Selah

When I started this blog, I thought it would be a typical photographer's blog, with samples of my work and my commentary on that work. But then I thought, "why not make this blog that is named after me BE about me?" This is my art. This is my religion. This is my family. This is my SELF. I hope you've been enjoying it, even though I tend to go on tangents, even though I tend to post again and again about a subject for awhile, even though I have three photo sessions I haven't yet blogged and another to shoot tomorrow that will be added to the queue. I have something for you today that is a combination of my photography, some design work (what?!) - FB banners and photos, and my faith, my spirituality, my religion. All but the last two are made with my own photos. Enjoy. edited to add: All of these designs are free to use for noncommerical purposes. They can shared on Facebook from the UU Media Collaborative Works FB page (lots of other great work there...

If you've been reading this blog, you know I volunteer as an escort at a local women's health clinic that twice a week provides abortions. My job is to shepherd women into the clinic -- walking them from their cars to the door and making small talk to help drown out the shouts of the protestors. On this 40th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision which led to the right of women to a safe and legal abortion, I've written a guest post for a fantastic new Unitarian Universalist blog, Raising Faith . Graphic by Mandie McGlynn photo used with Creative Commons licensing from Flickr user M. Angel Herrero The story begins like this: One cold Saturday morning, I arrived at the clinic before the doors were unlocked. The protesters were already setting up with their thermoses full of coffee and rosaries at the ready. Idling in the pull-up driveway was an old, boxy sedan full of people. In the front seat were a man and woman looking to be in their 40s, ...

I'm not sitting with a still body and mind. I'm not walking a winding path, quieting the clamor in my head. I'm working. I'm standing outside at the door, waving in cars and walking women and their companions into the building. I'm chatting mindlessly, trying to give them something to hear and focus on, something to drown out the cries of, "They kill babies here!" I'm standing on the sidewalk, waiting. Escorting at a local women's health center on the mornings they provide abortions is an exercise in living my personal values and religious principles. I am not Buddhist, but many of the principles of Buddhism inform my personal, spiritual development, chief among them  Mettā , or LovingKindness. There are seven principles of Unitarian Universalism , but the first two in particular have called to me, planted themselves deep in my mind, begging me to nurture and cultivate them. I'm trying to shape myself into a person whose default set...

I feel like I've lost the blogging groove. It's not for lack of blog fodder; rather almost for an excess. I'm too busy actually living my life to write about it. But there have been no dearth of developments, the most recent and major being sending my 7-year-old to public school. When you enter the system as former homeschoolers (technically I'm not a "former" homeschooler, since I'm homeschooling my 4-year-old in Kindergarten this year, but HE is a former homeschooler), you expect a certain amount of ... uncertainty from the system. You expect to be frowned upon for having bucked the system. You expect to be treated, maybe, as a little bit of a leper. I'm pleased to say that has not been our experience in even the slightest of ways, and Q's school has been amazing at helping him with the transition, getting him services for his special needs, and keeping me in the loop as to the goings-on. I got just such an updating phone call from the scho...

Jude (my 4-year-old) woke up twice last night, crying pitifully about a headache. After the second time, I pulled him into our bed, wrapped my arms around him, and kissed his head until he fell back asleep. As I lay there with his little arms clinging to me, I thought about how fast he's going to grow up. I thought about how awesome he is right now, and how I'm probably going to forget it all in the coming years, since I've sucked at blogging lately. Excuse the cell phone photography. The best camera is the one you have with you. Jude... He's almost 5 now. He is athletic - tall and lanky, and busy busy busy. He loves to run, jump, somersault, and flip. He was running in a slalom pattern today, side to side while moving forward. It was pretty amazing, coordination-wise. When he does fall down, he's quick to jump up and say "I'm ok!" If he's ever not ok, kisses (especially from mom) are still the perfect remedy. He's pretty much ...

In the past five or so years, I've worked really hard to cultivate my network of friends and acquaintances, to rid myself of drama and emotional vampires, and to strengthen bonds with people who are kind, and who are real . These past couple of months have brought home hard the success of that endeavor. For whatever reason, the people I know have been hit again and again with difficulties. From fellow surrogates  dealing with early labor and other struggles, to illnesses of parents and children, to just plain postpartum fatigue, my friends have been struggling. But while that makes me shake my fist at the heavens and shout at the Universe, "C'MON, GIVE MY FRIENDS A BREAK," the thing that really gets me is the response from everyone else I know. Every single time something bad has happened to one of my friends or acquaintences, someone else has come out of the woodwork to hold out a virtual contribution plate. And without fail, everyone else responds. My friends...

One of the things "they" tell you to do when you're launching a photography business is to maintain a blog. But not just any blog. This blog should be 2 parts recent work and 1 part YOU (or some other magic combination, I guess). I've always kept blogs, but this is a little different for me, so bear with me! Here's something cool about me you probably didn't know (unless you're reading because you already love me, in which case, HI MOM), and a big part of my love of all things birth: I'm a surrogate. I have a blog that's solely dedicated to my surrogacy experiences so far, and I'll keep the details there. But surrogacy and why I do it are a big part of who I am. I carry babies that aren't genetically related to me for gay men (who are obviously without uteri). I've never had a lot of money to donate to causes that are meaningful to me, but I do have a lot of heart. And, well, a uterus. So, as my friend Kelly says, My Uterus is an ...