still kissing me

"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

the less I seem to care

mixed media on paper

"What I like best about myself...is my audacity, my courage. The ways I have found to be true to myself without causing too much pain or damage. What I hate so much is my vanity, my need to shine, my need of applause and my sentimentality. I would like to be harder. I cannot make a joke, make fun of anyone, without feeling regrets."- Anaïs Nin (1903-1977)

I love the artist in me who dares with such security...

I love the author in me, birthing new worlds out of dreams and hopes...

I don't use the word "hate" - but I do dislike my need to please others...my need to be loved by all...although the older I get, the less I seem to care...

your scent

"I threw my heart to the winds

and followed you.

One day the wind brought me your scent,

my heart swelled in gratitude

and scattered in the wind."

- RUMI

letting go

"Heartbreak is unpreventable; the natural outcome of caring for people and things over which we have no control, of holding in our affections those who inevitably move beyond our line of sight.

Heartbreak begins the moment we are asked to let go but cannot, in other words, it colors and inhabits and magnifies each and every day; heartbreak is not a visitation, but a path that human beings follow through even the most average life. Heartbreak is an indication of our sincerity: in a love relationship, in a life’s work, in trying to learn a musical instrument, in the attempt to shape a better more generous self. Heartbreak is the beautifully helpless side of love and affection and is just as much an essence and emblem of care as the spiritual athlete’s quick but abstract ability to let go. Heartbreak has its own way of inhabiting time and its own beautiful and trying patience in coming and going.

Heartbreak is how we mature; yet we use the word heartbreak as if it only occurs when things have gone wrong: an unrequited love, a shattered dream, a child lost before their time. Heartbreak, we hope, is something we hope we can avoid; something to guard against, a chasm to be carefully looked for and then walked around; the hope is to find a way to place our feet where the elemental forces of life will keep us in the manner to which we want to be accustomed and which will keep us from the losses that all other human beings have experienced without exception since the beginning of conscious time. But heartbreak may be the very essence of being human, of being on the journey from here to there, and of coming to care deeply for what we find along the way.

…If heartbreak is inevitable and inescapable, it might be asking us to look for it and make friends with it, to see it as our constant and instructive companion, and even perhaps, in the depth of its impact as well as in its hindsight, to see it as its own reward. Heartbreak asks us not to look for an alternative path, because there is no alternative path. It is a deeper introduction to what we love and have loved, an inescapable and often beautiful question, something or someone who has been with us all along, asking us to be ready for the last letting go."

- David Whyte

excerpt  from CONSOLATIONS: The Solace, Nourishment and Underlying Meaning of Everyday Words

more

I wanted to stay. 

Even though I missed my king-sized bed.

I wanted more salty kisses by the sea.

I wanted more.

More sunrises and sunsets, rainfalls and rainbows, moonlight and stars.

I want more...

feel alive

"...loving can hurt sometimes, but it's the only thing that I know...it is the only thing that makes us feel alive. 

We keep this love in a photograph. We made these memories for ourselves, where our eyes are never closing, hearts are never broken, and times are forever frozen still.

So you can keep me inside the pocket of your ripped jeans, holding me closer until our eyes meet, you won't ever be alone - wait for me to come home.

Loving can heal. Loving can mend your soul and is the only thing that I know. I swear it will get easier. Remember that with every piece of you, and it's the only thing we take with us when we die.

...I will remember how you kissed me...hearing you whisper..."

- Ed Sheeran

snapshot - ideas, pearls, feathers and crystals on my desk 

winds of change are blowing wild and free

"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 

thrill

“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

mixed media on paper in a private collection 

lust

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

watermelon

"Woman is like a fruit which will only yield its fragrance when rubbed by the hands. Take for example the basil: unless it be warmed by the fingers, it emits no perfume. And do you know that unless amber is warmed and manipulated it retains it's aroma within? The same with women: if you do not animate her with frolics and kisses, with nibbling of her thighs and close embraces, you will not obtain what you desire: you will experience no pleasure when she shares your couch and she will feel no affection for you." - Sir Richard Burton, circa 1886

excerpt from a delicious book my Latin Lover gifted me many moons ago

snapshot: watermelon, from a series of fruit 

knowing

"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

en silencio tu mirada dice mil palabras

"Yo te miro, se me corta la respiración
Cuanto tu me miras se me sube el corazón 

me palpita lento el corazón 

Y en silencio tu mirada dice mil palabras 

La noche en la que te suplico que no salga el sol...

