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Global Multimedia and Multidisciplinary Cultural Organization Empowering and Inspiring Minds to Promote Social Change and Raise Consciousness 🖤🧿✨🌴🌈🌍

𝐖𝐇𝐘 𝐂𝐀𝐍'𝐓 𝐄𝐋𝐃𝐄𝐑𝐋𝐘 𝐖𝐎𝐌𝐄𝐍 𝐄𝐍𝐉𝐎𝐘 𝐁𝐈𝐊𝐈𝐍𝐈𝐒?

The impact of the fast growing elderly population in Brazil for Brazilian families has been a source of much debate in scholarly literature. Many researchers have indicated the unpreparedness of public institutions, such as social security and health systems, to support fast ageing in Brazil. While others have focused on the psychosocial context of middle-aged and elderly women in a society that emphasises the need of eternal beauty and youth. By addressing the metabolic and hormonal alterations that bring changes to women’s lives, in addition to the social pressure of eternal beauty, Brazilian women face other challenges, such as the stereotyped social view about women’s roles in society, that is, wife and mother. This established social view “can interfere negatively in women’s view of themselves and in their relationship with people and the world”.

So how is getting old in a society that values youth? For some older women, it can be a liberating experience. Colleagues from a model course for senior citizens, they organized an act for freedom of the body: they dressed in bikinis and met on the beach. The protest drew the attention of the photographer, who was already researching the impacts of ageing and invited the women to pose for her project.

This photo essay aims to put into question established views about women by portraying ladies who are not young in bikinis. The Brazilian bikini is an icon of youth, sensuality and beauty; qualities which are not commonly associated with elderly women. However, in order to make women feel good about growing old, we should re-signify the meaning of ageing for women. This essay draws inspiration from an incident involving a well-known Brazilian actress Betty Faria. In 2013, she saw herself involved in a controversial debate on social networking sites because she wore a bikini at a beach in Rio de Janeiro. Once considered one of the sexiest female idols in Brazil, Faria was offended on social media by people who found an absurd a 72-year old woman wearing a bikini in public. - Simone Marinho @simonemarinho

📸 @simonemarinho

𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐎𝐏𝐄𝐍 𝐏𝐎𝐑𝐓𝐑

𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐎𝐏𝐄𝐍 𝐏𝐎𝐑𝐓𝐑𝐀𝐘𝐀𝐋 𝐎𝐅 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐁𝐎𝐃𝐘 : 𝐌𝐘 𝐌𝐎𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐑 𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐈

Identity and social connection are driving forces in my life and work, and I have long been drawn to making photographic portraits in pursuit of a deeper understanding of these human experiences. Over the past fifteen years, my photographs have explored issues of gender, sexuality, identity, and community, shifting between an internally focused, subjective examination of myself and an outwardly focused, socially and politically motivated documentation of the LGBTQ community. These perspectives are inextricably linked; my personal identity as a queer person is inherently political, and the open portrayal of my body, experiences, and family creates a platform from which I can intimately engage with others.

Although my investigation surrounding identity was born out of personal experience, my focus has continually expanded outward, centering around the process through which we each come to know our authentic selves and the difficulties that arise when we assert those selves within constraining environments.

Formally, I use medium and large-format cameras, natural light, and a slow working method to combine a traditional style of photographing with contemporary subject matter. My work does not attempt to provide definitive answers; rather, it invites viewers to engage with others in an intimate, meaningful way, requiring them to reflect on their own identities in the process. - Jess T Dugan @jesstdugan

📸 @jesstdugan Self-portrait
with mom (2005-present)

𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐌𝐈𝐑𝐀𝐂𝐋𝐄 𝐎𝐅

𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐌𝐈𝐑𝐀𝐂𝐋𝐄 𝐎𝐅 𝐒𝐔𝐑𝐑𝐄𝐍𝐃𝐄𝐑

Love is not selective, just as the light of the sun is not selective. It does not make one person special. It is not exclusive. Exclusivity is not the love of God but the "love" of ego. However, the intensity with which true love is felt can vary. There may be one person who reflects your love back to you more clearly and more intensely than others, and if that person feels the same toward you, it can be said that you are in a love relationship with him or her. The bond that connects you with that person is the same bond that connects you with the person sitting next to you on a bus, or with a bird, a tree, a flower. Only the degree of intensity with which it is felt differs.

