Lauren 040214-298

Lauren – USA

/in /by

To: Lauren
Of 2012, in the bed with the shades closed
From: Lauren
Of 2014, living happily

You’re going to find a way (soon) to begin mending. To begin learning how to love yourself. The world’s expectations of what is perfect will continue being relentless but you will figure out that being perfect is such a bore.

That feeling that your family will never love you again is wrong. They will always love you. No matter if you are too large, too sexual, too out of touch, or too different to make them comfortable. You’re going to find out that it is more comfortable to live inside the uncomfortable because this is where you’re allowed to grow, make mistakes, and learn why you love your family. Why you need them but why you will forge your own path.

You are going to continue to fight with your body. Wouldn’t it be great if Lauren from 2020 would write and tell us otherwise? But take this time to look forward to the coming challenge of learning how to love your body. You are going to be well enough to be able to take that completely frightening task head on. Can you imagine what it will be like when we don’t need the constant reassurance of a significant other that we’re beautiful? Or what it will be like to continue being put under a magnifying glass by Mom and stand there proudly? (Perhaps it is our job to teach her about what loving the body you live in truly is and forgive her for not teaching that to us.) And if you can’t, that’s okay because I can’t either—but I have a strong feeling we are going to find a way to make peace.

There are so many things I could tell you but I want you to know that the pain is going to go away. You’re going to find the strength in you to get out of that room, out of that apartment, away from those “sisters” who don’t understand your depression, and into a new light because you are strong. You are radiant, you are beautiful, and I love you. You are a giant bundle of a hot mess but I love you, which gives me hope of being able to catch up with time and start loving myself here and now. You, no matter how far under the covers you hide, are where my strength comes from.

Oh yeah, you’re also going to be lying in the grass naked looking at the sky, through the limbs of the trees, and feel beautiful while someone who calls you “beautiful” takes photos of you. How awesome is that? And even though the anticipation of that photo being online for the world to see (and criticize if they so choose) is enough to make me want to vomit, it’s even more so thrilling because that moment in time where you felt absolutely natural, absolutely sexy, absolutely strong, is never going to be taken away from you. It’s just another stop along the way in the discovery of self-love.

I’m proud of what you’ve done. You’ve made it through the worst. Now let’s get to the best.

Ryan 021714-47-2-3

Ryan – USA

/in /by

Embodied but Free

 

This is my coming out letter. As a result of the Embody Project, and other circumstances, this is my experience and understanding of my gender today – 1 March 2014. I continue to learn more, remain open and hopefully help others that transcend the contemporary concepts of gender.

 

Erica Mueller: Why do you want to participate in The Embody Project?
Me: I guess I’ve always felt misrepresented by my body; people see me as a ‘man.’

 

Look at this picture closely.

What do you see?

Did the thought “He is ______” cross your mind? The first pronoun already misrepresents me as a whole person, never mind what you place in the blank. I do answer to He and His because I often identify with that gender; I also identify with the female gender and many others. I am genderfluid. I do not conform to or identify with society’s binary concept of male/masculine and female/feminine. I can switch gender identity and expression based on situation, place and time, or from one day to the next. Gender expression is given by appearance, mannerisms and voice. However, even these feminine and masculine gender descriptors are incorrect for me and rely on a binary system of gender identification; not a gender spectrum. I am both, none, and then some.

To understand myself and those like me I will discuss and relate to four topics: gender assigned at birth, gender identity, gender expression and sexuality.

Gender assigned at birth is an easy topic, or is it? A baby exits a mothers womb, the doctor takes a quick glance between the legs and it’s done: male or female gender based on biological sex; two possibilities for the people of Earth. Gender is not biological sex. I was born with male genitalia, as you can see in the picture. This didn’t feel uncomfortable or awkward until I began to notice my femininity as a teenager. Most of the time I accept my male body. I am quite literally attached to my penis. I relate to it, I identify with it as my body, the body I was born with, it’s cool.

