Have a little faith....

I have had a nauseating feeling all week, because I know the "future"is around the corner and somehow I have lost control of it. Not like I trust that we can really controlled our life, at least we can provide a little shape to it...I feel lost and panicked as one could feel at the edge of a cliff, when you know that salvation can only come from the jump, but you are not quite sure if you wish to let go of your stand on solid ground.
But this is just an impression, as the earth beneath your feet has already started to desagregate, your foothold is not so secure, still you delay the moment of the jump. Maybe all I need is FAITH. The whole conversation was based on energy and the power of projected thought - positive ones- the 'leap of faith'.
When we have faith, we feel confident about the outcome of the journey, the goal will be reached, everything will be alright. But at the end, we neglect one small detail: the journey itself. The trip that will take you from here to there, it needs a plan, a vision and a bit of faith! At the end it is really the journey that took your to your destination that counts, not the goal itself.
I have looked back on my journey so far, since I cannot find my goal, not even sure that I had one to begin with, and beside feeling weary, I am not satisfied with the path I have taken.

I started with the idea that I should achieve something with my life, but it was never enough, I was never satisfy because I have yet to find the purpose of my journey.
Self-Accomplishment is the hardest thing we can do.It is hard, require confidence and, for my part, a little faith.
I hold to ideas that allow me to carry on the journey:
-Human nature is profondly good,
-we all have in ourselves the power to achieve miracles,
-We shine when things are at their worst
-Science cannot explain everything (that's my comfort blanket'
-There is still magic in this world
-One day, just One day, I will be who I am supposed to be.

On the verge of a change that will occur, whether you want it or not, you start to think and ponder.
Every start is an opportunity or can be transformed into one, the only mistake I could do is take the 'martyr road'. I have been painfully reminded by a kin (one shot to your heart without breaking the skin!) that I was a pinacle of disappointment, because I have let all the juicy opportunities get passed me...I disappointed them...Did they ever wonder if I had ever disappointed myself?
The bar has been put very high for me from the start,(and I let it be raised that high) causing me to fall constently. I did rise everytime, relentessly, just to be told that it 'just was not good enough'.
I am convinced that a life should be constructed, decision after decisions, with added layers of moments, emotions, creations...there is no good or bad path, just choices.
Each choices making a branch, another possibility, leaving all the other in the dark, unformed, but not inexistent.
At the end, it will be the beauty of the tree that will be looked at.

My tree of life does not comfort me. I have lived every moment as a duty, not taking the time to savour it, to live it. It was all work, submission, keeping my head down and work hard to satisfy other people's dreams, to reach evrybody else expectations.
I am anonymous in the mass, not famous, admired or read, just a person trying to fit in, regardless if I will it or not.

What if I just could take flight, break the convention and exist as I want to be? Broke all the taboos and restrains that I have created aroud me for the convenience of all but me. Let the beast inside sing and dance and enjoy life for once: selfishly.

We tend to forget that life is one opportunity, we can make everything of it, but live it miserably. Life can be a cookie filled with layers of dreams, nighmares, hope, Love and betrayal, but whatever you do, you still have to eat it...might as well make the degustation the more pleasurable as possible.

HOW NSPIRED DO YOU WANT TO BE? by David Hawken

Just read that post RT'ed on Twitter by @inspiredm via Andy Wright and I just spend the rest of the day thinking about it...These are just true and right to the point words and they have the merit to be eloquent...Take some time to read them, understand them and think...let yourself be inspired too...

Commencement Address by Paul Hawken, University of Portland, May 3rd,
2009

" When I was invited to give this speech, I was asked if I could give a
simple short talk that was “direct, naked, taut, honest, passionate,
lean, shivering, startling, and graceful.” Boy, no pressure there.

But let’s begin with the startling part. Hey, Class of 2009: you are
going to have to figure out what it means to be a human being on earth
at a time when every living system is declining, and the rate of
decline is accelerating. Kind of a mind-boggling situation - but not
one peer-reviewed paper published in the last thirty years can refute
that statement.

Basically, the earth needs a new operating system, you are the
programmers, and we need it within a few decades.

