yes

"It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living.

I want to know what you ache for and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart’s longing.

It doesn’t interest me how old you are.

I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool

for love

for your dream

for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn’t interest me what planets are squaring your moon...

I want to know if you have touched the centre of your own sorrow

if you have been opened by life’s betrayals or have become shriveled and closed from fear of further pain.

I want to know if you can sit with pain

mine or your own

without moving to hide it

or fade it

or fix it.

I want to know if you can be with joy

mine or your own

if you can dance with wildness

and let the ecstasy fill you

to the tips of your fingers and toes

without cautioning us

to be careful

to be realistic

to remember the limitations

of being human.

It doesn’t interest me if the story you are telling me is true.

I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself.

If you can bear the accusation of betrayal

and not betray your own soul.

If you can be faithless

and therefore trustworthy.

I want to know if you can see Beauty even when it is not pretty every day.

And if you can source your own life 

from its presence.

I want to know if you can live with 

failure

yours and mine

and still stand at the edge of the lake

and shout to the silver of the full moon,

“YES!"

It doesn’t interest me

to know where you live

or how much money you have.

I want to know if you can get up after the night of grief and despair weary and bruised to the bone and do what needs to be done to feed the children.

It doesn’t interest me who you know
or how you came to be here.

I want to know if you will stand

in the centre of the fire

with me

and not shrink back.

It doesn’t interest me where or what or with whom you have studied.

I want to know what sustains you

from the inside when all else falls away.

I want to know if you can be alone 
with yourself and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments."

© Oriah Mountain Dreamer from the book "The Invitation"

a reminder to be true to myself, to my dreams, to my art...

no se atrevía

“To him she seemed so beautiful, so seductive, so different from ordinary people, that he could not understand why no one was as disturbed as he by the clicking of her heels on the paving stones, why no one else's heart was wild with the breeze stirred by the sighs of her veils, why everyone did not go mad with the movements of her braid, the flight of her hands, the gold of her laughter. He had not missed a single one of her gestures, not one of the indications of her character, but he did not dare approach her for fear of destroying the spell.” 

“Le parecía tan bella, tan seductora, tan distinta de la gente común, que no entendía por qué nadie se trastornaba como él con las castañuelas de sus tacones en los adoquines de la calle, ni se le desordenaba el corazón con el aire de los suspiros de sus volantes, ni se volvía loco de amor todo el mundo con los vientos de su trenza, el vuelo de sus manos, el oro de su risa. No había perdido un gesto suyo, ni un indicio de su carácter, pero no se atrevía a acercársele por el temor de malograr el encanto."

- Gabriel Garcia Marquez (1927-2014)

snapshot - an unintentional selfie of my shoulder...

summer solstice

decide to spend this summer in love...

write letters to the moon...

flirt with the sun...

and please remember to kiss under the summer rains...

summer solstice blessings

mixed media on paper 

my ovaries and Snoop Dog

Two years ago I dreamed I was good friends with Snoop Dogg. He wore two braids, a purple suit, sunglasses and a CASIMIRA necklace.

We spoke about our fears and my ovaries. He showed me enormous paintings he had purchased at my latest exhibit...

Analyze that: Snoop Dogg, fears, my ovaries and enormous paintings...

...and a CASIMIRA necklace...

I need to paint. A lot more...

images found online and saturated in blue hues

hijacked my world that night

"I found a picture of you,

What hijacked my world that night,

To a place in the past,

We've been cast out of ?

Now we're back in the fight,

We're back on the train,

Oh, back on the chain gang

A circumstance beyond our control,

The phone, the TV and the news of the world,

Got in the house like a pigeon from hell,

Threw sand in our eyes and descended like flies,

Put us back on the train

Oh, back on the chain gang

The powers that be

That force us to live like we do 

Bring me to my knees 

When I see what they've done to you 

But I'll die as I stand here today 

Knowing that deep in my heart 

They'll fall to ruin one day 

For making us part

I found a picture of you, oh oh oh oh 

Those were the happiest days of my life 

Like a break in the battle was your part, oh oh oh oh 

In the wretched life of a lonely heart 

Now we're back on the train 

Oh, back on the chain gang..."

- The Pretenders

disassembled

"He sweeps his arm across plates and glasses on a restaurant table so she might look up somewhere else in the city hearing this cause of noise. When he is without her. He, who has never felt alone in the miles of longitude between desert towns...He lies in his room surrounded by the pale maps. He is without her. His hunger wishes to burn down all social rules, all courtesy. Her life with others no longer interests him. He wants only her stalking beauty, her theatre of expressions. He wants the minute and secret reflection between them, the depth of field minimal, their foreignness intimate like two pages of a closed book.  He has been disassembled by her..."

- Michael Ondaatje

recent selfie 

lovers and tribes

"We die containing a richness of lovers and tribes, tastes we have swallowed, bodies we have plunged into and swum up as if rivers of wisdom, characters we have climbed into as if trees, fears we have hidden in as if caves. 

I wish for all this to be marked on by body when I am dead. I believe in such cartography - to be marked by nature, not just to label ourselves on a map like the names of rich men and women on buildings. We are communal histories, communal books. We are not owned or monogamous in our taste or experience."

- Michael Ondaatje 

detail from mixed media on canvas

father's day

- 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

Beloved Dad, I love you beyond words...

to make you feel my love

"When the rain is blowing in your face,

And the whole world is on your case,

I could offer you a warm embrace,

To make you feel my love.

When the evening shadows and the stars appear,

And there is no one there to dry your tears,

I could hold you for a million years

To make you feel my love.

