Stefan

Transitions

2012-01-31T15:09:00.003-05:00

This is what an advertisement looks like in the London Underground between posters. In person, the mysterious patch of green captured on camera doesn't exist. I currently feel like I am in this nebulous state of transition. But while I suffer and tense through some of it, I need reminders of just how beautiful these moments are. In yoga, it is all about the transitions, not the poses themselves. These interstices are quite telling of the type of person you are. So here in this photo representing transition is something of the interstice - a texture that reminds me of an x-ray and of the beautifully re-purposed industrial textile waste of Roman designer Luisa Cervese (pictured below). What lies between. The world presents me with a reminder - not to anxiously wait for moments to come - but to dig in to the present, and swim in this textured moment.

Halfway through eating an artichoke, I took a picture

2012-01-24T15:35:00.002-05:00

Apologies for all the food photos lately. Actually, no, I'm not sorry. There have just been such beautiful things from the market this week and they're all just begging me for photographic attention, as if I were Cecil de Mille or something. So feast your eyes on some beautiful edible imagery of the season.

Crimson & Gold

2012-01-23T16:58:00.000-05:00

What better than blood oranges to ring in the year of the dragon?

Kitchen Capers

2012-01-22T00:39:00.002-05:00

To play off yesterday's post, taste the rainbow ;)

Beautiful candycane, yellow and white beets from Ted's Veg at Burrough Market photographed before roasting.

Be Wonderful and Wise

2012-01-21T11:44:00.004-05:00

The subtitle of this post should be: How to be tricked into becoming a walking advertisement.

Every Saturday, Tess and I like to go to Burrough Market. And, if we're in good shape (we usually are, but some Saturdays we just need to snooze a little while longer), we get there early before the crowds (and sometimes we get there so early, we've beat out some of the vendors).

After a lovely Aussie-made cappuccino at Flat Cap, a new addition to the Market crew (and an excellent one at that), we make our way over to Ted's Veg, where we always proceed to buy out the place (okay, well not exactly, but it feels like and endless "and this... and this... and four of those...").

Today, the kind vendor said he was giving out free cloth bags. On the one hand I feel that cloth bags have become the disease of our generation. We've moved from acquiring plastic bags to seeing a multiplication of re-useable bags convinced that it's eco-friendly. Yes sure, to a point. Anyways, I digress. On the other hand, it's hard to say no. So we get these new bags. I mean c'mon, the vendor is all smiley and nice, we couldn't refuse.

The bags are beautiful, a rainbow of fruits and vegetables and food in all colours with the motto below: Be Wonderful and Wise. Healthy, inspirational, vibrant and positive. Who couldn't perk up at that? Preaching to the choir, cloth bag, we're already at the market. To be honest, it sort of looks like Tess & I's kitchen (see exhibit A below).

The thing is, there's no info. Who made it? What's it for? The vendor won't say. So we go around touting these new digs, going about our usual, etc. etc.

When we get home, we find out the truth (the bag told us to search for the motto, so we did!). Be Wonderful and Wise is, in fact, the new motto for Lurpak, a brand that is known for their butter. And this new campaign, embracing healthy food in a colourful sunshine paradigm, is meant to launch their newest low-fat spread.

The ad, below, (along with all the branding and website stuff) is done by Weiden + Kennedy aka W+K, the ad agency that brought us Nike's Just Do It and Old Spice's The Man You Could Smell Like campaigns. It's super creative and fun and foody.

But somehow I feel a little cheated. So, unknowingly, I became an advertisement? Why not just embrace butter in all its glory (a la Julie & Julia)? Or, gasp, in moderation?

Why not start touting a healthy olive oil, branch out and actually get healthy? I know, that would go against the 100+ years of history of a company that is KNOWN for butter. It is nice to know that a big corporate company is trying to operate on a human level, spread the love of food, share recipes, think seasonal and connect to the food that goes beyond just its product. Their website is fun and friendly. Explore the rainbow, see what foods are fresh this week and on and on. It taps into people's curiosity about food and connects their product with all the produce they see around them -- just like all that available at Burrough Market. But the last thing I want is to think "Oh look at those beautiful turnips! Hm, I should cook 'em in Lurpak!"

It's sort of like Lurpak has co-opted the Skittles Taste the Rainbow, to bring it stealthily and mischievously into the healthy realm of fun colourful produce (while subtly pushing its own corporate goals of sales). Thus, something just doesn't feel right... How's that for wonderful and wise?

The Original McQueen?

2012-01-19T02:17:00.003-05:00

Browsing through the oeuvre of Salvador Dali, I came across a few images of figures with heads of flowers. And I couldn't help think of Alexander McQueen. Perhaps the Spaniard's late 1930s flight of fancy re-ignited the late British fashion designer.

Pure Delight

2012-01-15T14:55:00.002-05:00

With their densely packed swirls of cinnamony sweetness between dough that is buttery but not too rich, the cinnamon buns at Violet Cakes are pure delight. While I do work there and am by no means impartial, the rapidity with which these spirals of deliciouness sell out is testament to their popularity -- all the more given that these baked creations have only just been introduced earlier this week.

*image courtesy of the Violet newsletter, subscribe here

Kitchen Capers

2012-01-14T10:21:00.002-05:00

The spirals of brussel sprouts, the systematic reuse of yoghurt jars - all part of the inspiration of Saturday marketing and general kitchen capers. I still marvel at being able to buy a whole stem of brussel sprouts for £1.50.

The Daily Om

2012-01-11T02:46:00.002-05:00

No matter when I check The Daily Om, it inevitably echoes - either in its inspiration of the day or its daily horoscope - my inner sentiments. So, instead of composing my thoughts, I thought I'd share an echoing parallel of my state of mind.

January 11, 2012
The Ultimate Authority
Using Our Own Minds

To a certain degree, we rely on other people’s accounts of reality to inform us of the nature of the universe. For example, we can’t all be molecular physicists, but we can benefit from taking their findings to heart. In the same way, we often look to teachers, various leaders, and gurus to tell us about the path to enlightenment and the nature of the realm of spirit. While this input from experts is undeniably valuable, our own sense of the truth is ultimately the most important piece in processing the information we take in from external sources. In the end, we are the authorities in our own lives, and we have the final say on whether something generally held as true is true for us.

We need only take a brief look at history to remember that the religious, scientific, and political establishments that ruled the day were all wrong about something at some point in time. This is the beauty of learning, experiencing, and evolving. While we sometimes wish we could just let someone else decide for us what is real and true, this is clearly not a viable option. The good news in all this is that we can confidently devote ourselves to making up our own minds about reality, taking everything that is handed to us as truth with a grain of salt.

This does not mean that we discount the information we receive from outside sources. It simply means that we are vigilant enough to question it before we decide whether or not we agree with it. All the information we receive is useful in the process of helping us make up our own minds. As we allow ourselves to sit with the things we learn, measuring them alongside our own inner sense of the truth and our own experiences, we find that making up our minds is a joyful process of integration that grows us into stronger, smarter, more engaged human beings.

Oh Yes!

2012-01-09T16:51:00.004-05:00

This license plate echoes just what I am thinking when I see these cute little vintage cars. They seem to dot my neighbourhood at every corner, or perhaps I notice them everywhere I go. Looking closely I discovered that the car is a Nissan Figaro. Apparently it was originally produced - circa 1991 - only for the Japanese market but became popular in the UK and Ireland. The original Japanese production was only 8,000 and avid car-owners had to enter a lottery to even own one. Such was demand that they increased the production by 12,000. I wonder where all the Brits find their current models, and why they have such a following here in Clapham...

My Own Personal Orbit

2012-01-08T10:07:00.002-05:00

Today, I wrap myself in my own cocoon,
traveling my own path of ideas and tasks,
mundane and grand, flitting from one
to the next, letting the whole
system spin, like the cultivation
of a pearl, or the poaching of an egg, swirling
around a nucleus, long strands wrapping
to form a whole.

Beatrice

2012-01-06T15:07:00.000-05:00

Let them come. I've had
my vengeance. And you?
What will you have of me?

You cannot rob me of my life, my innocence. That
has already been stolen from me. Look closer.

A fire still burns, inextinguishable.
I speak to you from a molten calm.

Julia Margaret Cameron, Beatrice, 1866, Albumen print.
For Cameron's contemporaries, the simple title of this life-size close-up head would have suggested Percy Pysshe Shelley's poetic drama The Cenci (1819). The play was based on the true story of Beatrice Cenci, who had her abusive father murdered in 16th-century Italy and was then executed along with her conspirators.

*print and text featured in new permanent Photograph Gallery at the Victoria & Albert Museum

Paradoxymoron

2012-01-05T16:36:00.002-05:00

A little optical trip - a 1996 artwork by Patrick Hughes - that never fails to bowl me over at The British Library.

Is it all the same?

2012-01-02T17:04:00.002-05:00

I just finished reading Jeffrey Eugenides's latest novel The Marriage Plot. It was a well-written, can't-put-it-down, I'm-going-to-read-this-in-the-bathtub sort of book - the type of book that makes you obsessive about finding out what happens next. And some would say that is the mark of a good book. After reading his previous book, Middlesex, I was curious to see what new tale Eugenides would spin out. Structurally based on the Victorian novel surrounding, you guessed it, the marriage plot, the story, set in the 80s, spins out as a web of relationships and an exploration of mental illness in one of the characters. Compelling. Complex.

