Natural Beauty

I took this picture in Asheville and I think it's so beautiful. Just the way the vines grow up the wall naturally and the graffiti on the walls is like art for free. Here, in the suburbs, I am surrounded with drab grey buildings and chain restaurants galore. There is not individuality to any of it and it dulls the senses.

Lately I have been feeling so opposed to our commercialized culture, the way that people just want everything to look so polished, and they only care if it's a product that can be marketed. I know that sometimes I am a walking contradiction of myself, with my name brand clothing or my beauty products that I can't imagine giving up. But I am thinking of ways I can take myself out of this cycle of making money only to turn around and spend it on things that don't bring me any true happiness.

I have been in my current house now for 6 months, thinking that would be the home that I would stay in for at least a few years. After previously feeling like I would never get my things out of storage and set up in a new place that was mine. I hoped and was promised this would be the time and the place I would have a baby in, a place that would be home. And now, with another move in the near future, having to rent the house and face the loss of dreams, I am feeling very much like purging.

It's a contradiction of self because while I love all the stuff that ads to the beauty and comfort of my home, I don't need it. It is feeding a part of me that maybe needs to be let go, to run wild so that I can emerge lighter, more free.

I am done searching for the money to have the things that in the end have to be moved or sold and a life that offers only false sense of security. The only real security we have is in within us and who we hold dear to us. The relationships that we nurture and give our love to. At the end of the day I want to be able to exist with less and take myself out of the cycle of falling prey to the corporate world. I would like to only buy handmade, used, or trade items for a year to see if I can make it. I would like to only use natural products that are not contributing to harming the earth. This is something I have gradually done but not a lifestyle change I have ever been ready to commit to, until now.