Tag: balloon

Lightly child, lightly

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Like breath or a balloon, I’m rising,
I hover six inches in the air
in my blazing swan-egg of light.
You think I’m not a goddess?
Try me.
This is a torch song.
Touch me and you’ll burn.

– Margaret Atwood, from “Helen of Troy Does Countertop Dancing”

 

Notes:

  • Poem Source: Anne Sexton Appreciation. Photo: Deviant Art
  • Post Title & Inspiration: Aldous Huxley: “It’s dark because you are trying too hard. Lightly child, lightly. Learn to do everything lightly. Yes, feel lightly even though you’re feeling deeply. Just lightly let things happen and lightly cope with them.”

TGIF: Wait, wait, shiver, delight.

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Snoopy skating through Columbus Circle in 1987.  In 2018, it was nearly 100 Years for the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, a Children’s Pilgrimage of Wonder. Wait, wait, shiver, delight. (Photo by Sara Krulwich / The New York Times)

Lightly Child, Lightly.

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Everything wants to float.
And yet we move about like weights,
attaching ourselves to everything, in thrall to gravity…

— Rainer Maria Rilke, from “14,” Sonnets to Orpheus.

Notes:

  • Photograph: Lori Vrba with ‘The Caretaker’s Balloon’ (via Newthom)
  • Prior “Lightly child, lightly” Posts? Connect here.
  • Post Title & Inspiration: Aldous Huxley: “It’s dark because you are trying too hard. Lightly child, lightly. Learn to do everything lightly. Yes, feel lightly even though you’re feeling deeply. Just lightly let things happen and lightly cope with them.”

T.G.I.F.: the chatter of blind effortful thought

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balloon-tgif-let-go

People had often told me to ‘let go’ more, to give myself up to music or impulse, or rest, and I had always thought it meant a passive plunging in to the oblivion of my blind thought. But always, when given its head, my blind thought had carried me away into hot, fussy anxieties or long-winded scheming for things it wanted, some plan or another which would not let me rest. And this state had spread from my mind to my body, so that my muscles were always taut with the effort to get what I wanted. Now, however, when I had at last learnt the restraining act which was real ‘letting go’, the chatter of blind effortful thought dwindled from an exhausting distraction to the far-away twitter of sparrows high up in the eaves.

~ Marion Milner, A Life of One’s Own (First Published, 1934)

 

Notes:

And Then You Just Let Go

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patty-maher-red-balloon-let-go
Yes you do Patty. Yes you do.

“Working primarily through staged self-portraiture and portraiture, Patty creates rich vibrant photographs that envision the world in a transformative light.  Patty loves to create in the boundaries between real life and the otherworldly, the surreal and the fantastic.” (About Patty Maher)

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