so much busy... look carefully…

Gatha on Impermanence

The day is now ended.
Our lives are shorter.
Now we look carefully.
What have we done?

…with all of our heart,
let us be diligent,
engaging in the practice.
Let us live deeply,
free from afflictions,
aware of impermanence
so that life does not
drift away without meaning.

Plum Village Chanting and Recitation Book

First of all I want to thank all my dear readers and blogging friends who have been voting on me for the May “Look of the Month” on Portuguese blog mini-saia.
However, if you didn’t it yet go here and VOTE.
Thank you all.

Secondly I want to apologize to my dear blogging friends for being soooooo behind on your blogs.
This week has been very busy on my job, with a two days seminar, meetings overtime…
I will try to catch you all very soon.

I also have a lot of “homework” to do with memes, tags and awards to pass on. I promise I’ll do it as soon as I can…

Namasté

TO – 05/16 - hands in the soil… evoking the presence… with brown and blue...

Margaret Atwood said:

“In the spring, at the end of the day, you should smell like dirt.”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Let us be at peace with our bodies and our minds.
Let us return to ourselves and become wholly ourselves.

Let us be aware of the source of being,
common to us all and to all living things.

Evoking the presence of the Great Compassion,
let us fill our hearts with our own compassion—
towards ourselves and towards all living beings.

Let us pray that we ourselves cease to be
the cause of suffering to each other.

With humility, with awareness of the existence of life,
and of the suffering that are going on around us,
let us practice the establishment of peace in our hearts and on earth.

~ ~ Thich Nhat Hanh

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

brown sandals - Zara (S/S 2008)
blue fishnets - Calzedonia
brown skirt with sequins and blue borders - from my boxes
Yale blue ruffled neck blouse – C&A Clockhouse (detail)
beige blazer - Acetato (S/S 2009)
bronze belt -
brown fringed bag - Friday's Project (S/S 2009)
wood bangles - gift from Goddaughter
amber cocktail ring - gift from Hubby
golden with brown "stones" necklace - mainland store
sunglasses - mainland store
lipstick - L'Oreal
perfume - Amor Amor from Cacharel

TO - 02/20 - it may cause a few looks of shock, but I tell you this cure will surely rock...

When you think stress is getting the best of you,
shout out an obscenity or two.
Then turn and chuckle at what you've done, and stare
back at everyone!
Make yourself look like a fool, in this game there
really is no standard rule.
Just let the pressure blow out, it happens when you
let the words fly about.
The silliness that you will feel, makes you get a
real thrill.
And makes everything ease inside, when you release
the stress seems to subside.
It may cause a few looks of shock, but I tell
you this cure will surely rock!
Holding too much deep inside, will make you angry
and dissatisfied!
And every time you think you can take no more, just
take your stance out on the floor.
Hold your head high and blow it all out, rant and
rave, scream and shout!
Then stop and look around at all the dropped jaws
that can be found.
Following up with the best laugh you've ever had,
when its over I'm sure you will be glad!

~ ~Makala Shay

black oxford shoes - from mainland through a local store
black wide-legs pants - C&A Clockhouse
gray belt - Stradivarius
blue turtleneck - local store
black scarf - United Colours of Benetton
mustard cardigan - Vero Moda
black trench - Zara
necklace - gift from Hubby (Details)
gray handbag - Mango
university degree ring - gift from Hubby
lipstick - Esté Lauder
perfume - Noa from Cacharel

TO - 02/03 - I can’t stand the rain against my window…

Standing by myself, I stay still listening carefully to the wind and seeing the silver drops of rain out of the window.

Since I couldn’t take any pictures outside, I lift a bit of the vein of my working space at the office.

It’s a hell of weather. Cold (I know, I know, it’s not snowing, so I shouldn’t complain…), rain, and most of all wind, lots of wind.
Wind is one of the Island characteristics. It gets pretty windy out here on a regular basis during the winter.

DANCE WITH WIND

wind is the fate we are facing
wind is the life we are touching every second
wind is the love we don't understand but feel
wind is the bridge we cannot see but feel
wind is wind is wind is wind is wind
wind is the rope we to ourselves not to be free
wind is...............................................................
wind is.............................................................. wind is.........................................
Driving into human imagination unknowingly
wind doesn't know anying but rotation of nature with chaotic truths
no DNA-affected fingerprints

~~ Nyein Way

black ankle boots - local store
black short carrot-top pants - from my boxes
black belt - Mango
blue turtleneck - local store
black scarf - United Colours of Benetton
tweed coat (from a suit) – London buy
brooch - gift from Hubby
necklace - gift from Hubby (Details)
cocktail ring - gift from Hubby
bracelet - gift from Hubby (Tie Rack)
lipstick - Esté Lauder
perfume - Noa from Cacharel

TO - 12/12 - give me a message and colour my world…

This poem, that I don’t know the author, was read to me today. It touched me so much and I felt it was like a message from the Universe, that I thought to share it with you (do you know we are entering a Cosmic Age of Sharing?).