To offer no resistance to life is to be in a state of grace, ease, and lightness. This state is then no longer dependent upon things being in a certain way, good or bad. It seems almost paradoxical, yet when your inner dependency on form is gone, the general conditions of your life, the outer forms, tend to improve greatly. Things, people, or conditions that you thought you needed for your happiness now come to you with no struggle or effort on your part, and you are free to enjoy and appreciate them - while they last. All those things, of course, will still pass away, cycles will come and go, but with dependency gone there is no fear of loss anymore. Life flows with ease.

Don't look for peace. Don't look for any other state than the one you are in now; otherwise, you will set up inner conflict and unconscious resistance. Forgive yourself for not being at peace. The moment you completely accept your non-peace, your non-peace becomes transmuted into peace. Anything you accept fully will get you there, will take you into peace. This is the miracle of surrender
- Eckhart Tolle

📸 @jacobjonasthecompany A stunning series of Jacob Jonas’ project “Human Architecture” of nude bodies in natural environments taken in Malibu.

𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐀𝐁𝐔𝐒𝐄 𝐎𝐅 𝐀𝐁𝐎𝐑𝐈𝐆𝐈𝐍𝐀𝐋 𝐂𝐎𝐌𝐌𝐔𝐍𝐈𝐓𝐈𝐄𝐒 𝐈𝐍 𝐀𝐔𝐒𝐓𝐑𝐀𝐋𝐈𝐀

It's been more than 30 years since Australia started interrogating its own problem with Indigenous deaths in custody, but it's an issue that often fails to command social or political attention.

Many of the recommendations from the 1987 Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody were never implemented, and it's estimated hundreds more have died in custody since.

As Australians took to social media to denounce the events occurring in America, many Indigenous communities were left wondering where is the outcry for my family?

So does Australia have less empathy for its own deaths in custody? Or is the American influence so great that as a country we understand their race struggles better than our own?

In some ways Australia's criminalisation of its black citizens is even more pronounced than the United States, but we don't have music, movies and TV shows explaining it to us as regularly.

In the US, African Americans make up about 14 per cent of the population, and roughly 30 per cent of the country's inmates.

Indigenous Australians make up 3 per cent of the population and about 30 per cent of the prison population.

We lock up Indigenous Australians at four times the rate of black Americans. It's an even more jarring figure in the youth detention system, where about 50 per cent of all detainees are Indigenous.

It's a crude and imperfect comparison, but it still paints a picture of our justice system.

Kumanjayi Walker, a 19-year-old Walpiri man, had been allegedly shot and killed by a white police officer in his home in the remote community of Yuendumu, home to just 1000 people.

Hundreds travelled hours away from their home in the heart of Australia to sit in the Alice Springs town square and call for justice.

There is the added complexity that in Indigenous communities like this one, English isn't a first language and there's added cultural protocols about who can speak out on behalf of their people. - Isabella Higgins, ABC News Australia

📸 Aboriginal artist Rene Kulitja. Language: Pitjantjatjara. Her family are Pitjantjatjara and her Pitjantjatjara name is Wanuny. @renekulitja

𝐒𝐇𝐀𝐌𝐄 𝐎𝐍 𝐔𝐒 There is n

𝐒𝐇𝐀𝐌𝐄 𝐎𝐍 𝐔𝐒

There is no nutritional need for humans to eat any animal products; all of our dietary needs, even as infants and children, are best supplied by an animal-free diet.

Cows’ milk is suited to the nutritional needs of calves, who, unlike human babies, will double their weight in 47 days (as opposed to 180 days for humans), grow four stomachs, and weigh 1,100-1,200 pounds within two years. Cow’s milk contains about three times as much protein as human milk and almost 50 percent more fat.

The consumption of animal products has been conclusively linked to heart disease, cancer, diabetes, arthritis, and osteoporosis. Cholesterol (found only in animal products) and animal fat clog arteries, leading to heart attacks and strokes. The rate of many cancers—including colon, breast, cervical, uterine, ovarian, prostate, and lung—is highest in regions where meat consumption is high and lowest where meat-eating is uncommon. A study of more than 25,000 people found that vegetarians have a much lower risk of getting diabetes than meat-eaters. A South African study found not a single case of rheumatoid arthritis in a community of 800 people who ate no meat or dairy products.

