Drawn by a Star

The Chilean Sculptor, saint or scam?

2012-01-29T21:41:00.035+01:00

Back to playing with new ideas for a short, five minute screenplay. My main project , a feature film, is having a break. So I thought this except from a true story of an adventure I had in Chile five years ago might be a starting point... it's ending has a great twist.

I thought it might be interesting to have the whole film silent, except for a musical sound track, but at the end, where the twist comes, the surprise will be spoken .

If I'm feeling brave, I'll post the end of the story soon !

Just before sunset, newly married Santiago born Soli drives me to a small village about a half-hours drive from the log cabin guest house where I’m staying. We’re close to the Pacific Ocean. I’m geographically half way down the long thin spine of Chile, en route to Patagonia. Soli, a vet in search of patients, has recently honeymooned in Patagonia. Her eyes sparkle when she talks about its turquoise lakes, its opal colored rivers and its abundant wildlife.

She’s decided that as I’m an artist, I must meet ‘The Sculptor.’
Owner of the log cabin guest house, Soli’s charging me for this little adventure. Being a clever business woman she’s devised other tempting treats for her guests. Tomorrow night, which is full moon, we’ll be walking along the beach with her dogs, and we’ll make a bonfire out of drift wood. Not 100% sure about the skinny dipping. This adventure cost double the visit to the sculptor. I’m fine with this. People are too poor here to bring their sick animals to me she confides.

We’re heading for the sculptors village in Soli’s brand new red 4x4, a wedding present I think. Her designer hand bag sits on the back seat. My small travelers back pack covers my lap. I love my new green slip on shoes. Soli is chic, I feel scruffy. We share a bar of dark chocolate. The vehicle smells of wet dog.

We plough across a wide dirt track road and stop on an autumn clad hillside in front of a large circular adobe house. This is the sculptor’s new home Soli tells me.
The house has 18 windows. There’s a smaller roundhouse on higher ground. That’s his studio she whispers. And right on top of the hill, there’s another strange adobe building. It's oval. My new friend offers no information about this architectural curiosity.

Without any introductions or goodbyes, Soli and the sculptor’s wife abandon me. They drive away in a cloud of thick brown dust.

“Wait here” the sculptor instructs. He scratches his chin with a dark brown wrinkled finger.

I stand outside the round house smelling the lavender, wondering why Soli is so anxious for us to meet.

A few moments later the man returns. He's carrying a CD player and a fat chuck of water melon. He eats it noisily.

Fifty-year-old Antonio has thick short steely gray hair, walks like a matador, likes watermelon and has just become a father for the fourth time.

“I’m a campasino ( a peasant )," he tells me as we walk past his studio.
“Never been inside an art school in my life. Self taught. And you?”

We’re heading for the oval house. Why aren't we stopping at his studio?

Soli has told him I’m an artist. He looks at me , waiting for a response.

“Well I’m a kind of campasina too," I say.

Why do I want to hide the fact I’ve studied art for six years, that I’ve dipped my toe into the International art scene, and withdrawn it.

“Yes, I live in the campo ( countryside) too.” I tell him.
“I live in a tiny village in Spain. There are probably more mules than cars in our village.”

Well, this was almost true when I first came to the village eleven years ago.

At the top of the hill he orders me once again to “Wait here.” His tone is neutral.

The weather beaten ‘peasant/sculptor’ then disappears into the oval adobe barn carrying his shinny CD player.

The sun is about to set and the air is pure and still.
I can smell the sea.
I feel a great sense of excitement. This is my first taste of South America.

Five minutes later he re emerges.

“You can go in now," he tells me. "Close the door behind you.”

Alejandro strolls past me down the dusty hill, smiling with a look I can’t decode.
Have I been judged a waste of time? Is that it? What now?

I stoop and climb though a child sized door closing it carefully, as instructed.

A pitch-dark, warm, wax scented, nothingness envelops me.

Everything feels black- brown, including my body. I’m temporally sightless, there are no windows.
Haunting sacred music fills the air. Gradually my eyes adjust.

Slowly the dense brownness lifts like a veil...

Searching for the essence...

2012-01-27T20:51:00.011+01:00

Much silence makes a powerful noise.
African proverb

All that we are is the result of what we have thought.
Buddha

There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.
Einstein.

In these quotes, there could lie the essence of a short film. Watch this space !

Mucho silencio puede hacer un ruido fuerte.
proverbio africano

Todo lo que somos es el resultado de lo que hemos pensado.
Buda

Sólo hay dos maneras de vivir tu vida. Uno de ellos es como si nada fuera un milagro. La otra es como si todo fuera un milagro.
Albert Einstein

Las tres últimas citas podría ser la esencia de un cortometraje.

Многое молчание делает мощный шум.
Африканская пословица

Будда
Все, что мы есть результат того, что мы думали.

Альберт Эйнштейн
Есть только два способа прожить свою жизнь. Один из них, как будто ничего не чудо.Другой, как будто все является чудом.

Последние три цитаты могут быть сущностью короткометражный фильм.

No ordinary writers block.

2012-01-24T16:33:00.013+01:00

'The Universe presents us with endless opportunities to synchronize our path with our truth.

The whole system gets very busy with us ( when we get on track). We summon the lesson- the lesson summons us.

I recognized this was no ordinary writers block. It was actually the writers resistance that emerges when we step on the right path at the wrong time.

I tried to befriend my confusion but it was intensely uncomfortable.

Coax the voice that confuses you to the surface.' It didn't need very much coaxing.

'Abuse victims learn that the art of living is the art of avoiding pain.
Your need to live your life as an ongoing question. This is not a passive process. It's an active exploration of the boundless and eternal mystery of who you are.

Recognize that you created this moment. When a question arises live it until it is clarified.
Live in the heart of inquiry.

From Jeff Brown's Soulshaping.

"Las víctimas de abusos aprenden que el arte de vivir es el arte de evitar el dolor.
Necesitas vivir tu vida como una cuestión permanente. Esto no es un proceso pasivo. Es una exploración activa del misterio infinito y eterno de lo que eres.

Reconoces lo que has creado en este momento. Cuando surge una pregunta vivilo hasta que se aclare.
Vive en el corazón de la investigación.

De Jeff Brown Soulshaping.

"Злоупотребление жертв узнать, что искусство жизни это искусство избегать боли.
Ваша потребность прожить свою жизнь как постоянный вопрос. Это не пассивный процесс. Это активное освоение безграничной и вечной тайной, кто вы есть.

Признайте, что вы создали этот момент. Когда возникает вопрос, жить им, пока не будет прояснен.
Жить в центре расследования.

От Джеффа Брауна Soulshaping.

The screenplay.

2012-01-17T21:07:00.051+01:00

And now after a break of ten weeks, back to the screenplay.

Y ahora, después de una pausa de diez semanas, de vuelta al guión.

И теперь, после перерыва десяти недель назад в сценарий.

My new goal. To make a short film out of the existing synopsis.

Today it's felt impossible.

Necesito una nueva meta. Voy a hacer una nueva pelicula muy corta, tal vez de 20 minutos, desde el guión existente.
Pero hoy en día parece imposible. Estoy demasiado cansada para pensar.

Моя новая цель. Чтобы сделать короткометражный фильм из существующих резюме.
Сегодня это чувствовал невозможно.

“I can't change the direction of the wind, but I can adjust my sails to always reach my destination.”
Jimmy Dean

"No puedo cambiar la dirección del viento, pero puedo ajustar mis velas para llegar siempre a mi destino."
Anímate Meg!

"Я не могу изменить направление ветра, но я могу настроить мои паруса всегда доходят до моего назначения". Унывайте Мэг!

Huomenta minun lukijoille Finnland!

Thoughts become things

2012-01-15T23:20:00.026+01:00

I would like to remind myself that thoughts become things.

Today we visited a Spanish woman who lives in the stone house she and her beloved built thirty years ago. It's perched on the side of a mountain, facing west, here in Andalucia, in southern Spain. Thirty years ago she was a dreamer.
They chose not to have electricity. They had no running water. Their nearest neigbours were not within shouting distance. He died. Her skin became weathered and wrinkled. Her clothes became baggy. She said she had so many fears she didn't know what to do with them all.

My new friend who makes men of all ages laugh, and ladies of all shapes and sizes smile, told her she had to repeat this affirmation, daily :

Soy Capaz!

Soy capaz de hacer lo que quiera.

Je suis capable de faire ce que je veux faire.

Я способен делать все, что я хочу сделать.

I am capable of doing whatever I want to do.

Thoughts become things.

Chose to hold onto only the positive ones.
Never diminish yourself. What in God's name is the point ?
Please believe in your best and biggest dreams.
I'm a grandmother now. I can speak to you like this.
It's a gift to make others smile.
Today has been full of smiles. The woman with the wrinkled face and the broken heart giggled when we left her.
'What's that phrase?' my friend tested her again.
'What phrase?' she asked.

'Ah yes, I remember. I am capable of doing whatever I want with my life.'

Los pensamientos se convierten en cosas.
Optó por retener sólo los positivos.
Nunca te menosprecie. En el nombre de Dios, porque quiereis hacer esto ?
Por favor, cree en tus sueños mejores y más grandes.
Soy una abuela ahora. Puedo hablar con ustedes de esta manera.
Es un regalo hacer sonreír a los demás.
Hoy en día ha estado lleno de sonrisas. La senora con el rostro arrugado y el corazón roto se rió cuando le dejó.
¿Cuál es la frase le preguntó?
"¿Qué frase?"
-Ah, sí, yo soy capaz de hacer lo que quiera con mi vida. "

Pensées deviennent des choses.
A choisi de s'accrocher uniquement les aspects positifs.
Ne jamais se blesser. What's the point?
S'il vous plaît croire en vos rêves meilleurs et plus grands.
Je suis une grand-mère maintenant. Je peux vous parler comme cela.
C'est un cadeau à faire sourire les autres.
Aujourd'hui a été pleine de sourires. La dame au visage ridé et rigolé cœur brisé quand on lui a laissé.
Quelle est la phrase de mon ami lui a demandé?
»Quelle phrase? elle demandé.
«Ah oui, je suis capable de faire ce que je veux avec ma vie."

