Category: Creativity

Consciousness · Creativity · Dorothy Perry · Energy · Photography · Practice · Relationship · Song Of Triumph · Vision

Laughter In My Soul

Dorothy PerryLeave a comment

This is a reprint of the article “About Life” by Napoleon Hill.

Life, you can’t subdue me because I refuse to take your discipline too seriously.

When you try to hurt me, I laugh — and the laughter knows no pain.

I appreciate your joys wherever I find them;

your sorrows neither frighten nor discourage me,

for there is laughter in my soul.

Temporary defeat does not make me sad.

I simply set music to the words of defeat and turn it into a song.

Your tears are not for me, for I like laughter much better, and because I like it,

I use it as a substitute for grief and sorrow and pain and disappointment.

Life, you are a fickle trickster — don’t deny it.

You slipped the emotion of love into my heart

so that you might use it as a thorn with which to prick my soul —

but I learned to dodge your trap with laughter.

You tried to lure me with the desire for gold,

but I have fooled you by following the trail which leads to knowledge instead.

You induced me to build beautiful friendships —

then converted my friends to enemies so you may harden my heart,

but I sidestepped your figure on this by laughing off your attempts

and selecting new friends in my own way.

You caused men to cheat me at trade so I will become distrustful,

but I won again because I possess one precious asset which no man can steal —

it is the power to think my own thoughts and to be myself.

You threaten me with death, but to me death is nothing worse

than a long peaceful sleep, and sleep is the sweetest of human experiences

— excepting laughter.

You build a fire of hope in my heart, then sprinkle water on the flames,

but I can go you one better by rekindling the fire — and I laugh at you once more.

You have nothing that can lure me away from laughter,

and you are powerless to scare me into submission.

To a life of laughter, then, I raise my cup of cheer!

Laughing all the way, I celebrate your own Songs of Triumph in portrait form. Contact me here.

Consciousness · Creativity · Dorothy Perry · Energy · Photography · Practice · Relationship · Song Of Triumph · Vision

Gunslinger

Dorothy PerryLeave a comment

Names have been changed to protect the innocent.

My partner of five years decided to tell me

that the last five years were a total lie.

Imagine learning someone waited patiently for years

for the best moment to break your heart and trust in others.

A seismic jolt to the core of me

at a time I was happiness on two legs, ecstatic at my first solo show.

Now with the years and intimacies of memories colored and changed by betrayal,

No picture I see can be trusted.

But by deleting these photos on Facebook, I am also deleting the visible signs to me of my own moments and growth.

I decided to take my stand and reclaim the energy around my photographs.

Though he is in them, the ones I like are MINE,

and energy is always returned to me whenever I see it again.

In meditative renaming, I speak to remembering the high level of what I gained, evidenced, and celebrated,

reclaiming it for good, and returning it to me.

I call it my Song of Triumph, and I seek to keep this positive version of events

in my conversations going forward.

During my show’s run, I visited my photos and smiled and sang in the hallways, looked and spoke lovingly to the artwork, talked in words of happiness and joy,

felt good all up and down those hallways.

I took photos of my happiness and gratitude

at what had occurred and manifested visibly so quickly in my life.

I had wanted to have a show downtown (I did) in a beautiful old historical church,

with a show I had wanted to display for many years.

And no matter who tried to hate on it – some closer proximity than others –

it was beautiful and memorable.

I am reminded of the Old West idea of a gunslinger.

The guy has such a vibe that everyone tries him;

everywhere a stranger stepping up to challenge him

with “Who Do You Think You Are?” energy.

In this case, this feeling is also accompanied by

“Knock You Off Your High Horse” to put a plan into action.

My strength and superpower is that ever since I was a young girl

I have possessed a very strong natural psychic presence

and deal with “Who Do You Think You Are?” energy like the air I breathe

throughout school, travelling, and very odd spontaneous encounters with those triggered by my mere presence every day.

Connected to love and witnessed by God every day for the purity of my intentional heart,

My experiences dealing with envious evil eye ego diva drama energy

stems from constant Divine connection

to this assured inner self

who answers “Who Do You Think You Are?” with a quiet glance.

My little ‘sparkler’ awakened by my vulnerable questions

is a firecracker in my daily life,

moving out all the nonsense people

wanting and wasting her Dorothy’s valuable energy.

God bless my intuition through Spirit

and release of attempts to connect into my energy

as oftenandoftenasoftenandoften

and from WHOM as often as needed.

May every memory

entangled in emotional betrayal

be transmuted through Spirit

into forgiveness, healing, and light.

With obsidian in my pockets,

laughter in my eyes, and love in my heart,

I am dancing back into my life

whether you see me or

just hear about me from a distance.

“Just because you lost me as a friend, doesn’t mean you gained me as an enemy. I’m bigger than that, I still wanna see you eat, just not at my table.” ― Tupac

Dorothy Perry specializes in personal portraits imbued with deep feeling. Contact her here.