There is no physical reason for humans to eat animal products. Cutting animal products from your diet is healthier for you, the animals, and the environment. Learn more about the health benefits of a plant-based diet at PCRM.org. - PETA @peta

Photographer 📸 @eliacplt

𝐁𝐋𝐀𝐂𝐊 𝐂𝐔𝐋𝐓𝐔𝐑𝐄

𝐁𝐋𝐀𝐂𝐊 𝐂𝐔𝐋𝐓𝐔𝐑𝐄 𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐌𝐔𝐍𝐃𝐀𝐑𝐈 𝐓𝐑𝐈𝐁𝐄 𝐈𝐍 𝐒𝐎𝐔𝐓𝐇 𝐒𝐔𝐃𝐀𝐍

The Mundari are friendly and enjoy being photographed. The dust and smoke intermingle to create and inimitable atmosphere. We arrived in the late afternoon when the light was soft and warm with long shadows. The tribe have all their wealth in their cattle and there are thousands of them. When young men of the tribe get married the dowry may be as much as 40 cattle. .

At night they sleep with their cattle to protect them and they carry Kalashnikovs to do so. Cattle rustling is commonplace and is a cause of conflict. The Ankoli Watusi cattle have the largest horns (perhaps a metre long in some cases) I have ever seen and the biggest of the cattle may be worth $500. During the day the cattle disperse from the banks of the Nile into the long grasses of the alluvial floodplain. They return at dusk instinctively.

Whilst they enjoyed having their photographs taken, they were always at work. We were a novelty to them and their reaction to us was welcoming. They collect the dung deposited overnight and spread it on the ground, some of it is used to coat the cattle horns with a veneer of manure. We watched as boys immersed their heads in the flow of fresh urine from the cattle. The outcome of this is to make use of a natural antiseptic and to change their hair colour to red or even bleached blonde!

The more you see, the more you realise that there is an inextricable bond between the tribe and their cattle. The way they lead them, rub ash into their skins, attend to their needs, use their milk, dung and urine. It is a symbiotic relationship where there is an understanding of the cattle which goes beyond normal animal husbandry. They take pride in their animals and the whole community of man and beast is interconnected. I have never seen anything like it. - Trevor Cole 📸 @trevcole

𝐀𝐍𝐀𝐓𝐎𝐌𝐘 𝐃𝐎𝐄𝐒 𝐍

𝐀𝐍𝐀𝐓𝐎𝐌𝐘 𝐃𝐎𝐄𝐒 𝐍𝐎𝐓 𝐃𝐄𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐌𝐈𝐍𝐄 𝐆𝐄𝐍𝐃𝐄𝐑

Defining gender as a condition determined strictly by a person’s genitals is based on a notion that doctors and scientists abandoned long ago as oversimplified and often medically meaningless.

Researchers who have studied gender issues and provided health care to people who do not fit the typical M/F pigeonholes said that the Trump administration’s latest plan to define gender goes beyond the limits of scientific knowledge. “The idea that a person’s sex is determined by their anatomy at birth is not true, and we’ve known that it’s not true for decades,” said Dr. Joshua D. Safer, an endocrinologist and executive director of the Center for Transgender Medicine and Surgery at Mount Sinai Health System in New York. He is also president of the United States Professional Association of Transgender Health.

But exactly what does determine gender identity — a person’s powerful, core knowledge of who they are — is not so clear. “We know that there is a significant, durable biological underpinning to gender identity,” Dr. Safer said. “What we don’t know are all of the biological factors at play that explain gender identity. As far as we in the mainstream biological-medical community understand it in 2018, it is hard-wired, it is biological, it is not entirely hormonal, and we do not have identified genes, so we cannot specifically say it is genetic.” - Denise Grady, The New York Times .

Photographer 📸 Mariette Pathy Allen @mariettepathyallenofficial

𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐖𝐑𝐀𝐓𝐇 𝐎𝐅 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐔𝐍𝐏𝐑𝐎𝐓𝐄𝐂𝐓𝐄𝐃

I don’t like people who like me because I’m a Negro; neither do I like people who find in the same accident grounds for contempt. I love America more than any other country in the world, and, exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticise her perpetually. I think all theories are suspect, that the finest principles may have to be modified, or may even be pulverised by the demands of life, and that one must find, therefore, one’s own moral centre and move through the world hoping that this centre will guide one aright. I consider that I have many responsibilities, but none greater than this: to last, as Hemingway says, and get my work done. I want to be an honest man and a good writer.

