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Illustration
http://armisanmartin.blogspot.com
http://armidigital.blogspot.com
Words
http://fernandaraiti.wordpress.com
Nowhere
is there
a safer refugee
than your name.
Soft reminiscence
whispering lips
enchanted heart beat.
No, nowhere
there’s not
a safer refugee
than your subtle smile.
Soft surrender
whispering chant
echoed memories.
Oh I-Ching, ancient wise
forty-nine yarrow sticks
autumn sun, golden tallgrass
Hey! I did this drawing and I took this picture! All Credits are mine 🙂
Mirror, oh, mirror, who is the ugliest of them all?
It is you Milady, you got a running nose.
Mirror, oh, mirror, who is the ugliest of them all?
It is you Milady, your hair and teeth are gone.
Mirror, oh, mirror, for the third time I ask.
Beware, I warn.
Answer as I wish or you’ll be pulverized.
I’ll chop you like an onion,
I’ll bake you with salt and pepper, cinnamon and cardamom.
Now mirror, oh, mirror tell me, who is the ugliest of them all?
It is you Milady, for you’re decrepit and old.
A burden to society, to be hidden and left alone.
None other can be my answer, I can only speak the truth.
Just grant me one last wish, before I meet my doom:
May you introduce a variation in your question,
my answer may please you more.
Ah, hey, hum, oh… A better question?
Mirror, oh, mirror tell me, who is the prettiest of them all?
It’s you Milady for you’re wise and ancient, an experienced soul,
for you sowed the seed of life and you fostered it with love.
For you walked the earth, you suffered your pain and sang your songs,
you’re an old woman,
let us all before you,
in reverence bow.
InNaPoWriMo update:
My dream, he did not comment.
White on black, you already know his mind.
Playfully was a win.
Mirror, oh, mirror: “It is a master piece, he uttered. Maybe we’ll earn some money out of this”.
Counter: 2 to 1, winning.
An imaginary poem on your biscuit
I read to you today.
Playfully…
Surprised your heart
a smile gave birth.
Twinkling eyes, curly hair
thought for a while
looking far away.
Then your light and mine
into our eyes simply met…
“The biscuit sounds, you said
the music dwarf is there”.
Oh tiny child, oh babe
just 30 months from birth away!
Surprised my heart,
a smile gave birth.
An imaginary poem on my memory
you drew for me today.
Playfully…
A paper moon, a fading sky.
Evanescent daylight.
Stilled mind opens the gap for a flower hunt.
Accomplished the task, hidden mischief, back home we are.
Now scattered perfumes, melted beauty fills the kitchen´s heart.
Nature´s palette embellishing the table of the newborn night.
Also scissors, tape, cardboard (recycled pizza boxes, actually… pizza always inspired us).
In and out flows our breath.
Harmonious creativity, a silent path.
Suddenly the surprise.
Oh my!
A little king emerges,
precious nature’s jewels adorning his inner sky!
– I love you mom, his petal whispers fall into the fountain of my heart.
…
A new day arrives, get the camera, go outside.
Catch the best of morning light.
Apples, cheese and bread.
A royal breakfast, pure simplicity.
Three little kings sit and chit-chat.
So young, so proud.
Fulfilled, satisfied, I wear my crown.
Ripe dream, let me be a queen.
– Here son, take a picture of mine.
I extend the camera to the older child.
He takes his time, presses the shooter, shows me his art.
There´s no queen to be seen.
That´s only me, a simple smiling mom.
His focus is in my eyes.
– How I love you son, whispering petals fall into the fountain in his heart…
Now, could you let me see a picture of me wearing the crown?
Click.
– There you are, mom. 
Maternity.
Fading beauty, eternally mine.
A paper moon, a fading sky.
Evanescent daylight.
Stilled mind opens the gap for a flower hunt.
Accomplished the task, hidden mischief, back home we are.
Now scattered perfumes, melted beauty fills the kitchen´s heart.
Nature´s palette embellishing the table of the newborn night.
Also scissors, tape, cardboard (recycled pizza boxes, actually… pizza always inspired us).
