Les hommes sont malheureux parce qu'ils ne réalisent pas les rêves qu'ils ont.
[ Jacques Brel ]
June 30, 2007
La citation du jour
June 29, 2007
On a much much MUCH lighter note...
you can always count on the folks at go fug yourself to keep things fresh and fun and... oh yeah, just a tad irreverent too. Ha! :-)
Spice Up Your Fug
At today's announcement of the VERY MUCH ANTICIPATED (at least by us. And George) Spice Girls reunion:
POSH: Oi. My tits are killing me in this thing.
SPORTY: I am just SO HAPPY you guys didn't make me wear that tracksuit!
GINGER: Wait. Is this OUR reunion announcement? Shit. I thought I was going to the photoshoot for the Stevie Nicks tribute band I'm in on weekends. Okay. Just be cool, Geri.
BABY: Baby Spice is HAVING A BABY! Doesn't that make you feel OLD? I'm also wearing a teeny tiny cape. Just for fun! 2 become 1!!
SCARY: SUCK ON THIS, EDDIE MURPHY.
POSH: When this is over, I am calling Karl and telling him never to do this to my breasts again. Of course, then he'll say something totally surreal like, "BOOB TAPE SHALL BE YOUR HAN SOLO" and what do you say to that?
SPORTY: You know what? I'm not going to do any of those karate-style high kicks anymore, EITHER. It might mess up my cute new hair. Everyone can just DEAL.
GINGER: I hope Mel wasn't serious when she told me to get my Union Jack dress back. I mean, she had to be kidding, right? Those slags at the Hard Rock are totally not returning my calls.
BABY: Ziga zig AH!
SCARY: Geri better get that Union Jack dress back. If she quits the band again, I swear I'll kill her.
On health and disease by Deepak Chopra
"Health is not just the absence of a disease - it's a joyfulness that should be inside us all the time. It's a state of positive wellbeing which is not only physical, but emotional, and ultimately even psychological and spiritual.
We all need to be healed in the highest sense by making ourselves perfect in mind, body and spirit. The first step is to realize that this is even possible. The power asleep in all of us doesn't awaken until we call it.
To become familiar with the miracle of the human body and the human mind is to acquire awesome power. This power is magical because it literally allows us to create new bodies — more perfect, more dynamic, more creative and long lasting —than we had ever imagined.
To do that we have to understand: What is thing thing that we call the body? What is this thing that we call the mind? Our traditional ideas of the human body/mind are based on very obsolete... superstitions almost.
We think of the human body as a frozen sculpture, fixed in space and time. As a physical machine that has somehow learned to think. So our approaches traditionally are in the form of "magic bullets" [...] These approaches do work. To some extent, they're symptomatic approaches. Sometimes they interfere with the mechanisms of disease, but they're not the origins of disease [...] and in order to really understand the origins of the imbalances created in the body, we have to really understand the body as it really is.
The body is not a frozen sculpture. It's a river of energy, of information. The Greek philosopher Heraclitus said "You cannot step into the same river twice" because new water is flowing. And like that, the real you cannot step into the same flesh and bones twice because in every second of your existence, you are in fact, creating a new body.
[...] We are not the body and we are not the mind, we are the one who HAS the body and HAS the mind."
Right. I'm off to do a bit of yoga right here in my living room. Totally free of charge and totally liberating... not to mention... healing. :-)
"Ecstasy and hard work...
... are the basic ingredients of life and writing" somebody called Louis Agee once said. And this - I have no idea if the book is any good, but the title is pretty good:
After the Ecstasy, the Laundry (CD)
Jack Kornfield
How the Heart Grows Wise on the Spiritual Path
When does enlightenment come? At the end of the spiritual journey? Or the beginning? On After the Ecstasy, the Laundry, Jack Kornfield – author of the modern classic on American Buddhism, A Path with Heart – brings into focus the truth about satori, the awakened state of consciousness, and enlightenment practices today.
Perfect enlightenment appears in many texts, Kornfield begins. But how is it viewed among Western teachers and practitioners? To find out, Kornfield talked to more than one hundred Zen masters, rabbis, nuns, lamas, monks, and senior meditation students from all walks of life. The result is this extraordinary look at the hard work we all must do – the laundry – no matter how often we experience ecstatic states of consciousness through meditation and other disciplines.
Sweeping in its scope, and warmly told by one of American Buddhism’s most trusted voices, After the Ecstasy, the Laundry is both a work of deep inspiration and daily instruction that cuts through the confusion about what enlightenment really is, who it comes to, and how it continues to inform and guide our spiritual lives. An original audio adaptation of Jack Kornfield’s newest book, After the Ecstasy, the Laundry."
