ca-yu

[ca-yu]

nakshatras as art: rohini

1. "Gather Ye Rosebuds While Ye May" John William Waterhouse

2. "The Swing" Jean Honoré Fragonard

3. "La Belle Dame Sans Merci" John William Waterhouse

4. "Psyche Opening the Door into Cupid's Garden" John William Waterhouse

[ca-yu]

[ca-yu]

the whole of my heart is an infinite cauldron of honey, for you. remove myself to make room. to house you with these bones as tired as blue ocean. im a good beggar. have the teeth for it. knelt to you for my knighting. waiting, a trembling dog, for you to name me beloved or beheaded. the weight of the world in your yes, in your hurricane decision. no sugar runs over. i clean my mouth after every kiss. i clean my wounds like ritual. this cauldron of honey, where flies sink & drown. this brittle collection of limbs ive coddled for you to make a bed out of. my loathing made small & menial in the shadow of your love. dwarfed by the hands you cast over me. your hands, touching me, that could smother any fire, could clench quick as a snake strike. your hands polishing me until i bleed honey into the mattress.

Silas Denver Melvin, from Grit: Poems; “Backdrop made beautiful by pity”

[ca-yu]

Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019) dir. Céline Sciamma

[ca-yu]

Noor Hindi, ode to friendship

[ca-yu]

80 Books About Awesome Women

In my tradition of making long lists of books I don’t have time to read, here is a hodge-podge collection of books about women (mostly historical). It’s not organized, admittedly Western-centric, biased (yes there are three books on Jane Austen), and I tried to avoid books that were surveys of unconnected women. I welcome any additions you may have and any opinions or thoughts if/when you read one.  List is also on my Goodreads. 

The Peabody Sisters: Three Women Who Ignited American Romanticism by Megan Marshall

The Richest Woman In America: Hetty Green in the Gilded Age by Janet Wallach  

Seafaring Women by David Cordingly

Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood  by Marjane Satrapi

The Husband Hunters: American Heiresses Who Married into the British  by Anne De Courcy

Hidden Figures: The Untold True Story of Four African-American Women Who Helped Launch Our Nation into Space by Margot Lee Shetterly

Code Girls: The Untold Story of the American Women Code Breakers Who Helped Win World War II by Liza Mundy

When Women Ruled the World: Six Queens of Egypt by Kara Cooney

The Warrior Queens by Antonia Fraser

Things I’ve Been Silent About by Azar Nafisi

The Portable Nineteenth-Century African American Women Writers

Who Cooked the Last Supper? The Women’s History of the World by Rosalind Miles

Enchantress of Numbers by Jennifer Chiaverini

The Firebrand and the First Lady: Portrait of a Friendship: Pauli Murray, Eleanor Roosevelt, and the Struggle for Social Justice  by Patricia Bell-Scott

Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman by Robert K. Massie

Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls: 100 Tales of Extraordinary Women by Elena Favillie and Francesca Cavallo

Princesses Behaving Badly: Real stories from history without the fairytale endings by Linda Rodriguez McRobbie

Pirate Women: The Princesses, Prostitutes, and Privateers Who Ruled the Seven Seas by Laura Sook Duncombe

Sally Ride: America’s First Woman in Space by Lynn Sherr

She-Wolves: The Women Who Ruled England Before Elizabeth  by Helen Castor

Cleopatra: A Life by Stacy Schiff

Rise of the Rocket Girls: The Women Who Propelled Us, from Missiles to the Moon to Mars  by Nathalia Holt

Liar, Temptress, Soldier, Spy: Four Women Undercover in the Civil War by Karen Abbott

Revolutionary Mothers: Women in the Struggle for America’s Independence by Carol Berkin

The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America’s Shining Women by Kate Moore

A History of Britain in 21 Women: A Personal Selection by Jenni Murray

City Women: Money, Sex, and the Social Order in Early Modern London by Eleanor Hubbard

Good Time Girls of the Alaska-Yukon Gold Rush: Secret History of the Far North by Lael Morgan

Giovanni and Lusanna: Love and Marriage in Renaissance Florence by Gene A. Brucker 

Immodest Acts: The Life of a Lesbian Nun in Renaissance Italy by Judith Brown

Women on the Margins: Three Seventeenth-Century Lives by Natalie Zemon Davis

Promised the Moon: The Untold Story of the First Women in the Space Race by Stephanie Nolen

No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt - The Homefront in WWII  by Doris Kearns Goodwin. 

Fame, Lust, and the Beautiful Killers who Inspired Chicago by Douglas Perry

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot

Jane Austen: A Life by Claire Tomalin

Monique and the Mango Rains: Two Years with a Midwife in Mali by Kris Holloway,

Jane Austen, the Secret Radical by Helena Kelly

She Is But A Woman: Queenship In Scotland, 1424-1463 by Fiona Downie

The Real Jane Austen: A Life in Small Things by Paula Byrne

The Woman Warrior by Maxine Hong Kingston

Mothers of Invention: Women of the Slaveholding South in the American Civil War by Drew Gilpin Faust

These Is My Words: The Diary of Sarah Agnes Prine, 1881-1901 by Nancy E. Turner

The Hiding Place: The Triumphant True Story of Corrie Ten Boom by Corrie ten Boom

