31 Day Self Portrait Challenge

Day 1: Else Alone

“For now she need not think of anybody. She could be herself, by herself. And that was what now she often felt the need of - to think; well not even to think. To be silent; to be alone. All the being and the doing, expansive, glittering, vocal, evaporated; and one shrunk, with a sense of solemnity, to being oneself, a wedge-shaped core of darkness, something invisible to others... and this self having shed its attachments was free for the strangest adventures.”
― Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse

“I want to be with those who know secret things or else alone.”
― Rainer Maria Rilke

~ I bought this dress after I received my scholarship one year when I was studying in Sofia University in Bulgaria. I have worn it many times and it's still a favorite of mine. It fits great, the fabric is wonderful (it's actually two dresses - a white one underneath and a see-through one with flowers that layers on top), and it's time I part with it ;-)

Day 2: Now

“There is only this now. It does not come from anywhere; it is not going anywhere. It is not permanent, but it is not impermanent. Though moving, it is always still. When we try to catch it, it seems to run away, and yet it is always here and there is no escape from it. And when we turn around to find the self which knows this moment, we find that it has vanished like the past.”
― Alan W. Watts

“The art of living... is neither careless drifting on the one hand nor fearful clinging to the past on the other. It consists in being sensitive to each moment, in regarding it as utterly new and unique, in having the mind open and wholly receptive.”
― Alan W. Watts

~ I got this dress in spring, and by summer I realized it will fit somebody else better. I wore it upside down for the shoot ;-)

Day 3: Slip Away

“Do you not know that there comes a midnight hour when every one has to throw off his mask? Do you believe that life will always let itself be mocked? Do you think you can slip away a little before midnight in order to avoid this? Or are you not terrified by it? I have seen men in real life who so long deceived others that at last their true nature could not reveal itself;... In every man there is something which to a certain degree prevents him from becoming perfectly transparent to himself; and this may be the case in so high a degree, he may be so inexplicably woven into relationships of life which extend far beyond himself that he almost cannot reveal himself. But he who cannot reveal himself cannot love, and he who cannot love is the most unhappy man of all.”
- Soren Kierkegaard

“Either you let your life slip away by not doing the things you want to do, or you get up and do them.”
- Roger Von Oech

~ This dress was a result of a month long window lusting and an end of summer sale. It fit like a glove, I love the colors, but it lost the toss up with the other dress I am wearing today - no side slit for my long strides... ;-)

Day 4: Cherry earrings

when we were kids we used to wear cherry earrings
now you swallow the pits
not to dirty a dish.

~ pretty green summer dress (with ruffles). Mine for a little while, somebody else's next ;-)

Day 5: Brave New World

“Words can be like X-rays if you use them properly -- they’ll go through anything. You read and you’re pierced.”
― Aldous Huxley, Brave New World

“Did you ever feel, as though you had something inside you that was only waiting for you to give it a chance to come out? Some sort of extra power that you aren't using - you know, like all the water that goes down the falls instead of through the turbines?”
― Aldous Huxley, Brave New World

~ A Little Black Dress I've worn at a couple of Great Gatsby parties. Somebody else can enjoy it now

Day 6: Ajar

"The soul should always stand ajar,
ready to welcome the ecstatic experience."

Emily Dickinson

~ A cute outfit I never wear, and hopefully somebody else will

Day 7: The Rain

"Let the rain kiss you. Let the rain beat upon your head with silver liquid drops. Let the rain sing you a lullaby."
Langston Hughes

"Momo listened to everyone and everything - even to the rain and the wind and the pine trees - and all of them spoke to her after their own fashion."
Michael Ende

~ I love the pattern of this dress and the colors and the fabric. Yet, it rarely makes an appearance out of my closet. So, it's time to let it go

Day 8: Afternoon

“If you can spend a perfectly useless afternoon in a perfectly useless manner, you have learned how to live.”
Lyn Yutang

and we laugh and laugh and
all I know is
at this moment I feel like
I can do anything I want
and be anyone I want
and go anywhere on the globe
and still call it home”
― Kirsten Smith, The Geography of Girlhood

~ Today was cool, so I picked this simple black sweater dress to give away

Day 9: Seeing

“Every closed eye is not sleeping, and every open eye is not seeing.”
Bill Cosby

“Nobody sees anybody truly but all through the flaws of their own egos. That is the way we all see ...each other in life. Vanity, fear, desire, competition-- all such distortions within our own egos-- condition our vision of those in relation to us. Add to those distortions to our own egos the corresponding distortions in the egos of others, and you see how cloudy the glass must become through which we look at each other. That's how it is in all living relationships except when there is that rare case of two people who love intensely enough to burn through all those layers of opacity and see each other's naked hearts.”
― Tennessee Williams