Мысли становятся вещами.
Выбрал держаться только положительные.
Никогда не deminish себя. Что в имени Бога в этом смысл?
Пожалуйста, поверьте в ваших лучших и самых больших мечтаний.
Я бабушка сейчас. Я могу говорить с вами, как это.
Это подарок, чтобы заставить других улыбку.
Сегодня была полна улыбок.Дама с морщинистым лицом и разбитым сердцем захихикала, когда мы оставили ее.
Что фраза мой друг спросил ее?
"Что фраза? спросила она.
«Ах да, я умею делать все, что я хочу со своей жизнью".

Have a lovely day. Thank you for sharing my adventures.
I'm smiling at you.
Feel it ?

Into the new year...

2012-01-10T10:13:00.017+01:00

“Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.”

T.S. Eliot.

"Sólo aquellos que se arriesgan a ir demasiado lejos pueden saber hasta dónde se puede ir."

T.S. Eliot.

"Seuls ceux qui prennent le risque d'aller trop loin peut éventuellement savoir jusqu'où on peut aller."

T.S. Eliot.

"Только те, кто рискнет зайти слишком далеко может возможно выяснить, как далеко можно идти."

T.S. Элиот.

Happy New Year to all my dear Readers

2011-12-31T19:30:00.011+01:00

and greetings from the small town of Stonehaven in north eastern Scotland, where in a few hours the world famous Fireball Ceremony will begin. It's exciting, quite dangerous, accompanied by a band of bagpipes and a troop of drummers.

And just to end this amazing year, can I share a miracle that happened a just a few days ago.

Please believe me, if you don't already, miracles happen. Spontaneous healing happens. Realignment in relationships can happen anywhere, and at any moment. And that's exactly what's happened in my personal life, on Thursday.

Too personal yet to share, but universal to all who have been seriously estranged from a loved one for years. This has been a real Christmas ( re birth of love) miracle. The joy in my heart that my personal, tired, 'war zone' has miraculously, completely evaporated, is indiscribable. All that old pain and anger and disappointment on both sides simply does not exist any more. It's gone. How can I be sure ? There are no certainties in life, except one day we will all die, so I'm trusting the bigger picture, as always. Shifts happen. Miracles exist. Thoughts become things.

May each one of you also experince your hearts greatest longing, and may this New Year bring you closer to your deepest most beautiful self. Namaste to everyone of you.

PS. And to celebrate, I just booked my next flight to Peru !

Life is...

2011-12-26T11:29:00.004+01:00

Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes. Don't resist them - that only creates sorrow. Let reality be reality. Let things flow naturally forward in whatever way they like.
Lao Tzu

Becoming yourself

2011-12-21T22:42:00.038+01:00

'You have to make mistakes to find out who you aren’t. You take the action, and the insight follows: You don’t think your way into becoming yourself...

To love yourself as you are is a miracle, and to seek yourself is to have found yourself, for now. And now is all we have, and love is who we are.'
Anne Lamott.

Photos by Cristian Calderon.
To read the whole article by Anne,visit Ian Lawton at his www.soulseeds .com

Also from soulseeds.com...

Vietnamese Zen Teacher Thich Nhat Hahn offers this reminder:

“Aware of the suffering caused by unmindful speech . . . I vow to cultivate loving speech. Knowing that words can create happiness or suffering . . . I vow to learn to speak truthfully, with words that inspire self-confidence, joy, and hope. I am determined not to spread news that I do not know to be certain, and not to criticize or condemn things of which I am not sure. I will refrain from uttering words that can cause division or discord, or that can cause the family or community to break.”

Thank you Ian, your website is truly inspirational, that's why I'm sharing these extracts!

No se trata de...

2011-12-17T21:43:00.047+01:00

Este es el discurso que pronuncié en nuestro evento para recaudar fondos para los niños en varias aldeas en el Valle Sagrado del Perú

Me encantaría hablar con ustedes durante horas sobre los niños que he conocido en el Perú. Las historias sobre sus vidas, pero voy a ser breve, sólo voy a compartir una historia. Nuestro tiempo es limitado esta mañana.

Tres jóvenes hermanas caminaban cuatro horas al comedor infantil de Washi en Ollantaytambo para conseguir un cepillo de dientes gratis, de cada una, y pasta de dientes, tambien gratis.
Miles de cepillos de dientes fueron a ser donados por una empresa norteamericana. Algo salió muy mal con los arreglos, y los cepillos de dientes no llegaron a Ollantaytambo.

Las niñas eran muy filosófica acerca de esta decepción.

Les compré algo de fruta y chocolate, una bolsa de arroz y algunas verduras para llevar a casa a su mamá, y nos fuimos a hacer una pequeña merienda antes de comenzar su largo camino a casa.

Cuando le pregunté a la niña de 12 años lo que quería hacer cuando saliera de la escuela, me dijo con una gran sonrisa:

"Voy a ser un astronauta!"

Su gran sueño me partía el corazón, y pensé que si la puedo ayudar de alguna manera, lo haré.

La vida para las hermanas, y todas las familias en el Valle Sacrado en la época de lluvias y cuando nieva, es difícil.

Miles de familias en esta parte del Perú no tienen electricidad. No tienen agua en sus casas primitivas y, ciertamente, no tienen baños, al igual que los pueblos de las Alpujarras hace 50 años.

Pero lo que tienen es su fe en Pacahamama. Su creencia en su bondad es extraordinaria. He visto grupos de niños pequeños en los Andes haciendo ceremonias a Pacahamama, pidiendo la fertilidad para sus cabras y ovejas. Podemos aprender mucho de estas personas de muchas maneras.

Hoy les pido que sean generosos y me ayuden a ayudarles esta navidad. La caridad www.paskay.org tiene la costumbre de llevar Chocolate caliente, un pan dulce y un pequeño regalo a miles de niños que viven en estas aldeas remotas.

Estos niños no tienen igualdad de acceso a recursos. Pero tienen recursos que están más allá de nuestra comprensión. No se trata de que seamos ricos y ellos pobres. No. Mediante nuestra ayuda les demostramos que se preocupamos por ellos.

Gracias por su atención. Que tengáis una hermosa mañana, y Feliz Navidad a todos.

Precious resources

2011-12-17T12:26:00.016+01:00

This was my speech for the opening of our fund raiser, La Chocolatada, Orgiva, Spain 2011. This was our fourth fund raiser for these special children in Peru.

I would love to talk to you for hours about the children I’ve met in Peru. Stories about their lives, but I’ll keep it short; I’ll just share one story. Our time is limited this morning.

Three young sisters walked 4 hours to Washi’s soup kitchen to get a free toothbrush each, and a tube of toothpaste.
Thousands were to be donated by an American company. Something went wrong with the arrangements, and the toothbrushes didn’t arrive in Ollantaytambo.

The little girls were very philosophical about this disappointment.
I bought them some fruit and chocolate, a bag of rice and some vegetables to take home to their mum, and we went for a little picnic before they began their long walk home.

When I asked the 12 year old what she wanted to do when she left school she told me with a huge smile:
“I’m going to be an astronaut !”

Her huge dream made my heart sing, and I thought if I can help her in any way, I will.

Life in the rainy season and when it snows is very hard for these little girls, and all the families in the Sacred Valley. Many children don't have shoes. Thousands of families in this part of Peru don't have electricity.

They don't have water in their primitive homes, and certainly they don't have bathrooms, like the villages of Las Alpujarras here in Spain, 50 years ago.

But what they do have is their faith in Pachamama, Mother Earth. Their belief in her goodness is all encompassing.

I’ve seen groups of young children in the high Andes making ceremonies to Pachamama, asking for fertility for their goats and sheep.

We can learn so much from these very spiritual people, in so many ways.

Today, before the raffle and the auction of promises, I’m asking you to be as generous as you can and help us put smiles on many little faces this Christmas.
Paskay.org has a custom of bringing hot chocolate, a sweet bread and a small gift to thousands of children living in remote villages in the Sacred Valley of Peru.

Please help us maintain this tradition.

What drives me to support Carlos in his work is that these children do not have equal access to resources.
But,
they have precious resources that are beyond our understanding.

This is not about us being rich and them being poor. No. It's about us showing them that we care.

Thank you for listening, have a lovely morning, and Happy Christmas to you all.

www.pathoftheheart.org
www.paskay.org

Presents and presence.

2011-12-15T10:15:00.007+01:00

When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.
Wayne Dyer.

Thinking about Christmas now, and grandchildren.

Dear Jesus, I am sorry that we confused presents with presence. So silly of us.
Jeff Brown.

Путь Сердца

2011-12-11T11:45:00.007+01:00

Доброе утро, мои дорогие читатели русском говорить. Я организовал большой сбор средств событие вчера в моем сообществе. Мы называем это La Chocolatada. Вот то, что это все о. Я надеюсь, что котировки перевести хорошо, и что Вы любите их.

Пронто-лос-Охос-дель-Ниньо Кларос себе ве empañado пор лас идей у opiniones, лос prejuicios у лас abstracciones. Siendo sencilla у греха себе incrusta кон ла armadura pesada дель эго. Нет FUE хаста años más Тард, заяц ООН instinto дие viene ООН Sentido жизненно де Мистерио га Sido retirada. El Sol Брилла травес де-лос-Пинос, у эль-эс Корасон traspasado ан ООН Моменто де BELLEZA у боль extraño, Комо ООН Recuerdo дель Параисо. Después-де-есе Día, № convertimos ан buscadores.

