the greatest accomplishment

"To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

with gratitude, Dr. Wayne Dyer...

"Choose to be in close proximity to people who are empowering, who appeal to your sense of connection to intention, who see the greatness in you, who feel connected to God, and who live a life that gives evidence that Spirit has found celebration through them."

- Dr. Wayne Dyer (1940-2015)

"Expand your reality to the point where you pursue what you love doing and excel at it. Involve yourself in high-energy levels of trust, optimism, appreciation, reverence, joy, and love when you engage in every activity in your life."

- Dr. Wayne Dyer (1940-2015)

"If you want to find a deeper meaning in your life, you can't find it in the opinions or the beliefs that have been handed to you. You have to go to that place within yourself."

- Dr. Wayne Dyer (1940-2015)

reverence, love & freedom

"Receive the children in reverence; educate them in love; let them go forth in freedom." - Rudolf Steiner

our souls

"He's more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same." - Emily Brontë

el no se atrevía...he did not dare

“To him she seemed so beautiful, so seductive, so different from ordinary people, that he could not understand why no one was as disturbed as he by the clicking of her heels on the paving stones, why no one else's heart was wild with the breeze stirred by the sighs of her veils, why everyone did not go mad with the movements of her braid, the flight of her hands, the gold of her laughter. He had not missed a single one of her gestures, not one of the indications of her character, but he did not dare approach her for fear of destroying the spell.” 

“Le parecía tan bella, tan seductora, tan distinta de la gente común, que no entendía por qué nadie se trastornaba como él con las castañuelas de sus tacones en los adoquines de la calle, ni se le desordenaba el corazón con el aire de los suspiros de sus volantes, ni se volvía loco de amor todo el mundo con los vientos de su trenza, el vuelo de sus manos, el oro de su risa. No había perdido un gesto suyo, ni un indicio de su carácter, pero no se atrevía a acercársele por el temor de malograr el encanto."

- Gabriel Garcia Marquez (1927-2014)

snapshot - an unintentional selfie of my shoulder...

the way you make love

"There are so many words by Rumi that melt me straightaway into the heart pine floor. This particular line of words is so powerful and free of prediction that first it freezes me, forcing my eyes closed, and then instantly it infuses me with a kind of sweet slow burn that reminds me that I am so alive and so willing to take another chance on another new day. If this line had been spoken at Emmanuel Methodist Church when I was a girl in South Carolina I would not have been bored and scribbling bad poetry in the margins of the church program. I would have been mindful, engrossed, bowed, a devoted girl shepherd — imagining the future.” - Nikky Finney

--  “The way you make love is the way God will be with you." - RUMI --

YES

"The big question is whether you are going to be able to say a hearty YES to your adventure...

We're so engaged in doing things to achieve purposes of outer value that we forget the inner value, the rapture that is associated with being alive, is what it is all about..."

- Joseph Campbell 

YES to adventure...

YES to rapture...

YES to LIFE...

more deeply than love

"Friendship marks a life even more deeply than love. Love risks degenerating into obsession, friendship is never anything but sharing."

- Elie Wiesel

the way he loves me

"How nice, I remember thinking. It will be so much fun to have Barry as a friend. I certainly didn't think we were going to fall in love...

Our relationship was unique from day one and quite unexplainable...I was overwhelmed by the way he loved me...gave into me, trusted me blindly, and loved me unconditionally...Never, ever, even for a second, under any circumstances, has he not been there for me. And that's pretty amazing. 

There was passion between us; love, support, honesty. There was never anything forced between us...the way he loves me is true and unique."

- Diane Von Furstenberg

mixed media on paper 

all knowledge is within you

"In many shamanic societies, if you came to a medicine person complaining of being disheartened, dispirited, or depressed, they would ask one of four questions:

When did you stop dancing? 

When did you stop singing? 

When did you stop being enchanted by stories? 

When did you stop being comforted by the sweet territory of silence?"

- Gabrielle Roth

2013 mixed media on paper, All Knowledge Is Within You

the real lover

“The real lover is the man who can thrill you by kissing your forehead or smiling into your eyes or just staring into space.” 

- Marilyn Monroe

authenticity and intimacy

"Enlightenment is the key to everything, and it is the key to intimacy, because it is the goal of true authenticity."