Following our little discussion "On performing vs being" my mum sent me this really interesting review. I'm sold! Where can I get it? Oh... duh, where can one get ANYTHING these days? Just let your fingers do the walking and Google will point the way. :-)
Re: On "Performing" Vs "Being"
My mum sent me this really great reply and knowing I'd probably want to post it, she also kindly sent it as a comment to my blog, but I thought it was too good to post as just a comment, so as I've just writen back to her, it gets published as a blog entry, no ifs, ands or buts.
From: Mum
Subject: Re: On "Performing" Vs "Being"
Date: June 29, 2007 3:32:39 AM EST
To: Smiler
Very interesting. And, yeah, that's how I see the so-called regression too.
On the subject of disease: Our society's fascination with disease (dis-ease) is thoroughly aided and abetted by the drug industry. And all of psychiatry has been built up on the notion of curing something wrong, not of improving something good. Just as the whole of Western medicine is meant to treat the body when it breaks down, not sustain it so it stays healthy.
Saw a program on a Chinese medicine program in a German hospital the other day and that's basically what the Chinese doctor was saying: if you have a brain tumor, please see the neurosurgeon. If not, take these herbs, exercise, meditate and concentrate on healthy thoughts and healthy living (and if disease happens anyway, please see the neurosurgeon)
For another, most societies have a profound attachment to the notion of "norm". Is this normal? Is that normal? Problem is, each society defines the norm differently. If the norm says everybody is supposed to feel miserable, then NOT feeling miserable is not right. Dangerous even. When I was little, feeling happy was something that came straight from the Devil. Now, if it doesn't come out of a bottle or a jar and doesn't make money for somebody else, happiness is worthless, stupid, or suspect.
Some psychologists are stepping away from the model - including Dr Martin Seligman (reflectivehappiness.com) but the drug companies are not for it, as you can imagine.
I don't know if we're evolving in more rapid cycles because, on archeological evidence, there have been some pretty amazing civilizations with totally different paradigms from ours.
What is a fact is that some of us hippy-types have had children who actually thought through some of the stuff we were throwing their way.
I also think that any society, when it becomes oppressive and hellbent on fitting every one into a one-size fits all kind of mold, gives rise to its own opposition. When I was a little girl, the oppression was that of a totally fossilized Catholic Church.
For your generation, the oppression is both more subtle, more pervasive and with one seemingly friendly face and one horrific and terrifying one. The friendly face's message: buy this and feel better, you deserve nothing but the best (and I happen to sell the best whatever there is), if you don't exchange your old cellphone for this brand new one, you are totally ridiculous and all your friends will laugh at you. The terrifying one shows the most horrific images of daily violence in those places where people are not consumer dolls to be forcefed the latest gadgets, but testing fields for new military equipment.
PS I'm also sending this to your blog. Of course, feel totally free to post or not.
Best,
Mum.
June 28, 2007
On "Performing" vs "Being"
Here's the latest email I wrote to my mum:
As you well know, I've been doing lots of thinking about my so-called "psychiatric condition" as of late. I had a visit with the psychologist today, and as I mentioned to you, I've been listening to Deepak Chopra's excellent "Magical Mind, Magical Body" CD lectures lately too. These CD's reminded me of the series of lectures by J. Krishnamurti that we attended together at Concordia University every Friday night all those years ago when I was a little girl [mum: how many lectures were there, do you remember? seemed endless to my nine year old mind]... funny because the whole time, I thought what Krishnamurti was talking about was going right over my head as I was doodling away with my crayons, found it all rather boring as a matter of fact, but it would seem the message did in fact sink in very comfortably.
I'm slowly starting to get a better grasp on why it is I am uncomfortable with the limitations that our current psychiatry places on individuals, or why I get defensive about talking to psychiatrists in general. Because where are the concepts of free mind — limitless potential, universal consciousness — in modern psychiatry, is what I'd like to know? If, for example, I am sitting in meditation and an image of sublime and radiant beauty comes sharply to my mind, with clear sights and smells and sounds - would that be considered a hallucination? And would that then require medicating?
There are so many so-called "disorders" that are prevalent nowadays... like depression, insomnia, mania, AADD, OCD, and Bipolar disorder, just to name a few (and how I do cringe at that word - "Disorder"). But what if all these were actually special gifts and dare I say... blessings? Bipolar ENABLED is what they should be calling it! ;-) Of course there actually ARE real fluctuations in mood and energy level which are not practical from a purely "productive" standpoint. But when properly understood and channeled, I firmly believe that those "altered states of consciousness" are what allow us to achieve that state of BEING, which is beyond conscious thought and where pure potentiality resides.
