Round Robin Book Exchange

After September's Squam Lake Workshop adventure in New Hampshire, EB, Karen, Leslie and I decided to extend the fun and celebrate our spiritual bond with a Round Robin Book Exchange.

I have to confess I felt a bit lost at first, never having participated in a RR before, and October ended still empty of ideas.
Then November arrived, and while going through the contents of an old jewelry box, I found a broken vintage family brooch that immediately determined the course of my Round Robin creation.I started by making an envelope bag in a complimentary green velvet and embellished it with lace from an old handkerchief and mother of pearl buttons.
I even attempted some coptic binding techniques learned from the coptic master herself-dear Eb.

It hurt to cut linen pieces from one of aunt Carolina's old corsets, but considering the corset had been tucked in a drawer for over twenty years, the prospect of celebrating it as part of a meaningful book became rather comforting. Almost liberating.

And here is the end result-not perfect but unique, all heart.

I sent this card out with the book (yes, it is a picture of me on the cover)to explain all about the theme I chose - "The Women in Us"-a celebration of women, past and present, who made a difference in our future.By taking this journey collectively, I hope we all end up learning more about ourselves and each other in the process.

Lucille Clifton's poem "Daughters" fit perfectly with my theme

as did photos of aunt Carolina,

of my mother and her mother ,

statements of innocence and possibility

A celebration of all these "mother courage". My pillars.

"Nothing is lost, nothing is created, all is transformed"

Antoine Laurent Lavoisier

Women whose stories I look forward to share.

Alice in the Rain

"Mad Hatter: No wonder you're late. Why, this watch is exactly two days slow.”
Chapter 7

The rain added to the magic of the Bergdorf Goodman holiday windows, and rain drops reflected light and images in a dreamlike fashion.

I think that Susanna and I could be heard down the block....Oooooo......Ahhhhh...look at this window...look at that flamingo....

Bergdorf Goodman, New Yok City

“It’s that old-world quality—it’s that opulent, madcap thing we do,” he says. “It’s layer upon layer of incident and antiques and things happening … but there’s also a kind of deliberate non-commercial quality.”

David Hoey -Bergdorf's Senior Director of Visual Presentation

The Bergdorf team must have worked endless hours to achieve these creations. For us, it all started with this magical Alice and the possibility awaiting down the Rabbit's hole...

"Alice laughed. `There's no use trying,' she said: `one can't believe impossible things.' `I daresay you haven't had much practice,' said the Queen. `When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast."

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland - Chapter V

“The White Rabbit put on his spectacles. `Where shall I begin, please your Majesty?' he asked. `Begin at the beginning,' the King said gravely, `and go on till you come to the end: then stop.'”
Chapter XII
"The sun was shining on the sea,

Shining with all his might:

He did his very best to make

The billows smooth and bright—

And this was odd, because it was

The middle of the night."

"The Walrus and the Carpenter", Through the Looking Glass- Chapter IV

"So she sat on, with closed eyes, and half believed herself in Wonderland, though she knew she had but to open them again, and all would change to dull reality"

Chapter XII

"The Hatter opened his eyes very wide on hearing this; but all he said was, "Why is a raven like a writing-desk?" Chapter VII

" 'That's a great deal to make one word mean,' Alice said in a thoughtful tone. 'When I make a word do a lot of work like that,' said Humpty Dumpty, 'I always pay it extra.' "

Chapter VI

There were so many details we could have stayed there all day, but this was one of my favorites- the birds of our mind surfacing in between the pages of a book, ready to take flight...

"‘When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, `it means just what I choose it to mean -- neither more nor less.' `The question is,' said Alice, `whether you can make words mean so many different things.' `The question is,' said Humpty Dumpty, `which is to be master - - that's all.' "

Chapter 6

Can you believe that all of this Magic is made out of paper- the books and desk, a cat, the flamingo, lizards, and turtles. Such careful planning and detail!

"Alice thought she had never seen such a curious croquet-ground in her life; it was all ridges and furrows; the balls were live hedgehogs, the mallets live flamingoes, and the soldiers had to double themselves up and to stand on their hands and feet, to make the arches.
The chief difficulty Alice found at first was in managing her flamingo: she succeeded in getting its body tucked away, comfortably enough, under her arm, with its legs hanging down, but generally, just as she had got its neck nicely straightened out, and was going to give the hedgehog a blow with its head, it would twist itself round and look up in her face, with such a puzzled expression that she could not help bursting out laughing:"

Chapter VIII

“Take some more tea,' the March Hare said to Alice, very earnestly. `I've had nothing yet,' Alice replied in an offended tone, `so I can't take more.' `You mean you can't take less,' said the Hatter: `it's very easy to take more than nothing.'”

