Reflections

These photographs are by Tom Hussey, part of his "Reflections" series.
To me, these pictures seem to be on the outside looking in. Looking at your younger self through your mother or father.  It is curious how our idea of who we are does not seem to age much. I still know exactly what I felt like at 25, and I am sure my mother feels the same  about  when she was 50. Or 25. Only our reflection ages :-)

Winter is coming

By Daria Kudla

This is art by Daria Kudla. Red Riding Hood riding her wolf, on the brink of Winter. As indeed it is. I feel a bit like her. And like the wolf, particularly the lavish red tongue hanging out like it is the end of the world soon.

 

Posted with Blogsy

In search of authentic women

My interest currently gravitates towards interesting women. Role models, perhaps, or just in-a-general-sense inspiring women. I wonder what it is that I want to clarify about them. Or about myself.

A gentle beauty, Mumbai 2007, by Cameron Macmaster

I know what I am not interested in. Not that there is anything intrinsically wrong with beautiful or successful women. Or with superMums or powergirls. The latter just exhaust me! Don't get me wrong. As a woman, I am truly happy for them to have succeeded. I am grateful that they will inspire other women to take their chances. I wish them a long and happy life. And should anyone offer to make me very rich or incredibly beautiful I might just be tempted :-)I believe that women are (better) equipped to tune into matters of the heart, soul, even the body. Somehow they are simply better at tuning in. Perhaps this knowledge derives from being able to carry life within. Perhaps it is something else entirely.These days there are many women who choose not to develop this ability. Rather, they give it up in favour of being recognized by a predominately male world. I understand. Truly, I do. The call of the alpha male is strong and its response runs in our genes. Not easy to resist at all. Especially not if we need protection for ourselves or for our children.Before I may attempt to say any more about this, I feel I must try and define, or at least get a feeling for the kind of "tuning in" quality that I mean. For a while I have been drawn to to collect the faces of strong, authentic women, and their stories. Perhaps it is not just about women, either. There are also men “tuning in. Perhaps they have always been there.I am wondering if I might do this proposed investigation in this blog, or whether I should start a separate one.  

Whilst I am thinking about this, I will use this page to jot down some of the links that I have come across. These seem to be concerned with women’s achievements and contributions, recognition, which is not so much my “thing”. Still, the material is interesting.

 

http://www.mhamenondji.com/blog/amazing-women

http://www.distinguishedwomen.com Includes an incredible long links page for further reference.

http://www.amazingwomeninhistory.com/http://trulyamazingwomen.com/

 

 

 

Posted with Blogsy

In search of authentic women

My interest currently gravitates towards interesting women. Role models, perhaps, or just in-a-general-sense inspiring women.  I wonder what it is that I want to clarify about them. Or about myself.

A gentle beauty, Mumbai 2007, by Cameron Macmaster

I know what I am not interested in. Not that there is anything intrinsically wrong with beautiful or successful women. Or with superMums or powergirls. The latter just exhaust me!
Don't get me wrong. As a woman, I am truly happy for them to have succeeded. I am grateful that they will inspire other women to take their chances. I wish them a long and happy life. And should anyone offer to make me very rich or incredibly beautiful I might just be tempted :-)

I believe that women are (better) equipped to tune into matters of the heart, soul, even the body. Somehow they are simply better at tuning in. Perhaps this knowledge derives from being able to carry life within. Perhaps it is something else entirely.
These days there are many women who choose not to develop this ability.  Rather, they give it up in favour of being recognized by a predominately male world.  I understand.  Truly, I do.  The call of the alpha male is strong and its response runs in our genes. Not easy to resist at all. Especially not if we need protection for ourselves or for our children.

Before I may attempt to say any more about this, I feel I must try and define, or at least get a feeling for the kind of "tuning in" quality that I mean.  For a while I have been drawn to to collect the faces of strong, authentic women, and their stories. Perhaps it is not just about women, either. There are also men “tuning in. Perhaps they have always been there.


