Monthly Archives: October 2012

Random Words, Google Oracle and Daily Prompts

31 Wednesday Oct 2012

Posted by in Humor

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I am all for quality, not quantity & all that jazz, i never aimed to post daily – except on days when i suffer from incurable logorrhea which side effects include the unrestrictable desire to share random thoughts on WordPress… This happens quite random, mind you.

Thus, i mostly bypass Daily Propmts, and the current entry would be on forthcoming NanoWrimo, hadn’t i come across this very Daily Post: “Pick a random word and do Google image search on it. Check out the eleventh picture it brings up. Write about whatever that image brings to mind.”

The midnight was long gone by local time and I was packing for Moscow. I don’t have time for this, yet, just for the sake of it – i hit random word generator… This is what i got:

Interesting, is it not? Curiosity is known to be one of the leading indicators of intelligence – and also of sleepless nights wasted on aimless browsing. Nah, not me, i don’t do those…

Next thing you know i was counting heads on Google Image Result.

And i was going to sleep immediately after that, i swear… Until a deprived shaven female head yelled out to me from the computer screen. Oh, every woman’s horror! You know those dreams where you walk naked across the crowded circus (and it’s winter and of course you haven’t shaved in a while, alongside other, usual problems with walking naked along crowded circuses)?

That’s what this poor head told me about – the unusually sad story of cyber neglect, of a  digital art done in hurry and a male 3D artist who had left her hairless and sent her naked pictures into the big online word… I cringed. I felt sick in my stomach. “Didn’t bother do hair as it was just a quick project for practice”, the 3D artist says… Goodness, who does that to a cyber woman?!

I heard her plea. I understood and didn’t mind she used Google as some kind of reversed Ouija Board, so to get my attention. I would be capable of using anything to get the help i needed was i in her place… Look at that lipstick – not even a 90 years old would wear it! Not to mention that these colors are not produced for at least twenty years by now – and the girl could develop a cyber allergy from wearing expired make up!

Forget about getting sleep when your sister is in such a tragic situation! I made myself a cup of coffee and took the poor girl to http://www.taaz.com/

First i helped her get rid of that sickish tan she was given by her creator, in my opinion -a ruthless male 3D artist with no understanding of fine art of makeup.

We took off that horrible black eyeliner and removed the dreadful brown lipstick. You can’t grow hair overnight – not even online, so we opted for a wig. The poor head and myself then spent an hour or so applying concealers, shadows, mascaras and the rest of  girl’s essentials. We made her lips bigger, teeth whiter. She needed contacts, colored ones of course. The eyebrows needed fixing – i mean, those are ‘half of the face’ as my mother likes to accentuate the importance of correct plucking.

After her makeover was done, the photo itself needed some corrections too – adding some light and filters here and there.

Around 3 am both once bald cyber head with tasteless makeup and sleepless me were satisfied with the result. Here it is, judge for yourself:

Copyright Notice: The original illustration was digitally altered beyond recognition and without  prejudicial intentions, thus it can not be considered to be in breach of its creator’s intellectual and moral rights. 

My Closest Friends and the Postponement of the Four Swords

27 Saturday Oct 2012

Posted by in Essay, Photography

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Postponement, 4 of Clouds; Osho Zen Tarot© 2012 OSHO International Foundation

for Hildegerd, my dearest Norwegian friend 

Some people feel like home… As long as they are around, you are safe and loved. It can be a tough love sometimes – because real friends won’t flatter you or sugar-coat what they think, but that’s the part of it – and probably one of the best sides to true friendship. I am wary of peeps who always agree – there is something scary in it, it’s as if they take you for a megalomaniac , or they simply don’t care at all, both send chills down my spine. Myself, i make the effort to disagree, i get out of my comfort zone so to speak up – and i think that’s the way to go, as long as it is coming from a good place.

The only sub-kind of frienemies whom i find worse than yes-people is the bullies who go ballistic on you like: You know what’s your problem?! And then they pour insults – while faking it’s just their being honest… It’s not – it’s just tiny veiled bullying and it’s not doing any good to anyone.

That’s why a friend who is honest and upfront and who bothers enough to tell you stuff others won’t –  is worth of gold and should be cherished like the proverbial apple of the eye.

That’s what i found in Bibi, one of my closest and oldest friends – we met while teenagers and are going through fire and water together ever since.

I can rationalize now – that i adore her because she’s an awesome person and genius artist and a great friend… But 27 years ago, when we first met – i knew nothing of it, i simply loved her at the first sight; some friendships do start like that – and all of mine that proved to last indeed started like that. When i think of it, i tend to believe it’s some kind of recognizing the person you just met – is it reminiscences from past lives, is it seeing something invisible by plain sight – i don’t know.

Anyway it is, Biljana herself – and her artwork , to me are like a window which i open and look through when surrounding me Balkan reality once again gets too grim.

In words of Ivo Andric, in Balkans “every fifty years the wise shut up, the fools start talking and the scum gets rich” – and it’s far from easy to live in such surroundings, while keeping more or less sane, that’s where true friends and great art come to one’s rescue, otherwise it would be impossible to survive it.

