Extreme Bridal 2

Here's the next section of images from the lush extreme bridal session with Kaylia (first section posted here).

I don't have many words today ~ my fingers are itching to paint... so I will let the images tell their own story about beauty and promise and truth and puppy dogs.

Wishing you the very best of light ~
Leonie

































And one to make you smile...

Kaylia patiently explaining to Spiral Puppy why she can't come photoshoot-canoeing with us...

Cow Shed Love Peek

This afternoon we went for a crazy little picnic in the pouring rain to our favourite cow shed on a friend's farm.

And really, what's cow shed picnic without some photoshoot fun...

More to come... but for now, here's the lovely Angel and Connor!





I couldn't decide between this beautiful portrait...



and this one...



*happy sigh*

Such beautiful days...

i love you anyway

today

i was walking along

like a fresh blessing

in the morning.



i love the city in the morning:

the quiet way the breeze places,

through green leaves and blackbirds.

it's like all our mistakes and humanness are wiped clean

and only promise and possibility awaits.



i walk along

with honeysuckle flowers in my curling hair.

mr paris led me and my love to a honeysuckle climber this morning,

saying: "we only live once"

his grief emblazoned on a red rose on his backpack.



he shows us how

to bite off the ends and draw in the honeysuckle nectar,

telling me:

"leonie, i know of no other flower than the honeysuckle that is so similar to your essence."



so i walk

the city morning

with love, friendship, grief and life in my hair.



i walk beside men and women:

a woman dressed like a man, smoking furtively.

instead of screwing my eyes up in judgement,

i whisper to her:

i love you anyway.



a thin man walks quickly, as though harried and fearful

about being late, about being lost, about being wrong,

and i whisper to him:

i love you anyway.



every man and woman i walk beside,

i watch them silently,

taking in all their parts,

and i want to love them with all of myself.

i want to bless them, i want them to know they are not alone,

i want them to have a good day.



and the thought strikes me,

as i walk like a miandering honeysuckled hair angel in the city morning,

following others and showering them with love,

that maybe, just maybe, just definitely,

that there were angels following me whispering:

i love you anyway. you are good. you are loved. i see you.

Holy Mothership Miracle!

Sometimes miracles are waiting just behind you...
Me in the sculpture garden, photograph by JourneyMan


This is a story of serendipity, circumstance and miracle.

This is my story of today.

Yesterday my JourneyMan thought he'd have a look at the National Gallery of Australia website - not really a usual thing for him as we don't get there often. We are more into the National Library for their art exhibitions, funnily enough. He happened upon a new exhibition opening there - Culture Warriors - and thought he might like to go sometime.

Last night I had a night of photographic inspiration, so this morning when I loaded up my handbag, I included my big Canon 30D - not a usual thing at all.

We went to our usual Saturday morning haunts this morning and finished early, so JourneyMan decided to take me to the exhibition. We arrived and it hadn't opened yet, so we roamed around the Sculpture Garden instead, photographing, kissing, exploring, playing with the spring time floss, scoping out the beautiful landscape for future photoshoots. We had so much fun we didn't get into the gallery until half hour after it opened.

As we moved up the escalators, we spotted a group of Aboriginal artists waiting at the front of the gallery. We looked at each other with wide eyes and big grins - "Honey, I think something is happening today."

Then over the loudspeakers, the Gallery tells us that the Culture Warriors exhibition was open, and in five minutes the Aboriginal artists from the exhibition will be speaking on all their paintings.

JourneyMan and I have a deep interest in the Aboriginal culture and artwork. I feel we have so much to learn from them on so many levels, and honour how deeply they love the spirit of this land and Earth.

We walked down to exhibition, and there is a large gathering with a number of TV cameras. A Ngunnawal woman welcomed us and the artists from around Australia to her ancestor's land. At this point, my tears began to flow. I felt so deeply touched by her speaking of her ancestors and her land, and so honoured to be there to hear it.

And then the Aboriginal artists began to speak, sharing their stories about their artworks.

Can you say dream come true?

We moved from room to room. I have been changed by every artist's story.

The old man with his grandson sharing the story of the flying fox.

A younger woman, not much older than JourneyMan, part of the Stolen Generation, and now reclaiming and preserving her culture through art.

The man who began to cry as he spoke about not knowing his language.

So many stories to share. So much healing to take place. So much cultural beauty and spirit to celebrate.

