photo by the boho girl, denise andrade.
I picked Denise up in front of her home on Saturday afternoon. Rain had threatened to cancel the playdate we'd made a month earlier, and the best gift that we *concerned* Virgos could have been given was to let go of our expectations and agree to meet anyway-that there would be something magical simply in the act of showing up and surrender. The weather turned out to be just perfect, and the meadow we spread our picnic and props out in was earthy and the grass begging to be laid upon.
the extraordinary boho
I came to this project with simple photographic goals in mind-to freshen my website up, and to be able to provide professional photos for the projects I'm working on which require grown-up bios unlike my snarky in-the-moment self portraits.
But I also brought along a need to integrate some of the archetypes I've been working with all year. I had a loose idea of a visual and journalistic approach to aspects that show up as motifs in my life. I brought my favorite memories of my grandfathers, both having passed on this year (one in Spring, one in Fall). I carried Wild Woman with me, the wild canines, and my connection to the earth and how she has helped to heal me. I brought color and playfulness, femininity and strength. I even brought vulnerability along on the four hour drive south.
photo by denise andrade.
I trusted that Denise would help me overcome my suspicious and cameraphobic furrow lines, the things which cause nearly every photo taken of me to look like I'm constipated or being solicited to by a door-to-door salesman. My brief experience of her talents a few years ago dazzled me. I wouldn't take no for an answer as I sought no one else for the job. With a bit of flattery and some begging, I was thrilled to pull her out of Cedar sabbatical and coerce her to shine her mad skillz on my self-conscious being.
I digress as I write this because my feeling is that I'm going to try to tell you how she nurtured me and loosened my uptight places- taking great care to make every shot count, -my fear is that I won't be able to articulate satisfactorily what a day of self-care it was. I loved her art technique; her ability to see the composition and make decisions that were important to me, because she has an incredible way of listening to the artist she's working with and sensing her way through the work. It was like a spa day in that we made it relaxing, fun, luxurious -and as artists, we were both able to experience beauty in a way I never had before. My own beauty-egadzooks.
The truth is that I didn't feel very beautiful when I got to her. I'd washed my dreads the night before and they were extremely fluffy and crazed. I was hot and cold, drank too much caffeine on the way down, I felt sweaty and clammy, I'd forgotten the makeup that I wanted to bring. I was learning more than I wanted to know as I drove along about what makes me feel insecure, and more about what I still feel perfectionistic about (the weather, wearing mascara), negative image issues (I have a zit! Don't reveal too much of my stretched out baby belly! Try to avoid shooting the crows feet-nay, the crows have been stomping around my eyes since Ivy was born-do you really need my eyes in the photos?). It was always going to be so much more than collecting photos to update my professional portfolio, wasn't it?
Because I have a connection to the beloved Boho girl, I trusted that our co-creation would be deep and soulful, and honoring of the divine process of opening up the bits I yearned to share. I craved for someone to look at me without judgement, so I could learn to do it more, too. I felt comforted and eased by how she adored and nurtured me. As with my Blessingway before Miles was born, it unfolded to be one of those landmark moments in the history of my life where a rite of passage occured...so naturally.
With Denise holding space and faciliatating, I experienced embracing my own wild feminine, the me that is full of vitality, strength juxtaposed with vulnerability, and the beauty of my own life-a reflection of all life.
It was very powerful to gain this tool in the context of our day of retreat together. I'm on a mission to find more ways to embrace the wild feminine archetypes that bring me inspiration in my creative work and within my family. So my date with Denise was seriously like dancing with Venus on the day of her birth, and it seemed to bring a ceremonious close to my thirty ninth year on this orb-one that has been full of transformation, releasing and stepping into a more light and surrendered life of comfort in my own skin.
photo by denise andrade.
Just as we stood up to drink one more slug of wine out of our little metal cups, the coyotes began to sing up through the canyon. Dark was falling over our sacred gypsy campsite, and two women who had created something lovely together, received one more blessing-the last of so many that day... straight from the wild ones themselves.