But comparing the book with the book I read before (Abraham Verghese's Cutting For Stone) and the book I read before that (Madeline Miller's The Song of Achilles), I wondered if the general formula for fiction was the same. Along the arc of each of the stories, there were moments of learning, love, sexual awakening. Sure the stories were different but, it seems to me that the basic ingredients are all the same. Getting to certain moments in a fictive narrative, part of me rolls my eyes in familiar acknowledgement while another part of me just devours it. Somehow, perhaps, it isn't hackneyed. Maybe these are the moments to which we can all relate.

To A Fortuitous 2012!

2011-12-30T22:24:00.001-05:00

Aglow for the Holidays

2011-12-22T16:27:00.000-05:00

Can you spot the mistletoe?

The Blush of Christmas

2011-12-19T17:52:00.000-05:00

Quotable

2011-12-16T17:40:00.001-05:00

Rosina took silence as a personal offense, and spoke into empty rooms and chattered into cupboards.

-from Abraham Verghese's Cutting for Stone

Pinpoint.

2011-12-11T17:34:00.004-05:00

From doing copious amounts of yoga, I have learned to be introspective or, rather, I have learned to honour my introspective nature. At the same time, the practice of yoga has taught me to tune into adjusting parts of my body and learning to do things I never thought possible. Tuck my tailbone under? Sure. Externally rotate my left thigh? No problem. It is truly a wonder to see how far my practice has brought me in seven years.

With this focused introspection, I have also attuned to an intuition regarding my body, my moods and, generally, the change of my own personal sphere when in interaction with the world. This week, eating eggs doesn't seem to agree with me. Certain social situations drain my confidence from me. These are just things that are. This sort of awareness is truly a gift, and more so a self practice I must constantly hone.

Recently I have noticed with more acuity the point on my body where stress and tension build up. I always knew my hips were tight and that pigeon pose could be so very frustrating. I have also always known that I need to work on my core strength, forever more. And while I knew I held tension in my shoulders, I have recently realized that there is a spot around my right shoulder blade that knots and twists when stress beats down. I don't know how to explain it. I also don't know (nor am I searching for) the cure for it. I just realize it to be the manifestation of stress for me individually, for my body, for my experience.

And there is something to that self knowledge.

We Are Young

2011-12-08T15:08:00.000-05:00

On the verge of 26, I have to remember the following.

Words Fail Me

2011-12-07T16:34:00.002-05:00

It's been a while since I've sat down and written. Some may say that this is a lack of diligence, straying from my craft. Truth be told, ever since graduating and leaving behind the measured and more spread-out life of the student, I've been working really had and, as with everything else, I've committed myself 100% to these work-related endeavours, whether it be waking up at 5am to make it to my cafe job over the summer or putting in my hours of research as an intern.

This time of busy-ness has meant that side projects have fallen to the wayside and that perhaps I am not as 'connected' as I once was. My interior journey, however, has continued nonetheless. Means of expression have continued in different ways. Life, as I knew it, has morphed into a different shape. Hopefully the upcoming holidays will give me some time to step back, gain perspective, and reflect. Maybe I'll try being more connected and plug back in.

This world measures output and I've just tried shying away from it for a moment. Perhaps I think too much, consider too much and go too cautiously into the next step of everything. (I now realize that perhaps I have been away from writing too long, it feels like I am plunging a drain and the words are splashing all over the place). Maybe I am a bit paralyzed by the fact that everything I put out seems to form an image and I am thinking too much, too long term, the 'brand' should be fully formed.

But I'm rambling. To make a long story short, words have failed me. I haven't put them together, they haven't come to mind. And I have been okay with that. I am more a believer that words will come when they must, passion will fall into place, drive will kick into gear.

Let this be a first step (not necessarily in the right direction, but simply a first step in some direction).

Cooking is Life

2011-11-27T12:48:00.004-05:00

"Mustard seeds explode in the hot oil. She holds a lid over the pan to fend off the missiles. Rat-a-tat! like hail on a tin roof. She adds the cumin seeds, which sizzle, darken, and crackle. A dry, fragrant smoke chases out the mustard scent. Only then are the onions added, handfuls of them, and now the sound is that of life being spawned in a primordial fire"

-Abraham Verghese in Cutting for Stone

*perhaps one of the most evocative and powerful passages about food I have read in a long time...

Namaste

2011-11-05T12:58:00.002-04:00

The gesture of prayer and calling up to a higher power seems to be a fairly universal action. The action itself of putting your hands together, I have found, can be an extremely powerful and moving exercise. My experience with yoga has taught me to really explore the space of my body in different ways, detecting miniscule adjustments of muscle and bone, awareness and sensation.

Putting my hands together, I try to push equally in opposite directions, left towards right and right towards left. I try to feel all the pads of my fingers equally, each knuckle and all the edges of my palm. Trying to find that perfect balance, I can be overcome with such a deep sense of concentration -- a feeling that can take my breath away. So I breathe into it and try to find that connected balance.

Rise Above

2011-10-19T16:57:00.002-04:00

On Sunday I extricated myself from the Underground, drifted away from the bustle of London footfall and went to the 32nd floor of the Centrepoint building for a fun event and, quite refreshingly, a 360-degree view of London from above.

It is so nice to see the city from above, to separate from urbanity and gain perspective.

PS also, it is the only vantage point to appreciate how incredible the British Museum really is (see below).

Of Words: Figurati

2011-09-18T16:52:00.002-04:00

One of my favourite words in any language is in Italian (another favourite I'll have to write about later).

Figurati.

In response to expressions of thanks, a person would respond, 'Figurati!' meaning something like 'Of course!' or 'No problem!'. There is something about the selflessness of the response; the word recalls the sentiment of benevolence, the pleasure of giving.

a dark and sumptuous corner

2011-09-14T16:52:00.001-04:00

Sometimes, the best photos are unplanned and unintentional.

Sometimes words

2011-09-06T17:23:00.000-04:00

Sometimes words come to mind merely for their tactility,
their meaning so wrong, so not what I was looking for.

Give me syllables to taste, I'll leave the meanings behind.

Before & After The Party

2011-09-05T15:52:00.002-04:00

*Those with a knowledge of Warhol will smile a knowing and charmed smile.

An active form of prayer, of meditation, of grace

2011-08-30T15:45:00.002-04:00

"What we are taught in yoga is that there is no separation between the mind, the body, and the spirit. That everything is interdependent upon the whole. And there's so much denial about our body because we are often so fixated on the way that it looks. If we're not comfortable with the way that it looks we deny it and shame it.

Another aspect is using your body to pray. It all connects back to service which is in the evolution of the work that I've done.

I trust that if I do my yoga practice I am going to get stronger and more flexible. If I stay in alignment, if I don't push, if I don't force, then my body will organically open in time. I know if I breathe deeply, I will oxygenate my body, it has an influence on my nervous system. These things are facts that I know to be true.

But I also recognize that it's a mystical practice, and that you can use your body as an expression of your devotion. So the way you place your hand, the way you place your foot forward or back is an offering. I offer the movements to someone I love or to the healing of the planet. So if I am moving from a state of love, and my heart is open to that connection between myself and another person or myself and the universe, it becomes an active form of prayer, of meditation, of grace."

Yoga Teacher Seane Corn in interview with Krista Tippett on Being (an American Public Media podcast)

A poetic beginning

2011-08-23T09:31:00.002-04:00

I have been holding onto an image for quite some time,
hoping that it would sprout into a poem, but it still lies
quiet, waiting for the right moment to germinate.

Arabesques of steam rise from the hot water,
like the flamenco dancer's spinning hand, effortless
to the music, beyond bodily limitations, listening
to the rhythm.

On Time

2011-08-19T09:32:00.000-04:00

"When I was alive, I believed — as you do — that time was at least as real and solid as myself, and probably more so. I said 'one o'clock' as though I could see it, and 'Monday' as though I could find it on the map; and I let myself be hurried along from minute to minute, day to day, year to year, as though I were actually moving from one place to another. Like everyone else, I lived in a house bricked up with seconds and minutes, weekends and New Year's Days, and I never went outside until I died, because there was no other door. Now I know that I could have walked through the walls."

- From Peter S. Beagle's The Last Unicorn, 1968.

The Other Side

2011-08-18T09:25:00.001-04:00

Now to the other side
of the Atlantic
of the road
where drivers sit on the left
and cold water streams through the right
Home, in mirror image,
for another seven days.

Re-Sync-ing/ Re-Think-ing

2011-08-05T17:49:00.003-04:00

Today, finally, after 5 weeks of waiting, I got Internet set up in my new apartment in London.

After the initial surge of excitement (deleting the hoards of emails from a week of accumulation), I got to a point where the energy and adrenaline ebbed.

And so?

Part of me feels slightly obsolete on the Internet again. Part of me feels great that my life hasn't revolved around it.

