Love is Everything + Video by Mengwen Cao

Mengwen Cao

Listening … Loving … Accepting … Understanding … Courage … Love demands ongoing practice and desire. Not always easy, but always rewarding. Watch how Mengwen Cao comes out to her parents and how they respond. She's a photographer, videographer, and multimedia producer. Born in Hangzhou, China, she came to the United States in 2012. https://vimeo.com/194744989… Continue reading Love is Everything + Video by Mengwen Cao

Heroine: Jessi Zazu, 28, Singer/Guitarist of Those Darlins Wasn’t Scared of Death by da-AL

Jessi Zazu Offering hope ...

Alt-country/garage Jessi Zazu of Those Darlins was only 28. Toward the end of her valiant fight against cervical cancer, she made this video, which includes links to her artwork ... https://youtu.be/hNF5pIX8SRg&rel=0 Besides her heartfelt music, she leaves behind a legacy. Despite her overwhelming medical bills, she set up the “Ain’t Afraid Scholarship” at the Southern… Continue reading Heroine: Jessi Zazu, 28, Singer/Guitarist of Those Darlins Wasn’t Scared of Death by da-AL

Be Your Own Best Role Model + Learning to make homes by Elizabeth Semende

Real hand with two toy figures in which heads are replaced with toy hands.
Thank you, Ryan McGuire.

Role models can be great. They provide wisdom for how to get where we’d like to be.

Take care, though.

In our eagerness, we risk blindness and deafness to how sometimes they’re better examples of what not to do. Of the ones we love, those who are closest to us, their familiarity can feel like normalcy.

The amazing poem posted by afroliz of Zimbabwe that follows illustrates what I’m trying to say.

I believe we must all continually work to be our own best role models. Let us be lighthearted in working toward that goal. Let us be as serious as happiness when it comes to understanding which role models we might already have unwittingly chosen.

afroliz's avatarflowers and poems 🌼

In these places where women come to die

My mother’s words take turns to hit my ears:

“When you find a man, carve a home beneath his pride and

learn to make homes from nothing.”
Then I screamed: Mother this is not my home!

This is not a home!

It carries the weight of a man’s pride

the same way corpses carry the weight of tombstones​

In silence.

Mother did not listen.
She too found a home

In these places where nothing remains

but a swam of men urinating on the flame of our souls

She said: that is how we make homes out of nothing

By carrying the weight of a man’s pride

In silence.

© Elizabeth Semende

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Who’s Perfect? a video via David Kanigan

Still from "Because Who is Perfect?" video
Still from "Because Who is Perfect?" video
Still from “Because Who is Perfect?” video

Who’s attractive? What’s chic? Always it’s a good time to embrace our humanity and our uniqueness — but now is better than ever. Hoping Kanigan’s post makes you smile like it did me …

Live & Learn's avatarLive & Learn


Thank you Susan

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Princess is Kind of a Bad Ass, a link and comment by LJUBICICAMESOZDERKA: Reblog

Snow White gets edited up!

Sure this is a reblog -- of a reblog! -- it’s that good!!! …