esos besos tuyos...tan míos

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

- HAFIZ 

esos besos tuyos...tan míos...

untouched desire

An extract from the diary Maria wrote... :

"Profound desire, true desire is the desire to be close to someone. From that point onwards, things change, the man and the woman come into play, but what happens before - the attraction that brought them together - is impossible to explain. It is untouched desire in its purest state.

When desire is still in this pure state, the man and the woman fall in love with life, they live each moment reverently, consciously, always ready to celebrate the next blessing.

When people feel like this, they are not in a hurry, they do not precipitate events with unthinking actions. They know that the inevitable will happen, that what is real always finds a way of revealing itself. When the moment comes, they do not hesitate, they do not miss an opportunity, they do not let slip a single magic moment, because they respect the importance of each second."

- PAULO COELHO

snapshot - a recent selfie

my Cuban grandmother

“…If you would indeed behold the spirit of death, open your heart wide unto the body of life.  For life and death are one, even as the river and sea are one…For what is it to die but to stand naked in the wind and to melt into the sun?  And what is it to cease breathing, but to free the breath from its restless tides, that it may rise and expand and seek God unencumbered?  Only when you drink from the river of silence shall you indeed sing.  And when you have reached the mountain top, then you shall begin to climb.  And when the earth shall claim your limbs, then shall you truly dance.”         – Kahlil Gibran (1883-1931)

my beautiful and beloved Cuban grandmother...I close my eyes and hear your contagious cascading waterfall laughter showering us with stardust blessings of light...

nuevos himnos lenguas de gloria

Salutación Del Optimista: 

"Inclitas razas ubérrimas, sangre de Hispania fecunda, espíritus fraternos, luminosas almas, salve! Porque llega el momento en que habrán de cantar nuevos himnos lenguas de gloria..." 

- Rubén Darío

my father played his guitar

serenading his beloved motherland

Nicaragua

my youngest brother

turned 21 today

snapshot of my beloved son

an integral being

"An integral being knows without going, sees without looking, and accomplishes without doing."

-Lao Tzu

beauty and courage

"Perhaps all the dragons in our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us act, just once, with beauty and courage. Perhaps everything that frightens us is, in its deepest essence, something helpless that wants our love."

- Rainier Maria Rilke

mixed media on paper, 2011

destiny

"You are what your deep, driving desire is. As your desire is, so is your will. As your will is, so is your deed. As your deed is, so is your destiny."

- Brihadaranyaka Upanishad 

snapshot: what do you see?

crystals...diamonds...

salt...sugar...

it is actually glass...broken glass...a pile of broken glass viles from an installation by artist Shana Lutker

messages

"It's not your fault but it is your responsibility."

- Joe Vitale

"My job here on earth is twofold. My job is first of all to make amends. My second job is to awaken people who might be asleep. Almost everyone is asleep! The only way I can awaken them is to work on myself." 

- Ihaleakala Hew Len

Ka Maluhia no na wa a pau, no ke'ia wa a mau a mau loa aku.

telling my story

- circa 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

to arrive at a kiss

- 2013 mixed media on canvas in a private collection -

"Amor, cuantos caminos hasta llegar a un beso, que soledad errante hasta tu compañía!" 

- Pablo Neruda

"Love, what a long way, to arrive at a kiss, what loneliness-in-motion, toward your company!" 

- Pablo Neruda translated by Stephen Tapscott

no tengo tiempo para quererte más

"Paso que pasa -

rostro que pasabas -

que más quieres -

te miro -

después me olvidare -

después y sólo -

sólo y después -

seguro que me olvido.

Paso que pasas -

rostro que pasabas -

que más quieres -

te quiero -

te quiero sólo dos -

o tres minutos -

para quererte más -

no tengo tiempo.

Paso que pasas -

rostro que pasabas -

ay no -

ay no me tientes -

que sí nos tentamos -

no nos podremos olvidar -

adiós."

- Mario Benedetti 

tired of speaking sweetly

my beloved HAFIZ counsels:

"Love wants to reach out and manhandle us, break all our teacup talk of God.

If you had the courage and could give the Beloved His choice, some nights He would just drag you around the room by your hair, ripping your grip all those toys in the world that bring you no joy.

Love sometimes gets tired of speaking sweetly and wants do rip to shreds all your erroneous notions of truth that make you fight within yourself, dear one, and with others, causing the world to weep on too many fine days.

God wants to manhandle us, lock us inside of a tiny room with Himself and practice His dropkick.