Gender identity is an individual’s personal understanding of their gender on a gender spectrum: male, female or agender are but a few options. This concept can be confusing in a society where gender is binary and correlated with biological sex. I was raised as a male. I identified as male, still do sometimes, and have masculine characteristics. When I became sexually active is when I realized I was not entirely male gendered. I would jokingly refer to myself as a lesbian in a man’s body. How awesome to be a woman that identifies as a man in a man’s body! Best of all worlds, unless I had those days, or weeks, where I was a woman that identified as a woman in a man’s body… shit. I have repressed my femininity for most of my life due to societal standards; however, perhaps due to repression or other factors my femininity has become more prevalent as I’ve aged. I have started to integrate both aspects into my identity and expression, but I still have moments where I want to express a strong masculine or feminine identity openly.

Gender expression refers to how an individual portrays their gender identity to the world. I have days when I am noticeably masculine: I want a big 4×4 truck, flannel shirts and truckers hats; but then, too, I have days where I just want to be a pretty girl with long flowy skirts and poofy blouses, I move delicately and I’m emotionally sensitive to everything. This is difficult for me in a society that enforces gender uniformity based on biological sex. I rarely wear women’s clothes out of the house, but I do take my femininity out on the road show. People ask if I am ‘gay’ or ‘bi-sexual’, they never believe me when I say no, but this may become a half-truth.

Sexuality. One definition is the sexual habits and desires of an individual. I am, for most purposes, heterosexual. I am biologically male with a fluid feminine and masculine gender expression, even though I do identify with more genders. My feminine gender is attracted to masculine form and behavior while my masculine gender is attracted to the feminine form and behavior. I’ve recently begun to incorporate my gender identities into a whole, so I’m attracted to men and women with androgynous physical characteristics. The androgyne as an ideal has become attractive to me as I’m learning to embrace and express my gender transcendence.

Look at this human form and see me for who I am, a genderfluid human being that may express theirself along the spectrum of gender possibilities.

Lily 021914-239a

Lily – USA

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I remember dancing. I remember dancing under the moonlight, the drum’s beating heart enticing my body to sway. I remember hips circling, arms swirling, bare feet stomping on the naked earth. I remember hearing her song of devotion, the melodic sound dissolving my resistance. The seamless beauty of her voice seduces my spirit into this journey of embodiment.

I remember blood. I remember blood streaming down my thighs, eager to return to the land below. Like a lost child returning to its mother, my blood finds its way home. I remember my womb, nurturing life and then letting go. I remember painting my face with my blood, surrendering to the wildness of my animal nature.

I remember fire. I remember fire sparking passion, awakening desire, warming flesh and bone. I remember flame beckoning to me like a lover, calling me into its embrace and lighting my way through the mystery. I remember rising to meet it, fierce and powerful, raging with pleasure and love. Together we burn away the old, our alchemical cauldron birthing a new way.

This I remember. This is what I find, when I strip away the layers of clothing. This is what I find, when I shed the wounds of fear, shame, and isolation.

And through this stripping, I re-member that my wounds are a gateway to my power.

Through the gateway of my fear, lies the deepest love I have ever known. Behind this door, there is trust that does not falter no matter what horrors or grief I encounter, because this love is bigger than anything else has ever been. Here there is intimacy that cannot be lost, because it is inextricably woven into the fabric of existence.

Through the gateway of my shame, emerges pleasure beyond my wildest dreams. Here there is joy and delight in every sensual experience, and in every aspect of being alive.

Through the gateway of my isolation, comes the unshakable knowing of Oneness, even in this separate body. The separate Self simply provides an opportunity to revel more fully in the magic of unity.

For how can we truly know the magnificence of being whole and intact, if we have never known the sorrow of being broken?

My spirit knows unity in every breath.

Yet my body needs to feel the sturdy ground of earth, the sparking heat of fire, the tickling scent of an ocean breeze, the ridged bark of an ancient oak, the rhythmic vibration of a purring cat, the smoothness of a snake’s skin, the embrace of a beloved. My body needs to feel another body joining with mine, in ecstatic surrender, in order to remember that we are already One.

Rachel

Rachel – USA

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“Be big.”