Over the past few weeks I would just check my email at (one of my) work(s) on Monday and Tuesday. It was thrilling to catch up. But now I am back. Perhaps its just a matter of getting back into a rhythm.

Ah, perennial transition.

Within.

2011-06-07T13:15:00.001-04:00

“Immensity is within ourselves. It is attached to a sort of expansion of being that life curbs and caution arrests, but which starts again when we are alone. As soon as we become motionless, we are elsewehere; we are dreaming in a world that is immense. Indeed, immensity is the movement of motionless man. It is one of the dynamic characteristics of quiet daydreaming.” – Gaston Bachelard.

Laughing into the Unconscious

2011-06-04T04:57:00.002-04:00

Last night I went to see Dave St Pierre's Un peu de tendresse bordel de merde. Amidst intense work for my dissertation, this production of raw primality, emotion and movement was just the thing to bring me out of my intellectual headspace. With dancers infiltrating into the audience in various states (of undress), there was no way not to be confronted, engaged and involved.

Throughout the performance, I tried to make sense of it all, a lot of scenes marrying adult situations with unfiltered childish emotion. Some of the emotion and movement were extremely raw to the point that select audience members were uncomfortable and some actually left. But throughout it all, humour also came to the forefront, bringing the audience along the journey into a space both strange and fascinating.

Whenever I have done automatic writing, and really let go, the funniest little moments have appeared. When I am most comfortable, I can be absolutely hilarious, without trying, without second thought. Humour can be a great indicator of digging deep. Sometimes in yoga class, when I have really let go of self-consciousness, I smile, I laugh, I forget which is left and which is right.

Just a thought for a Saturday, let go, forget, smile and laugh. :)

Curator of Self

2011-05-31T04:12:00.004-04:00

I've grown up in an age where computers came to maturity at the same time that I did. I can't imagine today's generation, babies playing with cellphone toys, learning the ABCs from a computer screen... While I will have to wrap my head around it by the time I have children, I consider myself lucky to have known an age before texting, facebook and constant cellphone accessibility. I think it has allowed me to be doubly aware of my sense of self.

I do admit, that a lot of the wisdom and caution that I have towards the internet has trickled down through my mother and her own precautious and skeptical behaviour (although she embraced eBay 1000%). When it comes to my self and sharing of myself online, (un)fortunately (depending how you see it), the picture of who I am now stretches to the online realm.

What I write in my blog, what I share on Facebook, these are all statements as to who you are and what you stand for. I've found myself skeptical of supporting certain groups or campaigns online, calculating my future as if I were running for office (although I don't plan on it). The New York Times Magazine published a feature article last year entitled The Web Means the End of Forgetting and it is all too true. This age of cyber everything demands a new sense of self awareness.

Part of me doesn't want to care, part of me just wants to share. I guess it's like a yoga class, I just want to go and abandon myself to my practice, but that's not how it works. I need to have the same self awareness all the time. Sure at first it can be a nuisance, but I'm sure that in due time the self awareness will just become a unconscious good habit.

And it is also an opportunity (or a type of (performance) art, used time and time again, I am the curator of my identity. I create a constellation of facts, photos and tidbits that complete an image of who I am (or who you think I am). It can be quite a wonderful creative process, but, as with any exhibit, it is in the interpretation, in the spaces in between that the true feeling, the true soul comes to life.

(A neon work by Tracey Emin, currently on display at Hayward Gallery, which I think complements this reflection nicely)

If at first you don't succeed, throw out the dough and start again

2011-05-29T04:18:00.004-04:00

Flour and I don't seem to mix. At least not the first time around.

Throughout this year, Tess & I have been making bread. And when I say Tess & I, it really is more like Tess (& I) or, to be very brutally honest: Tess. Tess goes through the routine of making bread while I provide the company and watch her make her magic.

Yet after four weeks of not having her around, I decided, finally, to give it a go. First time around, I think I used plain flour. I could tell that something was amiss. When I went to incorporate the yeast the dough ended up feeling very heavy. And after waiting 30 minutes, no rising. So I pitched it.

When I was home for the holidays, I had somehow been infected with the need to bake and tried my hand at making pie for Christmas dinner. I must have tried 3-4 times to make the dough, each time failing, something in the chemistry was wrong. Turns out I was severely misunderstanding what shortening was (ie margarine NOT oil). Somehow I persisted, and I came out victorious in the end, my pie garnering a round of applause at dinner.

Anyhoo, so as with the pie, so with the bread. I pitched batch number one and hoped I wouldn't need to repeat as often as I did the pie dough recipe. I went out and bought proper bread flour and some more yeast and decided, screw Tess's instructions (which are a little laborious and involve 4 hours of waiting and working -- I'll try it next time), I'm going to follow the bag.

Thus, following the instructions on the bag. I could tell immediately that things were going better. The consistency of everything was just so much more breadlike.

And after a bit of time resting, beautiful airy risen dough. And after time in the oven... voila! bread! crusty! delicious!

Somehow I've got this tenacity when it comes to baking, this need to succeed. Breadmaking is a beautiful process of creation, it's therapeutic and reliable, and nourishing.

So fail with big broad beautiful mistakes. Take a moment and start over again. The results will be incredibly satisfying.

Hold the Cheese, Please

2011-05-25T15:47:00.002-04:00

I do hope that this blog isn't going the way of a pasta blog, but hey, good things need to be shared.

And a recent good thing which I do quite love is Lemony Cashew-Basil Pesto from Dreena Burton's fantabulous (extra syllables, notice?) cookbook Eat, Drink and Be Vegan (there are things in there that make you want to CONVERT to veganism).

I've made it before and the people who've eaten it are floored to discover that there isn't any cheese in it. Well it's true, believe it.

But don't just believe it, make it!

Lemony Cashew-Basil Pesto on Pasta

1 large clove garlic
3.5 tbsp freshly squeezed lemon juice
3/4 tsp dry mustard (I just use regular mustard, well, whole grain mustard)
3/4 tsp sea salt
pepper to taste
2 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp water (it doesn't seem like much but somehow it works)
1 cup + 2 tbsp raw cashes (can use almonds, just add more water)
2 3/4 cups fresh basil leaves packed down
225-340 g dry pasta (whatever you want really)
olive oil for finish

In a food processor (or a blender), combine garlic, lemon juice, mustard, salt, pepper, oil and water, and puree until fairly smooth, scraping down the sides as needed.

Add cashews and basil and puree (leave as much or as little texture as you want)

Cook your pasta and drain, toss with pesto (it can be a bit of a paste but be patient, maybe add a bit of the pasta water).

Season with salt pepper and finish with a drizzle of olive oil.

Enjoy!

Re-collect: Rome.

2011-05-23T14:05:00.003-04:00

I trekked to Cacio e Pepe, guidebook in hand. I had starred the restaurant as a place to try. A table for one, alone. I decided to try the restaurant's eponymous dish. Cheese (pecorino) and pepper. Plain and simple.

I remember being transported by this dish. The fresh pasta. The simplicity of its sauce. And filling. When the waitress came to ask me if she could get me anything else, I was saddened to say no. But truthfully I was happy to give my high praises and thanks for a delicious meal. A delicious memory.

*Re-collect may just become a regular feature/snippet, resurrecting old photos, recalling old memories. Re-collecting those memories that remain twinkle every now and then in the mists of memory.

Inner Peace? Well yes, among other things

2011-05-21T04:54:00.002-04:00

Recently Ed Halliwell wrote an article debunking the everpresent peace of meditation in his article in The Guardian, Meditation is an Emotional Rollercoaster. How true he is. And it got me thinking to my yoga practice.

I've often come to the mat eager to get that sense of buoyancy that comes from immersing myself in my practice. Just let go and give in. But yoga really isn't about that. The practice, for me, is so much about awareness, attuning to my environment, inner and outer, and zero-ing in on the intricacies of my body. It's not about being flexible, if you think so you've missed the boat, or, rather, you're going to have to wrestle that expectation to the ground for a K.O. Some days I'm flexible, other days I'm tight. I've got to accept where I am from day to day, from moment to moment. No matter how much I hang on to routine, every day is different.

Recently I have awakened to the yogic practice as constant corporeal vigilance. The moment I sink in, ie forget about all those bandhas and all the muscle and bone alignments, I've lost it. Can yoga make me injury free? Sure, but I've got to remain awake to my body. It's about getting into the habit of constantly kindling the inner fire. Sure I can achieve some peace, but I can also deal with lots of frustration along the way. It's like going into the body and turning on all the switches and making sure they stay on. Only then can I truly shine.

Our New Friends

2011-05-09T03:49:00.003-04:00

Welcome to the 21st century where websites have become our friends. I chuckle and smile when Google reminds me of important birthdays and anniversaries - an informative friend full of "did you know...?" facts. Websites sometimes update their look, and everyone notices. Come April Fools, Gmail and YouTube play practical jokes on us. How fun that our Internet lives are infused with personality and not the stuff of futuristic robotic nightmares.

So with that, Google just informed me this morning that it is the 76th birthday (or would be, were he alive) of Roger Hargreaves, the creator of the beloved Little Miss and Mr Men series. Here, Little Miss Shy:

Smile and enjoy (you can go to Google and click refresh repeatedly to see all the other doodles...)!