Consciousness · Creativity · Dorothy Perry · Energy · Perry Portrait Art · Practice · Vision

Think of Me

Dorothy PerryLeave a comment

I am thinking of you all the time
XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOX

Love, Mom

I found this thought at the end of a letter

I wrote to my daughter years ago.

Intuition places these things in my way to contemplate,

and in this mindset, I see evidence of my behavior with my family,

with people I knew, and people I wanted to know.

My Gordian knot if some think it so, but a rich source of emotion

like the experienced Advisor in your ear in the shadows,

providing wise input as well.

Today I want to raise the counterintuitive idea

of seeing signs of your earlier self in these little ways,

to learn about yourself and your little ‘likes’

by being familiar with your internal body sensations for ‘yes’ happiness

and where you get your feelings of childlike delight

(mine is making snow angels!)

Enjoy what happens when you begin to treat yourself

as a person you care for,

find nice things for,

think with interest about,

enjoy time with,

and want to see succeed.

Dorothy Perry seeks to capture the energy of the Divine in photographing portraits and special occasion events. Contact her here.

Consciousness · Creativity · Dorothy Perry · Energy · Healing · Manifesting · Peaceful Home · Photography · Practice · Self-Development · Spirituality · Vision

Living Well

Dorothy PerryLeave a comment

Some people say.

“Living well is the best revenge.”

I feel that living well

is ‘mental’ before it becomes material.

Seeing vastness of abundance

(visually, spoken, or in emotional feeling)

in the early dreaming planning stages

of envisioning great feeling life

enriches the picture with the small details

that make whatever you create

just right for you.✨💐☕

Dorothy Perry loves being a cheerleader for intuitive awareness. Contact her for photography or intuitive readings here.

Consciousness · Creativity · Dorothy Perry · Energy · Photography · Practice · Vision

Woo

Dorothy PerryLeave a comment

Whether the subtle sensing of intuition

or the sparkling active energy of attraction,

‘woo’ is my personal word

and favorite feeling.

.

Creativity · Photography · Practice

What’s In A Name?

Dorothy PerryLeave a comment

There is something glorious about saying, ” I created something that has my name on it.”

Not only your signature, but your standards.

The something you want to reflect your subtlety and style;

The thing that has your energy in it.

I am a photographer known for my attention to the feelings of things,

and early on, had lovely but shortlasted creative names like Dorothy Perry Portrait, Dance of Life and Double Happiness.

I also obsessed about fonts, but that is another story for another day.

Truly an airy and impractical soul, I did not learn about the value of domain names until I needed one: mine. Little did I know how hard it would be.

In those years, my name in combination with photography was taken off the board.

There are a number of Perry surnamed photographers as well as the other nice Dorothy Perrys living all over the United States,

and names that I desired were limited by others claiming all the variations of the names for profiles and screen names as well.

So now as I locate the threads everywhere to be rewoven back into my nest,

I will produce, post and control the quality of what I want to write here from my home base. THIS ONE.

The one that has my name on it.

Dorothy Perry is a Chicago photographer of peoples’ personal lives and celebrations. Questions or commissions through the Contact Page here.

Creativity · Practice · Vision

The Albatross

Dorothy PerryLeave a comment

The stereotype of the drugged, drinking or skirt chasing artist personality creates a ‘buzz’ and sells tickets, but actually creates formerly creative people that struggle to imagine and create to push out artwork: to “phone it in” and burn out.

Truth be told, it’s hard enough to find time, energy and artistic inspiration and create without also having the albatross of addictive behaviors around your neck.

The creative impulse is impulsive, and the ‘golden hours’ of activity and creative flow can get hijacked in bad habits and drugs, sometimes never to return.

My message to other artists is that success is not all it seems from the outside. To be successful in you have to turn off the phone, be physically healthy, spend time alone to know your mind, be independent of the crowds and fashions of the time.

To know your mind is to accept yourself, warts and all.

To accept yourself, you have to be in your body, to know when you are happy, tired, engaged, on auto pilot, or fully 100% here. And in time, to be grateful of the subtleties and beauty of your life more and more of your day.

Perhaps that will be what matters most: becoming a person that can experience and enjoy the steps of your journey.

Dorothy Perry is a photographer and a smiling happy warrior of awareness. Contact her here.

Creativity · Photography · Vision

Portraits That Do You Justice

Dorothy PerryLeave a comment

To do justice: to treat or show (something or someone) in a way that is as good as it should be.

When we are active in our busy lives every day,

we don’t think about the photographs that ‘live’ after us.

But consider: what photos will family remember you by?

Amateur photos and selfies don’t always do us justice.

Have portraits with vitality and energy to choose from.

Meet someone that values and captures your personality.

My images of families and dynamic couples are calming, inspiring,

and beautifully displayed in elegant albums and framed art.

An amazing energetic now, for valued memory later.

Of you, your loved ones, or your life’s passion.