That’s something I said to a close friend recently, who weighs just under 100 pounds, and who struggles with worrying that if she eats too much, she will become unattractive.

“Be big” is some advice that I could listen to myself.

Life is in the little details. All of them. Not just the positive, empowering details of our best moments when we feel full and confident, but in the ones that remind us how fragile we are. I have discovered that true empowerment for me comes from acknowledging the moments of doubt, the insecurities, the raw vulnerability, and from sharing them. Ninety-five percent of the time, I am a bold, self-confident whirlwind of a woman, but lately it is my brief moments of fear that have brought me closer to who I want to be. So rather than write about how empowered and explosive and strong and brave I felt swinging through the crisp autumn air and flinging myself off this rope swing into frigid water, I want to talk about the vulnerability that inspired me to act.

I am afraid of being too big. I’m scared of being too heavy. I’m terrified of being more than someone wants. My insecure moments descend on me when the weight of little words builds up, before I remember to throw up defenses. Passing comments of “wow, you’re tall for a woman,” or “can I try this acrobatic move with your smaller friend first?” or “I usually couldn’t do aerials with someone as big as you, but I’m glad this dance gives us momentum to do it!”…These often unintentional words seep their way into my normally resilient skin, because, after all, no human is perfectly waterproof.

I often catch myself slouching so that I’ll appear just a couple inches shorter.

Women are taught to take up as little space as possible. We celebrate our gorgeous curves and tell ourselves that real women have some meat, yet every time I sit on someone’s lap, I’m terrified that I’m too much. “Please, ladies, have a bodacious, womanly figure, but just try to keep it under 115 pounds…”

I am not petite. That’s taken me many years to accept.

So let this photo shoot be about sharing my vulnerability rather than insisting on my confidence, because just as we need to see the joy and possibility of empowerment, showing our fears is infinitely harder.

Through this photo I want to share with you…

my instinct to physically shrink and appear small “enough”

my fear of heights,

my terror that admitting my insecurities will make me seem weak and unattractive

my doubt of my physical strength,

my reluctance to stretch up and out and fill space

my worry that I am simultaneously not enough and too much

I am a beautiful, capable woman, and let me emphasize how big and strong my heart and body are by sharing with you that…

I am vulnerable.

Esjay

Esjay – USA

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Cold hard metal against my shaking hands, the tip-toeing dancing pads of my feet. I was excited and happy. Thankfully, I had the warm rush I was counting on. Teeny tiny vibrations. Everywhere. Like bounciness at the atomic level. I imagined the billions of electrons in and around me buzzing and bumping around, greeting each other excitedly to create warmth.

I was distracted by my quivering jaw, the twisting and tightening cold against my skin, all surfaces of my body exposed to the elements. I had a strong and sensible desire to be warm again. But I wouldn’t dare let this moment be stolen by the weather. No, this was too special a time for my thoughts to be occupied by such predictable and familiar sensations…I wanted to dig deeper to discover what was hiding beneath it. So I focused. Focused on emitting that happy hot excitement to the surface of my skin to rise as steam and beam from my eyes.

Tingling all over, I pushed past the cold and saw the beauty of my setting. Rust and red. Bare iron and the remains of its red paint shield. Function and form. One day, this wheel scooping water, the water pushing the wheel. My wheel, rotating still, on this old relic of energy capture. Still doing its trick, it pulled me right in.

I felt honest. Before, during, now. Why share in this bold manner if it isn’t honest? But how to honestly convey all that I am in one frozen image, one interview, one essay? I’m relying on trust. Trust that what I’m sharing is relatable. Though I find moments of ecstasy experiencing what I believe to be my uniqueness, I find comfort and connection, something like “a reason for it all” by discovering my similarities.

What a gift. To be open and honest and have others relate to that honesty; to feel connected to another’s spinning, twirling, radiating insides. Giving of yourself plainly so you can be plainly received. Not expected, but a pleasant surprise. Like life. I never could have imagined what an amazing experience it is to be alive.

