“If you treat glass right, it doesn't crack. If you know the properties, you can make things; the color of dusk and night and love. But you can't control people like that and I really, really wish you could. I want the world to be glass.”

-- Cath Crowley, Graffiti Moon

Stained

Design for a stained glass and a rose window by Louis Comfort Tiffany, late 19th—early 20th century.

“Grief, when it comes, is nothing like we expect it to be.”

"Grief, when it comes, is nothing like we expect it to be. … Grief has no distance. Grief comes in waves, paroxysms, sudden apprehensions that weaken the knees and blind the eyes and obliterate the dailiness of life. Virtually everyone who has ever experienced grief mentions this phenomenon of “waves.”

Grief turns out to be a place none of us know until we reach it. We anticipate (we know) that someone close to us could die, but we do not look beyond the few days or weeks that immediately follow such an imagined death. We misconstrue the nature of even those few days or weeks. We might expect if the death is sudden to feel shock. We do not expect the shock to be obliterative, dislocating to both body and mind. We might expect that we will be prostrate, inconsolable, crazy with loss. We do not expect to be literally crazy, cool customers who believe that their husband is about to return and need his shoes. In the version of grief we imagine, the model will be “healing.” A certain forward movement will prevail. The worst days will be the earliest days. We imagine that the moment to most severely test us will be the funeral, after which this hypothetical healing will take place. When we anticipate the funeral we wonder about failing to “get through it,” rise to the occasion, exhibit the “strength” that invariably gets mentioned as the correct response to death. We anticipate needing to steel ourselves the for the moment: will I be able to greet people, will I be able to leave the scene, will I be able even to get dressed that day? We have no way of knowing that this will not be the issue. We have no way of knowing that the funeral itself will be anodyne, a kind of narcotic regression in which we are wrapped in the care of others and the gravity and meaning of the occasion. Nor can we know ahead of the fact (and here lies the heart of the difference between grief as we imagine it and grief as it is) the unending absence that follows, the void, the very opposite of meaning, the relentless succession of moments during which we will confront the experience of meaninglessness itself. "

-- Joan Didion

"So, my little Amélie, you don't have bones of glass. You can take life's knocks. If you let this chance pass, eventually, your heart will become as dry and brittle as my skeleton. So, go get him, for Pete's sake!"

Ancient Glass

Found here

The future has an ancient heart. 

Emma Dajska

Image by Emma Dajska

"The highest form of human intelligence is to observe yourself without judgement." 

~ Jiddu Krishnamurti

Yoga Tune Up

Recently added these lil balls to my foam roller routine and they are brilliant!
The foam roller is like watching the TV in black an white, the balls are like colour!!

Yoga Tune Up balls

yep.

By Jenny Holzer
(found via 

Meditation

BiG | Jeremy Wintrebert from Jérôme de Gerlache on Vimeo.

her bouquet

Her Bouquet, Kiki Smith 

2007-2008. ink on Nepal paper with glass glitter, lithographic crayon and silk tissue; oil paint on mouth-blown clear antique glass with white and yellow gold leaf, two works on Nepal paper, 73-1/2" x 85-1/2" (186.7 cm x 217.2 cm) and 75" x 86" (190.5 cm x 218.4 cm)three glass panels, 23-5/8" x 19-3/4" (60 cm x 50.2 cm) each.

“Beauty is not in the head or in the heart, but in the abdomen.” 

-- Shoji Hamada

(Glass stomach by Kiki Smith)

Keep it simple.

If this practice is not bringing you any joy or discoveries or suppleness then maybe you are doing too much or trying too hard?
You need to take the time to listen as you work.

If you lose the simplicity, go for a walk and come back later.

painting by Pierre Boncompain

best not to pretend me thinks...mostly.

Hiding your hurt only intensifies it. Problems grow in the dark and only become bigger and bigger, but when exposed to the light of truth, they shrink. You are only as sick as your secrets. So take off your mask, stop pretending you’re perfect and walk into freedom.

-- Rick Warren

(image: Pina Bausch) 

glass

Indian reverse glass paintings.

Be kind

Dear Sugar, The Rumpus Advice Column #72: The Future Has An Ancient Heart

Never Not Broken

This article by Julie JC Peters for Elephant Journal 

"Akhilandeshvari:

“Ishvari” in Sanskrit means “goddess” or “female power,” and the “Akhilanda” means essentially “never not broken.” In other words, The Always Broken Goddess. Sanskrit is a tricky and amazing language, and I love that the double negative here means that she is broken right down to her name.

But this isn’t the kind of broken that indicates weakness and terror.
It’s the kind of broken that tears apart all the stuff that gets us stuck in toxic routines, repeating the same relationships and habits over and over, rather than diving into the scary process of trying something new and unfathomable.

This figure has snuck up inside me and settled into my bones. She keeps coming out of my mouth every time I teach, and she’s given me so much strength and possibility during a time of change and uncertainty in my own life. I wanted to unpack a little bit about who she is for those that might be, like me, struggling a little bit in that pile on the floor and wondering how the hell to get up again.

The answer, it turns out, is this: in pieces, warrior-style, on the back of a crocodile. Yee ha...."

And in full...

Print by ME!

You're NOT broken

You're not a problem to be solved.
You do not need to be fixed.

Learn from your history, but don't live in it. Be here NOW and take responsibility for what you can change and leave the rest.

Picture by Walker Evans via Retronaut.

Sunday Tune

Sunday Tune

This lady is full of soul.
Julud is dedicated to Aziza’s mother:

 'You are like the night and the stars/ Your voice goes beyond the top of the clouds/ You are the smiling breeze of today/ You are an example of humanity and of fight.
Resist, immortal, resist.'

Read more about Aziza and her latest (brilliant!!) album here.

Hello Weekend!

(gif found here)

Saturday Poem

"there are secrets. 
only your hands can tell me." 

— 'the myth' by Della Hicks-Wilson
 

enjoy your weekend!

Go fill your body and brain with energy and spring feelings of hope!

(gif found here)

choice

"It’s not how you start, it’s how you finish. It’s not where you’re from, it’s where you’re at. It’s not where you are, it’s where you’re going. Everybody gets knocked down, how quick are you going to get up? There’s a light at the end of the tunnel. Don’t worry, it’s not an incoming train. It’s the sun rising on a new day full of endless possibilities. We all have choices to make; should I turn left, right, go straight ahead or just stand still? The temperature is the same whether you dip your toe or dive in head first. At some point you’re going to have to get your hair wet. Go on, dive in."

Antony Genn

Found here.

Love!
(found here)