Петр Матиссена

Отдельное спасибо Дед Мороз, который принес его красивая маленькая дочь, и пообещал вернуться в следующем году!

www.pathoftheheart.org
www.paskay.org
www.mysmallhelpperu.org

www.healingartjourneys.com

Camino del corazón

2011-12-11T11:21:00.017+01:00

Pronto los ojos claros del niño se ve empañado por las ideas y opiniones, los prejuicios y las abstracciones. Siendo sencilla y sin se incrusta con la armadura pesada del ego. No fue hasta años más tarde, hace un instinto que viene un sentido vital de misterio ha sido retirada. El sol brilla a través de los pinos, y el corazón es traspasado en un momento de belleza y dolor extraño, como un recuerdo del paraíso. Después de ese día, nos convertimos en buscadores.

Peter Matthiessen

La alegría es lo que sucede cuando nos dejamos de reconocer las cosas buenas son en realidad.

Marianne Williamson

Un agradecimiento especial a Papa Noel, que trajo consigo a su hija pequeña y hermosa, y prometió volver el próximo año.

Este es el discurso que pronuncié en la recaudación de fondos de ayer:

Me encantaría hablar con ustedes durante horas sobre los niños que he conocido en Perú. Historias de sus vidas. Pero nuestro tiempo es limitado esta mañana. Así que me gustaría decir algunas cosas sobre la vida de los niños que estamos apoyando allí.

La vida para ellos en la época de lluvias y cuando nieva, es difícil. Muchos niños no tienen zapatos.

Miles de familias en esta parte del Perú no tienen electricidad. No tienen agua en sus casas primitivas y, ciertamente, no tienen baños, al igual que los pueblos de las Alpujarras hace 50 años.

Pero lo que tienen es su fe en Pacahamama. Su creencia en su bondad es extraordinaria. He visto grupos de niños pequeños en los Andes haciendo ceremonias a Pacahamama, pidiendo la fertilidad para sus cabras y ovejas. Podemos aprender mucho de estas personas de muchas maneras.

Hoy les pido que sean generosos y me ayudarán a ayudarles esta navidad. Nuestra caridad tiene la costumbre de llevar Chocolate caliente, un pan dulce y un pequeño regalo a miles de niños que viven en estas aldeas remotas.

Estos niños no tienen igualdad de acceso a recursos. Pero tienen recursos que están más allá de nuestra comprensión. No se trata de que seamos ricos y ellos pobres. No. Mediante nuestra ayuda les demostramos que les apoyan y se preocupan por ellos.

Gracias por su atención, Que tengáis una hermosa mañana, y Feliz Navidad a todos.

Un enorme, enorme gracias a todos los que hicieron La Chocolatada ayer, nuestra recaudación de fondos para los niños en el Perú y Bolivia. Fue un gran éxito, una maravilla!!

www.pathoftheheart.org
www.paskay.org
www.mysmallhelpperu.org

The path of the heart ( .org)

2011-12-11T11:04:00.012+01:00

Soon the child's clear eye is clouded over by ideas and opinions, preconceptions and abstractions. Simple free being becomes encrusted with the burdensome armor of the ego. Not until years later does an instinct come that a vital sense of mystery has been withdrawn. The sun glints through the pines, and the heart is pierced in a moment of beauty and strange pain, like a memory of paradise. After that day, we become seekers.

Peter Matthiessen

Joy is what happens when we allow ourselves to recognize how good things really are.

Marianne Williamson

A huge, huge thank you to everybody who made our fund raiser,La Chocolatada, (for children in Peru) such a success.

A special thank you to Papa Noel who brought along his beautiful little daughter, and promised to come back next year.

Hands on Chocolatadas

2011-12-03T20:38:00.023+01:00

Neale Donald Walsh said,
The larger your understanding of who you really are, the smaller your ego.

Gandhi said,
The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.

This is my friend Washi, one of the organizers of the Chocolatadas in the Sacred Valley in Peru, and the person who took these beautiful photos.

These children are given unequal access to resources.

"Blessed is the influence of one true, loving human soul on another"
-Author Unknown

To read about huge hearted Washi Gibaja's work with his people, see : www.pathoftheheart. org

We are fund raising here in Spain to support his soup kitchen for street children in Ollantaytambo, as well as many Chocolatadas in the same area.

If you would like to support Washi's work, you can make a donation through the path of the heart website.

This year, the community of Orgiva in Andalucia Spain, is also supporting Chocolatadas in Bolivia. These are for street children, under the umbrella of www.compatrono. Ivan Nogales ,the director( an Akosha Fellow), with many young people, has created a truly wonderful arts center for street children and youth at risk in El Alto, Bolivia.

http://www.ashoka.org/

La Chocolatada 2011

2011-11-29T09:08:00.006+01:00

The money from our Chocolatada fund raiser will join other donations to fund the bringing of hot chocolate, a sticky bun and a small gift to thousands of underprivileged children in Peru and Bolivia. 'La Chocolatada' is a hugely popular much looked forward to custom in these countries. On Saturday 10th Dec we will have our 4th Chocolatada fund raiser in Orgiva, at the Upper campsite, 11am-2pm. Father Christmas will be there ! Come and support us, and help us put a smile on thousands of young faces.

Remember that wherever your heart is...."Recuerde que

2011-11-26T08:52:00.053+01:00

Специальный привет и спасибо всем моим русским читателям! Есть 22 из Вас. Как я хотел бы знать, где вы находитесь!

“Remember that wherever your heart is, there you will find your treasure. You’ve got to find the treasure, so that everything you have learned along the way can make sense."
Paulo Choelho.

"Recuerde que donde esta tu corazón, allí se encuentra el tesoro. Tienes que encontrar el tesoro, por lo que todo lo que han aprendido en el camino puede tener sentido. "
Paulo Choelho.

Alchemical jewelery by my dear hugely talented friend Rachel Mackie.

Rachel says about her work: 'Using a mixture of art, flamenco and alchemy I create wearable treasure. Smooth, sensual and timeless.'

Rachel dice de su trabajo: "Uso una mezcla de arte, el flamenco y la alquimia para hacer tesoro portátil. Suave, sensual y atemporal. "

“Tell your heart that the fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself. And no heart has ever suffered when it goes in search of its dream.”
Paulo Coelho

"Dile a tu corazón que el miedo a sufrir es peor que el propio sufrimiento. Y ningún corazón ha sufrido alguna vez cuando va en busca de su sueño. "
Paulo Coelho

Journey Collar

Rachel Mackie is a jeweler, an artist, a poet, singer, horsewoman, a brave and true inspiration in the world, in so many ways.

Rachel Mackie, es joyera, artista, poeta, cantante, amazona/jinete, persona extraordinaria valentía, una inspiracion cierto en estos tiempos difíciles.

www.rachelmackie.com

Blessings

2011-11-16T16:30:00.025+01:00

Life seems to be so often a tug in both directions.

“Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen.”

Winston Churchill

Today has been a day when life feels as beauitful as these two birds, and also as confusing as...

So, if I am wrong in what I think, please let it be a blessing.

“I know that you believe you understand what you think I said, but I'm not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant.”

Robert McCloskey

But...

'Constant kindness can accomplish much.
As the sun makes ice melt, kindness causes misunderstanding, mistrust, and hostility to evaporate.'

Albert Schweitzer

So may it be.

A message for México России,Česká republika e Italia.

2011-11-12T18:45:00.002+01:00

Thank you to my readers today in Mexico, Russia, Czech Republic and Italy.

Gracias a mis lectores de hoy en México, Rusia, República Checa e Italia.

Спасибо моим читателям сегодня в Мексике, России, Чехии и Италии.

Děkujeme, že jste na mých čtenářů dnes v Mexiku, Rusku, Česká republika a Itálie.

Grazie ai miei lettori oggi in Messico, Russia, Repubblica Ceca e Italia.

Tomorrow I'm having a fiesta in my house. Here's a pic of my house and my neighbor. I wish you could all come to the party.

Mañana voy a hacer una fiesta en mi casa. Aquí hay una foto de mi casa y mi vecino. Me gustaría que todos pudieran venir a la fiesta. Abrazos a todos.

Завтра у меня партию в моем доме. Вот фотография моего дома, и мой сосед. Я желаю вам все это может прийти на вечеринку. Объятия для всех вас.

Zítra mám strana ve svém domě. Tady je fotka z mého domu a mého souseda. Přeji vám vše by mohlo přijít na party. Hugs vám všem.

Domani ho una festa a casa mia. Ecco una foto della mia casa e il mio vicino di casa. Vorrei che tu potessi venire tutti alla festa. Abbracci a tutti voi.

After their winter, and before ours..

2011-11-10T21:22:00.006+01:00

Very excited.
My partner in Peru, Wider, who took this photo, is about to return to the high mountains with the news we have money to buy animals for the families in the area we are committed to help. Due to a devastatingly severe winter they lost most of their sheep, goats, chickens, and guinea pigs.
Wider will hike for three days to reach the families, then return to Ollantaytambo with some of the men to buy the animals. The rainy season is about to start. It will be a hard journey. Wider grew up on the street of his village. With huge respect for his ancestors, he is committed to helping his indigenous brothers and sisters, as he calls them, preserve their ancient way of life.
I am privileged to help him do this by sending money I earn from selling my paintings and running retreats.
For the second time, a Danish artist Heidrun Sorenson has generously donated money as well.

'When we help other people it puts a smile on their faces and a glow in our hearts.' Washi Gibaja.

True.

www.highmountainaidperu.com

On being grateful

2011-11-08T21:01:00.000+01:00

Go the extra mile. It's never crowded. ~Author Unknown

Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see. ~Mark Twain

Salut prieteni români!

2011-11-08T20:46:00.001+01:00

Wow. 32 de persoane din România citi blog-ul meu de azi. Multumesc oricine ai fi.

Aici este una dintre picturile mele special pentru tine. Eu nu pot vorbi limba dvs., astfel încât am folosit ochelari de cal traduce! :-)

Expecting the unexpected

2011-11-01T10:16:00.002+01:00

Right, all plans have changed, and just in an instant! A lawyer from Holland is coming to make a shamanic retreat with me, tomorrow. The screenplay will have to go on the back boiler for a six days.

Creativity comes from looking for the unexpected and stepping outside your own experience.
Masaru Ibuka

As always, I teach what I need to remember myself!

