New Feet Forward

I don't always put my best foot forward.

I want to. I have elaborate plans for how fantastically I could do something, with icing on it, and sparkles, and if people saw them they would applaud my artistry. The realities are often far different, though; so caught up can I be in how perfectly something could be done, that it often won't happen at all, and then I'm left flatfooted and sad.

One of the nice thing about planned photographs, and the blogs written around them, is you can shine them up as much as you like to an idealized world of perfection. Avatars are already distilled humans, the clothing we put on them the concretized dreams of creators selected through the lens of a photographer. The places we stand are likewise, dreams in their idea form - each angle and color selected and places with a consciousness which doesn't exist in the same way outside of virtual worlds.Cleaned up, idealized, removed from the concrete, during times of crisis I can create amber-like approximations of perfections.

I have a few goals for the coming year. Not resolutions - these are neither so precious nor inviolable. I assume I will fail at these goals, not once but many times. I am trying to let go of my illusion that immediate and unchanging Correctness is possible or even desirable, but I'm sure I will fail at that as well. One thing I practice a lot - failing. Another... apologies. The two go hand in hand.

1. Be Kind. This applies not just to others, where I've always highly valued it, but also to myself. If it is less-than-desirable to go on at length about how someone else is a boil on the butt of the earth, than I don't have justification for saying that about myself.


2. Be Clear. This is more complicated than it sounds, because it also means not necessarily speaking when I'm not sure what I think - or saying that I'm not sure. It also means smaller, closer to me and the world statements; I have a tendency toward the blithe and the universalized, and it doesn't suit any of us no matter how clever I may feel at the time.


3. Be Just. In Asatru mythology there are two gods commonly associated with justice. One of them is Tyr One-Handed, who Sacrificed his hand in the jaws of Fenrir to balance out the trickery that the gods played on The Wolf in order to bind him until Ragnorok. His is the Perfect Justice of strict adherence to word, law, and consequence. There is a second god, though, Forseti, who is associated with the Justice of finding peace between people, of building and maintaining community within disparate groups. Both of these forms of Justice are important to me - the strictness of Law and the softness of Reconciliation. 

( More pictures here. )

Credits:

Skin: Izzie's, Irene
Hair: Violent Seduction, Usagi
Ears: Illusions, Seelie Ears
Eyes: De La Soul, Rainbow
Eyeshadow: Souzou Eien, Fairy Eyes
Mask: katat0nik, Missing You
Lipstick: Adore & Abhor, Fluff Lips
Eyelashes 1: SLink, Mesh Lashes
Eyelashes 2: Flugeln Brise, 05-A
Wings: Deviance, Sidhe
Hands and Feet: SLink, Rigged Mesh Hands and Feet
Nails: Bliensen + MaiTai, Lace
Dress: Loordes of London, Pinjore
Belt: CoCo, Double Belt
Stockings: Stellar, In Bloom
Shoes: Kokoia, Berlin (Love the Live)

Pose: !bang

Location: Hutchinson Parish
Light Settings: TOR, MIDDAY Cheery Cyan
Water Settings: Glassy

Photographed by Deoridhe Quandry
Post processing: Cropping, only