all the rest of what I want with you

While doing some research for a series of mixed media, I stumbled upon these inspiring words of wisdom:

"There is something very satisfactory about being in the middle of something."

"...sweetheart, it isn’t lust; it’s all the rest

of what I want with you that scares me..."

"You were the weather in my neighborhood. You were the epic in the episode. You were the year poised on the equinox."

"There are lines of yours I know by heart. There are scents of yours soaked in my skin."

- Marilyn Hacker

messages

I heard my name being whispered.

I looked up.

I read the messages in the clouds,

our secret love language of the skies.

The moon, the sun, the stars, the clouds...

...ours...

snapshots from an afternoon walk

the truth is

"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." - HAFIZ

imagination and kisses

"There are two ways to reach me: by way of kisses or by way of imagination. But there is a hierarchy: the kisses alone don't work." - Anais Nin 

snapshot: Peruvian feathers, grandmother's pearls, crystals and a rock my son painted blue when he was two...a corner of my world...

loba

"A healthy woman is much like a wolf: robust, chock-full, strong life force, life-giving, territorially aware, inventive, loyal, roving. Yet separation from the wildish nature causes a woman's personality to become meager, thin, ghosty, spectral. We are not meant to be puny with frail hair and inability to leap up, inability to give chase, to birth, to create a life. When women's lives are in stasis, ennui, it is always time for the wildish woman to emerge; it is time for the creating function of the psyche to flood the delta...It means to establish territory, to find one's pack, to be in one's body with certainty and pride regardless of the body's gifts and limitations, to speak and act in one's behalf, to be aware, alert, to draw on the innate feminine powers of intuition and sensing, to come into one's cycles, to find what one belongs to, to rise with dignity, to retain as much consciousness as we can."

- Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes

...a beautiful, wild wolf has continued to visit my dreams 

deep inside

"...but even so, just as he starts to leave, when he notices a bit of dirt under his thumbnail, he stops to scrub it out. Although she has never complained at all about his grubby appearance whenever he came in tired from the digs and sat drinking with her, she might feel differently now that she is going to take him upstairs.

He is glad to see the show again because it gives him time to anticipate and dream, to build up to a private finale. Though he doesn't fool himself. She has to have known for a while how much he thinks of her, and yet, kind as she always was when he told her all his troubles, he knows she has another regular man, more sophisticated, more of her world. As one more time he watches the extraordinary grace with which she dances, all that gauzy fabric whirling around her, his longing has a different quality now that he knows his desire will soon be met...

...But it is not just the mechanics of what she does that impressed him. He has all he longed for now, even what he never quite understood before that he wanted. It is not just that she had made him happy. He is laughing to find himself lighter than air. And she has given him a deeper pleasure, too; as if reaching into the center of who he is, she has mined the gold that was deep inside."

- Susan Griffin

antes de ser maldita

" 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)

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 

new moon blessings

the deliciously dark new moon whispers wisdom through dreams...

begin...

trust...

surrender...

your absence

"You've so distracted me,

your absence fans my love.

Don't ask how.

Then you come near.

"Do not...," I say, and

"Do not...," you answer.

Don't ask why

this delights me."

- RUMI

2013 mixed media on paper

his love: the beginning of everything

"I fell in love with her courage, her sincerity and her flaming self-respect.  And it's these things I believe in, even if the whole world indulged in wild suspicions that she wasn't all she should be.

I love her and that is the beginning of everything."

- F. Scott Fitzgerald

2013 mixed media on paper

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

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 --

same

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

 - Emily Brontë

bite

- mixed media -

"She's my girl...She's my blue sky.  After sixteen years, I still bite her shoulders.  She makes me feel like Hannibal crossing the Alps." - John Cheever (1912-1982)

exquisite misery

This little sketch is a mixed media from 2011.

"My love has made me selfish. I cannot exist without you. I am forgetful of everything but seeing you again - my life seems to stop there - I see no further. You have absorbed me. I have a sensation at the present moment as though I was disolving - I should be exquisitely miserable without the hope of soon seeing you...I have no limit now to my love...Love is my religion. I could die for that, I could die for you."