“I'm looking for the unexpected. I'm looking for things I've never seen before.”
Robert Mapplethorpe.

This will be one of the themes for the week.

“You have to take risks. We will only understand the miracle of life fully when we allow the unexpected to happen.”

Paulo Coelho

Any human anywhere will blossom in a hundred unexpected talents and capacities simply by being given the opportunity to do so.
Doris Lessing.

So may it be. For both of us.

Exit Hana!

2011-10-27T16:18:00.000+02:00

My story is back to being all about Shifra. How she recovers from the abduction of her baby. How she recovers her will to live though drawing her feelings and thoughts in her extraordinary sketchbooks, just like her mother and grandmother did in different circumstances in Auschwitz. Shifra's recovery starts when she decides to accept the clairvoyants prediction that she won't find Samira in Paris, but Samira will find her in South America when she's 18.

Vanessa Paradis. Could she be Shifra?

Universal Acts of Kindness.

2011-10-22T19:53:00.037+02:00

As arranged, I meet my artist friend at the bar in a village called Torvizcon. It's a twenty minute drive from my own village here in southern Andalucia.

Jeanette is a textile artist. We share the same sense of awe of Nature. Her work is inspired by the landscape around here, its subtle colours, its amazing marks on rocks and hillsides.
Of all the landscape poets I've ever read, Thomas Hardy's words have stuck in my heart for decades. Of a certain landscape he says:
'The crows... like inky spots on the nut brown soil...'

Here, we don't have crows, and the soil isn't nut brown. It's parched and ochre coloured. But Jeanette and I both notice scratches, veins on rocks by the roadside. They look like prehistoric drawings of winged, beaked, creatures. Jeannette photographs them.
I feel I could have painted them, they are strangely so very familiar.
I feel anew the excitement to start painting again.
It's been too long a sabbatical.
Five years, I think.

We've planned to visit an artists studio near to a cheese farm and have a picnic, rain or shine. Jeanette's made a quiche I am bringing soup and salad. Unfortuneately the brownies I made last weekend are past it.

I arrive early in Torvizcon as I'm longing to have a cup of real fresh Spanish coffee, with hot milk, in a glass, as they serve it here.
Jeanette arrives and orders a coffee Americano.

A car outside hoots its horn.
In the street a 4x4 arrives with a trailer. The trailer has a wild boar strapped to its roof and underneath are at least 15 dogs, tired after the hunt. The driver pulls out one dog and shows it to a crowd of men ,who gather like flies to view the dead boar. The dog has been wounded. There's blood on it's neck. They put it back in the trailer.

We set off to find the artists studio. John Donald is having an open day. He divides his time between here and the Dominican Republic. I visited his studio last year, so I know the way.

The artists beautiful converted mill is well and truly off the beaten track. It's at the top of one of those mind bogglingly terrifying hairpin bend tracks. As I park my car, the baker in his blue van arrives. An elderly woman and a teenage boy are waiting for him. The baker opens the van doors with a smile, and the smell of the fresh bread leaps out to meet the lingering scents of the village.
Jeanette buys a small sweet loaf with sugar encrusted on top.

Do you know where the cheese farm is I ask the baker.
He gives us explicit instructions. And repeats them carefully. Something about a bus stop, and something about strawberries. I don't take in much else as I am so caught in the delightful 'drama' of this little scene.

Such a handsome man Jeannette comments quietly, as we wind our way up the medieval lane.

We visit the artists house and studio.

In the grounds a waterfall cascades poetically behind a shield of ash tress. Sadly they are diseased by a plague of worms we're told.

Inside the spacious house designed and built by John, we see many examples of the prolific artist work. He has oil paintings, drawings, prints, and pastels. He doesn't appear to draw on the local colors or subjects Jeanette observes. I'm reminded of German Georg Gross's work she tells me later. Very narrative. I like his drawings and etchings.

Jeanette soon asks intelligent questions and the German/American artist John responds. His voice is low ,I can only pick up about one word in 20. It's not that he has a difficult accent. It's just that he almost inaudible to my ears.
Jeanette has a coughing fit. He offers her then me a glass of wine. It's delicious and expensive.

Jeanette then asks the artist's middle aged son about his sculptures . They have a Mexican/Mayan feel to them and are placed on a slope in the garden, near the waterfall.
I have an energy drop.
I want to be far way. I've never learned the art of looking at paintings and talking about them at the same time. It's like I get magnetically drawn their world, and the only way out is away.

We head back to the car and drive off with the intention of finding a place to picnic.

It starts to drizzle.

We're following the bakers directions to the cheese farm.
Suddenly, rounding a bend, we meet a flock of goats advancing quickly towards us. I stop the car.

The goat herd arrives. He's small, slight, his face is the color of the inside of a ripe fig. His eyes are dark like raisins. He has a water bottle slung over his shoulder. He also wears a dark brown leather bag. We greet each other and I ask him how many goats he's has.
300 he says.
The Billy goat is the most magnificent specimen I have ever seen in my life, with huge horns, at last two feel on either side. He has the swagger of a king.
I ask the goatherd if we're near the cheese farm. He says about ten minutes. Up and up, he says, right up.
It's freezing cold. We see the first snows of winter on the high sierras above Trevelez, just a few miles ahead of where we are.

We picnic on courgette and cilantro soup, cheese straws, asparagus quiche, garlic shrimps and fresh salad with a yogurt dressing. Everything tastes delicious, and every part of me is freezing.

Munching hungrily, we watch the goats grazing and walking southwards. Their bells are an orchestra of delight.

The baker has said to look out for a bus shelter and strawberries. This is where we turn onto a dirt track to get to the cheese farm.

We drive past fields of plump ripe strawberries and acres of neat little cherry tomatoes, a turquoise pool, chestnut and walnut trees, looking for the bus shelter.

Stopping to photograph the cherry tomatoes a dark haired middle aged man, wearing mud marked long short trousers, appears with a large panting dog.

I ask him if he knows where the cheese farm is. He grins and says it belongs to him ! He then tells us he's looking for his lost sheep. About twenty have gone astray. He asks us for a lift back to his farm! Your dog too I ask ? He grins again and says no, he'll find his way back himself.
When we arrive at the cheese farm fifteen minutes later, the same dog appears to be napping by the front door.

An hour later, after buying freshly made cheese, the most delicious in the area ( my opinion), the baker passes us on the road. He stops his blue van , winds down his window, and asks us if we found the farm.

It's Universal Day of Random Acts of Kindness.

Heart Knots

2011-10-20T20:21:00.008+02:00

Hana needs to soften the heart knots.
She needs to become curious not furious.
She needs to learn how to let herself off the hook.
She needs to learn 'every decision I make is a choice between a grievance and a miracle.'
Deepak Chopra.

“True forgiveness is not an action after the fact, it is an attitude with which you enter each moment.”

-David Ridge.

This is the challenge and the quest Hana's needs to embark on.
With clarity, she will learn to see the bigger picture of her fear, her guilt, her chronic low self esteem. Then she'll be ready to walk though a new door into a new life. When this happens, she'll have experienced miracles.

Enter Joel.

2011-10-17T15:48:00.012+02:00

Hana needs a friend. I thought it was going to be her housekeeper Hildegard. But today, finding this beauitful drawing by Jim di Bartolo, I'm feeling the need to go back to the original idea that her friend is Joel. He's the loyal, elderly family manservant.

So is Hana's back-story really believable?

Aged ten, Hana walks out of Auschwitz with her grandmothers sketchbook sewn inside of her little blue coat. She does not recover from the trauma of losing all her family in the camp, and as a result, as an adult, becomes deeply troubled and reclusive. She's an insomniac and has an obsession for locking doors. She is incapable of sexual intimacy, doesn't know how to give love to her daughter, is widowed and becomes bitter young, all of which lead her to lose self respect. She has only one friend in her life, Joel. Because of this inner chaos, Hana desperately tries to compensate by seeking approval and acclaim through her art.
At the end of the film, she will find her own inner heroine.

Despite serious odds, she will do this, and thereby complete an amazing character arc.

More ideas

2011-10-14T13:06:00.014+02:00

More ideas for the title of the movie:

Drawing lessons.

(Drawing by William T Ayton)

Shifra's Mother.

Rough Copy.

Chalk talk.

Hymn to Hana.

Photo of Sonia Delaunay.

"Cannes must be open to new ideas, while remaining faithful to its past, of course. Diversity can only enrich it. That´s what makes the Festival de Cannes our festival.”

Thierry Frémaux

I wish !

Uprooted.

2011-10-13T13:27:00.018+02:00

Today I found a possible new title for my screenplay.

UPROOTED.

By chance (?), in renaming Anabel Hana, I've been reminded of one of my guardians Hannah Margaret Stewart. An unsuccessful missionary turned atheist doctor, this clever little woman felt life had been bitterly unfair to her.

Hana in the film needs a friend, good or bad, and in remembering Hannah Margaret, I've found a motive for Hana's most evil of act's: her collusion in the abduction of her granddaughter Samira.

Jealously.

This is what Hannah Margaret gave me in large dollops every day of my childhood. Non acceptance. Long story! Hannah Margaret was not evil. She was damaged beyond repair. Hana,it will transpire, is not damaged beyond repair.

Hana's now seriously estranged daughter Shirfa will have preferred, in her childhood, the warm love of housekeeper Hildegarde. Must rename Hildegarde. This large, kind, loving, religious Bolivian servant unconditionally adored the young artistic Shifra.
Hana has been incapable of showing any love to her daughter due to her holocaust experiences as a child. She is emotionally paralyzed. The film starts in the 1980's. Hana is in her late 60's. Hana expresses her feelings in her art, graphically.

Pitch:

Through her graphic sketchbooks and paintings elderly wealthy lonely widowed French Holocaust survivor artist Hana battles with inner demons in a last attempt to find atonement for her part in the abduction of her granddaughter eighteen years previously. After the death of her beloved companion Hildegarde,though an unlikely chance meeting with a Bolivian shaman, Hana finds her gifted singer granddaughter Samira in the slums of Paris and embarks on an intrepid healing journey to Bolivia (with Samira) to find her daughter Shifra whom they discover teaching circus skills, mural painting, and dance to slum kids in La Paz.