Tu cuerpo y el mio llenando el vacío 
Subiendo y bajando...
Ese fuego por dentro me esta enloqueciendo,
Me va saturando

Con tu física y tu química también tu anatomía
La cerveza y el tequila y tu boca con la mía
Ya no puedo mas 
Ya no puedo mas 
Con esta melodía, tu color, tu fantasía
Con tu filosofía mi cabeza esta vacía
Y ya no puedo mas 
Ya no puedo mas 

Yo quiero estar contigo, vivir contigo
Bailar contigo, tener contigo
Una noche loca 
Ay besar tu boca 
Yo quiero estar contigo, vivir contigo
Bailar contigo, 

tener contigo una noche loca con tremenda loca

Tu me miras y me llevas a otra dimensión 

estoy en otra dimensión
Tu latidos aceleran a mi corazón,

Que ironía del destino no poder tocarte
Abrazarte y sentir la magia de tu olor...

Bailando amor, es que se me va el dolor..."

- Enrique Iglesias 

snapshot of my sweaty shoulder after dancing...

come on, save my soul

"I want a little sugar
in my bowl
I want a little sweetness
down in my soul
I could stand some lovin'
Oh so bad
I feel so funny and I feel so sad

I want a little steam
on my clothes
Maybe I can fix things up
so they'll go
Whatsa matter Daddy
Come on, save my soul
I need some sugar in my bowl
I ain't foolin'
I want some sugar in my bowl

You been acting different
I've been told
Soothe me
I want some sugar in my bowl
I want some steam
on my clothes
Maybe I can fix things up so they'll go
Whatsa matter Daddy
Come on save my soul
I want some sugar in my bowl
I ain't foolin'
I want some - yeah - in my bowl..."

- Nina Simone

mixed media on paper

you're running from

"...I know now, that I'm way down on your line, but the waiting feel is fine.  So don't treat me like a puppet on a string, cause I know I have to do my thing.  Don't talk to me as if you think I'm dumb...I don't wanna wait in vain for your love...It's me love that you're running from." 
- Bob Marley (1945-1981)

mixed media on paper

simplemente la mano nos damos, y despues que murmure la gente

- Frida Kahlo and Chavela Vargas, 2013 mixed media on paper -

"Tomate esta botella conmigo,
y en el ultimo trago nos vamos.

Quiero ver a que sabe tu olvido,
sin poner en mis ojos tus manos.

Esta noche no voy a rogarte,
esta noche te vas de deveras.

Que dificil tratar de olvidarte,
sin que sienta que ya no me quieras...

Nada me han enseñado los años,
siempre caigo en los mismos errores,
otra vez a brindar con extraños,
y a llorar por los mismos dolores...

Tomate esta botella conmigo,
y en el ultimo trago me besas.

Esperamos que no hayan testigos,
por si acaso te diera verguenza.

Si algun dia sin querer tropezamos,
no te agaches ni me hables de frente,
simplemente la mano nos damos,
y despues que murmure la gente..." - Chavela Vargas

fue sólo por orgullo ese querer

"Hey! 

no vayas presumiendo por ahí 

diciendo que no puedo estar sin ti 

tú qué sabes de mi. 

ya sé que a ti te gusta presumir 

decir a los amigos que sin ti 

ya no puedo vivir. 

no creas que te haces un favor 

cuando hablas a la gente de mi amor 

y te burlas de mi. 

que hay veces que es mejor querer así 

que ser querido y no poder sentir 

lo que siento por ti. 

ya ves 

tú nunca me has querido ya lo ves 

que nunca he sido tuyo ya lo sé 

fue sólo por orgullo ese querer. 

ya ves 

de que te vale ahora presumir 

ahora que no estoy ya junto a ti 

que les dirás de mi ? 

recuerdo que ganabas siempre tú 

que hacías de ese triunfo una virtud 

yo era sombra y tú luz. 

no sé si tú también recordarás 

que siempre que intentaba hacer la paz 

yo era un río en tu mar. 

ahora que ya todo terminó 

que como siempre soy el perdedor 

cuando pienses en mi. 

no creas que te guardo algún rencor 

es siempre más feliz quien más amó 

y ese siempre fui yo..."

 - Julio Iglesias

te invento a veces con mi vanidad

"Tengo la convicción de que no existes

y sin embargo te oigo cada noche

te invento a veces con mi vanidad

o mi desolación o mi modorra

del infinito mar viene tu asombro

lo escucho como un salmo y pese a todo

tan convencido estoy de que no existes

que te aguardo en mi sueño para luego."

- Mario Benedetti

detail from mixed media on canvas, 2013

I want more

“I want to see you. 

Know your voice. 

Recognize you when you first come 'round the corner. 

