questions and answers

"There are years that ask questions and years that answer."

- Zora Neale Hurston

limited edition notecards, most suitable for framing

an advantage

- mixed media on paper -

"From the beginning, Paul and I had an advantage: we were good friends before we were lovers. We really liked each other. We could talk to each other, we could tell each other anything without fear of ridicule or rejection. There was trust." - Joanne Woodward 

mistress of the whole land

"I am Isis, mistress of the whole land...I am she who separated the heaven from the earth. I have instructed mankind in the mysteries...I have ordered the course of the sun and the moon. I am queen of the rivers and winds and sea...I have made justice more powerful than silver and gold. I have caused truth to be considered beautiful. I am she who is called the Goddess of women..."

- excerpt from the Inscription on The Temple of Isis at Sais

detail from mixed media on paper

to make you feel my love

"When the rain is blowing in your face,

And the whole world is on your case,

I could offer you a warm embrace,

To make you feel my love.

When the evening shadows and the stars appear,

And there is no one there to dry your tears,

I could hold you for a million years

To make you feel my love.

I know you haven't made your mind up yet, but I will never do you wrong.

I've known it from the moment that we met, no doubt in my mind where you belong.

I'd go hungry; I'd go black and blue,

And I'd go crawling down the avenue.

No, there's nothing that I wouldn't do

To make you feel my love.

The storms are raging on the rolling sea

And on the highway of regret.

The winds of change are blowing wild and free,

You ain't seen nothing like me yet.

I could make you happy, make your dreams come true.

Nothing that I wouldn't do.

Go to the ends of the Earth for you,

To make you feel my love..."

- Bob Dylan 

on this full moon lunar eclipse, 

on this blessed blood moon,

on this harvest moon,

I could hold you for a million years,

to make you feel my love...

yes, YOU...

stay open to receiving,

say YES to the feelings,

stay open to the healing...

snapshot taken at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City

calling back energy

"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

who do we need to forgive?

who needs to forgive us? 

witness

"When we cultivate mystical awareness or transcendent identity - which is a natural outgrowth of meditation and other practices - what happens is that we begin to take a witness position on our own lives, and that includes our minds."

- James Redfield

seremos uno

"el talismán de tu piel me ha dicho
que soy la reina de tus caprichos,
yo soy el as de los corazones,
que se pasean en tus tentaciones,
el talismán de tu piel me cuenta
que en tu montura caerán las riendas

cuando una noche de amor desesperados
caigamos juntos y enredados
la alfombra y el alrededor, acabaran
desordenados
cuando una noche de amor que yo no dudo
la eternidad venga seguro
tu y yo, el desnudo y el corazón...seremos uno

yo soy la tierra de tus raíces: el talismán de tu piel lo dice,
yo soy la tierra de tus raíces: lo dice el corazón y el fuego de tu piel,
yo soy la tierra de tus raíces: el talismán de tu piel lo dice,
yo soy la tierra de tus raíces: a ver que dices tu

el talismán de tu piel me chiva
que ando descalza de esquina a esquina,
por cada calle que hay en tus sueños,
que soy el mar de todos tus puertos,
el talismán de tu piel me cuenta
que tu destino caerá a mi puerta"

- song lyrics - © ROSANA ARBELO

autumn equinox

I find myself awake at dawn, before the sun on this Autumn Equinox, with a poem on my mind, in my heart:

"Do you think peace requires an end to war?

Or tigers eating only vegetables?

Does peace require an absence from
your boss, your spouse, yourself?

Do you think peace will come some other place than here?

Some other time than Now?

In some other heart than yours? 

Peace is this moment without judgment.

That is all. 

This moment in the Heart-space
where everything that is is welcome.

Peace is this moment without thinking
that it should be some other way,
that you should feel some other thing,
that your life should unfold according to your plans. 