To me it’s not surprising that it’s Latin American writers who got famous for their surrealist novels, as they had their own share of reality bites – and no wonder Balkan directors got famous for movie endings where sky opens and monkeys drive tanks and cows swim upstream – all the way up to the deserted islands…

Tina Brooks, an entrepreneur and mystic from Canada, and a dear friend of mine, has written a great essay on   something which happened the other day – a friend’s sister was in a shelter in Israel, bombs landing around her; i’ll link to it as soon as she posts it on her blog*, for now it’s on her Facebook and there are numerous supportive comments and  expressions of compassion, several friends wrote they can not even imagine being in such a situation… I can – and i was in such situation more than once, sadly.

When NATO bombing started back in 1999 – that very evening Biljana was at my place, and from the balcony we watched the cascade bombs falling and buildings catching fire – in what seemed to be a proximity that one can reach by arm… There are no words to describe what one feels during such times – it’s not fear, it’s not panic, it’s some kind of disbelieve that it is happening and an expectation to wake up and realize it was just a dream… Yet, we were not dreaming. It’s things like that make people bond on the deepest level, these unspeakable experiences which surpass anything one expects to go through – and survive in the course of their life.

Of course, we’ve had loads of fun together too – because friendships, like life itself, has to have both, good and bad.

I mentioned before that i am moving to Moscow, Russia soon – and i feel anxious because i am leaving my parents, my furbaby and my friends behind. I’ve been feeling this spasm in my stomach for days now, this pain before leaving… and it doesn’t get any better, it’s only that with time one eventually gets used to it.

Bibi (an endearing diminutive for Biljana) threw a farewell party for me the other day – and with friends and family we stayed until early morning hours talking about life and laughing and being sad and – an inevitable part of Montenegrin hospitality – enjoying some delicious foods.

And i told her that i would love to write about her artwork, that it’s been for quite some time now that i want to do it and that i feel intimidated because i get it on an intimate level , i am not an art expert or critic, i am afraid to do it a dis-service… She laughed, she said – these technical terms you worry about, they don’t matter at all… and, as she was seeing me off, she looked somewhere up, above and she said: Look at the sky, it seems it’s going to rain tomorrow!

And i laughed too – because she was right, it doesn’t really matter that i don’t know much neither of origins of abstract expressionism nor of traditional oil painting techniques, what’s important for me personally is that her artwork moves me, i feel it, i experience full range of emotions while being immersed into her paintings… They talk to me, in their strikingly colorful anti-figurative language and they tell me of things which surpass the verbal and strike directly into one’s intuitive perception.

Of course, i can’t deny that i am more than proud that my own taste in art – albeit i am not very knowledgeable about it – does coincide with UNESCO experts’ who endorsed Biljana Kekovic’s work; actually she’s the most recognized and awarded Montenegrin painter of younger generation – you can see the long list of wards she received here.

Light works in mysterious ways, as the saying goes – Bibi’s and my father are life long friends too – and the gentleman about whom i wrote in The Lord of Swiftness and The Secret Service, Mr Kekovic, is actually her father.

Some things in life seem predestined indeed – and it’s good it is so because they give us that certainty of Tarot’s Four of Swords – which creator of Osho Zen Tarot, Ma Deva Padma, depicted as a woman who watches into the colorful window frame, while standing in a gray landscape… That’s pretty much how i dive into the colorful world of Bibi’s paintings, when the reality gets grim – i squeeze myself through the frame and jump into the whirlpool of the colors caught while trance dancing ecstatically… I come back feeling reborn – i fetch the ecstasy of the colors with me and i imbue the reality with it… Slowly, but surely – the reality responds and restores its natural colors – those of  love, light and laughter.

L.R.S.

 

Biljana Kekovic‘s paintings at online gallery “Montenegrina”: http://www.montenegrina.net/pages/pages_e/painting/b_kekovic/gallery1.html

ETA: *link to Tina’s blog entry added, enjoy

Funny Evolution Of Social Networking

25 Thursday Oct 2012

Posted by in Essay, Satire

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“The internet ate my novel, but this is much more fun #careerchange #nolookingback oh but #worldsosilentnow Hey!” Anne Enright, Twitter fiction

In the beginning there were bulletin boards – the grandparents of contemporary public posting, followed by internet forums – somewhat similar to the state planning of  the former USSR  – ’twas was hard to get in, and even harder to leave them.

Then, there was MySpace – looking back at it, its sparkling layouts could only be compared to the shiny parachute pants, shoulder pads and big hair popular in the 80ies – no one remembers gladly they actually wore those.

Thereafter, the new kid on the block arrived – and we welcomed the aeon of Facebook…

Back in the days of  Myspace – Tom was everyone’s friend and many of us had developed a certain emotional attachment to his dorky picture, yet somewhere in 2008 it seemed that he went missing… He reappeared on G+ several years later and I swear I felt as if I was reunited with a long lost family member! (I  bet you that many of  Tom’s  237,991,950 MySpace  friends felt exactly the same!)

Speaking of which, let us take a better look at cyber biodiversity.

