Aura Beauty

Beauty, even from the back, is beauty.  Your aura will convey the authentic message from within.  That is a scary thought.  I guess authenticity is best.  And, if you are having a rough time, it shows.  If you are struggling to get through in a good way, it shows.  If you are stiff and too formal, it shows what you have going on within.  If you are wearing a mask, It shows.  If we have claimed our inner beauty, it shows.  If we are sharp shouldered, we are sharp emotional people.  If we have overdone it for the type of situation or day, it means we are always trying to please others.  If you could see the state of the back of my hair, you know, perhaps, I only tried.

Our very posture gives us away.  (Refer to sharp shouldered)  Do we look too perfect that we become unapproachable, or are we lose and free and authentic?  I know that classic clothes make me look too formal.  I learned a great lesson when first going to the far North to work.  I learned that the less formal I was (not raggedy or tattered, but more casual dress, I was accepted better.  I could not look like a city social worker.  We had one young girl, who had worked inner city in California.  Her first days, she came dressed for California, heels and all.  A few steps on to the boardwalk, seriously, a slat walkway, and her heel caught and she sprawled.  She continued, but, eventually, either she gave up or they asked her to leave, because she just did not fit in appropriately for those she was serving.  We need to dress New York for New York type situations...Unless we want to be unapproachable.  I dress how I want, but I also want to be approachable.  There is a difference.  

Sometimes we compensate for our negative feelings.  I know that I can pretty much tell how someone is truly feeling by the amount of control they exude from the way they appear.  If we are happy, we dress happy, we choose happy colors, we may think we mask our feelings, but they push ahead with the state of our aura.  Deep thought! Instead of tight muscles, controlled breathing, perhaps we can find a way to our Happy so we can exude that.

When we consider what we admire, we should ask ourselves why we admire...that style...that clothing...that freeness some put forward.  I have a friend who, often, goes, in the morning, to visit her mother, and she stops and orders a take out for her, and she is wearing her jammies and, sometimes, her housecoat to deliver things to her mother in a seniors' care home.  She has guts, I figure.  I would be all fearful of running out of gas, of having an accident, of being judged by workers.  I am way too uptight sometimes and I am sure it shows.  

Sometimes we do not know what we give off.  I remember being stressed and walking down a school hallways and one of the teenagers said, "Wow, resting bitch face!"  omg, I so laughed and laughed.  I realized it was probably true.  I have permanent lines in my brow from concentration, stress, and, yes, sometimes anger.  As I have written before, one of my daughters walked up the sidewalk towards me where I was sitting on the steps having had a kerfuffle, and she took a step back and said, "Boy, don't I remember that look!"  See our looks give us away.  But what is authentic and what is presentable?    More good thought!

At what point does my Ego/Evil Inner Witch grab the reins and show herself off?  If I cannot admire myself, how can I ever think I would be admirable to others?  If I am open and honest and caring and sensitive to self, then it is a given I should put that out there?  How do I keep calm and graceful and full of dignity when, sometimes, I just am not?  I think it is time for me to learn to give myself time out.  I need to collect myself to make myself presentable.  Not to be accepted by others, but to present what I think I want to be...calm, cool, collected, and open and loving and service-oriented.  There is a time and place for all things and I need better timing for different places.  

I watched a video tutorial with Angela Anderson and then I turned it off and tried it on my own.  She drew in pencil first.  I chose not to and paint lines and contours to begin. 

I am, absolutely, experimenting as I go.  I painted more solid shapes to start getting an idea, in my head, of how I was going to proceed.

Hair is difficult for me when it needs to be more shaped.  I do nto want it to look like a cap, but to look hair-like.  I used a bit of gray on a larger dry brush to try to get some shapes in the braid.

 

Then, I moved to the flowers and started letting the flowers take their own shape by loading my brush with mixed Madden Rose and some white.  I needed to leave well enough alone, or I would have muddied the flowers.

In the end, I like what I did. Perhaps the lesson is to allow myself to simply dress and fix my hair and makeup and let my mood portray its authentic self...to let my aura say what it needs to rather than my ego.

What think you?

©Carol Desjarlais 2.24.20