One thing is clear to me - your generation was very much about experimenting on many levels, and along with the drug experimentation and the sexual and social experiements, you were trying out new child raising theories as well - and now here we are, fully grown up and guess what? Some of those theories actually stuck! You fed us all that great nutrient-rich food for the mind, body and soul so we'd develop into our full potential... and some of us actually have grown into that full potentiality.
I've been meeting quite a few other "products of hippie parenting" in the past few years. Flower children, much like myself. And every time I've been struck by the fact that we seem to have faced very similar paths and challenges while growing up. Now that we are in our adult years, I see many young people who are really "tuned" in and incredibly talented and smart and yet... having a hard time coping and "finding" their way. Personally, I'm really tempted to contact people like Mr. Chopra and saying "hi, I've been raised on all these wonderful theories for over 30 years now, and I'm THERE. NOW WHAT?" What's the next step? Where do you go AFTER the lectures? Where do you go once you GET IT? Become a monk and hide away from the rest of civilisation while giving it the time to catch up?
It's in my entirely humble opionion that my generation, and then ones after us are actually wired differently. You tried to raise us differently - AND WE ACTUALLY ARE DIFFERENT... as Deepak Chopra and his cohorts would say... on a cellular and mollecular level! Only trouble is "the establishment" hasn't quite caught on to that shift yet, or... if they have then the structures aren't quite in place yet to cope with that new paradigm - that we are actually evolving as a species in much more rapid cycles than what we've previously seen in the history of humanity.
The current business paradigm is almost entirely focused on "Performance". Our society is absolutely OBSESSED with Performance, as a matter of fact, from the constant concern with "bottom line" and "deadline" to our unending awe and amazement with actors and singers and performers of every ilk which has spawned the "Star system", or rather, the "Star Industry". And the entertainment industry has profited from that obsession, and everyone's desire to be famous, with endless versions of "reality shows" featuring "real people".
As you well know, I'm no stranger to that drive to perform myself. The drive to excel. But now that I've been forced to slow down and had to re-evaluate my priorities, and I can concentrate on ways to tap into my creativity and my own "pure potentiality", I am reminded that real ideas and real innovation come NOT when we are "performing" but rather when we are just "being".
I have a sneaking suspicion that for many people such as myself, what we sometimes call "chronic depression", is in fact "chronic alienation". We feel something is wrong with us, or maybe something is wrong with the world, but we all too often feel powerless to change things and so if we have a tendency to be agressive, we lash out, but if we have a tendency to be passive agressive... we get depressed. Only not. Because we're actually... Alienated. Do you follow?
I can just see the title on a Time magazine cover: "It's not depression, it's alienation, stupid!" What kind of medication do you think the pharmaceutical companies will be coming up with to cure THAT? So this feeling isn't so much because people like myself are OUT of touch, but rather because we're so very much IN touch. Because now that we've internalized all the tools and thinking, and once that paradigm shift occurs once and for all and we finally come into that "free mind" we keep hearing about... you come to realize that the rest of the world hasn't quite caught on yet... and then you come to this... SO NOW WHAT?? State. And that... can sometimes be a rude awakening. Once again, the movie The Matrix comes to mind, because I think it's a very good portrayal of that awakening and the different ways in which we react to that shift in paradigm (one character asks to be REINSERTED INTO the Matrix, because he misses the illusions it offers too much, specifically the taste of steak and wine, as I recall).
So yeah. So the question that I'm wanting to ask the Oracle is: I've taken the red pill. So now what??
And the answer that spontaneously comes to mind is: Pick up where our parent's generation left off, because they had dreams of a better world, they announced the coming of "The Age of Aquarius" and it was slowly starting to emerge... until the "Me Me Me 80's and 90's" threw off the whole world and hippies were thrown into the "Baby boomers" lot and blamed for all that went wrong with the world. Me... I'm working towards becoming part of the solution. I want to help create new systems. Things are slowly taking shape. It's all slowly emerging. And the beauty of it... all I have to do is... JUST BE... ME*. :-)
*gosh do you remember how many times you repeated that to me as I was growing up? "Just be YOU Smiler, just BE YOU." Well I finally GET it now. Better late than never eh mum? ;-)
June 27, 2007
"Our mind is infinite, it is unbounded."
I've been listening to the CD version of Deepak Chopra, M.D., Magical Mind, Magical Body. The name sounds kinda new agey, but it's based on Ayurvedic principles and so it's full of really good age-old wisdom and helpful suggestions, and it's well documented, too. Inspiring. Very.
