Writing: The Evolution Of A Shaved Head by Natalya Oliver

Day 1

I wake up, brush my teeth and prepare for another day.

This morning my rouge seems brighter

while my lips are covered perfectly within the lines of easy and breezy.

My patterned dress clinches in at the waist.

The top of its fabric plummeting south to remind me of my own flesh.

Sometimes it’s good to be reminded.

I can reach for the stars in these pumps,

which accentuate my perfectly shaved and silky to the touch legs.

When I look in the mirror I smile.

I feel beautiful.

But when I leave my abode I prepare myself for a day filled with

whistles while they work,

unwelcome winks,

courteous head nods

and, at times,

blame for what I call my own

and you call “your problem”.

I breathe.

Remind myself to be strong and go on with my day.

Day 2

I wake up, brush my teeth, cut my hair and prepare for another day.

I’m seeing the lines between myself and my counterparts fade this morning.

I feel no need to cover my face in another skin.

No need to dance the blade in its usual rhythm up my thighs.

But maybe I’ll paint my eyes?

Yes.

Today I will paint my eyes.

READ MORE HERE

GREY MATTER || A surrealist art collection of mostly black and white watercolor (with some multimedia aspects) – painted on canvases with small pop’s of color. 

Grey Matter includes regions of the brain involved in sensory perception, such as seeing, hearing, memory, emotions, and speech. This collection explores what’s real and what is not – but on the inside – within the mind. The collection is one that is as equally dark as light. It is meant to take viewers through a spectrum of deep emotions. ‘Grey Matter’ is the female journey of the light and dark frequencies of consciousness, but all human beings can relate to the emotions that it brings forth. 

The collection addresses past, present, and future and the human dilemma to balance all three states. Visually the future is represented in images like the half robot half female abstraction that reads, “programmed to think”. It questions where we as women are going in the future. Are we programmed to think or will we evolve and act based on our own free will? Images of a broken black heart and an identity covering mask address issues of the past and how internally we all struggle not allow our pasts… alter our present states of consciousness. The collection addressed the present moment in the way the art is digested by the viewer. In a few of the pieces tactile mixed media is used. In “The Mask She Wears” thick white acrylic paint is used to depict the fur of the mask. The art itself is a representation of the present moment prompting viewers to reach out and touch – the HERE and the NOW. 

Each piece is very different, but flows together as the journey of self-discovery does. Live NOW. BE present. LET GO of ego. KNOW that it is OK to feel. See your fears as only illusion and embrace every step of the journey that is life.

Dive into the GREY MATTER.

Love this film.

Air my breath
And
Fire my spirit
Earth my body
Water of my blood

I

Do You

Unapologetically

II

Live your life

Guided by YOUR own dreams

Not ones set out by other people

Don’t follow a path dictated by other people

You are the only YOU you’ve got

Make it count

III

Your life is molded by YOUR OWN thoughts

not the thoughts of others

Not the opinions of others

Control your thoughts

IV

When you grab hold of YOUR own life

When you make an active decision

To lead a life not based on the outlines of those who came before

Or those who are doing it now

You gracefully …

V

Do You

- Brette

Check out my Creative Agency: STUK DESIGNS’ latest Renaissance Woman of the Month article feat. Writer and photographer Sydni Michael Davis:

What’s your focus, passion, and contribution to the world? The only thing I’ve ever caught myself whole-heartedly believing in is the art of expression. So much more complex then we realize. I just want to show people it’s ok to feel. It’s ok to just BE. We are caught in this era of construction- having to belong to something with a format and to me that doesn’t make sense. We aren’t built for straight lines and perfect circles. I just want people to understand that.

What does your art mean to you? That all depends I guess. Sometimes my art plays as release, while other times for me it’s just muted colors and getting dirty. My art is everything, and in that can be nothing at all. I’ll just leave it at that.

What does love mean to you? So a while ago someone asked me the same question on one of those anon questionnaire site thingamabobs and this is what I wrote: Love… something so much deeper than the explanations we give it. It’s simple… it’s complex. It’s the brightest daydreams and the most feared nightmares. It’s the sacrifice of one’s self. Love… ha… what the fuck is LOVE? What is that shit?! Maybe Love is… being able to give it without the expectations of getting it back in return. Maybe love is UNDERSTANDING. Maybe love is every positive word put together as one. Love is… what’s still there when presented with everything you hate about a person. Love is everything. It’s energy. It’s acceptance. Love has no fucking explanation because it just IS. I don’t know what the fuck Love is. Can’t give it one definition cause it has none… it has plenty. It has zero… it has many. Love stands alone… it’s love… it’s whatever you want that shit to be. — and I still feel the same way.

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(Source: romanticedge)

“Do you know what a poem is, Esther?”

“No, what?” I would say.

“A piece of dust.”

Then just as he was smiling and starting to look proud, I would say, “So are the cadavers you cut up. So are the people you think you’re curing. They’re dust as dust as dust. I reckon a good poem lasts a whole lot longer than a hundred of those people put together.”

And of course Buddy (a doctor) wouldn’t have any answer to that, because what I said was true. People were made of nothing so much as dust, and I couldn’t see that doctoring all that dust was a bit better than writing poems people would remember and repeat to themselves when they were unhappy or sick and couldn’t sleep.

(Source: romanticedge)

I thought I understood it

That I could grasp it

But I didn’t

Not really I knew the smudgeness of it

The pink-slippered-all-containered-semi-precious eagerness of it

I didn’t realize it would sometimes be more than whole

The wholeness was a rather luxurious idea

Because its the halves that have you in half

Didn’t know

Don’t know about the in between bits

The gore-y bits of you

And gore-y bits of me

simple.

Watch your thoughts, they become your words.

Watch your words, they become your actions.

Watch your actions, they become your habits.

Watch your habits, they become your character.

Watch your character, for that becomes your destiny.

Expect your every need to be met.

Expect the answer to every problem.

Expect abundance on every level.

Expect… and elevate your frequency.

I wrote this conscious flow while making a strong effort to fully appreciate and take advantage of my time away at my vacation home. :)

I sit in a hot tub overlooking golden fields.

Green bushes and full trees stretch out to a horizon that meets the pacific ocean.

I feel blessed.

I carefully scribble down words in my notebook so not to splatter chlorified water on them.

I breathe.

I take in the present moment. 

Just me, warm water, and stream gracefully rising up, and dancing around the pool.

I continue to breathe

In and out. 

My dog sits on the wooden steps of the balcony impatiently waiting for me to throw a ball.

I chuck the ball into the dense field and sit back into my silence.

The lower half of my body submerged under water, as summer winds curl around my upper half.

I am at peace.

I sip my glass of red wine and breathe

In and out. 

Can I bottle up the beauty of this moment in a glass jar?

Can this moment last forever?

No moment ever does. 

But presence awaken senses.

I absorb every inch of this moment.

Wiggling my toes as the hot water strips them of gravity and they float. 

Up and down.

I am.

My eyes fixate on the airy cotton candy clouds infused with translucent pink’s and grey’s.

They hover softly over the horizon… meeting the ocean. 

I never feel closer to my source than when I am here.

At this house.

Soaking in the beauty of now.