And then, as we moved in a large group into the next gallery room, my eyes glassed over with joy and I lost my ability to speak. There, in front of an incredible portrait of an Aboriginal warrior maiden, was my favourite Australian artist of all time: Julie Dowling.

I actually wrote about Julie on my blog three years ago, and not long after, I got an email from her and her twin sister Carol who had read it. At the time I was blow-my-mind-excited from the email. Can you imagine me today, getting to actually hear her speak? She was candid, warm, articulate and precious. She spoke about finding peace in herself as she grew older, and introduced me to a scientific term that I am already a spiritual believer of.

Ethnobotany is the concept that the more we disconnect from our land, the more unhealthy we become. In other words, touch Mama Earth everyday, and eat from Her bounty.

So by now my head was officially blown off, and was shooting festoons of glitter into the air at random intervals. When the crowd moved into the next room, I took a deep breath and introduced myself to Carol and Julie. THE Carol and Julie. Artists, writers, world-changers and goddesses. And they remembered me! Holy freaking mother miracle! I told them just how much I honoured their work and appreciated what they did. They told me they liked my blog. (Dude! Can you say best day EVER?)

I think I walked away from that on clouds. I met two of my heroes.

We walked into the next room to listen to the next artist, JourneyMan grinning as I made silent joy-shrieks in his shoulder. And then... the thought struck me. I really want to photograph the twins. The vision of the photograph comes to me, and I become obsessed by it. "I need to photograph them" I whisper to JourneyMan. For me, to photograph someone has become to honour them, document their soul beauty and truly see them as they are. It has become a spirit journey, a visual exploration of the divine.

The thought of photographing them struck me as too wild, too deep, too crazy an idea. I couldn't possibly ask them. And we walked out.

And that's where the story ends.

Then I opened a book in the gift store, and there were six photographs of the twins. And I realised that I couldn't let it be where the story ends. I couldn't spend my life wondering - what if? I learned in that moment that I could live with whatever the answer would be, I just couldn't live with not asking the question. I walked back in, still full of fear, humanness and feelings of impossibility. I told my angels - "Please be with me. I am okay if this doesn't happen. But if you put the twins in front of me, I will ask the question."

We walked back, and there in front of me was Carol, with her smiling face.
I said "I have a crazy and wild question for you. It's okay to say no, but I need to ask: May I photograph you and Julie?"

She said yes.

And I had my camera on me.
And I knew where in the Sculpture Garden I could photograph them.

And I was there. And they were there.
And we were willing.

It feels like every perfect part of life lined up today, for a huge mothership miracle dream of mine to come true... the camera, the question, the being there at the perfect time.

I couldn't have planned it better. And maybe that's the point: that the Universe is the Master of Creating Your Dreams for you. Just dream it, and follow your nose. And have little adventures for fun. They may just make your life path blossom with exquisite flowers.

Believe, Believe, Believe.
When you least expect it, your life will change.

Miracles are waiting to enter the wings,
Leonie

(photographs to come)

Dear One

this came out just after i wrote this...


Dear Clinty,

I've been dreaming about you lately.

You've been in my dreams and close to my skin, and when I awake I find you're not just around me but inside me now.

I think, "you are my biggest brother" - not only my oldest, but the biggest - the man who is bigger than the stars and clusters of planets and a field lying yellow in the summer. You are bigger than exquisite possibilities and truth and body, and you teach us that.

A few weeks ago, a boy I knew when I was a teenager died. And he made me think of you. He would have been nearly the same age as you when you died. I turn your eternal age of 25 in a few short weeks. I used to think you were old enough to die - that 25 years is a good go at life. And yet, here I am on the birthing precipice of that age, and there is still so much to do. So much to live and feel and experience and know and do.

I dreamed that you died again, and I began to wail that I was losing you all over again. And the stars came out, and I stopped wailing, and I realised I knew how to grieve now.

My grieving made me yearn to dance, my bare feet thrashing the gravel, my sweat becoming stars, my heart pumping long, loving bursts of blood through me. I wanted to dance you into heaven, I wanted to celebrate you in the ways I now know how to.

I didn't want everyone to go home, to sit in our silent rooms on our own and cry, to not know what to say, to feel that the experience was too uncomfortable to sit with. So I gathered our family and friends together in a big circle near the shed. And we drummed, we sang, we danced, we prayed, we spoke, guiding you home to Great Spirit.

I danced you into me, in that dream.

I danced until my arms were a-swirl and every precious possibility, every piece of love, every dream, every promise, every lifetime was awake.