Peace is this moment without judgment,
this moment in the heart-space where
everything that is - is welcome."
- Dorothy Hunt

in the heart-space where everything that is - is welcome...

snapshot: detail from an autumn equinox altar I set up yesterday in celebration of a NEW YEAR beginning in nature, in celebration of longer nights and inner journeys...

imagine and become

"Imagine a woman who believes it is right and good she is a woman.

A woman who honors her experience and tells her stories.

Who refuses to carry the sins of others within her body and life.

Imagine a woman who trusts and respects herself.

A woman who listens to her needs and desires.

Who meets them with tenderness and grace.

Imagine a woman who acknowledges the past's influence on the present. 

A woman who has walked through her past.

Who has healed into the present.

Imagine a woman who authors her own life.

A woman who exerts, initiates, and moves on her own behalf.

Who refuses to surrender except to her truest self and wisest voice.

Imagine a woman who names her own gods.

A woman who imagines the divine in her image and likeness.

Who designs a personal spirituality to inform her daily life.

Imagine a woman in love with her own body.

A woman who believes her body is enough, just as it is.

Who celebrates its rhythms and cycles as an exquisite resource.

Imagine a woman who honors the body of the Goddess in her changing body. 

A woman who celebrates the accumulation of her years and her wisdom. 

Who refuses to use her life-energy disguising the changes in her body and life.

Imagine a woman who values the women in her life.

A woman who sits in circles of women.

Who is reminded of the truth about herself when she forgets.

Imagine yourself as this woman."

“Imagine a Woman” © Patricia Lynn Reilly, 1995

snapshot - detail from a corner of my altar

International Day of Peace

"All we are saying is give peace a chance..."
- John Lennon (1940 – 1980)

transformation of energy

"In the process of self-realization the highest goal, identified with the arousal of Kundalini, is recognized as a microcosmic version of the feminine power of Sakti. The tantrikas identify the power of Sakti with Cosmic Consciousness, since she projects the biounity of male and female principles."

- Ajit Mookerjee

excerpt from a wonderful book I find myself re-reading

honoring dreams

"She shows up just when you need her. She always gives you the support and counsel you need, and never judges you.

She is an amazing psychic advisor: she knows what the future holds for you, and she can tell you what to do and what not to do to avoid something bad or find the right job, or the right home, or the right partner.

She is a...healer who can help you to fix your body before you get sick, and who has the right medicine and nurturing to speed you into healing and recovery...She makes house calls at any time, and she never charges you a cent.

She's fabulous fun and a great traveling companion. She makes you want to get up and dance, and sing, and play. She loves to fly off to exotic places...

She has wonderful energy. An hour in her company gives you a boost for a whole week.

She'll mother you when you, and your beautiful inner child self, need mothering, hold you when you need holding, and give you a shove when you need to jump through a hole in the world.

She knows you better than you know yourself, in your everyday mind. When she holds up a mirror in front of you, you don't notice the blemishes. You see a being of radiant power and possibility, your ancient and shining self. And in that moment of recognition, you begin to remember and live from your soul's purpose, the sacred contract you signed before you came into your present body.

...and you never say thank you, or remember her birthday. You ignore her advice more often than not...You forget the songs you sang together, and those nights of love and beauty...If you find the moon through the smog and city lights, you do not recollect that she flew you there...

If she were a regular friend, she might dump you as a miserable ingrate. This friend is beyond the ordinary, and she has the patience of an angel - but even the patience of angels is not endless. So if you won't take her advice, she might make less of an effort to warn you...Then the magic begins to flicker in your world, and you are more alone than you ever need or want to be.

...dreams require action. We must take action to honor the friend who visits and advises and travels with us in our dreams, but the most important is the one we find in the mirror - when our sight is clear: the ancient and shining self. 

Taking the right action to honor dreams is practical magic of a high order. Real magic is the art of reaching into a deeper reality and bringing gifts from it into the physical world. This is what we do when we honor dreams, and the powers that speak through dreams."

- Robert Moss

motherworld

I am on this earth to mother: to nurture, to birth, to heal, to create, to mourn, to play...to dance the sacred, wild dance of motherhood, remembering HERstory...