I am wondering if I might do this proposed investigation in this blog, or whether I should start a separate one. Whilst I am thinking about this, I will use this page to jot down some of the links that I have come across.  These seem to be concerned with women’s achievements and contributions,  recognition, which is not so much my “thing”. Still, the material is interesting.

http://www.mhamenondji.com/blog/amazing-women
http://www.distinguishedwomen.com/  Includes an incredible long links page for further reference.
http://www.amazingwomeninhistory.com/
http://trulyamazingwomen.com/

If you have ..

Thank you, who ever conceived of this message and its beautiful layouting first. I do not know who you are .. I always credit the author of material that I repost, but that proved impossible: so many people have reposted this message. I gladly join them.

 

 

The message that is sent by this poster is clear as a bell, rings right through smaller and larger concerns, fears, hopes. Or at least, that is what it did to me. 

 It reminds me of Nine Simone's  magnificent "Life".  At times I play that song until I believe I can walk on my hands- which I definitely cannot :-)

Child's play

Photograph by Vo Anh Kiet

This picture was the runner up for the National Geographic Traveler Photo Contest 2012, described as “H’Mong minority children were playing with their balloons on a foggy day in Moc Chau – Ha Giang province, Vietnam." It has a dreamlike quality, otherwordly, and yet the children and their balloon play are like any children.

Vo Anh Kiet - I have not been able to find any details about him or her - also entered another photograph for the National Geographic contest, which did not make it to the top ten, but to my mind is equally beautiful. It shows another H'Mong child, leaning into her mother. Both mother and daugther appear to share that same  dreamy child like quality that shines through the black and white photograph above.

Photograph by Vo Anh Kiet

More is more and less is a bore

 

I couldn't resist sharing this with you: another role model for me, something to strive for.
She is Iris Apfel, and I snatched this picture from the Advanced Style Blog by Ari Seth Cohen.

This lady looks more at 92 alive than I feel at 50. She is American, but half Russian too, owing to her mother. A rare old bird!. Exotic, indeed. And she still has a lot of energy! The quote "more is more and less is a bore" sums her up.There is a wonderful article in the Guardian about her, which may be read here. Apparently she became a celebrity at 83, many years after retirement.

Mad as hell

"Mad As Hell" by Aaron Leming.  I did a little bit of research. Apparently, this kind of letter working is an example of kinetic typography. The actual text was taken from the 1976 cult film "network".

I ran into this clip today, or rather, it ran in to me. Listening to it, I felt like being set free. I was so amazed at the feeling that I just had to laugh out loud. So far, I have not stuck my head of the window and yelled, but the idea is growing on me.

A feather on the breath of God

Today I lost my temper. Not visibly, but inside. I spend some time in anger, even retalliating. Which is probably for the best, as the guy in question is quite dense and would not get the message any other way. But the whole thing gave me a headache. As I cycled home, I decided not to listen to an audiobook but to a documentary about Hildegard von Bingen.
I wished I had done so this morning. Her music is so beautiful, so pure and cleansing. Just what the doctor ordered. The documentary also cited some of her poetry:

The feather flew, not because of anything in itself but because the air bore it along

Thus am I, a feather on the breath of God.

Tree of life

"Tree of Life "by Faupel-Art.org

Today I was asked what I would look like  if I were a tree. I rather enjoyed that question. I did a little drawing. Maybe I will redo it as a private work of art. Even post it here :-)

I spent some time wondering what kind of tree I want to be when I grow up. I found this image on a website supporting charities such as Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace and Amnesty International.
Have a look at the image. The colours are heartbreakingly beautiful, inspiring thoughts of love and innocense. Of  life and hope and courage and harmony. Connecting energies. Clean, clean air. Yes..

Pixel people

Audrey Hepburn,  by Graig Alan

I found this image in this blog. There are more artists like Graig Alan: taking "tableau vivant" to a new level. Secretly I have always wanted to partake in one of these. I image it would be like being a conscious part of a work of art, a Creation. Or do I already exist as a pixel in  one or, perhaps,  many "tableaus"?

