Fashion mood-Put it Over a Turtleneck Part Deux

Your humble blogger is at it again- this time for the warmer weather. Again,  it's all in the accessorizing, color combos and silhouettes that make it pop.


Until next time!

Fashion mood: Put it over a turtleneck

Knowing how to layer clothing is not an option for a person a mostly relying on public transportation living in Detroit. It's just not. With that in mind, your humble blogger decided to try something different and try looks putting some warmer weather pieces over turtlenecks

What started with putting together the Chanel Paris Fashion week inspired look for the last blog post turned into "What would this piece look like over a turtleneck?". Then came Uniqlo's impeccably styled lookbook for its Hana Tajima collaboration. Months of cold weather can make one anxious to layer up in new ways, especially if it can mean incorporating items that point to better weather to come.

All in all, layering a Spring (or Summer) piece over can be a way to put some pizazz to your look at a time when the weather can be (and often is) really iffy. All you need are the right accessories, a little play with lines, and you're good to go.

Runway to Real-Way, Janelle Monàe Paris Fashion Week edition

So your humble blogger decided to dig in her closet and play dress up.  The inspiration? A certain someone with the initials JM at Paris Fashion Week.  Of all the incredible looks Ms. Monàe gave us at this event,  the following two were practically begging to be reproduced for an everyday concoction.

(Source: refinery29.com)

(Photo: courtesy of Rana Irby)

Jacket: Flo Boutique 

Purse: Zarkpa's

This one may be easy to reproduce , but shouts to Zarkpa's for selling cool purses, like this black,  white,  and red striped one to set everything off 

Speaking of setting off, let's talk about this ensemble Jane worked at the Chanel fashion show:

(Source: footwearnews.com)

Straight.  Up.  Elegance.

The silhouette and colors of this, though,  made me automatically think of putting this together for something more everyday:

(Photo: courtesy of  Rana Irby)

Top: Zarkpa's

Skirt: Catherine Catherine Malandrino 

Shoes: Rebecca Minkoff 

Gotta love inspiration.

Featured:

Zarkpa's: www.zarkpas.com

Flo Boutique: @floboutique (Instagram)

Catherine Catherine Malandrino: nordstromrack.com

Rebecca Minkoff: rebeccaminkoff.com

Love is in the Air

It's that time of year again! As we celebrate the big L word, let us consider a definition that doesn't seem to be commonplace in wider society but worth reiterating: willing the good of another. May we find ways to give love in this way to all who come in our path, no matter who they are. 

Blessings, 

MsRanaDee

New Year, New Me? Hopefully

So it's a new year. Resolutions are being or already have been made. What came to your humble blogger on the subject was this: The question is, will you make the steps necessary to carry them out? Are you resolved to making said steps? More importantly, do you have the necessary hope that it can be done? It's not easy. As Maya Angelou, sampled in the above linked song note, the space to make steps of change is offered. Thus, it's logical to conclude that it's up to one to take up that offer. To even do that takes hope. With that, will there be "New Year, New Me"? Here's to hoping.

Holiday thoughts

(Picture from pixabay)

For many,  the holiday season means special time with loved ones from near and far. With that comes the propensity to get caught up in all that comes with the celebration. It thus seemed timely that your humble blogger would come across this notable quotable:

Let me be more patient. Let me be more kind. That helps me to lead with love in all that I say and all that I do.

(Yes, it's another Janelle Monàe quote)

Sound familiar? Such terms evoke is St. Paul's definition of love in his 2nd Letter to the Corinthians. For your humble blogger, it also generates the sense of giving oneself for another. That's given, truth be told, being patient and kind is giving of at least some of one's energy. It implies giving not just any energy, but the best of oneself.

As we celebrate the season and enter a new year, it might be worth thinking about what it means to love. Then, we can find ways we can lead with love more. That's hard to beat now or any time of year.

Self Care and Self Gift

(Photo courtesy of Pixabay)

What's been on your humble blogger's mind lately has been the idea of the connection between self care and self gift.  To be specific: much has been talked of the former, but what does it really mean, especially if not in the context of the latter? In addition, what does it mean for one to give of oneself?  The response, as intuited by your humble blogger, is rooted in an understanding of the self  in terms of a transcendent paradox in which, to quote Thomas Merton, " We must forget ourselves in order to become conscious of  who we are".  It is an understanding in which, to further quote Merton,

What I do is also done for them [others] and with them and by them. What they do is done in me and by me and for me. But each one of us remains responsible for his own share in the life of the whole body.

In other words, self care is for self gift-to be taken in a holistic and transcendent light. It goes to the heart of who we are as human beings. It goes to the meaning of life. Understood in this fashion,  it respects both our humanity and our purpose.

There is a great truism that goes "You can't give what you don't have". What we as humans have, to continue in Merton's insightful thought, is meaning:

 No matter how ruined man and his world may seem to be, and no matter how terrible man's despair may become,  as long as he continues to be a man his very humanity continues to tell him that life has a meaning. (No Man is an Island)

Given that, he continues,  it is the individual's responsibility to find that meaning for his or herself. What is that meaning anyway? Salvation.

Merton defines salvation as the "tangled paradoxes" of "self-realization in the order of nature" and " of "the finding of ourselves...in the supernatural order". He describes it as being "...contained in [a saying] of St. Paul: 'We are all members one of another'". It seems to logically flow from this that one would practice care of the self. Such care wouldn't be just any kind, but a kind that would, continuing from Merton's thought, enable one to "face myself exactly as I am, with all my limitations, and to accept others as they are, with all their limitations.". Continuing logic would thus connect this self-care to giving of the self.

Merton insightfully illustrates this when he notes that

This matter of "salvation" is, when seen intuitively,  a very simple thing.  But when we analyze it, it turns into a complex tangle of paradoxes...We gain only what we give up, and if we give up everything we gain everything.  We cannot find ourselves within ourselves, but only in others, yet at the same time before we can go out to others we must find ourselves.

This gift, however, has to be properly ordered. As Merton further explains

If my gift [to another] is intended to bind him to me, to put him under an obligation, to exercise a kind of hidden moral tyranny over his soul, then in loving him I am really loving myself

What Merton alludes to here is the self-gift in a selfish way. That's just one way self gift can drift from it's proper order.  One can risk giving themselves as an end in itself, not grounding it in objective reality.  In addition,  one can give of themselves in a way that neeedlesly harms the physical,  spiritual, and emotional well being of oneself and/or the person they give themselves to. The same principle can be applied to self care as well.

It thus appears that self-gift is a natural feature and product of self care. Neither one can be self-centered, or they will become selfish. They also have to be concerned with objective reality and the higher good, lest they be applied in an unhealthy manner. Underlying all of this is a holistic and transcendent view of humanity, which isn't always included in contemporary discussions.

The question of self-care and self-gift comes down to just that-the self.  As illustrated above, the human self is one that is both natural and supernatural in one whole. With that in mind, an inherent dignity of the human self as human is recognized and respected. One doesn't have to look far to see where such a view isn't always included in current conversation. In fact, many discussions these days seem to take an opposing view from the aforementioned , turning self-care and self-gift into loaded terms.

What then, to make of self in a society seemingly obsessed with the care of it? As illustrated in this work with the help of some insights from Thomas Merton, self care is for self gift. Both have to viewed an applied in light of the holistic and transcendent in order to be implemented the way they're meant to be. At least for your humble blogger,  that's what her musings on the subject have come up with.

What are your thoughts? Be sure to utilize the comment box.

Sources:

Merton, Thomas. No Man is an Island. New

    York:Harcourt, 1975.