This planet came with a set of operating instructions, but we seem to
have misplaced them. Important rules like don’t poison the water,
soil, or air, and don’t let the earth get overcrowded, and don’t touch
the thermostat have been broken. Buckminster Fuller said that
spaceship earth was so ingeniously designed that no one has a clue
that we are on one, flying through the universe at a million miles per
hour, with no need for seatbelts, lots of room in coach, and really
good food - but all that is changing.

There is invisible writing on the back of the diploma you will
receive, and in case you didn’t bring lemon juice to decode it, I can
tell you what it says: YOU ARE BRILLIANT, AND THE EARTH IS HIRING. The
earth couldn’t afford to send any recruiters or limos to your school.
It sent you rain, sunsets, ripe cherries, night blooming jasmine, and
that unbelievably cute person you are dating. Take the hint. And
here’s the deal: Forget that this task of planet-saving is not
possible in the time required. Don’t be put off by people who know
what is not possible. Do what needs to be done, and check to see if it
was impossible only after you are done.

When asked if I am pessimistic or optimistic about the future, my
answer is always the same: If you look at the science about what is
happening on earth and aren’t pessimistic, you don’t understand data.
But if you meet the people who are working to restore this earth and
the lives of the poor, and you aren’t optimistic, you haven’t got a
pulse. What I see everywhere in the world are ordinary people willing
to confront despair, power, and incalculable odds in order to restore
some semblance of grace, justice, and beauty to this world. The poet
Adrienne Rich wrote, “So much has been destroyed I have cast my lot
with those who, age after age, perversely, with no extraordinary
power, reconstitute the world.” There could be no better description.
Humanity is coalescing. It is reconstituting the world, and the action
is taking place in schoolrooms, farms, jungles, villages, campuses,
companies, refuge camps, deserts, fisheries, and slums.

You join a multitude of caring people. No one knows how many groups
and organizations are working on the most salient issues of our day:
climate change, poverty, deforestation, peace, water, hunger,
conservation, human rights, and more. This is the largest movement the
world has ever seen.

Rather than control, it seeks connection. Rather than dominance, it
strives to disperse concentrations of power. Like Mercy Corps, it
works behind the scenes and gets the job done. Large as it is, no one
knows the true size of this movement. It provides hope, support, and
meaning to billions of people in the world. Its clout resides in idea,
not in force. It is made up of teachers, children, peasants,
businesspeople, rappers, organic farmers, nuns, artists, government
workers, fisherfolk, engineers, students, incorrigible writers,
weeping Muslims, concerned mothers, poets, doctors without borders,
grieving Christians, street musicians, the President of the United
States of America, and as the writer David James Duncan would say, the
Creator, the One who loves us all in such a huge way.

There is a rabbinical teaching that says if the world is ending and
the Messiah arrives, first plant a tree, and then see if the story is
true. Inspiration is not garnered from the litanies of what may
befall us; it resides in humanity’s willingness to restore, redress,
reform, rebuild, recover, reimagine, and reconsider. “One day you
finally knew what you had to do, and began, though the voices around
you kept shouting their bad advice,” is Mary Oliver’s description of
moving away from the profane toward a deep sense of connectedness to
the living world.

Millions of people are working on behalf of strangers, even if the
evening news is usually about the death of strangers. This kindness of
strangers has religious, even mythic origins, and very specific
eighteenth-century roots. Abolitionists were the first people to
create a national and global movement to defend the rights of those
they did not know. Until that time, no group had filed a grievance
except on behalf of itself. The founders of this movement were largely
unknown - Granville Clark, Thomas Clarkson, Josiah Wedgwood - and
their goal was ridiculous on the face of it: at that time three out of
four people in the world were enslaved. Enslaving each other was what
human beings had done for ages. And the abolitionist movement was
greeted with incredulity. Conservative spokesmen ridiculed the
abolitionists as liberals, progressives, do-gooders, meddlers, and
activists. They were told they would ruin the economy and drive
England into poverty. But for the first time in history a group of
people organized themselves to help people they would never know, from
whom they would never receive direct or indirect benefit. And today
tens of millions of people do this every day. It is called the world
of non-profits, civil society, schools, social entrepreneurship, and
non-governmental organizations, of companies who place social and
environmental justice at the top of their strategic goals. The scope
and scale of this effort is unparalleled in history.

