his kiss

"Tonight is a night of union and also of scattering of the stars, for a bride is coming from the sky: the full moon.  They sky is an astrolabe, and the Law is Love." - RUMI

he kissed me (my first kiss)
18 years ago
today

he married me
10 years ago
today

his kiss still makes me blush...

irresistible

"She was so extraordinarily beautiful that I nearly laughed out loud...I fell in love with her at once.  She was like a mirage of beauty of the ages, irresistible, like a pull of gravity.  She has everything I want in a woman." - Richard Burton (1925-1984)

mixed media from an ongoing series

on this full moon - a reminder to be true

"It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living.
I want to know what you ache for
and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart’s longing.

It doesn’t interest me how old you are.
I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool
for love
for your dream
for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn’t interest me what planets are squaring your moon...
I want to know if you have touched the centre of your own sorrow
if you have been opened by life’s betrayals
or have become shriveled and closed
from fear of further pain.

I want to know if you can sit with pain
mine or your own
without moving to hide it
or fade it
or fix it.

I want to know if you can be with joy
mine or your own
if you can dance with wildness
and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes
without cautioning us
to be careful
to be realistic
to remember the limitations of being human.

It doesn’t interest me if the story you are telling me 
is true.
I want to know if you can 
disappoint another 
to be true to yourself.
If you can bear the accusation of betrayal
and not betray your own soul.
If you can be faithless
and therefore trustworthy.

I want to know if you can see Beauty
even when it is not pretty
every day.
And if you can source your own life 
from its presence.

I want to know if you can live with failure
yours and mine
and still stand at the edge of the lake
and shout to the silver of the full moon,
“Yes.”

It doesn’t interest me
to know where you live or how much money you have.
I want to know if you can get up
after the night of grief and despair
weary and bruised to the bone
and do what needs to be done
to feed the children.

It doesn’t interest me who you know
or how you came to be here.
I want to know if you will stand
in the centre of the fire
with me
and not shrink back.

It doesn’t interest me where or what or with whom
you have studied.
I want to know what sustains you
from the inside
when all else falls away.

I want to know if you can be alone 
with yourself
and if you truly like the company you keep
in the empty moments."

© Oriah Mountain Dreamer from the book "The Invitation"

a reminder to be true to myself, to my dreams, to my art...

Estrella Maruca

The story-poem is about a little star who dreams of becoming a mother...it was written for my beloved Grandmother, in her honor:

Un día, una estrellita muy bonita fue hablar con el Padre Sol, pidiéndole un gran favor. 

- Padre, yo sueño con ser Madre. Quisiera vivir en la tierra para sentir y amar hasta llorar.

--- Estrellita, hija mía, tu lugar es en el cielo, de donde puedes alumbrar y atravez de esa luz, amar.

- O, Padre Sol, te pido que me dejes caminar el mundo. Prometo llevar conmigo el manto de nuestra Madre María, ya que es por Ella que sueño con ser Madre un día.

excerpt from "Estrella Maruca" © 2005

emerald dream

Her world had become green...alive with mother’s bounty. As she reached for the earth, she discovered emeralds all around; she found hope. Her energies went from serpent to butterfly in cyclic dance and harmony, she was neither one nor the other, but both. She had merged with Mother Nature.

excerpt from one of my dreams

let go of the past

"The act of forgiveness is the act of returning to present time. And that's why when one has become a forgiving person, and has managed to let go of the past, what they've really done is they've shifted their relationship with time. Forgive and call back the energy wasted on past events."
- Carolyn Myss

tranquility

"Bind the fragments of my heart
    with hope and peace
As the butterfly soothes the petal
    of a flower soon to cease.

Draw forth the strength
   beneath woe's dark shade
As moonlight breaks through the trees
   of a verdant, secret glade.

Urge me not to yearn
   for that which I cannot have
And instead trust Your wisdom
   to provide a gentle salve.

Show me Your love
   in a young deer's sable eyes
As I enter the grassy lair
   where tranquility lies."

- Alexandra Villard de Borchgrave, from her beautiful book "Healing Light: Thirty Messages of Love, Hope, and Courage"

smile

"If we are peaceful, if we are happy, we can smile and blossom like a flower, and everyone in our family, our entire society, will benefit from our peace." - Thich Nhat Hanh

my mother and Thanksgiving

My Mother is celebrating another glorious year of dancing on Mother Earth...Mama, I am grateful for your love and light, for your example and your vision...I believe the best is yet to come...

"Happiness cannot be traveled to, owned, earned, worn or consumed.  Happiness is the spiritual experience of living every minute with LOVE, GRACE, and GRATITUDE." - Denis Waitley

blossom

we are on earth,
we are of earth,
we are to BLOSSOM...

ginkgo leaf in bronze

a secret sky

"This is love: to fly to a secret sky, to cause a hundred veils to fall each moment.  First let go of life.  Finally, to take a step without feet." - RUMI

2012 mixed media

you dance inside my chest

"In your light I learn how to love.