"Avalon is psychologically a motherworld. It is the shadow of patriarchal consciousness, repressed and thus feared and distorted, as are any contents of the personal or collective unconscious that are denied. It is also the world of the Mother we once lived in if we were cherished in infancy; in growing up, we left this behind. This mother-world is personally prehistoric, before our own specific memories, as matriarchal history is also. Avalon as mother-world also continues to exist, side by side with rational consciousness, to be entered only when we alter consciousness by falling asleep and dreaming, fall in love, or are in a situation in which the veils between the worlds are thinner and we cross over.

...A model for the existence of motherworld and fatherworld exists as right and left brain psychology, in which the dominant left brain is rational, verbal, and linear, while the right brain is nonverbal, nonrational, nonlinear. The function of the right brain is less appreciated but has to do with images, emotional coloration of experiences, and song (if words at all); the right brain is open to alternative realities.

To cross to Avalon is to remember the archetypal Mother, the Goddess in her several forms and many names, to rediscover the feminine mysteries and the sacred in embodied experiences. Avalon exists where divinity dwells in nature and quickens in the pilgrim. Where there is feminine divinity, there is access to Avalon..."

- Jean Shinoda Bolen, M.D.

a favorite snapshot from a series 

painted branches

“Great art picks up where nature ends.” - Marc Chagall

we found a few branches on our walk and decided it would be fun to paint them...

don't miss out on the world

"Your past is over!

By bonding to your past, you not only ensure that you'll be immobilized today, but you prevent yourself from healing...

In a universe that's an intelligent system with a divine creative force supporting it, there simply can be no accidents.  As tough as it is to acknowledge, you had to go through what you went through in order to get to where you are today, and the evidence is that you did.  Every spiritual advance that you will make in your life will very likely be preceded by some kind of fall or seeming disaster.  Those dark times, accidents, illnesses, abuses, and broken dreams were ALL IN ORDER...

Practice living in the moment, and REFUSE to allow any thoughts based on your past to define you.  Stop and take notice of all that's in your immediate space - the people, creatures, vegetation, cloud formations, building designs, everything.  Stay in the present by meditating and getting closer to the ultimate now...God.

Your past history and all of your hurts are no longer here in your physical reality.  Don't allow them to be here in your mind, muddying your present moments.  Your life is like a play with several acts.  Some of the characters who enter have short roles to play, others, much larger.  Some are villains and others are good guys.  But all of them are NECESSARY, otherwise they wouldn't be in the play.  Embrace them all, and move on to the next act."
- Dr. Wayne Dyer

2013 limited edition mixed media on paper

say you'll be there

"We bide our time, though the time is fine.
Oh to be there.
I could be there.
Say you'll be there.

You know the way I can't resist you,
I say to myself, I'd try.
Why do we waste time hiding it inside?
I want you to be mine.

Now it's been and gone.
You say what yo would have done.
You would have been there.
I wished you'd been there.
I needed you there.

And if we try once more, would you give me it all?
I won't believe it, till I can feel it.
Can you feel it?

You know the way I can't resist you,
I said to myself, I'd try..."
- Oliver Sim and Romy Madley Croft

quantum healing

"Quantum healing is healing the bodymind from a quantum level. That means from a level which is not manifest at a sensory level. Our bodies ultimately are fields of information, intelligence and energy. Quantum healing involves a shift in the fields of energy information, so as to bring about a correction in an idea that has gone wrong. So quantum healing involves healing one mode of consciousness, mind, to bring about changes in another mode of consciousness, body."