Painting by Freidl Dicker-Brandeis: Gypsy and child.

This image sums up for me Hana's inner turmoil.

The new beauitful title for this blog ( the hands) image, I found on the Internet. Apologies to the creator of this photo for not noting their name at the time. Now impossible to trace !

Для моїх українських друзів.

2011-10-12T21:37:00.000+02:00

Дорогі українські читачі, Є багато з вас! Так от оновлення мого screenpklay в Yoru мову, завдяки Google Translate!

Мій фільм це все про зцілення неймовірні втрати ... зцілення втрати дитини до трьох поколінь єврейських жінок: бабусі Хани, дочки Шифра, а внучка Саміра. Але Саміра зламається візерунок.

Це те, що я вирішив сьогодні. Це, як фільм буде запущений. Збільшити на студії Хана, перш ніж вона виходить для станції. Там у велику картину на її мольберт, її альбомах лежать в купі на її брудний стіл фарбою. Збільшити в живопису. Це історія про викрадення Саміра в Парижі, 18 років тому. Тепер те, що стиль буде її картина може бути? Я відразу ж думати про Шагала. Я перевіряю його. Я схвильований, щоб знайти я підозрюю, пляма на. Деякі з його картин майже сцени з фільму. Я перевіряю його більше, і знайти ми народилися в один день. 7 липня.

Єврейські Шагала відбулася непохитну віру в існування чудес і в нескінченній мудрості Творця. Його життя було описана як Ода до радості ".

Невідомий Хана, в наступному місяці, вона буде відчувати два зміни життя події: зустріч Шаман, і знайти свого давно втраченого внучка Саміра.

Але як я можу отримати її для задоволення шамана?

"Я люблю тебе, не знаючи, як і коли, і звідки. Я люблю тебе прямо, без складнощів чи гордості, так що я люблю тебе, тому що я знаю, немає іншого шляху ".

Пабло Неруда

Це, як я відчуваю про моїх персонажів екрані гри.

Ode to Joy

2011-10-11T11:25:00.095+02:00

This is my work/play table.
I'm procrastinating again. I do it very well.

The problem with storyboarding my screenplay is there are just so many possibilities, and each possibility opens up a treasure trove of new ideas. It's very challenging to filter the ideas. The big question today is: will an audience really believe in synchronicity?
How will Hana actually get to/find the shaman? The shaman tells Hana she has to find her granddaughter. The recovery of her health depends on this.

I have many very different ideas about this, involving synchronicity, but which will be the most interesting?

I think I need a sounding block.
Am trying to weave in sounds, silence, atmosphere, character sketches, leading up to the 'inciting incident' which is when the challenge for the main character is laid out graphically for the audience.
I love the trick that the audience knows something the films characters have yet to find out.

Dear Universe. I know you are listening. Please send me a sounding block. No. Stop. You might not understand this. Please do not send me any more blocks. Please send me the best person ( or messenger) to advise me on the credibility of Hana's meeting with the shaman.

Watch this space dear readers!

And now the breakthrough!

I haven't received the messenger yet, but a breakthrough just happened.

Finally got rid of the procrastinator by sitting at my desk with the intention of designing the intro.

Zoom in on Hana's studio before she leaves for the station. There's a large painting on her easel, her sketchbooks lie in a pile on her messy paint table. Zoom into painting. It's the story of the abduction of Samira in Paris, 18 years ago. Now what style would her painting be ? I immediately think of Chagall. I check him out. I am thrilled to find my hunch is spot on. Some of his paintings are almost scenes from my film. I check him out more, and find we were born on the same day. 7th July.

Jewish Chagall 'held an unwavering belief in the existence of miracles and in the infinite wisdom of the Creator. His life has been described as an Ode to Joy.'

Hana's story starts here...

2011-10-08T11:43:00.011+02:00

My film is all about healing unimaginable loss... healing the loss of a child to three generations of Jewish women: to grandmother Hana, daughter Shifra, and granddaughter Samira. But Samira will break the pattern.

Riddled with osteoarthritis, Hana ( the artist grandmother) can barely hold a pencil now.
Bi-Ploar, a holocaust survivor, she's hit rock bottom.
Desperately damaged by the 'loss' of her daughter Shifra to Bolivia ( though misunderstandings, furious rows, and prolonged projections) she also carries the guilt of collusion in the abduction of her granddaughter Samira.

Unknown to Hana, in the next month, she will experience two life changing events: meeting the Shaman, and finding her long lost granddaughter Samira.

The interconnectedness of all things...

Without complexities or pride

2011-10-07T16:09:00.017+02:00

Anabel, now re named Hana, the grandmother ( when young) in my screen play.

“I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where. I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride; so I love you because I know no other way.”

Pablo Neruda

This is how I feel about my screen play characters.

Stepping through the shaman's door.

2011-09-30T14:16:00.080+02:00

My retreat guest this week comes from London. She's here to make a Shamanic retreat. We're based in the Contraviesa mountains of southern Spain. My retreat house is on the edge of a tiny remote village. The village is still untouched by tourism. Annie works in the National Health Service in London. She is intelligent, brave, and discerning. This sensitive 35 year old wants to re connect with her intuitive voice and access her 'higher wisdom', her soul's calling, which have been dulled by a long dark night of the soul. She talks about wanting to develop that ‘intuitive muscle.’

I think she’s come to the right place! Moorish southern Spain is steeped in the mystical, and has for centuries
been open to and rich in diverse belief systems.

‘Shamanism is a path of knowledge, not of faith, and that knowledge cannot come from me or anyone else in this reality. To acquire that knowledge, including the knowledge of the spirits, it is necessary to step though the shaman’s doorway and acquire empirical evidence.’ -Michael Harner.

So this is the intention for the week. To step though the shaman’s door and acquire new experiences in order to reactivate the intuitive voice, and reconnect with the heart's wisdom.

I am not a shaman, but looking back, I've been practicing shamanic ‘ways of communicating’ all my life. I underwent a life changing rite of passage in the Wilderness in Alaska in 1999, and have received initiations from shamans in Peru and Bolivia. These initiations, in my understanding, increase our ‘vibration,’ our connection to the soul, to Devine Consciousness.
Soul loss or 'soul disconnection,' happens in probably almost all societies. It will have many different names, and can happen at any stage of life. My guest testifies to this and wants to re connect.

The week has been unfolding magically.

This kind of 'work' makes my heart sing. This is where I find myself in my true element. Leading people into Nature. Filling up with the awe of it all. Experiencing the bounty of late summer. Looking out for signs and signals and messengers to open the heart door more, and more, and more.

This morning, day five of the retreat, I took my guest on a hike down to the stream below the village.

We had an unexpected adventure.

After about and hour and a half (we walked slowly), the track became thickly overgrown. Thirty or forty skinny wild rose branches hung straight down in front of us in the middle of a dusky 'tunnel.' It was almost impossible to move forward. Pencil thin, five or six foot long, spiky defenses they were, growing down from an unseen source. Every few feet another line tried to stop us. Each frawn snagged us in a different place: on the sleeve, on the leg, on the head, on the breast. I took my craft scissors out of my backpack and started to cut.

It felt like we were participating in a fairy tale. But why were we being held back? Why this barricade of vicious little thorn lines? Where would we end up? What might we find at the end of the tunnel?
We’d already found a gigantic pomegranate tree in the middle of a small field, a single wild apple tree, and a fig tree at least five hundred years old. Three solitary, magnificent specimens growing beside the stream, each with it's own history. Each one untended by man anymore.

Finally, after much cutting, we got to a fallen tree beside the brook, and with my arthritic hips, there was no way I could climb under or over it.
We were both tired. I asked Annie if it was time to turn back.

As I looked at her, turning my back on the direction we were heading, her eyes opened wide! There was a short sharp crashing sound. I swiveled around to see what had caught her attention. There stood a large dirty white sheep with mottled brown ears and curious eyes. She had crashed through the thick undergrowth, leapt the stream, and was standing just a few feet away. She pinned us to the spot with her penetrating gaze. We waited for more sheep to arrive. They didn't. She was lost and alone.

The night before, Annie and I had watched a Russian movie called Tulpan. It was about a young inexperienced ‘novice’ shepherd ( recently discharged from the Russian Navy ), whose obsession in life was to find a wife. With a wife he could rent a flock of sheep. Without a wife, the rich farmer wouldn’t even hire him a pig. You won't survive in this landscape without a wife the farmer said. Living in the Mongolian Steppe with only three neighbors within a hundred miles, he had little chance of finding a partner. He’d had no luck whatsoever with the only available girl called Tulpan.
The hopeful young man had a dream for his life, but needed to learn self worth, and discover what he was really good at.
He’d dawn his dream on the white plastic underside of his sailors tunic collar. This was a magical bit in the film, a unique ‘Vision Board.’ His childlike drawing poignantly described his hope for a life on the Steppe with sheep, camels, Satellite TV, a motorbike, a wife, and children.
What transpires in the film is that after becoming completely discouraged in his pursuit of finding a wife, he gives up on his dream, and leaves his sister’s yurt for the city.
Walking towards the horizon he finds a lost sheep about to give birth. He helps the distressed animal, and overcomes his queasiness and disgust of the messy birth process. The lamb survives. In previous weeks, all the lambs in the care of his brother in law have died at birth.
The young man’s joy in midwifing this difficult birth ,and the realization that it has survived thanks to his kiss of life, changes everything for him.
But the film doesn’t tell us what happened next.

I had said to Annie (before we watched the film), that so often when we get on track on our ‘spiritual or soul’s path,’ it seems the Universe gives us messages through almost anything we put our attention to. Through TV, radio, newspapers, films, Internet a conversation overheard on a bus, etc., etc,.
I completely trusted the film in some way would do this.
And it did.

Back to this morning’s hike.