Life According to Polish Proverbs

2011-05-04T02:32:00.002-04:00

Between when I went to sleep Monday night and when I awoke again on Tuesday morning, Canada learned its election results.

When I awoke, out of habit, I rolled out of bed and onto my yoga block to sit meditation. But my mind was already curious and active, not able to be silent for the duration of my practice. I then spent the good part of ten minutes gasping at this historic news (each party had made history in one way or another during the election) and continued to read and listen to news stories . Caught in this whirlwind of news from home, my morning derailed a bit. My bed was a mess, abandoned in a pile, and I was already off schedule for my morning coffee and to get to The National Arts Library.

In Polish, there is a saying that my mother loves to quote: Jak sobie pościelesz, tak się wyśpisz (You rest the way you have made your bed). And as the day continued, I found the proverb to be more and more true, my day was turning out to be a wild abandoned messy heap.

I went to the library and researched, my mind still twisting with the news as one party leader after another resigned from leadership. I hit a lag of motivation, adrift in a miasma of big ideas. Later that afternoon I would meet with my advisor to discuss the first draft (a very drafty draft) of my dissertation.

Researching back at The Courtauld, I received a phone call. I had been offered an interview for a job on which my heart was set. All of a sudden I was motivated again, excited, seeing a task ahead, a goal. I zipped through the article I was reading and went home to prep for my advisor meeting. And, suddenly, somewhere in that advisor meeting, I got lost again in my mess of dissertation ideas - I had too many images, I didn't have a clear enough focus. I started to feel sick. So the rest of the day I spent coming back down to earth, relaxing, recentering, shaking away the off-kilter feelings.

The funny thing about this dissertation process is the independence of it all. I have a half hour meeting with my advisor maybe once every two weeks. The rest of the time, the rest of my week, I am left to myself and my ideas. When I struggled with my draft I realized all the things that were wrong with my draft. And, really, it comes down to me, my standards, my dedication to clear writing and presentation. So having this sick-to-my-stomach crisis this "early" in the process (with 5 weeks to go) is a good thing, snap me back into things. Anchor down. Get concrete. Set a course for success. Lay down the basics, stay visual, refine my focus and get cracking. Now for an outline.

But before the outline, waking to a new day, I've set my bed, shaken out the duvet and laid it flat. And so the rest of my day, according to the Polish proverb, should unfold smoothly.

here comes the sun

2011-04-24T16:06:00.000-04:00

...but I believe in art.

2011-04-13T16:21:00.003-04:00

Some quotes to ponder from Seven Days in the Art World by Sarah Thornton:

"Never go to the wall text. Never ask the artist. Learn to read the work."

Artists often don't fully understand what they've made, so other people's readings can help them "see a conscious level" what the have done.

"It is a bit like yoga. You must empty your mind and be receptive. It's about being open to the possibility of what you could know."

"You have to find something that is true to yourself as a person - some non-negotiable core that will get you through..."

I believe in education for its own sake, because it is deeply humanizing. It is about being a fulfilled human being.

"I'm an atheist, but I believe in art. I go to galleries like my mother went to church. It helps me understand the way I live."

There is a kind of poetry in their impenetrable phrases. Why shouldn't art criticism have that?

"I'm looking for what the artist is trying to say and what he or she is accidentally saying, what the work reveals about society and the timeless conditions of being alive."

An artist is someone who understands the border between this world and that one.

"I love stepping out of the everyday into the space of art. I love to be immersed in an idea or an aesthetic or something phenomenological. Frankly, I get enough of everyday life."

[Anish Kapoor on his Biennale experience] "I remember... It might have been the first day of the previews that year. There were thousands of people. as there always are." He paused. "At lunchtime I went into one of the nicer restaurants near the Giardini and... everybody in the restaurant got up and started clapping." Kapoor looked at me with genuine amazement. "It was completely spontaneous," he said, "I was just a young guy. It was bizarre. It was wonderful."

In the Green

2011-04-08T05:28:00.000-04:00

Inspired by the remains our Sunday night roasted poussin (a young chicken conveniently sized for two which we stuffed with a bulb of garlic and covered in oil and a hint of salt), Tess & I decided to make stock from scratch. But really the stock was just a secondary by-product (or rather an ingredient) for the Soupe aux herbes which I have been eying in Caroline Dumas's Soupesoup cookbook (from the eponymous Montreal restaurant).

The recipe is pretty easy once you get all the prep together. Comes out like a sort of healthy mojito in soup form. The only part I was worried about was putting our hand blender into the pot. Metal on metal, could it work? Would sparks fly? Would the kitchen blow up? But alas (or thankfully?), no fireworks. Just a quick jump to puree.

2 tsp. olive oil (we used rapeseed oil, but really who cares?)
1 leek, cut into rounds
4 cups chicken stock
3 cups spinach
1 cup watercress
1/2 cup coriander
1/2 cup mint
1/2 cup basil
Juice from 1 lemon
S&P

- Heat oil in a large pot, add leek with 1 tsp. water, cook for 3 minutes without browning.
- Add stock, bring to a boil then take off the heat.
- Add spinach, watercress and herbs. Blend immediately.
- Add lemon juice and spice to taste!

Ode to the Goose Egg

2011-04-07T05:34:00.000-04:00

Tess and I get excited when we see new things at the market (really, we just get excited by the market). So when we saw goose eggs lurking about, naturally, we got excited. And we bought two.

We weren't sure what to think of goose eggs, or at least our expectations of goose eggs. We had tried quail eggs (cute! precious! subtle & delicious!) and duck eggs (rubbery! weird! why-the-hell-would-you-use-these?). With a new type of egg the size of my palm, would it be great? Or would it be awful? The saleswoman assured us that 1 goose egg equaled 3 chicken eggs in volume, and perhaps the same ratio of richness too.

So we hard boiled one (more like soft boiled - only leaving it boiling for 8 minutes) and poached the other (taking a day in between to rest our palettes. The massive egg was difficult to poach, forming its own pod around the yolk and a train of nebula-like opalescent egg white. The hard-boiled white was almost pearl-escent.

The verdict? Rich, delicious. We'd do it again. Out with the duck and in with the goose.

Confessions of a Procrastinator, a Cultivator

2011-04-06T05:20:00.003-04:00

I must confess, this week is the first week that I have been consistently productive, immersing myself in reading and research for my dissertation, due in a little over two months. I am still in a dense fog as to what exactly I will articulate, but the search has begun, I have begun to sift.

And for the past few weeks, what have I been doing? I've been mulling ideas. I took out a few books, I let them sit on my floor a while. I have focused on other things. All this idling, perhaps it is a luxury, perhaps it is a space for dreaming, for breathing, for letting ideas coagulate. Letting the fields of grey matter in my mind lay fallow after the condensed rush of the last semester, its presentations, papers and exam.

So now I reach into my pockets and begin sow the next crop...

Perfecting Pancakes

2011-04-03T16:58:00.002-04:00

On Shrove Tuesday, Tess and I decided to celebrate by starting our morning in the kitchen at the pan, flipping. It doesn't take much to get us into the kitchen and it doesn't get much to get our brains scheming either. So with Shrove Tuesday come and gone, we were back at it again when the pancake-hankering or the creative culinary spirit struck once more.

We found the first recipe we used to yield rubbery results and decided to substitute other things for milk (aka the culprit) thanks to my father's insight. We tried orange juice, oat milk and just plain water. Experimenting further, we wanted to marry the flavour of orange juice pancakes with the perfect texture of oat milk pancakes and voila, we've flipped into our favorite.

Tess & Stefan's Perfect Pancakes

1 egg plus 1 egg yolk
115ml oat milk
115ml orange juice
125g plain flour

Mix egg, oat milk and orange juice. Pulse in blender a few times to mix.

Sift flour and add gradually to liquid mixture in blender (pulse a few times, don't go crazy) until all flour is added.

Pour into a bowl or make sure you can ladle from container to pan.

Heat pan and add a bit of butter. Should be nice and hot.

Add batter, spread it out, let it sit and bubble. Shake the pan and work your flippin' action.

Bon appetit!

welcome spring

2011-03-28T10:54:00.000-04:00

a duck, a chicken, and a quail: the omelette debate, a joint sunday morning conference with the pancake question

2011-03-20T07:31:00.002-04:00

Those living on the fourth floor of Duchy House know my friend Tess and I to be a little nuts. We are the adventurous duo in the kitchen, baking beets, making our own hummus, and concocting any number of meals. We love to cook, it's obvious.

Seeing goose eggs at the market last week, we came up with the idea to compare different eggs and see how they taste. So this morning we had a great omelette debate between duck, chicken and quail (unfortunately we found no goose, not this week at least...). Duck was surprisingly rubbery, while chicken was a solid regular. Quail was delicate (and somewhat tasteless) and somewhere between chicken and duck on the texture scale.

