CASIMIRA

CASIMIRA
HERstory through ART
With words and images, I am telling my story.

Through art, I am remembering HERstory...

I've been blogging daily since 2007.

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Updated Daily: January 2007 - February 2020

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Friday, September 30

howling at the darkness of the new moon


"We have come together to fall apart 

The queen of chaos straddles 
our corpora callosa 

Reins of raw silk weaving our wills 
into the corners of the collective mind

There's more to chaos than meets the mind 

dialoguing with demons, goddesses
and gods

Wings lying unconscious at our sides
rise and shudder

If chaos were only chaos
we wouldn't sit in the darkness
of new moons choking back howls

If chaos were only chaos
this edge would rise up razor sharp
and take off our heads

Off with our heads!

We'd eat our cake and dance on the crumbs

Oh, God!

If chaos were only chaos
she'd take her spiked heel
and pierce our throats

Ripe verbs would do us all night

Words would fly from our lips like birds
in a formation never seen by humans

If chaos were only chaos
the words wouldn't matter
and the poem would always be there

Always be there

Be there

Be there

We have come together here

We have come together

We have come together to fall apart."

- Jewel Mathieson



the warrior in me has awakened

decapitating demons

slashing fears
through tears

crushing judgements
while dancing and dreaming

the warrior in me

the blessed spiritual warrior in me
manifesting peace



Thursday, September 29

see through desires


"You meet another person and there are qualities in that personality which offend you and there are qualities which attract you - some qualities seduce you - some qualities repel you - some qualities sexually excite you - some qualities revolt you - some qualities interest you - some qualities fascinate you - some qualities bore you. It's only when you can see through all that veil...through all your own desires... Beyond Sita walking in the path that you can see beyond all that to where the other being is." - Ram Dass


Wednesday, September 28

hold on to our center


"Often we long for another person because, in an invisible, intangible realm, we're still communicating, still connecting, still seeking resolution...

...there was a time when widows wore weeds for a year; grief was understood, acknowledged, validated. It's not neurotic to grieve a relationship; what's neurotic is when we don't. On some level, no matter how disassociated from our feelings we might be, every relationship brings hope - hope that this might be a safe place, a haven, a rest after all our battles.

When a relationship doesn't work out, for whatever reason, our disappointment is natural. Every intense encounter represents a deep and complicated KARMIC connection. An ending of a relationship is much like a death, and in many cases the sadness is even greater. When someone has died, there has often been completion and understanding that doesn't occur when both people are alive but have separated without higher awareness. Perhaps the one we love is simply on the other side of town now, sleeping with someone else, yet they are really universes away since the resolution we so crave has not occurred. There's no need to pretend this isn't a knife to the heart. It is, and there's nothing to do but cry the tears that gush forth like blood from a wound...

...It takes great courage and personal strength to hold on to our center during times of great hurt. It takes wisdom to understand that our reactiveness only fans the flames of FALSE DRAMA. Love creates a mystical shield around us, protecting us from chaos...TRUTH can never be destroyed."
- Marianne Williamson




Tuesday, September 27

pero no cambia mi amor

one of my tshirts, some of my turquoise

Life is change...change is life. 

Change is part of our transformation.

Cambia lo superficial
Cambia también lo profundo
Cambia el modo de pensar
Cambia todo en este mundo

Cambia el clima con los años
Cambia el pastor su rebaño
Y así como todo cambia
Que yo cambie no es extraño

Cambia el más fino brillante
De mano en mano su brillo
Cambia el nido el pajarillo
Cambia el sentir un amante

Cambia el rumbo el caminante
Aunque esto le cause daño
Y así como todo cambia
Que yo cambie no es extraño

Cambia, todo cambia
Cambia, todo cambia

Cambia el sol en su carrera
Cuando la noche subsiste
Cambia la planta y se viste
De verde en la primavera

Cambia el pelaje la fiera
Cambia el cabello el anciano
Y así como todo cambia
Que yo cambie no es extraño

Pero no cambia mi amor
Por mas lejos que me encuentre
Ni el recuerdo ni el dolor
De mi tierra y de mi gente

Y lo que cambió ayer
Tendrá que cambiar mañana
Así como cambio yo
En esta tierra lejana.

