Woke up to snow this morning








Joy

At the Edge of the Ocean

...The bits of beauty I see whilst waiting for a friend at a bookstore...

Smiles

Tending to vines in the warmth of the Italian sun...

Chatting by the Italian sea...

...these things float into my mind and I cannot help but smile.



Many things going on today are making me smile, too.  Thank you, thank you!

Out of Breath Jogger from 1992

...made me giggle

Theme in Yellow
by Carl Sandburg

I spot the hills
With yellow balls in autumn.
I light the prairie cornfields
Orange and tawny gold clusters
And I am called pumpkins.
On the last of October
When dusk is fallen
Children join hands
And circle round me
Singing ghost songs
And love to the harvest moon;
I am a jack-o'-lantern
With terrible teeth
And the children know
I am fooling.

Even rock n' roll now

A bit of a weird day.  The kind of day that made me play this song:






But a weird day every now and then is ok, right? Right.

Cold, rainy, LW moved back to Aspen, I recently discovered I am allergic to peanuts (gasp!  I know...don't even want to talk about it), someone pointed out my insecurities to me this morning and I got mad and now I feel bad, I don't want to go to work...but I have to...right now!


It's all good, though.  Tomorrow I have time to cuddle up at my fave cafe and write this week's article, do my A/P homework and write a real blog post!  Yippee!

(((((BEAR HUG)))))

This must be the place...and it's a good place







Promise to write a real post soon..  Have been functioning on a few hours of sleep nearly every night.  Sunday should be a calm day, so I shall write then!  Love love love

Oh Happy Day!

This cheery print from  Keep Calm Gallery is enough to brighten any room

Paris vs New York...two cities close to my heart

Paris versus New York is a friendly visual match between those two cities, as seen by a Parisian-based-and-lover on New York : details, cliches and contradictions. Absolutely fantastic...why do plane tickets have to be so expensive?

Autumn Evening
by David Lehman

(after Holderlin)

The yellow pears hang in the lake.
Life sinks, grace reigns, sins ripen, and
in the north dies an almond tree.

A genius took me by the hand and said
come with me though the time has not yet come.

Therefore, when the gods get lonely,
a hero will emerge from the bushes
of a summer evening
bearing the first green figs of the season.

For the glory of the gods has lain asleep
too long in the dark
in darkness too long
too long in the dark.

Ants
by Ravi Shankar

One is never alone. Saltwater taffy colored
beach blanket spread on a dirt outcropping
pocked with movement. Pell-mell tunneling,

black specks the specter of beard hairs swarm,
disappear, emerge, twitch, reverse course
to forage along my shin, painting pathways

with invisible pheromones that others take
up in ceaseless streams. Ordered disarray,
wingless expansionists form a colony mind,

no sense of self outside the nest, expending
summer to prepare for winter, droning on
through midday heat. I watch, repose, alone.

The light always prevails

Found while flipping through a Mary Oliver book...

I'm reading "Lolita" (Nabokov) right now and will probably be sharing many excerpts along the way.  For tonight, this:

"There are two kinds of visual memory: one when you skillfully recreate an image in the laboratory of your mind, with your eyes open ... and one when you instantly evoke, with shut eyes, on the dark innerside of your eyelids, the objective, absolutely optical replica of a beloved face, a little ghost in natural colors."





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The full moon last night (or at least I am chalking it up to the full moon)  stirred up a lot of memories and ghosts from my past.  It was actually really interesting to watch each one float by and note the emotional reaction (or lack thereof) that each triggered.  For the first time in a while, and maybe ever, some things that had once truly perturbed me were released with little to no effort.  It was really refreshing and I continue to be so grateful for where I am right now.

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We went over part I of the Ramayana today.  So awesome.









aapadaam apahartaaram daataaram sarvasaMpadaam.h .
lokaabhiraamam shriiraamam bhuuyo bhuuyo namaamyaham.h ..





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Just a lazy Sunday night...my fave kind of Sunday night.  Going to snuggle up and continue reading.  Love to you all!