After experimenting with pancakes on Shrove Tuesday and getting nice flippers albeit with a rubbery finish, we decided to go a little nuts this morning, dividing the batter into three and using orange juice, water and oat milk as the liquid. Orange juice, while covering the pan well, proved ridiculous to flip, providing us with pancake mounds that had a lovely tart taste and a nice spongy but not rubbery texture. Water yielded a crepe-like pancake, easily flipped, decent but generally unexciting. Oat milk won by a long shot in terms of taste and texture: delicate, rubber-less, airy. The batter, in the pan, was entirely too viscous to spread but created a good little pan-cake.

The adventures in gastronomic experimentation continue...

Don't Sweat Anything

2011-03-17T06:55:00.002-04:00

Richard Carlson wrote a book called Don't Sweat the Small Stuff and more and more lately, I've realized that this is the right way to live. But I really think that you shouldn't really sweat anything. Sure, you should take control of your life to the best of your ability, your life won't steer itself. But as the Serenity Prayer articulates rather well, calling up to a Higher Power: "Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference."

I've come to realize that it's great to be aware of the shortcomings of current situations and your future goals. But dragging your feet about it or sending out emotions of need and desperation won't really help in the end. Karmically, it just isn't positive.

Every time I am about to leave a place, the last days of study abroad or a trip or the end of an educational degree, great things tend to happen. Love springs up, positive emotions bloom, things just seem to be dandy. There is something in the momentum of the end and the promise of a beginning that makes life a bit more true.

I've been trying to lead my daily life in this way since realizing it. Sure there are financial worries to be considered and the future to look after, but it doesn't need to become a weight or a preoccupation. Acknowledge, accept and move on. I aim to give my life it's momentum, a constant evolution, a changeability, a joie de vivre.

So here's to flux, here's to faith, here's to diving in...

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

2011-03-15T18:31:00.004-04:00

I've just returned back from the concluding performance of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, a ballet in two acts. Choreographed by Christopher Wheeldon and composed by Joby Talbot, the production is actually a co-production between The Royal Ballet and The National Ballet of Canada. Fancy that.

It is the story we all know well and I'm sure it was daunting to bring Lewis Carroll's story to dance. Most of the first half was a bit clunky, wading through the real world and gearing up to really set down roots in Wonderland. The first moments in wonderland are a bit mired in special effects, a little more tweaking and I think the entire production could be brilliant. There are glimpses of full-fledged wonderland in the beginning moments which are enchanting and thrilling.

Some of the projection work was quite excellently done (shrinking and expanding Alice) while other bits (the aquatic segment) were not as well executed.

The production really starts to hit its stride with the caterpillar (Eric Underwood) onwards; Wheeldon harnesses the power and the beauty of a fuller cast of dancers in ingenious and playful ways.

The entire narrative builds up to the sensational, whimsical second half - lush with excellent visuals and seamless in its transitions. The Queen of Hearts (Zenaida Yanowsky) radiates with her supreme acting and dancing. Every bit of the second half is enchanting. Alice (Marianela Nunez) has incredible stamina, present and dancing for most of the show's almost two hours. The Mad Hatter (Steven McRae) introduces excellent tap to the ballet scene. Ensemble pieces are excellently choreographed and costumes brilliantly conceived.

A little cleanup of the first half and Alice's Adventures in Wonderland should be set to shine once it makes its North American premiere with The National Ballet of Canada in June in Toronto as part of the Luminato Festival.

you asked me what it felt like to fall in love

2011-03-09T13:03:00.000-05:00

You asked me what it felt like to fall in love, and, once again,
I melted. Just like the time (or two) that I did succumb
to that feeling, that love, that emotion that erases
all words, that removes the fences between
emotions and drops me in the middle of the breathing
ocean, rise and fall, all together, an expanse,
an expansive, fluid, heaving and sighing...

Jolted awake from a dream, I forget
the real from the imagined, the fiction
from the non-- Like that shudder
when I glimpse my soul, inhaling
its idiosyncratic breath, but only
for an instant. The fragile, the minute,
the crystalline space where I fall, and
a new world opens up.

On Endings: Cavafy's The God Forsakes Antony

2011-03-06T12:35:00.000-05:00

On the eve of my final exam, the end of the taught portion of my MA at The Courtauld, a poem.

The god forsakes Antony

When suddenly, at midnight, you hear
an invisible procession going by
with exquisite music, voices,
don’t mourn your luck that’s failing now,
work gone wrong, your plans
all proving deceptive—don’t mourn them uselessly.
As one long prepared, and graced with courage,
say goodbye to her, the Alexandria that is leaving.
Above all, don’t fool yourself, don’t say
it was a dream, your ears deceived you:
don’t degrade yourself with empty hopes like these.
As one long prepared, and graced with courage,
as is right for you who were given this kind of city,
go firmly to the window
and listen with deep emotion, but not
with the whining, the pleas of a coward;
listen—your final delectation—to the voices,
to the exquisite music of that strange procession,
and say goodbye to her, to the Alexandria you are losing.

- Constantine P. Cavafy (1911)

Translated by Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard

Voice re-emerging

2011-02-27T06:40:00.003-05:00

It has been a while since I have written, or even expressed a few of my own words and thoughts. At the risk of this blog becoming a reincarnation of the words of Rilke, I thought I should pipe up. While sharing another poem by Rilke. It is quite a beautiful poem that speaks about re-emergence into strength, presence, generosity. A celebration of the strength of the present moment. I am always taken by the power of this poet's words...

All will come again into its strength:
the fields undivided, the waters undammed,
the trees towering and the walls built low.
And in the valleys, people as strong
and varied as the land.

And no churches where God
is imprisoned and lamented
like a trapped and wounded animal.
The houses welcoming all who knock
and a sense of boundless offering
in all relations, and in you and me.

No yearning for an afterlife, no looking beyond,
no belittling of death,
but only longing for what belongs to us
and serving earth, lest we remain unused.

-RM Rilke

Fragments V

2011-02-24T09:21:00.002-05:00

How surely gravity's law,
strong as an ocean current,
takes hold of even the smallest thing
and pulls it toward the heart of the world.

[...]

If we surrendered
to earth's intelligence
we could rise up rooted, like trees.

[...]

That is what the things can teach us:
to fall,
patiently to trust our heaviness.
Even a bird has to do that
before he can fly.

-R.M. Rilke

Fragments IV

2011-02-21T03:18:00.000-05:00

My own original words coming soon...

And you inherit the green
of vanquished gardens
and the motionless blue of fallen skies,
[...]

You inherit the autumns, folded like festive clothing
in the memories of poets; and all the winters,
like abandoned fields, bequeath you their quietness.
You inherit Venice, Kazan, and Rome.

Florence will be yours, and Pisa's cathedral,
Moscow with bells like memories,
[...]

Sounds will be yours, of string and brass and reed,
and sometimes the songs will seem
to come from inside you.

[...]
And painters paint their pictures only
that the world, so transient as you made it,
can be given back to you,
to last forever.

[...]

And lovers also gather your inheritance.
They are the poets of one brief hour.
They kiss an expressionless mouth into a smile
as if creating it anew, more beautiful.

Awakening desire, they make a place
where pain can enter;
that's how growing happens.
[...]

Thus the overflow from things
pours into you.
Just as a fountain's higher basins
spill down like strands of loosened hair
into the lower vessel,
so streams the fullness into you,
when things and thoughts cannot contain it.

-RM Rilke

Fragments III

2011-02-20T03:16:00.001-05:00

[...]

I seek you, because they are passing
right by my door. Whom should I turn to,
if not the one whose darkness
is darker than night, the only one
who keeps vigil with no candle,
and is not afraid -
the deep one, whose being I trust,
for it breaks through the earth into trees,
and rises,
when I bow my head,
faint as a fragrance
from the soil.

-RM Rilke

Modern Mystic

2011-02-15T17:19:00.001-05:00

A stunning image from The Sartorialist married with the precisely perfect comment of a friend. Inspiring.

Fragments II

2011-02-14T03:25:00.003-05:00

You are not surprised at the force of the storm-
you have seen it growing.
The trees flee. Their flight
sets the boulevards streaming. [...]

Summer was like your house: you know
where each thing stood.

Now you must go out into your heart
as onto a vast plain. Now
the immense loneliness begins.

[...]

Fragments

2011-02-12T02:49:00.003-05:00

More Rilke poetry... bits I find inspiring

I was there with the first mythmakers and monks
who made up your stories, traced your runes.

But now I see you:
wind, woods, and water,

[...] I want to portray you
not with lapis or gold, but with colors made of apple bark.
[...]

You look on the near no differently from the far,
and if they've learned to plant you more deeply
or build more grandly upon you,

you barely feel it. You hear
neither sower nor reaper
when their footsteps pass over you.

Humanizing the Field

2011-02-06T17:26:00.004-05:00

Last Saturday I attended a conference at University College London entitled The Granddaughters'. Generation. FEMINISM & ART HISTORY NOW. A symposium in honour of Linda Nochlin on the occasion of her 80th birthday (cake below). It was a very full day of talks engaged with taking up the scholarship of the now-elderly but just as wonderfully opinionated Mrs. Nochlin. Tamar Garb, Griselda Pollock, Linda Nochlin... all names that have authored articles and books that I have read over the course of my education. It was wonderful to see their ideas alive, and to see the scholars, live! The event, although lengthy, really brought the potential future road of the Art History world alive. Here in the future are live colleagues engaged with ideas, in love with art and continuously questioning and celebrating. It makes me wonder... And finish it off with a glass of bubbly and a cake with Delacroix's Liberty Leading the People's protagonist (the allegorical one-breast-exposed Marianne) displayed prominently on its surface, a strong woman powerfully leading the way forward. A great day.