- Deepak Chopra

melt with you

- 2013 mixed media -

"moving forward using all my breath -
making love to you was never second best -
I saw the world thrashing all around your face -
never really knowing it was always mesh and lace -
I'll stop the world and melt with you -
you've seen the difference and -
it's getting better all the time -
there's nothing you and I won't do -
I'll stop the world and melt with you -
dream of better lives the kind which never hate -
dropped in the state of imaginary grace -
I made a pilgrimage to save this human race -
never comprehending a race that long gone by -
I'll stop the world and melt with you -
you've seen the difference and it's getting better all the time -
there's nothing you and I won't do -
I'll stop the world and melt with you -
the future's open wide..." - Modern English

un incierto destino

- mixed media self-portrait - "Sabrás que no te amo y que te amo - puesto que de dos modos es la vida, la palabra es un ala del silencio, el fuego tiene una mitad de frío. Yo te amo para comenzar a amarte, para recomenzar el infinito y para no dejar de amarte nunca: por eso no te amo todavía. Te amo y no te amo como si tuviera en mis manos las llaves de la dicha y un incierto destino desdichado. Mi amor tiene dos vidas para amarte. Por eso te amo cuando no te amo y por eso te amo cuando te amo." - Pablo Neruda ...and in English... "You must know that I do not love and that I love you, because everything alive has its two sides; a word is one wing of the silence, fire has its cold half. I love you in order to begin to love you, to start infinity again and never stop loving you: that's why I do not love you yet. I love you, and I do not love you, as if I held keys in my hand:  to a future of joy -- a wretched, muddled fate -- My love has two lives, in order to love you: that's why I love you when I do not love you, and also why I love you when I do." - Pablo Neruda translated by Stephen Tapscott

I love New York City

My young son and I have made a habit of beginning our days with books.  Reading is a central part of our little morning rituals, along with yoga, music and usually some yogurt.

We take turns choosing books and I always have him choose the first one.  Today's selection was a compilation of short stories featuring an adorable little monkey.  When we reached page 183, my son gasped and exclaimed:

"MAMA, look - the Twin Towers! 

I wish I could have seen them for real.

People in New York are so brave.

I love New York City."

originally posted last year

Native American Medicine Man

His face appeared to have been carved from ancient stone. His voice was a faint whisper. The Native American Medicine Man passed on these commandments:

Treat the Earth and all that dwell thereon with respect.

Remain close to the Great Spirit.

Show great respect for your fellow beings.

Work together for the benefit of all mankind.

Give assistance and kindness wherever needed.

Do what you know to be right.

Look after the well being of mind and body.

Dedicate a share of your efforts to the greater good.

Be truthful and honest at all times.

Take full responsibility for your actions.

a true story originally published in 2007

privacy

"Disaster is private, in its way, as love is."

- Nadine Gordimer

privacy...how I cherish my privacy...how I love my privacy...

I love your freedom as well as mine

"I have no fear of losing you, for you aren't an object of my property, or anyone else's. I love you as you are, without attachment, without fears, without conditions, without egoism, trying not to absorb you. I love you freely because I love your freedom, as well as mine." 

- Anthony De Mello

you are always welcome near me

"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 see you at your best and at your worst; still you are always welcome near me."

- my beloved RUMI

mixed media on paper

to love like a rose

"What is love? Take a look at a rose. Is it possible for a rose to say, 'I shall offer my fragrance to good people and withhold it from bad people?'

...the first quality of love: its indiscriminate character...Contemplate in astonishment the sheer goodness of the rose...for there you have an image of what love is all about.

How does one attain this quality of love? Anything you do will only make it forced, cultivated and therefore phony. There is nothing you can do. But there is something you can drop. Observe the marvelous change that comes over you the moment you stop seeing people as good or bad...To see this is to acquire the indiscriminate quality one so admires in a rose...And here is a second quality of love - it's gratuitousness...it gives and asks for nothing in return...

The third quality of love is its unself-consciousness. Love so enjoys the loving that it is blissfully unaware of itself...The way a rose gives out its fragrance simply because there is nothing else it can do, whether there is someone to enjoy its fragrance or not...Love simply is, it has no object...