The question I’m trying to raise is a very serious question. The mass media – television and all the major news agencies – endlessly use that word ‘looter’ … On television you always see black hands reaching in, you know. And so the American public concludes that these savages are trying to steal everything from us. And no one has seriously tried to get where the trouble is. After all, you’re accusing a captive population who has been robbed of everything of looting. I think it’s obscene.

The power of the white world is threatened whenever a black man refuses to accept the white world’s definitions.

I imagine that one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, that they will be forced to deal with pain. - James Baldwin .

Photographer 📸 @jacobholdtofficial

𝐃𝐀𝐑𝐄 𝐓𝐎 𝐁𝐄 When a new day

𝐃𝐀𝐑𝐄 𝐓𝐎 𝐁𝐄

When a new day begins, dare to smile gratefully.

When there is darkness, dare to be the first to shine a light.

When there is injustice, dare to be the first to condemn it.

When something seems difficult, dare to do it anyway.

When life seems to beat you down, dare to fight back.

When there seems to be no hope, dare to find some.

When you’re feeling tired, dare to keep going.

When times are tough, dare to be tougher.

When love hurts you, dare to love again.

When someone is hurting, dare to help them heal.

When another is lost, dare to help them find the way.

When a friend falls, dare to be the first to extend a hand.

When you cross paths with another, dare to make them smile.

When you feel great, dare to help someone else feel great too.

When the day has ended, dare to feel as you’ve done your best.

Dare to be the best you can –

At all times, Dare to be!
- Steve Maraboli .

Photographer 📸 @ethanjamesgreen 👦🏻 @juandanceswild 👦🏾 @tyl000rd

𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐂𝐎𝐑𝐑𝐔𝐏𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍 𝐓𝐇𝐀𝐓 𝐂𝐀𝐏𝐈𝐓𝐀𝐋𝐈𝐒𝐌 𝐅𝐔𝐄𝐋𝐒

The capitalist and consumerist ethics are two sides of the same coin, a merger of two commandments. The supreme commandment of the rich is ‘Invest!’ The supreme commandment of the rest of us is ‘Buy!’ The capitalist–consumerist ethic is revolutionary in another respect. Most previous ethical systems presented people with a pretty tough deal. .

They were promised paradise, but only if they cultivated compassion and tolerance, overcame craving and anger, and restrained their selfish interests. This was too tough for most. The history of ethics is a sad tale of wonderful ideals that nobody can live up to. Most Christians did not imitate Christ, most Buddhists failed to follow Buddha, and most Confucians would have caused Confucius a temper tantrum. In contrast, most people today successfully live up to the capitalist–consumerist ideal. The new ethic promises paradise on condition that the rich remain greedy and spend their time making more money and that the masses give free reign to their cravings and passions and buy more and more. .

This is the first religion in history whose followers actually do what they are asked to do. How though do we know that we'll really get paradise in return? We've seen it on television.
- Yuval Noah Harari .

Photo 📸 Georgina Cranston. In December 2005 in southern Sudan, a boy drinks water from the Akuem River, near the village of Malual Kon in Bahr el Ghazal State. Only about one-third of the population has access to safe drinking water, and the threat of water-borne disease has increased as towns swell due to the return of displaced people and refugees following decades of civil war.

𝐅𝐄𝐌𝐀𝐋𝐄 𝐒𝐄𝐗𝐔𝐀𝐋𝐈𝐓𝐘 𝐒𝐓𝐈𝐋𝐋 𝐀 𝐓𝐀𝐁𝐎𝐎 𝐒𝐔𝐁𝐉𝐄𝐂𝐓

It is recognised now that Freud never gave proper attention, even in man, to growth of the ego or self: 'the impulse to master, control or come to self-fulfilling terms with the environment'. Analysts who have freed themselves from Freud's bias and joined other behavioural scientists in studying the human need, and that interference with it, in any dimension, is the source of psychic trouble. .

The sexual is only one dimension of the human potential. Freud saw women only in terms of their sexual relationship with men. But in all those women in whom he saw sexual problems, there must have been very severe problems of blocked growth, growth short of full human identity -- an immature, incomplete self. .

