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Speaking the language of ritual & relationship, folklore & costume, stillness & self-discovery... |
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Blog Address Has Moved — Please Join Me!
By Cornelia Powell | June 21, 2010
Hello! If you’ve landed here, then please join me at the new address for The Woman You Become blog…a journal for women and their journey! You can find it at this link.
See you there…..love, Cornelia
Topics: Announcements | No Comments »
Planet Celebrations
By Cornelia Powell | April 23, 2010
While out ‘n about, I was reminded of the words of my friend Lainey Papageorge, a jewelry designer in Atlanta: “The spring here is full of a ripeness that is intoxicating in the best sense of the word. Maybe because it took so long to get here, it seems especially luscious and plush.” (And that’s the quality Lainey captures in her jewelry designs!)
In addition to planet Earth, I am also celebrating another “planet”….the release of the new book “Planet Wedding: A Nuptialpedia” by Sandra and Harry Choron. They included one of my stories of the fragrant, legendary orange blossom. (Check it out on Amazon.com — with a discount!)
And coming up in a day or two….I’ll post an article I think you’ll enjoy about another legendary botanical — full of goddess mythology and royal connections! Stay tuned….
Topics: Announcements, For Brides, Women's Notes | No Comments »
Spring Movement
By Cornelia Powell | March 26, 2010
A few minutes before the Spring Equinox, I ventured out into the “mostly sunny and warmer than it’s been in a long time” afternoon. I was following a protocol that I read from a well-known Tai Chi teacher, suggesting to do some sort of movement — Qi Gong or gentle stretching — to “open the body” before beginning the short meditation to welcome this seasonal transition.
Being a lazy exerciser, I sometimes leave out the physical exercise part of my day — a hike, or even a short walk; a stretching routine, or even a few loosening-up bends! But on this occasion, with the anticipation of the coming spring’s magical gifts, I really wanted to create the perfect space to call the abundance of Mother Nature into my heart.
Standing beside a beautiful mountain lake — with a soft wind blowing through the surrounding pines and hemlocks — I began with a few Qi Gong movements, lifting my out-stretched arms heavenward. It felt so wonderful to feel my body open — exactly as the teacher promised — and the added delicious feeling of the sun warming me up!
Already more peaceful, I then sat on the grass in the filtered sunlight to enjoy this refreshment of nature and continue the Spring Equinox meditation. As I breathed in the vibrant energy of this blessed place, visualizing the intention I set for this meditative process, I felt my whole body smiling.
I thought how simple “relaxation” can be. Stretching and opening the body also “stretches” and opens the mind and spirit. As I open, I relax; as I relax, I become more available to see and live the pleasures of life instead of indulging in the worries around me. (Why don’t I do it more often? What a fun little ritual this is!)
After finishing the afternoon meditation, and soaking up the sweet peacefulness all around me, I feel the calm settle deep inside me. Thinking something like “but will it last?”, I head off to a friend’s house. And there on the place where for some has become the ultimate repository of profound truths — magnets on the refrigerator door — I read this epistle by an unknown scribe:
“Peace: It does not mean to be in a place where there is no noise, trouble or hard work. It means to be in the midst of those things and still be calm in your heart.”
And there on the spot, I promise myself, once again, that I will begin each day with “calm in my heart.” I will start with some slow stretching just ’cause it feels so good. Then a few minutes of sitting quietly with my eyes closed, letting my noisy thoughts float by while I breathe slowly and deeply into my heart. I’ll imagine putting down roots deep into the Earth to ground me, then find my center in that place in my torso that holds my truth. I will relish the infinitely abundant day to come (no matter the circumstances swirling about) and remember that my inner and outer peace is up to me. One slow, pleasurable stretch; one deep, languid breath; one positive, kind thought at a time.
Topics: Inspiration, Meditation, Stillness & Relaxation, Women's Notes | No Comments »
Gifts for Your Body, Mind and Spirit!
By Cornelia Powell | March 11, 2010
I’d like to introduce you to my friend Dona Marie Duke of WeddingBod.com, creator of the Wedding Workout and Couple/Partner Stretch exercise regimens. I love her work because she combines “fitness” for your body, mind and spirit!