- Marianne Williamson

a little tea party for Mimi

- grandmother's linen tablecloth and napkins (yes, I ironed them)

- little sterling silver spoons from the San Telmo flea market in Argentina

- antique English bone china tea cups and saucers collected throughout the years

- a sterling silver and crystal three-tiered stand with somebody else's engraved initials, given to me on my wedding day

- pastelitos de piña (hechos por mi)

- overpriced macarons (from a French bakery)

- miniature chocolate chip cookies (courtesy of Nestle Toll House ready-made dough)

- pink spray roses in a small crystal vase

- a vintage cut crystal triangular tray topped with homemade tea sandwiches (egg salad, pâté and cucumber)

I began collecting beautiful tea cups, linen handkerchiefs and sterling silver accessories when I was just a teenager...

I rarely use any of these lovely things.

The tea cups need to washed by hand and chip quite easily. The sterling requires polishing, and I would rather do something else with my precious time.

The crystal I use as often as I can - for flowers, beads, fruit, and even to eat olives and hummus off of. I do enjoy my crystal.

The linen tablecloths and napkins I could try to use more often, but I would need a dining room table (I got rid of mine two years ago and stayed with a small round café-sized table)...and the mere thought of washing and ironing bores me...

I had not purchased white bread in years and was simply shocked at the price of the bite-size macarons (almost two dollars each and probably around a hundred calories - my Nicaraguan pineapple pies are tastier).

My gorgeous mother arrived promptly at half past four this afternoon. Billie Holiday serenaded us. We sipped a special blend of delicate (caffeine-free) herbal tea. 

Should I get rid of the lovely things I rarely use? I am sure we would also enjoy a Japanese tea ceremony...

my world of lovers

"...my friends have become strangers and  I'm surrounded by enemies, but I'm free as the wind, no longer hurt by those who reproach me.

I'm at home wherever I am, and in the room of lovers I can see with closed eyes

the beauty that dances behind the veils, 

intoxicated with love I too dance the rhythm of this moving world.

I have lost my senses

in my world of lovers."

- RUMI

nothing in common between your life and mine

"I can't spend time with people that I don't enjoy. I can't do it anymore as theater. I make choices, and that's a beautiful thing about growing up, learning to say no. In a nice way, but you say no...

...I have this friend of mine...And we, you know, we parted. We just went different ways in our lives.

Once he came back to me, he said, '...you don't like me anymore.'

And I said:

'No, it's not that I don't like you. We've chosen different styles of life. I still have these beautiful souvenirs of all the things we did together and how close we were and so on. But the truth is, it's not that you bore me, but I don't enjoy talking to you anymore. And I don't want to fight with you, but you know...there's nothing in common between your life and mine nowadays.'

...I said the truth...growing up has a bit to do with that, to be able to tell the truth, to show who you are even if it hurts."

- Francis Mallmann

waiting for your soul to shake

"I will be waiting here...

For your silence to break,

For your soul to shake,

For your love to wake!"

- RUMI

perspective

"Shards of glass can cut and wound or magnify a vision." 

- Terry Tempest Williams

snapshots: inspiration for a series of paintings

a delightful day

"I can afford to say what I wish."

- J. Paul Getty 

snapshots taken at the Getty Museum today...

from Tupac Shakur to Ravi Shankar

snapshots taken at the Grammy Museum this afternoon

thy food

"Let food be thy medicine, thy medicine shall be thy food."

- Hippocrates

snapshots from the farmer's market

travel makes one modest

"Travel makes one modest. You see what a tiny place you occupy in the world.”

 – Gustave Flaubert

snapshots from our amazing road trip

silence

"Language is wine upon the lips."

- Virginia Woolf

el árbol de dolores

" I think that I shall never see -

A poem lovely as a tree.

A tree whose hungry mouth is prest -

Against the earth’s sweet flowing breast;

A tree that looks at God all day,

And lifts her leafy arms to pray;

A tree that may in Summer wear

A nest of robins in her hair;

Upon whose bosom snow has lain;

Who intimately lives with rain.

Poems are made by fools like me,

But only God can make a tree."

- Joyce Kilmer

snapshots of an inspirational, magical tree on Dolores Street...

into the universe

"The clearest way into the Universe is through a forest wilderness."

- John Muir