Author: Elizabeth Gaucher

my, what a big fig leaf you have | peaceful black bear

/ Elizabeth Gaucher / Leave a comment

I don’t do a lot of re-blogging other people’s posts, but this one is worth my quota.

good soul-work — men’s work, women’s work, recovery work, therapy, bioenergetic work, spiritual work, and so on — helps us truly feel and look at the aprons of large, life-controlling strategies like shame and addiction and rage and victimhood, and realize they’re not who we are at our core, they’re things we have done for a long time that feel like who we are but in fact are tools. and some don’t fit anymore and are no longer necessary. to keep growing and maturing, i have to release them. take off the apron. get naked and vulnerable.

but i don’t want to. i’m scared. so i sew together big leaves, then add more, then more still, meant to cover the vulnerable parts of my emotions and selfhood – not from anybody else, but from myself.

Read the full post here:

my, what a big fig leaf you have | peaceful black bear.

Just for Fun: The Esse Diem Meme!

/ Elizabeth Gaucher / 15 Comments

My friend Doug Imbrogno is wicked smart, talented, and musical to boot. When he speaks, I listen.

The other day he made the off-hand suggestion that I put together an “Esse Diem meme” – because it would be fun and because he likes the way it sounds when he says it out loud. That’s good enough for me!

So here’s the deal: If you have ever written for, commented on, or are a reader of Esse Diem bloG, pick up one of your favorite books and recreate this picture in a self-portrait if you can (you can have someone else take it if it’s not working out the other way). Be sure to tell me what book you are holding and why it’s a favorite.

Esse Diem meme

Post it to your own website and I’ll link to you, or send me the digital photo at edg@longridgeeditors.com. I’ll post the collection here the first week of September, and “Storify” it, too. I’ll cook up a prize for the Reader’s Choice award, as well as an Editor’s Pick. In the meantime, you can follow the fun at http://essediem.tumblr.com/.

(It’s not all God and essays over here, you know. Sometimes we just are goofy. But we try to be goofy in an intelligent manner. Ahem.)