October
by Robert Frost

O hushed October morning mild,
Thy leaves have ripened to the fall;
To-morrow's wind, if it be wild,
Should waste them all.
The crows above the forest call;
To-morrow they may form and go.
O hushed October morning mild,
Begin the hours of this day slow,
Make the day seem to us less brief.
Hearts not averse to being beguiled,
Beguile us in the way you know;
Release one leaf at break of day;
At noon release another leaf;
One from our trees, one far away;
Retard the sun with gentle mist;
Enchant the land with amethyst.
Slow, slow!
For the grapes' sake, if they were all,
Whose leaves already are burnt with frost,
Whose clustered fruit must else be lost—
For the grapes' sake along the wall






<3

Sunny colors on a rainy day

Photo by Matthias Heiderich over at the Behance Network.

Improv Everywhere rocks

Check out this Improv Everywhere Mission called Black Tie Beach. Talk about being overdressed for a venue! Several hundred agents spent a day at Coney Island / Brighton Beach wearing black tie attire. They covered a mile-long stretch of beach with a diverse group of people of all ages (from babies to sixty-somethings) laying out, playing games, and swimming in the ocean, all in formal wear. Agents were instructed to find cheap tuxedos and ball gowns at thrift stores for the occasion. Watch the video below.

Kinetic Typography

Love this...Stephen Fry on....language

Perfection?

This song came on during dinner last night and I broke out in tears.  I cannot NOT weep to this song.  It is perfect.  Swan Lake is the perfect ballet, in my opinion.  The story is so f*cking beautiful, the music is breath-taking...just...ahhhhh

A sunny heart, a sunny mind

Besides the Autumn poets sing (131)
by Emily Dickinson

Besides the Autumn poets sing,
A few prosaic days
A little this side of the snow
And that side of the Haze -

A few incisive mornings -
A few Ascetic eves -
Gone - Mr Bryant's "Golden Rod" -
And Mr Thomson's "sheaves."

Still, is the bustle in the brook -
Sealed are the spicy valves -
Mesmeric fingers softly touch
The eyes of many Elves -

Perhaps a squirrel may remain -
My sentiments to share -
Grant me, Oh Lord, a sunny mind -
Thy windy will to bear!

Life Goal #18,469

Learn to dance like these guys.  And then do so spontaneously on street corners.

Words from the Wise

The art of medicine consists of amusing the patient while nature cures the disease. - Voltaire


Health and good humor are to the human body like sunshine to vegetation. - Massillon


The doctor of the future will give no medication, but will interest his patients in the care of the human frame, diet and in the cause and prevention of disease.- Thomas A Edison

Loka Samasta Sukhino Bhavantu

Dance with Me

This lovely carved wooden piece was done by Kathy Stockman, a local VT sculpture whom I had the pleasure of meeting/interviewing on Saturday.  This was the model for the "real" version, which is about twice the size and carved in alabaster.  I am so attracted to the movement and flow she managed to evoke in such dense materials.  Beautiful.


Kathy and her husband have recently renovated an old dairy barn on their property to accommodate 12 local artists.

Liking this sound




[Thanks for sharing, KB!]

True to Myself

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Just signed up for this weekend.  <3











The rain is washing away a plethora of unnecessary things.  Thanks Mother Nature!

Calling fellow Vermonters---> your new fave restaurant just opened

Church & Main is now open!  Come to Burlington for an incredible dining experience.  Started by 28 yr. old Ned Church (a dear friend of my brother's), this place is amazing.

And another bonus:  I work there!  So come in for dinner and get some extra lovin' from yours truly.

Redefining Relationships

...so can you.

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Many trusted sources have suggested that 2010 is the year of redefining relationships.  I see it all around me, in the lives of others and definitely in my own life as well.  Have you noticed this in your life?