Mischmasch

"Stood beneath an orange sky" by Alice X Chang

The author of this picture (is it a design or a painting or an illustration - or does that not matter ?) is Alice X. Chang. She is from ... all over (born in China, grew up in Auckland, lived and worked as a graphic designer in New York City, London and Beijing).  She has worked as a graphic designer but according to one of her internet profiles, is currently moving to the fine arts. I have no idea how she classifies this picture, it is not even in the various portfolios she keeps on the internet. Interestingly, she has created "Mischmasch", a virtual gallery where contemporary artists display and auction or sell their own work. The word "mischmasch" comes from the German, meaning "a collection or mixture of things". I assume this initiative was born from her professed dislike of arrogant gallery owners. Alice does like "crazy people, funny people, art on the back streets, the moldy smell of old books, and typography". She really is a bit of a "mischmasch" herself, or at least her internet presence is: a bit of everything and all over the place. But perhaps one does not need to try for consistence in all things. Perhaps creative force may be freed up by the sheer enjoyment of not being consistent. I must think on that.

Imagine

Words-a-wing need a feather bed:-)

Big appetites

This picture is part of a series called "big appetites".
On his website the artist, Christopher Boffoli, decribes how he came about creating these ... a child's view of the adult world, where everything is larger than life, against the backdrop of food-  food being both a major health issue, but also "the sensual experience of eating accesses primal instincts that stretch back to the earliest days of our evolution".
Now I can relate to that! As a child I used  to dream about my favourite food, custard! Not english custard, Dutch custard, which was sold in half liter aluminium topped glass bottles  Eaten as cold as possible. I loved it so much, I used to dream about having a swimming pool full of it, and then diving in. Bliss! It is at least 20 years that I have indulged myself. Which, as I write this down, seems silly. Perhaps ..

Wise one

Found on fotografia-przyrodnicza.art.pl

This owl seems to be looking straight at me, through me. I feel transparant, and it is not a comfortable feeling. Do I know what I am doing? Am I in need of wisdom? Do I have any wisdom to offer? Are there any white lies I have forgotten to tell myself about ? Am I sure, truly, in my heart of heart and in my bone of bones?
Eventually, I relax. Of course I know what I am doing, even if I don't know it yet. I tell the owl how beautiful it is. It doesn't even blink.

Left versus right brain

Graphic by Andrew Keir. More here

I took a course in drawing some years ago. One day a friend showed us his paintings and I sighed: 'oh, I wish I could draw" ... and he offered to teach me, saying that drawing really wasn't that difficult. A matter of learning to see followed by diligent application of effort. Apparently it takes only 3000 hours to become good at something:-)
So far I have not managed to spend the 3000 hours, but I did learn to see. With my "right" brain. And hence to draw. A bit. It was a revelation, in many respects, to my thinking, feeling and imagining mind.  As is depicted in this graphic. Do read the small print describing the left- and right side of the brain.

Human nest

Reblogged from here

This is a human nest, conceived and custom built by Yayson Fann. Created from locally harvested wood, these nests may fit a range of purposes, from a love nest to a look-out to an actual living space  for 1 to 30(!) people. In me, the sight of such a nest evokes .. yes, nesting urges. Wouldn't I just love to have one of these in my garden ...or indeed in the house.... and  it seems to appeal to me at some primal level. Do you suppose that humans ever lived in trees?

Alter ego in pink

"Toad" by  Yu Chen Hong

I adore this toad.  I have even adopted her as my avatar on Wordfeud (don't tell anyone).
She is everything I don't want to be ... pink, fat, frilly, silly, dumb, even gross. And yet ... she speaks to me. She feels familiar somehow. I  feel I could talk to her. And I do think that she is absolutely beautiful.

Metaphors

Ripples on the Ocean by Vladimir Kush

I find metaphors useful to describe things, explain concepts, evoke feelings, hint at truths which I could not otherwise express. I enjoy using metaphors in language, am always trying to find new and better ones.