Without Reservations: The Travels of an Independent Woman by Alice Steinbach

Witches, Midwives and Nurses: A History of Women Healers  by Barbara Ehrenreich,  Deirdre English 

The Girl in the Picture: The Story of Kim Phuc, the Photograph, and the Vietnam War by Denise Chong

Real American Girls Tell Their Own Stories: Messages from the Heart and Heartland by Dorothy Hoobler

She Is But A Woman: Queenship In Scotland, 1424-1463 by Fiona Downie

Belle: The True Story of Dido Belle by Paula Byrne

The Woman of Colour by Lyndon J. Dominique 

The Woman Who Would Be King: Hatshepsut’s Rise to Power in Ancient Egypt by Kara Cooney

Aristocrats: Caroline, Emily, Louisa, and Sarah Lennox, 1740-1832 by Stella Tillyard

Searching for Sarah Rector: The Richest Black Girl in America by Tonya Bolden

Wedlock by Wendy Moore

The Criminal Conversation of Mrs. Norton by Diane Atkinson

Breaking Ground: Pioneering Women Archaeologists by Getzel M. Cohen

Artemisia Gentileschi: The Image Of The Female Hero In Italian Baroque Art by Mary D. Garrard

Pure Grit: How WWII Nurses in the Pacific Survived Combat and Prison Camp by Mary Cronk Farrell

Witchcraze: A New History of the European Witch Hunts by Anne Llewellyn Barstow

The Pinks: The First Women Detectives, Operatives, and Spies with the Pinkerton National Detective Agency by Chris Enss

Ada Blackjack: A True Story of Survival in the Arctic by Jennifer Niven

The Secret History of the Mongol Queens: How the Daughters of Genghis Khan Rescued His Empire by Jack Weatherford

Mrs. Holmes: Murder, Kidnap and the True Story of an Extraordinary Lady Detective by Brad Ricca 

They Fought Like Demons: Women Soldiers in the Civil War by DeAnne Blanton,  Lauren M. Cook

Caesars’ Wives: The Women Who Shaped the History of Rome by Annelise Freisenbruch

The Original Million Dollar Mermaid: The Annette Kellerman Story by Emily Gibson

The Amazons: Lives and Legends of Warrior Women Across the Ancient World by Adrienne Mayor

The Weaker Vessel by Antonia Fraser

Warrior Women: An Archaeologist’s Search for History’s Hidden Heroines by Jeannine Davis-Kimball

Sisters: The Lives of America’s Suffragists by Jean H. Baker

Empress of the East: How a European Slave Girl Became Queen of the Ottoman Empire by Leslie Peirce

I Am Malala: The Story of the Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban  by Malala Yousafzai  

Baby Catcher: Chronicles of a Modern Midwife by Peggy Vincent

West with the Night  by Beryl Markham  

My Life in France by Julia Child

The Midwife: A Memoir of Birth, Joy, and Hard Times by Jennifer Worth

Witches and Pagans: Women in European Folk Religion, 700-1100 by Max Dashu

Educated: A Memoir by Tara Westover

Wheels of Change: How Women Rode the Bicycle to Freedom by Sue Macy

[ca-yu]

all of these books are amazing ∘⁺✧◞₊⋅*

[ca-yu]

Affirmation Of The Day

:༅𐐪𐑂｡:༅𐐪𐑂 :༅｡𐐪𐑂 ° I am creative ° 𐐪𐑂｡:༅𐐪𐑂 :༅｡𐐪𐑂:༅ I make an abundance of art and beauty curated from my heart and hands. Through my overflow of creative expression I give back to the beloved universe. My imagination is very vivid. Being full of drive and passion adds the most divine touch to my projects. Living my life as a full time artist comes easy to me as the world is my inspiration and subject. I follow my intuition when it comes to my creative inclinations. I am beyond blessed to have boundless innovation. I always allow my mind to wander as it brings new ideas to me. All of my creative pieces are a success. I constantly inspire the collective. I have great artistic ability. The wellspring of creativity runs well within me.

[ca-yu]

Kim min hee

[ca-yu]

Like Someone in Love / ライク・サムワン・イン・ラブ (2012) dir. Abbas Kiarostami

[ca-yu]

https://www.instagram.com/p/CLoXFgDnDHu/

[ca-yu]

affirm daily: i love me. i love myself. i love who i am. i love who i was. i love who i am becoming. i honor myself. i respect myself. i value myself. i am my own greatest gift. i am grateful for this life and all i experience. i love me.

[ca-yu]

愛媛県今治市 Imabari City, Ehime Prefecture, Japan

[ca-yu]

Aya Takano / POTATO / 2000

[ca-yu]

the term non-man is so fucking offensive i cant even wrap my brain around how people my age think it’s okay to define lesbianism as non-men attracted to non-men. it is beyond misogynistic and lesbophobic to use language that makes men the focal point of a sexuality that has NOTHING to do with them. if you use non-men unironically to describe women or lesbianism unfollow me seriously.

[ca-yu]

Lin Chin-Hsien  |  林欽賢  -  Untitled  (Two Women) 

Taiwanese, b. 1968 

Mixed media on paper mounted on board

[ca-yu]

my sexuality has nothing to do with men and everything to do with women. it’s about loving women, their bodies, their minds, everything about them. it isn’t about the absence of maleness, of penises, of men. i, a woman, love women, exclusively. that’s it.

i don’t love what men are not, i love what women are