In and out flows our breath.
Harmonious creativity, a silent path.
Suddenly the surprise.
Oh my!
A little king emerges,
precious nature’s jewels adorning his inner sky!
– I love you mom, his petal whispers fall into the fountain of my heart.
…
A new day arrives, get the camera, go outside.
Catch the best of morning light.
Apples, cheese and bread.
A royal breakfast, pure simplicity.
Three little kings sit and chit-chat.
So young, so proud.
Fulfilled, satisfied, I wear my crown.
Ripe dream, let me be a queen.
– Here son, take a picture of mine.
I extend the camera to the older child.
He takes his time, presses the shooter, shows me his art.
There´s no queen to be seen.
That´s only me, a simple smiling mom.
His focus is in my eyes.
– How I love you son, whispering petals fall into the fountain in his heart…
Now, could you let me see a picture of me wearing the crown?
Click.
– There you are, mom.
Klimt
The other day I was listening to a mother of a 2 years old sweet boy who was playing sitting by her side. She was telling me about her pregnancy and her child´s personality. Out of respect I looked at him and said softly:
– Now mom is speaking of you. I know you´re listening. You´re free to express whatever you need.
This little boy doesn´t say a word yet (at least not in Spanish, very surprisingly he says “ball”, “jake” and “car” in English!) and the mother mentioned that point a few times. In the meanwhile, her child started rolling on the carpet, creating a “wave sensation” wiht his own body rolling away from mom, rolling back to her. The kind of “Fort/Da!” concept was incarnated in his own body. Every movement made sense and responded to what his mother was saying. Then the mother made an awesome statement:
– There is one thing I knew in this life and that is I wanted to become a mom and have children. That was my deepest desire.
Suddenly the boy stopped rolling back and forth, stood up, run as fast as his little legs allowed him and jumped on his mother lap, hugging her…
Little arms, tiny hands, clear mind, generous love hugging truly, unconditionally, in full surrender.
The mother became still, received her child hugging him back and they became One Soul.
I had the fortune to witness the magic.
Did I mention the child does not speak? I correct myself. He silently speaks in the universal language of the heart.
What do you feel when reading this story? Share your comments!
We are back in town after a long stay in the countryside.
Those 4 months were intense, beautiful and tech free! We didn´t even have an oven, so we became experts in baking bread and cookies in the pan! Anyhow, this post is not about emergency cooking recipies, therefore you got my in-law (don´t miss her cooking blog). It´s not about countryside photography either, therefore you got my mom (her photo blog is beautiful).
This humble post is about what I could see from my kitchen window, beyond the house limits, in a world where kids had no TV, no internet, no phone, no mobile, no playstation… A tech free playful life! More specifically, this post is about how my kids rediscovered, enjoyed and loved trees.
It took them some time to realize trees were something they could interact with. The first weeks they explored the surroundings wanting to do the usual things they were used to: they asked us to take them to the playground and wanted to ride their bikes and skates on the road side (actually on the road, there was no “side” at all, but no traffic either).
It surprised me how many scrapes, minor cuts and bruises they collected in their feet and legs during this period. This brought me to think they were “city” kids, who never had a true extended opportunity to roam around freely, barefooted, without my constant warning advises behind. I trusted them, though. So I resisted the temptation to confine them into the house and they quickly developed the necessary skills to keep themselves safe during their games.
Slowly, they stopped asking for a daily visit to the playground and they started to realize there was a great world of play opportunities all around them, in front of their eyes. First thing they noticed was they could climb a big bush which they named “The Fat Sumo”. They literally went into the bush, took position on different branches and started moving them as the arms, legs and head of a big fat sumo wrestler.
Fat Sumo Wrestler (the bush, not the boy!)
It took three to four kids to complete the task and they spent hours and days repeating the game. Unfortunately the bush was not used to such high risk experiences and its left arm-branch broke. So we kindly invited them to explore real trees to climb and play with, remembering them trees are living creatures too.
