to be the air that inhabits you

"I would like to watch you sleeping, 

which may not happen.

I would like to watch you, 

sleeping. I would like to sleep 

with you, to enter 

your sleep as its smooth dark wave 

slides over my head

and walk with you through that lucent 

wavering forest of bluegreen leaves 

with its watery sun and three moons 

towards the cave where you must descend, 

towards your worst fear.

I would like to give you the silver 

branch, the small white flower, the one 

word that will protect you 

from the grief at the center 

of your dream, from the grief 

at the center. I would like to follow 

you up the long stairway 

again and become

the boat that would row you back

carefully, a flame

in two cupped hands 

to where your body lies 

beside me, and you enter 

it as easily as breathing in.

I would like to be the air

that inhabits you for a moment

only. I would like to be that unnoticed

and that necessary."

- Margaret Atwood

unnoticed and necessary...

air...breath...yes...

to enter your sleep on this full, blue moon...

blue moon

the blue moon invited me out to play...

she howled as I danced...

snapshots: details from 2015 mixed medias on canvases which I completed under the full, blue moon

turning essences into honey

"It's Gala who discovers and brings me all the essences, which I then turn into honey in the busy hive of my mind.  Without Gala, the world would have no genie: Dali would not exist."

- Salvador Dali (1904-1989)

limited edition print from mixed media on paper original

feliz 28

"MAMA, Charlie Brown is learning to speak Spanish and Quechua..."

- my son 

He was delighted to receive the little handmade adornment I brought home from a Peruvian Embassy event at the Organization of American States today.

not a matter of wanting

"Creativity is a shapechanger. One moment it takes this form, the next that. It is like a dazzling spirit who appears to us all, yet is hard to describe for no one agrees on what they saw in that brilliant flash...Some say the creative life is in ideas, some say it is in doing. It seems in most instances to be a simple being. It is not virtuosity, although that is very fine in itself. It is the love of something, having so much love for something - whether a person, a word, an image, an idea, the land, or humanity --- that all that can be done with the overflow is to create. It is not a matter of wanting to, not a singular act of will; one solely must."

- Clarissa Pinkola Estes

She dreamed with art.

She dreamed with him.

In sacred circle she sat and provided the fire.

The light came through her flame.

She dreamed with silk and pearls.

She dreamed with him.

Where was he? What had he become?

excerpt from journals

snapshot: detail from one of my silks, circa 2005 

the answer better be yes

- 2013 mixed media on paper -

"Do I move you?  Are you willing?
Do I groove you?  Is it thrilling?
Do I soothe you?  Tell the truth now,
Do I move you?  Are you loose now?
The answer better be - YES, yes...it pleases me.

Are you ready for this action?
Does it give you satisfaction?
Are you hip to what I'm saying?
If you are then let's start swaying.
The answer better be - YES, yes...it pleases me.

When I touch you, do you quiver?
From your head down to your liver?
If you like it let me know it...
Don't be psychic or you'll blow it...
The answer better be - YES, yes...that pleases me."
- Nina Simone

wild geese heading home again

"You do not have to be good.

You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.

You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.

Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.

Meanwhile the world goes on.

Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain are moving across the landscapes, over the prairies and the deep trees, the mountains and the rivers.

Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air, are heading home again.

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting — over and over announcing your place in the family of things."

- Mary Oliver

a wink of an eye

"Maybe that's what life is... a wink of the eye and winking stars."

- Jack Kerouac 

a wink of an eye, indeed...

mi amor de miles de años

"Ya veremos, ya aprenderemos. 

Siempre hay cosas nuevas. 

Siempre ligadas a las antiguas vivas. 

Alado...mi amor de miles de años." 

- Frida Kahlo 

mi amor de miles de años

de miles de años

mi amor

esos besos tuyos...tan míos

"Those kisses you sent, I found them wandering around the house. They were acting a little lost, not knowing exactly where I was.

I was busy upstairs. But now we are all having tea and talking about you, and wishing you were here.

And they imparted all you intended. They did well.

One more thing: I have seen you at your best and at your worst; still you are always welcome near me." 

- HAFIZ 

esos besos tuyos...tan míos...

untouched desire

An extract from the diary Maria wrote... :

"Profound desire, true desire is the desire to be close to someone. From that point onwards, things change, the man and the woman come into play, but what happens before - the attraction that brought them together - is impossible to explain. It is untouched desire in its purest state.