I was smiling, not just for the camera, but inside. Looking around, a flock of birds in the sky, tangled vines in the trees, water rushing behind me. Focusing on bark and branches, the grubby surface of the worn metal, specs of green, whisps of clouds, craggy boulders…and then letting my gaze go fuzzy, seeing nothing more than my inward smile. Smiling now with the sheer joy that I can see. And be seen.

Seeing my image captured, I felt immediate acceptance. Like what I imagine a mother might feel upon first inspection of her newly born child. Instantaneous love and compassion for this being, though they’ve just laid eyes on each other. I didn’t see what I had imagined I’d see. I appeared different than the me I dress in the mirror, the private me. I thought of the Odalisque, not an image I ever associated myself with; the softness, the classic femininity of a past era. But in a single moment all is unchangeable. All is as it is. Frozen. There would be no changing form before we continued on. No way of transforming into the image I recognized in my minds eye. No, I wasn’t going to see anything different in the end than what I was seeing right then. I accepted that. Quicker than self acceptance has ever come to me. This instantaneous feeling was the biggest lasting impression of the embody experience. My utter acceptance of me. My physical form made of my vibrating cells, my spinning thoughts and pulsing energy giving shape to this body; revealed on a red wheel.

Grace

Grace – USA

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I’ve been disconnected.

I spent my first 25 (or more) years completely out of touch with myself and my body. I had no confidence, but I can’t really say I had poor self esteem or a poor body image. I had no sense of myself at all, and essentially no awareness of my body.

I wasn’t witnessed by my parents. They didn’t see me because they couldn’t. My mother’s severe depression and insecurity coupled with my father’s continuous anger and clinical narcissism demanded that I fill the role they needed for their apparent well-being. My role was to be perfect and well adjusted, and to focus on them. I needed to ignore and hide all my needs and emotions so that they could function. Since they couldn’t witness me, they weren’t able to reflect back to me the beautiful, imperfect, complete person that I was. I hid, and I lied, and I replaced the truth of my humanity with the appearance that I had a well-rounded grasp of every aspect of my life. Unfortunately, I hid all that I was from myself as well. I was unbelievably disconnected, unable to witness myself internally and completely disassociated from my body.

I grew up in South Florida so there was a lot of skin visible pretty much everywhere. I viewed it as vain and shallow, and while I was completely ignoring my body I was also priding myself on the fact that I was well adjusted enough not to participate in the objectification of women. I knew that societies’ standards of beauty were an unrealistic joke. However, I foolishly thought that even recognizing my body would somehow mimic the shallowness I wanted to avoid. I felt completely separate from my body. I sometimes found myself staring with confusion in a mirror, not really knowing who I was looking at. There was a sadness and longing there that I didn’t recognize as I just told myself that I was evolved enough to know that my real self had nothing to do with my body. Again, I wasn’t witnessing myself as human.

And then I met my husband. He taught me to love by seeing me… loving me… and allowing me the space to commit errors and be the complete, imperfect person that I am. Slowly (very slowly) I’ve learned that I’m human. Yes, my essence (our essence – the essence) is flawless love, but, I am also human. I am imperfect. I have flaws. I make mistakes all the time. I’m selfish and I hurt other people. And that’s amazing. It means I’m alive and I can understand other people. And while I’m alive as this imperfect, beautiful human – I have a body. As I’ve become more aware of myself, and my human nature, I’ve become more aware of my body. My senses are more alive. I see myself as beautiful and sexy, and sometimes as ugly and worn. I notice my physical imperfections and they feel normal. I feel like my body is mine. I’m beginning to see my image, and regardless of my assessment of that image, think “Yes, I am her. That body is me. I am that person.”

I am starting to connect.

Erica

Erica – USA

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My Embody Project shoot came up quickly, and I didn’t have much time to prepare, mentally or physically. I felt a little nervous about it beforehand. I wondered how I was going to be captured in the photos, and I wondered how my thoughts would come across in the interview. The idea was to shoot me editing Embody Project images on my computer, working the way I do every day. Turns out I found it easy to be photographed naked while engaged with my work. I almost forgot about the camera a few times as I sang along with my favorite songs. I definitely forgot to think about my body, my nakedness, and that was a surprise. After the shoot, I found myself feeling grateful, grounded, energized, and open.