First, we need to choose a method for categorization and here we are opening a  whole new can of worms: Evolutionists are often asked what they mean by “species,” and creationists are often asked what they mean by “kind.” Creationists would like to define “kind” in terms of interbreeding, since the Bible describes different living things as “multiplying after kind,” and evolutionists also use the interbreeding criterion. However, scientists recognize certain bower birds as distinct species even though they interbreed, and they can’t use the interbreeding criterion at all with asexual forms.*

I am as confused as you are.  Other sources clarify that: “Creationists oppose the idea that species can evolve indefinitely and charge evolutionary biologists with failing to define their terms properly.”

Right… It seems I am with evolutionary biologists on this one – most of my MySpace friends shapeshifted into Facebook friends and it was very few, Tom among them, who didn’t make it …

Anyway, as the story goes –  any real (macro)evolution requires “an expansion of the gene pool, the addition of new genes and new traits as life is supposed to move from simple beginnings to ever more varied and complex forms.” So far  – so good; according to an ancient data Facebook ‘s expanded gene pool “now has nearly 100 million more worldwide users than MySpace, which added 4 million new users in December to 125 million total. The page view difference is more dramatic – Facebook had 80 billion monthly page views in December v. 43 billion for MySpace. Just six months ago the sites were about the same size.”

‘Twas January 2009, mind you – and that’s probably the last time anyone bothered comparing the two; from there on Myspace, it seems,  went down the online memory lane, extinct like some totally enormous dinosaurs.

As per transition from “simple beginnings to ever more varied and complex forms”, if you too are regularly bashing your head against the wall every single time Zuckerberg’s team introduces a new, complicated and unnecessary innovation, then you’d know that the above mentioned criteria is fulfilled as well.

Lo and behold, influenced by the philosophy of Zen, minimalists – whom for the purpose of this classification we can compare to evolution’s  bowerbirds – started an upraise  and in their everlasting search  for simplicity had moved to Twitter. But, some of this distinct kind had interbred by keeping both accounts and interacting – tweeting and facebooking –  inbetween the two networks.

With time, some started feeling rather nostalgic and occasionally started checking out their old forum accounts, albeit hardly anyone paid visits to the neglected message boards…

Anyhow, natural selection started favoring good typing skills and fittest Alpha males&females were pushed to the corner by those who could type faster.

It’s probably at that very time that the oldest question in the cyber world was raised – and the question which no one has answered yet was: To Tweet Or To Facebook?

 

As you would know, the impending 2012 elections are actually insignificant juxtaposed to Twitter vs Facebook dilemma and there are whole sorts of criteria one should be using while determining between the two- the former consisting of, but not necessarily limited to, the following:

a) are your grand-grand parents on that social network?

b) how many A list celebrities use it?

c) is there enough daily drama – so that you don’t have to watch soap operas (and thus can save on cable TV)?

Stuff like that.

That being said, given that everything changes but the change itself, as twitterrific as 140 character minimalism was, many felt too much is left unsaid – and here we are on WordPress, the world’s most popular blogging platform…

What’s next? That – Cyber Gods only know, but when it comes to me – I reckon I’ll stick around here for a while.

*adopted from: www.answersingenesis.org

France in the Year 2000; series of retro-futuristic illustrations by Jean-Marc Côté between 1899 and 1910 (public domain )

France in the Year 2000 (50 illustrations)  are cataloged at Wikimedia Commons, the illustration above is my favorite.

L.R.S.

 

Lovely (Blog) Or Not

21 Sunday Oct 2012

Posted by in Awards

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Makya McBee’s is probably the best ever blog entry on WordPress “awards”: “Here’s how they work. When you win this award, you are requested to nominate ten other blogs…it’s essentially an award chain letter. Obviously, if every blogger that won this award were to nominate ten others, every single blogger in the world will have won within a matter of days. I’ve got to figure this hurts the prestige just a little. I mean, if after winning the Academy Award, Denzel was given ten more Oscars to quickly hand out to folks in the audience and so on and so forth…

…The internet has helped to create a world in which anyone can rant about anything, upload hilarious shots of teenagers getting hit in the crotch, and create your very own “music” video…and talent is never a prerequisite. Like almost everything in the universe, this is good and bad. But the web’s content is still mostly the latter. I’m sorry, but we’re not all special.

But not me, I am special. Clearly. I mean, I won an award, suckers.“

To me, the award thing is like recommending your favorite books to your ‘real life’ friends – it certainly doesn’t mean the book you liked increased its chances of winning a Booker, but the friend will appreciate the recommendation; more so that advice on books is the only advice i personally take from others. See, i gave up long ago advising anyone on anything – and i don’t ask for advice either; when we are ready to deal with anything perceived as a challenge, we are granted clarity of thought too – and strength to handle whatever was sent sent our way; before that – it’s futile to get advice and in my experience it only develops animosity to whomever is giving it.

Just think of the last time someone close to you vented about their partner or children, how irresponsible or inconsiderate they were… If you are naive enough to advice them anything – to calm down, not to take it that way, to seek counseling – first, chances are they’ll take out their frustration on you, second – once they make it up with their significant others, you’ll be the mean bitch who wished them ill… So, nay. I am not listening to angry rants – and i am sparing my friends of mine; there are peeps who are trained to deal with it – i am not.