When desire is still in this pure state, the man and the woman fall in love with life, they live each moment reverently, consciously, always ready to celebrate the next blessing.

When people feel like this, they are not in a hurry, they do not precipitate events with unthinking actions. They know that the inevitable will happen, that what is real always finds a way of revealing itself. When the moment comes, they do not hesitate, they do not miss an opportunity, they do not let slip a single magic moment, because they respect the importance of each second."

- PAULO COELHO

snapshot - a recent selfie

my Cuban grandmother

“…If you would indeed behold the spirit of death, open your heart wide unto the body of life.  For life and death are one, even as the river and sea are one…For what is it to die but to stand naked in the wind and to melt into the sun?  And what is it to cease breathing, but to free the breath from its restless tides, that it may rise and expand and seek God unencumbered?  Only when you drink from the river of silence shall you indeed sing.  And when you have reached the mountain top, then you shall begin to climb.  And when the earth shall claim your limbs, then shall you truly dance.”         – Kahlil Gibran (1883-1931)

my beautiful and beloved Cuban grandmother...I close my eyes and hear your contagious cascading waterfall laughter showering us with stardust blessings of light...

nuevos himnos lenguas de gloria

Salutación Del Optimista: 

"Inclitas razas ubérrimas, sangre de Hispania fecunda, espíritus fraternos, luminosas almas, salve! Porque llega el momento en que habrán de cantar nuevos himnos lenguas de gloria..." 

- Rubén Darío

my father played his guitar

serenading his beloved motherland

Nicaragua

my youngest brother

turned 21 today

snapshot of my beloved son

an integral being

"An integral being knows without going, sees without looking, and accomplishes without doing."

-Lao Tzu

beauty and courage

"Perhaps all the dragons in our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us act, just once, with beauty and courage. Perhaps everything that frightens us is, in its deepest essence, something helpless that wants our love."

- Rainier Maria Rilke

mixed media on paper, 2011

destiny

"You are what your deep, driving desire is. As your desire is, so is your will. As your will is, so is your deed. As your deed is, so is your destiny."

- Brihadaranyaka Upanishad 

snapshot: what do you see?

crystals...diamonds...

salt...sugar...

it is actually glass...broken glass...a pile of broken glass viles from an installation by artist Shana Lutker

messages

"It's not your fault but it is your responsibility."

- Joe Vitale

"My job here on earth is twofold. My job is first of all to make amends. My second job is to awaken people who might be asleep. Almost everyone is asleep! The only way I can awaken them is to work on myself." 

- Ihaleakala Hew Len

Ka Maluhia no na wa a pau, no ke'ia wa a mau a mau loa aku.

telling my story

- circa mid-1970s - Rehoboth Beach, Delaware -

The beach holds memories of sand castles and salty smiles. It is where I need to begin telling my story, telling her story...with Father Sun and Mother Moon...

excerpt from my journals

to arrive at a kiss

- 2013 mixed media on canvas in a private collection -

"Amor, cuantos caminos hasta llegar a un beso, que soledad errante hasta tu compañía!" 

- Pablo Neruda

"Love, what a long way, to arrive at a kiss, what loneliness-in-motion, toward your company!" 

- Pablo Neruda translated by Stephen Tapscott

no tengo tiempo para quererte más

"Paso que pasa -

rostro que pasabas -

que más quieres -

te miro -

después me olvidare -

después y sólo -

sólo y después -

seguro que me olvido.

Paso que pasas -

rostro que pasabas -

que más quieres -

te quiero -

te quiero sólo dos -

o tres minutos -

para quererte más -

no tengo tiempo.

Paso que pasas -

rostro que pasabas -

ay no -

ay no me tientes -

que sí nos tentamos -

no nos podremos olvidar -

adiós."

- Mario Benedetti 

tired of speaking sweetly

my beloved HAFIZ counsels:

"Love wants to reach out and manhandle us, break all our teacup talk of God.

If you had the courage and could give the Beloved His choice, some nights He would just drag you around the room by your hair, ripping your grip all those toys in the world that bring you no joy.