The living world is not “out there” somewhere, but in your heart. What
do we know about life? In the words of biologist Janine Benyus, life
creates the conditions that are conducive to life. I can think of no
better motto for a future economy. We have tens of thousands of
abandoned homes without people and tens of thousands of abandoned
people without homes. We have failed bankers advising failed
regulators on how to save failed assets. Think about this: we are the
only species on this planet without full employment. Brilliant. We
have an economy that tells us that it is cheaper to destroy earth in
real time than to renew, restore, and sustain it. You can print money
to bail out a bank but you can’t print life to bail out a planet. At
present we are stealing the future, selling it in the present, and
calling it gross domestic product. We can just as easily have an
economy that is based on healing the future instead of stealing it. We
can either create assets for the future or take the assets of the
future. One is called restoration and the other exploitation. And
whenever we exploit the earth we exploit people and cause untold
suffering. Working for the earth is not a way to get rich, it is a way
to be rich.

The first living cell came into being nearly 40 million centuries ago,
and its direct descendants are in all of our bloodstreams. Literally
you are breathing molecules this very second that were inhaled by
Moses, Mother Teresa, and Bono. We are vastly interconnected. Our
fates are inseparable. We are here because the dream of every cell is
to become two cells. In each of you are one quadrillion cells, 90
percent of which are not human cells. Your body is a community, and
without those other microorganisms you would perish in hours. Each
human cell has 400 billion molecules conducting millions of processes
between trillions of atoms. The total cellular activity in one human
body is staggering: one septillion actions at any one moment, a one
with twenty-four zeros after it. In a millisecond, our body has
undergone ten times more processes than there are stars in the
universe - exactly what Charles Darwin foretold when he said science
would discover that each living creature was a “little universe,
formed of a host of self-propagating organisms, inconceivably minute
and as numerous as the stars of heaven.”

So I have two questions for you all: First, can you feel your body?
Stop for a moment. Feel your body. One septillion activities going on
simultaneously, and your body does this so well you are free to ignore
it, and wonder instead when this speech will end. Second question: who
is in charge of your body? Who is managing those molecules? Hopefully
not a political party. Life is creating the conditions that are
conducive to life inside you, just as in all of nature. What I want
you to imagine is that collectively humanity is evincing a 20 deep
innate wisdom in coming together to heal the wounds and insults of the
past.

Ralph Waldo Emerson once asked what we would do if the stars only came
out once every thousand years. No one would sleep that night, of
course. The world would become religious overnight. We would be
ecstatic, delirious, made rapturous by the glory of God. Instead the
stars come out every night, and we watch television.

This extraordinary time when we are globally aware of each other and
the multiple dangers that threaten civilization has never happened,
not in a thousand years, not in ten thousand years. Each of us is as
complex and beautiful as all the stars in the universe. We have done
great things and we have gone way off course in terms of honoring
creation. You are graduating to the most amazing, challenging,
stupefying challenge ever bequested to any generation. The generations
before you failed. They didn’t stay up all night. They got distracted
and lost sight of the fact that life is a miracle every moment of your
existence. Nature beckons you to be on her side. You couldn’t ask for
a better boss. The most unrealistic person in the world is the cynic,
not the dreamer. Hopefulness only makes sense when it doesn’t make
sense to be hopeful. This is your century. Take it and run as if your
life depends on it.”

By Paul Hawken

A SURREALIST JOURNEY

Local Artists exhibition this week...Discoverd a new world through oter people's eyes, mind and work. This scultpure capture so well in may ways the essence of man...Nature reveales it to the world, and the face (mind, sould) is encapsulated in that wired body...an armour for the soul, a Temple for its light within.

This is the work of local French artist C Meyer....

BEING LOST BY BEN GOODSON

A short poem about Being Lost:

Through dusty old passages,
Caked in years of neglect,
Lives an old wooden door,
Very hard to detect.

Carved from the husk,
Of a bitter oak tree,
Burned bright by the lightning,
And fixed fast by the sea.

“Every door holds a secret,
Behind which things are found”,
If you push on the handle,
Is it structually sound?

But the old man who works there,
Has nothing to hide,
Just an eye for detail,
And a manner quite snide.

