Monday 18 February 2013

Quote of the Week - Tomasko


"The art of appreciation is linked to appreciation:  leaning in before a kiss, standing in line at the airport before boarding the plane to our final destination, waiting for the previews to end and the film to begin, inhaling the heady scent of a fine wine before we take a sip.  It's a reminder of the loving gift that is life." 
- Felicia M. Tomasko (from February 2013 LA Yoga)


I love this!  We speak so much of gratitude now, but in the rush from one thing to another to another, often misplace the ability to savour something, or someone.  Keep it real.






Pic of Klimt's Kiss interpreted by Tammam Azzam

Thursday 14 February 2013

A Valentine



“The beginning of love is to let those we love be perfectly themselves, and not to twist them to fit our own image. Otherwise we love only the reflection of ourselves we find in them.” 
-Thomas Merton








Happy Valentine's Day.

Don't forget about One Billion Rising.





Quote came from Sheeluv!

Pic came from National Geographic!

Monday 11 February 2013

Quote of the Week - E. Amato


"Courage and Purpose are tucked inside each other, as a Yin Yang symbol.  Locate one you will find the other."   
- E. Amato

This came to me when I was having trouble finding courage.  I realized that the vital energy that is Purpose automatically activates Courage.  The vital force that is Courage is energized most strongly by Purpose.

This didn't want to make a poem.  But it wanted to be shared.

Happy Monday!






Saturday 9 February 2013

Tumblr tk3 - Trees



Trees

are

my

spirit

animal




meditation



place



root

nest

shade






“There are
So many positions of 
Love:




Each curve on a branch..."

-Hafiz







Trees

are

my

kind

of

magic








home










Photo credits:
Cold-Light-Day (top):  M. D'Acosta
Trees Snow (Yaddo):  P. Smith
St. Pancras Old Church Trees:  E. Amato

Thursday 7 February 2013

On Repeat: Ed Mabrey's Tribute to Jack McCarthy

Along with my tears and gratitude.




While I'm at it, watch this:



Letting my faith in spoken word revive.

That article in The Independent can kiss my poetry-spitting a**.


Sunday 3 February 2013

Quote of the Week - Nussbaum


"What is the nature of auratic power? Start with a thing that beckons you."

- Bruce Nussbaum

This is from a great article on Apple pointed to by Hannibal Tabu.  I recommend reading and Evernoting!

Nussbaum has hit on the keys to the code for connectivity - not technological connectivity - human connectivity in an age where technology has the ability to help or hinder the creation of self and community.

The discussion of aura here, with insights attributed to Walter Benjamin (who seems like a must read), is on a much higher level than which products or people are perceived as sexy in the moment.  It's also not a discussion of colorful emanations from organic bodies.  It is instead an indicator of where we are drawn, and how we choose to draw ourselves.  When Apple products are insanely great, they are best extensions of ourselves which join us to a community of those who choose the same values in design, execution, productivity, competence, and reliability.  By extension, you can infer trust and safety being built in this community.  For example, the new version of iTunes is a breach of all that - a crack in the infrastructure of this community.  It builds frustration and anger and breeds mistrust.   (And I do have issues with Miss Trust.)

Now take away "Apple products"in the above and substitute anything that beckons you.  There are some lovely embedded keys to who we are and want to be in here.  We all have an aura - a natural one.  We may have a projected one, too, but the natural one won't go unnoticed.  If those two are too disparate most of what you project on people and in community is noise and static.

If Apple has an aura that beckons certain types of people and builds community around its products, then what might you be beckoning with your aura?  What is the aura of the art, music, poetry, food, or products that you create?  What auras pull you into their gravitational fields?






Saturday 2 February 2013

Tumblr Take 2 - Thorns

(aka Winter of Our Discontent)





More like thousands of pulsating thorns - but yes - that is how it feels.  




These


  

We do make it all about the roses.

But this is winter.  

Thorns protect while the roses go inside themselves, convert their nutrients back into buds they force into bloom.

(This is what it means to be perennial, not annual.)

Maybe we're just too flower-obsessed.

From the Etsy page for "Short Stories - Bronze Rose Stems" 


Mary Lezcano from Plastidermy says:Featured
All relationships have ebbs and flows, but it is presicely at the ebbs that a relationship is given an opportunity to grow and strengthen. Embracing the full spectrum of anything, the light and its shadows, is always the balance which propels it forward. Beautiful work.







“We can complain because rose bushes have thorns, or rejoice because thorn bushes have roses.”

Abraham Lincoln

Friday 1 February 2013

Time time time

Let's pretend this is a Tumblr.  Just for today.

Time keeps coming up



Various conversations.

Various forms.

How differently we all need it - use it - understand it.


How we estimate it - or don't.


How it passes.  How it passes