The final quality of love is its freedom. The moment coercion or control or conflict enters, love dies...Think for a while of an the coersion and control that you submit to on the part of others when you so anxiously live up to their expectations in order to buy their love and approval or because you fear you will  lose them. Each time you submit to this control and this coersion you destroy the capacity to love which is your very nature, for you cannot but do to others what you allow others to do to you. Contemplate, then, all the control and coersion in your life and hopefully this contemplation alone will cause them to drop. The moment they drop, freedom will arise. And freedom is just another word for love." - Anthony De Mello

- from my morning meditations

ocean waves at her hips

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 su sonrisa

~~~~~~~

dressed in waters,

the goddess walks

- shadows dance upon soul’s walls

- ocean waves at her hips

- moonlight in her smile


excerpt from my journals

snapshot: detail from mixed media on paper

The 45th Annual Labor Day Art Show at Glen Echo Park

I was invited to submit artwork again this year and my two pieces were accepted.

Entre El Mar y El Alma  -  Between The Sea and The Soul

2015 mixed media on canvas  -  24 x 24 inches

exploring painting as poetry and meditation

The 45th Annual Labor Day Art Show at Glen Echo Park will be held in the historic Spanish Ballroom. The exhibition will feature the work of artists from the mid-Atlantic region. A percentage from the sale of the artwork is retained by the Glen Echo Park Partnership for Arts and Culture.

Admission is free.

The exhibition and sale will run from:
12:00 to 6:00 PM
September 5th - 7th, 2015.

Glen Echo Park
7300 MacArthur Boulevard
Glen Echo, Maryland 20812

time to walk away

"We have all had moments when we felt uncertain about our next move - wondered if we should make one at all. Do I stay in this relationship or leave it behind? Do I stick with this job or look for  another? Am I really happy living in this city, or would I be happier somewhere else? While these decisions can feel daunting, the RED FLAGS that tell you it may be time to walk away are easy to recognize:

1. You feel like you are fighting an uphill battle. None of us should expect to tiptoe through tulips all day long, but if you spend most of your time trying to fix, alter, or cope with a situation, there is a good chance it's not the right one for you. Joy is a natural outcome of being where you should be. So if you're constantly struggling to feel good, it's probably time for a change.

2. You feel obligated, not excited, to stay. Relationships based on obligation rarely last long, because they always - always - lead to resentment and bitterness. Having a must hanging over your head limits your ability to choose, and because choice is power, lack of choice will make you feel powerless. Staying because you think you have to isn't doing anyone any favors: If you don't want to be there, you won't be able to give yourself in any way that is meaningful.

3. You're not valued. Nothing is more damaging than to know you are disposable. When you give your all to someone or something but can see plain as day how little it matters to whoever is on the receiving end, it's time to go. Don't allow yourself to be compared with others, don't allow yourself to be put down more often than you're lifted up, and do not, under any circumstances, accept less than you deserve. Those are clear exit signs.

4. Fear is holding you back. When you stay only because of the scary things that might or might not happen if you go, you make a conscious decision not to grow. And living in a way that stunts your growth always has a price. Staying merely out of habit or comfort costs you more opportunities than you know.

5. You're compromising yourself. Integrity is the internal mechanism that encourages us to do what's right for us even when others disagree. When you ignore that mechanism - whether to make someone else feel better or to save yourself the difficulty of doing right - you wind up causing yourself a lot of heartache. The misery of feeling bad about who you are or how you're accommodating everyone except yourself will eventually pollute the very situation you're trying to preserve. Don't let that happen. Steel your courage, face the truth, and get moving."

- Iyanla Vanzant 

the taste of sacredness

"Something opens our wings. 

Something makes boredom and hurt disappear. 

Someone fills the cup in front of us: 

We taste only sacredness."

- my beloved RUMI

chocolate cake in heaven

"Dear PapaPapa,

I love you so much. Te mando besos.

Is there chocolate cake in Heaven? The angels will help you blow out the candles instead of me this year. Happy Birthday PapaPapa. I love you. I miss you. Eso es todo."

- my 7-year-old son remembering his beloved paternal grandfather on what would have been his 94th birthday