My lifelong struggle to accept my body as valuable and beautiful, with all its “flaws,” in our idealized culture, has taken me to the very depth of my shadow and to the razor’s edge of my capacity to grow. Through the years it’s carried a lot of weight inside me. But I’m thankful for all the mineshafts and mirrors along the way — which have shown me my “beauty,” my “ugly,” and everything in between — because each one has forced me, by baby steps and giant leaps, to question my assumption that the reflections were true. I’ve come to see that all reflections are relative truths: when someone finds me beautiful it is not about me but them; their thoughts, their opinions, their preferences. For every person who finds me attractive there is another who will find flaws. I’m still me, but the reflection constantly changes.

What’s left for me now is that how I experience myself in the vast dynamic scope of all that I am, both as human animal and divine spark, is all that’s important. It begins, and ends, with me owning and loving me as I am now, right here, and letting go of however it is that you might see me. Over time, it’s felt like that weight has slowly been lifting from my soul. And during this shoot, it fell away completely and revealed something wonderful and simple and already present: Freedom to be.

Working on the Embody Project, I’ve been moved to tears during shoots by watching something inside someone release into total self-acceptance. It’s joyful. It’s brilliant. It’s palpable. That’s what this whole Embody Project is about, and that is my life’s work, to continue to experience for myself and to keep sharing with others.

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

2015 Update

 

I saw all of you last night, through a window of tumbling internet mosaic panes

I saw your glass shards, your green hills, your cold rivers, your beautiful infinite skins

Yesterday when I was just an I

forgetful and alone

you spoke your truth

and I witnessed your reclaiming

sang your celebration

felt the soft contours of your strength

and intimately knew your Yes

 

In your courageous acts of defiance

you revealed yourselves, revealing me

And I remembered

the why of it all

the we of it all

the us that we are

And I felt a welling up

from within

and a deep longing

to join you again

 

Every day I walk on jagged pieces of my weathered stories

at times forgetful and alone

scanning the green horizon

asking the everblue sky

for remembering

And every time I look out through the window

at you

at me

something else

long forgotten

buried and discarded

crumbling and dirty

so precious

so needed

is whispering

its Yes

 

And so

because of this

because of you

for you and with you

I am on this bench today

so you can see me now

Naked, truly

Brad-Leaf

Brad-Leaf – USA

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Healing Ritual Space is where I spend about half of my time. The so-called “altered state of consciousness” is a place where I go regularly, on my own accord. Daily, nightly, I pass back and forth between the world of dreams, and the world of form, and I watch how one becomes the other.

As we did this photo shoot, my grandmother was dying. She lay in a hospital bed 170 miles away, struggling to find her way through to the Spirit World. She needed my help, and so…I set out with her to find the way through to the other side. The lens of the camera became our portal.

BIRTH
the lens is the birth canal
Is it me, looking for the way through,
or is it my Mamaw?
The Voice says, “It is both. Go through. You’re up!”
Right now, I am her, and she is me.
We are dying
and we are being born
through this portal
into a new place…

And so here we go…through the portal, only…
I don’t know whether I’m going out…or in…
Is this the beginning, or is this the end?

Blessed be the return of the light.
Blessed be
the two-way street
where the ends called “birth” and “death”
loop back
to meet again.

I am ALIVE!
This life is FOREVER!
Blessed Be
the FIRE in ME
which always burns!
Blessed Be.
So motit Be.
Amen.

The sound of pen touching page is the only sound, as the latest rays of this day’s sun filter through the frosted windows of the funeral chapel where I sit, with the lifeless body of my grandmother. She is not here. She has gone to fly. How do I know? I went with her, and I came back here to tell it.

SHAMANISM: “To know the realms of life and death; to cross freely back and forth between the two, until you can no longer tell the difference.”

Connell

Connell – USA

/in /by

Soar over and past the mountains. Embrace the wind’s dance. Become the Dragon.
Fill the bag and give good pressure.
Tune into the hum of the drones. Become the pipe. Transform your world into a land of pastures and forests.
Feel yourself getting ripped back into a past that once was present.