- John Keats

exquisite misery...an interesting concept 

beautiful

"She was beautiful, but not like those girls in the magazines. She was beautiful, for the way she thought. She was beautiful, for the sparkle in her eyes when she talked about something she loved. She was beautiful, for her ability to make other people smile, even if she was sad. No, she wasn't beautiful for something as temporary as her looks. She was beautiful, deep down to her soul. She is beautiful."

- F. Scott Fitzgerald

salty smiles

- 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

Happy Birthday Dad, I love you beyond words!

under pressure

"Courage is grace under pressure."

- Ernest Hemingway

done

"I’m a princess cut from marble, smoother than a storm.

And the scars that mark my body, they’re silver and gold.

My blood is a flood of rubies, precious stones.

It keeps my veins hot, the fire's found a home in me.

I move through town, I’m quiet like a fight.

And my necklace is of rope, I tie it and untie.

And now people talk to me, but nothing ever hits home.

People talk to me, and all the voices just burn holes.

I’m done with it.

This is the start of how it all ends.

They used to shout my name, now they whisper it.

I’m speeding up and this is the red, orange, yellow flicker beat sparking up my heart.

We're at the start, the colors disappear.

I never watch the stars, there’s so much down here.

So I just try to keep up with the red, orange, yellow flicker beat sparking up my heart.

I dream all year, but they’re not the sweet kinds.

And the shivers move down my shoulder blades in double time.

And now people talk to me, I’m slipping out of reach now.

People talk to me, and all their faces blur.

But I got my fingers laced together and I made a little prison, and I’m locking up everyone who ever laid a finger on me.

I’m done with it." - LORDE

mixed media from a new series, 2017

the way he looks at her

remembering my beloved grandparents on their wedding anniversary 

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

a corner of my desk: crystals, pearls, a river rock and a sterling cuff 

full moon

did you look at her tonight and think of me? 

she knows.

the moon knows your secret wishes my dear.

and your soul whispers to me in dreams.

snapshot of the full moon from my bedroom window tonight 

relationship

I received this passage after my daily ritual of morning meditation, prayer and yoga...

and my dear, if the word *god* turns you off, simply substitute it with one that connects you with the Divine Life Force that resides within...

"The only beloved who can always be counted on is God. The ultimate partner is a divine one, an experience of ourselves that is totally supportive and forgiving. Until we know this, we keep seeking sustenance from men that they cannot give us. Most men and women today are wounded. The search for some one who isn't in pain is unreasonable until we ourselves are healed of our own dysfunctions. Until then, we will be led to people as wounded as we are in order that we might heal and be healed together. What this means is that NO PARTNER can save us, deliver us, or give meaning to our lives. The source of our salvation, deliverance, and meaning is within us. It is the love we give as much as it is the love we get. The passion we need to feed is our relationship to God. This is ultimately our relationship with ourselves.

It's not as easy as a good date, as much fun as sex, or as dramatic as romantic tension. It is work. Personal growth, recovery, religious practice, spiritual renewal - whatever words we care to use - these are the keys to our return to sanity and peace. When we have reclaimed our wholeness, we are ready to face the worldly beloved. Until then, we will look to a romantic partner to give us peace rather than remember that our role in the relationship is to BRING peace, by receiving it from God allowing him to spread his peace through us to all mankind.

How often I have betrayed myself, forgetting - or more accurately, resisting - the twenty minutes of meditation, the hour of reading, the spiritual meeting or recovery group that would prepare me for the roller coaster ride that always lies potential in an intimate relationship. Part of our problem is that we expect love affairs to always feel good. They don't. Actually, relationships don't feel good anyway. We feel good. Unless we are centered within ourselves, we cannot blame a relationship for throwing us off. No man can convince a woman she's wonderful, but if she already believes she is, his agreement can resonate and bring her joy.

This is our function in each other's lives: to hold the space for each other's beauty, that our beloved can leave us and we still feel in his absence how beautiful we are."

