Feminist self care. A thread to comfort and console.

[ArthurbellaScott]

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)

@ArthurbellaScott I’m not a Christian, being more of an Earth-based belief type person, but I love that prayer. It’s very grounding and a beautiful way to end a day.

I’m a big fan of comfort. Hygge if you will. Retiring to my bed at the end of each day with lovely scented candles (I absolutely recommend the Botanical Candle Company), snug blankets and a book. A little bit of luxury and comfort goes a long way.

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.

@DameMaud that is lovely poem (I am very picky about which poems I like, so that is high praise).

I need to check out Dog Songs. Dogs are one of life's great pleasures.

I live fairly rurally, and the mix of the countryside and the dogs at winter dusk or dawn does good things for me: haunting beauty, and the bright lives of two energetic dogs in the middle of it.

I'm right with you there @EdithStourton !

@PriOn1 that is beautiful. Thank you for sharing.

A contribution from Kermode & Mayo (!)

It’ll all be alright in the end
If it’s not alright, it’s not the end

x

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 ). 🌠🎆

@ArthurbellaScott your night prayer was simple and beautiful. Thank you so much for sharing it. People like you will always be blessed for comforting others like this.

I love this thread, it's so peaceful.

Bringing you some Virginia Astley

Wow, that's like a murmuration of reindeer!

@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

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! :

Half of all reindeer are female. 😄

Plus, reindeer are the only deer where the female has antlers. Rudolf may, in fact, have been female ...

https://www.discoverwildlife.com/animal-facts/mammals/why-do-female-reindeer-grow-antlers

Lovely Dylan cover.

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

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.

That's gorgeous, Britinme.

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

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

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

Oh, that is fantastic, Sususudio.

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.

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.

These are supposed to be multi coloured tonight!