Active discussions

Please or to access all these features

Talk
Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Feminism: chat

Original poster

Feminist self care. A thread to comfort and console.

58 replies

ArthurbellaScott · 12/12/2023 16:02

A Poem for Someone Who is Juggling Her Life

This is a poem for someone
who is juggling her life.
Be still sometimes.
Be still sometimes.

It needs repeating
over and over
to catch her attention
over and over,
as someone who is juggling her life
finds it difficult to hear.

Be still sometimes.
Be still sometimes.
Let it all fall sometimes.

Rose Cook, from Notes From a Bright Field (Cultured Llama, 2013)

Notes From a Bright Field - Cultured Llama

by Rose Cook Rose Cook’s Notes From a Bright Field is ‘a single quiet path, in and out’, capturing the transitory beauties of the everyday: a mother’s ashes imagined as ‘Lux flakes’; the ‘fruit-gummed glass’ of a cathedral. Where the poems’ themes are...

http://www.culturedllama.co.uk/books/notes-from-a-bright-field

OP posts:
New posts on this thread. Refresh page
Thread gallery
14
EllaMenopee · 16/12/2023 20:57

As a result of this thread, I've spent the day doing things for me - two classes at the gym, baking for the afternoon, take away for dinner and I've just ordered myself two poetry books by Mary Oliver and Andrienne Rich. Currently in the couch with MN, knitting and baileys. Bliss. Just what I needed and all thanks to this thread. Thank you Flowers

cassiatwenty · 16/12/2023 19:13

ArthurbellaScott · 12/12/2023 16:02

A Poem for Someone Who is Juggling Her Life

This is a poem for someone
who is juggling her life.
Be still sometimes.
Be still sometimes.

It needs repeating
over and over
to catch her attention
over and over,
as someone who is juggling her life
finds it difficult to hear.

Be still sometimes.
Be still sometimes.
Let it all fall sometimes.

Rose Cook, from Notes From a Bright Field (Cultured Llama, 2013)

I love this.

Sususudio · 15/12/2023 06:55

I am not sure this is feminist, but been listening to this on loop lately because it is so calming. Perhaps many of us need to find our way home after the last few years.

Eric Clapton - Steve Winwood (Can't find my way home)

With Derek Trucks and Doyle Bramhall II

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8L82II1lNjo

PriOn1 · 14/12/2023 22:35

This is a beautiful thread. The starlings were gorgeous, more poetry to read, think about and draw inspiration from, and now haunting music.

Thanks to all who’ve contributed.

MotherEarthisaTerf · 14/12/2023 22:12

<happy sigh> thank you for the thread.

Feminist self care. A thread to comfort and console.
Waitwhat23 · 14/12/2023 20:13

One of my favourite carols. Eerie but utterly beautiful -

Waitwhat23 · 14/12/2023 19:41

Not specifically feminist but I've included this poem because I'm always awed at the power of reading and literature

Feminist self care. A thread to comfort and console.
Britinme · 14/12/2023 19:03

Poem for Maya

Dipping our bread in oil tins 
we talked of morning peeling 
open our rooms to a moment 
of almonds, olives and wind 
when we did not yet know what we were. 
The days in Mallorca were alike: 
footprints down goat-paths 
from the beds we had left, 
at night the stars locked to darkness. 
At that time we were learning 
to dance, take our clothes 
in our fingers and open 
ourselves to their hands. 
The veranera was with us. 
For a month the almond trees bloomed, 
their droppings the delicate silks 
we removed when each time a touch 
took us closer to the window where 
we whispered yes, there on the intricate 
balconies of breath, overlooking 
the rest of our lives.

Carolyn Forchéé*

Original poster
ArthurbellaScott · 14/12/2023 18:55

MrsOvertonsWindow · 13/12/2023 23:34

Lovely lovely thread. At the moment I'm often reminded of that old proverb "When sleeping women wake, mountains move"

The recent regrowth of the women's movement, women talking, sharing, analysing and protesting. Making changes and taking on this massive injustice. It's been a wonderful unexpected development with new friendships and alliances being forged.

The company of women.

(and if you're looking up at the stars over the next few nights you may see the Geminids meteor showers ). 🌠🎆

These are supposed to be multi coloured tonight!