- Marianne Williamson

beyond

"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

siempre existes dondequiera

"Porque te tengo y no -

porque te pienso -

porque la noche está de ojos abiertos -

porque la noche pasa y digo amor -

porque has venido a recoger tu imagen -

y eres mejor que todas tus imágenes -

porque eres linda desde el pie hasta el alma -

porque eres buena desde el alma a mi -

porque te escondes dulce en el orgullo -

pequeña y dulce -

corazón coraza -

porque eres mía -

porque no eres mía -

porque te miro y muero -

y peor que muero -

si no te miro amor -

si no te miro - 

porque tu siempre existes dondequiera -

pero existes mejor donde te quiero -

porque tu boca es sangre -

y tienes frío -

tengo que amarte amor -

tengo que amarte -

aunque esta herida duela como dos -

y aunque -

la noche pase y yo te tenga -

y no."

- Mario Benedetti 

sin saber cómo, ni cuándo, ni de dónde, te amo

"No te amo como si fueras rosa de sal, topacio o flecha de claveles que propagan el fuego:

te amo como se aman ciertas cosas oscuras, secretamente, entre la sombra y el alma.

Te amo como la planta que no florece y lleva dentro de sí, escondida, la luz de aquellas flores, y gracias a tu amor vive oscuro en mi cuerpo el apretado aroma que ascendió de la tierra.

Te amo sin saber cómo, ni cuándo, ni de dónde, te amo directamente sin problemas ni orgullo:

así te amo porque no sé amar de otra manera, sino así de este modo en que no soy ni eres, tan cerca que tu mano sobre mi pecho es mía, tan cerca que se cierran tus ojos con mi sueño."

- Pablo Neruda

***

"I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz, or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.

I love you as certain dark things are to be loved, in secret, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that never blooms

but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;

thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance, risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where. I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride; 

so I love you because I know no other way than this:  

where "I" does not exist, nor "you,"

so close that your hand on my chest is my hand, so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep."

- Pablo Neruda translated by Stephen Tapscott

snapshot - bronze sculpture suspended by endless unconventional pearls and vintage silks 

heart soul and all

"it's a lip thing with you.

the first time we met i could not

take my eyes off them.

you probably thought you had something 

in your teeth with the way i was staring.

i know their curvature like the reminiscent

smell of my mother.

give me a photograph of every mouth in the

world and i will pick yours out without question.

i do not have a religion but if i did it

would be them...

...they are what roses and mountains and oceans

could only hope to be.

with you it's a lip thing.

and then it became a heart thing.

and then soul.

and then all."

- Christopher Poindexter

born to love

"I walk along the city streets you used to walk along with me -

And every step I take reminds me of just how we used to be - 

Well, how can I forget you, girl?

When there is always something there to remind me -

Always something there to remind me -

As shadows fall, I pass a small cafe where we would dance at night -

And I can't help recalling how it felt to kiss and hold you tight -

Well, how can I forget you, girl?

When there is always something there to remind me -

Always something there to remind me -

I was born to love her, and I will never be free -

You'll always be a part of me -

Oh whoa ooh whoa ooh whoa oh -

If you should find you miss the sweet and tender love we used to share -

Just go back to the places where we used to go and I'll be there..."

- as sung by the Naked Eyes

yes, yet another selfie...I am going through a major 80s musical phase and figure my children will treasure these selfies of their MAMA one day 

only you

"Looking from a window above, it's like a story of love -

Can you hear me?

Came back only yesterday 

I'm moving further away,

Want you near me

All I needed was the love you gave -

All I needed for another day 

And all I ever knew 

Only you 

Sometimes when I think of [your] name 

When it's only a game 

And I need you 

Listen to the words that you say 

It's getting harder to stay 

When I see you

All I needed was the love you gave 

All I needed for another day 

And all I ever knew 

Only you 

This is going to take a long time 

And I wonder what's mine 

Can't take no more 

Wonder if you'll understand 

It's just the touch of your hand 

Behind a closed door 

All I needed was the love you gave 

All I needed for another day 

And all I ever knew 

Only you..."

- Vince Clarke

selfie 

juntos

"Estábamos, estamos, estaremos juntos. A pedazos, a ratos, a párpados, a sueños."

- Mario Benedetti

one of my sunrises this past week