What Have You Been Learning Lately?

"O my friends, What can you tell me of Love, Whose pathways are filled with strangeness? When you offer the Great One your love, At the first step your body is crushed. Next be ready to offer your head as his seat. Be ready to orbit his lamp like a moth giving in to the light, To live in the deer as she runs toward the hunter's call, In the partridge that swallows hot coals for love of the moon, In the fish that, kept from the sea, happily dies. Like a bee trapped for life in the closing of the sweet flower, Mira has offered herself to her Lord. She says, the single Lotus will swallow you whole ." - Mirabai Mirabai was an Indian princess turned deeply reverent and pious Krishna devotee who flouted severely strict tradition and familial expectation to worship her Lord. Her independence and the strength of her vision and devotion have been a great inspiration to me over the last five years as I melt and merge ever more with the deep and endl

"Stop worrying about whether you're fat. You're not fat. Or rather, you're sometimes a little bit fat, but who gives a shit? There is nothing more boring and fruitless than a woman lamenting the fact that her stomach is round. Feed yourself. Literally. The sort of people worthy of your love will love you more for this, sweet pea." - Dear Sugar The train whined to a halt in Highland Park and I stepped out into the gentle magic hour sunset air. Prince and the Revolution was my walk-to-Chad's-house soundtrack of choice and as I danced down the street, I decided that it would be a nice change to cease giving a fuck. There are things that are absolutely worthy of a fuck given (see: beloveds, ice cream, yoga) but shiny skin? Breast size? Hip width? Those ain't it, babies. The sense of self-worth of far too many people is being held hostage by the impossibly nebulous, shifting Standard of Beauty. This standard is decided by the whim of and is in the best inte