The Most Beautiful Women

. . . are often wise, healing elders

BEAUTIFUL WOMEN HEALERS

Sports Illustrated magazine’s yearly Swimsuit Issue has long specialized in 20‑something women in skimpy bikinis, though it has recently begun to include a few older and plus‑size models. Esquire’s “Women We Love” feature mostly showcases thin, conventionally attractive actresses and models in their 20s and 30s.

These publications and others share a common theology: that female beauty worthy of fame and adulation is primarily a property of youth—ideally smooth, taut, and untroubled. It’s maintained in a state of pristine and decorative availability. Beauty, in this doctrine, must be preserved from time, labor, and the visible consequences of living deeply.

I honor and cherish female beauty of a different kind: mature, wise, weird soulfulness that is often embodied in women who have practiced a particular psychospiritual practice and have developed healing skills. Or they have spent years in service to caring for younger generations. Or they have worked as passionate activists to create a more just society. Or they have simply worked hard at becoming their full, authentic selves.

In the work of photographer Katarzyna Majak, we encounter this other beauty with exuberant clarity. Her portraits of witches, healers, and spiritual practitioners in Poland don’t conform to the dominant aesthetic script. The women aren’t posed as objects of consumption. They don’t seem interested in seducing the viewer.

The three photos above are Majak’s. See more here:

tinyurl.com/EnchantingPolishWitches

or tinyurl.com/BeautifulPolishWitches

The Polish women appear as people who have ongoing relationships with forces larger than themselves. Their faces and bodies show evidence that they’ve been in the service of healing, ceremony, and sustained interplay with the numinous. There’s an inwardness that paradoxically radiates outward.

Sports Illustrated presents bodies carefully preserved from gravity and the marks that commitment leaves. But the Polish women have been shaped by long intimacy with intriguing complications and enriching challenges. Their emotionally intelligent charisma is informed by a willingness to be changed by what they’ve encountered. They’ve wrestled with suffering without collapsing into it.

Naturally, this beauty includes elements of weirdness. Not the curated quirk of branding, but the organic strangeness that arises when a person chooses inner authority over social conformity. These women may dress, move, and gaze in ways that resist easy translation. Their lives haven’t been optimized for legibility, so they carry an aura of mystery that can’t be reduced to mere style.

Mainstream culture tends to penalize this kind of weirdness because it resists commodification. It can’t be easily packaged and doesn’t lend itself to mass aspiration.

But in another frame, weirdness testifies to a life lived in allegiance to values deeper than capitalism’s glamour. It signals a sustained dialogue with the unconscious, the imaginal, and the more-than-human world. It’s a credential.

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The photograher Katarzyna Majak says: “I talk about the witch archetype present in all women, if only they open up to it. The witch is a woman who knows, trusts her intuition, is connected to the birth-death-rebirth nature, and cherishes her strength. I hope to help women reconnect with their female lines, other women, to be daring. To grow.”

In the Women of Power book, Polish novelist Olga Tokarczuk writes, “The women speak of their efforts to take back that which they have lost: the power of matriarchal cults, access to the sources of power, their sexuality, and also their right to natural birth, dignity, strength, female art, contact with nature and finally many female traditions that were mostly forgotten and suppressed.”

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To recognize this kind of beauty requires a shift in perception. It asks us to move from a gaze of consumption to a stance of reverence.

Instead of saying, “She’s not as pretty and sexy as a Sports illustrated Swimsuit Model,” we might ask, “What mysteries has she devoted herself to? What uncanny inner powers has she learned to nourish? How does her soulful genius inspire and heal others?”

Here’s a subversive possibility: Maybe the most compelling beauty doesn’t shout for attention or strain to sell us its desirability.