Sense your scent when I come into a room you've just left. 

Know the lift of your heel, the glide of your foot. 

Become familiar with the way you purse your lips then let them part, just the slightest bit, when I lean in to your space and kiss you.

I want to know the joy of how you whisper "more”... 

- RUMI

in love on this new moon

"I don't care if Monday's blue -

Tuesday's gray and Wednesday too -
Thursday I don't care about you -
It's Friday I'm in love -

Monday you can fall apart -
Tuesday Wednesday break my heart -
Oh, Thursday doesn't even start -
It's Friday I'm in love -

Saturday wait
And Sunday always comes too late
But Friday never hesitate

I don't care if Monday's black
Tuesday, Wednesday heart attack
Thursday never looking back
It's Friday I'm in love

Monday you can hold your head
Tuesday, Wednesday stay in bed
Or Thursday watch the walls instead
It's Friday I'm in love

Saturday wait
And Sunday always comes too late
But Friday never hesitate

Dressed up to the eyes
It's a wonderful surprise
To see your shoes and your spirits rise
Throwing out your frown
And just smiling at the sound
And as sleek as a shriek
Spinning round and round
Always take a big bite
It's such a gorgeous sight
To see you in the middle of the night
You can never get enough
Enough of this stuff
It's Friday
I'm in love

I don't care if Monday's blue
Tuesday's gray and Wednesday too
Thursday I don't care about you
It's Friday I'm in love

Monday you can fall apart
Tuesday, Wednesday break my heart
Thursday doesn't even start
It's Friday I'm in love..."

- The Cure

melt with you

"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

como si fuera esta noche la última vez

With sparkling blue eyes and an unforgettable voice Antioco plays his guitar and serenades beautiful Maruca...remembering my beloved grandparents, truly Grand Parents on their wedding anniversary...


Bésame, bésame mucho,
Como si fuera esta noche
La última vez.

Bésame, bésame mucho,
Que tengo miedo a perderte
Perderte después.

Quiero tenerte muy cerca,
Mirarme en tus ojos,
Y estar junto a tí.

Piensa que tal vez mañana,
Estaré muy lejos,
Muy lejos de aquí.

Bésame, bésame mucho,
Que tengo miedo a perderte
Perderte después.

- original lyrics by Consuelo Velázquez (1917- 2005)

joy follows

- my shadow is long and lean -


"We are shaped by our thoughts; we become what we think.  When the mind is pure, joy follows like a shadow that never leaves." - Buddha

There are infinite ways to purify one's mind.

I sit in silence, focusing on my breath...

I paint with absolute abandon...

I practice yoga...

I focus on the sacredness of the present moment...

I dance the wild dance of a woman taken over by ecstasy...

gloriousness and wretchedness

"Life is glorious, but life is also wretched. It is both. Appreciating the gloriousness inspires us, encourages us, cheers us up, gives us a bigger perspective, energizes us. We feel connected. But if that's all that's happening, we get arrogant and start to look down on others, and there is a sense of making ourselves a big deal and being really serious about it, wanting it to be like that forever. The gloriousness becomes tinged by craving and addiction. On the other hand, wretchedness--life's painful aspect--softens us up considerably. Knowing pain is a very important ingredient of being there for another person. When you are feeling a lot of grief, you can look right into somebody's eyes because you feel you haven't got anything to lose--you're just there. The wretchedness humbles us and softens us, but if we were only wretched, we would all just go down the tubes. We'd be so depressed, discouraged, and hopeless that we wouldn't have enough energy to eat an apple. Gloriousness and wretchedness need each other. One inspires us, the other softens us. They go together."

- Pema Chodron 

tu risa resbalada

"I crave your mouth, your voice, your hair. Silent and starving, I prowl through the streets.

Bread does not nourish me, dawn disrupts me, all day

I hunt for the liquid measure of your steps.

I hunger for your sleek laugh,
your hands the color of a savage harvest,
hunger for the pale stones of your fingernails,
I want to eat your skin like a whole almond.

I want to eat the sunbeam flaring in your lovely body,
the sovereign nose of your arrogant face,
I want to eat the fleeting shade of your lashes,

and I pace around hungry, sniffing the twilight,
hunting for you, for your hot heart,
like a puma in the barrens of Quitratúe."

- Pablo Neruda translated by Stephen Tapscott

"Tengo hambre de tu boca, de tu voz, de tu pelo
y por las calles voy sin nutrirme, callado,
no me sostiene el pan, el alba me desquicia,
busco el sonido líquido de tus pies en el día.

