Vulnerability

I’ve wanted to talk about this for a long while, ever since the image of myself with a sword…It’s very embarrassing but since I like to play around with vulnerability, I’m just going to have to take the plunge. Anyhow, this is my blog and truth be told and as someone recently pointed out to me, I wouldn’t share this kind of stuff if I didn’t want or feel the need to.

There’s a line before me that I don’t cross. I’ve never crossed it. It has way too much power over me. Call it tradition, social restriction, convention, it doesn't matter--it enjoys looming over me. It keeps me in my place. I’ve been staring at this line and what it represents for a couple of months now asking myself what the fear is really all about. There’s always a fear involved, one that taunts me and the good news is that I let it, I allow it which means I have the power to affect change. Fear, worry, and anger are emotions I must do away with. They have never served me well or at least, not to the extent I would have liked them to. And since I am evolving to become master of my own life and emotions, I’ve decided to keep these little three devils in check.

Being free involves all levels of being. Vulnerability is my doorway to freedom. I don’t know how I came to that realization except that it makes sense to me. This vulnerability is unlike the one associated with succumbing to manipulation or persuasion or being in a position where one feels susceptible to physical or emotional attack. This kind of vulnerability I speak of actually creates an inner strength because our guard is down. It involves a complete surrendering to a now, to a moment, with the complete awareness that all will be fine and just. I can feel a kind of stirring, a deep sense of rejoicing as well as an uneasiness, a discomfort.

Recently, I received an email from a woman named Holly. I had written to her a little while ago thanking her for being an inspiration to me. She's a red head model from England who's hired by many photographers seeking to show the relationship between the human figure in Nature. I first came across her work in a website dedicated to everything pre-Raphaelite. Ivory, Holly's model name, inspires me to play around with images and feelings. You can tell she's a pro because even in her nakedness she's able to merge with her physical surroundings and still be apart from it creating an array of magical photographs. I wonder how she overcame her fear of being naked or whether she ever had the fear to begin with.

It’s one thing to dress up in medieval or pre-Raphaelite costume but it’s an entirely different thing to pose nude in Nature, by some majestic tree, stream or rock. I imagine myself feeling very small and insignificant in the presence of greens and earth. However, there is also a great power, I intuit, cultivated from within. The process is sensual and downright scary but it’s the closest thing I’ll get to feeling rooted in the earth and to being connected to something larger than myself so that all of these things become an extension of myself and I an extension of them.

Out there in the cold, the poets, every ruin, rock and leaf become alive and organic, and I want to be immersed in that, with all of my perfect imperfections. If only I could have the pictures taken without anybody behind the camera!! I can't help but feel exposed and transparent and yet I understand these create the necessary backdrop to self-discovery which is precisely why I am compelled to do this. This feeling of vulnerability is so unusual and carries much more power than the actual fear of subjecting my self like that. Each one of my insecurities comes to the forefront. It's designed to work this way. And who takes the pictures? Someone I know? Someone I don’t know? Does it matter, really? No and yes. I gather it needs to be someone I would feel self-conscious around, and not someone I'm completely comfortable with. That would be easier but this is meant to be difficult. It will hold more value for me.

This is crazy. I must stop writing. My cup is overflowing…