Chapter VII
" 'Curiouser and curiouser!' "

Chapter II

And look at this bird's eye view of the ultimate tea party.

" Lastly, she pictured to herself how this same little sister of hers would, in the after-time, be herself a grown woman; and how she would keep, through all her riper years, the simple and loving heart of her childhood: and how she would gather about her other little children, and make their eyes bright and eager with many a strange tale, perhaps even with the dream of Wonderland of long ago: and how she would feel with all their simple sorrows, and find a pleasure in all their simple joys, remembering her own child-life, and the happy summer days. "

Chapter XII

Who cares if we were soaked and wet...our mind was definitely warm and alive.

Now you must check out Susanna's beautiful photos of the Bergdorf windows. She creates magic with her camera. Yes, she does.

Living the Magic...

"Light gives of itself freely, filling all available space. It does not seek anything in return; it asks not whether you are friend or foe. It gives of itself and is not thereby diminished."

Michael Strassfeld

There is something magical about New York city this time of year, that even the rain and sleet accompanying us on Saturday could not stop us from dreaming.

We had tremendous fun, my friend Susanna and I, noses glued to the decorated windows, eyes taking it all in.

We walked miles and snapped a thousand photos, visited a million places, attended a fabulous holiday party at Elizabeth's and and after experiencing the wonder of the season we have no doubts that we Believe.

"Blessed is the season which engages the whole world in a conspiracy of love."

My Study Fire, Hamilton Wright Mabie

Please, don't forget to check out Susanna's blog for her coverage of the Macy's Christmas windows. She did a wonderful job at sharing the magic we experienced.

And there are more photos to come...

Moments with Aunt Carolina

The yellow trolley stopped right in front of aunt Carolina’s house on Duque De Avila Avenue and off we went for over half an hour of traveling, me with the face glued to the window and aunt C. keeping to her thoughts.

Because of the long ride there and back, visits to Mata de Benfica only happened once or twice a month, weather permitting, and would invariably include packing not just the usual afternoon snacks but also a light lunch.

It was not a comfortable ride, between the abrupt and countless stops and the hard seats, and the hills and narrow streets that made it seem like a roller coaster ride, but the view, the people who came in and out, and the overheard conversations made it rather interesting.

This is where wonder was born...

Ours was the last stop. We walked hand in hand a few more steps, past the heavy gates of the park, and the city was no more.

Before us was a steep hill flanked by two sinuous roads leading to the children’s playground at the top, and among the gigantic eucalyptus, cypress, pine and oak trees, cedar and a few acacias there were also stone steps and dirt trails one could climb to the top, but aunt Carolina preferred the blacktop path with the occasional park benches where she could rest.

Whenever she sat, she would hand me a plastic bag and I was in charge of collecting eucalyptus leaves the shape of roaster tail feathers and eucalyptus gum nuts for aunt to burn with brown sugar back at home. Blackcaps, goldfinches, and peacocks abound. I ran after the last and admired their iridescent plumage. I remember it all…the squirrels, the doves, the armies of pigeons and a few confrontational ducks, my fingers sticky from the gum nuts, the delicious scent of eucalyptus all over my hands.


I hurried my pace near the top already attracted to the sounds of swings in motion and screaming kids. “Wait for me”, said Aunt C., but I was already like a bird with unclipped wings.

“The playing adult steps sideward into another reality: the playing child advances forward to new stages of mastery.”

Identity and the Life Cycle, Erik Erikson

I played to exhaustion, covering every inch of that park in sandals full of sand, toes the color of dirt. It was there I learned about friendship and fight, belonging and being excluded, testing one’s courage and overcoming scraped knees. The adults would stand on the sidelines and we experienced in our own terms. Aunts and mothers and nannies would sit and talk, glance and smile, stop a more serious quarrel, open tupperwares and glass bottles and wait until we came running between rides to take a bite or drink in a hurry.
There, I graduated to the tallest swings, the ones that took you way above the tree lines. I was all legs and courage. Wind and pride.

And every time I left the park, I walked a little taller.

I have aunt Carolina to thank for all these lessons in the art of growing up.
Aunt C. who was born November 17 and never left me.