Society as it was then, by explicit denial of education and independence, prevented women from realising their full potential, or from attaining those interests and ideals that might stimulated their growth. Freud reported these deficiencies, but could only explain them as the toll of 'penis envy'. He saw that women who secretly hungered to be man's equal would not enjoy being his object; and in this, he seemed to be describing a fact. But when he dismissed woman's yearning for equality as 'penis envy', was he not merely stating his own view that woman could never really be man's equal, any more than she could wear his penis?
- Betty Friedan 📸 @alexandravonfuerst

𝐒𝐄𝐋𝐅 𝐏𝐎𝐑𝐓𝐑𝐀𝐈𝐓

𝐒𝐄𝐋𝐅 𝐏𝐎𝐑𝐓𝐑𝐀𝐈𝐓 𝐎𝐅 𝐀 𝐏𝐎𝐖𝐄𝐑𝐅𝐔𝐋 𝐖𝐎𝐌𝐀𝐍

Eu Clandestina, insana, hostil, dose de cachaça, amor mandacaru, vencida.
Eu Clandestina, sangro em beco sem saída, flor coagulada, despedaçada, vezes, quase nunca chora.
Eu Clandestina, terço de uma das metades, pow, pow, pow, tiros, magoas apodrecidas, em-pretecidas, podres feridas, mulher invadida, prato sujo na pia, no horário de meio dia, puta que pariu 7 caminhos.
Eu clandestina, envelhecida, perdei a serventia depois de abortar relacionamentos vazios.
Autorretrato. - Helen Salomão @helesalomao .

Photo 📸 @helesalomao .

Why don’t we call menstruation by its name? Euphemisms serve a purpose. They give us words to talk about things that are considered culturally taboo. The impact of typical menstrual taboos is clear: they can lead to significant challenges in menstrual management, adverse reproductive health outcomes, social ostracization, disease, and even death.

Menstruation stigma is a form of misogyny. Negative taboos condition us to understand menstrual function as something to be hidden, something shameful. And by not naming a thing, we reinforce the idea that the thing should not be named. - Anna Druet, Clue

𝐍𝐔𝐃𝐈𝐓𝐘 𝐈𝐒 𝐀 𝐅𝐎𝐑𝐌 𝐎𝐅 𝐃𝐑𝐄𝐒𝐒

To be naked is to be oneself. To be nude is to be seen naked by others and yet not recognized for oneself. A naked body has to be seen as an object in order to become a nude. ( The sight of it as an object stimulates the use of it as an object.) Nakedness reveals itself. Nudity is placed on display. To be naked is to be without disguise. .

To be on display is to have the surface of one's own skin, the hairs of one's own body, turned into a disguise which, in that situation, can never be discarded. The nude is condemned to never being naked. Nudity is a form of dress.
- John Berger .

Photo 📸 Ramon Pereira @ Elle Model Brazil gets photographed by Attila Kiss for Coitus Online @coitusmagazine

𝐋𝐈𝐁𝐄𝐑𝐀𝐓𝐔𝐌 𝐈𝐒 𝐐

𝐋𝐈𝐁𝐄𝐑𝐀𝐓𝐔𝐌 𝐈𝐒 𝐐𝐔𝐄𝐄𝐑 𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐏𝐑𝐎𝐔𝐃 .

At Liberatum, every day is pride. Proud to celebrate photographers, artists, exceptional human beings and beautiful bodies from all over the world every single day of the year. .

Proud to tell stories of those who have powerful voices but are looking for platforms to express themselves, and to tell their extraordinary stories. Proud to connect people from different backgrounds and communities and bring them together to shine a light on important issues and topics that affect us all. Proud to live out loud and encourage you to do the same and to spread kindness, love and spirituality to raise consciousness. .

Proud to stand up for human rights and to promote equality. Proud to fight for racial justice. Proud to amplify LGBTQIA+ experiences. Proud to highlight the remarkable journeys of brave individuals from different continents who fought difficult battles, trials and tribulations. Proud to work and collaborate with talented people of all ages, religions, beliefs, nationalities and ethnicities. .

Proud to be a queer organisation. .

Photo 📸 @olhardepaulina_ 🧔🏻 @gabs.thetrans

𝐋𝐈𝐁𝐄𝐑𝐀𝐓𝐔𝐌 𝐋𝐈𝐅𝐄𝐒𝐀𝐕𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐂𝐎𝐍𝐕𝐄𝐑𝐒𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍𝐒

Five Continents. Countries Worldwide. South Africa. Brazil. India. Spain. The United States. The United Kingdom. Mexico. Italy. .