- Julio Numhauser

Monday, September 26

we waste lifetimes in the waiting


"We stand shivering at the door, terrified and panicked that we have lost the key. We waste lifetimes in the waiting because in the haze, the painted fog of our fear, we forget to check the handle and discover it has never been locked at all." 

- Tyler Knott Gregson


Sunday, September 25

revolución evolución



"In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act."
- George Orwell

telling the truth is a revolutionary act...

telling the truth...

mixed media on paper




Saturday, September 24

circle of women


all ages from 5 months to 85 years.

mujeres.

spiritual warriors.

daughters.

mothers.

sisters.

women of wisdom.

"The circles of women around us weave invisible nets of love that carry us when we're weak and sing with us when we're strong." - SARK

snapshot: Star's beautiful handmade paper flowers and pink diamonds 




Friday, September 23

you numb me


"...I don't know how to tell you what I feel.

I live in perpetual expectancy. 

You come and the time slips away in a dream. 

It is only when you go that I realize completely your presence. 

And then it is too late. 

You numb me...I don't know what to expect of you, but it is something in the way of a miracle. 

I am going to demand everything of you - even the impossible, because you encourage it. 

You are really strong. 

I even like your deceit, your treachery. 

It seems aristocratic to me." 

- Henry Miller 


snapshot: feather, stones and crystals on my meditation altar





Thursday, September 22

autumn equinox


the drumming begins.

we dance under the bright moonlight.

we dance in prayer, in gratitude, in celebration.

a new year, a new cycle begins with longer nights to nurture the seeds of the soul planted in fertile imagination and held in perfect balance and harmony.

let us harvest ALL the gifts the universe bestows upon us.

from my prayer journal

Wednesday, September 21

dreaming with ancient oceans


"The graceful movements come from a pearl somewhere on the ocean floor. Poems reach up like spindrift and the edge of driftwood along the beach, wanting! They derive from a slow and powerful root that we can't see. Stop the words now. Open the window in the center of your chest, and let the spirits fly in and out." - RUMI

snapshot: detail from a work in progress, mixed media on canvas




Tuesday, September 20

earth goddess


"As I go into her, she pierces my heart. 

As I penetrate further, she unveils me. 

When I have reached her center, I am weeping openly.

I have known her all my life, yet she reveals stories to me, and these stories are revelations and I am transformed. Each time I go to her I am born like this. Her renewal washes over me endlessly, her wounds carress me; I become aware of all that has come between us, of the noise between us, the blindness, of something sleeping between us. Now my body reaches out to her. They speak effortlessly, and I learn at no instant does she fail me in her presence. She is as delicate as I am; I know her sentience; I feel her pain and my own pain comes into me, and my own pain grows large and I grasp this pain with my hands, and I open my mouth to this pain, I taste, I know, and I know why she goes on, under great weight, with this great thirst, in drought, in starvation, with intelligence in every act does she survive disaster. This earth is my sister; I love her daily grace, her silent daring, and how loved I am how we admire this strength in each other, all that we have lost, all that we have suffered, all that we know: we are stunned by this beauty, and I do not forget: what she is to me, what I am to her." - Susan Griffin

SNAPSHOT:
detail from one of my pieces: endless freshwater pearls suspended from bronze sculpture and vintage silks...

the earth goddess is my muse...

I remember and celebrate HERstory...






Monday, September 19

gentle sting between us


"I'm a fool for that shake in your thighs.


I'm a fool for that sound in your sighs.


I'm a fool for your belly.


I'm a fool for your love.


I want to make this plain.


Oh, I know your faded, 
but stay, don't close your eyes...


Caught in this pool held in your eyes.


Caught like a fool without a line.


We're in a natural spring,


With this gentle sting between us.


Stay, stay open..."


- RHYE


a favorite song I had not listened to in a long time





Sunday, September 18

una noche con Federico García Lorca


el me llamó y me contó lo siguiente:

"So I took her to the river.
I thought she wasn't married,
but she had a husband.