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More stories and photos of dazzling women healers: tinyurl.com/GorgeousWomenHealers

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PORTRAITS OF INDIGENOUS MATRIARCHS IN THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST

Roxann Murray writes about and photographs “Portraits of Indigenous Matriarchs in the Pacific Northwest”: tinyurl.com/HealingMatriarchs

Murray spent years fighting proposed industrial facilities in Tacoma, meeting strong Indigenous matriarchs who inspired her to protect the land and water. These encounters turned into lasting friendships and ultimately a photography project exploring Indigenous women fighting for their collective future.

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Sangoma: Photos of Traditional Healers in South Africa

Traditional Sangoma healers are highly respected and frequently consulted members of South African communities. They practice traditional African medicine. tinyurl.com/SangomaHealers

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A great book: Grandmothers’ Wisdom : Living Portrayals from the International Council of Thirteen Indigenous Grandmothers: tinyurl.com/GrandmotherBeauty

These 13 women are keepers of traditional medicine and Indigenous spirituality, preserving ancient wisdom traditions and traditional ecological knowledge that have served the planet for millennia. Their stories come from the Amazon rainforest, the Central American highlands, the Sierra Madre of Oaxaca, the plains, deserts and canyons of North America, the Himalayan mountains of Tibet and Nepal, and the forests of Central Africa.

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Extraordinary Women Shaping the Transmission of Buddhism in the West: dakinipower.com/the-book

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Read my essay on “The Spiritual Boys’ Club”: tinyurl.com/BeTrueToYourWildness

See a list of WOMEN and NONBINARY SPIRITUAL LEADERS: tinyurl.com/WomenSpiritualLeaders

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Go to my LinkTree: https://linktr.ee/robbrezsny

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FREE WILL ASTROLOGY

Week of April 16

ARIES (March 21-April 19): Anthropologist and author Clifford Geertz loved to use “thick description.” He wrote detailed reports that captured not just the surface level of what happened but the deeper levels of meaning. Here’s an example of thin description: “He winked.” Thick description: “He quickly closed and opened his right eyelid in a culturally specific gesture of playfully conspiratorial communication.” In the coming weeks, Aries, I invite you to enjoy the sumptuous pleasures of thick description. Unleash your wild curiosity as you dig down into the rich, complex truths about everything. Gleefully explore how the cultural, personal, and historical contexts give each moment its specific, nuanced significance. (PS: This approach will enhance your options for responding.)

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): New beginnings and final chapters will be overlapping in the coming weeks, and they’ll push you in the direction of robust growth. It won’t always be obvious which is which, though, so you’ll need to sharpen your discernment to read the signs. Here are two contemplations to steer you: 1. Which long-running sagas in your life have finally played themselves out? 2. Which struggling, half-forgotten dreams are yearning to rise again and blossom as if they were brand new? Once you’ve listened deeply enough to answer those questions, move boldly: Feed and protect whatever is being born, and actively assist in the graceful dismantling of whatever is ready to end.

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): One of your go-to tools or assets is still functioning, but now is exactly the time to repair or refurbish it—before it breaks. Furthermore: A power outage of sorts may be looming unless you move to head off an impending overload. Wait, there’s even more! The monster in your closet is still deeply asleep, which is why now is the perfect moment to summon an exorcist or exterminator, before it stirs. Are you getting the picture, Gemini? The very fact that you’re reading this horoscope gives you all the advance warning you need to sidestep potential glitches and diversions.

CANCER (June 21-July 22): According to my reading of the astrological omens, asking the BIG questions is highly advisable right now. Why? Because you are unusually likely to get really good answers to those BIG questions. Want a nudge to get started in this noble enterprise? Here are three recommended queries: 1. “What is the wild meaning of my precious life?” 2. “Who the #@$%&!* am I, anyway?” 3. “Where is this so-called ‘God’ I hear so much about?” Dear Cancerian, I will also urge you to formulate humorous, satirical BIG questions that inspire life to be playfully revelatory with you. Here are three: 1. “How can I fine-tune my friends and loved ones to perfection?” 2. “Are there shortcuts to getting absolutely everything I want?” 3. “How do I sign up for a life of nonstop pleasure, free from all discomfort?”