When it comes to books, it’s all another story – if you recommend me a book i haven’t read and i like it – you opened the door for me to an adventure of which i didn’t know it existed and that’s the kind of surprise i like the most. Especially when it comes to these complex philosophical subjects i like to meddle with – a good recommendation is worth of gold.

So, that’s how i view WordPress ‘awards’ – its merely my list of blogs i check out whenever they post something new because its authors are talented, creative and non-commercial.  Which is – on many blogs i follow you can buy photography or books, that’s one thing, but the blogs which open with: I started this so you can buy  *insert whatever they are selling ..* No, thank you – i can look up myself whatever i need to buy and i loathe aggressive marketing tactics, i have enough of marketers in real life.

(And if one is down to pressuring their  blog followers to buy products or services – i believe they’d rather rethink their business strategy, i really don’t think it earns anything more then embarrassment; a blog, as i see it, is for expanding on what we do and why, and to promote it – not to guilt trip someone to buy stuff just because they stopped by to read an entry or two – in my opinion that is.)

So, this is my list of some of my favorite blogs (in no particular order) which offer awesome content – and some of it is available for sale; i really don’t expect anyone to continue this chain-thing, unless they find it utterly entertaining :

1. Arlen is a super cool guy from Armenia who loves animal and writes books: http://arlenshah.wordpress.com

2. Dianne Gray is an amazing author from Australia whose latest blog entry got Freshly Pressed: http://diannegray.wordpress.com

3. Bonnie Cehovet is a prolific blogger who writes great microfiction and the best tarot and oracle reviews i know of: http://bonniecehovet.wordpress.com

4. Tea& Tao is a great blog for daily inspiration: http://teaandtao.com

5. Judy offers amazing recipes and baking tips: http://petit4chocolatier.wordpress.com

6. Slicethelife posts awesome insight into American history and some great pics too: http://slicethelife.com

7. The cultureur has impressive intellectual content: http://thecultureur.com

8. Leanne Cole posts great photographs: http://leannecolephotography.com

9. I love Christian Mihai’s writing style: http://cristianmihai.net

10. Russel Ray and Zoey are among my favorites: http://russelrayphotos2.com

11. Setsnap is a place to go on gloomy days, you’ll love his pictures and they will brighten your mood: http://sethsnap.wordpress.com

12. Marviilous is an amazing Indonesian woman living in US who is snapping some marvelous  pictures of wildlife and landscapes: http://marviiilous.wordpress.com

13. Anne writes great poetry: http://shrewdbanana.wordpress.com

14. I adore Truth&Cake: http://truthandcake.com

15. Shovonc is one of the best satire writers around and his blog is on the stuff that does matter: http://shovonc.wordpress.com/

There are many more blogs i love and follow, but sadly this round i can recommend only fifteen of them.

I am also supposed to write seven things about myself (and so are you, if you are to continue the game), so here they are:

1. I am somewhat irked by the term ‘blogger’ – many of us are published writers and recognized artists who simply choose new venues of publishing. Here you can read my musings on the phenomena of blogosphere.

2. I don’t really make a difference between so-called “real life” and online experiences, To Hell With Common Sense is about that.

3. Prague, a coming of age story is an excerpt from my memoir, and the first piece i wrote in English; it took ages and i cried of frustration, but i am glad how it turned out at the end.

4. According to WordPress statistics, in less then a year since i started this blog more people have read what i write – than in 12 years since i was first published in my native Montenegro.

5. The photographs i often include in my posts are taken by automatic camera, i can’t claim i know anything about the art of photography – i simply snap some moments that are special to me; i am happy i can connect with guys who are pros that way and i love keeping up with what they do.

6. I oftentimes prefer thinking in solitude to events and crowds of people, so this blog and my writing in general is more about ideas which to this or that extent influence all of us – no matter the geographical location.

7. I’ll be moving to Moscow soon, i am working on my PhD thesis there,  so stay tuned for more  From Russia With Love writings and pictures too.

With Love,

wherever you are

L.R.S.

Talk To Her & Other Politically Correct Fairy Tales

19 Friday Oct 2012

Posted by in Essay, Satire

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My childhood room would be only scarcely lit by a bedside lamp when the time would come for me to take off towards the dreamland, albeit – the land of fears haunted by bulged eye monsters would be a more realistic description.

In the silence of the late evening, upon hearing my mother’s hurrying steps approaching the room, i would pray to my childhood’s god to spare me, at least one night… But, mother was determined and ruthless. She would open the door swiftly and with that look in her eyes which i feared more than anything, in a voice that sent galloping chills down my spine she would exclaim: Sweetie, it’s time for your goodnight story!

PleaseGodSpareMeAtLeastThisOneNightLetMeSleepWithoutNightmaresOfMonstersWithBudgingEyes – my personal mantra had failed miserably once again. Mother was punctual – and inconvincible: one story every night.