Here's a customer review I found by "Anonymous": "The paradigm shift that occurs with accepting the knowledge [Deepak Chopra] puts forth in this CD is life-changing. The way he narrates can appear unenthusiastic at times, but the message and the wisdom contained is priceless."
"The true goal of life is to know yourself as the field of infinite possibilities. Inside every person is a God in embryo and it has only one desire: it wants to be born."
"In the purity of silence, inner energies wake up and bring about transformation."
"We live in a universe that has no beginning in time, no ending in time, [and] no edges in space" (Quoted from Stephen Hawking)
"When we go beyond thought, then we can BE. And when we are BEING, we are not THINKING. [...] Just be aware of the sensations in your body and you will [access a wealth of] knowledge"
Here's an except from an interview I found on the net:
Q: How can an individual make the mind body connection work on his or her behalf?
DR. CHOPRA: First, you must tap into it. To tap it, you must realize that you are not bound by the limitations of your body or mind. Intelligence is inherent in everything. You are pure potential waiting to be activated. That is the real you. And until you break free from your imaginary boundaries — the product of years of false conditioning — you cannot be totally free.
Drawing on a unique combination of modern science and the wisdom of Ayurveda, India’s “ancient science of life,” I teach you how to achieve freedom beyond all boundaries. My goal is not to show you how to break down walls, but how to fly over them.
La citation du jour
Il est parfois nécessaire de se taire pour délivrer une parole juste.
[ Christian Bobin ]
Extrait de L’Inespérée
June 26, 2007
La citation du jour
Les meilleures choses ont besoin de patience.
[ Jean Anglade ]
Extrait de Le Temps et la paille
Daily Horoscope
Personal Daily Horoscope of Tuesday, 26 June 2007
for Ilana aka Smiler, born 11 July 1969
Inward harmony
Weak, transient effect: Today during the day you feel very much in harmony with yourself and able to do whatever you have to do single- mindedly. Your energies flow with less resistance, and life seems to be easier now. As a consequence, you can relate to people more easily, for others perceive your inward harmony and are drawn to you because of it. Obviously this is a good time for any kind of group activity. You are able to relate your own interests to the interests of any group you are working with, so that everyone will gain from what you do. Relations with men are also improved for the same reasons. A marriage or intimate relationship will be especially harmonious now, for this is a time of real understanding. On the physical level this harmony is expressed as a feeling of vitality, even if you may not feel driven to accomplish a great deal of work.
©Astrodienst AG
To view your daily horoscope and much more visit: www.astro.comJune 25, 2007
Prayer for You
[I wish I could say I wrote this, but no, I stole it from http://www.freewillastrology.com because I think it's brilliant and worth sharing. Hope Rob won't mind].
"I'm happy to announce that this is a perfect moment. It's a perfect moment for many reasons, but especially because I have been inspired to say a gigantic prayer for all of you. I've been roused to unleash a divinely greedy, apocalyptically healing prayer for each and every one of you—even those of you who don't believe in the power of prayer. And so I am starting to pray right now to the God of Gods ... the God beyond all Gods ... the Girlfriend of God ... the Teacher of God ... the Goddess who invented God.
Dear Goddess, You who never kill but only change:
I pray that my exuberant, suave and accidental words will move you to shower ferocious blessings down on everyone who reads this benediction.
I pray that you will give them what they don't even know they want—not just the boons they think they need but everything they've always been afraid to even imagine or ask for.
Dear Goddess, You wealthy anarchist burning heaven to the ground:
Many of the divine chameleons out there don't even know that their souls will live forever. So please use your blinding magic to help them see that they are all wildly creative geniuses too big for their own personalities.
Guide them to realize that they are all completely different from what they think they are and more exciting than they can possibly imagine.
Make it illegal, immoral, irrelevant, unpatriotic and totally tasteless for them to be in love with anyone or anything that's no good for them.
O Goddess, You who give us so much love and pain mixed together that our morality is always on the verge of collapsing:
I beg you to cast a boisterous love spell that will nullify all the dumb ideas, bad decisions and nasty conditioning that have ever cursed the wise and sexy virtuosos out there.
Remove, banish, annihilate and laugh into oblivion any jinx that has clung to them, no matter how long they've suffered from it, and even if they've become accustomed or addicted to its ugly companionship.
And please conjure an aura of protection around them so that they will receive an early warning if they are ever about to act in such a way as to bring another hex or plague or voodoo into their lives in the future.
Dear Goddess, sweet Goddess, You sly universal virus with no fucking opinion:
I pray that you will help all the personal growth addicts out there become disciplined enough to go crazy in the name of creation, not destruction.
I pray that you will teach them the difference between oppressive self-control and liberating self-control, awaken in them the power to do the half-right thing when it is impossible to do the totally right thing.