Today, I wake up and you are with me.

Today, I wake up and something I want falls through, but I feel you beside me, smiling down a thousand lifetimes on me, telling me that everything is sacred, everything is real, everything is new, and everything will happen.

I want to photograph you today. I will photograph the stars and the grass and the great looming trees instead. You are in them.

All My Love,

Bony


And then the sun came out and glowed through the rain
and the whole world looked like a miracle...

hey just wanted to let you know

(it really is).

this Universe has the most beautiful, blessed plans for you just waiting to blossom.

and right now, all you can do is Be and enJOY.

feel the love,
leonie

p.s. two nights ago, i woke myself up from laughing so hard in my sleep.
i think that's a good sign for this world of ours.

Putting the GRAND in Grandmother

This is my super sassy Granny and her sister Sally in their early twenties.
Tomorrow I am flying back home for Granny's birthday, and a celebration of ninety years of magnificent living.

I want to hold in my heart all the ways my Gran has touched my life.

My friend Shan allocates a special type of description to the women she respects: she says they have "guts, balls, determination and integrity."
My Gran is that kind of woman. She also has a smile that she embraces the whole town with. She has a way of making people feel good and safe with her. She knows things intuitively before anyone else does.

On the phone not so long ago, she said to me
"I think your sister is interested in a suitor, Leonie."
"Really Gran? Why's that?"
"She's been taking to dressing herself nice of late, and she has a little glow around her... I think she might be interested in a young man."
Sure enough, Gran was right. As she always is.


She looks like she has wings here...

And she has SASS.
That woman looks good every day of the week. I took these photos of her in April, and she was wearing spunky pink stillettos, white pedal pushers, a striped pink flowing top and huge white framed "winkers" (otherwise known as sunglasses, for those who do not speak Gran-language.)

I'd just picked her up from the op-shop where she still works a few days a week.
She said to me:
"Leonie, do you know I sold hundreds of dollars of clothes today?"
"Really? That's awesome Gran!"
"Do you want to know why I am so successful at it?"
"Why?"
"Because I model all of the clothes!"

And with that, she placed her hands on her hips, and waggled.

My Gran has SASS.


My mum and grandmother, doing their dance of love for 55 years...

The morning before we took these photos, I was driving with Mum, and said to her:
"Mum, I've always felt different. Odd. Unique. A bit zany. Just a bit out of skew with everyone else. I wonder if it's genetic, and where I get it from."
And she sighed this tiny whisper of a sigh, and replied:
"I feel like that too sometimes. Maybe you get it from me. I don't know where I get it from."
And then we looked out over the yellow eucalypts rushing by.

Later that day, I told Granny I wanted to take some photos of her.
And she giggled like a schoolgirl, and said dramatically
"I don't know how to pose though... I'm camera shy... I've never been a model before..."
"Sure thing Gran, we'll just go with the flow."

I turned on my camera, and took some test shots.
"I know! Let's play on the swings!" she says, and she is off with a trot.
My Mum sits on the opposite end to even out the weight.

It must have been quite a sight really.

Three blonde women in hysterics of laughter. The two oldest playing on the swings. The youngest with camera full of smiles.

And there in her little pink stillettos, my camera-shy Gran with her little white bob, bouncing up and down on the swings, yahooing like a rodeo cowgirl.



It was at that point I turned to Mum and said
"I think we just found our genetic zany-ness."

This woman must have had ninety years of practice because she sure is good at LIVING.

So this weekend is a gathering of all my family and relatives, and ninety of my Gran's closest friends to celebrate this Woman.

This woman of huge strength, a lion's heart, a mother's courage, a shining smile and crazy diamond spirit. My grandmother has grieved two husbands, two sons and a grandson. But every time I ask her how she is, she replies with a thousand-megawatted smile:
"I woke up this morning. I was still breathing. So, I thought: it's a GOOD day!"

I have so much to learn from this woman. The whole world does, I think.

Happy, happy birthday my beautiful grandmother.
For all the good days that have come before and all the good days to come,
I celebrate and love you with all my heart, and am so honoured to have come from you.

Big love,
Leonie


P.S. If there was any way to get ninety birthday wish comments... that would be oh-so-freaking glorious... I could show her them on Sunday all the wishes from around the world!
All good either way... but just putting it out there ;)


~
Back next week! :)

tweet song

I've been a (chinese silk dragon embroidered) fan of Magpie Girl since I found her online patch of grass & roosting palace a few moons ago. Her sharings about interfaith, sacred and communal gatherings and soulful living make little red flames in my heart.

