{Hot Women to Watch is a monthly feature where I put the spotlight on one beautiful soul whose work I’m appreciating and cheering on because something tells me this is just the beginning} 

“There were certain moments upon which the whole of the future course of one’s life might turn. And almost inevitably they popped out at one without any warning at all, leaving one with no time to consider or engage in a reasoned debate with oneself. One had to make a split second decision, and much depended upon it. Perhaps everything.” ― Mary Balogh, At Last Comes Love

Life is made up of moments.  Mundane and ordinary and extraordinary and sublime.  Ecstasy mingles with unavoidable bullshit.   Life changes and life goes on.   So rarely we identify the irrevocable moments while they are happening – that recognition only granted with the passage of time and the accumulation of wisdom and the brutal truths delivered only by hindsight. But still, there are those moments.  Where life crystalizes, comes into focus – shifts and spins and turns until some vital alignment is reached, some essential clarity is granted.  And you know right away; nothing will ever be the same.

For me, it seems impossible to isolate just one.  The birth of my second daughter, the pain and ferocity and fear of it.  The way it brought me face to face with something deep inside me and also beyond this world.  The first time I kissed a woman, the sheer terror and the absolute truth and the coming home of it.   The moment when the word hypocrite stung me from across the dinner table and I knew I was absorbing a most critical truth.  Knowing that the next year of my life would involve a brutal teardown and rebuilding that hinged on that split second of acceptance.   The three hours one winter afternoon when I claimed my wholeness over the eternal quest for goodness and the burn of the needle that later inked that truth into the skin along my lower left rib.

These moments.  So many more.  For me, transformation is eternal.  The chrysalis is revisited again and again.  The phoenix fire is a space that feels like home.  I find and learn and shed and grow and break it all down and rise from the ashes, only to begin again.

There is no one defining moment, because all moments hold the capacity for great growth and change, whether fundamental or infinitesimal, if only we can access the grace to allow ourselves to be altered by them.

I wear a necklace around my neck every day, made by my dear friend Stacey.  On one side is stamped the word choice, on the other side the word grace.   It is a reminder to myself, in all the moments of all the days, that I am at a place of choice, and that it is up to me to find the grace within all of those moments.   It’s talisman and truth and it serves me well, within all of the ordinary-extraordinary moments that comprise my life.

 My monkey mind.  My inner saboteur.  The gremlins of not good enough and far, far too much who like to perch on my shoulder and talk shit in my ear at the most critical moments.  The insecure eighth grade girl who has such an insidious grip on my psyche – no matter how I try to leave her behind.

I’m good at the release.  Schooled at walking away and loosening my grip and letting go.  But my stories?  The tenacious stories that have twisted and grown and made themselves parasite to my unwilling host?   Freedom from those is far harder won.   They bring me pain, they hold me back, are the exact opposite of self-care.  But there is comfort in what is known, in the things that keep us playing small and safe and quiet.   As long as we hold those stories close, we do not have to push ourselves harder, do not have to leave our safety zone, do not have to require more.

Those stories and voices have kept me in spaces I should have long ago vacated.  They have stopped me from accepting blessings willingly given.  They have led me to place my own wishes and desires and truths dead last on a very long list.

Unlearning them may well be the biggest lesson of my life.  I am working on it.  Every single day.

Pablo Picasso

My muse is a tricky, finicky bitch.  She demands submission and shows up only when she wants to appear. And when she’s here, she is an exacting dominatrix – hot as hell, with German accent and leather whip.  Hard core, I know.  When she’s here, I am on fire.   When I’m on fire, she’s usually here.  She answers the call of seductive solo dance parties, candles burned down to pools of hot wax, hard sunrise climbs up to the top of a desert mountain.  She is summoned by wild and uninhibited sex, sensual pairings like deep red wine and bitter dark chocolate, the depths of musty and earthy amber and sandalwood and the brightness of tart sweet orange.   She likes the complexity of center of the paradox best of all.  She requires seduction, appears only when I’m prepared and she’s been properly invited.