During the most part of my life I wanted to be exactly as this poem says one can’t be. I try to be perfect in everything I do, I try to help everyone, I try to do many things at the same time.
And now I see that the essential is accepting our limitations and changing ourselves into “a most vital mortal”.

You can't be all things to all people.
You can't do all things at once.
You can't do all things equally well.
You can't do all things better than everyone else.
Your humanity is showing just like everyone else's.
So, You have to find out who you are, and be that.
You have to decide what comes first, and do that.
You have to discover your strengths, and use them.
You have to learn not to compete with others, because no one else is in the contest of "being you".
Then, You will have learned to accept your own uniqueness.
You will have learned to set priorities and make decisions.
You will have learned to live with your limitations.
You will have learned to give yourself the respect that is due.
And you'll be a most vital mortal.
Believe, That you are a wonderful, unique person.
That you are a once-in all history event.
That it's more than a right, it's your duty, to be who you are.
That life is not a problem to solve, but a gift to cherish.
And you'll be able to stay one up on what used to get you down.

~ ~ author unknown

black oxford shoes - from mainland through a local store
forest green tights - Calzedonia
mustard cardigan - Vero Moda
red belt -Tally Weijl
plaid skirt dress - handmade by mother several years ago
blue turtleneck - local store
black trench - Zara
necklace - gift from Hubby (Bijou Brigitte)
lipstick - L'Oreal
perfume - Noa from Cacharel

islands of haze

Outside the fog daces in the air and the wet ground begins to smell like Fall.
And the soul of the islander starts to feel nostalgic.
In our lives, in the film produced by each of us, is a song, lyrics that are not ours, but it is as if, as we know how to sing ... because we know to use it! In peace on the islands of haze lies an unknown roadmap designed in the tone of a deaf voice and in the agility with which the ropes move stretched by the forgotten promise... the "Feature Film" of our lives!

Islands of Haze
(lyrics translation)

I still feel my feet on the square
Where my grandparents danced the "Pezinho"*
The beautiful "Aurora"* and the "Sapateia"*
As in my veins run black basalt
And in memory volcanoes and earthquakes

That’s why I am from the islands of haze
Where the seagulls go kiss the earth

If in my eyes I bring the rock of the waves
The look is the sweetness of lagoons
As I bring the tenderness of hydrangeas
In the heart the burning of the volcanoes

That’s why I am from the islands of haze
Where the seagulls go kiss the earth

As in my veins run black basalt
In the heart the burning of the volcanoes
The immense sea fills my soul
And I have green, so much green to indicate me hope.

The music and lirycs of this song are from Manuel Medeiros Ferreira

This is a free translation by me

*Azorean Folklore Song

Happy Birthday H

You're such a good example
Of what a brother-in-law should be
We always get along so well
Even when we disagree

You have a good heart
And you're honest and true
You're the best brother-in-law
And I really love you

Happy Birthday with lots of hugs & kisses

Happy Birthday Sis

A sister is someone who loves you from the heart,
No matter how much you argue you cannot be drawn apart.
She is a joy that cannot be taken away,
Once she enters your life, she is there to stay.

A friend who helps you through difficult times,
Her comforting words are worth much more than dimes.
A partner who fills your life with laughs and smile,
These memories last for miles and miles.

When she is by your side, the world is filled with life,
When she is not around, your days are full of strife.
A sister is a blessing, who fills your heart with love,
She flies with you in life with the beauty of a dove.

A companion to whom you can express your feelings,
She doesn’t let you get bored at family dealings.
Whether you are having your ups or downs,
She always helps you with a smile and never frowns.

With a sister you cannot have a grudge,
She is as sweet as chocolate and as smooth as fudge.
Having a sister is not just a trend,
It is knowing you can always turn to her, your best friend.

The Importance Of A Sister by Shiv Sharma from Family Friend Poems

Today is your birthday... and I hope it is a magical one for you ...
hope all your wishes and dreams come true...

Happy Birthday with lots of hugs & kisses
More than Sisters… Friends Forever.

Also from F

a friend…

Today I’m sharing with you this Vinicius de Moraes’ poem which I think more than talking about the need of a friend show us how a friend must be.

Looking For a Friend

You don't have to be a man, it's enough to be human,
it's enough to have sentiment, it's enough
to have heart. You have to know how to speak
or be quiet, more than anything you have to know
how to listen. You have to like poetry, dawn, a bird,
the sun, the moon, the song of the winds and the music
of the breeze. You must have love, a great
love for somebody, or feel a void of not having that
love. You must love your neighbor and respect the
pain the passer-by carries with him. You must keep
a secret without sacrificing.