The Beloved sometimes wants to do us a great favor: hold us upside down and shake all the nonsense out.

But when we hear He is in such a 'playful drunken mood' - most everyone I know quickly packs their bags and hightails out of town." - HAFIZ

what do you think of this?

I laugh and love...and can identify with the Beloved at times...

the letting go

" you are snakeskin 

and i keep shedding you somehow 

my mind is forgetting 

every exquisite detail 

of your face 

the letting go has 

become the forgetting 

which is the most 

pleasant and saddest thing 

to have happened "

- rupi kaur

snapshot of a tree

my story - HERstory

"A story is medicine that greases and hoists the pulleys, shows us the way out, down, in and around, cuts for us fine wide doors in previously blank walls, doors which lead us to our own knowing."

- C. Pinkola Estes

volcanoes melt me down

- mixed media -

"...and what I am to you is not real,
what I am to you, you do not need,
what I am to you is not what you mean to me,
you give me miles and miles of mountains,
and I'll ask for the sea.

don't throw yourself like that,
in front of me.
I kissed your mouth, your back,
is that all you need?
don't drag my love around,
volcanoes melt me down.

...what I give to you is just what I'm going through,
there is nothing new, no, no just another phase of finding,
what I really need is what makes me bleed...

I kissed your mouth,
you do not need me."

- Damien Rice

ya no sé si maldecirte o por ti rezar

- mixed media on paper in a private collection -

"Ya me canso de llorar y no amanece -
Ya no sé si maldecirte o por ti rezar -
Tengo miedo de buscarte y de encontrarte -
Donde me aseguran mis amigos que te vas -
Hay momentos en que quisiera mejor rajarme -
Y arrancarme ya los clavos de mi penar -
Pero mis ojos se mueren sin mirar tus ojos -
Y mi cariño con la aurora te vuelve a esperar -

Y agarraste por tu cuenta la parranda -
Paloma negra, paloma negra ¿dónde, dónde andarás?
Ya no jueges con mi honra parrandera -
Si tus caricias han de ser mías, de nadie más -
Y aunque te amo con locura ya no vuelva -
Paloma negra eres la reja de un penar -
Quiero ser libre vivir mi vida con quien yo quiera -
Díos dame fuerza que me estoy muriendo,
por irla a buscar..."

- as sung by Chavela Vargas

simplemente soy: Frida Kahlo

- sterling silver, silk, turquoise and vintage coral necklace (circa 2006) on top of  a mixed media on wood (circa 2009) -

"Me importa una mierda lo que piense el mundo. Yo nací puta, yo nací pintora, yo nací jodida. Pero fui feliz en mi camino. Tu no entiendes lo que soy. Yo soy amor, soy placer, soy esencia, soy una idiota, soy una alcohólica, soy tenaz. Yo soy; simplemente soy..." - Frida Kahlo

the tree swing

barefoot on the wet grass 

I ask him to lend me the swing 

will the tall branch hold me? 

up to 700 pounds 

I slide on 

I balance myself with ease 

please push me 

higher

faster

flying

my hair, wild in the wind

laughter

am I really almost over the fence?

seeing the world upside down

I love the tree swing

I feel 7 years old

carefree

when was the last time you gave in to your inner child?

when was the last time you played?

independence

- mixed media on paper -

"Independence is happiness." - Susan B. Anthony (1820-1906)

freedom

self-determination

autonomy

liberty

kissing me

- 2013 mixed media on canvas -

"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 (who else?)

the universe conspires

"Once you make a decision, the Universe conspires to make it happen."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

I made a decision. I made a promise to my soul, a commitment with my spirit...

luna disfrazada

una luna llena

melancólica

llora luz dorada

el sufrimiento en silencio

no me ve

pero no deja de mirarme

por el espejo de su alma

con la mente me llama

en los sueños me encuentra

esa luna llena 

triste 

disfrazada de sonrisas

intimate friends

"Like two golden birds perched on the selfsame tree, intimate friends, the ego and the Self dwell in the same body. The former eats the sweet and sour fruits of the tree of life, while the latter looks on in detachment."