Arouse the Wild Woman within them—even if they're men.
And please give them bigger, better, more original sins and wilder, wetter, more interesting problems.
Dear Goddess, You pregnant slut who scorns all mediocre longing:
I pray that you will inspire all the compassionate rascals communing with this prayer to love their enemies just in case their friends turn out to be jerks.
Provoke them to throw away or give away all the things they own that encourage them to believe that they are better than anyone else.
Show them how much fun it is to brag about what they cannot do and do not have.
Most of all, Goddess, brainwash them with your freedom so that they never love their own pain more than anyone else's pain.
Dear Goddess, You psychedelic mushroom cloud at the center of all our brains:
The curiously divine human beings reading this prayer deserve everything they are yearning for and much, much more.
So please bless them with lucid dreams while they are wide awake and solar-energy-operated sex toys that work even in the dark and vacuum cleaners for their magic carpets and a knack for avoiding other people's hells and their very own 900 number so that everyone has to pay to talk to them and a secret admirer who is not a psychotic stalker.
Dear Goddess, You fiercely tender, hauntingly reassuring, orgiastically sacred feeling that is even now running through all of our soft, warm animal bodies:
I pray that you provide everyone out there with a license to bend and even break all rules, laws and traditions that keep them apart from the things they love.
Show them how to purge the wishy-washy wishes that distract them from their daring, dramatic, divine desires.
And teach them that they can have anything they want if they'll only ask for it in an unselfish way.
And now dear God of Gods, God beyond all Gods, Girlfriend of God, Teacher of God, Goddess who invented God, I bring this prayer to a close, trusting that in these mysterious moments you have begun to change everyone out there in the exact way they've needed to change in order to express their soul's code.
Amen. Awomen. And glory halle-fucking-lujah."
June 24, 2007
Glory in the Highest
Excerpted from the book PRONOIA Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings by Rob Brezsny
"Thousands of things go right for you every day, beginning the moment you wake up. Through some magic you don’t fully understand, you’re still breathing and your heart is beating, even though you’ve been unconscious for many hours. The air is a mix of gases that’s just right for your body’s needs, as it was before you fell asleep.
You can see! Light of many colors floods into your eyes, registered by nerves that took God or evolution or some process millions of years to perfect. The interesting gift of these vivid hues comes to you courtesy of an unimaginably immense globe of fire, the sun, which continually detonates nuclear reactions in order to convert its body into light and heat and energy for your personal use.
Did you know that the sun is located at the precise distance from you to be of perfect service? If it were any closer, you’d fry, and if it were any further away, you’d freeze. Here’s another one of the sun’s benedictions: It appears to rise over the eastern horizon right on schedule every day, as it has since long before you were born.
Do you remember when you were born, by the way? It was a difficult miracle that involved many people who worked hard on your behalf. No less miraculous is the fact that you have continued to grow since then, with millions of new cells being born inside you to replace the old ones that die. All of this happens whether or not you ever think about it.
On this day, like almost every other, you have awoken inside a temperature-controlled shelter. You have a home! Your bed and pillow are soft and you’re covered by comfortable blankets. The electricity is turned on, as usual. Somehow, in ways you’re barely aware of, a massive power plant at an unknown distance from your home is transforming fuel into currents of electricity that reach you through mostly hidden conduits in the exact amounts you need, and all you have to do to control the flow is flick small switches with your fingers.
You can walk! Your legs work wonderfully well. Your heart circulates your blood all the way down to replenish the energy of the muscles in your feet and calves and thighs, and when the blood is depleted it finds its way back to your heart to be refreshed. This blessing recurs over and over again without stopping every hour of your life.
Your home is perhaps not a million-dollar palace, but it’s sturdy and gigantic compared to the typical domicile in every culture that has preceded you. The floors aren’t crumbling, and the walls and ceilings are holding up well, too. Doors open and close without trouble, and so do the windows. What skillful geniuses built this sanctuary for you? How and where did they learn their craft?
In your bathroom, the toilet is functioning perfectly, as are several other convenient devices. You have at your disposal soaps, creams, razors, clippers, tooth-cleaning accessories: a host of products that enhance your hygiene and appearance. You trust that unidentified scientists somewhere tested them to be sure they’re safe for you to use.
Amazingly, the water you need so much of comes out of your faucets in an even flow, with the volume you want, and either cold or hot as you desire. It’s pure and clean; you’re confident no parasites are lurking in it. There is someone somewhere making sure these boons will continue to arrive for you without interruption for as long as you require them.