You don't have to be first-hand or even second-
hand. You may already have been deceitful, for all
friends are deceitful. You don't have to be pure, nor
totally impure, but you shouldn't be vulgar. You
should have an ideal and fear of losing it and, in
case you are not like that, you should feel a great
vacuum which that leaves. You must have human
resonances, your principal objective should be that
of a friend. You should feel pity for sad persons and
comprehend the immense emptiness of the lonely.
You should like children and lament those who
could not be born.

Look for a friend to like the same tastes, who is
moved when called a friend. Who knows how to
converse about simple things, the dew, the great
rains, and the recollections of childhood. You need
a friend so as not to go mad, to talk about what
transpired, beautiful and sad things during the day,
of the yearnings and realizations, the dreams and
reality. You should like deserted streets, puddles of
water and wet roads, the edge of the street, the
countryside after the rain, to lie down in the grass.

One needs a friend who says it's good to live, not
because life is beautiful but because he has a
friend. One needs a friend to stop crying. In order
not to live leaning on the past in search of lost
memories. Who slaps us on the shoulder smiling or
crying, but who calls us friend in order to have the
consciousness of what we are still living.

~~Vinicius de Moraes
(Brazilian songwriter and poet)

dialectics

It is clear that life is good
And happiness, the only indescribable emotion
It is clear that I find you beautiful
In you I praise the love of simple things
It is clear that I love you
And I have everything to be happy

But it happens that I am sad

Vinicius de Moraes

Today's mood

Stone Tears

My emotions pick up power and speed
Then break and smash and explode at my heart.
The great surges of my feelings impede
All that's consciously right. I start to cry.
Every tear sends waves of unseen feelings
Through the hidden surface of our lives.
They roll and fall until all love is gone,
All life is lived, and each feeling explored.

- by Craig Kendall

"Lachrymose" by Papaya

4x5" (10x12cm)

Oil on Masonite

surrealism

Lying Down

To the right, the sky, to the left, the sea.
And before your eyes, the grass and its flowers.
A cloud, the road, follows its vertical way
Parallel to the plumb line of the horizon,
Parallel to the rider.
The horse races towards its imminent fall
And the other climbs interminably.
How simple and strange everything is.
Lying on my left side
I take no interest in the landscape
And I think only of things that are very vague,
Very vague and very pleasant,
Like the tired look you walk around with
Through this beautiful summer afternoon
To the right, to the left,
Here, there,
In the delirium of uselessness.

Robert Desnos (1900-1945)

The Nostalgia of the Poet - 1914
Giorgio De Chirico
oil and charcoal on canvas

Today's Outfit - 02/26

my mind is...

my mind is
a big hunk of irrevocable nothing which touch and taste and smell
and hearing and sight keep hitting and chipping with sharp fatal
tools
in an agony of sensual chisels i perform squirms of chrome and ex
-ecute strides of cobalt
nevertheless i
feel that i cleverly am being altered that i slightly am becoming
something a little different, in fact
myself
Hereupon helpless i utter lilac shrieks and scarlet bellowings.

by E. E. Cummings

black to gray shoes - local store
grape tights - Calzedonia
pied-de-poule skirt - don't remember
green cardigan - don't remember
purple turtleneck - Zara
black thin belt - from a Mango's shirt
necklace - local store

Seeker Of Truth

seeker of truth

follow no path

all paths lead where

truth is here

by E. E. Cummings

Today's Outfit - 02/21

Allow

Allow
to speak, those who wish, my dear
allow
allow the heart to speak as well
for it is quite right when it complains
so people allow, allow, allow, allow
no-one lives more than once
allow
say yes in order not to say maybe
allow
passion also exists
allow
don't allow me to be sad

Vinicius de Moraes

(Brazilian songwriter and poet)

black boots - local store

gray tights - local store

gray pencil skirt - don't remember

gray cardigan - Vero Moda

mustard turtleneck - Vero Moda

mustard thin belt - local store

black necklace - hubby's gift

If Once You Have Slept On An Island

If once you have slept on an island

You'll never be quite the same;

You may look as you looked the day before

And go by the same old name,

You may bustle about in street and shop

You may sit at home and sew,

But you'll see blue water and wheeling gulls

Wherever your feet may go.

You may chat with the neighbours of this and that

And close to your fire keep,

But you'll hear ship whistle and lighthouse bell

And tides beat through your sleep.

Oh! you won't know why and you can't say how

Such a change upon you came,

But once you have slept on an island,

You'll never be quite the same.