- The Mundaka Upanishad

snapshots from the sunrise today

salt water

"The cure for anything is salt water: sweat, tears or the sea." - Isak Dinesen

morning sweat

afternoon tears

evening sea

a very full day ended with an almost full moon...

a gift of authentic friendship

a mother's healing blessing

a taco party

a sweet moment between pure hearts

a pair of planets 

a gift from the sea

truth or dare? I took the dare and succeeded in 23 seconds

in a long, black dress

barefoot in the sand

amazing grace

I woke up to meet the sunrise...and without realizing, began humming the tune of this song:

1. "Amazing grace! How sweet the sound
   That saved a wretch like me!
   I once was lost, but now am found;
   Was blind, but now I see.
2. ’Twas grace that taught my heart to fear,
   And grace my fears relieved;
   How precious did that grace appear
   The hour I first believed.
3. Through many dangers, toils and snares,
   I have already come;
   ’Tis grace hath brought me safe thus far,
   And grace will lead me home.
4. The Lord has promised good to me,
   His Word my hope secures;
   He will my Shield and Portion be,
   As long as life endures.
5. Yea, when this flesh and heart shall fail,
   And mortal life shall cease,
   I shall possess, within the veil,
   A life of joy and peace.
6. The earth shall soon dissolve like snow,
   The sun forbear to shine;
   But God, who called me here below,
   Will be forever mine.
7. When we’ve been there ten thousand years,
   Bright shining as the sun,
   We’ve no less days to sing God’s praise
   Than when we’d first begun."
8. - John Newton (1725-1807)
9. 
   

the 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

snapshot taken this afternoon

spiritual or sexual?

My beloved RUMI...

"They try to say what you are, spiritual or sexual? 

They wonder about Solomon and all his wives.

In the body of the world, they say, there is a soul and you are that.

But we have ways within each other that will never be said by anyone."

- RUMI

but we have ways within each other that will never be said by anyone...

spiritual or sexual?

"Let the beauty we love be what we do. There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground." - RUMI

my secret vice

- my shoulder -

"Solitude, says the moon shell.  Every person, especially every woman, should be alone sometime during the year, some part of each week, and each day.  How revolutionary that sounds and how impossible of attainment...As far as the search for solitude is concerned, we live in a negative atmosphere as invisible, as all-pervasive, and as enervating as high humidity on an August afternoon.  The world today does not understand, in either man or woman, the need to be alone.

How inexplicable it seems.  Anything else will be accepted as a better excuse.  If one sets aside time for a business appointment, a trip to the hairdresser, a social engagement, or a shopping expedition, that time is accepted as inviolable.  But if one says:  I cannot come because that is my hour to be alone, one is considered rude, egotistical or strange.  What a commentary on our civilization, when being alone is considered suspect; when one has to apologize for it, make excuses, hide the fact that one practices it - like a secret vice!

Actually these are among the most important times in one's life - when one is alone.

Certain springs are tapped only when we are alone.  The artist knows she must be alone to create; the writer, to work out her thoughts; the musician, to compose; the saint, to pray.  But women need solitude in order to find again the true essence of themselves: that firm strand which will be the indispensable center of a whole web of human relationships.  She must find that inner stillness which Charles Morgan describes as "the stilling of the soul within the activities of the mind and body so that it might be still as the axis of a revolving wheel is still."

This beautiful image is to my mind the one that women could hold before their eyes.  This is an end toward which we could strive - to be the still axis within the revolving wheel of relationships, obligations, and activities.  Solitude alone is not the answer to this; it is only a step toward it, a mechanical aid, like the "room of one's own" demanded for women, before they could make their place in the world.  The problem is not entirely in finding the room of one's own, the time alone, difficult and necessary as this is.  The problem is more how to still the soul in the midst of its activities.  In fact, the problem is how to feed the soul."
- Anne Morrow Lindbergh

so, how will you feed your soul today?

she looked for answers in the stars

La princesa Maya buscaba la respuesta en las estrellas. Una noche de luna, ella por fin sabia lo que tenia que hacer. Comenzó a subir la pirámide hasta llegar a la luz...

excerpt from a short story which began in a dream

sky spirits

"If you believe in God, please look at the sky," he whispered.

The sudden, heavy rains had stopped and the golden summer sun was setting.

We went out for an evening stroll to receive celestial blessings. I began to see angels and benevolent beings dancing in the clouds.

"What is deeper than fear?" he asked.

Abandonment is what came up for me.

"Under fear there might be sadness or happiness," our wise 6-year-old answered. 

Something shifted tonight. 

The sudden, heavy rains had stopped and the summer golden sun was setting.

I forgave someone who had hurt me through her grief and judgement.

I freed myself.

I saw angels and benevolent beings dancing in the clouds.