Dona’s passion is producing fitness programs and workouts — using her background in Yoga, Pilates, Reike, and belly-dancing — for everyone from elite athletes to those just beginning physical pursuits.
She is offering her popular exercise DVDs (available in English and Spanish) designed for bridal parties and couples — but are fun & beneficial to everyone — as free gifts to my readers! Order a copy of my Amazon bestseller, The Bride’s Ritual Guide: Look Inside to Find Yourself, and receive Dona’s two DVDs (and a little bonus from me) as your Free Gifts. 
ps: The Bride’s Ritual Guide: Look Inside to Find Yourself is a soothing gift of ease for any bride-to-be. Focusing on the feminine and personal language of this womanly rite-of-passage, it is an intimately sized paperback just right for a bride-to-be to tuck inside her purse and use during her busy day as a heart-centered guide!
Topics: Announcements, For Brides, Stillness & Relaxation, Women's Notes | No Comments »
Things Are Seldom As They Seem
By Cornelia Powell | February 25, 2010
I recently saw the movie The Young Victoria — starring the delightful Emily Blunt. The “wonderful to look at” film focused on the petite, high-spirited, passionate young woman who became Queen of England as a teenager in the early 19th century and her arranged marriage that became a legendary love affair.
“Wasn’t she actually a chubby, unattractive prude?” my movie buddy asked after the film. From what I’ve studied through the years, the movie was an authentic personal portrait of the young Victoria, although the public mostly knows her later-in-life image as a dour-faced, plump widow dressed in black.
“Well,” I responded to my friend, “after nine children, being less than 5 feet tall, and probably having a sweet tooth, she did get increasingly round. And then losing her beloved Albert in mid-life and perhaps never completely coming out of her deep mourning for him — as well as having an expanding empire and industrial revolution to manage — her more somber, reserved side was indeed her main public persona it seems.”
But that was not the whole picture of this woman who influenced global culture, including wedding customs that remain to this day. And I liked that the new film shook up the typical public’s — and history’s — point of view.
History is full of misconceptions that we take as fact; what we “perceive” — historically or in this moment — is not necessarily the truth or reality, it’s just how something “appears” to us at the time. And in today’s “talk show” crazed world, no matter how thoroughly even a fair host may interview someone, there is always another side, another slice, another angle. “Things are seldom as they seem” is actually a profound axiom!
I find it helpful to read and hear most things “with a grain of salt” — staying open and curious, yet thoughtful even when I disagree. (As one of my teachers use to say: Be a “healthy skeptic” not a “rude cynic.”) Life then becomes lighter, more expansive and imaginative. (Is having an “open mind” the first step to having an “open heart”?)
Queen Victoria continued to be hard to pigeonhole during her long reign, which perhaps affected her historical legacy. Not perceived as a “fashion plate,” yet she influenced what women wore — for better or worse — during important rites-of-passage. The fact that she wore black for the remainder of her life after Prince Albert’s death put the widows of the entire era in de rigour black (no matter their age) to wear like a badge of honor. And on the other end of the spectrum — literally — Victoria was not the first royal bride to wear white, but the fitted bodice and full skirt of her white silk satin gown trimmed in lace set the vogue for wedding fashions and established the iconic “wedding gown” silhouette we still know today.
Now if only another royal princess would come along and influence current brides away from the usually unflattering — that’s MY perception! — STRAPLESS wedding gown styles that have become their own icon of the last few decades. (But that’s the subject of another book!) For now, I’m working on “staying open.”
Topics: Costume, Empowering Girls, For Brides, Inspiration, Women's Notes | No Comments »
“Celebrating Love” Continues
By Cornelia Powell | February 19, 2010
Did someone you know become engaged on Valentine’s Day? (Or perhaps is “on the verge”…?) All during the month of February, we will continue CELEBRATING LOVE with a Special Offer!
Order a copy of my book, “The Bride’s Ritual Guide: Look Inside to Find Yourself” from Weddings of Grace, and receive 3 Gifts! The book and any of the free gifts would make a perfect bridal shower present or treasure for a special bride.
Click here to purchase an autographed copy of my Amazon Bestseller book and you will receive both of my soothing Open Your Heart relaxation CDs — one especially for Brides and one for all Women — plus a vintage sixpence coin (“…and a sixpence for her shoe.”) in a little gift bag — all FREE!