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

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

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

And I'd go crawling down the avenue.

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

To make you feel my love.

The storms are raging on the rolling sea

And on the highway of regret.

The winds of change are blowing wild and free,

You ain't seen nothing like me yet.

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

Nothing that I wouldn't do.

Go to the ends of the Earth for you,

To make you feel my love..."

- Bob Dylan 

dance me

"Dance me to your beauty with a burning violin -

Dance me through the panic, 'til I'm gathered safely in -

Lift me like an olive branch and be my homeward dove -

Dance me to the end of love -

Let me see your beauty when the witnesses are gone -

Let me feel you moving like they do in Babylon -

Show me slowly what I only know the limits of -

Dance me to the end of love -

Dance me to the wedding now, dance me on and on -

Dance me very tenderly and dance me very long -

We're both of us beneath our love, we're both of us above -

Dance me to the end of love -

Dance me to the children who are asking to be born -

Dance me through the curtains that our kisses have outworn -

Raise a tent of shelter now, though every thread is torn -

Dance me to the end of love -

Dance me to your beauty with a burning violin -

Dance me through the panic, 'til I'm gathered safely in -

Touch me with your naked hand or touch me with your glove -

Dance me to the end of love..."

- Leonard Cohen

mixed media

mother courage

"I've been through it all, baby, I'm Mother Courage."

- Elizabeth Taylor (1932-2011)

mixed media on paper

un amor que te quiera despeinada

"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 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

nos vamos

- 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

everything happens simultaneously

“At times I feel as if I had lived all this before and that I have already written these very words, but I know it was not I: it was another woman, who kept her notebooks so that one day I could use them. I write, she wrote, that memory is fragile and the space of a single life is brief, passing so quickly that we never get a chance to see the relationship between events; we cannot gauge the consequences of our acts, and we believe in the fiction of past, present, and future, but it may also be true that everything happens simultaneously. ... That's why my Grandmother Clara wrote in her notebooks, in order to see things in their true dimension and to defy her own poor memory.” 

- Isabel Allende

te pienso

"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 

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

una migaja entre dos hambres

"Una esperanza un huerto un páramo

una migaja entre dos hambres

el amor es campo minado

un jubileo de la sangre

cáliz y musgo / cruz y sésamo

pobre bisagra entre voraces

el amor es un sueño abierto

un centro con pocas filiales

un todo al borde de la nada

fogata que será ceniza

el amor es una palabra

un pedacito de utopía

es todo eso y mucho menos

y mucho más / es una isla

una borrasca / un lago quieto

sintetizando yo diría

que el amor es una alcachofa

que va perdiendo sus enigmas

hasta que queda una zozobra

una esperanza un fantasmita."

- Mario Benedetti 

hasta llegar a un beso

"¡Amor, cuántos caminos hasta llegar a un beso,

qué soledad errante hasta tu compañía!
Siguen los trenes solos rodando con la lluvia.
No amanece aún la primavera.

Pero tú y yo, amor mío, estamos juntos,
juntos desde la ropa a las raíces,
juntos de otoño, de agua, de caderas,
hasta ser sólo tú, sólo yo juntos.

Pensar que costó tantas piedras que lleva el río,
la desembocadura del agua de Boroa,
pensar que separados por trenes y naciones

tú y yo teníamos que simplemente amarnos,
con todos confundidos, con hombres y mujeres,
con la tierra que implanta y educa los claveles." - Pablo Neruda

detail from 2013 mixed media on canvas in a private collection 

tengo un amor

"Yo tuve un amor atlántico
y me converti en sirena
y en mi carne morena
sentí el calor
silbando fuerte a mi alrededor
y tuve un amor lunatico
y me converti en planeta
y estuvimos dando vueltas
en un baile silencioso
las estrellas calladas
como nosotros
y ahora tengo un amor
que es un calor
que navega su aire en el viento
que conoce mis buenos momentos, mis males
y el sabor de mis puntos cardinales
yo tuve un amor antártico
y la nieve me esperaba
noche y dia fría, helada
pero a mi no me importaba
porque el hielo conservaba nuestro ardor
y ahora tengo un amor
que es un calor
que navega su aire en el viento
que conoce mis buenos momentos, mis males
y el sabor de mis puntos cardinales..." 

- Ana Torroja

mal de amores

- 2007 mixed media on paper -

"Es por culpa de una hembra 
que me estoy volviendo loco.
No puedo vivir sin ella,
pero con ella tampoco.

Y si de este mal de amores -
yo me fuera pa' la tumba,
a mi no me mandeis flores,
que como dice esta rumba:

Quise cortar la flor
mas tierna del rosal,
pensando que de amor
no me podria pinchar,
y mientras me pinchaba
me enseño una cosa
que una rosa es una rosa es una rosa...

Y cuando abri la mano
y la deje caer
rompieron a sangrar
las llagas en mi piel
y con sus petalos
me las curo mimosa
que una rosa es una rosa es una rosa...

Pero cuanto mas me cura,
al ratito mas me escuece,
porque amar es el empiece
de la palabra amargura.

Una mentira y un credo
por cada espina del tallo
que injertandose en los dedos
una rosa es un rosario..."
- J.M. Cano

amanecí muy Española...olé...
y que ponte los zapatos de tacón y taconea...

I woke up with this song in my mind...
Spanish dreams perhaps...

truth

"Oh soul,
you worry too much.

You have seen your own strength.

You have seen your own beauty.

You have seen your golden wings.

Of anything less,
why do you worry?

You are in truth
the soul, of the soul, of the soul."

- my beloved RUMI

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

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 --