~ Let's just say that this is an outfit I will never wear outside my house - mini skirts and high heels sound cool, but are not my thing. Somebody else will enjoy them

Day 10: You

"You suppose you are the trouble
But you are the cure
You suppose that you are the lock on the door
But you are the key that opens it
It's too bad that you want to be someone else
You don't see your own face, your own beauty
Yet, no face is more beautiful than yours."
― Rumi

“Everything in the universe is within you. Ask all from yourself.”
― Rumi

~ I held on to this sweater for a while because I love the colors and the stripes. Time to let it go

Day 11: Light

"From within or from behind, a light shines through us upon things, and makes us aware that we are nothing, but the light is all."
~Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Beauty is not in the face; beauty is a light in the heart."
~Kahlil Gibran

~ The two times I've worn these skorts out, I ended up being followed by people. As comfy as they are for around the house, I don't need to hold on to them. Off to be donated this outfit goes

Day 12: Travel

"Plunge boldly into the thick of life, and seize it where you will, it is always interesting.”
- Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

“A good traveler has no fixed plans and is not intent on arriving.”
― Lao Tzu

~ I got this dress together with the one I wore on day 1 of the self portrait challenge, probably around 10 years ago... Is still remember the small shop where I got the dresses from, the excitement with which I tried them on and bought them. There is a third one, too. They all fit great, they were different, and I loved them. I wore this one recently on my trip to the beach... letting it go now

Day 13: Endings & Beginnings

“I don’t pay attention to the
world ending.
It has ended for me
many times
and began again in the morning.”
— Nayyirah Waheed

"Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end."
~Seneca

~ One more of these "I will wear it someday" outfits, and I never do... Somebody else will!

Day 14: Ocean Whispers

Quietly murmuring
the ocean whispers
and I listen.

"for whatever we lose (like a you or a me),
it’s always our self we find in the sea."
e.e. cummings

~ I have worn this white skirt on the beach many a time... now somebody else will

Day 15: Enough

“I exist as I am, that is enough,
If no other in the world be aware I sit content,
And if each and all be aware I sit content.
One world is aware, and by the far the largest to me, and that is myself,
And whether I come to my own today or in ten thousand or ten million years,
I can cheerfully take it now, or with equal cheerfulness, I can wait.”
― Walt Whitman

“Drop the idea of becoming someone, because you are already a masterpiece. You cannot be improved. You have only to come to it, to know it, to realize it.”
― Osho

Day 16: Night Fall

“I love the silent hour of night,
For blissful dreams may then arise,
Revealing to my charmed sight
What may not bless my waking eyes.”
― Anne Brontë, Best Poems of the Brontë Sisters

“Night is certainly more novel and less profane than day.”
― Henry David Thoreau

~ It's getting harder to go through my closet and pick outfits to give away ("I love this" "I wear this sometimes" "But this dress is cute"), yet this is part of the challenge: not only to motivate me to create daily, but also to help me let things go. Boots included (they came all the way from Bulgaria, but I have other ones to wear)

Day 17: Illusion

"Our greatest illusion is disillusion. We imagine that we are disillusioned with life, when the truth is that we have not even begun to live."
- Paul Brunton

“Sometimes people don't want to hear the truth because they don't want their illusions destroyed.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche

"A human being is part of the whole, called by us the universe; a part limited by time and space. We experience ourselves, our thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical illusion of consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affections for a few persons nearest us. Our task is to free ourselves from this prison."
- Albert Einstein

Day 18: Squares and Curves

“You can't fit a round peg in a square hole”

“magic lives in curves, not angles”
- Mason Cooley

~ A simple black sweater and leggings - comfy, classic outfits somebody else will enjoy

Day 19: Half and Whole

“Humans are amphibians - half spirit and half animal. As spirits they belong to the eternal world, but as animals they inhabit time.”
- C.S. Lewis

“There occurs the beautiful feeling that only humanity together is the true human being, and that the individual can be cheerful and happy only if he has the courage to feel himself in the Whole.”
― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

~ This is one of the few pairs of jeans I have in my closet that I hardly ever wear... Scarf wrapped around as top, complete with a cute jacket. A perfect fall outfit that will delight somebody else

Day 20: Sunshine

“Just living is not enough... One must have sunshine, freedom, and a little flower.”
- Hans Christian Andersen

“Wherever you go, no matter what the weather, always bring your own sunshine.”
- Anthony J. D'Angelo

~ I have worn this shirt many times and love it. The skirt, though, is pretty special. It's made of one of my mom's dresses that she's worn during both of her pregnancies with my brother and I. I no longer wear it, and although it's sentimental I think it's better to give it to somebody who will wear it

Day 21: A Woman

“A Woman in harmony with her spirit
is like a river flowing.
She goes where she will without pretense and arrives at her destination
prepared to be herself
and only herself ”
― Maya Angelou