Inspiration: On Dedication and Fulfillment

2011-02-06T03:36:00.003-05:00

Another Rilke poem that offers so much thought on the way I like to live life, overcoming the limits of the mind, pouring myself into life with my whole life. In doing, I feel complete.

Only in our doing can we grasp you.
Only with our hands can we illumine you.
The mind is but a visitor:
it thinks us out of our world.

Each mind fabricates itself
We sense its limits, for we have made them.
And just when we would flee them, you come
and make of yourself an offering.

I don't want to think a place for your.
Speak to me from everywhere.
Your Gospel can be comprehended
without looking for its source.

When I go toward you
it is with my whole life.

-RM Rilke

Taking Flight

2011-01-31T06:56:00.002-05:00

Yesterday, I had the pleasure of devoting two-and-a-half hours to a practice, a Journey to the Core, with Ana Forrest. A strong, stoic, yet gentle and affable woman, Ana led an absolutely full room of yogis to find their strength, find their truth in the core of their bodies (not just your abs, but form the head to the coccyx, the house of the chakras). The room was full with the sound of ujjayi breath, a veritable ocean of sound and power.

She encouraged everyone, at the beginning of the journey, to focus on a point in our bodies that needed healing or just more considered attention. I picked my upper shoulders since they have been feeling tense lately.

After buzzing our way through the chakra areas (with Bharamari or Humming Bee Breath), we focused on our point. Immediately my mind envisioned the base of wings across my upper back.

I breathed into my fallen wings.

Throughout the class, we came back to our point. It was a fluid, strong, focused, deep, beautiful practice. My body was exhausted but also replenished with breath and an incredible, soulful 'workout' (I hesitate to call yoga a workout, it's much more than that, it can be an experience).

And today, I am still stuck with the image of wings. Human beings with their fallen wings. Tragic and beautiful, the legacy of the human back.

And so I leave you with a poem written by my friend Adam McGee which uses this very image and has stayed with me since I read it some years ago.

Wings

Naked chest to chest,
I reach the perfect V’s
of an outspread thumb & forefinger
to cup the plunging curves
of your shoulder blades.
In the field around us,
dew reflects a zodiac
of fractured light.
Last night in my dream,
you grew triumphant wings
from the ridges beneath my hands.
With the grace of a storm
which comes from nowhere,
you beat down the grasses
with your miracle of lift,
leaving me astonished & below you
as you whipped an arc
through the brightening sky.
When I awoke, I touched
the hard bones of your back
& closed the distance between us.
Now, as I hold you,
I need to purge this guilt:
that on waking, I gave thanks
for gravity.

My Power

2011-01-30T15:58:00.002-05:00

Now pray,
as I who came back from the same confusion
learned to pray.

I returned to paint upon the altars
those old holy forms,
but they shone differently,
fierce in their beauty.

So now my prayer is this:

You, my own deep soul,
trust me. I will not betray you.
My blood is alive with many voices
telling me I am made of longing.

What mystery breaks over me now?
In its shadow I come into life.
For the first time I am alone with you -

you, my power to feel.

-RM Rilke

Opening: A Privileged Glance

2011-01-29T12:55:00.000-05:00

Pour It Out

2011-01-28T03:34:00.002-05:00

I spent all day yesterday in the library, and I am gearing up for yet another morning at the library, this time the collection at the V&A. I'm not really sure where this energy and focus is coming from but I am embracing it.

I think the pressure of deadlines and the weight of workload may have something to do with it, certainly. This is the quickest and busiest semester I've ever had to face in my education. Ever. But I am up for the challenge. All while trying to keep balanced, doing yoga here and there and listening to my body and mind when they have truly fizzled out.

I'd like to think, though, that there is another factor to this new focus (besides some cosmological planetary alignment with Jupiter and Venus in the sign of Sagittarius). A series of events in my life recently have taught me to relinquish worry and embrace trust. I lay down my trust after putting forth my effort, knowing that the universe will provide if it sees fit. Because, if you're not worrying about things and strategizing, etc., the world has more of a chance to charm and surprise you. And who doesn't want a little charm and surprise in their lives?

Something in the Water

2011-01-25T03:11:00.002-05:00

In North America, they ask bubbly or flat? In England, the question becomes sparkling or still?

It is funny to consider the difference. Flat as a word to me seems so bland, one dimensional, an endless plateau stretching out into the horizon. Still, on the other hand, connotes a quiet pond, calm and meditative, at peace.

Flat or still? I'll take the still. :)

Rilke, twice over.

2011-01-23T14:15:00.002-05:00

Read on, read through, the second is my favourite of the moment... - SZR

I, 18
Why am I reaching again for the brushes?
When I paint your portrait, God,
nothing happens.

But I can choose to feel you.

At my senses' horizon
you appear hesitantly,
like scattered islands.

Yet standing here, peering out,
I'm all the time seen by you.

The choruses of angels use up all of heaven.
There's no more room for you
in all that glory. You're living
in your very last house.

All creation holds its breath, listening within me,
because, to hear you, I keep silent.

I, 19

I am, you anxious one.

Don't you sense me, ready to break
into being at your touch?
My murmurings surround you like shadowy wings.
Can't you see me standing before you
cloaked in stillness?
Hasn't my longing ripened in you
from the beginning
as fruit ripens on a branch?

I am the dream you are dreaming.
When you want to awaken, I am that wanting:
I grow strong in the beauty you behold.
And with the silence of stars I enfold
your cities made of time.

Fashion Fast Forward

2011-01-22T08:58:00.004-05:00

John Galliano, always a wow-er, presents a theatrical, Russian/dancer/gypsy-inspired collection. Leggings, high boots, socks above footwear, embroidery, furs, turbans and bold colours, Johnny G does it all. See more here: The Fashionisto.

Luxurious: adj.

2011-01-22T05:29:00.002-05:00

Luxurious has nothing to do with wealth.

Luxurious is early mornings, hints of light, and a heavy duvet weighing
down on me, but not weighing. Instead, it embraces with all its soul.

Luxurious is elaborate script, as if brocaded, stitched, intricate yet flowing.

Luxurious is towels, freshly laundered, expanded and giving tenderly to the touch
and heat of your skin. A caress that press-es into the sensual.

Of time, lost.

2011-01-22T04:44:00.000-05:00

My mother is currently showing at Art Mur in Montreal. I had a chance to write a review for the ArtBlog. Below, a sneak peek, peering through the curtain at instinctively artistic and sensitive photographic work.

In of time, lost, Montreal-based photographer
Ewa Zebrowski reflects upon the suspension
and deterioration of memory.

Evocative and mysterious, Zebrowski’s quiet
yet poignant images plumb the depths of a
desire for the past. The collection, belies its
medium – the photos shimmer, as if submerged
just below the surface.

-SZR

(credits: palazzo barbaro, followed by ca' d'oro)

Dries

2011-01-21T06:17:00.001-05:00

Loosen. Gilded.

A Full Moon, A Full Day

2011-01-20T04:18:00.003-05:00

Yesterday my class spent two hours looking at 17th-19th century drawings, analyzing their production and representation. How inspiring it was to be in direct engagement with excellently preserved works from the past in The Courtauld's Prints and Drawings Room.

Later that day, after doing some writing, I re-embarked on my German-learning journey. A challenging but fun endeavour to attempt to translate and demystify German texts. Shortly thereafter, in the same room, I attended a yoga class, a solid basic flow class. How funny it was to be in the exact same room.

And late in the night, below a full moon and at an evening called The Night Shift at the SouthBank Centre, me and a few friends attended a cheap orchestra concert with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, playing a program of Mahler and Liszt starting at 945pm. A very chill atmosphere, full of young people, preceded by jazz, succeeded by a groovy loungy DJ. What fun!

And today, to work, to work.

This Buddhist Love Affair

2011-01-18T05:03:00.005-05:00

This Buddhist love affair, in every moment
shifts, endless tangential points
of infinite connection, mindful
movement and sparks, glowing minds, ignited eyes.

Buddhist lover, write me letters, so I can
read them and ignite, words cannot
be forever held, their duration a candle
wick that I must burn to keep the pace
of letting go. Every evolving, every
shift, brings me to breath, brings
me to centre. This Buddhist love affair,
I grow and watch it grow.

It's Raining.

2011-01-17T18:13:00.002-05:00

It's raining. Again. This is the weather I feared, the weather I was told so much about. In London, it can sometimes rain every day if you're here around the right time. Sure, it can be dreary and depressing (but go stand next to some fluo lights, take some vitamins). More than anything though, as long as I am not fighting my way through it, I find this London rain to be an absolute marvel.

