I had the chance to travel to #Cambodia to photograph children for a documentary. They were beautiful and beyond their years, looking into their eyes was like looking into old souls. Such beauty and perseverance of spirit!  One HUGE thing I learned while there was that the human spirit is unstoppable!  No matter what you go through, if you have a will to survive, you can and you will.  And joy?  It seems to come from a secret place, from the heart of a child!
Love and Peace!

 
 
Photo ©Sandy Hibbard from “People of Cambodia” series by Sandy Hibbard at Lensqueen.com.

 
I’ve been thinking about what a small/large world it is. It is SMALL in that we humans are so similar and what we need for survival in this world is pretty much the same – food, clean water, shelter, education, love, self esteem, good health…the freedom to be fully human and to know we are safe. It is LARGE in that there is a great separation between those who have and those who have not.
Here in America let us never take these things for granted as we fight to uphold the right for all peoples to be free. And let us never harm or put in harms way one hair on the head of one of the “least of these” for they are our hopeful future living in the midst of us now.

Love and peace!

 
 
Photo ©Sandy Hibbard from “People of Cambodia” series by Sandy Hibbard at Lensqueen.com.
 

Despite Even Me

We had our time but it has passed 

One

Two

Three chances 

Missed 

This inversion nearly laid me out

Sucking down 

Pressing 

until there was no Oxygen

The most powerful of emotions

– Love 

Under the covering of a silence so heavy

Unwilling 

Chilling

Killing

my heart in the process 

A brick wall 

Laid steady stone upon stone 

Unmovable yet ready to burst

Longing draped so thick and heavy 

The weight of it is suffocating 

The hope of ripping it down to see the light again is

Waiting

Anticipating

Lifting 

Me to greater understanding 

Of chances

Wary of second glances

Fancy wordy romances 

This is my time to soar

Above the silence

Beyond the covering

of love’s strangled hope

Despite even me 

One

Two

Three times gone

Too many to count

Too few to remember

Snap!

I take flight! 

© Sandy Hibbard

The amazing image is from Take Flight/Charlize Theron, NYT

 
No cute rhyme or mystical mind-wanderings, just my thoughts on the price of FREEDOM – your freedom!
Just as our ancestors fought for freedom from a tyrannical empire and gave their lives to have their voices heard, so we must continue to fight the fight of freedom for our PERSONAL selves.  You know that many have died fighting against the British empire, fighting against “taxation without representation”, for women’s rights, for civil liberties, for human rights of all people, and so that other people could be free from monster dictators, but do we think (in this same light) about the men and women who have given their lives to be free from a TYRANNICAL SPOUSE or parent?  A denigrating boss or business associate?  And what about the physically and mentally challenged who fight every day for the independence of movement or thought?  There is sacrifice all around us.
If we listen, really listen, to others personal stories about their “march of FREEDOM”, we will find inspiration, feel sorrow and pain and come to understand their suffering….all for freedom.  These stories are what connects the entire human race!  There is the wife who gives up her home and risks everything, I mean everything, to get free from an abusive and oppressive husband.  Or the husband who must exercise his independence from an unloving, violent or absent wife.  Children who fight their ENTIRE LIVES to free themselves from the marks left by parents who kept them enslaved with no liberties or free pursuits.  Or the person who must fight to maintain a free mind who lives in an oppressive country, under a cruel regime.  I could go on, but I hope you get the picture.  FREEDOM comes with a price for us all everyday.  How can we continue to judge others when we all have the same need?   Freedom belongs to everyone – not just political freedom, but personal freedom, freedom from judgment, freedom from bigotry and hatred.  If we will look into the hearts of the people who are in our lives and accept that we really are the same and embrace the love that’s in us, I think we can change the world.

“Your freedom ENDS where mine begins”. 

There is a respect for human life that comes with acceptance of our individuality.  When I understand more, I am less judgmental.  The less judgmental I am, the more love abounds. The more love there is, the more an individual can move into their freedom!

Happy Independence Day!  XOXOX

It seems like I am always writing when I travel….lately more than any other time!  It is fun to sit on the plane, unload my Macbook, and take a look at what I had written from the previous trip.  Occasionally I am delightfully surprised to discover something pretty cool I have written, and other times, well, I just find ramblings, or unfinished thoughts put to words.  It’s no different on tonight’s flight to NYC.