Lonliness touches him,
No people around,
But ‘the things’ are his friends,
They’re ‘the Lost’ and ‘the Found’.

Every day there is more,
A boardgame, a dolly,
An old leather book,
And a battered old brolly,

A satchel,
One trainer a hat and a coat,
One long oar,
From a bright orange boat,

Ducks made of rubber,
And clothes of all ages,
Treasure galore,
All housed in steel cages,

Silently hoping,
Beyond all reasonable doubt,
That their owners will come,
And let them all out.

Day after day,
With a noticable hunch,
The Keeper will sit there,
Digesting his lunch,

Wiping the crumbs,
With the back of his hand,
A curious jailor,
And the King of his Land.

Torn between hoping,
That someone will knock,
And with smiles on faces,
Take home their clock,

That they bought at that day
At that time, at that place,
With a small sum of money,
And a smile on their face,

That they left on the seat,
Of the two fifty eight,
When they realisation hit,
Just a moment too late.

And wanting to keep,
All these things in his sight,
To make sure that somebody,
Cares for them right.

By BEN GOODSON...

ODD COUPLE

A thunderstorm was brewing, The day has been very hot and as usual for the gift of a hot day, the price to pay will be dear.He had an odd feeling all day, he gather his evening shopping and took slowly the steps to his little studio..."she is going to come tonight...better have everything ready!" a quick look outside at the nigh settled down, switching on its stars as he switched on his own lights...He heard the shuffle of fabric and turn around.... "You got some salad for tonight?...Do you need some help to set up" "No thanks...what are you doing here?" "I told you I'd come, you did not answer, so I assume it was ok...she looked annoyed...as usual with you, that's your problem, you just don't get me..I am not going away...you left me remember... I decided this time to face her up, anger was starting to take over as usual, with every single one of her visit "You ditched me remember, you told me to leave, you were cold as ice, did not even let me the time to gather my stuff...you throw me out" I was stating to shout at this point "you let me drive 2000 kilometers to see you and the next day...nothing, it was like I was not even there...." I could see she was distraught and that this discussion will take the night...again.... "I NEVER told you to go, you decided to go...and without an explanation...pfttt you left ME" I had already heard that all same line of arguments... Christine and myself kept on revisiting this wound and pick at it until it bled everywhere, I did not know what to think, my feeling were so tangled, a mixture of despair, disgust, anger and sadness...The woman I loved suddenly decided that she did not want me anymore and suddenly after several stay around (friends, family, heartbreak hotels...) I ended up here, in that very small studio, where only my job was keeping me together and she shows up, at my door, a month ago, spurting her venom at my face, accusing me, diminishing me and yet...I still loved her and it hurt. She sat herself down on my worn second hand sofa without being invited, and without looking at me, just pretending to shuffle my magazines and books lying, recklessly balanced in a melange of genres...abandoned flightless paper birds made to make my imagination rise.... she started in an acid tone "I saw you today...at the bus stop, with that co-worker of yours" And so it starts... "I saw the way you looked at her...she looked up to me, her eyes hard, her mouth kept tight in a thin line, that could not be good...not good at all...she knew. "She is just a colleague, we were having a laugh, there is nothing go....." She cut me off...as usual "If a man looked at me this way, I knew he would have an hidden agenda...I have never allowed you nor told you to sleep around, did I?" "We did nothing wrong...we were just talking, and may I remind you that we are not together anymore, you DITCHED me....You told ME to go, to leave....and I did, you have no right..." "This is not the point, is it...I am here and you have some explaining to do...why did you leave, was it the sex?" God this conversation was getting more unbearable by the minute, I turn my eyes away, trying to hold on to any familiar things I had brought back with me in that claustrophobic space....my heart was on the breaking point, I just could not take it...This was not a clean break, but a painful tear, a fleshy and sensitive part of me that was being ripped open, chewed and spat out without any mercy...I looked at her face once more, pale , gently framed by her brown curl, the sweet memory of the dimples whenever she smiled, which were totally inexistent tonight...her face was just inhabited by bitterness, her eyes red and watering over, my own vision became cloudy.... Outside the Thunderstorm was getting more and more fierceful, the sky was being torn apart by light and I, by my lost love...a strange mirrored scene, a complex interaction between inside and outside- my soul and my mind...the storm was getting close, but it was just light play...no relief would come from it, no rain to quench the thirst of the earth after the scorching summer day, no soothing , only electricity in the air. This had to come to an end, this self-destructing impulse.... "You did not answer my question...why have you come? didn't you say that you did not want to see me anymore, that our relationship was just a sterile garden and you just could not blossom with me and all that jazz.You always get very poetic when you are cruel and want to hurt...I heard you. Every single complaint out of your mouth, every words of disdain, Every belittling comments..." She opened her mouth then, but no sound came out of it, I was winning... "For 7 long years, you have played cat and mouth with me, blinding me from what could have been a good life, but now it is enough, you will have no more hold on me, you will not make anymore decision on my behalf...Now leave, you are just not welcome" She stood up still silent, but her mouth was moving, she look so desperate, I almost got fouled and step forward to take her in my arms, but no, I needed to be strong, This had to be the night, I needed to finish it...for my sanity and her sake. Tear were gleaming on her now so stretched and pale skin, her eyes were fading under the veil of tears... "I have met someone, and although you will still be in my thoughts, I need to be freed of you...please leave...now and for good" Without another single word she walked the few steps separating my so called lounge/bedsit and stood by the door.She turned once again toward pleading..."Why did you leave me/!" her voice was so weak, not louder than a whisper.... 'You died Christine, I have never left...but you did" The door suddenly opened and the thunder threw one of its mightiest growl, the blinding light soon follow and I shaded my eyes from the almost purple and blinding fork....She was gone, the steps leading to the studio were deserted...silence followed...I was very thankful for it.