I mean really, where does it all come from? How can it rain SO much, SO frequently? I think more often than not, we have the urge to scowl and cringe our way through rainy weather. Why not just relax and get wet? Why not just look up at the heavens and marvel?

Fashion Forward

2011-01-17T03:44:00.003-05:00

Now is the time that I seem to get inundated with images from Fashion Week here and there and everywhere. It's time for Milan's Fashion Week Fall 2011 (what? what about spring? I'd like some of that before I think about next fall already...).

I just wanted to share, above, an image of shirts being put out by Dolce and Gabbana. I used to have a shirt from Etro of a similar style. It is as if the tips of the sleeves and the waist were dipped in another colour. What I find genius about this style is that it taps right into a sartorial behaviour that is already happening. You know the guys with the jeans that keep sinking down? You know you've always wanted to bring those sleeves out of your coat and make them protrude as well. Well here's a shirt that does both, and you can still be proper. Pretty cool, eh?

The Foxes of London

2011-01-16T13:39:00.002-05:00

A couple of months ago my across-the-hall neighbour and I were walking home from South London and as we passed a church, I pointed out two creatures limber-ly scrounging in the corner of the yard. Orange. Sleek. Foxes! We were so stunned about the appearance of the pair. It felt like a favorable omen.

The fox, as a little research unveiled, and its fire-ey orange colour can signify passion, desire, intensity, and expression. We saw it as a positive omen of creativity, stealth, drive and intelligence. A special moment.

And then, last night, I was walking through London Fields and a creature crossed my path. What was it. Gingerly jogging across the grass, stopping to perks its head in my direction every now and then. A pointy dog with a bushy tail? No! Another fox! These urban foxes of London are trying to solidify themselves as my personal omen or something. Another very special moment. Omen-ous. Portending.

And I smile at the wily ways of nature and the universe.

May what I do flow from me like a river

2011-01-16T07:19:00.002-05:00

I believe in all that has never yet been spoken.
I want to free what waits within me
so that what no one has dared to wish for
may for once spring clear
without my contriving.

If this is arrogant, God, forgive me,
but this is what I need to say.
May what I do flow from me like a river,
no forcing and no holding back,
the way it is with children.

Then in these swelling and ebbing currents,
these deepening tides moving out, returning,
I will sing you as no one ever has,
streaming through widening channels
into the open sea.

-R.M. Rilke

I believe in the night

2011-01-15T06:21:00.003-05:00

Rilke has been striking a major chord with me lately,
echoes of my soul.
So instead of writing, I'm going to do some transcribing...

You, darkness, of whom I am born -

I love you more than the flame
that limits the world
to the circle it illumines
and excludes all the rest.

But the dark embraces everything:
shapes and shadows, creatures and me,
people, nations - just as they are.

It lets me imagine
a great presence stirring beside me.

I believe in the night.

A Moment of Grace

2011-01-14T04:07:00.002-05:00

I've been having these moments lately, where I take moments to step back and gain a little perspective on my life. The fortitude and grace that has blessed my life is immeasurable. I am incredibly lucky to have the opportunities I have, to determine my schedule, take time to immerse myself fully in the theory and study of art and to be able to live in London.

Last night, for example, I went to the Late at The Courtauld event, where the gallery was open until 9pm. There I met up with some old friends from the Boston area. We listened to live music inspired by the current show of Cezanne in a room with Manet's Bar at the Folies Bergeres and a few Cezannes as well...folk songs and Ravel... How they got the piano into the room is beyond me. To be able to commune with art and friends, just such a special thing.

And I better not forget it!

[I read it here in your very word]

2011-01-13T04:08:00.001-05:00

I read it here in your very word
in the story of the gestures
with which your hands cupped themselves
around our becoming - limiting, warm.

You said live out loud, and die you said lightly,
and over and over again you said be.

-R.M. Rilke

Lagging, Breathing

2011-01-12T05:26:00.002-05:00

I spent most of last night waiting for sleep. Silly me, after my first night and ten hours of sleep, I thought I was set. So long jetlag. Yea, right.

It's funny how I get attached to routine. Sometimes, though, is there anything wrong with saying: hey, I'm not tired, I'm going to stay up and read a little longer. Clinging to routine and ignoring my body seems like it can only be negative. Of course, there's the whole jetlag business that is the very definition of the body working itself out and the imposition of a new and foreign schedule. But rather than listen to all the barrage of thoughts - negative and otherwise - I just try to breathe deep into the moments, breathe through it all and emerge on the other side.

The Stars and The Clouds

2011-01-11T05:01:00.003-05:00

I know nothing with any certainty, but the sight of stars makes me dream. -Vincent Van Gogh

During my flight last night, I looked from my small personal entertainment screen out to the window. Beyond the airplane's wing in the pitch black of night, the sky was covered in stars. Speckled across the expanse of black, some smaller, some larger, they shone and captured my imagination.

And later, as we were landing at the beginning of a new day, I looked out to see the rising sun extending its warming orange-pink rays out across the clouds, thick above and interspersed in puffs below, lined up like schoolchildren in ordered rows. And below them, a verdant England.

YUL > LHR. Transitioning.

2011-01-10T07:02:00.002-05:00

I arrived back at my little dorm room (very little) in central London and was struck by the contrast with having just been home in Montreal. My room in London is so little that if I put my two suitcases flat on the floor in my room, I have to jump around to maneuver from the door, to the bathroom, to the closet.

When I unpack, I take it all out, and put it all away. I was daunted when I started. I thought, "What the hell was I thinking at home when I packed all these clothes?!" It couldn't possibly fit in my narrow closet and my shallow-drawer-ed dresser. But, lo and behold, the storage units in my room seem to be some sort of British brand of storage clown cars, because shirts and sweaters and other odds-and-ends just kept going in. And magically it all went in.

It is a bit of a shock to be back in my room in London. All the space and grandeur of home in Montreal has been shrunken (as if in a cartoon) to a cozy little living space. I know I will yearn to spread out my personal effects. Alas, I don't have such room to do so.

A new transition in the new year, a new mode of living. Switching gears for the new semester.

And Then...

2011-01-09T08:17:00.002-05:00

Then the knowing comes: I can open
to another life that's wide and timeless

-R.M. Rilke

The Body and The Soul

2011-01-08T12:30:00.000-05:00

I sing the body electric,
The armies of those I love engirth me and I engirth them,
They will not let me off till I go with them, respond to them,
And discorrupt them, and charge them full with the charge of the soul.

Was it doubted that those who corrupt their own bodies conceal themselves?
And if those who defile the living are as bad as they who defile the dead?
And if the body does not do fully as much as the soul?
And if the body were not the soul, what is the soul?

-Walt Whitman (I Sing the Body Electric from Leaves of Grass)

Wandering Digitally into the Abyss

2011-01-06T23:30:00.004-05:00

One of my (and one of my sister's) new year's resolutions, is to observe my use of the Internet. Too often, and too easily, I find that I can get lost. My curiosity leads me from one thing to the next, idle observation leads me down the digital rabbit hole and, soon, I find myself in loops of negative thinking that are far from helpful. I click on photo albums of people I know peripherally, I check my blogroll on GoogleReader, etc. etc. etc. It all happens so fast, it all happens so easily, and I don't always feel good about it all.

Coming home on the plane from London, I observed a similar pattern of behavior. At my fingertips, I had movies and TV shows, music and radio stations, all so readily available. I must have watched three movies on the flight back, taking up most of my time. I started to feel a little nuts, burning eyes, over-stimulated. Once again, all too easily.

It is like some sort of 21st-century mania. There is a myth (or perhaps not a myth at all) of limitless availability along with a shrinking attention span. There are tons of movies and TV shows out there. Doesn't mean we have to watch them all. There are millions of people out there, yes. But we can't ever know but a handful. Knowing people well involves time, energy, geographical proximity. We can have connections and nurture them, but the illusion of the instantaneous can never replace the journey of evolving relationships.

There is so much to see. There is so much to be research. On the Internet, I sit on the park bench observing life. Except this is a digital park bench and a digital life that streams by endlessly. Where does it stop? At a certain point, this digital world can become too immaterial and rootless.

What I want is reality. No, what I want is a reality complemented by this digital world. The Internet is a tool, to broaden knowledge, to broaden relationships. To broaden the real. I feel like I am in an age that continues to progress technologically. I am also in an age that needs to be very self-aware in order to define the holistic, wholesome uses of that technology, which can be an incredible tool, but can also be an incredible hindrance.

The Internet, I find, leads me away from the introverted life that I am compelled to live. In searching and Google-ing, in scanning Facebook, there is this outward seeking, one that denies selfhood if taken too far. I feel that if I limit my online time, I can better focused on my self and better use the Internet as a tool.

So in 2011, I will observe how I spend time online, I will hope to spend less time online (at least less time that is less productive; less vagaries). I will trust more in patience, in time, in the steady unfolding of journeys (relationships that may be nudged together by the Internet - but will always need time in reality). I believe that my relationship with technology can be a healthy one that involves sharing, communicating and networking. I simply need to be more self-aware, more self-controlled in order to feel at the helm of my life, both facing the world and facing the screen.

Aren't we all?

