The world as I see it

Why do caged birds sing?

2009-10-20T13:00:00.000-04:00

Most people wonder why caged birds sing.
I,
Appalled,
Just do not know why mine speaks,
Eloquently and uncontrollably,
After years of silence.

He cares little for the stares and comments from the flock.
He is even less concerned about the cage itself.
He just speaks,
Thrives on his own self-expression.

At times he has been advised not to expose his soul,
For with exposure always comes vulnerability-
Eventually pain.
Yet he is too keen of words, of flight,
To put an end to it.

And while other birds sing to show their beauty,
Mine speaks incessantly of it without regard for who is listening.

Love

2009-10-20T11:57:00.001-04:00

“Love is a temporary madness. It erupts like an earthquake and then subsides. And when it subsides you have to make a decision. You have to work out whether your roots have become so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part. Because this is what love is. Love is not breathlessness, it is not excitement, it is not the promulgation of promises of eternal passion. That is just being “in love” which any of us can convince ourselves we are. Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned away, and this is both an art and a fortunate accident. Your mother and I had it, we had roots that grew towards each other underground, and when all the pretty blossoms had fallen from our branches we found that we were one tree and not two.”

- St Augustine

From the movie Captain Corelli’s Mandolin

Estremecida

2009-10-20T11:56:00.000-04:00

Volando
el tiempo tambien volo
fugaz
robandome del placer de tus recuerdos.
Horas se hicieron minutos
y con un abrir y cerrar de ojos
el atardecer, en las alturas, aparecio
tonalidades exuberantes de cielo
mano a mano
con el paisaje complicado de mi alma.
Todavia me pregunto
como imagenes en nuestra memoria
pueden evocar sensaciones tan reales
de experiencias vividas
o de sue#os etereos.
Sobre las nubes
te recorri mil veces
preguntandome:
Por que cuando se oculta el sol, se pone al rojo vivo?
Por que cuando escondemos nuestros sentimientos, se avivan mas?
Y luego
tormenta de relampagos
mientras lagrimas tacitas
se manifestaban como perlas
porque todo recuerdo de ti
es solo eso, un recuerdo
y a veces, en eso, encuentro dicha.

Frida's Bed

2009-10-20T11:55:00.002-04:00

"I'd rather you didn't ask, I'd rather not talk. I'd rather you come and lie down beside me and hold me in your arms. And warm me. I'm cold, that's what I'd like to tell you. I can feel the chill of the grave blowing my way. Stay with me until I die, it'll be easier for me if you hold me in your arms, I don't want to die alone. Hold me. It won't take long, I promise. I still have just enough strength to look around and into my heart. Even that is coming to an end now. My hands are cold, my darling, make them warm. I'll leave quietly, look, see how quiet I am. I'm not angry anymore. I'm just waiting now."

Slavenka Drakulic, Frida's Bed

Khalil Gibran - The Prophet

2009-10-20T11:53:00.000-04:00

"Then Almitra spoke again and said, "And what of Marriage, master?"

And he answered saying:

You were born together, and together you shall be forevermore.

You shall be together when white wings of death scatter your days.

Aye, you shall be together even in the silent memory of God.

But let there be spaces in your togetherness,

And let the winds of the heavens dance between you.

Love one another but make not a bond of love:

Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.

Fill each other's cup but drink not from one cup.

Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf.

Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone,

Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music.

Give your hearts, but not into each other's keeping.

For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts.

And stand together, yet not too near together:

For the pillars of the temple stand apart,

And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other's shadow."

Monsoon Dreams

2009-10-20T11:52:00.000-04:00

You stole my dream last night
and with it, my sanity.
It's been 12 years
and the "what ifs"
came rushing in
like a tsunami.
Memories of what we had,
overflowed my eyes with tacit tears...
your softness
sweetest innocence
forever imprinted in me.
A soft spot in my heart you own.
It must have been so hard to let go
and yet you moved on
to far off lands
so I could see you no more.
It hurts so much
not to be able to convey my words,
to let you know
that to me you are the embodiment
of all that is pure, gentle, and good.
Our youth is gone
behind us is the freedom to love
life commitments we've both made
but if I could
a minute would suffice
to tell you how much you meant to me
to tell you what, for you, I felt.
I know it'd make no difference
for we'd still walk out
our separate ways
but just so you knew
your love was not in vain
that I felt the same way about you
and that sometimes
I still do.

My Fig Tree

2009-10-20T11:51:00.001-04:00

"I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story.
From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more figs I couldn't quite make out.
I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn't make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant loosing all the rest, and as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet."

The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath

The Muse

2009-10-20T11:49:00.000-04:00

"In a way, her strangeness, her naivete,
her craving for the other half of her
equation was the consequence of an
idle imagination. Had she paints, or clay,
or knew the discipline of the dance, or strings;
had she anything to engage her tremendous curiosity
and her gift for metaphor, she might have exchanged
the restlessness and preoccupation with whim
for an activity that provided her with all she yearned for.
And like an artist with no art form, she became dangerous."

Toni Morrison, Sula

Starved Soul

2009-10-20T11:48:00.000-04:00

"Hambre del alma is also about starvation of the soul's attributes: creativity, sensory awareness, and other instinctual gifts.
[...]
"It is important to keep our eyes open and to carefully weigh offers of an easier existence, a trouble-free path, especially if, in exchange, we are asked to surrender our personal creative joy to a cremating fire rather than enkindling one of our own making."