OP posts:
Vegemiteandhoneyontoast · 14/12/2023 18:17

I don't have anything to add to this wonderful thread, just wanted to say thank you for it. Hope to find something to add.

DOBARDAN · 14/12/2023 18:09

Thank you to @ArthurbellaScott for creating this thread and also thank you to those who have contributed with songs, prayers, poems and links to watch videos, all have such a wonderful calming, unifying effect. I will keep coming back here.

Original poster
ArthurbellaScott · 14/12/2023 16:45

Oh, that is fantastic, Sususudio.

OP posts:
CaveMum · 14/12/2023 14:38

What a lovely thread, thank you for the contributions. I don't have any of my own right now but I shall ponder.

Sususudio · 14/12/2023 13:19

My contribution:

Her Kind

Anne Sexton

I have gone out, a possessed witch,
haunting the black air, braver at night;
dreaming evil, I have done my hitch
over the plain houses, light by light:
lonely thing, twelve-fingered, out of mind.
A woman like that is not a woman, quite.
I have been her kind.
I have found the warm caves in the woods,
filled them with skillets, carvings, shelves,
closets, silks, innumerable goods;
fixed the suppers for the worms and the elves:
whining, rearranging the disaligned.
A woman like that is misunderstood.
I have been her kind.
I have ridden in your cart, driver,
waved my nude arms at villages going by,
learning the last bright routes, survivor
where your flames still bite my thigh
and my ribs crack where your wheels wind.
A woman like that is not ashamed to die.
I have been her kind.
From The Complete Poems by Anne S

Sususudio · 14/12/2023 13:13

Love this thread. I have had to let it all fall this year, and am the better for it.

Original poster
ArthurbellaScott · 14/12/2023 11:58

That's gorgeous, Britinme.

OP posts:
Britinme · 14/12/2023 11:56

Dammit posted too soon!

Let Evening Come
BY JANE KENYONN_
Let the light of late afternoon
shine through chinks in the barn, moving
up the bales as the sun moves down.

Let the cricket take up chafing
as a woman takes up her needles
and her yarn. Let evening come.

Let dew collect on the hoe abandoned
in long grass. Let the stars appear
and the moon disclose her silver horn.

Let the fox go back to its sandy den.
Let the wind die down. Let the shed
go black inside. Let evening come.

To the bottle in the ditch, to the scoop
in the oats, to air in the lung
let evening come.

Let it come, as it will, and don’t
be afraid. God does not leave us
comfortless, so let evening come.

Britinme · 14/12/2023 11:55

I'm also an atheist, but nonetheless I love this poem:

OP posts:
OP posts:
DameMaud · 14/12/2023 10:39

PriOn1 · 14/12/2023 09:53

Thanks. I was worried it wasn’t very woman centric but I just found it so beautiful.

It is beautiful! And soothing as you say @PriOn1 . Thank you

And as Arthurbella says- like a murmration of Starlings.
Like this! :

Dance of the STARLINGS by Claire Droppert (murmuration)

A moment of Silence. By the end of the day, a big murmuration of starlings danced a magical show. 😍 #shotoniphone #murmuration #starlings #birds #nature #ea...

https://youtu.be/m6YDhVeW5Kc?si=BtoHI9AGtHulTeSY

PriOn1 · 14/12/2023 09:53

Thanks. I was worried it wasn’t very woman centric but I just found it so beautiful.

Muddays · 14/12/2023 09:47

@ArthurbellaScott a 'Murmuration of reindeer' is an excellent description. You should put it on the YouTube comments for the video.

@PriOn1 a brilliant share that I hope you will get some credit for! x

Original poster
ArthurbellaScott · 14/12/2023 09:40

PriOn1 · 13/12/2023 21:38

Such lovely words. Thank you for the thread. This is a bit off the wall, but this is music from a band from the north of Norway with film of Sami families rounding up their reindeer. I find it incredibly soothing to watch them. Hope someone else might enjoy it.

Wow, that's like a murmuration of reindeer!

OP posts:
etmoiandme · 14/12/2023 07:43

I love this thread, it's so peaceful.

Bringing you some Virginia Astley

Virginia Astley - Melt the Snow

Upload mp3s @ http://www.mp32tube.com

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UzDlmnn6Fn4

Swipe left for the next trending thread