butterflies 8/1: where all of this began
looking back on happy days with Charm
butterflies
when i am feeling angry, i like to stroke my butterflies with my fingertips and i like to feel how the pink one rests upon my chest. my butterflies are all over: dangling from the brightly colored bracelets on my wrists, jingling together as i walk down the street, fluttering freely while i run my hands through my hair.
the pink one on my necklace feels most powerful of all. it’s the butterfly that’s most in touch with me: touching the curly hair that swoops down into its wings. butterfly wings touch my chest hair and my skin. when i feel negative energy coming over me, i touch this butterfly with my fingertips. i gently stroke its outline: i sense its pink surface, i feel pink washing over me, rushing out from the butterfly, into my hair and into my skin. i gain so much tranquility in those moments, and so does the butterfly.
it’s the skin-to-skin that works so well with amulets: but it’s also about sight. all of our senses are so important when it comes to using physical objects to help us manage our emotions. eye contact builds connection: when i simply look down and see the butterflies floating beneath my wrists, and when i feel my long hair fluttering up against my bare shoulders, i feel so much tranquility, i feel so much connection.
scrunchies
the scrunchies on my wrists are like soft and fluffy little talismen, little amulets, little (is there a specific word for a magical bracelet??) rings of positivity that send such good vibes flowing up my arms. when i am feeling angry or upset, i hold the scrunchies up to my face and i rub their gentle surfaces up against my stubble: this calms me and reassures me that there is nothing more to the universe than Beings having Experiences and my Experience is valid. if i really need support, sometimes i kiss them, gently and softly, but i kiss them all the same. when my legs are moving me through the world, i look at my scrunchies and i feel as though i have found myself.
when i am walking down the street, i love to glance down at the scrunchie and see how the shade of purple i have chosen mixes with the colors of the bracelets and clothing i have thrown on that day. putting on the scrunchies and bracelets is my favorite part of getting ready: the moment when my clothes are on and i can greedily, spontaneously select the colors with which i feel the most connection that day. it is so incredible how connected our emotions our with color. the light purple scrunchie on my wrist gives me a calmer, more peaceful internal energy while the dark purple one has me feeling a little feisty and ready to assert.
somehow it’s those various shades of purple, and those shades of pink that seem like they are almost purple, that make me feel most deeply connected with the part of my soul that i once thought was evil but have learned to love and to embrace. that’s why my variety pack of purple-shades scrunchies is so special to me! when i look at a whole band of purpley and pinkish shades, i somehow see me reflected back to me. but i’m also finding connections with other colors that i never even imagined before!
oh, and before i forget: i cannot f%$ing wait for my purple olivia rodrigo nikes to arrive!!!!!
charms, beads, and amulets are so critical
emotions are physical. why shouldn’t we use touch and sight to connect with our feelings? we calm ourselves with music, so why shouldn’t listen to the soft jingle of our butterfly charms while we walk, or catch sight of a dangling amulet while we run our hands through our hair and down over our bare shoulders? we cry into our pillows, so why shouldn’t we flutter our fingertips just against our bracelet beads? we look at ourselves in the mirror wanting to feel good about what we see, so why shouldn’t we look down at our wrists and see colors that connect with us and make us feel a way we want to feel? we pray to gods and goddesses, so why shouldn’t we feel the energy that comes from knowing and connecting with the color of the hair tie in our pony tail? We want connection with others, so why should the norms of “professionalism” “adulthood” “seriousness” and “maturity” (all concepts made up or blindly accepted and re-taught by people who, like us dear diary, know utterly nothing about the true nature of our mysterious reality) prevent us from showing other Beings a bit more of our true authentic selves, from manifesting new opportunities for real connection?
why shouldn’t we deploy amulets and charms, bracelets and scrunchies to stir up something inside of us or to calm down our own troubled seas? or simply to be able to look down at ourselves and see ourselves? Supposedly these precious tools are “girly,” and the girly is “unserious,” the girly is “immature,” the girly is “unprofessional,” the girly is “something a 12 year old girl would do”
why is the overtly girly so suppressed among the professional classes? why is the overtly girly so feared and so condemned among “adults”? the patriarchy allows the “boyish” to thrive among grown men. meanwhile completely made up concepts of “adulthood” “maturity” “professionalism” and “seriousness” seem to determine the lives of many so-called and self-styled “mature adults.” and these concepts so often express themselves as being diametrically opposed to open expressions of girlyness.
i asked a mature friend critical of my butterfly bracelets to explain himself. he clarified that his critique is supposedly not about gender: he would have the same thoughts about a “36-year-old woman” wearing such bracelets: hence his criticism of my aesthetic choices is about “maturity” and “adulthood” (my god)
somehow i am now less “mature”, somehow i am now less of an “adult,” somehow i am now less “serious,” certainly i would never claim to be a “professional”
i am sorry that so many people are so controlled by these empty but tightly defined concepts that, when adjusted just a tiny bit, make me seem like even more of an adult than they are. but what i know in my heart to be true is that the girly trinkets my mature adult friends frown upon are the charms which keep my inner colors swirling outward from my being. they are the means by which I manifest my most authentic and most genuine and most compassionate self. my butterflies, turtles, dragonflies, bracelets, hair ties, pink and purple butterfly tattoo, and soon-to-be hot pink hair streak are the physical means by which I gaze out directly into my immediate world and have a way i can use my eyes, fingers, stubble, lips, hair, and skin to connect freely and unabashedly with my emotions. if the world sees these emotional expressions and trinkets as “girly” and if the “girly” is condemned as “immature” or even as “insane”, then i must be sorrowfully at peace with that, because sadly the world is composed of many empty concepts that control and oppress people, and i only hope that one day everyone will be free.
p.s. speaking of worlds, please someone induct me into the world of friendship bracelets!!!!!