The WIND SPIRIT

One fine day, the wind spirit fell in love with a little girl...He loved hearing her pearly laugh that rung a long way and that he uses to carry along with him like his personal little music box.

He had discovered her just before a storm, swinging away,her little slender body fending the air like and arrow to then bend like the an agile bamboo, felling fully alive. Her head bent and stretch toward the sky, lost in her imagining that the earth was moving with her...she saw the clouds swinging away their fluffy shapes, in a curious dance, the sun playing pick-a-boo with her face...Swinging high and made, as she laughed, an innocent and pure sparkling sound that a child can utter.
She did not notice the wind Spirit, who was gathering strength for the storm to come...The thunder king was arriving and he had to be prepared for its arrival, but still he stopped, to listen to that delightful sound.
The little girl then starting singing, as if only for him...a soft and clear little voice.
Near and far, high and low, following the rhythm of the swing, her auburn hair catching the last rays of the dying sunlight to reveal copper curls.The wind Spirit began to be playful and ruffled her hair toward her face, she brushed them away, delighted to be going to so fast, although her movement did not changed. Her eyes sparkled, deep gold stars in the onyx beads shadowed by long eyelashes.
Suddenly the child turned her face to the wind and breathed in, taking him inside and for once, he felt invited, welcomed warmed and not alone. He took some of her fragrance with him, a ephemeral treasure. The little girl giggle and digging in her pocket, she threw her velvet bow in the air and watched the wind raising the gift to the heaven, twirling, swirling, higher and away. The simple gift touched him, usually when he took away tokens, he could hear curses, tears or anger... This was for him, and him alone, and he felt very deeply touched.

The wind Spirit marked the spot where she was, so he can return and visit...soon worked had to be done...and he could hear the thunder king growling afar accompany by his sons and daughters, pure rods of energy, laughing and as they stroke the earth...the little girl looked to the sky with wary eyes...she was afraid of the Thunder King and was counting to hide her fear...1.2.3... she ran inside before the Wind Spirit could caress her cheeks and bid her goodnight....He promised himself to return and visit again.
The next day, the wind spirit waited for the little girl, the whole day he circled the valley, creating havoc in its wake, getting impatient, but the little girl was no where to be seen.Maybe she was indeed a night blossom, such as jasmine and her cheerful sound, like the precious perfume would only come to enchant you at dusk...

He sent his spies, all creatures that could fly and was children to him.But the great Dragonfly did not see her, the big mocking bird did not want to stay, being watch too closely by the house cat, crouched in the grass, salivating at the challenge...only the bees, grateful for the blossoming honeysuckle stayed and kept watch...finally she came, her hair once again in the wind, bare foot and giggling at the thought of feeling one with the universe and swinging with the clouds.

