Instead of What I Said.

{Photo Credit: The Ballerina Project}

12.31.13

There's something sacred about going to war,
                                                      the way it somehow makes you appreciate things
                                                                                                          like butter more.
The chaos, you crave it- that's the thing...
first times lead to "just one more time"
and the hands on the clock of your heart develop arthritis
                                       -from all the holding on-
grantee, they'll stop ticking long before you realize.
They say as people we become like those we surround ourselves with;
         I never used to believe them...
but for the first time in four hundred and fifty eight days,
today
I asked someone other than me, "how are you doing?" 

You don't have to surround yourself with people to become like them;
O' no.
You can distance your self, on the most remote island
                                                                             in the middle of the Ocean,
but- as long as you surround your thoughts with someone
                                                                      and hang your soul up on their fears
their polluted waves of influence can still reach your shores.
For years I thought they were in pursuit of happiness,
but they're not.
They're searching for assurance-
                                                looking for a place where they will feel adequate.
Woman! you can't keep attempting to be that place:
    *letting them inhabit your being and pierce your soul with their self loathing
    *throwing off your self so that they can have a place of refuge...
No-
the only solution to their emptiness:
for them to seek out adequacy within the place where they are at.
within their minds,

                           their bodies,

the vessels that transport their souls through life-

if they feel inadequate there

 they won't feel adequate anywhere.

A Single Friday's Goodness



{Forgiven ~Thomas Blackshear}



Jesus called out with a loud voice, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.” When he had said this, he breathed his last.

~Luke 23:46

When I was about 9 or 10 years old my dad had this photo in book mark form. I used to love flipping through his bible just to smell and feel the thin, onion skin pages. On one ocasion I came across the book mark and was completely enchanted with it. Thomas Blackshear manages to caputre in a way that a 9/ 10 year old can understand the complexity of the smiplicity that is devine forgivness. So I hope that this photo speaks some insight, as we prepare for the celebrations of three days!



{Lead me to the Cross ~ Brooke Fraser}

I love this song, and of course all the more at this time of the year!

~Adrianna 

A Perfect Monday

Strive for excellence, not perfection.

~H. Jackson Brown Jr., O Magazine, December 2003



{Bolshoi Ballet}
{Photo Credit: Helix}



  When I first glanced at this quote I was initially awestruck by its apparent genius. As dancers we often think about excellence as being an outcome of perfection, perfect lines, perfect feet, perfect turn-out, so I was attracted to the thought/ idea that they could actually be separate terms with less correlation then I always thought.
 However when I really started to think about  the difference between perfection and excellence I got a little flustered, so I turned to my good'ol friend Mr. Dictionary for some advice...

Excellence: the state or quality of excelling or being exceptionally good; extreme merit; superiority

Excellent: exceptionally good; extremely meritorious; superior

Perfection: the state of quality of being or becoming perfect

Perfect: conforming absolutely to the description or definition of an ideal type

At this point I thought I understood  the difference between the two, but then I looked up their synonyms...

Synonyms of Excellence: arete, class, distinction, eminence, excellency, finesse, goodness, greatness, high quality, merit, PERFECTION, preeminence, purity, quality, superbness, supremacy, transcendence, virtue, worth, eclat.

Synonyms of Perfection: accomplishment, achieving, acme, arete, completion, consummation, crown, ending, entireness,evolution,exactness, EXCELLENCE, excellency, exquisiteness, faultlessness, finish, finishing, fulfillment, ideal, idealism, impeccability, integrity, maturity, merit, paragon, perfectness, phoenix, precision, purity, realization, ripeness, sublimity, superiority, supremacy, transcendence, virtue, wholeness.

And now I am even more confused then when I began. The definitions suggest that Excellence is being the best within ones own limits, and that Perfection is being the best within a certain ideal. The synonyms however suggest that they have the same/ very smillar meanings. I sat and thought about this for quite sometime, and I have come to this conclusion....
 As people we all judge ourselves by some standard, a standard that we see as being perfect. A person might look to a movie star, or their older sibling, or maybe as it is in ballet a person might judge themselves by an abstract idea of perfection that is ultimately unattainable. Poeple so closely correlate excellence with perfection, that it is not possible to think of something as being excellent without it being near to or perfect. Anyway that is my psycho-babble for this Monday.

On that note here are some things/ people I consider to be the absolute embodiment of perfection....





{Splendid Isolation: ABT.}





{Overwhelmed Aster Dress: Anthropolgie}





{Audrey Hepburn}
{ Photo Credit: Listall}





{Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir}
{photo credit: Myra Clarman}



Sunday Showers




Photo Credit: Megan Anderson

¹⁴ but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”~ John 4:14 

I came across this photo while perusing my facebook, and it seemed to somehow capture all that is glorious about spring. Rivers full to the brim with cold renewing, refreshing, water that seem to blur all the lines that winter has drawn. Flowers start to stain colour on what has been a bleak canvas for several months. Peoples toes starting to show rainbows as they bravely slip on a pair of gorgeous open toed shoes in hopeful expectation of the warmer days ahead. So as April Showers continue to drown us as spring is here is full force. I let them wash away the gloom of winter, quench my thirst for spring, and water the seedlings that will turn May into a bouquet of flowers.


Happy Puddle Jumping
~Adrianna

 

Starting With A Plie.




Photo Credit: http://site.e.K.Clothing.com



    For  a while now I have had "the blog willy nillies", (I've been wanting to start blogging, but my lack of  free-time and ideas has left me somewhat unsure of how to begin). As I type my way onto unfamiliar territory today I have chosen to commence from a very familiar starting place; a plie. 

In ballet the plie though rudimentary transfers across all levels and styles. Upon thinking about the plie, I tried to compile a list of like things that pertain not to ballet but rather to life, (although for me a plie could probably be on that list ;D). In doing so I realized the reason my life has been a big mess of stress is because my "plies" are not there to support me when I leap into life's "grade-jetes". With this epiphany at the forefront of my brain I "went back to the barre" and came up with a plan, (and yes this blog is part of it).  I wrote up my standard weekly schedule, and aloted time to focus on all my "plies", (school work, relationships with family and friends, myself and my health). Things that I have not spent enough time on in the past. I looked all this over and set my main goal for the remainder of this year; DISCIPLINE.

 So as I explore new things, develop new opinions, and squeeze every last bit of zest out of all the lemons life gives me, I hope this blog will serve as an outlet to share with you my journey.

~Adrianna