ENG: Today Liberatum will launch a vital humanitarian and cultural programme entitled LIFESAVING CONVERSATIONS as a digital campaign worldwide. The aim of this global series is to address important issues facing humanity and to provide emergency food and economic relief around the world this year featuring true heroes, preeminent international partners and some of the greatest minds of our time.

PT: Hoje a Liberatum lançará um programa humanitário e cultural vital, intitulado LIFESAVING CONVERSATIONS como uma campanha digital em todo o mundo. O objetivo desta série global é abordar questões importantes que a humanidade enfrenta e fornecer de forma emergencial alimentos, além de alívio econômico em todo o mundo este ano, apresentando verdadeiros heróis , parceiros internacionais proeminentes e algumas das maiores mentes do nosso tempo.

ESP: Hoy Liberatum lanzará un programa humanitario y cultural vital titulado LIFESAVING CONVERSATIONS como una campaña digital en todo el mundo hoy. El objetivo de esta serie global es abordar los problemas importantes que enfrenta la humanidad y proporcionar alimentos de emergencia y ayuda económica en todo el mundo este año. La campaña incluirá verdadera héroes, socios internacionales preeminentes y algunas de las mentes más grandes de nuestro tiempo. .

Lifesaving Conversations #lifesavingconversations 🎨 @porracristo 👨‍👨‍👧‍👧 @misslisabaker @auksas @missmikeyo @braziliansweetheart @alonsoteruel @sizaaaa @rainhadiaba #liberatum

𝐀𝐅𝐅𝐈𝐑𝐌𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍 𝐓𝐇𝐀𝐓 𝐖𝐈𝐋𝐋 𝐒𝐀𝐕𝐄 𝐘𝐎𝐔

I am whole.
I am worthy.
I am divine.
I am love.
I am enough. - @sanele_xaba 📸 @sanele_xaba

𝐄𝐕𝐄𝐑𝐘𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐈𝐒

𝐄𝐕𝐄𝐑𝐘𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐈𝐒 𝐀𝐍 𝐔𝐍𝐅𝐎𝐋𝐃𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐏𝐑𝐎𝐂𝐄𝐒𝐒

We become attached to each pleasant thought, feeling, taste, smell, and sound. But because everything is impermanent, we’re craving and clinging to fleeting experiences. Pleasure never lasts long enough; we can never sustain enough pleasure to satisfy the cravings. Suffering is the inevitable outcome of clinging to experiences that are unsustainable. Each moment of attachment or clinging creates some level of suffering in our lives as we grieve the loss of pleasure. What we often forget is that we have the power and ability simply to let go, and each moment of letting go is an act of mercy. The subversive act of nonclinging is an internal coup d’état.

Forgiveness is not just a selfish pursuit of personal satisfaction or righteousness. It actually alleviates the amount of suffering in the world. As each one of us frees ourselves from clinging to resentments that cause suffering, we relieve our friends, family, and community of the burden of our unhappiness. This is not a philosophical proposal; it is a verifiable and practical truth. Through our suffering and lack of forgiveness, we tend to do all kinds of unskillful things that hurt others. We close ourselves off from love, for example, out of fear of further pains or betrayals. This alone—a lack of openness to the love shown to us—is a way that we cause harm to our loved ones. The closed heart lets no one in or out.

We all know that rainbows are temporary optical illusions based on the factors of sunlight, moisture, and heat. The environment creates each rainbow like the mind creates a self. Both creations are relatively real, in that we can genuinely experience them temporarily; but just as the factors that created the illusion (whether rainbow or self) arose, so will they also pass. There is no permanent self; there is no permanent rainbow. It is not true to say that there is no self at all or that everything is empty or illusory, but it is true that everything is constantly changing and that there is no solid, permanent, unchanging self within the process that is life. Everything and everyone is an unfolding process.
- Noah Levine 📸 @sophiekietzmann 👩🏽 @moontwerk

𝐈𝐍𝐃𝐈𝐀𝐍 𝐏𝐑𝐈𝐃𝐄 𝐀

𝐈𝐍𝐃𝐈𝐀𝐍 𝐏𝐑𝐈𝐃𝐄 𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐈𝐍𝐃𝐈𝐕𝐈𝐃𝐔𝐀𝐋𝐈𝐓𝐘

Everyone’s struggle is different. Queer people are more than often not provided social agency. The rigidity of social norms automatically makes any softness or queerness or opposition to the status quo to be a direct attack to society and tries it’s best to shut it down and in this case makes our identities something that needs to be hidden. For me personally, I grew up in an environment where being gay or queer was a myth, it wasn’t an actual thing. So I grew up thinking my identity wasn’t real at all, and after that when my social circles changed, I think it took a long time for me to come to terms with my own sexuality and to accept my own identity as a valid identity. The biggest challenge we face is violence and we face this violence because people see us as alien, because you’re not seeing us in your books, in your televisions, in your conversations. When you don’t see us as humans to begin with, it’s easy to command violence upon us and that needs to change.