It was St. James' eve,
and almost as if agreed.
The streetlights went out,
the crickets went on.
At the far edge of town
I touched her sleeping breasts.
They opened to me suddenly
like fronds of hyacinth.
The starch of her petticoat
made a sound in my ears 
like a piece of silk
being ripped by ten knives.
Silver light gone from their leaves,
the trees have grown bigger,
and a horizon of dogs
barks far from the river.

Out beyond the rambles,
the hawthorns and reeds,
beneath her mane of hair
I made a hollow in the sedge.
I took off my necktie.
She took off her dress.
I, my belt and pistol.
She, four bodices.
No silken shell or spikenard
is finer than her skin,
nor did moons or mirrors
ever glow like this.
Her thighs eluded me
like startled fish,
one half filled with fire,
the other half with cold.
That night the road I ran
was the finest of them all,
without a bridle or stirrup
on a filly made of pearl.
As a man, I won't repeat
the things she said to me.
The light of understanding 
has made me more discreet.

I took her from the river
spiked with kisses and sand.
The sabers of the irises
were stabbing at the breeze.

I behaved as what I am.
A true-born gypsy.
I gave her a sewing basket 
made of straw-gold satin,
and refused to fall in love
because she had a husband,
though she said she wasn't married
when I took her to the river."

- Federico Garcia Lorca




Saturday, September 17

discipline


My Dear, I ask you:

"Do you have the discipline to be a free spirit?" - G. Roth


Friday, September 16

still in love with you on this harvest moon


"Come a little bit closer 

Hear what I have to say 
Just like children sleeping
We could dream this night away.


But there's a full moon rising 

Let's go dancing' in the light
We know where the music's playing
Let's go out and feel the night.


Because I'm still in love with you

I want to see you dance again
Because I'm still in love with you
On this harvest moon.


When we were strangers

I watched you from afar
When we were lovers
I loved you with all my heart.


But now it's getting late

And the moon is climbing high
I want to celebrate
See it shining in your eye.


Because I'm still in love with you

I want to see you dance again
Because I'm still in love with you
On this harvest moon."

- Neil Young

this song found me through a dear friend

detail from mixed media on canvas 




Thursday, September 15

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


Wednesday, September 14

liberated from fear


"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn't serve the world. There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We are born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us, it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."

- Marianne Williamson

This quote sits on my altar and is also tucked within the pages of my journals...



Tuesday, September 13

words of wisdom


"All eyeZ on me...

I bet you got it twisted you don't know who to trust...

Y'all got me under surveillance huh?

All eyeZ on me.

But I'm knowing..."

- TUPAC

snapshot of my son at the Grammy Museum






Monday, September 12

un amor que se lleve las mentiras


"Mereces un amor que te quiera despeinada, con todo y las razones que te levantan de prisa, con todo y los demonios que no te dejan dormir. 

Mereces un amor que te haga sentir segura, que pueda comerse al mundo si camina de tu mano, que sienta que tus abrazos van perfectos con su piel. 

Mereces un amor que quiera bailar contigo, que visite el paraíso cada vez que mira tus ojos, y que no se aburra nunca de leer tus expresiones. 

Mereces un amor que te escuche cuando cantas, que te apoye en tus ridículos, que respete que eres libre, que te acompañe en tu vuelo, que no le asuste caer. 

Mereces un amor que se lleve las mentiras, que te traiga la ilusión, el café y la poesía."

- Frida Kahlo

a corner of my world




Sunday, September 11

nieta de Guillermo Sevilla-Sacasa


mi bello abuelo de colonias y cuentos 

el que me enseño a dibujar 

a jugar con palabras 

a platicar con seguridad

a ser una verdadera pavo-real-la de plumas blancas y plateadas como las de las hadas

siempre impecable y notable

un genio genial y jovial de medallas y honores

el de mis amores


siento su mirada noche y día

escucho sus consejos

segura que nos encontramos en mis sueños


excerpt from my journals 


Saturday, September 10

1961 Liberty - In God We Trust


A penny for my thoughts? Only a penny? Really? 