My job?  Set the stage. Never travel without pen and paper or at least a receipt or a bare stretch of skin to scribble on.   To absorb inspiration and lessons and beauty wherever it appears.   To keep my eyes open, my head up and my spirit free.  To keep myself firmly grounded in my body, in my primal artist self, in the blood and sweat and heat of it all.   To know that infinite grace is often found right in the middle of the messy.   To know that destruction and creation are often one and the same.  To be ready.  And then, when she appears – to be prepared for a wild ride.  To harness her power and also be willing to be taken by it.  To not have too many preconceived ideas about where we are going or when the ride will end.  To be open.  To be open. To be open.  That is the lesson of creative life.

Ah, but there is another part.  Its way less sexy and not near as much fun.  It’s showing up.  Saying Yes.  Diving in.  And doing the fucking work, whether I’m inspired or not.  As a working writer and photographer – one blessed to pay her bills with her art – there are long segments when I know my muse ain’t gonna come anywhere near me.   She’s off cavorting across the globe, having wild orgies and sacred pilgrimages in far away lands.  She’ll come close occasionally to taunt me and coax me into action and to remind me that I can do this work without her if I have to.   I can put in the hours and the slogging, mundane, mind numbing effort of showing up, pen to paper, fingers to keyboard, even on the days when staring at the screen has about as much appeal as a dental visit.    I can, because I have to.  I can because this is both chosen vocation and the answer to a calling that goes soul deep.  This is what I’m here for.  This is the purpose of my existence on this earth.  To create.  To weave words. To capture beauty and truth and heart and soul.  I don’t get to decide just to do it when I feel like it.  I have to do it every single day, in all the moments and the moments between the moments.

Because you know what?  If the muse shows up and doesn’t find me working – she’s out of here.  No second chances.  And that is one thing I couldn’t bear.  My creative habit.  Do the work.  It’s the only secret that I’ve ever found to be entirely true.

Autonomy.  It was my chosen word of the year for 2012, and only fully realized in the second half of 2013.  Autonomy of home, of self, of spirit, of finances and relationship and body and soul.  Hard won, coated in the grime of life and the grief of loss beyond loss.  But mine, all mine.  I celebrate it with marathons of Orange Is The New Black.  By lovingly arranging books and talismans and memories on my beloved bookshelf.  By unlocking the door of my apartment and letting myself still be stopped in my tracks by the realization that this is mine.  By sipping red wine and letting dark chocolate melt slow on my tongue.  By dancing my own siren song late at night, while the glow of candlelight casts my spiraling shadow against my living room wall while nobody watches.  By developing a practice of gratitude that pulls me back to my center, over and over again. By lovingly patting my ancient and rickety car every time I start her up, thanking her for years of faithful service and praying she makes it another year.  By a knowing, lodged deep in my bones, that this art that calls me will provide for me and my daughters in ways both logistical and those that exist in the realm of spirit.  By the things and people and ways of being I have chosen, and all that I have left behind along this journey.  By beginning and ending my days with the same prayer.  “Sky Above Me.  Earth Below Me.  Fire Within Me. Blessed Be.  Blessed Be.  Blessed Be.”

The Chronology Of Water by Lidia Yuknavitch.

“So yes I know how angry, or naive, or self-destructive, or messed up, or even deluded I sound weaving my way through these life stories at times. But beautiful things. Graceful things. Hopeful things can sometimes appear in dark places. Besides, I’m trying to tell you the truth of a woman like me.” ― Lidia Yuknavitch, The Chronology of Water

Since high school there is only one book that has stayed with me.  Only one book that I would use to answer that common question.  What is your favorite book? 

To Kill A Mockingbird.  Of all the books I had read before or have read since, none had such a profound impact on who I was and who I would become.  None touched me and stirred me and taught me the way that book did at that time.  In all those years and all the hundreds and maybe thousands of books not once was I tempted to change my answer.

