Light Weight

"And light has no weight, Yet one is lifted on its flood, Swept high, Running up white-golden light-shafts, As if one were as weightless as light itself – All gold and white and light." Lawren Harris, Painter 1885-1970

No Coward Soul is Mine

No coward soul is mine, / No trembler in the world's storm-troubled sphere; / I see Heaven's glories shine, / And, Faith shines equal, arming me from Fear. (Emily Bronte)



In the quiet my heart opens. An invisible, infinite key for an invisible, infinite door. Sensing fear's grip has slipped, I smile.

+ Yesenia

I do not Seek I Find - Picasso

“Each second we live is a new and unique moment of the universe, a moment that will never be again. And what do we teach our children? We teach them that two and two make four, and that Paris is the capital of France. When will we also teach them what they are? We should say to each of them: Do you know what you are? You are a marvel. You are unique. In all the years that have passed, there has never been another child like you. Your legs, your arms, your clever fingers, the way you move. You may become a Shakespeare, a Michelangelo, a Beethoven. You have the capacity for anything. Yes, you are a marvel. And when you grow up, can you then harm another who is, like you, a marvel? You must work, we must all work, to make the world worthy of its children.” - Picasso

Very Short video but I feel like I'm in his studio watching him paint for that brief moment.

"The creator of the world paints on, carelessly throughout the day" - Tagore

In 1913, Rabindranath Tagore became the first non-European to win the Nobel Prize for Literature. He also happened to write one of my favorite love poems.

Unending Love

I seem to have loved you in numberless forms, numberless times…
In life after life, in age after age, forever.
My spellbound heart has made and remade the necklace of songs,
That you take as a gift, wear round your neck in your many forms,
In life after life, in age after age, forever.

Whenever I hear old chronicles of love, it's age-old pain,
It's ancient tale of being apart or together.
As I stare on and on into the past, in the end you emerge,
Clad in the light of a pole-star piercing the darkness of time:
You become an image of what is remembered forever.

You and I have floated here on the stream that brings from the fount.
At the heart of time, love of one for another.
We have played along side millions of lovers, shared in the same
Shy sweetness of meeting, the same distressful tears of farewell-
Old love but in shapes that renew and renew forever.

Today it is heaped at your feet, it has found its end in you
The love of all man’s days both past and forever:
Universal joy, universal sorrow, universal life.
The memories of all loves merging with this one love of ours –
And the songs of every poet past and forever.

~Rabindranath Tagore

I'll start the fire with a dancer....

"There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all of time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and it will be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is nor how valuable nor how it compares with other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open. You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work. You have to keep yourself open and aware to the urges that motivate you. Keep the channel open. ... No artist is pleased. [There is] no satisfaction whatever at any time. There is only a queer divine dissatisfaction, a blessed unrest that keeps us marching and makes us more alive than the others"

— Martha Graham

Did I ever tell you my story about Bjork?

I've been thinking quite a bit lately about this blog and my plans to revamp it around the idea of creativity-spirituality-art. A few things keep on replaying in my mind: the act of creating, inspiration and freedom. What do these mean? What do I want to say about them? And during this process, different artists names have come to mind: Bill Viola, Twist (yes, I'm putting them in the same sentence) and then today Bjork creeped into my thoughts.

Now you can love or hate her music. It's one or the other. One thing you can't deny is the woman is inspired. She's moved to create. She's given herself the freedom to do it her way. I don't like all her music. But the fact that she exists and IS and DOES I find Inspiring.

Now to my Bjork story. The year is 1988 or so...and I'm in highschool. It's a school night but I really want to go to One Step Beyond and hang out. If memory serves me correct it was a Wednesday and Tara was down to go. We show up and the place is dead. There couldn't be more than 20 people there to watch some band called the Sugarcubes who are scheduled to play. Tara and I sat down and ordered a drink (non alcohol of course) and as we are sitting there the tinniest little girl walked in through the front door with two men behind her but I barely noticed them. I was completely transfixed by her being. Seeing her was like realizing fairies were real and one had just waltzed in. She was ethereal. Her face was smooth and white as alabaster and her hair a shock of black. She had a deep part; hair was combed over and right in the middle of her head she wore a wide, shiny red hairpin to keep it in place. It was an awkward placement. I couldn't stop staring at it. That pin was like a koan to my brain -"WHAT IS THE SOUND OF ONE HAND CLAPPING?" I'm sure my mind melted a bit. It definitely expanded. I can't remember the top she wore but I do recall her skirt made out of stretchy material with a wire at the bottom seam. It was a perfect replica of the skirt the Jetson's mom wore, only silver. Honestly, my world was never the same after seeing her. All I can remember thinking was "Where the F$#@ did she come from?" and being so in awe of someone who was so honestly themselves.

A short time later, she ended up on stage singing God knows what. I couldn't understand a word she said and the music was so new my brain really could not process it all. Tara and I did not stay long after that but Bjork, who was soon after to became a huge success, forever become a symbol to me of the act of being inspired, free and surrendering to the act of creating.