For more adventures with my aunt please read:

Easter Pleasures with Aunt Carolina

Places That Keep on Giving

Cemetery Visits

All the photos of the park are by Alexandra, who grew up in the area and enjoyed that same playground.
She has a wonderful portuguese blog about the area called "Retalhos of Benfica"

Battle Turned into Wing

“In the night of death, hope sees a star, and listening love can hear the rustle of a wing."

"Ingersoll Oration at his Brother's Grave"

-Lectures of Coll. Robert Green Ingersoll, vol I

For my high school friend Joao Marchante and his angel father.

Organically Connected

"And this, our life, exempt from public haunt, finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, sermons in stones, and good in everything."

As You Like It (Act 2 Scene 1)~William Shakespeare

Cat and I went for a walk the other day to capture the last colors of Fall before the wind and hurricane Ida took them away.

She laughs when I sudenly stop, always wondering why...and more often than not, I surprise her with some rusty nails on a post. Yet she smiles.

But how can I explain this attraction for things that are just there, seemingly without purpose, or for those so alive and that so effortlessly stitch themselves to the heart?
For me, there is wholesomeness in the connection to the organic and to the silent life of things, to the fabric of being, all color or the fading of it, the unknown story.

"In the deep fall
don’t you imagine the leaves think how
comfortable it will be to touch
the earth instead of the
nothingness of air and the endless
freshets of wind? (...)"

"Song for Autumn" - New and Selected Poems, Vol. 2 -Mary Oliver

Undressed trees are my favorite, with their clusters of seeds and twisted branches, bark full of wrinkles, ash tones that pick up the muted blues of the earth.

They connect me to the bare shapes, the essence. They strip the noise and leave us to the pulse.

And I bring them home. The nails and wood. The shapes. The thoughts of them.

“The greatest delight which the fields and woods minister, is the suggestion of an occult relation between man and the vegetable.”

"Nature" - The Essential Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson

I am as revitalized by the flaming reds of the trees and the stormy sky as by the simplicity of the houses and their working chimneys, the planted grain, the unexpected take off of the birds from the middle of the field.

We stop to admire the horses. Cat gets closer with the camera and I cheer her, "Go on. Don't be afraid." .

And child and human meet half way. Without distrust. They think she's there to feed them. She thinks them adorable. I smile full with that moment's peaceful coexistence.

"Dawn and sunset are the times when Nature herself is unstable and in flux. The nocturnal world and the daytime world are meeting, and for a brief time coexisting. It's not a neat hard cut, but a blurred, irregular dissolve. These moments are the seams in existence through which we can get a glimpse of the deeper, fundamentally random, chance workings of a system in which we are only a small, insignificant player."

- Bill Viola

The end of the day is full of stillness, here. The farms rest, and I think of my favorite Copeland as I embrace the different rythms of the day.

"Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished." - Lao Tzu

The light is warm, lazy, aiming towards rest. We follow suit.

We always return home with bits and treasures. A hint of grass, a root, some seeds. A bit of farm and grain. The yellow of the sun.

These are the days that call to warmth,
to scents of burning wood and baking ovens,

apple pies and hot cider, cinnamon and clover filling the air.

Cozy throws. A touch of sky.

"Shall I not have intelligence with the earth? Am I not partly leaves and vegetable mould myself."

Walden (Chapter V: Solitude)- Henry David Thoreau

This is the road that leads to our place. Now it is all ochre and burnt umber, copper and rust, sienna, but last week it was full of golden yellows, rich greens, branches heavy with orange.

It is a road to drive slowly and with the window down, listening to nature while the body follows the contour of the landscape. One almost wishes that the yellow lines of the asphalt would go on forever.

It is here I collect my leaves, right before they become a carpet under our feet...

Then I display them here, to make the season last.

“I become a transparent eye-ball; I am nothing; I see all; the currents of the Universal Being circulate through me; I am part or particle of God”

“Nature” –The Essential Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson

The reflections of nature on the nearby creek are yet another world to explore, the water almost like a portal to the unseen magic-the angles we often miss.

The creek is a traveling vessel.

And so is the railroad track. Their contemplation offers a sense of distance that brings one as much outside oneself

as back to the core.

Gradually, Fall makes its exit and we're left to the bare wood. Times of seed.


Our mantle is now a showcase of pale earth tones, straw and cream, delicate branches, and the warmth of candles.
"The attitude that nature is chaotic and that the artist puts order into it is a very absurd point of view, I think. All that we can hope for is to put some order into ourselves."