Not only is she a priestess of Monkfish Abbey, an urban mama goddess, a vintage cloths connossieur, and a sacred jewels maker ~ she is a writer:artist:photographer who alchemises this trinity of talents into the gold of Zine.



Her newest zine is a delicious mini book ~ 36 sumptuous pages of colour to dive into and soak up for a while. "Tweet" is an honouring of the summer months: all the ways to sparkle and shine in the sun. Precisely what I need really, considering over this side of the planet, we are in winter.

And in winter tradition of the alpine country, I've managed to pick up a flu named Pharyngitis, which sounds like some kind of exotic spanish dance. I like to make up little songs in my head about fa-fa-farangitis, imagining it to be cocoa-skinned, wearing a dress with many fru-frus. I've been spending inordinate amounts of time lying on a beanbag watching my dog as he falls asleep, then letting him watch me fall asleep. If there was ever a way to get me to stop doing everything at a thousand miles an hour, fa-fa-farangitis is the way.

Needless to say, I've been reading Tweet while soaking up all the droplets of sunshine that fall on my bed. A perfect balmy sunkissed fruit concoction for my wintertouched spirit.



Stories, prayers, saint goddess collecting cards, recipes and sweet surprises:
I think Tweet (and zines in general) might just be playbooks for us adult children.
Maybe they should hand them out on airplanes as adult activity packs!

You can get yourself some Tweet-a-lage at Magpie Girl's etsy store!

In the meantime, I am off to make myself another cup of steaming healing fruit tea (inspired by my healing herbal wise woman friend Sone)...

For you in winter, and you in summer ~
dream this baby up!

Healing Magical Unicorns Fruit Soother

* Three quarters a glass of orange, passionfruit or apple juice (or combination of all three... combo is extra ju-ju magical)
* Tablespoon of honey
* Three whole cloves
* Six cardomom
* Splash of water

Warm, savour, enjoy and melt all resistance away...

Blessings to you, from me,
with gifts of warmth and joy,
Leonie

teal

Somedays I get so caught up in my head.
In comparing myself, in believing things that aren't true, in disregarding and judging and being divisive and just generally feeling a lot of soul pain. So apart from myself and apart from My Self ~ that is ~ You. All of you. Every soul on this Earth, every breathing tree, every panting dog, every swelling sea. When I am hard on myself, or hard in my thoughts about any one of You ~ I feel soul pain, because I am apart from the Great Truth of our Divine and Lovely Oneness.

(Writing that, I see that apart is a-part, so any feeling of disconnection or away from is an illusion and not the Beauty Truth.)

I decided last night that I'd had enough. That I needed - somehow - to make new brain synapse pathways instead of driving the jeep down the rutted brain thought roads of Not Good Enough Street, I Am Unloved Circuit, I Am Unseen Driveway.

So I went to sleep with meditative music playing in my ear, imagining all the angels rushing to my side just to monitor my life source.

I wake up, and somehow I can't quite fall as low as I did yesterday.
At lunch, a burly, beautiful man takes me on a walk. Past a sales bin, and there is a treasure calling my name. A gorgeous soft beanie cap (in the colour of "teal" as my New Best Friend At Work labelled it). Somehow, under its embrace, I feel safer, like my head is enveloped in Clouds of Gladness. It is my own little emblem of hope, an adornment on the altar of my body to symbolise who I am under the sky.

We move to the bookstore, and over and over books peek out at me from a woman with radiant grey eyes. She reminds me on one page that when we say we need to love ourselves more ~ it is not the truth. Because that makes the assumption is that Love is something we need to DO, and that we do not already Live in a State of Love.

I forget, sometimes, about that Love.
Please be gentle with me, World, when I forget that. It pains me just as much as you when I forget about Love. And I promise I will try to remember that we are ALL in this sway of forgetting and remembering about Ourselves and Love. Sometimes I think the crabbiest and most jaded amongst us are the ones keening for Love the most. May I always Love them.

Such small but huge things ~
a beanie, and a book,
to make things seem beautiful and My Own again.

As the sun set, I find myself giggling in the bedroom,
rolling about with a camera,
finding delight in my own gifts again.

I love you, just as I love myself, and I love what we are doing,
and I will have faith for Us as tiny as a seed and as mighty as an oak,
as much as I can from wherever I am.

With love, gentleness, magic and remembering to you ~
Leonie