Images to do you justice.

Dorothy Perry photographs sensitive people and intimate events. Contact her here.

Creativity · Practice · Vision

Eleven-Eleven Alice

Dorothy PerryLeave a comment

The art of photography is the continual practice of observing things with a unique vision. But expanding and refining that vision is a creative challenge as well.

We go about daily life distracted by our phones and internal chatter, and mental filters created by our pre-conceived ideas of reality and what should be in it.

Our eyes function with the help of a sensing device called a reticular activator: it picks out the things that we have chosen (or have allowed ourselves) to see.

We all have had the feeling of suddenly noticing things that have been around us all the time – when we allow ourselves to see it, then we can. Instruct your reticular activator to pick out yellow trucks, and they will seem to be everywhere. Rare or uniquely colored objects might take longer, but then your eyes will ‘pick them out’ in advertisements, signs, and packaging.

It also excels with misplaced objects, giving hot/cold feelings or images that ‘suddenly’ guide you to the location. Instead of saying that you ‘lost’ something, say, “I’ll find it’ instead. This encourages your sensing to locate the object that much faster.

And in some cases, it can actually set in motion and create what you desire.

My favorite memory of using this Manifesting skill was the decision that I wanted to own a specific type of car – a vintage Volvo 240 GL.

Gold vintage Volvo 240 GL sedan parked in urban neighborhood.

It happened so rapidly, that the process of seeing to owning that exact type of Volvo took 48 hours, start to finish: a perfect storm of coincidences and circumstances.

I walked out of the Brown Line train station at the moment that this very type of car drove past. It had a “For Sale” sign visible in the side window. The driver got gas at a station across the street. The price was an amount I had available in the bank.

I got to witness this cascade of coincidences in action, and had the exact type of car I desired by that evening. And it was the first in a series of terrific Volvo 240s I have owned – my latest has its own Instagram page! https://www.instagram.com/volvocago/

Creativity energy creates the space and circumstances for success to happen. And to keep my inner eyes working, I shift between different types of perceptive techniques regularly so I have a neutral state of mind that can exist for creative focus, letting go, or just enjoying ‘no mind’ itself.

I call this “Eleven-Eleven Alice”, because I do it at 11:11 and it uses a picture idea from Alice in Wonderland, the illustration of her expanding in a small room.

I also am going to do imaginating (mentally picturing an object in all five senses) to briefly step outside the box.

Before the start, sit quietly, and gently relax your lower jaw. Relax all the muscles descending down your body. Settle down into its weight.

Feel the top of your head touch the ceiling: feel your hair against the ceiling. feel the texture of the trim, the coolness of the paint. Get big so your cheeks, ears press against the windows.

At the same time, expand your body and lower torso. Feel both shoulders widening and filling up all four corners of the room. Feel the smoothness and coolness of the painted wall against your skin. If there is furniture, feel its material as you expand. You are as wide as the room and growing.

Move your vision to other rooms, your lower torso going down several floors. I imagine my feet touching the ground three floors down, my head above my building, slowly looking around. Feel your immensity.

Gaze around as though your body is gargantuan: a full buildings’ tall. Take giant breaths. In this state, be grand as you feel this gigantic self.  

Then come back slowly, gently back down into your body. Stay neutral, eyes soft focused. If you can, let more time pass and feel this nice vibe.

Expanding and enlarging the self allows you to step out of your mind and daily worries, calms the chatter, and is something you can enter and re-enter in different circumstances. Widen yourself when you are sitting on a bus or in a car, practice in public when you are sitting in an office, be BIG when you are talking to someone.

There are times I do combine it with an intention to let things go, or to send out an energy of happiness to everyone in this surrounding vicinity.

But most often I feel its usefulness in creating a fluid, more creative state of mind –

and 11:11 happens twice every day.

If ‘Eleven-Eleven Alice’ becomes a favorite for you, I would love to hear it.

Dorothy Perry photographs sensitive people and intimate events. Contact her here.

Creativity · Photography · Vision

Photos for Feelings

Dorothy PerryLeave a comment

The image was a beautiful moment in the ceremony, deep within the photo, taken by a guest in the wedding party.

The groom is a photographer friend, and I know so well the axiom that “the shoemaker’s kids have no shoes,”

and how a photographer may sometimes never own any decent photos of their own important life events.

I saw another moment within the image – to be ‘brought out’ and brightened, so that it can be seen – and felt.

The difference between retouching and my creative ‘caress’ is that I use a quieter, more intuitive eye to see the newer photograph inside the original one, not just a cropping. I wrote another post about the technique in a June 6, 2020 post, Finding A Something More.

So happily honored to see that the bride posts this as her profile photo online. I wish Daphne and Jeff Happy Anniversary, and many dances together to come!

Dorothy Perry is a Chicago portrait photographer specializing in custom family portraits, modern headshots, & personal branding for women and executives.

 Contact her for commissioned work here. Thank you.