Love sometimes gets tired of speaking sweetly and wants do rip to shreds all your erroneous notions of truth that make you fight within yourself, dear one, and with others, causing the world to weep on too many fine days.

God wants to manhandle us, lock us inside of a tiny room with Himself and practice His dropkick.

The Beloved sometimes wants to do us a great favor: hold us upside down and shake all the nonsense out.

But when we hear He is in such a 'playful drunken mood' - most everyone I know quickly packs their bags and hightails out of town." - HAFIZ

what do you think of this?

I laugh and love...and can identify with the Beloved at times...

the letting go

" you are snakeskin 

and i keep shedding you somehow 

my mind is forgetting 

every exquisite detail 

of your face 

the letting go has 

become the forgetting 

which is the most 

pleasant and saddest thing 

to have happened "

- rupi kaur

snapshot of a tree

my story - HERstory

"A story is medicine that greases and hoists the pulleys, shows us the way out, down, in and around, cuts for us fine wide doors in previously blank walls, doors which lead us to our own knowing."

- C. Pinkola Estes

volcanoes melt me down

- mixed media -

"...and what I am to you is not real,
what I am to you, you do not need,
what I am to you is not what you mean to me,
you give me miles and miles of mountains,
and I'll ask for the sea.

don't throw yourself like that,
in front of me.
I kissed your mouth, your back,
is that all you need?
don't drag my love around,
volcanoes melt me down.

...what I give to you is just what I'm going through,
there is nothing new, no, no just another phase of finding,
what I really need is what makes me bleed...

I kissed your mouth,
you do not need me."

- Damien Rice

ya no sé si maldecirte o por ti rezar

- mixed media on paper in a private collection -

"Ya me canso de llorar y no amanece -
Ya no sé si maldecirte o por ti rezar -
Tengo miedo de buscarte y de encontrarte -
Donde me aseguran mis amigos que te vas -
Hay momentos en que quisiera mejor rajarme -
Y arrancarme ya los clavos de mi penar -
Pero mis ojos se mueren sin mirar tus ojos -
Y mi cariño con la aurora te vuelve a esperar -

Y agarraste por tu cuenta la parranda -
Paloma negra, paloma negra ¿dónde, dónde andarás?
Ya no jueges con mi honra parrandera -
Si tus caricias han de ser mías, de nadie más -
Y aunque te amo con locura ya no vuelva -
Paloma negra eres la reja de un penar -
Quiero ser libre vivir mi vida con quien yo quiera -
Díos dame fuerza que me estoy muriendo,
por irla a buscar..."

- as sung by Chavela Vargas

simplemente soy: Frida Kahlo

- sterling silver, silk, turquoise and vintage coral necklace (circa 2006) on top of  a mixed media on wood (circa 2009) -

"Me importa una mierda lo que piense el mundo. Yo nací puta, yo nací pintora, yo nací jodida. Pero fui feliz en mi camino. Tu no entiendes lo que soy. Yo soy amor, soy placer, soy esencia, soy una idiota, soy una alcohólica, soy tenaz. Yo soy; simplemente soy..." - Frida Kahlo

the tree swing

barefoot on the wet grass 

I ask him to lend me the swing 

will the tall branch hold me? 

up to 700 pounds 

I slide on 

I balance myself with ease 

please push me 

higher

faster

flying

my hair, wild in the wind

laughter

am I really almost over the fence?

seeing the world upside down

I love the tree swing

I feel 7 years old

carefree

when was the last time you gave in to your inner child?

when was the last time you played?

independence

- mixed media on paper -

"Independence is happiness." - Susan B. Anthony (1820-1906)

freedom

self-determination

autonomy

liberty

kissing me

- 2013 mixed media on canvas -

"Nothing can shatter this love.

For even if you took another

into your arms,

the truth is,

my sweetheart,

you would

still be kissing me." 

- my beloved HAFIZ (who else?)

the universe conspires

"Once you make a decision, the Universe conspires to make it happen."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

I made a decision. I made a promise to my soul, a commitment with my spirit...

luna disfrazada

una luna llena

melancólica

llora luz dorada

el sufrimiento en silencio

no me ve

pero no deja de mirarme

por el espejo de su alma

con la mente me llama

en los sueños me encuentra

esa luna llena 

triste 

disfrazada de sonrisas