Last year was a year of powerful women. My network of feminine was loud and strong and full of driving energy. We were exploring our feminism through the firm knowledge that we could do it alone, together out of love and want but not necessarily out of necessity. It was a year of independence and autonomy and needing no one. We celebrated the women who spoke out, who held their heads high, who accomplished the large. We were validating and we were loving, but mostly we were strong. This year is a year of powerful women, too. But this is a softer power, one that celebrates the nurturing sides of the feminine. This year is about a mother and her new child, about the embrace between a girl and her grandmother in Moana, about grace and unconditional love. The fire has not gone out, but it is simply a warm, life-giving one now, not one that rages and destroys. This fire is about flowers and holding hands and quiet tears. It is about long nights discussing the intricacies of our deepest desires, about seeking the most good. It is about Rachel Hunt Steenblik’s Mother’s Milk, and seeking a connection with our Heavenly Mother. It is about finding the divine feminine in each of us, about embracing and unlocking our purest energies of love and acceptance and sisterhood. It is still brave and it is still strong, but it is also gentle.
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Today I went a little rogue and drove myself up over the mountain to Gettysburg, PA. I do this from time to time; vaguely mention I’m leaving, wander for a couple hours in an off-puttingly conscious fugue state. And today, with no money and shoes only on second thought, I chose to drove East.
I live about forty minutes west of the Gettysburg Battlefield, a location more well-known and popularly visited than anything in my little town could ever hope to be. I have been there many times. It’s a tourist location, a historical site, somewhere every relative who dares to visit us wants to see. And we take them, hearing the same old story of nineteenth century warfare, climbing the same old towers, and tripping over the same old cannons. It’s an experience which lacks originality; it has never been thought provoking. But today, driving slowly with windows down and music silenced, then sitting barefoot under a cannon, I allowed it to be. For ten years of my life I lived in a small town in South Central Pennsylvania, just a hop-skip-and-a-jump from the Appalachian Trail and Michaux State Forest. I have grown up walking through those woods, smelling those flowers and playing in those leaves. I have jumped in those puddles, squished my way through that mud, hopped and danced and climbed in and over and around those trails, those rocks, those trees. In just ten short days I will hop on a plane to take me back to Penn’s Woods for the summer, where I will rejoice in the rain and the mountain laurel and the fireflies once more. But today I am thinking of my tulip poplar and lilies and dogwood tree not because I will get to see them so soon, but because today is a day reserved specially for that line of thought. On every April 22, we are asked to take a day—one measly little day—to consider our Earth and all that makes it glorious. Martin Luther King, Jr. is someone we have all heard of. We have all talked about him in school. We have all listened to at least part of his "I Have A Dream Speech," we all know about his significance in the movement to end segregation in the United States.
He's a very important historical figure, of that we have no doubt. And although I used to get annually annoyed when we discussed him in school (as I still do with Anne Frank and 9/11, for various reasons you probably don't want to hear), I am now a massive fan. For more than just the whole race thing, for more than just his famous speech (although that is incredibly important and I am incredibly grateful he brought about that specific change, etc.). I am a fan of Martin Luther King, Jr. because of who he was as a person. Because of his passion for right. MLK was not afraid to stand and push for what he wanted, what he needed, what the world needed. I have read his Letter from Birmingham Jail, a letter written to the multitudes of clergymen who had criticized his actions. He wrote this letter in a peaceful and articulate manner, outlining what he does and why he does it. He says, "one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws," a phrase I have oft quoted. And I quote this not because I am seeking to justify reckless acts, but because, as Alexander Hamilton says in Lin-Manual Miranda's "Non-Stop," "I’ve seen injustice in the world and I’ve corrected it." (Or, intend to, anyway.) MLK wrote that "One who breaks an unjust law must do so openly, lovingly, and with a willingness to accept the penalty." Martin Luther King, Jr. was not breaking laws and protesting to start an aimless fight but to finish a fight that had been started in the hearts and minds of the more just sects of humanity centuries prior. He was fighting for what was right, which I'm sure you've oft been told to do yourself. He was making the decision to stop staying quiet. People get really into that whole New Years' Resolutions "new year, new me" kind of thing. And although I've never really been someone to give myself elaborate (or at the very least, formal) goals about things, I love the idea of it. I love the idea of that whole "start fresh" mentality. In early January of 2013, I would end a lot of sentences with "but what the heck, it's 2013!" In the social media world, I suppose this is called "rebranding."
And so, I am rebranding. Junior year of high school I took a break from learning AutoCAD to take some web design classes. I learned HTML and CSS, and became somewhat familiar with JavaScript. This summer, it is my intention to become intimately familiar with JavaScript, and refresh my memory on the other two, and then finally create my own website... or revamp this one. But I got sick of waiting for this summer. New year, new me, right? Love Letters and Blog Posts is no more. I would like to formally welcome you all to The Glitter Bonfire. |
I'm Audrey, a college student and existential rambler.
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