A love story between sand and snow.  Written, directed, animated, edited, and sound by Kirsten Lepore.

Bottle from Kirsten Lepore on Vimeo.

Just as there is a space between the clouds in the sky, there is a space between your thoughts. This space is the doorway to the divine... Remain in that gap. It will get wider. You are so vast. The whole Universe is within you.

"There is a story of a woman running away from tigers. She runs and runs and the tigers are getting closer and closer. When she comes to the edge of a cliff, she sees some vines there, so she climbs down and holds on to the vines. Looking down, she sees that there are tigers below her as well. She then notices that a mouse is gnawing away at the vine to which she is clinging. She also sees a beautiful little bunch of strawberries close to her, growing out of a clump of grass. She looks up and she looks down. She looks at the mouse. Then she just takes a strawberry, puts it in her mouth, and enjoys it thoroughly. Tigers above, tigers below. This is actually the predicament that we are always in, in terms of our birth and death. Each moment is just what it is. It might be the only moment of our life; it might be the only strawberry we’ll ever eat. We could get depressed about it, or we could finally appreciate it and delight in the preciousness of every single moment of our life."
— Pema Chödrön (The Wisdom of No Escape and the Path of Loving Kindness)

You Can't Have It All
by Barbara Ras

But you can have the fig tree and its fat leaves like clown hands
gloved with green. You can have the touch of a single eleven-year-old finger
on your cheek, waking you at one a.m. to say the hamster is back.
You can have the purr of the cat and the soulful look
of the black dog, the look that says, If I could I would bite
every sorrow until it fled, and when it is August,
you can have it August and abundantly so. You can have love,
though often it will be mysterious, like the white foam
that bubbles up at the top of the bean pot over the red kidneys
until you realize foam's twin is blood.
You can have the skin at the center between a man's legs,
so solid, so doll-like. You can have the life of the mind,
glowing occasionally in priestly vestments, never admitting pettiness,
never stooping to bribe the sullen guard who'll tell you
all roads narrow at the border.
You can speak a foreign language, sometimes,
and it can mean something. You can visit the marker on the grave
where your father wept openly. You can't bring back the dead,
but you can have the words forgive and forget hold hands
as if they meant to spend a lifetime together. And you can be grateful
for makeup, the way it kisses your face, half spice, half amnesia, grateful
for Mozart, his many notes racing one another towards joy, for towels
sucking up the drops on your clean skin, and for deeper thirsts,
for passion fruit, for saliva. You can have the dream,
the dream of Egypt, the horses of Egypt and you riding in the hot sand.
You can have your grandfather sitting on the side of your bed,
at least for a while, you can have clouds and letters, the leaping
of distances, and Indian food with yellow sauce like sunrise.
You can't count on grace to pick you out of a crowd
but here is your friend to teach you how to high jump,
how to throw yourself over the bar, backwards,
until you learn about love, about sweet surrender,
and here are periwinkles, buses that kneel, farms in the mind
as real as Africa. And when adulthood fails you,
you can still summon the memory of the black swan on the pond
of your childhood, the rye bread with peanut butter and bananas
your grandmother gave you while the rest of the family slept.
There is the voice you can still summon at will, like your mother's,
it will always whisper, you can't have it all,
but there is this.

Delight

Camel's Hump, December 2010

Candles at Bite Me Pizza, January 2011

Chocolate Molten Cakes made by your truly, December 2010

Christmas rose, December 2010

Bike on Church Street, January 2011

Feet in JFK, September 2010

Jones on Philo, January 2011

 JT and Sprouts, December 2010

Philo Sun, January 2011

Lake Champlain, January 2011

Top of Philo, January 2011

"A Perfect Day", by T, December 2010

Among the Trees

"Ayurveda is beyond beginning and ending. A science of eternal healing, it is compared to a vast ocean, and studying Ayurveda to swimming across. A true teacher can teach one how to swim, but the swimming is up to the student; …it is a lifelong journey."

Charaka Samhita
Sutrasthana
Chapter Thirty

Winter Trees
by William Carlos Williams

All the complicated details
of the attiring and
the disattiring are completed!
A liquid moon
moves gently among
the long branches.
Thus having prepared their buds
against a sure winter
the wise trees
stand sleeping in the cold.

Lokah samastha sukhino bhavanthu

Happy happy New Year!  I hope you rang in 2011 in the midst of good friends, laughter, love, and joy.

I had plans to write a big farewell to 2010 and a big hello to 2011, but I'm gonna leave it at this: 2010 was a year of much discovery, adventure, and realization for me....2011 shall be a year of delight, more discovery, advancing upon my path of awesomeness, and further evolution of the Self and the relationships for which I am so grateful...new and old, friends, family, etc.

2011 by Paul Octavious

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I finally arranged my visits to the Ayurveda schools!  At the end of February I will be traveling over to CA and NM to scope it out.  I am especially excited for this workshop with Dr. Lad, Feb 25-27.  Should be pretty enlightening, and I am really looking forward to getting a sense of how he teaches.  Not only am I eager to visit the schools, meet w/ the teacher, students, etc., but I am also really looking forward to exploring the two regions via foot n' bike and getting a feel for the land.

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I made my first cheesecake ever last night! With the help of T, even though he was in the midst of making pan seared scallops, rack and loin of lamb, cod, and more...

I was pleasantly surprised when I took a bite and it tasted ohhh so good.  Not too sweet, not too cheesy, just right.  And isn't it pretty?

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NYC for a few days in mid January to share some of my fave spots, visit friends, and enjoy the beauty of a city I will forever hold close to my heart.

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KB just sent this to me and I really enjoyed it.

Brene Brown studies human connection -- our ability to empathize, belong, love. In a poignant, funny talk at TEDxHouston, she shares a deep insight from her research, one that sent her on a personal quest to know herself as well as to understand humanity. A talk to share.





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“One is happy as a result of one’s own efforts, once one knows of the necessary ingredients of happiness — simple tastes, a certain degree of courage, self-denial to a point, love of work, and, above all, a clear conscience. Happiness is no vague dream, of that I now feel certain.”

— George Sand

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I have tea by my side, a new book, and finally a couple hours to indulge in the stillness...so I shall.

Love to you all and again, Happy New Year!  Have you written down your 2011 manifestations?


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