Speaking for myself, 2010 has been a year of really paying attention to who I spend time with (people with open hearts and positive vibes, please!), embracing/honoring familial relationships, and the biggest of all:  redefining, appreciating, and enhancing my relationship with...myself.  Very big year for me, much emotional maturation, much learned...grateful for it all. <3

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Speaking of hearts...the physical heart:





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need? Quirky memo pad in the shape of a cloud. Comes with 168 easy tear sheets, in a variety of colored and patterned papers.


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Chloe kisses and apple picking make me happy!


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Articles to write, skeletal anatomy to study, and yoga class to do!  Much love to you all and have a wonderful Tuesday.


P.S. Will be on the new version of The Ayurvedic Center of Vermont's website in a month!  We did the photo shoot yesterday morning.  So fun, such awesome people.  Will share once it's up and running.

On the Street...Avenue du Président Wilson, Paris

The Sartorialist features a dude on the street I lived on while I was in Paris. Aw, memories.

If you were to get a literary tattoo, what would you get?

I ask because NPR's "On Point" with Tom Ashbrook (heart him) discussed this trend.  Kundera on the tummy?  Tempting......tempting.

Tattoos were once for sailors and wayfarers — exotic souvenirs of adventure and romance. Now, they’re mainstream. Walk into any college gym – any gym, anywhere – and you know.

But literary tattoos – now there’s the high frontier. And even it is becoming wildly populated. Rimbaud on the forearm. Kafka on the whole arm. Sylvia Plath across the chest. Kundera on the abdomen. A big back covered in Proust. Oh my.

We take the full tour today of the world of literary tattoos to see what’s there, and why.

-Tom Ashbrook

Listen to the program



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And while I'm thinking of Kundera (just started Immortality), here are some parts I underlined in The Unbearable Lightness of Being:


"The brain appears to possess a special area which we might call poetic memory and which records everything that charms or touches us, that makes our lives beautiful." p. 208

"We all need someone to look at us. We can be divided into four categories according to the kind of look we wish to live under.

The first category longs for the look of an infinite number of anonymous eyes, in other words, for the look of the public...The second category is made up of people who have a vital need to be looked at by many known eyes...Then there is the third category, the category of who need to be constantly before the eyes of the person they love...And finally there is the fourth category, the rarest, the category of people who live in the imaginary eyes of those who are not present." pp. 269-270


"For there is nothing heavier than compassion. Not even one's own pain weighs as heavy as the pain one feels with someone, for someone, a pain intensified by the imagination and prolonged by a hundred echoes." p. 31


"We can never know what to want, because, living only one life, we can neither compare it with our previous lives nor perfect it in our lives to come." p. 8


"And at some point, he realized to his great surprise that he was not particularly unhappy. Sabina's physical presence was much less important than he had suspected. What was important was the golden footprint, the magic footprint she had left on his life and no one could ever remove." p. 120

"On the surface, an intelligible lie; underneath, the unintelligible truth." p 63

"What is unique about the 'I' it hides itself exactly in what is unimaginable about a person. All we are able to imagine is what makes everyone like everyone else, what people have in common. The individual 'I' is what differs from the common stock, that is, what cannot be guessed at or calculated, what must be unveiled, uncovered, conquered." p. 199

"Tomas did not realize at the time that metaphors are dangerous. Metaphors are not to be trifled with. A single metaphor can give birth to love." p. 11

Ringing like a bell, as if I had a choice

Some people are so much sunshine to the square inch.

-Walt Whitman

[Thank you, thank you, thank you for being you.  Love.]

 

I wrote you this, I hope you got it safe

Officially Published

The Shelburne News may be one of the smallest newspapers...ever...but I have an article in there this week!  Moving onto two magazine articles this week and continuing with the papers in the area.  I like this gig.  Fun side job.

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Another busy day awaits, my friends.

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It was a new moon last night, did you write out your manifestations?

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Words that came to me in sleep:

Human resilience is that shiny piece at the bottom of a flowing river; that mountain you see in the distance and wonder if it can be conquered

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Ok, must get ready for everything.  Have a great Friday and make sure you give/get at least one hug today.