So here we were on our enchanted walk, coming to a halt, and are met by a lost sheep!
I talked to the sheep for a few minutes and asked her to come with us!! We would lead her back to safe ground. She followed for a while then disappeared!
Annie and I both felt sad. This wasn’t the ending we were hoping for ! A little like the feeling we'd both had at the end of the Russian film.

Russian films don’t follow the formula of Western films with a beginning, middle and end, and the ‘ inciting incident’ coming around minute nine in the screenplay !

So back by the enchanted brook this morning..... ten minutes after our mysterious sheep disappeared, she reappeared. She crashed, as if catapulted through dense undergrowth infront of us. Astonished we watched her stop in her tracks. She looked straight at us. As if to say, 'Well, I've been assigned a task with you two.'
Then, without a sound, she continued to lead us back along the magical path, stopping frequently to turn and look at us, and to wait for us. Although we knew the way, we were certainly being led.

Annie had felt we were being followed when we entered the valley this morning. What sort of following I had asked her ? Nice following she had said, nothing sinister. Now we were being guided back to the village by a lost sheep!

When we returned to the village I told a neighbor about the maverick sheep. She would tell the shepherd's girlfriend she promised. Rocindo would come this evening with his dogs and retrieve the lost animal. He would be pleased to find her I thought.

‘What the hell’ said the shepherd’s girlfriend when I saw her later.
'It's just a sheep!'
'Did he find it?' I asked her the following day.
'It wasn't his animal' she said gruffly.
The shepherd's girlfriend usually makes me laugh. On this occasion she didn't!

The ‘shamanic’ retreat week for Annie is leading up to a Dispatcho ceremony tomorrow night. This ceremony is based on the Peruvian tradition in which we thank Pachamama (Mother Earth) for all her blessings, and ‘dispatch’, send off our prayers and our intentions to her for the next step on our souls journey.

This week my intention was to gently absorb my guest into the untamed landscape of Andalucia. Starting with small walks into the wilds. Yesterday we visited a nearby semi abandoned village called Bargis. Here we saw glimpses of medieval life colorfully still at play. It's almond harvesting time.

Last night Annie slept on the roof terrace under the stars.

Today, I believe Pacahamama has shown us her spirit in the form of a lost sheep who became our guide.

We witnessed Pachamama's bounty in the laden pomegranate tree, and her tremendous power in the heat of the sun . One can only bow the head in reverence and murmur, Thank You.

A week in Nature.
Medicine for the soul.
A sense of the sacred.
Creating ritual and ceremony.
Sacred Music every evening.
Star gazing.
And the privilege of getting to know another human being, unmasked, honest and brave.

Thank you Annie, for trusting your intuition to make this Shamanic retreat.
And thank you Pachamama for your abundance, and for your countless blessings.
May we all trust our hearts calling and follow it.

'Wherever you go, there you are.'
Jon Kabat Zinn

13 kilos

2011-09-23T22:12:00.000+02:00

Hello dear readers. This is the new me ! 13 kilos lighter ! Feeling so well and so happy!
High protein and lots of mountain hikes. That's done it.
The fact that I'm posting a photo of myself is a miracle in itself. I have been camera shy ( neurotic) for so many years.

“Success is sweetest when you've known defeat.”

Malcolm S. Forbes

September 11. 2011

2011-09-11T15:58:00.113+02:00

Remembering 9.11: honoring and blessing all who lost loved ones, all who acted heroically , every act of kindness during and afterwards, every brave soul who has rebuilt their life , and all who still struggle and are scarred on the inside. May peace and love, compassion and acceptance grow in all of our hearts, day by day.

"I have found the paradox, that if you love until it hurts, there can be no more hurt, only more love."

Mother Teresa (1910 - 1998)

I would prefer to say, personally, that if you love despite the pain of it being rejected..that by keeping your heart open, only more love, only more love can enter.

I don't have any other words to share about September 11, 2001.

These images say what my deepest self can't articulate about that day.

Shamans tell us: images are the language the soul understands.

And today, 12.09.11 a friend has written on my facebook page :

"Let us not forget the tens of thousands of innocent lives lost & maimed in Iraq & Afghanistan as a result of this most outrageous and shameful act of deception ever perpetrated. I find the public manipulation of the grief and suffering of those who lost loved ones in the 9/11 event, and the crocodile tears shed by those who must know the truth, absolutely sickening."
Richard Waterborn

So, for anybody else, who like me, was not aware of this( truth) until yesterday, you can read the quotes below. I was scanning the Internet for quotes re 9.11, and came accross this shocking information. Why have I not heard about 'this' before? Where have I been ? Out of TV and newspaper and Internet range for many of these ten years.

9/11 Quotes
www.vt911.org

"Change is certain. Peace is followed by disturbances; departure of evil men by their return. Such recurrences should not constitute occasions for sadness but realities for awareness, so that one may be happy in the interim."
Percy Bysshe Shelley

Wanting to help.

2011-09-09T16:26:00.003+02:00

Poverty is like punishment for a crime you didn't commit.
~Eli Khamarov, Lives of the Cognoscenti.

Have Patience

2011-09-02T12:36:00.063+02:00

"Have patience with everything that remains unsolved in your heart...

Try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books written in a foreign language. Do not now look for the answers...

They cannot now be given to you because you could not live them...

It is a question of experiencing everything.

At present you need to live the question.

Perhaps you will gradually, without even noticing it, find yourself experiencing the answer, some distant day."

- Rainer Maria Rilke

These pencil sketches were made in Alaska in 1999. They are the basis of a series of paintings inspired by the lives of the Skellig Michael monks. The monks lived on an enormous rock (in the 7th century), nine miles off the west coast of Ireland. They were said to have lived their devoted and austere lives 'on the margin of the world.' The Atlantic ocean.

I often feel I live my life in the margins of the world, loving wilderness, drawn to huge unspoilt swathes of untamed Nature untouched by man.

'Skellig Michael (from Sceilig Mhichíl in the Irish language, meaning Michael's rock), also known as Great Skellig, is a steep rocky island in the Atlantic Ocean about 9 miles (14.5 kilometres) from the coast of County Kerry, Ireland. It is the larger of the two Skellig Islands. After probably being founded in the 7th century, for 600 years the island was a centre of monastic life for Irish Christian monks. The Gaelic monastery, which is situated almost at the summit of the 230-meter-high rock became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1996. It is one of Europe's better known but least accessible monasteries.'

'Since the extreme remoteness of Skellig Michael has until recently discouraged visitors, the site is exceptionally well preserved. The very spartan conditions inside the monastery illustrate the ascetic lifestyle practiced by early Irish Christians. The monks lived in stone 'beehive' huts (clochans), perched above nearly vertical cliff walls.'

From Wikipedia.

The quote in this blog touches me deeply. At present, as Rilke suggest, 'I am living the question.'
What's happened to my screenplay?
Why can't I write it? What's stopping me?

'Perhaps...,'Rike's voice whispers in my heart, 'you will gradually, without even noticing it, find yourself experiencing the answer, some distant day."

I hope not too distant.

It's time to start thinking about the next fund raiser for Peru. Our fourth Chocolatada.
Can I do both, organize a fund raiser, and write a screen play?

The Wisdom of Innocence.

2011-08-30T10:42:00.063+02:00

“You see things; and you say, 'Why?' But I dream things that never were; and I say, 'Why not?'”

-George Bernard Shaw

"On sorrow floats laughter."
— Günter Grass

'FOOL AT HEART.'
The clown as sacred healer and teacher: the life work of Didier Danthois:

Here's a little about a wonderful mentor I've had in my life. I've had two actually. More about the other later. This post will explain my fascination with the image of the clown in my art work.

Meeting Didier Danthois fifteen years ago quite simply changed my life. And I discovered for myself that truly: 'On sorrow floats laughter, and joy.'

Here are a few extracts from his website:

'In Simplicity and Presence the Fool
takes us directly to the heart. With
Playful Wisdom, he she guides us
through the noisy clutter of too much
thinking to the child of eternity, secretly
hiding at the core of our being. In trust
and innocence the Fool recalls the music
of the soul, and so echoes a song of
timeless Joy of a Lover for his Beloved.'

The Fool will walk us to the edge, beckoning us to play with the world and to discover a treasure in a grain of sand. The Fool liberates us from the shadows of old habits and fear of the unknown, helping us to embody the Sacred Clown as a way to awaken to the Wisdom of Innocence.
-D.D-

CLOWN MEDICINE

In the vast expanse of inner listening
The sacred clown comes home.
Open, vulnerable,
with no great ambitions or fears,
with no questions
and specially no answers to give…
…A timeless presence filling the air
touches all…
with that little spark of wonder,
for what is about to be born.
-D.D-

“The silence often of pure innocence persuades when speaking fails.”
William Shakespeare

Didier is the founder of the Fool at Heart School of Sacred Clowning and teaches, performs, & directs internationally. He is the spiritual director of ClownCare & Co., an organisation bringing Sacred Clowning into healthcare.
His present work explores the field of emotional and spiritual resonance through the Fool at Heart in mime - dance - music & play, and also through Indian Raga singing, for both adults & children.

“Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up.”
Pablo Picasso

The art work in this post is a combination of pencil drawings made after working with Didier and a group of his clowns in 1996, which I then 'digitally altered' to make new images. I especially love the technique of making the image look like stained glass.

The smiling boy with his effigy of Judas, I photographed in Valparaiso,Chile in 2006.

Didier Danthois http://www.sacred-clown-as-healer.co.uk

The clown and the computer. “If you want to feel rich....

2011-08-21T09:39:00.160+02:00

Strange. I thought I had posted this last autumn. But no, I didn't. I'm posting it now because I was thinking about Fabio, the Brazilian clown, yesterday. As I believe thoughts really do become things, maybe he'll reappear! Or, maybe, yesterday he too was remembering his version of this story? Or perhaps something else was happening energetically between us? Who Knows?