From then on they chose a Weepping Willow as a King´s Court (throne included), a Shade Tree became a swing and a riding horse and some sort of Medlar was transformed into a den wherefrom some “fruit munitions” flew into the open field (some reached me and let me tell you the word munition applies perfectly well here). Finally, a beautiful Sweetgum in its Fall dress became the Everest, but only the older child in the troupe made it to the summit.
They didn´t left behind any tree to explore and play with. But the old grumpy Chestnut. It was that time in the year when the tree drops it´s distinctive spiny fruit shells to the ground… did I mention kids were barefooted all day long? One or two stings were enough to establish safe zone limits.
So there it was, as a Selfish Chestnut Giant, standing alone, sorrounded by it´s own natural barrier, keeping kids at a distance. But as Oscar Wilde knew (and we parents all know) kids are not easily discouraged, specially when it comes about limits. Actually, kids love barriers… just to be able to cross them and see what´s up on the other side. And this is precisely what happened.
Slowly, very slowly, autumn neared winter and the good old Chestnut tree run out of its porcupine like little bombs and the field was cleared. Our gardener helped a lot, ignorant of the love battle that was going on he did score the final goal kids needed to win the game.
Helpless and naked, the tree surrendered. For good.
It became the most adored, trusted and cared for tree in the world. In my kids world at least. They lived great adventures around it and asked me to read them fun stories while sitting on its bare branches.
Finally, one sunny autumn afternoon it became the most fashionable spiritual Grandpa Tree there has been. Kids had organized a fest in its honor. They decorated the branches with silk wool and polyester wadding, wrote little love letters to hung on the threads, made invitations for neighbors, created tree masks and prepared fresh lemonade for everyone (I did help a bit with the little boy´s mask and cutting the lemons into halves). The lady opposite our home brought a copper inverted pyramid containing dry dung, rice and clarified butter (ghee) and offered us to burn a small fire praying for the healing of the Earth. She explained this was called HOMA Therapy. We accepted.
So there we were, experiencing joy, unity and peace, praying for the healing of the Earth under the Great Tree our kids learned to conquer…
Recalling the whole experience I don´t feel anymore like advocating for the importance of playing in nature which was my first idea when I started writing this post. I don´t know you, but what my heart is whispering into my mind right now is a simple question: am I ready to release my well fostered ill-feelings towards thorny life experiences? Are you ready? I hope we all are. A true natural love story might be waiting behind.
Today we had a wind storm.
Our little 3 years old and I were going outside to the front garden and we both were surprised to feel the clean autumn air against our skin. Yellow and golden leaves where dancing all around.
The small boy stretched out his arms wide open and asked:
– Why doesn´t fly?
– Do you mean why aren´t you flying?… May be because you didn´t close your eyes, I answered stretching out my own arms. Just before closing my eyes I could peep at him: a little, radiant, smiling face told me he was soaring his inner sky. Joyously I joined in, entering my own spiritual field.
Ah, Literature! A round trip to the heart.
I´m reading Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert.
My good friend Irene lend me the book insisting I was going to stay awake till 3 am reading and warned my husband to be patient if I woke him up with my laughter.
So I grabbed the book and started reading, knowing in advance that such recommendations tend to overload expectations and you end up a bit disappointed with the real thing (this happens with movies too, have you noticed?). The thing is the book made me feel uncomfortable in the beginning when she starts crying in her bathroom confessing to herself a tough truth: “I don´t want to be married anymore”. Hum! I didn´t like this.
“The author is just like you, your lives are so similar and you even look alike”, Irene had said.
“I cannot relate to that”, I thought after reading Gilbert´s drama in the toilet. I do want to be married, I love my husband and the family we have together is a long cherished dream come true. And my husband loves me too. I know it for many reasons. Right now he´s at the supermarket with the three boys so I have some time for myself. And let me tell you three kids (the oldest is only eight) are a lot in a supermarket when you are trying to check your shopping list and keep your toddler in sight at the same time, while you explain the glutton preschooler he should remove that huge Kinder Surprise box from the cart.