A time and place where the largest city would be considered a quaint hamlet by today’s standards.
When the world was still merely untouched, unmolested…unspoiled.
When language was primitive, and customs brutish and organic.
We are no more incredible than the people of that time.

We hide from ourselves.

Anything from eyeliner to cosmetic surgery will do the trick.
Designer clothes or a piece of plastic will be enough.
Anything that we can wrap around our bodies to become, in our culture, modest.

Consider the Dragon.

Her hide of seemingly roiling bronze and gold reflects the rays from an ancient sun
As she speeds along, carried by the wind. She is the queen of her domain.
She is flawless and powerful.
She is immortal.

Consider the Piper

A man standing atop a grassy knoll, playing an ancient instrument
Reflecting on the ancient music that is now soaring with the wind.
He is in control yet he is flawed and fragile.
He is mortal.

Do you see them? Do you feel the presence of an ancient, unadorned spirit?
It lies in the music and it blows overhead. Invisible but not unsensed.
We must all reach out for that ancient, unadorned spirit. It resides inside us all,
Somewhere in the recesses of our archaic beings.
We must all walk in this beauty of unadorned joy and jubilation.
Celebrate the gift that is your life and enjoy and bask in the ancient sun.
Let the sunlight glint off of your roiling body as you let your mind get swept away with even the slightest breeze.
Let the ancient music dance and live inside of you.
The time of this music is not over yet. It hasn’t even begun for most.
All you have to do is become the Dragon Piper.
Let your scales flash, let your roar be heard.
Tune yourself and let the wind and the sun carry your ancient song.

Julia

Julia – USA

/in /by

I am remembering the moment that a dear friend and I were bellydancing with a group of women, many of whom were experiencing the first time ever moving their hips in a clockwise circle. We were there to help guide them. She and I laughed afterwards at how incredibly sexual and alive we felt, almost a bit ‘too much’ especially surrounded by women most all of whom were at least 15 years older than us. I said to her ‘I feel a bit bad, like…maybe I shouldn’t be doing it so well…especially in front of these elder women.’

Then I thought, hold on.

When did my mind get to have a say in how natural I felt in my body? Where and when was I taught to doubt? By what force of creation was I influenced to try and subdue the power? Who told me I need to suppress my sexuality, for others or for myself?

Was it my great aunt who refused to talk about anything below the waist? Who taught my mother, directly and indirectly about sex? Where did she learn this? Who encouraged her and how do I hold a place for the voice that says NO to this message without feeling like I might be disrespecting my elders?

And still I know and I hold the truth of the power that lives within my body and the gifts that lie therein.

So what to do now? I believe the answer is in the heart, it is unconditional love.

I am completely in love with this, my body.

And I honor this, perhaps temporary, perhaps permanent place, humbly. Not only is she strong and powerful, can lift and move and bend with the wind, but she holds soul, wisdom, inherited and learned, gathered and gleaned. She has been places, fairytale places… has felt the soft breeze off the ocean, the sweat and sand and dirt hiking in the desert. And she has breathed it in through her powerful lungs, she has laughed in every cell for the joy of being alive.

She is beautiful because of her form, her magic, all she knows, without needing to be told. She knows, even better than I do, how she is like the trees, like the water, the rocks, the leaves~ she was made of the same magic, form and substance as these Things. This is unchangeable.

Joyous love for my body: that is what I have found. Almost 28 years of living in this body, I have loved her, used her, adored her, been adored because of her gifts. I feel almost no regret for the things I’ve put her through, as she has always come back stronger and more resilient than I thought she could. I am so proud of her, proud of me, knowing we are one in the same.

We begin again, each month anew, as we cross the threshold from Maiden to Mother to Crone. We’ve done it before, dear body…and I’m so looking forward to going there, this time around, with You!

My beautiful body: I choose to respect her, to honor her cycles, to stay in tune with her, no matter what.

Body of mine, I am so very grateful for you.