I am thrilled and honored to announce my image "Tiny Dancer" appears on YourDailyPhotograph today! Pass it on!
xo, Juliet
Thursday, March 13, 2014
Saturday, October 8, 2011
Tuesday, September 27, 2011
Indulging the Muse
Raquel Zimmerman has been a longtime favorite model of mine and I have never seen her undone such as Steven Meisel presents her in September’s 2011 Fashion issue of W Magazine.
My obsession with fashion and models began in the checkout lines at market in the "front" of the valley, as we called it, Lemon Valley, and a cover of Cosmopolitan Magazine Fransesco Scavullo shot with Paulina Porizkova.
My own experience modeling was much different than my imaginations. I was painfully shy. At castings I was not even able to look the panel of bookers in the eye or speak. It was excruciating and I was thrown into depression that lasted years after my return from Vienna and Milan. The camera did like me but my fear was insurmountable.
One call was to the studio of Steven Meisel. I was wrapped in a sheet on a board leaning against a wall. The ceiling was miles above me in this fantasy gorgeous warehouse space I have dreamed of living in to this day. Another call was as a fit model for Iceberg. I felt like a sausage poured in to and bursting out of this tube of a sock I imagined was supposed to be a dress. I am a size 4 and by those standards I was super FAT.
My last European call was with a very famous photographer who was married to a young model. They had two children together and I was to test at his studio for my agent. I dragged a suitcase FULL of clothes with me, his assistant left the room and I believe sat in the loft upstairs, and at last, after showing me photos of how Elite Models showcased their girls, in full sexy regalia, he pulled his little pepe out of his pants and told me to f*** the wall. I booked my ticket home the very next day.
Still there is part of me that wonders what my life could have been if I had had the wherewithal to persevere through the muck and the mire and actually get booked for the runway season or for a job, or a cover. Perhaps. But I made the choice that very day to retreat. The dye was cast.
Do I have any regrets? Do you want me to lie?
I struggled for years when I got home to America. The food was not as amazing and delicious as it was in Europe. The people were not nearly as friendly and open or FUN. The agency who sent me to Vienna was a dismal joke. People in America seemed very fake and boring. I was clueless as to what on Earth I was supposed to do with my life next, so I went back to college. Thank Heaven for my family. They nursed me through so much mental wack and many unhealthy years beyond even my own comprehension.
I battled alcohol and food and abusive relationships and years of feeling absolutely lost. It is truly amazing to imagine that you can spend what you believe is your whole life preparing for an outcome only to discover your natural Being is not meant for that purpose. My only recommendation, teach your children SUCCESS. A young mind needs to know what winning feels like, whether it is at home or in math or science class. Something vocal and cheery. Give them WIDE berth to experience failure and winning. Let them choose. Before they step out into the world.
As I think about being over 40, I look in the mirror and I marvel at the experiences I have survived and that have WOW'ed and shaped my persona. I have few regrets other than wishing I had been prepared to create the life I once dreamed of. Fortunately, that has changed and morphed into something palatable that I can live with, and I am perfectly poised to create the life I choose now.
If I am to be honest with you, I believe if I had known then what I know now, I would have been a force to be reckoned with. My dreams would have been realized at the snap of my finger and NO thing could have torn me down or hurt me or frightened me in any way, but, well, that was not meant to be. Some of us are Late Bloomers. http://www.soundstrue.com/shop/The-Late-Bloomer/3648.productdetails?component=coursesevents
Sigh. So, I still look forward to my monthly fashion infusion. W, Vogue, ID, Flair, Marie Claire, etc., etc. And I hold my heart for all the very young gorgeous women who enter the profession and survive and thrive in the industry that ate my heart alive. I envy you, and I thank my stars that I did not make the cut. I’m happy to be living in Marina Del Rey with my kitties, and not too many people know who I really am.
That part I’m actually looking to change.
Sunday, September 18, 2011
“Vishuddha”
Wind and Water. Associated with the color Blue most often. The color of the 5th Chakra: Ether. Universe. Voice. Five is the number of movement and productivity. Freedom. Primal in nature as we are. Visual experiential learners every one.
I was just thinking that I dream the vision of my life as I go along all day long. Today in the Pre-Post Natal teacher training workshop I attended I dreamt about what kind of teacher I want to be, what kind of mother, partner, friend I am and about the home I am building. I dream about how I will feel in that space, how I will speak and embrace life and those around me who give me so much and allow me to express my visions unfettered and raw.