Back to the book, the divorce thing in my novel was quite depressing. So I put it aside for a few days, until my inborn curiosity started wondering how Elizabeth Gilbert´s story went on. But now I had a new impediment: Eat, Pray, Love was missing in action. It wasn´t on my bedside anymore. Not much research was needed to find out where it went and why my husband was looking so sleepy. He had been reading the book, staying awake till late the last three nights.
“I´m almost in India”, he says. “I think this is a light book written for women”, he adds while he keeps on reading.
I´m delighted. He doesn´t read novels. He´s a musician and the only thing I´ve seen him reading apart from scores are sacred texts about spirituality. This is the first time after 10 years marriage I see him reading this way, just for fun, “a light book written for women”.
I have to catch up with him, I think. I´m still in the swamps of Gilbert´s divorce and he´s in rural India already, praying, loving, eating. So I take the book with me to the WC. This is not nice to say, but I confess is the safest place in my home to be alone and get a good read. (I agree with the author: bathrooms are very important in people´s emotional lives).
I go through Italy chapters as fast as I can, devouring pages as if they were Napolitan Pizzas. I´ve been to Italy but it´s not my favorite target for holidays. It is beautiful, yes. But I believe there´s no other city in the world that feels more like Buenos Aires than Rome. Drivers bang their horns the millisecond after the traffic light changed to green, it feels like chaos, people talk really loud and lovers are all around twisting into each other publicly, kissing and fussing each other´s hair. Italy chapters made me feel at home rather than on vacation. And when I read “a light novel for women” I search some sort of mental vacation. That´s the reason why I would have left the book aside completely if my husband would not have been reading it too.
Finally after a few weeks I reached India. Yes, it took me two weeks! I´m not good at “stay awake to read and laugh” as Irene thought. Actually I´m not good for anything at night, except for sleeping which I do quite well.
Ah, India! I arrived! And I´m hoping to find my husband there… oh no! He has already left to Indonesia, the last chapter in the book, which he insists is the best of all. So I´ll have to continue reading.
But for now I´m still here and I feel overwhelmed by memories. I lived in India for more than two years in an ashram. And I would go back every time I could. India and cats have this in common: people love them or hate them. I´m the kind of person that loves India and hates cats. Probably that´s why my English got strongly influenced by the typical Indian accent, emphasis and lilt.
Just wait to see me talking, shaking my head towards the shoulders drawing little circles in the air while I let English words flow on the Telugu cadence. India is one of the most populated countries in the world and without having a look at statistics I guess that this lovely, expressive, poetic and sometimes disrespectful English might be the most spoken version of the language.
I didn´t realize my style was so much influenced by Indian English until Tulsi came into the Eat, Pray, Love scene. She is the Indian teenager that mops the temple floor next to Liz Gilbert and chats with her in “the kind of English you can find only in India -which includes such colonial words as splendid! and nonsense! and sometimes produces eloquent sentences like: It is beneficial to walk on the grass in the morning when the dew has already been accumulated, for it lowers naturally and pleasantly the body’s temperature. ”
FINALLY I know why I speak English as I do, combining all kinds of expressions and words in such a particular way. I´m never sure they´re just right. But I won´t worry any longer about it. It´s not completely my fault. Actually, British expansionism is responsible for that (too), you see?
So, please, be patient with me and keep on reading my posts even if you find auquard sentences and weird ways of expressing ideas. In fact, I´m quite sure excusing my English is much better than excusing my French!
Enough for now, I have to rush. My husband is in Bali already and I´ve heard everyone smiles a lot there. I must definitely catch up with him and bring him back to Argentina safely.
By the way, did I mention I met my husband in India? I must confess not only my English gained new flavors there!
I´m the kind of person that sees a child´s painting and feels a vibrant emotion similar to the one you get when observing an original Picasso ceramic plate at the Modern Museum of Art.
“I used to draw like Raphael, but it has taken me a whole lifetime to learn to draw like a child”, Picasso said.
Beauty, composition, balance and expressive freedom are infused in children´s art works with a sensibility that is not easy to match.