Every single night, every bloody night she would read to me those horror tales of mistreated orphans and evil step-mothers and wicked old witches and people who were turned into beasts… In shivering voice, i would ask: Mom, could we skip one night, please mommy…

But, nothing could change my mother’s resoluteness, firmly grounded on books by Dr Spock and other luminaries of the time. Also, given that the point was for me to be bilingual – the stories would be read twice, first in our language, then – the same blood chilling story, only in another language, just in case some intimidating detail of neglected animals and bullied children had bypassed my ears.

I would pull my green plaid blanket over my face and i’d squeeze its ends so strongly that my fingers would become almost numb from the grip. That blanket – it had a soul, you know, and it had a name too – Beche. The blanket was my friend, the only one i had in those difficult times, except the toy dog with an unpronounceable name; the three of us were united in the late evening’s suffering.

After having carried out the usual bilingual reading punishment, mother would kiss my wet from tears cheek, she would wish me good night and go away, closing the door behind her. She betrayed me night after night. She would go to the fully lit living room to laugh at TV sitcoms with her accomplice, my father, while the blanket, the dog and i would be left at the mercy of the silent, dark night and creepy fairy tales characters who seemed to come alive in my turbulent dreams…

That being said, remember the movie “Talk to Her”? It’s one of my all time favorites, and Pedro Almodóvar is one of my favorite directors, i just adore what this guy does.

Anyway, in his movie shot in 2002, Benigno, whose name implies he’s harmless, benign  – in his capacity of personal nurse – is looking after Alicia, a ballet dancer who fell into coma. Have you seen the movie? How did it make you feel, the realization that Benigno, harmless as he was, debauched the unconscious woman? Creepy, right? Awkward enough for Almodóvar to shoot the movie about it? Oh, really?

And the charming prince trying to make it out with comatose Snow White, that does not make you sick in your stomach? How hypocritical is that?! To me, the latter fact was utterly disturbing – and one of the main reasons i weeped during the infamous repetitive story telling  in two languages…

And what about Hansel and Gretel, the poor kids abused by evil step-mother while their biological father stood and watched, who were later on in the story stalked by cannibalistic witch? The only meaning i could make of that one is that it’s really bad for you to eat sugar and white flour on empty stomach!

Not to mention Bearskin, who suggests that the only way to earn fortune and marry the love of your life is to skip showering for seven years , that’s – after having sold your soul to the devil… The fact that his bride’s both sisters – quite expected, if you ask me -committed suicide, does not seem to cast a tiniest of the shadows on the newly wed’s beaming happiness! I mean, why would it?!

Here me, o, peeps! Unless you plan to be covering the overpriced, long lasting and quite ineffective psychoanalysis once your children grow up to be anxious and neurotic adults – spare them of Brother Grimm, La Fontaine and other usual suspects!

It’s the new era, at bedtime, read to them James Finn Garner instead! In the stories of our times – Snow White and the queen become good friends and contribute to the sisterhood, while earning world-wide fame and the prince gets a real job at the spa (as a tennis pro – and that’s fairytale-ish enough for a bed time story!)

The Little Red Riding Hood, a feminist of third generation, is taking an immune system boosting brisk walk through the environmentally protected woods and carrying gluten-free low-carb snacks for her grandmother, a mature adult perfectly capable of taking good care of herself…

That’s a kind of story you want to tell your kids at bedtime in 21st century and, to illustrate the narration, you can pull a Tarot card along the way…

L.R.S.

Fairy tale Tarot ; Magic Realist Press and Baba Studio Prague

 

Fairy tale Tarot; A.Ukolov and K. Mahony, artwork by I. Triskova

Little Red Riding Hood – A Politically Correct Fairy Tale by Jim Garner

Snow White — A Politically Correct Fairy Tale

 

 

The Art of Wandering Aimlessly

16 Tuesday Oct 2012

Posted by in Essay, Photography

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There are great novels of which i read merely several pages, there are cool people whom i met only briefly, there are mind blowing ideas of which i only heard and there are amazing cities which i visited only for a day or two.

If you travel for work often, you get the idea. You end up in some marvel of a city with awe-inspiring history and breath taking architecture – yet all you have is couple of hours. I believe that’s how an one-night stand with the love of your life would feel… What to do?

I regularly get sick and exhausted when i travel for work because i am trying to do the impossible – to squeeze in museum visits and even road trips into the conference schedule… Oddly, most of the time i manage, albeit it means that i hardly ever sleep and that my local friends and acquaintances end up cursing me because they need to get up at 6 am on Sunday morning – or something like that.

Anyhow, sometimes the time is not enough even for that and even my friends’ good will can’t  beat the time economy of an average general assembly; at times like that i simply wander around.

Usually i grab the camera with me – and without any kind of map or plan just walk around aimlessly – if i feel like turning left, i turn left; if i feel like going on to the right – i follow the impulse and turn after the first corner to the right.

I’ve seen amazing things that way and got to some incredible places – way off the beaten track. In Brussels , i discovered a great little park where – in the midst of the rushing Belgian capital – the time had seemed to have stopped and, to my wonder – even the Peter Pan statue in the midst of it.