Looking for the Muse

I have been looking for my muse lately, but he has been very quiet and a bit melancholy.  He usually comes around when I am suffering from that pathetic longing to be with a lover, or when my heart has been broken or misunderstood – or their memories.  I have come to learn that love and the lack of it (unfulfilled desire), and all things soulish and sensual, will usually bring on the muse.  Harsh little bastard.  But when he does come, there is a flood of thoughtful, organized, and well sequenced emotions. Followed by an intense desire to see things deeply, to understand more clearly – love more completely.

A strange and powerful thing begins to happen, clarity comes, a resolve to embrace all that is happening takes hold of me, and I am ready to take it on – fight the battle, kick the shit out of love, and bring on my power!  The lost and longing feelings seem to get put on the back burner and are replaced by a strangely welcomed feeling of total abandonment from the world – a warming hush wrapped in tears and pain (my god that sounds masochistic!) and pouring out of my soul.

Out of these museful moments will flow some damn good words, giving me direction, clarity, courage, and insight.  These are the things I like to discover when I open up my MAC on a plane.  It’s like finding a treasure in the tiny play-closet where I would bury myself in fantasy when I was a little girl.  But that sly muse, he has been playing games with me, keeping me tottering between disaster-desire-fulfillment-release.  It has been quiet lately.

She’s Learning to be a Tree

In a rush today, he smiled at me.  Ever so briefly, but he smiled and I felt it.  There was no conjuring or cajoling, just a simple idea he popped into my head as I sat out by my pool for a quick respite to assess what else needed to get done before I could leave for the airport and get on this plane.  I looked across the pool and noticed “Lacey” (yes my plants are given names) standing straight and strong blowing in the breeze and being kissed by the sun.  The muse said “She’s learning to be a tree”.

Lacey is a fine little lady. She is some type of ming plant.  She has spindly limbs that I braided into a single trunk when she was a baby, and small delicate lace-like leaves.  She was originally a house plant, given to me by a dear friend before she moved off to London on a great marriage adventure about 13 years ago… and she (Lacey, that is) has been through hell.  As for my friend who gifted Lacey to me, she’s ok too, but had her own hell to endure.  She returned from London within the year heart broken after learning that her MR. had other MRS.’s scattered about the world!

Through the years Lacey has adventured with me through corporate life, self employment, love affairs, marriage, divorce, moving, rehearsals, dinners, and even survived my traveling.  As Lacey began to grow, she really began to take shape, taking on her own sexiness – long arms and legs, delicate features.  But shame on you if you didn’t do her just right!  She would pout, drop leaves and even wilt like she was depressed (sound familiar ladies?).  But a little love and a whole lot of water always made her beautiful again.  When I moved her to her first new BIG pot, she flourished, took over the entire corner of the house where she stayed.  Next pot, even bigger, she grew so fast and so tall that her top limbs had to bend over at the ceiling.  It was like she was trying to sneak a peek at who was on the couch in the atrium and spy on what they were doing…

The First Taste

As a women I can testify that the first taste is always the best.  It also seems like it is what  “gets” you!  Remember the first kiss?  The first time you really made love?  The first sip of a fabulous glass of French wine, the first bite of chocolate, the first time he touched you?  The first time you “got by with it”?  Lacey had her first time 2 years ago and she has never been the same.

Being a house plant that had been sheltered from the harsh extremes, Lacey had virginal skin.  I never thought I would need to move her outside…until she outgrew my house.  I would give her hair cuts frequently, trim the tops back, prune her limbs, but yet she would grow fuller and taller.  Finally two summers ago, after a painful winter of whining, Lacey made it clear that she was not happy in the house anymore.  So with careful thought I decided to let her try it, I will move her outdoors. There was a perfect place for her under the eave in the back by the pool, north exposure and next to the back door and windows.  I thought this would be a great spot for her since you could see her through the atrium window, and she was so pleasant to look at.  I struggled to get her outdoors by myself, but I did.  After loosing a few minor limbs and lots of leaves (she was really about to freak out), Lacey had a new home.  I sat her in her big pot on top of the soil in my flower bed, knowing that the moisture from the soil would keep her roots happy and entice them to find their way from the hole in the bottom of the pot to the dark, rich Texas soil of the flower bed.  And they did.  That summer two years ago I think Lacey was going through puberty.  She grew with lightening speed – her trunk large and stout, her leaves greener and bigger – she was turning into a tree!  She was the prettiest I had ever seen her…

Without event or problem, Lacey took root and made her new home in the soil by my back door. But I was afraid.  Afraid that when winter came she would not be able to handle it, afraid she would die.  After all, she was just a house plant that grew.

