My heart grows lighter each time I allow one of its shadows to reveal themselves.
Each one has a story to tell.
One wants to lie down, close her eyes, drift off and never come back. A bright future pulls her from this quite space and dumps her in the limelight where her gentle voice cannot be heard.
Another lightly dismisses a hurtful friend. She knows she stills loves her because she feels a bitter joy at the thought of being missed. Her heart burns with protective anger.
This one shouts: "Shut up, you don’t know who I am. You have no idea what I feel. You are ignorant, narrow minded and insensitive. Stop turning me into what you need to believe in."
That one criticizes my writing. "You sound self obsessed and proud, you are not being honest. You edit reality to sound good. Why can you not say what I mean without sounding pretentious?"
There are many more. Some are known to me, some I might never meet.
They rise up and show themselves because they trust that their voices will be heard. Must be heard. Without them compassion might not exist.
See more selfportraits here
ps: Below this mail is another, quivering in fear that it might not be noticed because it was posted earlier today. Please be kind to it...
5 comments:
i have just read all your posts. no, i have swallowed them, too quickly, you need to be tasted more carefully, slowly for the true taste to reveal itself. i have only brushed the texture with my tongue...it's promising an even better middle.
Gawd, you're such a piercing writer Helena...and I love the images that accompany them...
WHen I come here, it's like cutting all the small talk and getting right to the point...
ANd I gotta ask - what's a cob house??
Lil
wow. tell us more about that first picture. is that a half empty pool? a boat in the water?
COB HOUSE! We want to build a cob house in Belize...you must talk about this more, too.
I am so demanding...wow. sorry.
A cob house is a house build from sand, clay and straw. You can see our half build house in the background of some of my pictures. I will do a post explaining our journey so far.
The first picture shows our pool. My boyfriend flo has decided to turn it into a water reservoir. Since we are filling it with rainwater, filling it is taking a little while.
I got so exited taking these pictures I took my jeans off and waded in wearing nothing but my t-shirt and knickers.
But that was not half as exiting as these three comments, crouching on the page, waiting, and then leaping up into my eyes.
Wow, awesome! You have a really good eye when it comes to taking photos. Each photo is both a complete story in itself, and a lead into a story, inviting you to come explore and discover the tale behind it.
Very glad you decided to start blogging. You should have done so long ago :-)
Post a Comment