A Potent Symbol

Right now I'm building a new website dedicated to the search for truth about real beauty - about self esteem, self image, challenging the status quo, discovering ways to make relationships as fruitful and satisfying as they're meant to be and calling for active participation on the part of both men and women. As my logo I've chosen the silhouette of a majestic oak tree and one of my dearest friends asked me why. What's the concept behind it? So I've decided to share it here exactly as I told it to Marita.

'...here's the story. It's a simple one really.

No one would want to dig out their magnificent hundred year old oak tree and replace it with a brand new, shiny green sapling, would they? Because the years on an oak tree have added value to it - they've made it more beautiful, magnificent, awe-inspiring, breath-taking. The fragile sapling is pretty and fresh and green - therefore having value all of its own...but no one would dream of desiring it over the other. Yet older women are tossed on the bonfire of life so fast it makes our heads spin. Friends...it's all perception. There is no objective standard of beauty. It's entirely man-made and serves the dominant culture. That sounds awfully bitter and sexist but it's not...I've taken a good, long objective look at it. There are huge payoffs for the dominant culture in keeping women down; in forever shifting the bar so that no woman ever has a chance of achieving success or power for more than a short period of time. The entire fashion and beauty industry would collapse (and they're backed by the giant chemical/pharmaceutical companies) - if women felt strong and worthwhile; without the need to forever chase this phantom called beauty/sexiness/femininity/blah, blah, blah.

I want my site to help women and men begin to think differently...for women to understand that the hand we're dealt by society is in fact an illusion - and we can, in fact, choose not to believe the lie or participate in it. And for men to understand the same thing - but also to realize that this societal lie is keeping them from what most men truly need...if only they knew it...and that's real intimacy, closeness, trust, acceptance, understanding and no-holds-barred love from women.

So the oak tree is my symbol - a way to point out how illusory our culture's perceptions are. An oak tree gains value, worth, power, beauty and 'psychological space' as the years add their richness. It's also a traditional symbol of wisdom...I believe a peculiarly feminine wisdom...and that too, is a large part of its charm for me.'

I'll post my web address as soon as it's running smoothly.

Love and light,
Mel

The beautiful photograph I've presented here is by Kevin Tuck. You can see more of his work by clicking on the image itself.