2011-01-06T11:21:00.003-05:00

Last week, when I was in NYC, I went to a yoga class at The Shala Yoga House. Upon entering and saying it was my first time, the woman at the front desk told me of an introductory offer for 5 classes. In reply, I told her I was from out of town and was just visiting.

And she responded, "Aren't we all? Aren't we all just visiting?"

And I smiled. I knew I had entered a great space.

This Feeling, This Body

2011-01-05T12:05:00.002-05:00

This feeling of pins and needles does not numb.
My limbs, alive, explore concentric circles.

This feeling all over my body, trembling,
not fatigue, not cold, but tenderness and luxury.
My skin doesn't yawn, but breathes in, on the cusp.

I am all boundaries, but boundaries that do not contain
The line is dotted; I skate in and out. Reaching in,
reaching out. This body, my world, shines, radiates
in all directions.

Rilke's Wisdom

2011-01-04T09:26:00.002-05:00

At the age of 24, R. M. Rilke returned from Russia inspired by the spirituality he had encountered. I am currently slowly reading Rilke's Book of Hours, given to me by my sister, and I am so impressed, astonished and awed at the articulateness and depth of a young man in 1899. Below, the first poem.

The hour is striking so close above me,
so clear and sharp,
that all my senses ring with it.
I feel it now: there's a power in me
to grasp and give shape to my world.

I know that nothing has ever been real
without my beholding it.
All becoming has needed me.
My looking ripens things
and they come toward me, to meet and be met.

A Visual New Year

2011-01-04T09:17:00.002-05:00

NYE in NYC, 2010>2011.

Adding Another

2011-01-03T11:24:00.002-05:00

One human is complicated enough. Adding another begins
a multifarious network of psychological misgivings, grasps
and piteous doubt.

So allow me to crawl into this connection with the pace
of a snail, feeling every fibre as it changes in my body,
they are deep.

Lately my teeth have begun to curl in, clenched, retreating,
the beacons of my persona, and I fear, and I stress.
Then I breathe,

and I let them unfurl again, like fern leaves unrolling
their green in the sun, to open up and stretch, to receive
and to smile.

Home for the Holidaze

2010-12-24T11:03:00.002-05:00

For the last few weeks of the semester, I was ready and aching to get home. Upon arriving home, I was thankful for so many things: space, a kitchen table to sit at, hot water, heat, my electric toothbrush, a full-size fridge, and, not so banally, family and time together and time to recharge.

It's been a busy time and an ambitious time in the kitchen. In England I learned that Elizabeth I was credited with making the first gingerbread men, impressing visiting dignitaries by presenting confections in their likeness. It became common practice that gingerbread tied with ribbon became a token of love.

So, I had the idea to bake gingerbread for every member of my family. Following a Martha Stewart recipe, I soon found out that it was A LOT more labour intensive than I thought. The dough was super tough and needed to be chilled and frozen twice before baking. The icing was also a bit of a fiasco. But with tenacity and perseverance I made it through.

The same goes for the mincemeat pie I am baking (whose scents are now wafting from the oven). I screwed up the first two batches of dough because a. I used bread flour and b. I used vegetable oil instead of shortening aka margarine. But finally, on the third batch (after much yelling and frustration), I had a workable dough and a beautiful latticed pie baking in the oven.

The daze of the season continues... hopefully with less mishaps.

Joy. ***

2010-12-05T17:54:00.002-05:00

I have been wanting to transcribe this moment for quite a while now.

The day after the first snow, as I was walking to class, a little girl hoisted up in her father's arms herself had her arms flung upwards towards the sky.

Clasping her hands open and closed, wiggling her fingers, she decried and divined in her minuscule voice: SNOW!, as if her words and gestures could make the magical moment happen again.

The magic of the season.

Flowers for Sunday

2010-11-21T16:41:00.005-05:00

A few details of the Columbia Road Flower Market...

A visual infusion to make up for my slowed posting.

Balance, A Pressure Point

2010-11-13T08:35:00.002-05:00

I've been circling an idea in my weekly schedule and my daily life for quite some time now, and the over-arching monologue of Grey's Anatomy's most recent episode crystallized the idea very well...

"The human body is a highly pressurized system. The blood pressure measures the force of blood pulsating through the arteries. It's important to keep this pressure regulated. Low or inadequate pressure can cause weakness or failure. It's when the pressure gets too high, that problems really occur. If the pressure continues to increase, a closer examination is called for, because it's the best indicator that something is going terribly wrong...

Every pressurized system needs a release valve. There has to be a way to reduce the stress, the tension, before it becomes too much to bear. There has to be a way to find release, because if the pressure doesn't find a way out, it'll make one. It will explode. It's the pressure we put on ourselves that's the hardest to bear, the pressure to be better than we are, the pressure to be better than we think we can be. It never ever lets up, it just builds and builds and builds..."

Grey's was back in full swing, interweaving great music with poignant moments, and of course the deep and powerful monologue, serving as a perfect metaphor to the actions of the episode's story.

With relation to balance, since I've gotten to London, I've been telling myself that I want to find a balance to my life. I had this vision that it would be a constant routine, a steady schedule.

However, as the weeks unfold, I realize that from one to the next, the schedule is always changing. Lectures happen on different days, assignments and work split up my time. Activities and commitments are always in flux. This pressure to find balance, to find a steady regime, can never really be satisfied.

I'm starting to see that balance is more a state of mind, a constant striving for balance. Balance is found in the constant dedication to finding balance. Wrap your head around that one.

It's about staying mindful, keeping your passions and priorities close at hand and continuing to cycle on, continuing to move forward.

Finding Centre

2010-10-23T11:05:00.002-04:00

Finally, I've felt it. I had a moment this afternoon where I knew I had found my centre. That feeling where my mind is alight, thoughts and inspiration are brewing and life is spilling forward.

For these past few weeks, fresh in London, fresh in my Master's program, I've been feeling rushed. Perhaps it is merely a consequence of living smack dab in the middle of Central London (the world rushes by at my door), but the pace has felt frenetic. The work has been an adjustment, but it's all art and ideas that I welcome fully. London, as a city, is bursting with energy, there is always something happening, plenty of free art to be enjoyed, never a dull moment (and seemingly never a moment of repose).

Part of me started to think that the rhythm of London would just always be that way, in flow, in flux, much like the weather which can be mercurial and wildly changeable even within one afternoon. Walking down the street, you settle into the pace of those around you, going, going, going...

But part of me needed to settle, to find peace, to find those moments when writing and thoughts spill over. This year is very much about finding my voice and taking charge of my education. I've wanted to be immersed in the study of art and here I am. No moment of frustration can ever take away the blessing of this moment in my life. I am in total immersion in art, surrounded by curious art-minded intellects, world-class displays of human expression, and plenty of books and lectures and reading!

But now, for the first time, I've finally started to find my rhythm, started to let go and trust the spontaneity of life (because it really can deliver some wonderful surprises when you least expect them). Sure, I'm still trying to strike a balance, but it is the see-saw of life. Balance is but a momentary and elusive instant.

And in those moments of letting go, I've surprised myself. Although not in a groove quite yet, my yoga practice has become deeper almost unintentionally. I float up into headstand without a second thought and full wheel pose just materializes. It's quite beautiful to sink into new depths, find new focus in the poses I've done hundreds of times.

Today, with an early visit to the market, a yoga class and plenty of cooking, I'm really enjoying life. (avoiding work? i tell myself I am waiting for moments of inspiration to really engage with all the texts I need to read...)

And slowly it unfolds, always different, always moving, unexpected and wondrous.

I'm finding my pace, finding my place, finding my centre.

Ithaca by Kavafis

2010-10-17T11:26:00.002-04:00

As you set out for Ithaca
hope your road is a long one,
full of adventure, full of discovery.
Laistrygonians, Cyclops,
angry Poseidon – don’t be afraid of them:
you’ ll never find things like that on your way
as long as you keep your thoughts raised high,
as long as a rare excitement
stirs your spirit and your body.
Laistrygonians, Cyclops,
wild Poseidon – you won’t encounter them
unless you bring them along inside your soul,
unless your soul sets them up in front of you.

Hope your road is a long one.
May there be many summer mornings when,
with what pleasure, what joy,
you enter harbours you’re seeing for the first time;
may you stop at Phoenician trading stations
to buy fine things,
mother of pearl and coral, amber and ebony,
sensual perfume of every kind -
as many sensual perfumes as you can;
and may you visit many Egyptian cities
to learn and go on learning from their scholars.

Keep Ithaca always in your mind.
Arriving there is what you’re destined for.
But don’t hurry the journey at all.
Better if it lasts for years,
so you’re old by the time you reach the island,
wealthy with all you’ve gained on the way,
not expecting Ithaca to make you rich.

Ithaca gave you the marvelous journey.
Without her you wouldn’t have set out.
She has nothing left to give you now.

And if you find her poor, Ithaca won’t have fooled you.
Wise as you will have become, so full of experience,
you’ll have understood by then this is the meaning of Ithaca.

Mid-night Missive

2010-10-11T08:30:00.001-04:00

I miss the mists of the city, the mystery that rolls in and lingers...