This thin flat cent is from the year 1961. 

What adventures has this weathered 55-year-old been on? 

How many hands and pockets have held it? 

Who has saved it and who has wished it away? 

Somebody dropped it or tossed it aside. 

Was the copper coin lost, forgotten, abandoned, overlooked and ignored before I noticed it and picked it up from the ground?

excerpts from my journals 




Friday, September 9

interdependence


"The whole idea of compassion is based on a keen awareness of the interdependence of all these living beings, which are all part of one another, and all involved in one another.”

- Thomas Merton (1915-1968)


Thursday, September 8

healing family secrets


"Buried in the recesses of your family's history you may find secrets. Due to cultural and societal prohibitions, these facts about the family typically remain repressed, as are the strong feelings associated with these secrets. There's considerable shame that prevents these secrets from being acknowledged and dealt with, so they become toxic to other family members.

...these repressed feelings and behaviors get projected onto others in the family, who then act out these toxic feelings without being aware of their original source...

Sometimes the secrets are so huge that discovering the truth behind them changes someone's life around 180 degrees. 

...When these secrets remain buried, they end up being projected onto other people or passed along through the generations...The poisonous influence of family secrets can remain in the lineage for several generations, often enacted by one or more family members until there is active healing.

There are a number of resources for healing this ancestral karma, and it's often though the healing journey that someone finds out about these secrets. Once the secrets are brought out into the open, there's opportunity to release their hold on the family members, and subsequent generations will no longer have to carry them...

...Being secrets, they are often submerged under layers of guilt and shame yet are often acted out or projected onto others...

...The secrets, as well as the act of keeping secrets, continue to be forwarded until someone in the lineage is willing to tackle these issues and seek healing for the damage done."

- Dr. Steven D. Farmer

detail from a recent mixed media on paper 






Wednesday, September 7

forced and phony


"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


Tuesday, September 6

beginning of a certain end



"Your skin like dawn -
Mine like dusk.

One paints the beginning -
of a certain end.

The other, the end of a
sure beginning."
- Maya Angelou


mixed media

Monday, September 5

santos que bailan


"There is no spot on earth that ever became sacred until something danced there; maybe it was just an atom or two.

Strange now the seriousness I see around the shrines of perfect saints whose feet were once wept ecstatic tears as they moved upon the sun they saw beneath our every step.

There is no place in existence that ever became sacred until something sang there, even be it just a molecule. That is enough. I hear they croon all the time."

- my beloved HAFIZ

detail from a 2013 watercolor on paper in a private collection 



Sunday, September 4

shall we dance?


"The first layer of consciousness is inertia. It is a level of non-movement: it is a level in which your energy, whether on the dance floor or in your psyche, is simply stuck.

Everybody experiences inertia. It is the groggy, barely conscious state when you first wake up in the morning. Or when you return to work from vacation. Or when you are in momentary insecurity about something or other. It is the state of despairing inaction when you've locked into the same routine day after day. The drugged passivity of TV watching. The stoned immobility of drug-taking, drinking. The moral and intellectual laziness of just getting by.

The only question is whether you choose to live in inertia or pass through it in the flow of your life - day to day, year to year, cycle to cycle. Inertia is seductive. It has characteristics of the ecstasy we're seeking and knew in the womb. It's natural, effortless, totally accommodating. But we're made to move, to become, to grow, to change, to create, and the true paradise of ecstasy lies not in inaction but in action that is so totally absorbing it seems like no work at all. Quickly the false ecstasy of lazing around, indulgence, and passivity takes its toll in the self-destructive effects of imploded energy...

...As a temporary resistance to the demands of life, inertia is simply a place from which to start. As you recognize its grip on you, you can confront it with movement and vitalize your being with the energy of change. You can summon the dancer within, the part of you that instinctively knows how to explore the full range of the body's rhythms. It is natural for the body to move, and the simplest way out of inertia is to start moving it. Stretch, lean, shuffle, swirl, with or without music, alone or with others. The easiest way is just to ease into flowing movements that will gradually seduce the body into the other rhythms. Dance is always available no matter where you are and is a ready catalyst to get your energy moving.