Someone in your world would love a copy of “The Bride’s Ritual Guide” … and you’ll receive lots of extra love to go around with this Special Offer! (Reviewer are calling the book “a small, intimately-sized paperback perfect for any bride-to-be to tuck into her purse and use during her busy day as a heart-centering guide!”)
Click here to order a book … and receive your 3 Gifts as a little thank you!
CELEBRATE LOVE with us during February. And thank you for sharing the news….and the love!
Topics: Announcements, For Brides, Women's Notes | No Comments »
Camellias & An Exchange of Hearts
By Cornelia Powell | January 29, 2010
Flowers were the passion of my grandmother Gummie, my father’s mother. I’ve written about Gummie a great deal—stories of our relationship and her contributions to my various little girl rites-of-passage as I was growing up. A walk with her around her big fenced-in yard in any season was not only a botanical education for me, but an education of the heart.
Gummie talked about how she loved the happy “faces” of pansies—they seemed like personal friends to her—and how she could set her watch with the opening of the trumpet-shaped “four o’clocks” by her garden gate. And it wasn’t about just the flowers. Gummie always had kind stories about the people who gave her cuttings, or shared exotic lily bulbs, or told her about a new rose in an irresistible shade of pink. I remember walking under a trellis that she had built, lush with the palest palest pink climbing roses, was like crossing over into heaven.
She always had her clippers and a basket with her on our walkabouts around her spacious yard and before I knew it, we were off up the country road in her big blue Oldsmobile with a vase of flowers going to call on a neighbor—usually someone who had missed church the Sunday before. It was like she put all that love she gave, then received back from friends, into her flower garden, which in turn grew even more abundantly.
On our garden strolls, Gummie didn’t exactly talk to the flowers, but was she talking to me? She knew all their names: Herme japonica, Professor Sargent, Debutante, Purple Dawn, Pink Perfection—and these were just the camellias! Had she fallen in love with their colors, or had she chosen them because she liked how the names rolled off her tongue?
Gummie always wore something blue, matching her eyes. Every Sunday during the winter, when camellias were in season, she picked one from her yard and pinned it on the lapel of her dark blue wool coat to wear to church. And without fail, she gave it away, happily pinning the regal purply-pink flower on the costume of a beaming recipient. As a little girl watching this gesture, I always felt I was in the charmed presence of something divine—an exchange of hearts.
I don’t know if Gummie had a mantra or not, but if she had, it would have been something like this: “Give love away and your true heart’s desire magically appears.” No wonder, whenever I see camellias in bloom, I’m compelled to go gather a bouquet and place them on the nearest tabletop, then watch for the magic.
[Reprinted from the January Notes from Cornelia newsletter]
Topics: Inspiration, Relationship, Remembrances | No Comments »
Thanks!
By Cornelia Powell | January 23, 2010
Thanks to all who supported the kick-off to my booksigning “tour” this past week for my new book, ”The Bride’s Ritual Guide: Look Inside to Find Yourself“! I’m setting up new cities and dates now — and will keep you posted via Facebook and Twitter….join me there!
In case you haven’t heard, the book made the Amazon Bestseller list when it was launched last month….and reviewers call it “not only an essential gift for brides of all ages, but also a pleasure for every woman who loves matters of the heart.”
Also, if you know of a wedding event or special store in your area, let me know….perhaps ’tis a place for me to book a speaking engagement and/or have a booksigning — and there are always lots of free gifts to share!
Many thanks…..love, Cornelia
Topics: Announcements, For Brides, Women's Notes | No Comments »
Rites of Girlhood
By Cornelia Powell | December 31, 2009
The lineage of women plays out in many ways during wedding celebrations. I’ve written a lot about flower girls (including my own experience as a four-year-old), sharing the tender rite-of-passage that the experience begins to unfold.
Being a flower girl for a wedding ceremony can be the first time that a little girl has a sense of her own beauty. It’s also an opportunity for others to support a little girl in recognizing her outer and inner beauty.
Having a flower girl in one’s wedding becomes a way for the bride to see her own girlhood reflected in her bridal rite-of-passage. In fact — and no matter her age or experience — a woman can sense a “loss of girlhood” as she goes through her bridal transition.