Fabio used to sit on the church steps in my nearest town here in Spain, and busk. With a handful of props, he'd place himself on the middle step, a few feet from the road, beside the traffic lights, where his audience were captive for all of the minutes it took the lights to change to green.
I would wind down my car window and throw him coins, and sometimes coffee flavored sweets, and a big smiling thank you. His serious painted face and his magical mimed 'muchas gracias' lit up my day, always.

'There are only two ways to live your life.
One is as though nothing is a miracle.
The other is as though everything is a miracle.'
- Albert Einstein

Unknowingly, Fabio became my teacher for a few weeks, just before I left for my third trip to Peru. Or was it my fouth ?

This is what I wrote about him last September:

Recently, I've been thinking about buying a notebook, or is it a netbook ? I don't know the difference! Anyway, a small computer to take on my travels to South America.
It feels like an incredible luxury, such a treat, and I found myself asking: do I really deserve this? I felt I needed it,yes, but deserving it (or meriting it as the Spanish would say) also came into the question. Did I merit it ?

I’m very happy to give almost all the money I earn to support projects in Peru and Bolivia, I can do this without a second thought, but to give a large sum of money to myself these days; well that takes more than a few gulps, and unleashes a rush of deep unfamiliar feelings.

So,the Universe presented me three times with this question:

'What do you honestly believe about giving to yourself?'

The answer came poetically cloaked through the perfect scenario: The Clown. Fabio.
This soulful, heart-filled, young Brazilian mime artist unknowingly became my teacher.

Fabio is enchantingly inventive and quietly clever. I’d asked him to come to our recent fund raiser for Peru (The Chocolatada) ,and he proved to be a great attraction. He didn’t ask for any money. I bought him breakfast on the day, invited him to fill a paper plate with the cakes that were for sale. I gave him €10. The Ecuadorian musician asked for €60. I gave him €70. Fabio the clown lives in a tipi and his only income is busking. He’s about 35, tall, dark eyed and gentle. The small Ecuadorian lives in Granada with his wife, two children, and a tiny baby with a serious health problem.

The first day I thought about buying the notebook, which turned out to be a netbook, the clown was behind me in the supermarket. We exchanged smiles and I paid for his carton of milk, which was all he was buying. Some friends then arrived and asked me how I was. When Fabio heard I'd been ill, he advised me eat lots of cooked garlic, and looked concerned. I was on my way to spending a lot of money on the lap top. I felt deeply uncomfortable about his care for me when I was only buying him a carton of milk. I could have asked him if he needed anything else, or bought him a weeks groceries, it didn’t seem fair I’d paid the Ecuadorian €70 and him only €10.
I didn’t buy the notebook that day. I had a crisis of ideals.
What if I gave him all the money I had for the lap top?
I didn’t.

On the way to the computer shop for the second time, I passed the clown again. All my confused feelings about being generous to myself got stirred and churned. I didn’t buy the netbook, but said to the shopkeeper I’d make a decision in a few days time.

On my way back from the shop the third time, would you believe, I saw Fabio again. This time my feelings didn’t get stirred. I’d bought the small computer. I'd been delighted to tuck it into its snug little scarlet case. I had it in my hand, in a bag. I now felt more than ready to go to Peru. My journey this time was going to be different. No more hours of hunting for Internet outlets which are usually filled with high energy teenage boys, in back streets, grotty, noisy,and dingy.

Fabio was sitting on the steps of the church, once again. It was a cold day. I noticed he was wearing two pairs of woolen socks. We soon got into a long deep conversation about spirituality, Peru and healing. He’d been all over Peru and had lived in the village where I stay when I’m there.

As I looked into his eyes and listened to his voice I felt such love for him. Time stood still. I noticed a few friends passing in cars and on foot but I had no inclination to change my focus. My heart was singing, I think his was too; there was no stopping him talking.
Finally two friends arrived and paused a few paces away from us, as if respectfully allowing us our conversation, waiting for an entry.

Finally I left him, and feeling hungry, stopped at the bakers. I bought Fabio a spinach filled empanada and a slice of creamy cheesecake, and myself a cheesy empanada.

The bakers wife stacked Fabio’s goodies on a little paper plate and handed it to me with a thin white napkin. Mine she slid into a see- tough plastic bag. She had a sore arm. She was in great pain. She struggled to do her job. I felt such love for her. She looked at me as if for a minute she knew this.

I walked back down to the church steps where Fabio was still sitting, carrying the two bags, one with the brand new netbook in it, the other with the food.

‘Guess you're vegetarian’ I said to him, ‘so it’s just spinach.’

He beamed and nodded and accepted the gift. I walked away with his smile in my heart, feeling connected, knowing the glow had nothing to do with netbooks or food or sore arms or empanadas, but everything to do with moments of sharing from our hearts.

That's what he taught me, or rather, helped me remember.

“Tell me and I'll forget; show me and I may remember; involve me and I'll understand.”
Chinese Proverb.

Do I deserve this glow ? Do I understand the real lesson in this? Giving to others activates this glow. When somebody else activates that energy in me,my soul soars.

Computers and phones and cash are part of life today, for many of us. Not for my friends in Peru. I believe money is an energy. It's colored paper. It comes and it goes. Real sharing is a heart matter. That's why I feel giving to charities can be a double edged sword. It can swipe out that person to person connection, and create a hunger that is impossible to satisfy.

“If you want to feel rich, just count the things you have that money can't buy”
Proverb

Voyages of discovery

2011-08-19T22:11:00.029+02:00

The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.

Marcel Proust

“There are things known and there are things unknown, and in between are the doors of perception”

Aldous Huxley

Sometimes life just doesn't make any sense. Sometimes quotes don't hit the spot. Sometimes I forget how blessed I am. Sometimes it's all so overwhelmingly beautiful I can hardly bear it. Sometimes I forget. Yes, sometimes I forget what I just said or thought. Always, I know I am never alone, and where I'm going next is one place nearer to home. My grandson started school yesterday. By best friend was diagnosed with breast cancer yesterday. I went to the supermarket to buy bulk toilet rolls. But first I sat on the side of the mountain at daybreak, and prayed.

Pregón de las fiestas de Alcázar 2011

2011-08-13T23:39:00.012+02:00

This post has nothing to do with South America and nothing to do with screen writing, but I wanted to share it with a few friends who are interested. So here goes. It's about village life in southern Spain. How I've found a home which is much , much more than a house.

I was asked to make the opening speech at our village fiesta this year. Last night I delivered it! It's called the 'pregón', the 'herald.' It's a huge honor for a foreigner to be asked to do this. You could have heard a pin drop everybody listened so attentively, even the children listened. A friend in the village, Elena,a primary school teacher, helped me in many ways to prepare. She also scared the living daylights out of me when she said they would throw tomatoes at me if they didn't like what I was saying. She was joking of course ! This is what I shared with my beloved village:

Buenas noches, queridos vecinos y vecinas de Alcázar de Venus.

Me quedé muy sorprendida cuando los mayordomos/as me pidieron que fuera la pregonera de Alcázar este año!
Tras la sorpresa inicial, me sentía abrumada con orgullo y gratitud que la gente del pueblo, al que adoro, me pidan que haga esto. Es un gran honor que nunca, nunca voy a olvidar.
No puedo comenzar a decirles lo que significa para mí ser aceptada en este pueblo tan bonito, pero voy a tratar de decírselo.

Acepté esta invitación con mucha ilusión porque es una maravillosa oportunidad agradecer públicamente a mis vecinos su ayuda, su amistad y su cariño hacia mí durante diez años en Alcázar.

A veces, cuando estoy viajando y trabajando en el Perú, Bolivia o Escocia, y no puedo dormir por la noche, cierro los ojos e imagino de nuevo mi vida en Alcázar, el sitio lo mas bonito y lo más especial en España para mí. En la cabeza, estoy caminando por las calles del pueblo, recitando los nombres de las personas que viven en cada casa, admirando los viejos árboles de olivo, los almendros, la estrella de Venus. Veo a Rosendo sentado junto a la iglesia con su perro, veo la casa azul de Loli, la fuente, y cuando llego a la casa de Manolo y Palmira, estoy casi dormida. Así que nunca tengo que tomar pastillas para dormir.

Llegué a Alcázar, en Noviembre de 2000. Fue amor a primera vista. Al cabo de unas ocho semanas había comprado mi casa. No tenía experiencia de la construcción de viviendas, y no podía hablar ni una sola frase en español. Empezó una experiencia inolvidable.

Me gustaría dar las gracias a Manolo y Agustín, que construyeron mi hermosa casa y Levi y Agustín que les ayudaron. Amigos, gracias por vuestra paciencia infinita conmigo y por que no os reíais de mí cuando traté de hablar vuestro idioma.

Me gustaría agradecer a Mari Carmen y Joaquín, que me guiaron en cada paso del camino en mi nueva vida en Alcázar. Ellos me enseñaron también con paciencia infinita todas las costumbres del pueblo, ¿cómo se hacen las cosas aquí,
dónde obtener el agua, cómo hacen los altares para Corpus Cristi,
cuándo viene el butano...y muchísimas más cosas. La amabilidad de Mari Carmen, y la honestidad y la confiabilidad de Joaquín me hizo sentir muy seguro en el pueblo. Ellos son los mejores vecinos que nadie jamás podría desear.

También me gustaría agradecer a mi querida vecina Maricelli, por todos sus consejos sobre mis plantas. Ella es genial, y me hace reír casi todos los días. Me considera una jardinera totalmente inútil, y gracias a sus consejos, no todas mis plantas se han suicidado.
Me encanta su madre Araceli. Creo que ella es un ángel disfrazado... Creo que hay muchos ángeles disfrazados aquí.

Los mayordomos, me han pedido que les diga un poco sobre mi vida antes de venir a España, así que lo haré.
¿Por qué vine aquí?
¿Qué clase de vida tuve en mi propio país?
¿De donde soy?

Nací en Irlanda, pero luego fui adoptada y llevada a Escocia. Crecí en Escocia, un país precioso con castillos antiguos, mucha historia, música preciosa, montañas púrpura y campos verdes, pero con lluvia casi todas las semanas!