I felt the sky spirits a shaman told me about many moons ago...

listen

"You are so busy reacting to what happens or does not happen in your life that you do not have time to savor your experience. You don't feel your joy or your pain, your anger or your grief. This is unfortunate.

You are wasting so much time looking for answers to your problems outside of yourself. If you just took the time to be with yourself, the answers would arise spontaneously.

Learn to be present with your experience. I'm not saying "try to figure it out." "Being with" is not an analytical activity. Indeed, recognize that you cannot figure your experience out. You can either be with it, or you can intellectualize it, which of course is an escape.

Every moment you are receiving helpful suggestions which can aid you in steering the ship of your life back on course. But you cannot hear these suggestions if you don't take the time "to be" and "to listen." Ironically, it is precisely at those times when you are most frantic trying to figure out and "fix" your problems that you most need to be quiet and listen. You may not realize that at first. But you can't help but notice that the more you try to figure things out the more confused they get.

Sooner or later yo will give up trying to "make your life work" the way you think it should. And then perhaps you will wonder "why am I going through this transition time? Is there something in my focus that needs to change?" And you will learn to listen for the answer.

Usually, when you are on a collision course, the answer that you receive is something like: "slow down, look around. Maybe you are not really going where you think you're going."

That might not seem like such a great answer, but it is sufficient to help you take the next step. Slowing down and looking around is the beginning of correction.

As long as things are flowing smoothly in your life, you need not seek correction. But when the waters get turbulent, you would do well to pause and consider your course.

Just this much timely introspection would make a profound difference in your life. There are times when external reality simply closes down around you and the only appropriate place to go is within.

I am not asking you to meditate for tow hours every day. Nor am I saying that regular meditation isn't helpful. I'm just saying that there are times in your life when you need to be quiet and listen. If you learn to honor those times, you will save yourself a lot of grief.

The more you learn to listen within, the more you will begin to "be with" your experience as it happens. You will develop a partnership with your life, a willingness to participate, to feel and experience what comes along.

When you refuse to take time to be with your experience, it seems as if you are a victim of what happens in your life. That is a great self-deception. You have related to your experience as something you must conquer and control. And when your experience refuses to conform to your expectations, you feel that you are being unjustly punished. That is not what is happening. Instead, you are merely experiencing the negative effects of your need to control.

You are not open to your experience. You are not in constant relationship to it. You are not in dialogue with it. It is no wonder that you have a love hate relationship with it. You love it when it goes your way and hate it when it does not. Yours is a black and white experience. Life is either totally blessing you or totally punishing you.

The truth is that life is neither blessing you or punishing you. It is working with you to help you awaken to the truth of who you are. Life is your teacher. It is giving you constant feedback and correction, but you do not choose to listen.

Choosing to listen means surrendering to your partnership with life. It means accepting the dance of thought, action and correction. It means experiencing all of this as a necessary but not unsavory part of the learning process."

- Paul Ferrini

father's day

- my father and my son -

"Close your eyes, have no fear, the monster is gone, 

he is on the run and your Daddy is here...

Before you go to sleep, 

say a little prayer, 

every day in every way, 

it's getting better and better...

Before you cross the street, 

take my hand. 

Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans.

Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful boy..."

- John Lennon

boys become men who become fathers...

on this Father's Day, 

let us take a moment and 

acknowledge the beautiful boy within every father...

on the eve of summer solstice

"Here comes the sun, here comes the sun and I say it's all right.  

Little darling, it's been a long cold lonely winter.  

Little darling, it feels like years since it's been here...

Little darling, the smiles returning to the faces.  

Little darling, it seems like years since it's been here.  

Here comes the sun, here comes the sun and I say it's all right. 

Sun, sun, sun, here it comes.

Sun, sun, sun, here it comes...

Little darling, I feel that ice is slowly melting.

Little darling, it seems like years since it's been clear.

Here comes the sun, here comes the sun and I say it's all right..."

- The Beatles

how will you celebrate and manifest light?

shall we sing?  shall we dance?  

shall we wake up with the sunrise and give thanks for another day?

detail from mixed media on canvas

unconditional love

"You are loved and cherished.

You have nothing to fear.

There is nothing you can do wrong.

If I had to boil this entire message down to once sentence, it would run this way:

You are loved.

And if I had to boil it down further, to just one word, it would (of course) be, simply:

Love.

Love is, without a doubt, the basis of everything. Not some abstract, hard-to-fathom kind of love but the day-to-day kind that everyone knows - the kind of love we feel when we look at our spouse and our children, or even our animals. In its purest and most powerful forms, this love is not jealous or selfish, but unconditional..."