The artist of the painting above, Vladimir Kush, uses image methaphors with a similar goal. He says: "Metaphor leaves the mind open to grasp onto the hidden likeness of things and events. And the more distant these things are, the greater the effect. The unexpectedness of the connection and sudden insight, which takes your breath away, is the true measure of the painting's value".

Slow is the new fast

Found on http://www.tumblr.com/tagged/stuffnoonetoldme.blogspot.com

Maybe it is the holiday nearly finished now. Maybe it is old age creeping up on me. Maybe it is an intimation of Grand Things to Come. Or quite the opposite. Or simply plain good sense, finally catching up with me. Whatever ...I will adopt this as a new rule of life. Or do I mean rule of my new life ? My credo ? I will get it. Slowly.

Sleeping water

Photograph by me

Air listens, like the sleeping water, still.... 

(Wordsworth, from "An Evening Walk")

Breathing room

As a child, I loved blowing dandelions. I would rush up to them wherever I found them. Poppies had the same effect on me. I used to make my father stop the car so that I could pick them.  Blowing the dandelion and seeing its seeds fly in the air gave me a feeling of oneness. As a (semi) grown up, I do not find myself changed much (except for walking much more slowly).
I stumbled into a website about breathing together in a breathing room  There is actually a map so that you can see who is using the breathing rooms (you may choose one to suit you). The idea made me giggle at first, until I tried it. It is an amazing feeling to breathe in and out with others. For me it is quite like blowing that dandelion, lots of them, with a feeling of connection. Try it yourself.

On November 11th 2012, at the exact same time, for one hour, the Universal Breathing Room invites you to do whatever most powerfully and joyfully connects you to the feeling tones of unity and love. Pray, meditate, sing, chant, dance, laugh, party, paint and then at the end of the hour: breathe synchronously as one global family in The Universal Breathing Room on  DoAsOne.org. Check their website for more details and time conversion.

Path work

Monks at Pongour Falls in Dalat, Vietnam by photographer Dang Ngo.

Known as the 7 Layers Waterfall, Pongour Falls is located just outside of Dalat (Lam Dong province) and is the largest waterfall in the region. The water drops about 30 meters (98.5 ft), and flows dramatically over 7 ‘layers’ into a big pool at the bottom.
Perhaps these layers connect to the 7 layers of Heaven? Or  to the 7 layers of the aura? Are these monks meditating as they come down? Is that even possible on a slippery path like this? Or ...?

Duty for dummies

Available  here

You remember C.S. Lewis, from the Narnia Tales? The one that used to drink with Tolkien in a quaint little pub in Oxford. I always wonder at how many pints the dragons started to appear. 

Apparently C.S. Lewis received a lot of letters from children, which he answered at some length, offering advice. In a letter to a girl named Sarah, dated April 3, 1949, he writes:

"Remember that there are only three kinds of things anyone need ever do.

1. Things we ought to do
2. Things we’ve got to do
3. Things we like doing.

I say this because some people seem to spend so much of their time doing things for none of the three reasons, things like reading books they don’t like because other people read them. Things you ought to do are things like doing one’s school work or being nice to people. Things one has got to do are things like dressing and undressing, or household shopping. Things one likes doing — but of course I don’t know what you like. Perhaps you’ll write and tell me one day."

Now isn't that an excellent breakdown of "what to do" for (semi) grown-ups like me - with a conscience that weighs heavily upon my need to play?

Story trees

Photograph by Sergio Alfaro

I was looking for an image to illustrate some marvellous initiative that I had come accross recently, and then I hit upon this photograph. I just had to put it here. The photograph is taken in Mexico, at the Lago de Camécuaro National Park.  Apparently Camécuaro originally means "place of bathing". I would certainly like to!
The trees are amazing. I have not been able to find out what their proper name is, but they are fit for a grand story on a Tolkien like scale.