"The challenge is not to be perfect...it's to be whole."
- Jane Fonda

Day 22: Child-like

"I am often accused of being childish. I prefer to interpret that as child-like. I still get wildly enthusiastic about little things. I tend to exaggerate and fantasize and embellish. I still listen to instinctual urges. I play with leaves. I skip down the street and run against the wind. I never water my garden without soaking myself. It has been after such times of joy that I have achieved my greatest creativity and produced my best work."
- Leo F. Buscaglia, Bus 9 to Paradise

"Man is most nearly himself when he achieves the seriousness of a child at play."
- Heraclitus

~ I used to wear these jeans and that sweater a lot, but now dresses are my passion and I no longer care what most other people wear

Day 23: Flowers

“What we do see depends mainly on what we look for. ... In the same field the farmer will notice the crop, the geologists the fossils, botanists the flowers, artists the colouring, sportsmen the cover for the game. Though we may all look at the same things, it does not all follow that we should see them.”
― John Lubbock, The Beauties of Nature and the Wonders of the World We Live in

“since the thing perhaps is
to eat flowers and not to be afraid”
― E.E. Cummings, Complete Poems, 1904-1962

Day 24: Light 2

“No one lights a lamp in order to hide it behind the door: the purpose of light is to create more light, to open people's eyes, to reveal the marvels around.”
― Paulo Coelho

“Most of us are imprisoned by something. We're living in darkness until something flips on the switch.”
― Wynonna Judd

~ You cannot see much of it, but today I am wearing a simple gray sweater dress - to be given away

Day 25: Play

“It is a happy talent to know how to play.”
― Ralph Waldo Emerson

“This is the real secret of life -- to be completely engaged with what you are doing in the here and now. And instead of calling it work, realize it is play.”
― Alan W. Watts

~ A much-loved dress (with pockets) that hopefully somebody else will love as much as I did

Day 26: Lift Off

“Those who don't jump will never fly.”
― Leena Ahmad Almashat, Harmony Letters

"The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity."
- Amelia Earhart

~ Very cute dress (I love circles and dots) I don't wear often enough to keep

Day 27: Loving the Light

"Give light, and the darkness will disappear of itself."
- Desiderius Erasmus

"Oh mysterious world of all light, thou hast made a light shine within me, and I have grown in admiration of thy antique beauty, which is the immemorial youth of nature."
- Paul Gauguin

~ Fun, comfy and cozy organge sweater dress I choose to part with today so somebody else can enjoy it

Day 28: Experiment

"All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better."
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

“I learned this, at least, by my experiment: that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavours to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours. He will put some things behind, will pass an invisible boundary; new, universal, and more liberal laws will begin to establish themselves around and within him; or the old laws be expanded, and interpreted in his favour in a more liberal sense, and he will live with the license of a higher order of beings. In proportion as he simplifies his life, the laws of the universe will appear less complex, and solitude will not be solitude, nor poverty poverty, nor weakness weakness. If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.”
- Henry David Thoreau

~ A simple outfit (leggings and a sweater) and an experimental shot with the receding daylight up in the attic. Today is all about experimentation

Day 29: Grow

“You need to be buried deep in the dirt before you can find your bloom.”
― Roz Inga

“Keep growing quietly and seriously throughout your whole development; you cannot disturb it more rudely than by looking outward and expecting from outside replies to questions that only your inmost feeling in your most hushed hour can perhaps answer.”
― Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet

~ Today's outfit is all about inspiration from the carrots my friend Ralph gave me from his garden.

Day 30: Live

“Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you have imagined.”
- Henry David Thoreau

“Do not go where the path may lead; go instead where there is no path and leave a trail”
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

~ Today I picked a sweet sweater dress and a cute warm jacket to give away. One more day to go and all outfits from this project will be donated, along with some shoes and other random items from my closet!

Day 31: Love

“Love is always open arms. If you close your arms about love you will find that you are left holding only yourself.”
― Leo Buscaglia

“There are two basic motivating forces: fear and love. When we are afraid, we pull back from life. When we are in love, we open to all that life has to offer with passion, excitement, and acceptance. We need to learn to love ourselves first, in all our glory and our imperfections. If we cannot love ourselves, we cannot fully open to our ability to love others or our potential to create. Evolution and all hopes for a better world rest in the fearlessness and open-hearted vision of people who embrace life.”
― John Lennon

~ I have been loving choosing an outfit from my closet to give away and taking self portraits every day for the past month. I reazlised that I have more clothes than I can wear and I am really happy to share them with others who need them more. The more we give, the more we receive and that's true with everything in life, if we act out of love. Letting these clothes go feels much better than holding on to them; living with arms and heart wide open feels much better than being closed off to the rest of life.