opportunities for growth

- 2004 self-portrait in metal -

“Disappointment to a noble soul is what cold water is to burning metal;
it strengthens, tempers, intensifies, but never destroys it.” 
- Eliza Tabor

...disappointment creates opportunities for growth...

mi madrina

Dame la dulzura de tus labios,
El calor de tu cuerpo,
El placer de tus manos,
El milagro de tu amor,
Llename de ti y así los dos revalsaremos de pasión.

------------------------------------------

Tu eres mi cielo siempre rodeandome de amor.
Tu eres mi sol siempre dandome calor.
Tu eres mi luna siempre mi luz en la oscuridad
Yo te prometo ser lo mismo y crear para los dos un paraíso hasta la eternidad.

- Edda M. Sevilla (b. 1949)

Happy Birthday Beloved Godmother Tilly...truly a God Mother to me, to my son and to so many...

just sing a song

one of my son's favorite songs has become a favorite of mine too...

Sing, sing a song,
Sing out loud,
Sing out strong,
Sing of good things not bad,
Sing of happy not sad.

Sing, sing a song
Make it simple to last
Your whole life long
Don't worry that it's not
Good enough for anyone
Else to hear
Just sing, sing a song.

Sing, sing a song
Let the world sing along
Sing of love there could be
Sing for you and for me.

Sing, sing a song
Make it simple to last
Your whole life long
Don't worry that it's not
Good enough for anyone
Else to hear
Just sing, sing a song.

- Words & Music by Joe Raposo created for Sesame Street

full moon tonight

The sweet simple things of life...

A child’s smile...

A firefly’s light...

A friend’s laughter...

A juicy peach...

A lover’s kiss...

"I am beginning to learn that it is the sweet, simple things of life which are the real ones after all."

- Laura Ingalls Wilder (1867-1957)

...remember to celebrate the full moon tonight...

de la naturaleza

- mixed media -

“Mi relación con la música viene de la naturaleza, no de la academia. Si yo hubiera estudiado, quizá sería una afamada cantante. Pero no Chavela Vargas” - Chavela Vargas (1919-2012)

unexpected soul mates

- mixed media from ROMANCE series -

"I don't believe in rules.  I think it's the heart that should talk.  The first thing about love is that you have to love yourself.  No relationship will work unless you do...I wanted to be his friend.  I thought he would be a good friend to have.  But we were completely taken over by passion, and it was completely, utterly unexpected on both sides.  That made it more exciting, because it was so unexpected...Yes, I do believe in soul mates." - Diane von Fürstenberg (b. 1946)

wild desire

- mixed media from ROMANCE series -

“I'm falling in love with somebody I have no right to fall in love with...I can't fall in love with this man, but it's just like a ring of fire.”- June Carter Cash (1929-2003)

Love is a burning thing,
And it makes a fiery ring
Bound by wild desire
I fell into a ring of fire.

I fell into a burning ring of fire
I went down, down, down
And the flames went higher,
And it burns, burn, burns,
The ring of fire, the ring of fire.

The taste of love is sweet
When hearts like ours meet.
I fell for you like a child
Oh, but the fire ran wild.