Thinking tool

Source (and more photographs) here

This is a Nautilus shell, a ship of pearl with a lustrous coil and a heavenly message - according Oliver Wendell  in his poem "the chambered Nautilus".
In an audiobook I listened to today it was referred to as a "thinking tool" because of its logarithmic form, the Spira mirabilis,  the marvellous spiral. There, I have put the link in, so you can find out about all the mathematics.

The idea of a thinking tool appeals to me, and I look at my desk with new eyes. Yes, I could do with some thinking tools. At the office too. Not just thinking though, I want some inward-drawing tools as well. Don't know what they are yet. I will go in search of them.

Ancient bird

This is an Aztec bird, probably representing a god-like force. Note the egg inside.
There are quite a few of them to be found around the web. I love this image for its clear and stark lines yet still evocative, emotional somehow.

Dreamtography

 In a series entitled Surreal-ity, photographer Kylie Woon brings stories and dreamy scenes to life. She creates self-portraits where she floats, flips, and flies across each frame in seemingly impossible arrangements. Conveying all kinds of dramatic emotions: loss, fear, anger, and restlessness, etc.


Photograph by Kylie Woon. More here and here

Kylie says that her life has always flip-flopped between being obsessed with the small things in life versus being able to see the bigger, grander picture. She compares her experiences to photography and the idea of being zoomed in and zoomed out. "When I am zoomed in, everything in the universe is dark except for the inside of my head. I feel my feelings with painful clarity, and I am obsessed. When I am zoomed out, I am floating in space somewhere, looking down on earth which is the size of a glass marble. Like pieces of a puzzle, things just seem to fall into place. It's a reassuring clarity."

Pink!

At one point in my life I followed a series of courses about energy and healing; and it suddenly occurred to me that I no pink in the house or about myself. As if I had banned it.Which I should not have done. Pink is the colour of caring, of hoping, of compassion. So I now I make sure I always have a bit of it around. In a gemstone, a scarf, a book, even in a fountain pen. Still, I could always do with more.

Weird and wonderful

By Mars-1, aka Mario Martinez

I am not sure why I like the work of this artist so much, but I do. I love the colours!

Actually, it is highly sophisticated graffiti. Probably best seen in the wild, at its proper scale. 

There is much more. Do check out his website at http://mars-1.com/

Coming home

Photograph by  Antony Spencer. More here.

To live here, in such a slash of colour amidst this space, this purity!

The strange thing is, the feeling this photograph evokes is exacly how I feel when I come home from work. Not every day, but most days. Like today ....

Heart of gold

I have read Maya Angelou from her very first book. I even remember the cover of the first one - a yellow low budget edition perfect for train reading. Recently I have found out about her writing ritual:

Maya Angelou  would wake early in the morning and check into a hotel room, where the staff was instructed to remove any pictures from the walls. She would write on legal pads while lying on the bed, with only a bottle of sherry, a deck of cards to play solitaire, Roget's Thesaurus, and the Bible, and would leave by the early afternoon, having written 10–12 pages, to be edited down to three or four pages in the evening.

She goes through this process to "enchant" herself,   to relive the agony, the anguish, the Sturm und Drang, by placing herself back in time and reliving traumatic experciences.By placing herself back in the time she wrote about, even traumatic experiences like her rape in Caged Bird, she is able to tell the human truth". She would even play cards in order to get to that place of enchantment, in order to access her memories more effectively: "It may take an hour to get into it, but once I'm in it—ha! It's so delicious!"

I admire the crispness of her work. She can also be so very sobering:

Remember, people will judge you by your actions, not your intentions.
You may have a heart of gold -- but so does a hard-boiled egg!

Fresh ideas

Giant Colour Pencils by Jonna Pohjalainen

Sometimes an idea is like a fresh breeze.  Like these gigant coloured pencils. My mind suddenly feels refreshed.