A hush swept over the land as the rain stopped and leaves bursting with color surrendered to the earth

Back from California and while I had such a fun time, I'm happy to be in the magical land of VT in Autumn.  There really is nothing like it.  The smells warm me from the inside out and I am reminded of so many simple things that bring me joy... raking leaves, making apple desserts, carving pumpkins, homemade chai tea, cozy books by the fire, etc.

Sorry for the lack of real posts lately, my friends, but life has been busy busy busy!  These jobs, plus class, plus life is keeping me going at a constant/fast/good pace.  I have so many reflections to share from CA and exciting news about the present and future.

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L.W. moves in with me tomorrow.  Very much looking forward to some quality time with my dear El Dubs.

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The day started out weird, but with a little meditation and an unexpected letter from overseas, love overcame...as always.  What a beautiful day it turned out to be.

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I am actually about to run out the door (!) but wanted to share a couple cool Ayurveda-related tid bits...



"Ayurveda is based upon a deep communion with the spirit of life itself and a profound understanding of the movement of the life-force and its different manifestations within our entire psycho-physical system. As such, it presents a helpful alternative to the technical and mechanical model of modern medicine, the limitations of which are gradually becoming evident through time. It is a truly holistic medicine whose wealth we have just begun to explore in the Western world."

-Dr. David Frawley


And a brief article by the director/founder of the California College of Ayurveda, Mark Halpern:

Ayurveda for the 21st Century


Ayurveda, which literally means "The Science of Life," is the healing science from India. It has been practiced for over 5,000 years by millions of individuals to assist the body in journeying back to optimal health. More and more people are discovering that these ancient principles are easily applicable to modern life and that they have the power to create health and contentment. Health comes when we live in harmony with our true nature as spirit. Ayurveda allows us to get a glimpse of our individual true nature and to find the best ways to live a life of balance. It provides holistic understanding and healing to people on all levels: physically, emotionally, and spiritually. Ayurveda uses a multitude of healing modalities including herbs, diet, colors, aromas, sound, lifestyle recommendations, pancha karmai, meditation, and yoga.


I continue to dig deeper and deeper into the science and am loving it more every day.  I met with a couple local practitioners yesterday (Scott and Allison of The Ayurvedic Center of Vermont) and got some really helpful insight into the school in New Mexico.  A visit to both schools to come in February.

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Ok, must get going but once I get the chance to snuggle into some pajamas in front of the fire with my laptop, a real post will be comin' your way






Namaste

Kismet?

Love me some Robert Frost

October
by Robert Frost

O hushed October morning mild,
Thy leaves have ripened to the fall;
To-morrow's wind, if it be wild,
Should waste them all.
The crows above the forest call;
To-morrow they may form and go.
O hushed October morning mild,
Begin the hours of this day slow,
Make the day seem to us less brief.
Hearts not averse to being beguiled,
Beguile us in the way you know;
Release one leaf at break of day;
At noon release another leaf;
One from our trees, one far away;
Retard the sun with gentle mist;
Enchant the land with amethyst.
Slow, slow!
For the grapes' sake, if they were all,
Whose leaves already are burnt with frost,
Whose clustered fruit must else be lost—
For the grapes' sake along the wall.

Cultivating Compassion

“Sometimes, while riding the subway I try to look at each
person and imagine what they look like to someone who is in love with
them. I think everyone has had someone look at them that way, whether it
is a lover, or a parent, or a friend, whether they know it or not. It’s
a wonderful thing, to look at someone to whom I would never be
attracted and think about what looking at him or her would feel like to
someone who is devouring every part of his or her image, who has
invisible strings that connect to every part of his or her body. I think
this is a fun way of cultivating compassion. It feels good to think
about people that way and to use a part of my mind that is traditionally
reserved for a tiny portion of people I’ll meet in my life to
appreciate the general public. I wish I could think about people like
this more often. I think it’s the opposite of what our culture teaches
us to do. “

—Dean Spade, from ‘For Lovers and Fighters

This song makes me happy, sad, and everything in between...thanks to my fave K.B. for sharing this <3