In Moscow, that way i discovered a fairy tale-like homestead of Voroncov family – it’s not listed in any of the Moscow guide books i know of, yet the architecture and the atmosphere there, having preserved the nobility of its once owners – is a must see.

But, truth to be told, my random wanderings are not all that random actually – albeit they lack planning and map reading; the thing is that i pay attention at meaningful coincidences and follow those.

( In 1920s Carl Gustav Jung introduced the term for the phenomena of meaningful, yet causally unrelated events – referring to it as to Synchronicity; this Jungian concept is crucial for a Western mind to understand I Ching – for which translation into German in 1950’s Jung himself had written a forward- and it’s a most useful method for understanding Tarot mechanics as well; i’ll write more on it sometime in the future.)

These pictures were taken June this year and i went through them once again because yesterday a  friendship with one of my Brussels sojourners ended in a way that made me profoundly sad.

I’ve mentioned it before and there were some awesome comments there – on the pain of loosing a friend, to me it’s way more saddening than ending of a romance. Maybe it’s because i see dates as ephemeral from the start – while friendship to me, by default, is timeless. Not sure why, but to me a date usually has to do with looks and liking (or not liking) the physical  – while friendship is formed on insides mostly and to me that means way more. I am not speaking of committed relationships and true romantic love – but of crashes and flings which i presume you too had; they spice up  life, they give us the proverbial ‘butterflies’ in the stomach,  the excitement… and other exuberating, yet short-lasting effects. A date can change their mind easily – i know i do, no one knows what actually makes other attracted to us – and why exactly we find some of those  others – a dating material; i think it’s a combo of looks, smell and some archetypes in the  subconsciousness  – anyhow, most of it does not last. (I read somewhere in Italian Cosmo back in 1990’s that one out of seventy does work – of course, i doubt it’s a serious statistic, but you get an idea on the probability.)

I gave up long ago on worrying for how long someone’s attraction to me will last – i know it’s hardly up to their conscious choices, and in my turn, i can’t i choose whom my heart wants and for how long, some things are simply beyond our control.

Certainly, one can choose to commit and be faithful and so on – but by the time we are in position to make such choices, the butterflies would have had flown away long ago…

I’ve been mentioning before my fondness of Elisabeth Gilbert’s writing style, albeit hers is not exactly a highbrow prose – and nevertheless it’s oftentimes difficult to qualify it as a genre; her second book “Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage”  The New Yorker’s columnist called marriage memoire – albeit it doesn’t really make sense as a sub-genre… But i get Mr Levy, because if i was to classify the book, i couldn’t come up with anything more precise than ‘a very long essay combining travelogue with a personal diary and a scientific research’ – and that of course would not fit into the tiny  space provided for the column’s title.

Anyhow, E.G.’s second book didn’t do nearly as well as ‘Eat, Pray, Love’, yet i liked it better , among else for these words:  “Then again, you cannot stop the flood of desire as it moves through the world, inappropriate though it may sometimes be. It is the prerogative of all humans to make ludicrous choices, to fall in love with the most unlikely of partners, and to set themselves up for the most predictable of calamities.”

And for these as well:

“This is what intimacy does to us over time. That’s what a long marriage can do: It causes us to inherit and trade each other’s stories. This, in part, is how we become annexes of each other, trellises on which each other’s biography can grow.”
― Elizabeth Gilbert, Committed

That’s what friendships do too – we become characters in each other’s story, a credible reference and a welcomed plot twist  when the narrative of our lives becomes too predictable; thus, when i loose one of mine – over ‘irreconcilable differences’ or merely over a stupidity and misunderstanding, even if it wasn’t one of the main characters, my own story feels somehow flawed and i feel sad.

Anyhow, here are some shots of Brussels, as good as it used to get:

L.R.S.

Kitteh Goddess &The Overlooked Power of Napping

14 Sunday Oct 2012

Posted by in Kabbalah & Western Hermetic Tradition, Photography

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There was that meme recently: internet is like ancient Egypt – there is plenty of writing on the walls and cat admiring involved! Right, Moses lead us out of Egypt and (said tongue in cheek) we are now going back there to the metaphorical land of bondage – by our own choice…

That being said, yesterday, in Jewish tradition, was the first Day of Rest in the new year and the part of the Bible that was read was Beresheet/ In the Beginning.

Of course, there all got lost in translation, as usually, and Beresheet does not mean In the beginning but (from the root rosh ) – at the head of things.

For further mind-blowing insights into the mystical etymology of the Bible and its connection to Quantum Physics  i strongly advice reading the unabridged translation of Zohar into English – this section is covered on some 600 pages in the first two books and is well worth it.

As a side note, for my Tarot buddies  – i believe reading that portion is the only way to really get Tarot Sixes which are related to the Sfirat Yesod.

“This is an immense reservoir that resides just above our physical dimension. All the upper worlds , or Sfirot, fill Yesod with their unique spiritual forces, where they are blended and prepared for transfer; Like a cosmic pipeline Yesod then funnels all this Light into our world which is called Malchut. We can arouse great Lights in the Upper Worlds through our actions, but unless the floodgates of Yesod are opened, the Light can never reach our realm.” (The Zohar, Unabridged English translation with commentary, KC International Inc.; Baresheet A, page 193.)