There are world cultures that still have rituals during wedding festivities where the women of the village gather with the bride-to-be and ceremoniously “mourn the loss of girlhood.” Historically, a bride is crossing the threshold from her girlhood home — and saying goodbye to her life as a girl — and crossing the threshold into her husband’s home. Like most rites-of-passage, some sadness or a sense of loss over the life changes that the particular transition brings about is only natural.
These circumstances may be a little dated in modern experiences, but the essence of change and how it affects us can be just as profound. This is why it’s important to acknowledge whatever feelings and emotions that come up during these transitional experiences in life.
What is the rite-of-passage you are moving through right now — the new threshold you are crossing? It could be a move, a big birthday, a new job or work project, becoming a new mother or grandmother, writing a book, retirement, beginning a meditation or exercise practice, taking on a healthier lifestyle, or beginning an organic garden! If you can hold the experience as a rite-of-passage — a natural progression of self-discovery — then there is a sense of flow to the process. As you move forward, you let go of where you’re moving from…and anything that doesn’t serve a life you love!
I’ve found it supportive at these times of change to tap into the voice of my girlhood and the message I hear is always something like this: “Go play! Go play at what lights you up!”
It’s always great to be reminded to focus on what I love…what lights me up. The wisdom of this simple message seems to ease the transition, no matter the threshold I’m crossing. Scholar Arnold van Gennep explains in his book The Rites of Passage: “….to cross the threshold is to unite oneself with a new world.”
So whatever “new world” you’re about to enter, what I tell brides during their rite-of-passage may be helpful to you: Listen for your quiet inner-self during these times of change…and you just may hear the loving voice of your girlhood encouraging you, reminding you to embrace the playful little girl inside you. Listening deeper, you can also hear your “wise-woman” voice guiding you to cross a threshold of your own design — inspired by your own womanly spirit.
Indeed, the dreams of a little girl claimed by a woman’s voice can grow into a full, loving and satisfying experience. So when you cross your next threshold….just go play!
Topics: Empowering Girls, For Brides, Inspiration, Relationship, Women's Notes | No Comments »
A Bestseller & More Thank You Gifts
By Cornelia Powell | December 16, 2009
I have happy news and a “sharing request.” My new book, The Bride’s Ritual Guide: Look Inside to Find Yourself, hit the Amazon Bestseller list the day it launched last week.
Thank you to everyone who supported the campaign….buying the book, sharing the news, sending lots of love!
However, there were several technical glitches on launch day and many people didn’t get the announcement and missed the Thank You GIFTS offer. So I’m extending the Free Gifts Special Offer for a few days.
Click here for all the details!
This extended offer lasts ’til Christmas! And remember that more couples get engaged at Christmas than at any other time — so order a few “bestsellers” and have on hand what’s been called “the perfect gift for brides of all ages and a pleasure for every woman who loves matters of the heart.”
And you don’t have to be a bride or know a bride-to-be to order this book:
· A friend in Houston wrote last week that he bought a book to give to his daughter one day — she’s a pre-teen now. (I love that — and encouraged him to give it to her now for a womanly message of self-esteem.)
· Another friend bought a copy for her mother — an 80-something year-old newlywed!
· And my dear sister Sallie in Alabama bought two copies to donate to the local public libraries in honor of our mother and father — and as a way to support young women in finding their inner and outer beauty, whether a bride-to-be or not!
I’m delighted the book is so well received! The heart-centered message of The Bride’s Ritual Guide: Look Inside to Find Yourself is a wonderful way to draw attention to the more loving side of relationship and wedding planning.
Click here for more about the book and how to receive your Thank You Gifts.
Thank you, thank you to all…and thanks for sharing!
…with love from Cornelia
ps: Thanks again for spreading the word. And if you missed getting your copy last week, then here’s the perfect opportunity to order what’s now a “bestseller” AND receive Thank You Gifts to boot! Don’t delay, order TODAY so you can receive your Thank You Gifts!
pps: If you have women in your world who would benefit from a message where they discover the depth of their own heart and experience the intimacy of their bridal rite-of-passage, then please share this message! Thank you.
Topics: Announcements, Empowering Girls, For Brides, Inspiration, Relationship | No Comments »
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