Look at your hands. They’re astounding creations that allow you to carry out hundreds of tasks with great force and intricate grace. They relish the pleasure and privilege of touching thousands of different textures, and they’re beautiful..."
To read more go to http://www.freewillastrology.com
June 21, 2007
La citation du jour
L'amour, ça doit se lire tout de suite. Ce n'est pas une partie de cache-cache.
[ Bernard Giraudeau ]
Extrait de Les Dames de nage
June 20, 2007
I'll Take The Red Pill
My personal minor crisis today involved a call from the clinic regarding a psychiatric evaluation. Seems insurance companies only allow to take proper leave from work if there is an actual psychiatric label that can be affixed to a person's condition because "acute work related stress" has become so commonplace nowadays that it's just not reason enough to allow one to take rest when needed. My friend Douglas Ross has just posted something on a related topic on his blog today, which is interesting because he actually sent me a copy of it BEFORE I got the call (see "Hurry, Scurry, Worry, Work"), and this should have provided me with some measure of comfort but the only trouble is, anything doing with red tape these days is enough to throw me in an absolute frenzy, and the very idea of sitting with a psychiatrist has me acting like a crazy woman.
Case in point: after they called to set the appointment, which incidentally is apparently only possible in SEPTEMBER, I threw an absolute fit and sent a spoon and then my stainless steel sugar dish flying across the apartment. I actually wanted to break glass, but I figured that might be too dangerous. There was no serious damage, other than the fact that the little knobby thing broke off the sugardish top and there is now sugar in every conceivable crevasse... and Fritz is more than a little bit nervous about what his mommy is likely to throw next. But I prevented further damage by promptly taking myself to bed for the better part of the day. The doctors will be wanting to prescribe me loads of medication to get me under control to be sure. That should satisfy the insurance companies but... it just seems so very wrong to me. I watched The Matrix again last week, and the fact of the matter is, I'd rather take The Red Pill at this point, thank you very much. Though Fritz might need to take anti-anxiety meds just to continue living with me, poor thing.
June 14, 2007
La citation du jour
L'amour ne voit pas avec les yeux, mais avec l'âme.
[ William Shakespeare ]
Extrait de Le Songe d'une nuit d'été
You Reap What You Sow
"Money, power and fame are the desired results of doing the right thing in business today. Why does doing the right thing in business not always work? Do you really need integrity in your life to be successful? "You reap what you sow" is an ancient proverb that demonstrates the link between actions and results. Intentions are the secret link between thoughts and actions. Right intentions guide right actions which generates right results." - Douglas Ross
To learn more go to www.resultsthroughintegrity.com
June 13, 2007
La citation du jour
Ferme les yeux, et le monde devient celui que tu veux.
[ Alain Berliner ]
Dialogue du film Ma Vie en rose
June 11, 2007
La citation du jour
Ne jamais oublier d'aimer exagérément : c'est la seule bonne mesure.
[ Christiane Singer ]
Extrait de Derniers fragments d’un long voyage
June 10, 2007
La citation du jour
Dans toutes les larmes s'attarde un espoir.
[ Simone de Beauvoir ]
Extrait de Les Mandarins
June 8, 2007
La citation du jour
Ce n'est pas le but qui compte, c'est le chemin.
[ Valérie Guignabodet ]
Extrait du film Danse avec lui
June 6, 2007
A story about Mahatma Gandhi
I love this story. My thanks to Doug for sending it to me.
A woman and her child approached Gandhi one day. She asked him to tell her son to stop eating sugar. He looked at her and said “come back in 6 months”. Six months later, she came back and he brought the boy into his office and said sternly “do not eat sugar”. With that he kindly dismissed the woman and her son. She stopped at the door and turned to him. She asked him why she had to wait six months for those words. He replied that he'd had to give up sugar himself before he could tell anyone else to do so.
La citation du jour
Ne demande jamais ton chemin à celui qui sait. Tu pourrais ne pas te perdre !
[ Simone Bernard-Dupré ]
Extrait de Mélopée africaine
Beauty Cure
I'm having an especially stressful day. My mum sent me this gorgeous image today saying that concentrating on beauty is the best de-toxifier she knows of. I couldn't agree with her more. It certainly does help put things in perspective mum... thanks for sharing.
Joseph Campbell quotes
Love is a friendship set to music.
Myths are public dreams, dreams are private myths.
Participate joyfully in the sorrows of the world. We cannot cure the world of sorrows, but we can choose to live in joy.
The goal of life is to make your heartbeat match the beat of the universe, to match your nature with Nature.
When people get married because they think it's a long-time love affair, they'll be divorced very soon, because all love affairs end in disappointment. But marriage is a recognition of a spiritual identity.