Willem de Kooning

The fields are as much coming to the end of a cycle as to a new beginning, and the nest I found empty on the ground under my forsythia awaits now full of stones on top of my blue table - a reminder of the promise of renewal that will revist after Winter.

Susanna's Wings

She like a restless bird,

Would spread her wings, her power to be unfurl'd,

And let her songs be loudly heard,
And dart from world to world.

George Moses Horton, Myself-George M. Horton

I met Susanna Gordon for the first time last year, when we got together for a picnic and a celebration of friendship.

It was one of those blind friendships that starts with a leap of faith and an affinity of the heart. We had never seen each other before, having only shared words and thoughts over the internet, and yet when I saw Susanna in her brown straw hat and her easy smile I instantly knew we would be friends.

Conversation was effortless. We shared Starbucks and our lives, missed exits and smiled, turned around and really tried hard to follow directions without getting lost in conversation again.

Susanna is easy going, interested, and full of heart.
Her Winged Messengers Project attests to her giving nature, and she sends these wings out into the world with quiet messages that softly knock at your mind and engage the heart.

She gave me a pair the next time we saw each other. I had asked her to write "saudade" in them, and a few week after my daughter Cat took the pair of wings to Portugal and photographed them by the river Tagus ,with the Vasco da Gama bridge in the background.

"Saudade" is being Portuguese.
Every time I look at this photo of Susanna's Wings with my favorite river in the background I am instantly connected to my heritage.

My offspring on Lisbon soil, "saudade" held up to her face, the bridge named after one of our most famous Portuguese explorers in the background - it all makes sense to me.

It connects me to the heart of being Portuguese, and I have Susanna to thank for this beautiful memory.

Later last Summer, when a group of us got together for a wonderful weekend of creativity and to celebrate Susanna's birthday, I gave her a framed photo of her wings in Portugal as a token of my friendship.

I wanted her to feel the magic of her wings, how far they're traveling, how far and deep they're touching.

And touching they DO.

More than what I even think Susanna imagined. And it makes me smile as I witness Susanna's Wings in the act of transforming and raising awareness, giving hope and revealing beauty and strength.

Just like they did for my maple tree and my friend Anna.

You ARE SPECIAL, my friend!

Wings turned into bridges- physical and spiritual ones.
Wings that connect us to others and ourselves.

27,000 Miles

The Kitchen Sink, Albert Goldbarth

These two asleep . . . so indrawn and compact,

like lavish origami animals returned

to slips of paper once again; and then

the paper once again become a string

of pith, a secret that the plant hums to itself . . . .

You see? — so often we envy the grandiose, the way

those small toy things of Leonardo’s want to be

the great, air-conquering and miles-eating

living wings

they’re modeled on. And the bird flight is

amazing: simultaneously strength,

escape, caprice: the Artic tern completes

its trip of nearly 27,000 miles every year;

a swan will frighten bears away

by angry aerial display of flapping wingspan.

But it isn’t all flight; they also

fold; and at night on the water or in the eaves

they package their bodies into their bodies,

smaller, and deeply

smaller yet: migrating a similar distance

in the opposite direction.

I hope you go and visit her- our Winged Messengers Queen. Our Queen for the Day!

Montage created by Shin

This Celebration was kindly organized by the Angie from Visually Oriented.

And here the creative women who joined in this celebration of gratitude for having Susanna and her Winged Messengers in our lives:

Shelagh

Robin

Relyn,

Megan,

Susan,

Kristin,

LiLi

Mo'a

Madelyn

Constance

Stephanie

Shin,

Leslie

Bonnie

Christina

Gillian

Olga

Elizabeth

Angie

Rachel

Towards Lightness

Let us be at peace with our bodies and our minds.

Let us return to ourselves and become wholly ourselves.

Let us be aware of the source of being,

common to us all and to all living things.

Evoking the presence of the Great Compassion,

let us fill our hearts with our own compassion—

towards ourselves and towards all living beings.

Let us pray that we ourselves cease to be

the cause of suffering to each other.

With humility, with awareness of the existence of life,

and of the suffering that are going on around us,

let us practice the establishment of peace in our hearts and

on earth.

~Thich Nhat Hanh

Behind heavy gates, I was instantly taken by the lightness of these white birds spiraling towards the light.

I felt a string from the heart to the moment, almost as if I too was suspended with open wings, the light above my head, the earth tones of the brick and moss glowing in the background.

The metal bars of the gate felt cold on my cheek as I lowered the face almost to the ground and angled my lens up on a reaching angle and tried to capture-----

-------that lightness of being.