- Eben Alexander 

"Proof of Heaven: A Neurosurgeon's Journey into the Afterlife"

did I ask too much?

"Is it getting better? Or do you feel the same? Will it make it easier on you now? You got someone to blame.

You say: one love, only life, when it's one need in the night...

Did I disappoint you? Or leave a bad taste in your mouth? 

You act like you've never had love and now you want me to go without.

Well, it's too late tonight to drag the past out into the light. We're one, but we're not the same...

Have you come here for forgiveness?

Have you come to raise the dead? 

...Did I ask too much? More than a lot?

You gave me nothing. 

Now it's all I got.

We're one, but we're not the same. 

Well, we hurt each other and then we do it again. 

You say love is a temple, love the higher law. You ask me to enter, but then you make me crawl. 

And I can't be holding on to what you got, when all you got is hurt.

One love.

One blood.

One life.

You got to do what you should.

One life, with each other.

Sisters, brothers, one life.

But we're not the same,

we get to carry each other..."

- U2

the fool

A strange day, stranger than most perhaps. I woke up before sunrise. I prayed. I meditated. I stretched. I breathed. 

She saw him from a distance. She saw him for a moment and sensed the blue melancholy of his soul in anguish, tormented.

A strange day, stranger than most perhaps.

She received a message from him. Impersonal. Brief. Cold. Sterile. Dry. Mechanical. Alien. Bland. Forced. She understood it was not actually from him...

A strange day, stranger than most perhaps. I asked for insight:

"The Fool. Orpheus emerges unsuccessful and howling from the Underworld. A new journey of immense significance and success is about to begin, though he does not know this yet. Orpheus' trip to and from the Underworld - and beyond - is the Fool's journey. Life itself is the Fool's journey as we, like Orpheus, choose and lose, risk and gain, guess and fail, try and succeed. We take risks so we can truly live. Orpheus demonstrates living with a genuine love and intensity for life - regardless of the result.

Idealism. Wisdom and absurdity. Bravery and folly. Mania and caution. Futility and reward. Paradox."

- J.D. Hildegard Hinkel

living with a genuine love and intensity for life regardless of the result...yes...

SNAPSHOT - a corner of my desk 

procuro alejarme

"Procuro olvidarte,

siguiendo la ruta,

de un pájaro herido.

Procuro alejarme,

de aquellos lugares,

donde nos quisimos.

Me enrredo en amores,

sin ganas ni fuerzas,

por ver si te olvido.

Y llega la noche,

y de nuevo comprendo,

que te necesito.

Procuro olvidarte,

haciendo en el día,

mil cosas distintas...

Lo que haría,

por qué estuvieras tu,

por que siguieras tu conmigo.

Lo que haría,

por no sentirme así,

por no vivir así,

perdido..."

-Hernaldo Zúñiga 

remembering a moment in slow motion...

my hair is being pulled by the stars again

"I'm awaiting a lover. I have to be rent and pulled apart and live according to the demons and the imagination in me. I'm restless. Things are calling me away. My hair is being pulled by the stars again."

- Anais Nin

a playful moment captured by my Latin Lover...my impromptu pillow is a mixed media on canvas...

parasite disguised as flower

"Despite the meager soil, the world's largest flower has found a way to survive. The Rafflesia is no ordinary flower...it has neither roots, leaves, nor stems, but instead lives as a parasite inserting strings of tissue into a vine, absorbing all the nutrients it needs from it's host...once they bloom their leathery petals unfurl for just a few days. Locally it's known as the Corpse Flower, not only because of its peculiar resemblance to a putrefying piece of meat, but because it also gives off the stench of rotting flesh. This smell, wafting through the still air, attracts carrion flies, which act as polinators. After just four days of flowering, the huge petals wither and die." 

- Wildest Indochina: Malaysia

excerpt from a documentary my son was watching...

the description of this so-called "flower" has me contemplate relationships between a host and a hungry parasite...

prepared to pick up the pieces

- mixed media on paper -

"Sometimes being a friend means mastering the art of timing. There is a time for silence. A time to let go and allow people to hurl themselves into their own destiny. A time to prepare to pick up the pieces when it's all over." - Octavia Butler

friendship is truly an art...

I am learning to bite my tongue, despite my intuition...

despite my knowing...

silence...

patience...

prayers of protection...

forgiveness...

above all, love and compassion...

I am prepared to pick up the pieces when it's all over...