in an ocean of people

"I don't know my name,

I don't play by the rules of the game,

So you say I'm just trying,

Just trying,

So I heard you are my sister's friend,

You get along quite nicely,

You ask me why I cut my hair,

And changed myself completely,

I am lost...

Trying to get found,

In an ocean of people,

Please don't ask me any -

But, I don't know my name,

I don't play by the rules of the game,

So you say I'm just trying,

Just trying,

I now know my name!

I don't play by the rules of the game,

So you say I'm not trying,

But I'm trying,

To find my way."

- Grace VanderWaal

I googled this song and lyrics after an inspiring and moving performance by two of my extraordinary nieces 

sudden bursts of laughter of the goddess

from my Latin Lover...

"Casimira, 

You have taught me to love the beauty in the spontaneous, the chaotic, the sudden bursts of laughter of the Goddess."

- Luis Javier Checa-Pallais

laughter is healing...I am grateful for my sense of humor and for my ability to laugh at anything, everything and nothing at all...

seeing smoke signals

"The world's flattery and hypocrisy is a sweet morsel: eat less of it, for it is full of fire. Its fire is hidden while its taste is manifest, but its smoke becomes visible in the end."

- my beloved Rumi

los esqueletos mienten para quedar bien con la muerte 

los esqueletos no creen en la vida

los esqueletos esconden la verdad entre sonrisas y baile

los esqueletos mienten para quedar bien con la muerte

la mosquita muerta

"They're probably watching me. Well, let them. Let them see what kind of a person I am. I'm not even going to swat that fly. I hope they are watching... they'll see. They'll see and they'll know, and they'll say, Why, she wouldn't even harm a fly."

- Psycho, 1960 Hitchcock film

I killed a fly this morning and thought of the saying:

Es una mosquita muerta.

"Mosquita Muerta: is a person who pretends to be innocent, dainty, and weak (hence a dead fly), but they are actually evil backstabbers. Essentially a Spanish version of a - snake in the grass. They are extremely manipulative and will have everyone fooled by their game except for the smart ones. They will usually try to make the ones who don't fall for their game look like bad people while they play the victim." 

- Urban Dictionary 

this year has seen the least amount of flies...and I know why...

no sé cómo ni sé con qué pretexto

"Mi táctica es -
mirarte -
aprender como sos -
quererte como sos -

mi táctica es -
hablarte -
y escucharte -
construir con palabras 
un puente indestructible 

mi táctica es 
quedarme en tu recuerdo 
no sé cómo ni sé 
con qué pretexto 
pero quedarme en vos 

mi táctica es 
ser franco 
y saber que sos franca 
y que no nos vendamos 
simulacros 
para que entre los dos 
no haya telón 
ni abismos 

mi estrategia es 
en cambio 
más profunda y más 
simple 

mi estrategia es 
que un día cualquiera 
no sé cómo ni sé 
con qué pretexto 
por fin me necesites."

- Mario Benedetti

sparkle in the midst of darkness

the week my son looks forward to all year has begun...

seven days by the sea, surrounded by family...

this year I have a blessed baby girl who is two months old...

she is the center of attention, receiving much love...

tonight the universe reminded me that I must not take anything personally...

and the stars smiled down on me, winking and inviting me to sparkle in the midst of darkness...

"Do not take anything personally. Nothing others do is because of you. What others say and do is a projection of their own reality, their own dream. When you are immune to the opinions and actions of others, you won't be the victim of needless suffering."

- Don Miguel Ruiz

gracias Tío

a recent selfie from a silly and playful series taken on a plane...the first photos of me with my TWO babies...

"Entre más hijos, más linda."

- Franklin Caldera

gracias Tío Franklin...

Motherhood as a beauty regimen?

mi padre Nicaragüense

"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..."

- John Lennon

snapshot of my beloved father holding my newborn daughter for the first time...a special, blessed day which happens to be Father's Day in Nicaragua 

if it's selfless love you're looking for, you've got the wrong goddess

Sekhmet, The Lion-Headed Goddess Of War

"He was the sort of man

who wouldn't hurt a fly. 
Many flies are now alive
while he is not. 
He was not my patron. 
He preferred full granaries, I battle. 
My roar meant slaughter. 
Yet here we are together 
in the same museum. 
That's not what I see, though, the fitful 
crowds of staring children 
learning the lesson of multi- 
cultural obliteration, sic transit 
and so on. 