When you make the sacrifice in marriage, you're sacrificing not to each other but to unity in a relationship.
La citation du jour
La vie ne vaut d'être vécue que si elle est une légende.
[ Olivier Frébourg ]
Extrait de Le Voyage s’affiche
June 2, 2007
Re: Little Lotus Yoga for Kids Teacher Training Weekend
From: info@ambaayoga.com
Subject: Little Lotus Yoga for Kids Teacher Training Weekend
Date: May 31, 2007 10:40:45 AM EST
To: Smiler & Undisclosed-Recipients
Hello everyone,
We are so excited to be teaching our Little Lotus Yoga for Kids Module for Toddlers and Preschoolers. We have so much fun working with this age of children and we are very much looking forward to sharing our experiences with you and going with you on this journey into their world.
[...]
If you have any further questions before the weekend please feel free to ask. We are very excited for the weekend and look forward to seeing you all this weekend.
Namaste,
Kate and Michelle.
Kate Hudson
Michelle Sands
Ambaa Yoga
4660 Notre Dame West
(514) 996-3620
info@ambaayoga.com
www.ambaayoga.com
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Royksopp on YouTube
I need to get to bed. Am not being reasonable. But I just can't stop taking in all these great Röyksopp videos. How I do love electronica. And the videos are totally f-n brilliant. Wow.
June 1, 2007
La citation du jour
Tout comme la poésie, la sculpture ou la peinture, la vie a ses chefs-d'oeuvre précieux.
[ Oscar Wilde ]
Extrait de Le Portrait de Dorian Gray
"Wreck this journal"
Something happened today. Not sure what, but a breakthrough, to be sure. Could have something to do with the lunch date I had with Ewa, who is an amazingly talented photographer and fellow artist-soul. It could also have something to do with the dinner I enjoyed yesterday at L'Atelier with "Uncle Izzy". He's not an "actual" uncle, mind you, but he's also an artist and we've adopted each other over the years, and as I found out today, he also happens to be an old friend of Ewa's and her architect husband. Small world obviously.
My breakthrough could also have something to do with my recent trip to New York, and the wonderful conversations I've been having lately with so many kindred spirits who are seemingly coming out of the woodwork, or the fact that I've finally given myself permission to just be free and roam and do as I please. But whatever the case, all that somehow came together today when my inner artist child felt safe enough to come out and play. What actually came out of that playtime... is not really of importance. It's just a bunch of scribbles and scratches really, and there's nothing really "good" in there either for that matter. But that's not the point. Because fact of the matter is, I only "allow" myself to draw and doodle when I feel completely free and not restrained by that paralysing thought: "but what if it's no good". Unlike the writing see, because... I never really worry about the writing being "bad" since I always figured... I'm not really a writer, just a hack really, cuz... my mom's the writer. I just write to get rid of all that mental garbage that keeps running through my head.
One thing Milton Glaser taught me is that we should draw something, ANYTHING, every single day. I guess you could say I took his advice in my own way but... I know full well I've been cheating. I remember asking Milton if "writing morning pages counts" since I'd already followed Julia Cameron's The Artists Way by then, and I thought that writing was just as good a way as any to tap into my creativity. But Milton said "No, you must draw. Something. Anything. Every single day."
Only... I've been completely blocked as far as actual drawing goes, and the more I told myself I needed to get back to it, the less I felt like doing it. So I... did other things. Anything BUT drawing really. Because I supposedly have a talent there. But... I just feel like... if I can't do something truly great, then why bother? And it's all been done so brillantly before and there are so many great artists and illustrators around that I interract with on a regularly and it's... kind of embarassing for me to be... even attempting it. Because who needs more doodles in this world? Seems... so silly. So now I've decided, the hell with it. I'll just do any silly ol' thing and then POST it. Just to... shake myself out of it. Face my fears head on. That's creativity for you. More temperamental than a cat or bird or a woman even. Or a man too for that matter. Lol.
So... after a lovely lunch and very inspiring conversation with Ewa at Leméac, I decided to take a long walk around Mount-Royal to make my way home. I called several friends and made a few stops along the way and I also bumped into an old acquaintance, Marijo, as she was riding her bike and we walked together and chatted for a bit. I've been hiring her as a freelance designer for years now, and I hadn't seen her in a while since she'd been on maternity leave. She's been reading my blog and she'd given me very positive feedback via email recently.