Never the Same

The first cold snap came that year and it was time to bring Lacey in for the winter.  I found a place for her in the atrium, an area of the house with tall ceilings so she could stretch out.  The process of moving Lacey and her pot from the patio soil back into the house was painful.  The only way to get her up and off the soil was to separate her roots that had grown into the soil from the pot.  Good Lord, talk about pouting!  I am not sure she ever forgave me for that ordeal, but she made it and back into the house she went!

Lacey had tasted fresh air, sunshine, moonlight, starlight, birds, flowers, bees, butterflies, and water like she had never known before, she would not be the same. That winter after I moved her indoors, she became sick. Anorexic.  She would not drink her water, she would pee it out as quickly as I poured it in.  She grew skinny and weak – but she grew and she grew tall as if to say “see? I can grow taller than this house, you can try to keep me in but I will always grow taller than these ceilings”.

Growth is Permanent 

Lacey had made her point.  We struggled that winter indoors but I knew the time had come that I had to let her go.  I had to lose my fears and let her be her own tree. As soon as Spring came and the fear of freezing was gone, I quickly moved Lacey back outside, but this time in a different place for she had grown too tall to be under the eave of the house.  Sickly and skinny, I was concerned that she would not make it, but my worries soon were over at the first sight of new growth on her limbs and new shoots in areas that she had never had before.  Lacey was turning into a young lady.  She had experienced that first taste of nature and knew it was her home.  She was where she belonged.  But the question that was still tormenting me was how can this tender house plant make it outdoors permanently?  She may look like a tree, but in my mind she was still a delicate ming houseplant!

Funny how we grow and change, change and grow.  Our little babies turn from cherub-like creatures to humans who look and act like us.  Lacey was starting to look like she belonged out there.  No longer the tender green-leafed house plant, she was looking like a  tree.   Similar to when we see our baby – son or daughter – began to spread their wings and make their own decisions, grow independent, develop grownup emotions, become sensual, and struggle with the same longings as we do.  Change is inevitable.  You have to let go.  They have to be able to test their own being and become what they are meant to become.  Each individual is in control of their own destiny.   As a mother, lover, friend, daughter, sister, and family member, I can influence, worry, throw a fit and cry, teach, be an example, love, shelter, feed, train and protect all day long – but I cannot control what someone else will choose to become.  Lacey chose to become a tree.

The flight to NYC is quite bumpy tonight, I hit my head on the way back to the toilets because I was tossed into another man’s seat!  The muse has been at work during this flight  and I am again filled with such a sense of “okay-ness” despite the rough ride.  I think Lacey is too.

Freedom to Grow

After two summers in the sun and Lacey’s continued exposure to all the delights that nature offers – this was her first taste of real freedom – I don’t think I can ever take her back inside the house.  I had planned a trip abroad for six weeks, so I had to make a decision before I left the country… I knew that my plants and pool would be taken care of while I was gone but I wasn’t so sure that Lacey would get all the water that she needed/wanted.  I rolled her from her place on the patio and made the life or death decision to let her go.  To go to the wild.  To be a tree.  I dug the hole deep and lovingly planted her by the fence where, after much observation and thought, I had decided was where she would get the best water, and the best mixture of shade and sun.  I stood back  and saw that it was ok, it was good for Lacey. Now faith would have to work.

It’s funny how we worry about things that we have no control over.  Why?  It must totally be a natural thing because everyone does.  But think about it….why?  Why do we concern our minds and our energies with things that we have absolutely no influence over?  I think it’s love.  Because we love, we care.  Because we care and are emotionally attached, we want  the object of our love to be well, prosperous and happy.   But many things that are connected with love and our feelings cannot be controlled, we have to let them have their own natural outcome.  I am trying to learn this in my own life now, how to let go and let things just “be”.  How to love unconditionally and let the outcome flow naturally, unconditionally, without my interference.

Unconditional Love

It is an unconditional love I have for Lacey.  I am not playing a game with her to see how she does or how she will respond to me.  There is nothing I will get from Lacey but the satisfaction of seeing her grow and the memories I will have when I look at her.  There is nothing I require of her, nothing I am scheming for….just her well-being.  So I serve her.  I feed her, water her, nurture her and do my best to provide the best environment for her growth according to my knowledge.  But what she eventually will become is out of my realm of control.

As I head back to DFW today, I am not sure what to expect.  I will simply have to believe in nature and wait.  It has dipped into the low 20’s in Dallas since I have been gone.  It has rained, the sun has shined, and it even snowed a bit…..on Lacey…will she be ok?  Then I remember what my muse whispered to me before I left last week – “she is learning to be a tree” – so I will trust that.  And in a strange way I think my muse is suggesting that just like Lacey is bravely learning to dig deep and grow strong, so am I.