Estoy hambriento de tu risa resbalada,
de tus manos color de furioso granero,
tengo hambre de la pálida piedra de tus uñas,
quiero comer tu piel como una intacta almendra.

Quiero comer el rayo quemado en tu hermosura,
la nariz soberana del arrogante rostro,
quiero comer la sombra fugaz de tus pestañas

y hambriento vengo y voy olfateando el crepúsculo
buscándote, buscando tu corazón caliente
como un puma en la soledad de Quitratúe."

- Pablo Neruda

detail from mixed media on paper

liquid moonlight

"A Wild Woman doesn't want to be your Girly friend

Can you love me in the deep? In the dark? In the thick of it?

Can you love me when I drink from the wrong bottle and slip through the crack in the floorboard?

Can you love me when I’m bigger than you, when my presence blazes like the sun does, when it hurts to look directly at me?

Can you love me then too?

Can you love me under the starry sky, shaved and smooth, my skin like liquid moonlight?

Can you love me when I am howling and furry, standing on my haunches, my lower lip stained with the blood of my last kill?

When I call down the lightning, when the sidewalks are singed by the soles of my feet, can you still love me then?

What happens when I freeze the land, and cause the dirt to harden over all the pomegranate seeds we’ve planted?

Will you trust that Spring will return?

Will you still believe me when I tell you I will become a raging river, and spill myself upon your dreams and call them to the surface of your life?

Can you trust me, even though you cannot tame me?

Can you love me, even though I am all that you fear and admire?

Will you fear my shifting shape?

Does it frighten you, when my eyes flash like your camera does?

Do you fear they will capture your soul?

Are you afraid to step into me?

The meat-eating plants and flowers armed with poisonous darts are not in my jungle to stop you from coming. Not you.

So do not worry. They belong to me, and I have invited you here.

Stay to the path revealed in the moonlight and arrive safely to the hut of Baba Yaga: the wild old wise one… she will not lead you astray if you are pure of heart.

You cannot be with the wild one if you fear the rumbling of the ground, the roar of a cascading river, the startling clap of thunder in the sky.

If you want to be safe, go back to your tiny room — the night sky is not for you.

If you want to be torn apart, come in. Be broken open and devoured. Be set ablaze in my fire.

I will not leave you as you have come: well dressed, in finely-threaded sweaters that keep out the cold.

I will leave you naked and biting. Leave you clawing at the sheets. Leave you surrounded by owls and hawks and flowers that only bloom when no one is watching.

So, come to me, and be healed in the unbearable lightness and darkness of all that you are.

There is nothing in you that can scare me. Nothing in you I will not use to make you great.

A wild woman is not a girlfriend. She is a relationship with nature. She is the source of all your primal desires, and she is the wild whipping wind that uproots the poisonous corn stalks on your neatly tilled farm.

She will plant pear trees in the wake of your disaster.

She will see to it that you shall rise again.

She is the lover who restores you to your own wild nature."

- Alison Nappi 

amazing grace

"Life is a classroom. We are both student and teacher. Each day is a test. And each day we receive a passing or failing grade in one particular subject: GRACE.

Grace is compassion, gratitude, surrender, faith, forgiveness, good manners, reverence, and the list goes on.

It's something money can't buy and credentials rarely produce. Being the smartest, the prettiest, the most talented, the richest, or even the poorest, can't help. Being a humble person can and being a helpful person can guide you through your days with grace and gratitude."

- PHILOSOPHY

snapshot - detail from an altar at home a couple years ago, with a magic golden branch and amethyst healing crystals...the flowers were a surprise gift from someone and the watercolor was created by my beloved son 

chaos

What is our response to chaos?

Can we manage to view chaos as something positive?

"Chaos should be regarded as extremely good news." 

- Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche 

"One must still have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star."

- Friedrich Nietzsche 

"In all chaos there is a cosmos, in all disorder a secret order." 

- Carl Jung

"Chaos is a friend of mine." 

- Bob Dylan

gonna make you

"...Intention I feel inventive,

Gonna make you, make you, make you notice -

Got motion restrained emotion...

No reason just seems so pleasing,

Gonna make you, make you, make you notice -

Gonna use my arms,

Gonna use my legs,

Gonna use my style,

Gonna use my sidestep,

Gonna use my fingers,

Gonna use my, my, my imagination -

'Cause I gonna make you see,

There's nobody else here,

No one like me,

I'm special so special,

I gotta have some of your attention give it to me -

Got rhythm I can't miss a beat...

Got something I'm winking at you,

Gonna make you, make you, make you notice...Give it to me..."

- The Pretenders

in an 80s mood