Everyone agrees that I write TOO MUCH (which... true enough) but she also said "I didn't realize just HOW talented, and how MULTI-talented you were". Her comment was very touching to me since she knows me in the capacity of art director and of course she had no idea that I could do anything besides... basically tell other people what to do and talk on the phone, right? Marijo is also a very MULTI-talented person, and she has an amazing voice, and she's released her first album along with a really fun promotional website this year. I think she and her band Marijo Bonheur will be taking off soon enough (check out her website by clicking here)). Really good stuff. I'll be talking more about all that in a separate post.
I continued my walk down toward Pine Ave and then made my way down to the dog park on Dr. Penfield. I'd been wanting to go there for a while, just to hang out with the dogs and snaps a few pics. Only I didn't have my camera with me today. What I DID have was this new journal I bought this morning. I couldn't resist it when I saw it, because right there on the cover, it said: "Wreck this journal"... brilliant, right? It's by Keri Smith, who'se a talented illustrator, and has a couple of other books out too. Heres how she describes her "Artist's Survival Kit":
For the really bad days, for the days when you want to quit, when you feel like everything you do is shit, when you feel your self-esteem plummet, when you decide that you would rather wait tables for a living, when you start to think you will never make a living making art, when you are working on something and feel like you hate it more than you've ever hated anything in your life, when someone makes an offhand remark about your work and afterwards you feel dejected, when you wish you had gone to school for accounting, when you start to believe that maybe your family was right, when you want to lie in bed for a month and eat chips. It pays to have a sense of humor. The artist's survival kit offers some help.
Btw, it's a free download, so do check it out!
So yeah. So as I was sitting in the dog park all by myself (as I don't actually currently own a dog), I pulled out "Wreck this Journal" to flip through while listening to my iPod and watching the dogs muck about. I was feeling a bit dejected after listening to Robbie Williams singing this song I really like, called "Heaven from Here". It's a nice song, but just makes me feel blue for some reason. (You can click on the link to watch a clip of it on YouTube - Robbie Williams isn't too hard to look at either).
Then a fun little Röyksopp tune came on and I felt inspired to start sketching the various dogs as they were playing and prancing around. There were big ones and small ones and spry young ones and scraggly old ones and graceful ones and odd looking ones too. Most of them seemed to have big smiles on their faces, except for the greyhound, who seemed mostly... nervous, poor thing. He wasn't playing with the others. Just stood around by his master with his tail hanging low, as they tend to do. I was hoping to see a Boxer or two, but none were attending today.
All I managed were a bunch of fleeting lines and funny little scribbles and squiggles mostly, because have you ever tried drawing a bunch of dogs as they're playing around? Not easy, I assure you. David Hockney has a book of dog paintings called Dog Days and he wrote a preface about how challenging an exercise he found it to be, and I understood why today. Hockney mostly drew his two dachshunds laying and sleeping because as he says "they are not very good models. One knock on the door is enough to make them leap up.". So you can imagine what terrible models all these various mutts and purebreds were as they were running around in the dog park today.
But I happen to think they're the BEST kinds of models actually. Because they're just so... liberating. And inspiring and full of character and completely uninbibited, obviously. And then they really don't care one way or the other if you keep staring at them, unlike humanoids, who tend to get nervous about that sort of thing. And then... you can't get too hung up about it either, because you're forced to just scribble away furiously and you can't really stop to think about what you're doing, because... one second the dogs's there, and the second it's either turned the other way, or psht!, gone completely. Sometimes I just drew while not even looking at the page. All this time I've been absolutely terrified to just draw and... today, it just happened all by itself. Like magic. And it was wonderful and fun too!
I think I'll be visiting that dog park again... And... Thanks again Kerri! :-)
Tomorrow... yoga teacher training class. Right. Best get to bed then.
Pics & scribbles by: Smiler
Journal by: Keri Smith
© All rights reserved.
Fritz is so cool.
I went into the kitchen the other night and I caught Fritz laying there in the fruit basket. Now Fritz... I tend to be a bit strict with him, and up until recently, I didn't allow him to climb onto things and I actually trained him so I just have to gently whisper "hep hep" and he'll immediately jump off on command. Which is very cool.
Only Fritz is... a cat. Cats LIKE to climb on things and into things because guess what? They're good at it, and they can. And so I've been giving him a lot more leeway as far as that goes. But THIS time, I was going to scold him. Because common now, the fruit basket? REALLY?? But then I caught myself in time. I looked at him and it just made me smile. He just looked so darn HAPPY there and he just stared at me defiantly. So I did what any normal parent would do. I kept quiet and I went to grab my camera, and I snapped a few pictures instead.
That Fritz sure is a hoot. He's certainly teaching me a thing or to about letting cats lie where they may...
(Note to Zeev:
if you click on the pics,
you can view them larger!)
:-)
Pics by: Smiler
Photo op by: Fritz
© All rights reserved.
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