In your beauty, how to make poems.

You dance inside my chest, where no one sees you." - RUMI

2012 mixed media from an exciting new series I am working on

projections

"Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves."

- Carl Jung (1875-1961)

the soul - purple empress

"Purple - is fashionable twice -
This season of the year,
And when the soul perceives itself
To be an Emperor." - Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)

sculpting with dreams

re-inventing vintage turquoise and corals,

silks with silver,

sewing and hammering,

sculpting with dreams...just another morning

universe of universes your soul a fountain of song

"Ama tu ritmo y ritma tus acciones
bajo su ley, asi como tus versos;
eres un universo de universos,
y tu alma una fuente de canciones." - Ruben Dario (1867-1916)

marriage

"I don't like to discuss my marriage, but I will tell you something...I have steak at home.  Why should I go out for hamburger?"

- Paul Newman (1925-2008)

soaring into wildest dreams

Pies para qué los quiero si tengo alas para volar...

Feet why do I need them if I have wings to fly?

- Frida Kahlo (1907-1954)

Do you have wings to fly?
I do...I have enormous wings which rescue me and dare me to continue soaring into my wildest dreams. The more I use my wings, the stronger they become and the further I am able to fly.

from my journals

she left behind her kingdom and her wealth

what do you leave behind?

When the Queen of Sheba came to Solomon,
she left behind her kingdom and her wealth
the same way lovers leave their reputations.

- RUMI

what do you abandon for love?

a new world

"Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born." -- Anaïs Nin

for Nicole and Luis Jose

“The minute I heard my first love story I started looking for you, not knowing how blind that was. Lovers don't finally meet somewhere. They are in each other all along.” – RUMI

play like yourself

"Sometimes you have to play a long time to be able to play like yourself."
- Miles Davis (1926-1991)

Rubén Darío: her dark eyes saw the apple in the garden

mixed media

¿Eva era rubia? No. Con negros ojos

vio la manzana del jardín: con labios

rojos probó su miel; con labios rojos

que saben hoy más ciencia que los sabios.

Venus tuvo el azur en sus pupilas,

pero su hijo no. Negros y fieros,

encienden a las tórtolas tranquilas

los dos ojos de Eros.

Los ojos de las reinas fabulosas,

de las reinas magníficas y fuertes,

tenían las pupilas tenebrosas

que daban los amores y las muertes.

Pentesilea, reina de amazonas;

Judith, espada y fuerza de Betulia;

Cleopatra, encantadora de coronas,

la luz tuvieron de tus ojos, Julia.

La negra, que es más luz que la luz blanca

del sol, y las azules de los cielos.

Luz que el más rojo resplandor arranca

al diamante terrible de los celos.

Luz negra, luz divina, luz que alegra

la luz meridional, luz de las niñas,

de las grandes ojeras, ¡oh luz negra

que hace cantar a Pan bajo las viñas!

- Rubén Darío (1867-1916)

dare I attempt to translate a poem by one of Latin America's greatest?

perhaps just to give you a taste of this delicious verse...

...her dark eyes
saw the apple in the garden:
with red lips
she tasted its nectar;
with red lips
that today know more than all the sages...

web of life: all things are connected

"This we know, all things are connected, like the blood which unites one family.  All things are connected.  Whatever befalls the earth, befalls the sons of the earth.  Man did not weave the web of life; he is merely a strand in it.  Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself."
- Chief Seattle of the Dwamish Tribe

Obama & Romney: they must work together

my 4-year-old superhero

"MAMA, yo creo que los dos van a ganar: Obama y Romney.
Tienen que trabajar juntos."
- CARLOS (4 años)

"MAMA, I believe the two will win: Obama and Romney. 
They must work together."
- CARLOS (4 years old)

women, you must become your nation's soul

"Women, if the soul of the nation is to be saved, I believe that you must become its soul."
- Coretta Scott King (1927-2006)

finding the sacred within

"...Sacred places are being resanctified all over the earth, and people are also finding the sacred within themselves.  Every sacred place and every sacred person is indeed like a point of light in a great web whose strands grow brighter..." - Jean Shinoda Bolen, M.D.

butterflies for the goddess

El enano era un galán. Entró al Salón de Escudos como un sultán. Dos tigres, una avestruz y seis jabalíes lo escoltaron a los aposentos de la Diosa Blanca. El enano le traía las mejores Mariposas Maravillas para adornar sus cabellos de plata.

an excerpt from a short story written in 2007

sending courage

"Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage."
- Anaïs Nin (1903-1977)

día de los muertos día de todos los santos

mixed media on wood

"What secret are you looking for?
Life will soon reveal it to you." - Frida Kahlo (1907-1954)