Gotta Say “Yay”!

so many women, so many Yays!

Day 5, 30-day #candleflame challenge.

“As essence turns to ocean,/the particles glisten./

Watch how in this candleflame instant/blaze all the moments you have lived.”

~Rumi

Yay!

Touchdown!

Victory!

Up top!

In my crib as a baby

I slept with arms above my head.

There are countless pictures of me on a

Tricycle

Bicycle

Roller skates

Skateboard

Surfboard

A softball field

A dance floor

A theatre stage

A technology conference

A march

With my hands thrown overhead.

To say “YAY!”

For college graduation my in-laws

Gave me a glass sculpture of a woman

With her hands overhead that I love.

Molly gave me a picture of a dancer with the same.

My desk has a large sharp metal statue of a woman marching forth

that I carried back in my luggage pre 9/11

welded by women of Christiania in Copenhagen.

This woman is the logo of my business Creative Maven.

Both hands up, going MACH10, hair on fire, screaming with delight

Is how I’ve always approached the world.

Is what I know, is who I am.

In the recent past I noticed that I was putting a hand on the rail.

That my mouth was shut.

That my delightfulness was dim

But I don’t remember when this holding on started.

It must have happened sometime.

Maybe your adult brain unconsciously

sends you some fear to make you hang on a bit.

Maybe you hang on when you feel out of control

Maybe when you feel a bit off-kilter

Maybe when you aren’t trusting yourself.

I noticed this.

This hanging on

And I didn’t like it.

It’s not that wee babe, or the little girl or the young gal that I was.

It’s not this woman that I am.

Once I noticed my own hanging on.

I started to see images of

women everywhere

Hands up

In exaltation

In fury

In fight

In paintings, sculpture

In movies

In my dreams, during meditation

Next to me on the march.

And it reminded me

To get em up.

Those hands

Way up in the air.

Tis a sign of victory

A sign of reverence.

It’s a sign of hello

I AM HERE.

So when you are feeling

Alone.

Down.

Off-Kilter.

In need of some balance.

Get them up.

Put your hands up in the air.

And reach and stretch to the sky

And remember that you’ve got this.

That every day on this earth is a victory.

A thing to exclaim.

A reason to say “yay!”

Thank you for giving that little heart below a nudge if you liked this. :)

Written by Head Maven & CEO, Heather Newman, Creative Maven

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Song accompaniment: Like Fedde Le Grand says, put your hands up for Detroit, I love this city.

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