I see the temple where I was born 
or built, where I held power. 
I see the desert beyond, 
where the hot conical tombs, that look 
from a distance, frankly, like dunces' hats, 
hide my jokes: the dried-out flesh 
and bones, the wooden boats 
in which the dead sail endlessly 
in no direction. 

What did you expect from gods 
with animal heads? 
Though come to think of it 
the ones made later, who were fully human 
were not such good news either. 
Favour me and give me riches, 
destroy my enemies. 
That seems to be the gist. 
Oh yes: And save me from death. 
In return we're given blood 
and bread, flowers and prayer, 
and lip service. 

Maybe there's something in all of this 
I missed. But if it's selfless 
love you're looking for, 
you've got the wrong goddess. 

I just sit where I'm put, composed 
of stone and wishful thinking: 
that the deity who kills for pleasure 
will also heal, 
that in the midst of your nightmare, 
the final one, a kind lion 
will come with bandages in her mouth 
and the soft body of a woman, 
and lick you clean of fever, 
and pick your soul up gently by the nape of the neck 
and caress you into darkness and paradise."

- Margaret Atwood

enamorada de un arbol

"I think that I shall never see

A poem lovely as a tree.

A tree whose hungry mouth is prest

Against the earth's sweet flowing breast;

A tree that looks at God all day,

And lifts her leafy arms to pray;

A tree that may in summer wear

A nest of robins in her hair;

Upon whose bosom snow has lain;

Who intimately lives with rain.

Poems are made by fools like me,

But only God can make a tree."

-Alfred Joyce Kilmer (1886 - 1918)

full moon summer solstice

"Each solstice is a domain of experience unto itself. At the Sunmer Solstice, all is green and growing, potential coming into being, the miracle of manifestation painted large on the canvas of awareness."

- Gary Zukav

a powerful full moon on the longest day of the year...

detail of mixed media on canvas, 2013

father's day

celebrating and giving thanks for all of the extraordinary men in my life...

my husband -

my father -

my brothers -

my cousins -

my uncles -

remembering my beloved grandfathers and father-in-law...

snapshot of my children

for Carlos and Isabelle

“The minute I heard my first love story I started looking for you, not knowing how blind that was. Lovers don't finally meet somewhere. They are in each other all along.” – RUMI

snapshots from one of the most wonderful weddings I have ever witnessed and celebrated 

my children face to face with Diego Rivera

Being surrounded by Diego Rivera's heart and soul awakened intense sensations in me. The walls whispered, telling me stories of Diego and Frida...

"As I rode back to Detroit, a vision of Henry Ford's industrial empire kept passing before my eyes. In my ears, I heard the wonderful symphony which came from his factories where metals were shaped into tools for men's service. It was a new music, waiting for the composer with genius enough to give it communicable form.

I thought of the millions of different men by whose combined labor and thought automobiles were produced, from the miners who dug the iron ore out of the earth to the railroad men and teamsters who brought the finished machines to the consumer, so that man, space, and time might be conquered, and ever-expanding victories be won against death...

In my previous murals, I had tried to achieve a harmony in my painting with the architecture of the building. But to attempt such a harmony in the garden of the Institute would have defeated my purposes. For the walls here were of an intricate Italian baroque style, with little windows, heads of satyrs, doorways, and sculpturesque mouldings. It was within such a frame that I was to represent the life of an age which had nothing to do with baroque refinements -- a new life which was characterized by masses, machines, and naked mechanical power. So I set to work consciously to over-power the ornamentation of the room."

- Diego Rivera

snapshots of my children at the Detroit Institute of Arts

mother to a new world

"Women must remember the sacred nature of our Goddess self, the call to glory inherent in human incarnation.

We are daughters of history and mothers to a new world.

This is not the time to throw away our power. It is time to claim it, in the name of love."
- Marianne Williamson

selfie with my beloved children, from a silly, playful series taken today while we waited on a plane 

you never say thank you and you ignore her advice

"She shows up just when you need her. She always gives you the support and counsel you need, and never judges you.

