Creative Every Day

Who Do You Think You Are?

August 25th, 2008

I wait too long to blog and I get this major build-up of things I want to share. Ack! Where to start? Well, I hope you all had a lovely weekend. I've been really loving taking yoga classes combined with some at home yoga courtesy of Yoga Today. On Saturday morning, I went to a class I've been going to this month, but the regular teacher has been out of town, so when she got back yesterday, I was new to her. She had everyone introduce themselves at the beginning of class and let us know she was bad with names. I'm awful with remembering names as well, so I could certainly relate and understood when she called me by the wrong name. By the end of the class I was cracking up though because she had called me just about every two syllable name starting with "L" except my own. I was Lyla, Lulu, Laura, Lily, etc. I'd correct her each time, but she just couldn't remember it! At the end of class she repeated my name, three times, "Leah, Leah, Leah!" (which reminded me of "Marsha, Marsha, Marsha!") and then asked what my name meant. I told her that in Hebrew it meant, "weary one." I laughed, but I've never liked that meaning. So later that afternoon, I decided to put my mad searching skills to good use and find out if that was the only meaning for my name.

What's in a name?

In the bible, the name Leah references her eyes as being "weary" while her sister is far more beautiful. The interpretation is unclear, so it could also be read as "delicate", "sad eyes," "beautiful eyes" or it's possible the "weak eyes" referred to "blue eyes." The story of Leah in the Bible is not the happiest of tales and I won't recount it here, but I very much enjoyed Anita Diamant's version of her story in The Red Tent. However, prior to the Bible, the name Leah in Assyrian meant "ruler" as in a queen or princess. I like this meaning combined with my middle name's meaning (Melisssa = Honey Bee in Greek) which would be Princess Honey Bee. Heh. My favorite meaning though was the Irish Gaelic meaning of Leah which is, "Light of the sun." Now, that's lovely. I've always loved my name, without much thought to what someone a very long time ago decided it meant. But at the same time, I feel like I've somewhat embodied that weariness in the past and I'm wanting to step into that light-of-the-sun type of being. If you don't like the meaning or have no meaning attached to your name, why not create something that suits you?

Who do you think you are?

My sweet friend, Ruby, sent along a link to the site of the movie "Who Does She Think She Is?" There is a very powerful trailer at the start of the site. I definitely want to see it. Here's the synopsis I pulled from their site:

Who Does She Think She Is? focuses on five particularly bold women artists, each radically different in background, race, religious creed and choice of artistic field.  But they all share the common challenge of making careers in various art worlds.  Simultaneous to their creative existence, they are pulled in different directions as they try to answer the competing demands of artistic fulfillment, marriage, motherhood and economic survival.

Have you ever heard, "Who do you think you are?" or some version of that? I know I have. It's always good to hear how others deal with that, especially other creative women like the ones featured in this movie. There's such a twinge of shame involved when I hear that or feel the question implied. But I can always pump myself back up and rebound. This quote from Marianne Williamson is particularly helpful when rebounding from the energies of those who wish us to be small or less than:

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

I know I've posted that quote before, but good quotes are worth repeating! I read the funniest story in Loving What Is this morning. In it, Byron Katie talks about a Darth Vader toy she's given to her grandson. After dropping in a coin it says, "Impressive, but you are not a Jedi yet." Her 3 year old grandson felt so disappointed that he wasn't a Jedi and no one could convince him otherwise. When Katie had a pilot announce over the loudspeaker that he was in fact a Jedi now, he went home and checked with the toy again who still said, "...you are not a Jedi yet." And he believed the toy. It's so easy to let someone else's story or more likely our own false story dictate who we think we are and therefore how we act, how we dress, what we think we are capable of. Do you have a nasty Darth Vader voice in your ear telling you that you're not enough yet? Who do you think you are? And who are you really? I'm still figuring it out for myself and I feel like I'm shedding layer after layer or false story as I go.

The above pics are pages from a sketchbook swap I'm doing. Well, there's always more to write, but I'll stop here for now.