It was the cats, friends of the wind and medium between the world of the living and the Spirits, that had whispered one day to the playful Wind, that this particular child had terrible nightmares...They had tried to scare them away, but with no avail.
That is why the Wind Spirit sought the assistance of the Moon.

The Lady of the night, knew the child, for she had seen it during her diurnal visit to the Lord Sun...The wind Spirit went to her to ask her for her protection, so the child will not be scared at night.He greeted her at he should:

"Goddess Of Life, Love and Paradox,
Keeper of the keys to all the locks
Of Mysteries of Earth and Sky,
Pray answer me, Who Am I?"

The Lady of the night bowed to acknowledge his presence.
"Would you do something for me?"asked the Wind Spirit
"If you keep the cloud away from my face for three nights and three days, I will" replied the Night radiance.
The wind promise and asked in return that the Lady of the night in all her forms and her daughters, the Stars, would look after the child and keep the night fright away....
The Moon agreed.
It was the cats, friends of the wind and medium between the world of the living and the Spirits, that had whispered to the playful Wind that this particular child had terrible nights....
That is why the Wind Spirit sought the assistance of the Moon.

He worked really hard to keep her beautiful radiance clear from the shadows of passing clouds, whose were very unhappy to be diverted from their courses....
But the Moon and the Stars kept their promises...they blinded the ghost and ghouls away and lulled the child to sleep with the music of their light, inaudible for adults, but so reassuring to a frighten child.
The years passed by...and the Wind Spirit, loyal to his love ,visited often the little girl, that soon became a young woman, full of spirit...she had befriended the wind, was protected by the Moon and the Stars and was part of the living universe...She kept her secrets well and lived her live giving thanks to the elements and spending time singing to the wind all sort of songs from her heart.
One day, the Wind Spirit was visited by a flock of Sparrows...their were on their way to collect the soul of a woman that was said to have befriended the wind...with deep sadness in his heart, the Wind Spirit grew colder and angry...he followed the birds and raised the soul in its arms...the bright light changed shape and became once again the little girl with the velvet bow and the sparkling laugh...she held on tight to his embrace and together, they swung in the sky, towards the Heaven, greeting The Lady of the Night and her daughter has they passed in they journey toward eternity....

Who has the rights to your mind?

illegally intellectual property such as music, The question of intellectual copyright has been raised lately in France. Scanning, (actually "spying" ) on people downloading films, books etc...and giving the approriate sanction for it. A n entire new "Netpolice" and "Cybernannies" would have been put into place for this gargantuan task!
Hell is paved with the best intentions...
I thought that artists should be finally protected and their creations with it. I do not agree that the result of your creativity, sweat, heartache and talent should be available for free to anyone, unless you decided so. Artists can if they wish give their creativity, time and talent for free, but unless they say so, we should not steal it.

Unfortunately, good intentions turned into a political debate, and people felt that it is the core of their very freedom, especially when you are secure in your home surfing the net, that was in jeopardy...and with this too, I agree. Artists complanin that the peope targetted are also their fans and that the net was a way for them to get to their public...cutting them off would kill their chance to get through the young generation...What to say, which side to lean on?! Both points are valid

TV programs such as Big Brother have slowly used people attraction to voyeurism and turn it against them: If you do not mind watching other people everyday life and interaction, if you fancy "reality shows" that makes you hair raised on your head..why shouldn't you be next to surrender your privacy? - For a real treat for your nerve, read Amelie Nothomb "Sulfuric Acid", that will provide you with a wide window on dystopia!

But this is sidetracking...Who has the right to your creativity, to your dreams and work? Everyone!, as long as they acknowledge that the work is yours and should remain so...but in another hand, spending an aweful lot of governement money to arbitrarely cut your internet connection off, on suspicion that you may have downloaded something illegally ,without having any mouth to defend yourself, is OTT...
How do we find a balance?. How do you teach in this fast world that not everything is for grab and that there is nothing as a "free lunch"?!
I think it comes with the respect. Respect for an artist, an author, a musician, a painter. If we learned more to respect one another, I am sure that it would improved our lives...

Just good old R-E-S-P-E-C-T!