In my experience – there are two main ways to get your Yesod disbalanced – by not sharing with others, or – the other way around – by giving way too much of oneself; both lead to the depletion which Pixie depicted on the Six of Pentacles:

I don’t know of some other way of fixing the Yesod and opening this pipeline from the Upper Worlds – except for working with the very Book.

It’s not by chance either that Hebrew letter Bet starts the Bible – but to understand the magnificence of the Biblical code, and just before one dismisses its first level of interpretation as a bunch of (among else) Babylonian myths – it is indeed necessary to spend couple of days studying dozens of pages on which its commentary, the Zohar, expands merely on the opening letter…

Here it suffices to mention that letter Bet starts Hebrew words for  bracha/blessing and bayit/house and that meditating on it helps experience the true homecoming whenever we feel unsettled and uprooted in any way.

Kabbalah Deck by rabbi Edward Hoffman, Letter Bet; photo – courtesy of Vuk Vukovic

I actually re-read the whole thing yesterday – in addition to reading the Biblical portion first in Hebrew, then in English and Serbian translations; i also listened to Shaul Youdkevitch’s audio classes on Live Kabbalah for couple of hours and read Kabbalistic prayers… Actually, that’s all i was doing for 25h or so – interrupted only by occasional napping.

Those of you who suffer from insomnia do know how awful it is – and i contributed to my own because all the stuff i am busy with usually requires sleep denial; the Zohar is preferably studied at night and that’s how i spent years after i first got into Kabbalah over a decade ago; also – for my work, for writing, there is no better time than the silence of the night… Combined with hours of pc work which further messes with one’s sleep – i ended up with sleeping patterns which are least to be said – unusual; normally,  i get some rest in the early evening , like from 6 pm to 8 pm and i nap for couple of hours at dawn, that’s about it.

I gave up on counting the sheep and melatonin as it turned out that the only way for me to be functional is to nap whenever i feel like, in addition to meditating a lot.

I didn’t give it too much thought until stumbling upon an interview with Elizabeth Gilbert where she cites napping as her preferable spiritual tool – that’s after months spent in an Indian ashram, studying palmistry in Bali & all that jazz.

If you are surprised by my choice of reading, in  Bugger off, Nietzsche i explain why i’ll choose a memoir  like “Eat, Prey, Love” over what’s traditionally considered highbrow prose – any day. Thanks, but – no thanks, i have too much neurosis and moral dilemmas of my own, so to dwell on someone else’s, especially if the author of the presumably ‘serious’ piece was an as*le and clinically insane too, like Nietzsche was.

And when it comes to napping – like with numerous other important things in life, there are hardly more important role models than one’s own cat;  in words of another author whom i do like, Echkart Tolle: I lived with many spiritual teachers, most of them were cats…

 

L.R.S.

A Journey Without a Goal

10 Wednesday Oct 2012

Posted by in Zen

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by Leo Babauta, reblogged from zenhabits.net

Nearly every activity we do has a purpose, a goal in mind.

We drive to get to work, to the store, to a class or party. We walk for fitness, or to get to a specific destination. We work to achieve something, to reach certain numbers. We workout to get healthier, to get a nicer body.

But what would happen if we gave up the goal?

What would a journey without a goal be like?

Imagine setting out for a walk with no particular purpose — you might go in one direction because there’s a nice explosion of flowers over there, but then explore a different direction when you see someone playing music, then go in another direction because you’re curious about what’s there.

No destination in mind. Nothing to achieve. Just curiosity, fun, not knowing.

What would it be like to work without a goal? You might write something for fun, because you want to get it out of you, without knowing what the effect of the writing would be. You would figure out the work as you go, without knowing what the finished product would look like.

What would it be like to live life without a fixed plan? Without knowing where you’ll be living in five years, or what you’ll be doing, or what you want to achieve?

I don’t know the answers, but I do know that I’ve been freer as I’ve learned to let go of goals, fixed plans, fixed destinations.

How to Flow

I’ve long been a planner and a goal setter, but I’ve been learning a different way over the last few years. It’s a radical shift in thinking and doing, to a freer-flowing mode of being.

How does it work? Well, to be honest, there’s no one way. But it goes a little something like this:

You wake up, excited about being alive. You wonder, “What do I feel like doing today?” You aren’t constrained to anything at this point, but the question is important.

So you get started, doing something you’re excited about, having fun doing it. Is that thing you’re doing a destination, a goal? Well, in some ways, yes, but it’s not fixed. There’s no set plan, and the destination doesn’t matter as much as the process, the journey.

You start, but you might shift as you go, depending on the flow of ideas, on working with others who might have ideas you didn’t foresee, on things that happen along the way. You couldn’t have predicted these things when you got started, so you have to adapt — no plan can anticipate all of this, no goal would be adequate to the task.

You might even completely shift, if something new comes up, if a new opportunity presents itself. You let go of your idea of what today was going to be, because these ideas of what should be are lightly held. They mean nothing, really, and the important thing is the flow.

