Showing posts with label labels. Show all posts
Showing posts with label labels. Show all posts

Wednesday, May 14, 2014

Full Bloom




These spectacular tulips greeted me at the corner of Riverside Drive and Monument Avenue at Riverscape Metro Park in Dayton, Ohio. I was stopped in my tracks by their gorgeous full blown beauty.

Our culture is obsessed with peak beauty, youthful beauty. We hear the phrase "past its peak," the implication being that the most beautiful moment has passed. 

But is that true? Take a closer look.


More is visible when the tulips are fully open. We can see and appreciate what's inside.

What if we begin to look at one another that way? Recognize that a mature woman allows us to see beyond the perfection of youth. There are few things more attractive than a woman fully present in her body, fully aware of her power and creativity.

Let's go forward today and look for those women. When you see one, share that smile, that look, that glance, that says I see you and you are gorgeously in full bloom.


Wednesday, February 2, 2011

Time In a Bottle

I’m very fond of massage. When several different friends recommended a particular massage therapist, I called and made a Saturday morning appointment. A sense of place is very important to me, as is beauty. When I look for a massage therapist, I seek someone who is centered, fully present, and whose studio space is serene with an underlying sense of peace and joy.

When I parked in front of her home and studio, I spotted some very interesting trees.



 These whimsical bottle trees tickled my fancy and provided a visual treat as I stopped to admire the wide assortment of artistic labels. I have a friend with a bottle tree who has removed all the labels and focused on the colors of the bottles to provide the "fruit." As I tend to pick my wine by the art on the label I enjoyed that this one had the labels intact.



Post massage and in a mellow mood, I lingered to look again at the bottles. Maybe they are a bit like women. We start out with people being attracted to us by our label or our reputation but eventually the bottle is opened and what's inside becomes important. The wine is then consumed. Much like life sometimes turns us upside down and empties us out. But the glass, the vessel, remains. Some bottles are simply discarded. But others are recycled, reborn into something new, perhaps differently beautiful, perhaps more enduring.



These metal branches and glass fruit don't seem to take themselves quite as seriously as a fine bottle of wine in a wine rack waiting to be decanted. They are living life in the now, with a wink and a smile.

Here’s a recent wine I chose by the label. I go cycling and this woman, holding on for a ride in the sky on her winged bicycle, looks like she is at home in her body, experiencing life with joyful abandon. If the wine is half as good as the label, I’ll enjoy it!





Cycles Gladiator Syrah California 2008