If you live in inertia - "waking sleep," Gurdjieff called it - as your basic energy level, as most of us do, your reality is comprised of a structure of unquestioned beliefs and frozen attitudes that are a bulwark against change. Movement and change are feared as painful and disruptive. The status quo seems to offer a haven of security. Truthfully, you are a wallflower at the dance of life, refusing every offer to move, out of fear of the unknown or of making a fool of yourself; you don't make the effort. But this holding back - hanging on tight to everything, especially your body, which becomes the repository of all your repressed feelings, thoughts, and action - used up all your physical, emotional, and mental energy. And you have nothing to show for this use of energy but the same old patterns and a deteriorating body and spirit. Because you don't dare to breathe life in and let it out, you live on a very restricted energy supply.

At bottom, inertia is the level of being unconscious, the home of the victim, the place where life just happens to you and you're unaware of your responsibility to create your own reality. It's the level of the pregnant woman who obviously chainsmokes, the macho laborer who stupefies himself every night with a six-pack, the high-powered executive who's married to his job and measures everything and everyone, including himself, by company standards, or the actor who has nothing to say without a script.

In inertia we want our life and friends to be stable, predictable, homogenized. It's so much easier to be in control when things around us don't change and we have the security of the known. We stay in an unhappy marriage or job or situation for years and years rather than risk the uncertainty, the adventure, the pain of venturing forth. In fact, all our "adventure" is planned and prepackaged, innocuous and ultimately dissatisfying - we buy the hype of cruises, cars, beer, movies, to sate our frustrated desire for true novelty and authentic experience. 

Often we turn around and watch even our children lock themselves into routines and perspectives that suffocate them, choke their growth and spontaneity, and snuff out the sparks we saw burning in them when they first entered the world. It hurts as we watch them lock into the vicious spiral of victimization, resentment, isolation. Or of flattery, melancholy, and self-importance. We know all the dances all too well. We taught them the steps. We reinforce these patterns rather than acknowledging our children's pain and guiding them to face the challenges that will nurture their growth. Because we are not bold, not warriors, we don't empower our children - to their lifelong detriment. Seeing their weakness, cowardice, and compromising is to watch parts of ourselves die, the parts that are young and fresh and full of promise.

Listen to the voices of inertia: Don't rock the boat. You're making a big mistake. Don't act impulsively. You've got to plan ahead. Be careful. Be prepared. But think of your family. Think of your friends. But if you do that... Don't burn your bridges. You'll regret it. You'll be sorry."
- Gabrielle Roth

so, my dear I invite you to step onto the dance floor with me...it is time to seduce the body into other rhythms...

Saturday, September 3

pure expression


"The dancer of the future will be one whose body and soul have grown so harmoniously together that the natural language of that soul will have become the movement of the body. The dancer will not belong to a nation but to all humanity. She will dance not in the form of a nymph, nor fairy, nor coquette but in the form of a woman in its greatest and purest expression. She will realize the mission of woman's body and the holiness of all its parts. She will dance the changing life of nature, showing how each part is transformed into the other. From all parts of her body shall shine radiant intelligence, bringing to the world the message of the thoughts and aspirations of thousands of women. She shall dance the freedom of women ..."
- Isadora Duncan (1877 – 1927)



Friday, September 2

HERstory: mother & daughter


Four months ago I gave birth to a healthy baby girl and began a very personal series of mixed media featuring introspective photographs.

A daughter.

A little woman.

How do I empower her?

How can I teach her to remain wildly fearless and true to her heart? To trust her intuition?

My body nourishes her body and continues to keep her alive. How can I honor my body and show her to love her body?

I am pleased to have been invited to apply to the Glen Echo Labor Day Art Show again this year. I am thrilled to have my work accepted and exhibited.

Mother & Daughter I and II,
2016 mixed media on canvas


Thursday, September 1

solar eclipse rainbow new moon


September arrives with my beloved father-in-law's birthday...

This September arrived with a solar eclipse, a majestic rainbow sky after the rain and a new moon...


New beginnings...