That Which Runs in Me - IV

Photo by Crikiricis

"There was a choice of three bridges. On one of them a woman sold roasted chestnuts. It was warm, standing in front of her charcoal fire, and the chestnuts were warm afterward in your pocket."

"In Another Country" in The Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway

The streets of Lisbon were never cold when there were chestnuts.

I could never resist that sweetness in the air, the comforting scent of roasted chestnuts meeting me at the corner, warm, unforgettable, and during that time of the year I usually walked with coins tightly held in my left hand, worth a dozen chestnuts.

“Chestnuts! Chestnuts! Look at the chestnuts. Toasty and tasty!” announced the street vendors in a singing voice, standing by their motorized tricycles parked in strategic spots- the subway entrance, a busy intersection, and of course, right on my path to school.

"At the edge of Autumn,
at the corner of Winter
The chestnut man is eternal."

"The Chestnut Man" from As Palavras das Cantigas, Ary dos Santos

The best days for a breakfast of chestnuts were those cold ones when your breath matched the spirals of smoke rising from the round iron canisters of the street vendors, and you walked with your neck buried in the collar of your winter coat, nose following the scented path, preparing for the magic.

I placed the coins in the vendor’s hands, he would reach for the pile of hot chestnuts cooling in a burlap covered basket, and a dozen beauties would soon find their way to a paper cone made from the white pages of an old telephone book.
He handed them to me with fingers the color of ashes, and it would take only a few seconds before my fingers matched his.

Like so many other pedestrains, I quickly disappeared caressing the paper cone, transferring the heat, salt, and ashes from the chestnuts to my hands, peeling the shells and skin and holding on to the magic of the nuts, golden ,with a hint of burnt, soft and heaven in my mouth.

Photo by LUA

I ate mine on the subway or walking up the avenue to school, distracting myself with the names and addresses on those telephone book pages, and on rainy days, I peeled and nibbled slowly, making the dozen last. The city, the wind, and rain-all forgotten. There was just me and the chestnuts, pockets full of shells, and ash traces on the wool coat.

Then, whenever I bit on a rotten and bitter one, I remember the disappointing feeling of thinking how I then only had 11 instead of 12 chestnuts to enjoy. It spoiled the magic. But now, I think that one chestnut increased the value of those 11 other ones. Made them more sacred and precious.

It was the same with my last chestnut. I always held to it a little longer, a certain tenderness of youth in my action, making the comfort last, creating the memories.
And later in those evenings, I would still be holding on to the salty taste of those shells on my fingers...

Growing Younger

"We may look old and wise to the outside world, but to each other, we are still in junior high." - Charlotte Gray

This is a special day. His day.

I woke up thinking of him, and I reached for the telephone like I do every year we have been apart and wished him a heartfelt-Happy Birthday, Ricardo!

Conversation between us flows easily. We are not only brother and sister. We are part son and part father, part daughter, part mother. And distance taught us not to spare words and feelings between us.

There is a quote in one of my notebooks that always reminds me of him:

" Gaiety that sweetens existence and makes it wholesome - a sense of humor, a zest of enjoyment - this is the accompaniment of courage which gives it a supreme value. "

He is all courage and heart. My source of smiles and laughter.

"To the outside world we all grow old. But not to brothers and sisters. We know each other as we always were. We know each other's hearts. We share private family jokes. We remember family feuds and secrets, family griefs and joys. We live outside the touch of time. "

Clara Ortega in Cultural Diversity and Families , Bahira Sherif Trask

He is young at heart, and my kids love that about him.

This year, they spent a big part of the summer vacation with him at the beach house in the south of Portugal, and they returned to the States with my brother in their eyes.

I can see him there every time they smile and we talk about all the adventures they had together: the silly parties, the games and laughter, the nights sleeping at the beach around a fire, the picnics and places they visited. The long conversations they shared.

And I love how my kids are learning from him to "grow younger". With lightness in their hearts.

"Why not simply honor your parents, love your children, help your brothers and sisters, be faithful to your friends, care for your mate with devotion, complete your work cooperatively and joyfully, assume responsibility for problems, practice virtue without first demanding it of others, understand the highest truths yet retain an ordinary manner? That would be true clarity, true simplicity, true mastery."

The Hua Hu Ching, Lao Tzu

He is our source of inspiration and laughter. A kind and resilient spirit. A MAN.

Happy birthday, my brother. We love you!