An Australian Christmas Blessing

For all the women of the world who need a break:

May the light be dappled where you walk.

May the creek water be clear and cool on your summer-hot skin. 

Having had a small break from love-making, may you enjoy a slow, deep and releasing connection that wakes up alllllllll the neighbours.

This Christmas, may your mangoes be cut by someone else.  As you bite off one sweet square from a concertinaing cheek, may the flavour delight you.

May your skimming stones skip across the water like a dancer. 

May your legs be elevated often, displaying your very cute toes which are too busy to run around.

May you have a pet or human to waste time with.  Knowing that that is time well spent, stroking and stoking the slow burning fire of tenderness. 

May you have pockets of solitude to shelter in, between long awaited visits with wine-merry relatives, and their accompanying quirks.  May your mind boggle, grasping that one day, you too can become an insane mother-in-law: if you try hard and stick with it.

May your pants have pockets. Unless you are dancing, and then may you be pocket free, carrying no burdens and no usefulness, just your free heart spilling out of your sternum. 

May your heart have space to burst through your rib cage like sunrays. 

Sending much love to you and your family,
xx Riss.

Also, here’s us doing Vogue!

in a Bangalow Cassettes’ beginner – Intermediate class:

☝”I know a place
where you can get away,
It’s called a dance floor,
And here’s what it’s for.”
– Madonna, 1990.

For me, Cassette classes really are “a place where you can get away” – once a week, in a spacious hall, within a welcoming and beautiful dance group.

As Mads says, like a boss: ”You. Know. You. Can do it.”

I adore the lyrics of Vogue.  If I ever get a tattoo, they could be it!

“All you need
is your own imagination,
So use it, that’s what it’s for.
Go inside for your finest inspiration,
Your dreams will open the door.

It makes no difference if you’re black or white,
If you’re a boy or a girl,
If the music’s pumping it will give you new life:
You’re a superstar.
Yes, that’s what you are,
you know it!”

Thanks Mads! Encouraging and also true.

And finally, a last minute gift idea:

This year, to save me from tears, please give me a Cassette Voucher.  

Honestly I was so pleased with that line, ha ha!  

They say diamonds are a girls best friend, but really we know it’s 80s and dancing that are a girls’ best friend. Hence this being a gift that women genuinely love:

If you’re the kind of lady who knows what she wants and is not afraid to tell / ask her relatives, thus saving landfill from more “stuff”, one can always guide them to buy a rad AND carbon neutral voucher. 

There are two options:

Cassettes 80s Dance term / Rad Self Care

My husband and I don’t do christmas gifts for each other (we both feel like there’s enough going on), but my family of origin do exchange a secret santa with the adults. 

There is so much inspiration in this world –

the trick is to focus on the things that light us up, and block / ignore / minimise / move on from the rest.  Can you remind me of that when I forget?  Ta!

In love and lightning,
Riss xx