You learn to be flexible instead of set. You learn to be good at change and uncertainty, instead of fearing it.

As things arise, you adapt, and let go of your plans and goals. You move with the flow of water, with the changing landscape. You are free to do this because you don’t care where you end up — you just want to be present in your journey, be compassionate with each step, have fun each moment along the way. The destination becomes irrelevant.

No destination or goal matters if they are all good. Each step along the way, then, becomes the destination, and is exactly where you should be.

 

Copyright Notice: Leo Babauta released copyright on this content, BUT be a darling &   credit him for any work of his that you use, and ideally, link back to the original.

 

 

Song Dynasty painting in the Litang style illustrating the theme “Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism are one”. Depicts Taoist Lu Xiujing (left), official Tao Yuanming (right) and Buddhist monk Huiyuan (center, founder of Pure Land) by the Tiger stream. The stream borders a zone infested by tigers that they just crossed without fear, engrossed as they were in their discussion. Realising what they just did, they laugh together, hence the name of the picture,Three laughing men by the Tiger stream.
Source: from http://www.npm.gov.tw 

 

 

 

Desperately Seeking

09 Tuesday Oct 2012

Posted by in Poetry, Tarot

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I longed for her in lonely nights

I chased her in my days

They told me

She was worthy not

Of all that pain

They told me she will cheat me

They told me she was fake

They told me that too many

Were burned out

Like that

Prompted by desire

Fueled by false hope

I chased that idea

That once seemed so hot

                        L.R.S.

Seven of Cups in Tarot traditionally denotes illusions and pipe dreams
(1909 deck, no longer under copyright)

“Strange chalices of vision, but the images are more especially those of the fantastic spirit. Divinatory Meanings: Fairy favours, images of reflection, sentiment, imagination, things seen in the glass of contemplation; some attainment in these degrees, but nothing permanent or substantial is suggested.”

A.E. Waite, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot, illustration by Pamela Colman Smith

 

 

 

Language of the Birds in Manhattan

08 Monday Oct 2012

Posted by in Tarot

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Meet Enrique Enriquez – a genius artist, an avant-garde philosopher and a cult author as he is exploring the poetics of the Marseilles tarot (IMDB trailer.)

Enrique  is a controversial thinker in the world of Tarot – he does not believe in spirits, the supernatural or in anything else mystical per that matter; his approach to the cards is purely visual and poetic.

“Tarology – The Poetics of Tarot” is the word’s first feature length documentary on Tarot, which breaks new intellectual and artistic grounds as it explores Enrique’s unique philosophy and the ancient craft of tarot reading.

While being interrogated by Paul Nagy, Enrique had confessed to the following:

“A person needs to have a very particular kind of intelligence to engage with images (any kind of images) in a useful way. The whole enterprise of art is based on the fact that we, human beings, possess such intelligence, but it is also commonly assumed that art is not for everybody.

At the moment I can’t honestly subscribe to any bombastic claim about the purpose of tarot readings. The tarot may not be for everybody. Tarot readings won’t accomplish the same things for everybody.

So far I have been talking about the performance of tarot, which may or may not be the same thing as the performance of a reading for a client. On top of having empathy with the images, a reading asks for creating rapport with another human being.

So far I have been discussing my quest to find the tarot’s crank, or its pedals; that contraption which, once located, guarantees I may get some sound out of the cards. I simply hope to be the monkey grinding the organ.  I seek for beauty in the performance of the tarot, by a notion that, if such beauty is brought forth, the client will in turn make beauty into meaning for them.”

Enrique is also known for explaining the alphabet to the movie makers.

And if you want to see something truly miraculous (that’s – regardless Enrique’s own disbelief in the miracles), do check out the process of making the “Blindfold Portraits”!

As Oskar Kokoschka used to say –  a good portrait has nothing to do with the amount of details, but with the power the artist has of getting a strong impression from his subject… But that’s just a side note.

That being said, EYECORNER PRESS is an independent academic publishing house started as a collaboration between several uber cool universities which promote academic writing with an edge.

As you’d know “THE PRESS gives priority to works that engage with rigorous thinking, but which are yet informed by a creative style, and irreverent approaches to literature, culture, philosophy, and visual art.”

AND this very super cool publishing house has announced for December 2012 Enrique’s forthcoming book EN TEREX IT: Encounters around Tarot, where “Enrique gathers fresh voices and sharp tongues to speak of the art of Tarot as the art of living magically. 47 tarot luminaries (readers, historians, philosophers, and scientists alike) gather here to offer unique perspectives on what we can think of is divination with bones, human bones. Artists, deck creators, and modern-day neo-platonists follow Enrique’s lead, letting themselves be enchanted by the piper at the gate of games.” (Camelia Elias from her Intro)

In the book you will meet the coolest of the cool in the world of Tarot – Mary K. Greer, Rachel Pollack, Paul Nagy, Robert Place, Emily Carding, Dan Pelletier and, last but not the least,

sincerely yours

Lena Ruth Stefanovic 😉