Posted on September 21, 2016
Forage: The Rose and the Hip
What is Forage? A kind of inner tracking, a wild wander, observing how the gifts in the wild or garden reflect the gifts within.
I realize now, that the idea for the name of both my photography business and my educational business comes from a kind of ‘forage’ experience. In what ways does a ‘fruit’ or example from Nature mirror or symbolize a human process? The Apple Star, is the core revealed, not cut out, the seeds of future creations intact, the beauty honoured!
The Rose and the Hip
It’s easy to admire the rose, in full glory, full sent and splendour, isn’t it? but not so easy the haw, the seed, the hip. Hard, blood red, seedy and itchy to boot, this little bounty has it’s treasure well hidden. She’s thorny too, marking territory, entwined in an never-ending dance with the Black Berry Briar, we watch those once juicy black nuggets drying on the vine, and marvel at their simple giving of themselves to us, compared to the complex extraction needed to taste the healing of the rose hip! A what is this weird, puff of a hairy nest? Is it true a wasp lies within? This is what Rose hips bring up for me:
“When love beckons to you, follow him,
Though his ways are hard and steep.
And when his wings enfold you yield to him,
Though the sword hidden among his pinions may wound you.
And when he speaks to you believe in him,
Though his voice may shatter your dreams
as the north wind lays waste the garden.”
Kahlil Gibran
Thank you Omi Grace for walking with me, listening to me, and gathering with me. Thank you too, for standing your ground and expressing your boundaries, and making the tea, that I couldn’t make!! Belinda White
#forage #wildwander #wildwomen #rosehip #innertracking #pinions #Kahlilgibran
Posted on August 12, 2016
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” To love my body fiercely is truly revolutionary.”
“oh, my breats are uneven! Mama breats!” Even when her youngest daughter is not here beside her, that bond of breast-feeding is present in the body of mama Omi Grace as she embraces her own power feet washed by the river, our great earth mama’s breast, nursing us with the waters of life; arms stretching high like the Cedar trees to the sky, Goddess rising! You are so beautiful Omi.
#awildwomanproject #wildwomanproject #rewildingphotography #goddessrising #lovemybodyfeircely
Posted on March 27, 2016
forage
At first I wanted to call this ‘food porn’, but then I had to pause, why ‘porn’? What is it about my / our relationship to sensuality that causes me / us to debase this incredible fruit of the sea? Why not honour and celebrate this luscious, miraculous, delicate and delicious gift from our Mother Earth, or Mother Sea instead? And so here she is, hand-picked and photographed by me, Belinda White of Apple Star Photo and steamed, shucked and presented by Andria Green of Real Good Food, an oyster naked and glowing for all to see. This is where Rewilding revives and reconnects our intimate entwinement and sensual bond with the our giving Earth, our nurturing Mother. Rewilding excites us, invites us to bask in beauty and in bounty, reminds us who we are and how we belong.
#rewild #wildfood #foragetofeast #awildwomanproject #sensualoysterphoto #wildfoodphotography #applestarphoto #realgoodfood
Posted on October 12, 2015
A meditation on seeds
As I walk around these days, watching leaves float and seeds tumble and spin, I spin tales. Tell stories of the tough “conquer” (Horse Chestnut) battles of my childhood, the miracle of helicopter seeds….as always I’m taking pictures of mamas feeding their babies at their breast….I am teaching children, I am leaning into and learning daily more about that beautiful entwinement of love and attachment….it is not all loveliness, is it?
There is pain, there is loss.
Our baby is a gift, we have sprouted, there is new life, there is harvest, Thanksgiving! But how do we hold a space for what is lost, what is broken, what hurts?
When we have a child, we are cracked open, we are broken.
Tell that story!
Have you noticed all the armor, all the fuzz and fluff, the wicked fast wings and strong anchors seed pods have!! We women have all that armor, that prickly or soft fuzz, we have those wings and anchors…..until….crack, we give birth, or miscarry, or FAIL to get pregnant, or FAIL to carry a child to term, or FAIL to be lovable.
It cracks us right open, it empties us out.
It breaks right through our armor, it clips our wings, dethorns us, plucks our fuzz, it rips our anchors, like roots in their clinging to the earth.
Huskless we fall to the ground, the wet mud….
Unteathered we fly spinning, terrified, forgotten?
Who am I?
This is giving birth
Or giving death
Or standing barren before the storm
Of judgement
Tell that story!
We generate, we regenerate.
We have incredible power, and yet we feel so broken, so ripped open, so emptied, so exhausted, so alone.
We have incredible power, and yet feel often so powerless, so terrified, so ungrateful, even angry at our child who has torn apart our whole being and left us an empty husk.
We have incredible power, and yet that power is not honoured, not told and retold, not upheld, not painted and hung in spangles for all to see, the incredible power and beauty of the pregnant, the birthing, the breast-feeding, bottle-feeding, the stretch marks, the Caesarian marks, the empty womb, the broken heart, the single mama, the sea mama, the childless longing mama, the sexless marriage, the withered breast, the saggy belly…..all in us that is wholly generative and regenerative, this incredible power….of life and death we hold within these armored, winged husks of ours.
Tell that story.
A child at the breast is attached to the pulse of life.
A child held in the arms with a bottle, a child against your chest mama, papa, uncle, auntie, grandma, grandpa is attached to the pulse of life. In that hold, the heart beats synchronize, the message is exchanged, we belong. We have incredible power, and yet, we are told an image of a mother nurturing her baby is revolting, unseemly. I’m so sorry if the pan sexual, or deeply sensual nature of that connection offends your delicate senses.
Tell that story!
Instead, I will bind my breasts in satin or leather, push them together, bend over, shake it all up for your pleasure. Instead, I will encourage the pre pubescent girls and boys in my community to shake their booty, learn lust, sexualization, commodification….oh why get angry now? Perhaps that’s exactly it…sever that commutation, make sure the message doesn’t get through, make sure we are disconnected from that pulse of life!!
Today, I post two images of my gorgeous, strong, broken, regenerating friend A. as she holds her babe to her breast. The first is so uplifting, so telling, so much of the story of life is there: as a mother we face that over-powering ocean, as our babe at once clings to us and pulls away. The other is the same, only edited, cleaned up, blurred, censored. Because we all know that the nipple is disgusting, right? Because it is sexual, it cannot possibly be linked to nurturing a child, right? It must be reserved for the erotic, the lovers, for the advertisers….not the pulse of life.
Mamas, like the Ocean roar!
Tell that story.