I’ve learnt to come to terms with my body and how I treat it, how I love it. As an artist, we’re all about practice and love and I’ve said this before, I draw the worst self portraits, because I’m so disconnected from the way I look, it has always been secondary to me, and I’ve only recently started to whole-heartedly believe that
i) I’m more than what I look like.
ii) I look great though!?
And I hope we’re all met with realisations like this ever so often. Here’s to making better self portraits and to be able to find in myself the strength to be my own muse.

I’m not scared of a lot of things and neither are most people, but I think we’ve been taught to be scared of our own bodies. I’m not anymore. No one can use my own body as a weapon against me anymore. - Priyanka Paul 📸 Priyanka Paul for Paper Magazine (@papermagazine) (Shedding The Last Layer: Gay India Awakens To New Freedom). Shot by Ashish Shah (@ashishnshah)
Styled by Kshitij Kankaria (@kshitijkankaria)
Story by Karuna Ezara Parikh (@karunaezara)
Groomed by Saher Ahmed Gandhi (@saherahmed91)
Assisted by Ruhani Singh (@ruhani_s ) and Nayanika Kapoor (@nayanika.kapoor

𝐃𝐈𝐕𝐈𝐍𝐄 𝐆𝐑𝐀𝐂𝐄 Har

𝐃𝐈𝐕𝐈𝐍𝐄 𝐆𝐑𝐀𝐂𝐄

Harris Glenn Milstead, also known as the performer “Divine,” has been described as “one of the few truly radical and essential artists” of the 20th century. Divine became famous for his starring roles in many of John Waters’ films, most notably Hairspray and Pink Flamingos. .

One month before his death in 1988, the film Hairspray was released and his dream of becoming a well-respected actor was finally coming to fruition. The critics praised his performance as the character, Edna Turnblad, and his agent, Bernard Jay, claimed he had never seen Divine happier. He even landed a guest role on the hit TV series Married…With Childrenbut passed away from an enlarged heart the night before filming. .

While Divine was famous for his drag persona, over-the-top, and at times gross antics, in real life this was not him. In fact, he was quoted as saying that his favorite part of drag was getting out of it and he only wore it to get paid. Although he came to embrace his homosexuality openly, he did not consider himself a drag queen, transgender nor transsexual. .

His ultimate goal was to be taken seriously as a male character actor and in later years would prove himself to be just that talented. Those who got to work with him saw past the outlandishness he exhibited on stage and in front of the camera and actually saw what the raw talent and natural sense of comic timing he possessed. Many who knew him described him as soft-spoken, kind, and generous.
Divine was only 42 at the time of his death. .

His body was found at the Regency Plaza Suites Hotel in Los Angeles, California on the morning of March 7, 1988. Weighing in at more than three-hundred pounds, he passed away in his sleep from cardiac arrest due to an enlarged heart. His body was flown to his hometown, Towson, Maryland, where it is buried in Hillpark Cemetery. - Brenda Thornlow 📸 In 1978, Grace Jones celebrates her birthday party at the famous Studio 54 with Divine. Photo by Ron Galella/WireImage

𝐘𝐎𝐔𝐑 𝐑𝐄𝐀𝐋𝐈𝐓𝐘 𝐈

𝐘𝐎𝐔𝐑 𝐑𝐄𝐀𝐋𝐈𝐓𝐘 𝐈𝐒 𝐌𝐀𝐍𝐈𝐅𝐄𝐒𝐓𝐄𝐃 𝐓𝐇𝐑𝐎𝐔𝐆𝐇 𝐘𝐎𝐔

Use your mind
and HEART
the way they
were meant
to be used.

Imagine health,
beauty, LOVE and joy
into existence.

It is your life.
It is your time.
It is your space.

Without YOU
there is no reality. - Gordana Biernat 📸 @quimfabregas

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