Got this idea from the Happster Blog
Nikki Star
- A lover of beautiful things and places. LA makeup artist who writes and travels.
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Tag Archives: love
new finds + bathroom
found the coooolest piece of wood at the flea market. A lady selling crystals was using it as a display piece and we asked if we could buy it. So, apparently it is now blessed and in a good home. I will stick my head under it when feeling blue.
The downstairs bathroom needed some updating so I took everything out (which was just leftover house stuff basically–a total mismatch) and started fresh.
I’d call it Moroccan minimalist?
Got this cute little cactus. They’re uniquely made by ROTD creations Very nice guy too
A pen sketch I did. We recently celebrated 365 days together of pure luurve!
Tagged art, artist, bathroom, decorating, happiness, home, house, inspire, interior, love, minimalist, minimalistic, nature
project love
I just finished a project I’ve been working on the past week. I have been redecorating the house a bit and an idea popped into my head that got me more excited than anything. After working on it an hour here and there everyday, it’s done and came out beautifully.
Went to the lumber store (which is my new favorite place, by the way!) and asked for precisely cut slabs of cherry wood. Then I hammered in the hooks in the back
Measuring…
So lovely!
home
Home is honestly my favorite place to be…
Home, for me, must be beautiful, full of fresh air and flowers, made of earthy materials, warm smells of spices and a soup on the stove, things that are luxurious to the touch and my loved ones..
romantic paintings
How beautiful are these? We are thinking of getting a custom one made for the house… (Karen Tarlton)
children
“Healing our unresolved childhood issues would accomplish two separate things: First, it would make us far better and less abusive parents, because when we heal our traumas we don’t pass them on to our children, and second, because of this, any children we had would be far healthier stewards of the earth and better parents too, because they wouldn’t be so traumatized, and thus, by extension, destructive.”
This sums up exactly why I have believed I don’t want to have children until I feel completely at peace, healed from it all, and in which case, may never happen. But I’m ok with that. Because in being conscious of this and having a child anyways, thinking they might complete you, seems selfish. If you ask most people why they want children, you never really receive a satisfactory, selfless answer..
And I’ve also been thinking… that we are each products of a line of our ancestors, extending back years and years. Think of all the repressed anger, confusion, hurts that are now placed in each of us and either acted out, expressed or repressed again, over and over. That energy doesn’t just dissipate and go away. I feel pain so strong sometimes that for me — and maybe it’s just a comfort, an excuse — but it gives me comfort realizing that it’s not just “me.” It seems to be all the repressed pains within families that have been passed down. I know in this day and age, (some) people are pretty conscious whether or not they want or are ready for children but I can’t imagine generations before — having them only because it was expected, it was supposed to be. So is it really surprising to see some of the horrid acts of humanity today?..
I don’t know… just things I have been thinking about lately.
Posted in Stripped
Tagged children, depression, happiness, letting go, life, love, parents
love and the unconscious
Everyone has dark black feelings and the more they are suppressed, the further we get from our higher selves… People who act like everything is hunky dory all the damn time – it will catch up to them.. I understand seeing the silver lining on the cloud, glass half full but sometimes life is hell and to have a human connection is to be able to express that and a fellow being to understand. To lend some heart. I see too many times a person bearing a piece of their soul and a person too shielded from their own shortcomings and unconscious hurts they turn away and close the door (like making an abrupt “be positive” comment or of course, a negative one). I suppose compassion can only be learned through experience and that takes time and patience.. and I suppose I am also learning compassion to understand that others take time (not that I am at the finish line or anything).
I believe (romantic) love is really just our Self searching and desire to uncover our unconscious dark parts. Maybe it’s a bit too simple-minded to say but those not “ready” for love aren’t ready to be face to face with that darkness just yet? Love is brave.. not only the falling in love, but once you get to the rough bits.. there is a reason for those. And that person who scrapes those unconscious parts is your partner, the one who will guide you through… if they are ready also.. many are not and that hurts like hell too. (Sometimes the truth is, they might not be ready with you but they will be with somebody else)
I think as a woman we really know these things but we only feel brave enough to express it so and believe it to be right when we have a brave man by our side to help us and conquer it together. It takes two, the ying and yang. I can only observe and write from my own experience but it seems I have and am generously learning through love.
masculine and feminine
Some of my favorite bits from Knowing Woman by Irene Claremont de Castillejo. Great book… I love books about the masculine and feminine energies. Does anyone have any other recommendations?
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Psychological thinking has seeped through into ordinary life and it is so easy to explain a situation by some psychological slogan — yet the inner meaning may lie in a different place.
Perhaps man’s need is to be trusted even more than to be understood. He needs to be believed in, and his work, whether she understands it or not, to be given full value. But he needs her also to express herself. Herself. It is her own deepest self that he must know, not her opinions which she has picked up from parents, schools and the daily press, but her deepest self. How many women can give him that?
He throws light on the jumble of words hovering beneath the surface of her mind so that she can choose the ones she wants, separates light onto the colors of the rainbow for her selections, enables her to see the parts of which her whole is made, to discriminate between this and that. In a word, he enables her to focus.
Our need is to keep the balance between masculine focused consciousness and feminine diffuse awareness — or if you prefer, between the creative spirit which uses man as its vehicle and the life force which uses woman. Both of these forces are equally ruthless.
A woman’s tears accompany her deepest truth.
It is through his anima that a man receives his inspirations. She is the fountain from which he drinks. She holds the treasures in her lap and offers them when he is ready to receive her gifts. But, having received them, it is his masculine, discriminating mind which gives form to the elusive riches she offers. She is the femme inspiratrice.
Woman needs to give. She cannot help herself. Life pours through her and she has no choice but to pass it on, or let it stagnate until it becomes an abscess in her breast. This flow of life is not intended only for her children, but also for her mate. But many a man is too proud to accept her giving, confusing it with the mother’s milk he has outgrown, unaware that it is the water of life she offers him.
It is man’s greatest task, not to learn to love, but to learn how to create the conditions in which love can alight upon us and can remain with us.
when i first met him
Another artist I found while in Ojai 
Storypeople by Brian Andreas (www.storypeople.com)
“When I first met him, I knew in a moment I would have to spend the next few days re-arranging my mind so there’d be room for him to stay.”
So sweet!! Leaves me fuzzy..
strippedcanvas