~~ Rachel Field ~~

black basalt and the blue of the sea

Islands are "places from which people leave, homelands and yet springboards to 'the big wide world', João de Melo has once said.
Islanders are poets in the sense that they are continually bound to the task of sustaining the production that is their island, while also continually fabricating bridgeheads across this island.
It’s amusing to think of islands as lakes “turned inside out." What does it mean to the poet then, to be an island? Or to live on one? Or to go to one? Or to leave one? Or to return to one? And especially to have been turned inside out by one?
In the confining boundaries of an island, a self cannot escape easily nor discard the obligation to confront, recognize, and name itself.
The islander either searches for the island of his desire and then stands on it; or simply finds himself trapped on one, and now has to steal a reason for living from life itself.
Are we indelibly marked by black basalt and the blue of the sea that both frees and constringe?
Is the answer in the contemplation of the blue foam… at a beach where someone contemplates the horizon in search of answers… may be set by the desire to leave with the certainty of the return…

The Winter of Listening

No one but me by the fire, my hands burning red in the palms while the night wind carries everything away outside.
All this petty worry while the great cloak of the sky grows dark and intenseround every living thing.
What is precious inside us does not care to be known by the mind in ways that diminish its presence.
What we strive for in perfection is not what turns us into the lit angel we desire,what disturbs and then nourishes has everything we need.
What we hate in ourselves is what we cannot know in ourselves but what is true to the pattern does not need to be explained.
Inside everyone is a great shout of joy waiting to be born.
Even with summer so far off I feel it grown in me now and ready to arrive in the world.
All those years listening to those who had nothing to say.
All those years forgetting how everything has it own voice to make itself heard.
All those years forgetting how easily you can belong to everything simply by listening.
And the slow difficulty of remembering how everything is born from an opposite and miraculous otherness.
So let this winter of listening be enough for the new life I must call my own. Every sound has a home from which it has come to us and door through which it is going again out into the world to make another home.
We speak only with the voices of those we can hear ourselves and the body has a voice only for that portion of the body of the world it has learned to perceive.
It becomes a world itself by listening hard for the way it belongs.
There it can learn how it must be and what it must do.
And here in the tumult of the night I hear the walnut above the child’s swing swaying its dark limbs in the wind and the rain now come to beat against my window and somewhere in this cold night of wind and stars the first whispered opening of those hidden and invisible springs that uncoil in the still summer air each yet to be imagined rose.

~ David Whyte ~

(The House of Belonging)

Angels...

Urban Angels

A closeup of an urban sculpture showing the small welded metal panels and lumpy seams that give it its feel.

Do you believe in angels?

I do!

Now I'm not speaking about those supernatural creatures who have the ability to be the 'in-between' beings, able to communicate with both humans and the very subtle energies of creation.
I’m speaking about those angels who are just people you have in your life or you just met at some point... People who touch your heart by something they say or do... It can be a good friend, somebody you met only a few times or even a person that you don't know... It's true that most of the time you notice it when you're down... And then, without you saying anything at all, they send you a message when you needed it the most or they give you something or they help you in a way you didn't thought possible... And your burden gets lighter and your smile comes back...

And I'm lucky enough to have some angels in my life...

Maybe more than I really deserve...

Dedicated to an angel in my life – My husband

Everybody needs a little help now and again. Sometimes, things just get so rough we find ourselves out of work, in debt, and hopeless. Find your finnancial angel, and hop online to check out some care-free payday loans. Get the assistance you need today!

Fernando Pessoa

Did you hear about Fernando Pessoa?

He was a Portuguese poet that has published his works under three different names; moreover, behind the three names seemed to hide three totally different personalities: Alberto Caeiro was an apparently simple, symbolist poet, Ricardo Reis was a follower of the classical ancient style while Alvaro de Campos was a pure modernist.

The three men were all brilliant. Pessoa handled his "multiple" personality with an infinite awareness. He needed Caeiro, de Campos and Reis for solving out all his creative moves that happened to be definite alike and valuable alike.

I leave you with one of his poems.

Happiness requires bravery

"I might have flaws, live anxiously and sometimes be irritated but, I do not forget that my life if the World’s biggest company, and I can avoid it to bankrupt.
To be happy is to recognize that it is worth living, besides all challenges, incomprehension’s or crisis. To be happy is not to let ourselves beat by the problems, becoming an author of our own history.
To be happy is to cross deserts outrageously, but to still be able to find your own oasis in the deepest of your soul.
It is thanking God each morning for the miracle of life. To be happy is not to be afraid of your own feelings. To be happy is to speak about your personality. To be happy is to have the guts to hear a “NO”. Is to have the security hearing a critique, even that it is unfair.
And if I have rocks on my way, I shall keep them all.
Someday, I will build up my own castle…”