Jonna, the artist, says she is interested in people, islands, lights, colours, see, sky and stones. According to her, it is mostly the place itself that directs her art. "It can be painting, installation or an environmental art piece.  Environmental art is a concrete way of raise up the values of the area, to see ones own environment in a new way and get interested in influencing it".
The story goes that she conceived of this artwork during a field course. Everyday she brought her pencils and examined the countryside. Until she hit upon the idea to transform a pile of aspen logs into these giga coloured pencils.

I want to play with them. But I would like to sharpen them first, isn't that odd?

If at first ...

How clear, how lovely bright,

How beautiful to sight

Those beams of morning play;

How heaven laughs out with glee

Where, like a bird set free,

Up from the eastern sea

Soars the delightful day.

To-day I shall be strong,

No more shall yield to wrong,

Shall squander life no more;

Days lost, I know not how,

I shall retrieve them now;

Now I shall keep the vow

I never kept before.

Ensanguining the skies

How heavily it dies

Into the west away;

Past touch and sight and sound

Not further to be found,

How hopeless under ground

Falls the remorseful day

(From: A.E. Housman, A Shropshire Lad)

Purity

White Peacocks! I did not know they existed. Apparently they are not albino, but a colour variety of the Indian Blue Peacock that graces the top of this blog.

Happiness

source: www.zenpencils.com

Thousands of candles

Can be lit from a single candle

And  life of the candle will not be shortened

Happiness never decreases from being shared

Hindu Prince Gautama Siddharta, the founder of Buddhism, 563-483 B.C.

Creative creation

Infographic by Pop Chart Lab

This is an infographic, currently my favourite form for information display. They are quite the rage in business and advertising land. They look simple, but it takes a lot of effort to create good one, let alone a brilliant one. This one is about leading the creative life - fun in intself!

Flame of logic

"logic" by Cory Ench, more here

This image is part of an artworks gallery of pure flame fractals.  Flames are algorithmically generated images. The shape and color of each image is specified by a long string of numbers - a genetic code of sorts.
If you look at the image for a while, you start seeing layers, the image seems to draw you in; and I understand why the artist named it "logic".

A good life

Photograph by 2-Ta  / text from Alexander's Gray 's poem 'on a cat ageing'

Louder he purrs, and louder,
in one glad hymn of praise
for all the night's adventures,
for quiet, restful days.


Life will go on for ever,
with all that cat can wish:
warmth and the glad procession
of fish and milk and fish. 

Blooming

Marbles and Butterflies (2011) by Jennifer Knaus.

The artist says this about her work: Although the results may seem surreal, I am more inspired by the Surrealists techniques of tapping into the subconcious rather than by actual Surrealist painting. I have a desire to personalize idealized notions of beauty and importance. To embellish icons with humor and a little absurdity but also within those details to suggest a narrative that is mysterious and atmospheric. 

 On a good day, this is what my mind is like!

Love to age



This lady is 92 years old and and has a wit and wisdom about here that I covet for myself.

On this blog by Ari Seth Cohen you will find many more ladies like her. Ari's photographs and interviews with these grand dames (and the occasional gentleman) alway cheer me up immensely, so much so that  I have made a gift to my mother of his recent book.

A grand view

Source: http://9wows.com

Suppose ... I were given a chance to trade places with the man in the photo for an hour - what sort thinking or feeling would I indulge in up there? Or even beter: would the grand view just sweep me clean and fill me up?

Methinks

 Click here for further reading

You know how your head can be full of thoughts making you miserable because they blot you out, take your light away?
For instance: I am a bad  .... (person, boss, mother, friend, ...) and therefore I do not deserve .... (a good life, money, flat belly, child, job, health, respect, ....).
The correct psychological term for such thinking  is "cognitive distortion". But that is just the definition. Or diagnosis if you like.


The point is, I remind myself, that such thoughts are not authentic.  I am not the author. Just the thinker. Thinking very blue thoughts.

Epos essentials

By Tom Gould. Sadly the original is out of print 

A true epos surely contains characters like these. Excellent inspiration for a storybook (more on storybooks in another post). I just love the three witches. And the priest. And the hero, of course.

Talk to me

Source: Smithsonian National Museum of National History