Clarissa Pinkola Estes, Women who run with the wolves

Trapped

2009-10-20T11:47:00.000-04:00

"Trapped in darkness, within the heart of me,
A captive bird struggles to be free.
Wings beating madly, risking mutilation,
She fights against the fear of silent suffocation.

"Seeking unknown freedom and passions unrestrained,
Becoming bruised and battered, feathers brightly stained.
Bleeding, struggling blindly, crashing against her cage,
Propelled by old desires and unacknowledged rage.

"Oblivious to the cruelty of illusion's impenetrable walls,
She flies against the painted bars, crumbles back, and falls.
And as she shudders, dying, upon the sharply splintered floor,
She suffers, still unseeing, beneath her ever-open prison door."

From "Meeting the Madwoman" by Linda Schierse Leonard

A Thousand Miles

2009-10-20T11:23:00.002-04:00

Coolness....
Wind...
Sunshine.

He is driving,
With the coolness of his spirit in control of the steering wheel.
He is driving,
With the wind caressing his incorruptible face.
He is driving,
With his eyes challenging the sunshine.

He is driving nowhere,
yet the journey seems so well defined.
The destination:
to put a thousand miles between his soul and his reasoning.
They get the best of him these days.

As he contemplates on the universe's creation,
He can't delve deep enough into the meaning of his own.

Turmoil of inexplicable feelings, encrypted thoughts
Govern his being.
He can't fathom his own nature.

And so with speed, he soothes his disarrangement.
And so with distance, he relieves his entrapped emotions.

The solitude of the road lends to him a crying shoulder.
The perplexity of the sky offers him a leading hand.

He sees so much and yet he is blind,
For the answer is in him.

It's not in the distance, nor in the wind,
Nor in the tears that roll down his baby face.

The answer is inside his heart...
He just has to accept it.

Quotes I love

2007-08-02T07:36:00.001-04:00

"A thousand years ago, the poet Han Yun wrote, 'All things not at peace will cry out'. He compared the human need to express feelings in writing to the natural force that impelled plants to rustle in the wind or metal to ring when struck."
Lisa See, Peony in Love

"...This is why those who are beautiful and talented bear the burden of finding their own way in the world.” Arthur Golden, Memoirs of a Geisha

"After a while you learn
that even sunshine burns
if you get too much
so you plant your own garden
and decorate your own soul
instead of waiting for someone to bring you flowers.”
Veronica Shoffstall, After a while

“I never saw a wild thing, sorry for itself. A small bird will drop frozen dead from a bough,without ever having felt sorry for itself.”
D. H. Lawrence, Self Pity

“Take me to you
Imprison me
For I
Except you enthrall me
Never shall be free
Nor ever chaste
Except you ravish me”
John Donne, Holy Sonnets

Walls

2007-05-08T06:02:00.000-04:00

A hermit once shared with me that he was never afraid to love or be loved.

~~~~

I’ve often wondered how he managed this -how was he not afraid of hurt, for love and hurt go hand in hand. Whether our loved ones fail us, death takes them, or our love for them evolves to something less, hurt is always a byproduct of loving.

This is why we erect walls...walls to keep the love of others at bay, and walls to keep a tight rein on our love for others.

At times these walls suffocate us, but at times they give us the security we need to breathe.

At times these walls blind us, but at times they are all we wish to see; they are the day to day splendid horizon we witness in awe.

And not all walls are the same in different places around the world. Some walls are made of sweet-smelling wood, some of paper, some of brick, and some are made of iron.

Some walls were made to withstand the test of time, others to divide, and yet others were made to wail.

There are walls that can be climbed, others than can be demolished, and there are those few ones around which we can walk.

There are walls that feel cold to the touch, with names engraved on them to remember those that died for a good cause.

And there are the walls that you erected, see-through, transparent, for me to behold but not touch what they guard.

Reflections

2002-11-04T01:14:00.000-05:00

As a woman, a mother and a human being I am appalled by how this society is allowing crimes against children to flourish. It’s not only the abounding child pornography accessible through the Internet. It’s not only the legal system and its lenient laws, verdicts and penalties for inhumane criminals that steal, abuse, beat, rape, and murder children. It’s not even the heart-gripping and graphic news that are broadcast on every TV station and the effect these have on copy-cat psychopaths. Whatever is driving these nefarious individuals to abduct children and take away their innocence and their lives must be eliminated from our society.

“A nation under one God.” Whether we chose to pledge allegiance to God or not, it matters not. He is overseeing the despiteful acts committed against His pure and undefiled creatures, and He is a God of Justice. So as we prevail on a war against terrorism overseas, we must ponder on the “terror” each parent feels to have his/her children kidnapped. Public safety is an illusion we can no longer conceive as children are been snatched even from their own homes. Thus we must exercise every precaution imaginable to protect our younger ones. We must pray for them and watch over them, as it’s our duty. And we must comfort those who have suffered great losses. They must find solace in the fact that all children are born in a state of submission to God and when they die in this natural, sinless state, they will inherit heaven in the afterlife.

All children who die before reaching the age of maturity will be in the company of Abraham (peace be upon him), the father of all Abrahamic religions. Thus, whether you are a Jew, a Christian, or a Muslim, you must know that when your children die, naturally or in a dramatic form, you have not to worry about their suffering but find peace in the great destiny that awaits them.