Until The Chronology Of Water.

This book slaughtered me.  Shattered me.  In the most exquisitely painful and perfectly beautiful of ways.  Although my story is not the author’s story, my experience of reading it was one of finally finding someone who could take words and meld and blend and weave them into something that perfectly encapsulated my experience of being a woman in this brilliant and brutal world.   I find it hard to explain my experience of this book and the ways that it changed me and continues to change me.  I can only tell you to read it.   Read it and read it and read it.  Let it change you.  Let it move you.  Let it make you angry.  Let it make you feel.  Let it bring you home to yourself and your words and your passion and purpose.  Just read it.

{beyond that, I find my home in the words of women.  Anais Nin taught me that it was okay to be me, in all of my messy, big feeling, too muchness.  Virginia Woolf is the original badass.  Mary Oliver delivers peace.   Jeanette Winterson, Pema Chodron, Anne Lammot, Toni Morrison, Audre Lorde – all of them teachers.   And in the words of men.  Jack Kourac. Charles Bukowski, Hunter S Thomspon.  Men who worked and fought and fucked and got dirty and wrote it all down.   I find my home in words.  Always}

On the dance floor.  When my fingers are clicking smooth over the keyboard.  In a tangle of limbs and white sheets and the heat of body on body.  In circle while incense burns and chants form whole and reverberate through.  In downward dog.  At the top of the mountain in the middle of this desert city.  When I pile on layers of necklaces and bracelets and cuffs and silver rings and paint on dark cat eyeliner and deep red lips.   When once again being granted the privilege of witnessing a new soul come earthside.  On the open road with the windows down and the music blaring.  When I hula hoop until my hips are bruised.  When I finally return to the ocean and she washes me clean.  When my daughters and I lie in bed together on a Sunday morning and laugh until we cry.   When, at the center of the breakdown, I find the sliver of grace that carries me through. When my feet first hit the earth that sustains my history and my future.  When I stop and remember to breathe.  When I say thank you, and blessed be, and please grant me more of this wonder that is my life.

My daughters.  My teachers.  Wee gurus they are.  Divinity personified.  Not so long of this earth that they have forgotten all they know.   Limit pushers.  Chance Takers.  Full of love and spunk and fire and a fierce determination to be exactly who they are, no exceptions.   Even on nights like the one we just had, where I yelled and shook and was mad down to the core of me, we come back together. Back to their small bodies nestled into the curve of my own.  Back to I am so sorry, I was wrong.  Back to the choice to love each other as we are, not as we’d like to be.  Back to the truth of what it is to be family.  Love.

{ Now for the short and sweet…}

I’m interested in…beauty,  spirit.  soul.  breaking to become.  paradox.  shedding the shame around our desires. words.

I believe…In humanity before dogma.  In the religion of human kindness.  In poetry.  In sex.  In being clear enough to as for what you want, and detaching from ego enough to hear the answer.  In the power of yoga.  In being embodied. In owning our reality without apology.  In embracing it all, the fuck-ups and the bliss.  In the absolute necessity of dark chocolate to my continued existence.  That we all do the very best we can.

In my experience…There is very little than cannot be improved upon by red wine, dark chocolate a hot shower and the company of a good friend (whether in the shower or not, you decide).   The edges of our comfort zone are where the real work begins and were the real rewards begin to be unearthed.  We have to bring it back to gratitude, and not the cheap greeting card kind – the deep and true stuff, the messy sort of gratitude that bleeds and howls and screams rage – and that keeps us grounded in the holiness of our experience on this earth.   All words are just another way to say amen.  Blessed Be.  Blessed Be.  Blessed Be.

2013…Will show me what I’m made of.

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To follow Jeanette visit her website here: Peace.Love.Free.

And be sure to check out her spoken poetry here: https://soundcloud.com/jeanette-bursey-leblanc.  Girl on Fire and Blessed Be are some of my favs.