think it represents a fundamental misunderstanding of how to utilize the power of our feminine traits. If we look…
The Used Life 