There was a time when I believed acting was the purest form of expression and that is why I wanted to be involved in the industry machine of making visual imagery, still or moving. It didn’t matter to me where I stood on the set, just that I was there. Now I understand it is the Act of Expression that is Pure.
There is no concealment. Nothing to hide behind. The voice is meant to be heard and the body is a naturally bold flower just as each animal has it’s own personality. Some heal, some hunt, some run, some sleep.
There was a rough patch of years when I went from being a wild butterfly to feeling ashamed of and trapped within my own skin. It is in this daydreaming where the tiniest belief held deep in the memory of my musculoskeletal system has given me the will to work toward my own personal liberation all these years. It is in the creating of these dreams that motivates me to live the life I want and the reason for every decision I make.
The Sanskrit equivalent I like to associate with this state of evolution is Krama mukti [krum mukti]: liberation by degrees. Choice is a good place to begin. It was during my 200 hour teacher training program where I discovered the concept that says the teacher witnesses where the students capabilities reside and respects that place and teaches to each student on that level.
I began immediately to exercise my right to choose. I chose to develop my personal practice around what my body wanted rather than what was necessarily prescribed. My body had changed over the years and the first thing I needed to do was respect that within my own physicality before I could understand how to be a compassionate guide to a group of bodies that I cannot feel inside of.
Speaking of this takes me back to my workshop this afternoon. My daydreaming becomes part of my experience. While I’m navigating the balance of my structure relating to the floor and trying to remember to breathe I’m thinking about being a Mommy. We had our Mexican blankets rolled up and tightly strapped around our abdomens to get a sense of how that obstruction will hinder movement.
We modified the sun salutation, forward bends, side angle poses to strengthen the obliques, backbends and the necessity for keeping the bend mostly in the thoracic region. It was a fascinating class. Every new bit of information I learned gave me moments of daydreaming about how I will incorporate this new knowledge into my own teaching. Like a skilled DJ inspires the bodies on the dancefloor through a journey of sound, the yoga teacher takes the mind on a journey while the body moves in and up and around the breath.
My fellow market worker told me the other day he was not great in school but he was very good at learning languages and that he can speak French, Mandarin, Russian, Spanish and a couple other obscure tongue. For me the academics were also a challenge, but music and images is where I was golden.
It makes perfect sense to me now how the path I have chosen may be confused with daydreaming to some folks, but it really speaks to me in ways I can only begin to comprehend myself at this early stage in my development. As a more serious practitioner and as a teacher I can only refer to that tiny sense of knowing in the marrow of my bones and go with it. This in itself is purity. Vishuddha.
Saturday, September 17, 2011
Thursday, September 15, 2011
The Power of Silence
As I stand on the brink of huge financial decision my heart says run with the wind and risk it all for what I believe in. The voices of reason pull me out of my will to LIVE and bid me return to the safety of the life I had before. The one that drained my lungs of breath and broke me down to a puddle of nothingness vacant of personality and joy.
I took my health and sanity back into my own hands and devoted so much blood to healing my heart it strikes me as absurd to even suggest altering my forward motion when I am so close.
The way I see it I can build it now and work really hard to teach it to breathe with my vision or I can deviate from this path I've worked so hard to find my footing on and risk losing focus and maybe never build it. I'm just beginning to streamline and focus and fine tune my voice.
Most of my life has been spent letting others make decisions for me. I have always done others work administrating, holding up the walls of someone else's dreams. Now it is my time. Ironically, I will still be in service, but as a guide I an arena where my intuition has place, my sensitivities can thrive.
I have been given a gift. The world will change, or not, but if I refuse to live my dream even one day in this lifetime while it sits in front if me for the taking I will have wasted our most precious human asset, creation.
So, this means the management will scowl and groan, but what if I succeed? What if it turns out exactly as I envision it to be?
Tuesday, September 13, 2011
See Change
Ocean twig curling up Eggshell cracked table side.
That's what this lamp next to me speaks. Volumes of Soul Pages inked out before I enlist the Dream Machine to carry me through the vision Voice gives to my sleep. Coffee smell fills empty dresser drawers, clothing piled around the carpeted floor, down heat cacooning caged breath filled with heart.
Kitten, kitten around my toes. One will crawl up to my right ear purring and knead the pillow case frayed, the other will wake me at three or four with hunger prancing out the door as I close it behind him. I know the bowl is full.
Amber soft lavender weight covers my eyes while Amethyst wand capped by orbs of Rosy Quartz and Clear Crystal slipped under my pillow invite me to drift. They will take care of the rest.
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