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): When people finally grasped just how radical Einstein’s theory of relativity was, a journalist asked him how he had arrived at such a breakthrough. Einstein said it was simple: He had utterly ignored supposedly fundamental truths. Dear Leo, please notice what that might imply for you in the coming weeks. Einstein didn’t dismiss a mere opinion or fashionable theory; he set aside theories so deeply accepted that everyone treated them as obviously factual. He didn’t waste energy fighting them, but simply proceeded as if they didn’t exist. Consider doing the same: Set aside at least one seemingly incontestable assumption and be alert for the new realities that then become possible.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): The International Space Station orbits Earth every 90 minutes, so astronauts see 16 sunrises and sunsets every 24 hours. It’s a challenge to maintain their circadian rhythms. They must be disciplined as they stick to a sleep cycle that human bodies are accustomed to. But there’s a wonderful trade-off: the rare privilege of witnessing the rapid cycling of total darkness and brilliant light, which provides a visceral sense of life’s deep cadences at work. Your routine may seem similarly unsettled these days, Virgo. Transitions are coming faster than feels natural. But I suspect this disruptive blessing is giving you access to patterns that aren’t intelligible when you’re moving more slowly. You’re beholding the way things change as well as the changes themselves. This is a valuable gift. The insights will be worth the disorientation.

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LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): You Libras sometimes get accused of indecision, as if your careful weighing of possibilities were a weakness. But I see a different truth: You aspire to be fair-minded as you honor all the legitimate claims on your attention. So the problem isn’t your capacity for considering multiple sides of each story. Rather, I find fault with the culture you live in, which is obsessed with one-dimensional certainty. If I were your coach or therapist, I would give you permission to take your time and resist the rush to resolution. The most honest thing you can say may be, “I’m still deciding,” or “Both of these feel true.”

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): You’re not a flaming expert at turning tension into treasure, but you have modest skills at that art. And now I’m predicting you will grow these skills. Before you jump to conclusions, though, please know that I’m not implying you will be immersed in stressful melodrama. I’m suggesting you will handle differences of perspective with increasing aplomb and curiosity. Instead of treating conflict as a debilitating hassle, you’ll try to find value in it. Some debates may even feel stimulating and fun rather than tiring. To take maximum advantage, enjoy the controversies as exploratory missions rather than as showdowns you must win at all costs.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): I hope and predict that you will be wildly resourceful as you wisely experiment with love in the coming weeks. I hope and predict that you will research the art of tender, inspiring intimacy in new frontiers. Reinvent passion, you subtle intensity freak! Be a bold explorer who breaks the boring old rules! Dare to break open new varieties of sweetness and companionship that require you to innovate and improvise!

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): If you were on a walk and spied a dime on the ground, would you bend down to grab it? Probably not. Would you feel differently about a quarter? Maybe you have decided that nothing under a dollar is worth your effort. But in the coming weeks, you will be wise to break such rules. Symbolically speaking, the act of stooping down to pick up a dime will set off a chain reaction that ends with you acquiring a hundred-dollar bill. By saying yes to small, unexpected blessings, you’ll position yourself to receive larger ones down the line.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): The coming weeks will be an excellent time to begin a building project on the scale of Egypt’s Great Pyramid or India’s Taj Mahal. You should at least initiate work toward some magnificent masterpiece or creation, Aquarius. According to my analysis, there’s a chance you could coax an armada of helpers to work on your behalf. And as you set out to accomplish your labor of love, I bless your quest.

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): Artists who specialize in origami can create structures far stronger than the flat paper they’re folded from. The weakness of being made from thin, fragile material is overcome through strategic creasing. Engineers now use origami principles to design everything from solar panels to artificial blood vessels. Let’s extrapolate these facts into a lesson for you in the coming weeks, Pisces. We’ll assume that your flexibility is a strength, not a liability. You will wield your pliability to produce a high degree of structural integrity.

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