from my journals

vestida de agua,

camina la diosa

- sombras bailando en las paredes del alma

- ella lleva olas del mar en sus caderas

- ella lleva luz de luna en sus sonrisa

~~~~~~~

dressed in waters,

the goddess walks

- shadows dance upon soul’s walls

- ocean waves at her hips

- moonlight in her smile

El Poeta Carpintero

Déjame hablar contigo -

-- Por Raúl Xavier García

-- A Julia Casimira Sacasa


"Esa inquietud. Esta necesidad de saber

lo que no es tuyo ni mío,

es lo que te obliga a obedecer:

nos lleva desprotegido hacia el peligro.

Más tarde, con los golpes que te da la vida,

con ellos puedes empezar a comprender

y medir distancias, si caminar sobre el mar

o en las brasas del fuego.

Y en la serenidad te niegas a sí mismo,

sería como huir sin esperar, amar sin ser herida.

Y mañana correr la sangre en abundancia

no así, el asma." - Raúl Xavier García, "Poeta Carpintero" (b. 1931)

truth is here

- mixed media -

seeker of truth,

follow no path,

 

all paths lead where,

truth is here

- e.e. cummings (1894-1962)

a free spirit

- mixed media -

"I like to be a free spirit. Some don't like that, but that's the way I am."
-Diana Spencer, Princess of Wales (1961-1997)

my undressed soul

- mixed media from journals -

" Te doy mi alma desnuda,
como estatua a la cual ningún cendal escuda.

Desnuda con el puro impudor
de un fruto, de una estrella o una flor;
de todas esas cosas que tienen la infinita
serenidad de Eva antes de ser maldita.

De todas esas cosas,
frutos, astros y rosas,
que no sienten vergüenza del sexo sin celajes
y a quienes nadie osara fabricarles ropajes.

Sin velos, como el cuerpo de una diosa serena
¡que tuviera una intensa blancura de azucena!

Desnuda, y toda abierta de par en par
¡por el ansia del amar! "

- Juana de Ibarbourou (1892 – 1929)

dance with wildness

"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"

irresistible pull of gravity

- mixed media - ROMANCE series -

"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

romance de amantes

“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

"MUJERES: Hijas - Hermanas - Madres"

from the soul

- mixed media from series "MUJERES: - Hijas - Hermanas - Madres" -

"True glamour comes from within...it radiates from the soul."

- Elizabeth Taylor (1932-2011)

elegance

- mixed media "Mujeres: Hijas, Hermanas, Madres" -

"Elegance is refusal."
- Coco Chanel

poema de amor - June Beer

- mixed media series "MUJERES: Hijas - Hermanas - Madres" -

"Oscar, me sorprendiste,
Pidiéndome un poema de amor.

Haré un canto de amor a mi patria,
Pequeño país, lucero gigante,
Esperanza de los pobres, jaqueca de los ricos.
Más pobres que ricos en el mundo,
Más pueblos quieren mi patria.

Mi patria se llama Nicaragua,
A mi pueblo entero lo amo:
Negros, Miskitus, Sumus, Ramas y Mestizos.

Ya ves, mi poema de amor es completo:
Como puedes ver, también te amo."

- June Beer (1935-1986)

---------------------------

"Oscar, yuh surprise me,
Assin far a love poem.

Ah sing a song a love fa me contry
Small contry, big lite
Hope fad a po’, big headache fa de rich.
Mo’ po’ dan rich in de worl
Mo’ people love fa meh contry.

Fa meh contry name Nicaragua
Fa meh people ah love dem all
Black, Miskito, Sumu, Rama, Mestizo.

So yuh see fa me,

love poem complete ‘cause ah love you too."

- June Beer (1935-1986)

child of destiny

- mixed media from ROMANCE series -

“Since I was a little girl, I believed I was a child of destiny, and if that is true, Richard Burton was surely my fate.”
– Elizabeth Taylor (1932-2011)

mantra

- mixed media from series - "MUJERES: Hijas - Hermanas - Madres"

"Arrange whatever pieces come your way."
- Virginia Woolf (1882-1941)

aire para los pulmones

- mixed media from "Mujeres: Hijas, Hermanas, Madres" -

 "La oración es para el alma lo que el aire para los pulmones.

Prayer is to the soul what air is to the lungs."

- Sor María Romero Meneses (1902 – 1977)

a prayer can be a single breath...

inhale light, inhale God,

exhale love, exhale forgiveness

nostalgia de mi Nicaragua

- mixed media from series: Mujeres: Hijas, Hermanas, Madres -

"Si bien fue muy provechosa mi estancia en NY, sentía la nostalgia de mi Nicaragua. Me hacían falta desde las brisas del lago hasta el sonido de sus campanas."- Edith Grön (1917-1990)

adventurous

- mixed media -

"I feel very adventurous. There are so many doors to be opened, and I'm not afraid to look behind them." - Elizabeth Taylor (1932-2011)

magic all along

- mixed media -

"Now, I think that I should have known that he was magic all along. I did know it - but I should have guessed that it would be too much to ask to grow old with and see our children grow up together. So now, he is a legend when he would have preferred to be a man."
- Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis (1929-1994)

energy

- mixed media -

"I merely took the energy it takes to pout and wrote some blues."
- Duke Ellington

my confidants

- mixed media -

"I have always made a distinction between my friends and my confidants.  I enjoy the conversation of the former; from the latter I hide nothing." - Edith Piaf

only one of you in all of time

- mixed media -

"There is a vitality, a life-force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action and because there is only one of you in all of time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and be lost."
- Martha Graham (1894-1991)