That´s one of the reasons why I tend to collect their artistic productions and create impromptu art exhibitions on walls, doors and windows. I do this for several other reasons too, including the satisfaction of seeing the results of my creative parenting and educational ideas. It´s also great for them, because they can keep track of their progress. Check this great solution I found at parents.com:
parents.com
I do have lots of ideas for art projects! I´d like to share one of those ideas and it´s unexpected hidden lesson for me.
We love eating pizzas from Maxipasta, the best Pasta House in the West (… of Buenos Aires). The minute I saw the disposable pizza trays I knew they were a great support for painting, so I collected them until I had 23 pieces (the sad part is I came to realize we might be eating too much pizza, but that´s another story).
Then I chose the best painting material (I decided it was acrylic painting) and I stealthy waited for a perfect time to chase my kids creativity, honoring the lioness mother there was in me (now I´m becoming a humane mother).
Today the perfect moment has come, I can feel it in the air.
There is no need for words. I simply take down the acrylic pots, the brushes jar and the white pizza canvas (I also bring some water and wet cloths for my scenario). Kids are attracted to the table and they start painting immediately. I can see how their breath becomes rhythmical. Silence reins.
“Oh! Magic is here”, I whisper to myself, doing my best to not interrupt their concentration. Beauty is manifest in the emerging colors and shapes on the good old pizza trays. My creative idea had converged with their creative impulse and there was only a perfect feeling of total union, as a long-dreamt-of hug with your beloved one under the meeting point at Ezeiza airport: you meet him, you hug each other, you become one. That´s what I am experimenting at this point. I am loving it and I dedicate my self to the art of observation.
I´m deciding on which wall I am going to hung their paintings when the most unexpected situation happens.
“I think this is going to be the best one”, says boy nr. 1.
“Wait to see how mine flies”, answers nr. 2.
“Yea! Fly, fly, fly!”, toddler giggles.
“What do you mean by fly, honey?”, I dare to ask.
“To fly is to move in the air without falling, mom”, the older one patienly explains.
“I know that dear. But these art works are not meant for that. I´ll hang them on this wall, what do you think?”
To my utter disappointment my kids do not want to hang their plates anywhere and they are not going to change their minds.
They´ve painted helicopters, ninja stars, spaceships, yellow balls and molecules. Now they want to use them.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
They want to use their art as Frisbees, throwing the trays in the air and catching them back. They want to see which ones fly best, wich ones are more “powerful”. So they put the fresh paintings in the sun to get them dried as soon as possible.
I resist.
Quite a bit.
I offer them new trays, plain white, to use for that game.
“These are for hanging on some wall, even on the door if you want”, I insist not wanting to see that my creative will, the same that 20 minutes ago was in perfect unison with my kids, is now clearly becoming a divergent line and every word I say makes it move just a bit further.
“Of course not, mooooom!”, they complain notoriously in disagreement.
“But playing like this you´re gonna crash your art works!?” I mumble trying to convince them of what I still don´t want to recognize for what it is: an impossible task.
“White ones are a real disaster”, they complain.
“Those don´t even fly as good as a helicopter, nor do they attack as a ninja star”, they add.
They start asking themselves why did they took the time to paint if now they cannot use them?… They keep on complaining but I have a cerebral feature that allows me to lower their voices thinking louder than what they speak. It helps me a lot when I feel stuck and in need to reverse difficult situations.
“Ok, Ok, I got it. You mean white trays do not fly the same”, I say to gain time and think how to solve this creative mismatch. Thank God they insist a bit further, and because of that I´m forced to find a better solution.
Finally it´s not me who happens to think of a safe exit from this dilemma. Oh, magic is back!, our creative channels abruptly converge again:
“Listen, mom. You could take photos of the paintings and then let us play with them, ok?”.
I give up. I grab my camera, find good light near the window and press the shutter. After a tray is captured it takes off, literally, to fulfill it´s true mission on earth. All of them fly high, far and with style. But each one has a special power conferred by the colores and shapes with which they were decorated. Never, ever, ever a white disposable pizza tray could have performed as these ones do.
They are the most wonderful Frisbees in the whole world and demonstrate, from the very beginning, why free creative play is an art in itself.
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