She is an amazing psychic advisor: she knows what the future holds for you, and she can tell you what to do and what not to do to avoid something bad or find the right job, or the right home, or the right partner.

She is a...healer who can help you to fix your body before you get sick, and who has the right medicine and nurturing to speed you into healing and recovery...She makes house calls at any time, and she never charges you a cent.

She's fabulous fun and a great traveling companion. She makes you want to get up and dance, and sing, and play. She loves to fly off to exotic places...

She has wonderful energy. An hour in her company gives you a boost for a whole week.

She'll mother you when you, and your beautiful inner child self, need mothering, hold you when you need holding, and give you a shove when you need to jump through a hole in the world.

She knows you better than you know yourself, in your everyday mind. When she holds up a mirror in front of you, you don't notice the blemishes. You see a being of radiant power and possibility, your ancient and shining self. And in that moment of recognition, you begin to remember and live from your soul's purpose, the sacred contract you signed before you came into your present body.

...and you never say thank you, or remember her birthday. You ignore her advice more often than not...You forget the songs you sang together, and those nights of love and beauty...If you find the moon through the smog and city lights, you do not recollect that she flew you there...

If she were a regular friend, she might dump you as a miserable ingrate. This friend is beyond the ordinary, and she has the patience of an angel - but even the patience of angels is not endless. So if you won't take her advice, she might make less of an effort to warn you...Then the magic begins to flicker in your world, and you are more alone than you ever need or want to be.

...dreams require action. We must take action to honor the friend who visits and advises and travels with us in our dreams, but the most important is the one we find in the mirror - when our sight is clear: the ancient and shining self. 

Taking the right action to honor dreams is practical magic of a high order. Real magic is the art of reaching into a deeper reality and bringing gifts from it into the physical world. This is what we do when we honor dreams, and the powers that speak through dreams."

- Robert Moss

ye tang che

"Turning your mind toward the dharma does not bring security or confirmation.  Turning your mind toward the dharma does not bring any ground to stand on.  In fact, when your mind turns toward the dharma, you fearlessly acknowledge impermanence and change and begin to get the knack of hopelessness.

In Tibetan there's an interesting word: ye tang che.  The ye part means "totally, completely," and the rest of it means "exhausted." Altogether, ye tang che means totally tired out.  We might say "totally fed up."  It describes an experience of complete hopelessness, of completely giving up hope.  This is an important point.  This is the beginning of the beginning.  Without giving up hope -- that there's somewhere better to be, that there's someone better to be -- we will never relax with where we are now or who we are.

To think that we can finally get it all together is unrealistic.  To seek for some lasting security is futile. To undo our very ancient and very stuck habitual patterns of mind requires that we begin to turn around some of our most basic assumptions.  Believing in a solid, separate self, continuing to seek pleasure and avoid pain, thinking that someone "out there" is to blame for our pain -- one has to get totally fed up with these ways of thinking.  One has to give up hope that this way of thinking will bring us satisfaction.  Suffering begins to dissolve when we can question the belief or the hope that there's anywhere to hide."

- Pema Chodron

I bring it all to my meditation mat: the numbness, the emptiness, the anxiety, the loss, the boredom, the grief, the gratitude, the joy, the laughter, the exhaustion...without judgement.  I sit and breathe and simply honor what is going on at the moment...

what can we do to promote world peace?

        

When Mother Teresa received the Nobel Prize, she was asked, "What can we do to promote world peace?" 

She answered, "Go home and love your family."

mixed media on paper, circa 2005 

las primeras

"Happiness is anyone and anything that is loved by you." - Charles M. Schulz

sonrisas y palabras,

las primeras a sus seis semanas 

ANGUUUUU - será palabra o simplemente sonido?

como pajarito angelical

con alma celestial 

ella se comunica conmigo telepáticamente desde que entró a mi vientre, desde que visito mis sueños 

ella se comunica con su hermano desde antes, mucho antes 

atravez de estrellas

por la luna y más allá

Melba Margarita que linda que estas...

excerpt from my journal; snapshot of my truest happiness - my children 

the truth my sweetheart

"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

snapshot - a corner of my world