Así que soy irlandesa de nacimiento, pero Escocia es el país que mejor conozco. No tengo un acento escocés, por eso la gente no me considera escocesa. Soy irlandesa, pero no tengo un acento irlandés, así que la gente no me trata como a uno de ellos( algo asi como Andalucía y Cataluña). Esto siempre me molestaba mucho.
Entonces, ¿a dónde pertenezco? ¿Dónde está mi verdadero hogar. Cuál es mi pueblo?
Aquí en España siempre seré una guiri, pero no me preocupa ahora. He aprendido que siempre en cualquier sitio mi acento les extraña a alguien!

Dieciséis años atrás, en Escocia, era la directora de mi propia Escuela de Arte. Tuve una buena vida. Me gustaba mucho enseñar, tenía dos hijos sanos y guapos de 26 y 27 años, estaba felizmente divorciada, con muchos amigos. Pero entonces, de repente, todo empezó a cambiar. Murió mi pareja, el amor de mi vida, y mi madre biológica, también mi madre adoptiva. .
Así que comenzó cinco anos que podría llamar la noche oscura del alma. Sin embargo, todavía creía que todo el mundo tiene su ángel de la guarda, y el mío mi llevó a España.

Por lo tanto, llegué a España en 1996 para una semana de vacaciones. Todavía estoy aquí, quince años más tarde!
.
En los últimos anos, cuando viajo lejos de aquí, me encanta compartir las historias de mi vida en el pueblo, y sobre todo me encanta hablar de los seres queridos que ya no están con nosotros. Eran caracteres maravillosos, adorados por sus familias, a menudo tan sabios y siempre muy ingeniosos. Su influencia y su amor viven en el pueblo todavía y para siempre. Estoy segura de esto. Hablo de Angustias, mi queridísima vecina, Andrés, que siempre parecía estar sonriendo, Paquito, el hijo de Araceli al que adoraba. El padre de Mari, Antonio. El padre de Joaquín, Juan. El marido de Elena, Pepín. El padre de Pili, José, y más.
Nunca olvidaré a estas personas.

Y también , siempre me gusta hablar de las mamás de la aldea que trabajan tan duro y tan dedicadas a sus familias, incluyendo a sus suegros: hablo de Loli, Lola, Carmen, los dos Encarni’s, Maruja, Palmira, las dos Pili’s, de Alicia y la joven Merche.

Bueno, en 1996, estaba tan triste que decidí cambiar mi vida. Cerré mi escuela de arte y tomé un año sabático, y mi ángel de la guarda me llevó a Las Alpujarras, y después a Alaska. Hice viajes de acá para allá durante 5 anos. Estaba pintando y escribiendo libros, haciendo exposiciones de mis pinturas en muchos países. Por último, mi corazón comenzó a reparar y me devolvió la alegría de vivir. Luego me enteré de Alcázar. Mi sabático había durado cinco años! Estaba lista para comenzar a trabajar de nuevo. Pero no quería enseñar Arte otra vez, no, quería ayudar a otras personas a superar su tristeza por la pérdida de un ser querido. Alcázar parecía el lugar perfecto. Lleno de belleza, lleno de paz, lleno de gente tan cariñosa y tan amable. Finalmente, había encontrado mi pedazo de paraíso y la paz.

Mis hijos se han casado y tengo cuatro nietos preciosos en Escocia. Desde hace tres años empecé a trabajar para dos organizaciones benéficas en el Perú y Bolivia. Recaudo dinero para las medicinas y útiles escolares para los niños pobres que viven en sitios muy remotos en las montañas de Perú. Me apoya un centro de arte para los niños de la calle en Bolivia. La vida ahora es maravillosa.

No podría haber creado esta maravilla, sin la ayuda y las amistad de mis vecinos de Alcázar. Especialmente, quiero agradecer a Pepe, Agustín Consuelo y Miguel, por todos sus regalos de verduras frescas, durante tantos años.
También quiero agradecer a Carmen y Vicente por tantas veladas agradables en su hermosa casa, y muchas vísperas de Año Nuevo inolvidables.

Hay otra persona muy especial que he llegado a conocer en Alcázar. Mi querida amiga Loli. Es mi alma gemela, una hermanita, una verdadera amiga. Ella es una joya en mi vida, y valoro su amistad más de lo que nunca se sabe.

Y, por último, un agradecimiento muy grande a los niños y adolescentes de Alcázar: Mari Carmen, Ángel, Nuria, Adrián, Rosa, y el pequeño Rubén. Ellos traen una gran alegría a mi vida.

Tengo muchas memorias preciosas de los adolescentes cuando fueron niños, de Jonathan, jugando con ranas y gatitos, de Nacho en su bici, de Daniel, Ali, y Maria pintando en mi casa, de David trabajando con su tía Anita en su cortijo, y los adultos jóvenes, Mari Elena leyendo la Biblia en la iglesia, Agustín, con su yegua, Neftali con sus peros, Leví y José con sus motos!
Un verano, en clases de pintura en mi casa, Elena, la mujer de Pepín, después del trabajo, nos dedicó una actuación teatral impresionante: imitaciones de personajes típicos del pueblo, chistes, cuentos y, sobre todo, la imitación que hizo de mí misma. Impresionante el espectáculo. Elena es una gran actriz, una gran maestra y una amiga muy querida.

Y, finalmente, una palabra a dos amigos ausentes, Teodoro y Maruja. Enhorabuena por la boda de su hija María, mañana. Estoy segura de que todos les deseo mucha felicidad, salud y prosperidad en sus vidas en Egipto.

¡Qué privilegio ha sido llegar a conocer a la gente de este pueblo maravilloso y convertirme en una pequeña parte de ella.

Gracias desde el fondo de mi corazón por aceptarme .
Finalmente sé dónde está mi casa. Y por favor, perdonadme por mi acento terrible, y por favor, perdonadme si me he olvidado de mencionar a alguien que debería haber incluido.

Recordando al poeta Antonio Marchado, diré:

¡Pueblo de Alcázar,
mi aldea,
soñaré contigo
cuando no te vea!

Que la Virgen del Rosario os bendiga. Os quiero mucho.

Viva Alcázar, Vivan las fiestas de 2011.

A note for readers in Ukraine in Russia and Serbia.

2011-08-12T11:08:00.002+02:00

Доброго ранку всім 19 читачів мого блогу в Україну. Дякую, що відвідали мій блог. Я дуже радий знати, що ви поділяєте мої розповіді. Майте великий день!

Доброе утро всем 19 читателей моего блога в Украине. Спасибо, что посетили мой блог. Я очень рад знать, что вы разделяете мои рассказы. Имейте большой день!

Добро јутро свима 19 читаоци мог блога у Украјини. Хвала што сте посетили мој блог. Одушевљена сам да знате да сте делећи своје приче. Имају велики дан!

Perla. More Adventures in Chile.

2011-07-31T18:28:00.113+02:00

The Andes from the Caretera Austral.

Okay, so my screen play has gone into hibernation, and there's no coaxing it out. So I will wait, knowing it's springtime will come. I will not give up on this, even though at the moment it feels like it must have died, it's so absent from my heart's grasp.

So back to sharing a few unpublished stories from my first visit to Patagonia in 2006.

Perla.

I have taken over a week to wander down from Santiago, the capitol of Chile, to Puerto Montt, the famous gateway to Patagonia. I've traveled by train and bus, stayed in a eucalyptus forest with a vet, ridden the historic silver, battered,two carriage train on a single track beside a raging river, lodged in a Tyrolean type cabin close to a volcano, and now am en route to the very far south of the spine of South America. I'm heading for the Parque National Torres del Paine. Chile is a long thin country.

Puerto Montt, Chile. March 2006.

I make the call from the bus depot. I'll guard your bag says a friendly woman.
Is that necessary my eyes ask hers.
Be very careful around here she says with intensity.

What does she know I don't know, I wonder?

“Yes!"
The deep slow hesitant voice sounds strange on the other end of the phone.
“Yes, room free, one person? Perla not here, she back soon. You come ten minutes ?"

“I’m on my way.” I reply slightly apprehensively.

My guidebook says Hostal Casa Perla has a charming garden and it’s a good meeting place. No mention of a psychopath landlord. I’m a little worried about the voice.

The taxi takes the longest possible way to get to Casa Perla which is actually just a stones throw from the bus station. Hey ho, maybe he has a wife and ten kids to feed.

The owner of the hostal, Frederick with the strange voice, opens the door and I step into another world. I’m shown my room then he beckons me into the kitchen which looks like a film set for a 1930 'immigrant' sitcom.

I watch silently as Don Fredrick positions his stiff elderly body horizontally onto a long wooden bench. Then awkwardly, rearranging his thin legs, he lights a cigarette and stares vacantly at the antique wood stove which is also the cooker. Perla will be here soon he tells me.

I examine my room or rather my library with a bed in it.

I seem to have landed in a junk shop that also sells paintings and books. Every surface is crammed with interesting objects and the walls are covered with Frederick’s stunning paintings. Later I find out that this cultured talented man, Perla’s husband, was a well known artist and an academic before he became the victim to a stroke.

The couple have hosted visitors from all around the world for the last 18 years, and the garden, as described in the guidebook, is pretty.

Perla arrives.

She is a small stocky Chilean woman of European descent with diminutive features and a turned up nose. She’s about sixty. Most of her brown hair has been shewn off. She looks German to me. I ask her. No ,no she says. My grandparents were German. I'm completely Chilean, please!
Perla loves to read and she loves music.

Too chubby to be likened to a pixie, but pixyish in her darting eyes and quick movements, she’s a kind of hyper active sprite.

I think I may have invented her! Is she really real ?

This four foot ten energy ball is a collector of art, but she’s tired of guests. She's fatigued by one-night passers by. Fed up changing endless sheets, and bored by questions about Patagonia. A wearied hostess fueled by the need to put food on her own table.

“I’m going down town in five minutes, get your bag and come with me, I’ll show you the shopping malls” she says.

Shopping malls? Do I look like a shopping mall sort of person?

Perla reminds me of a very bossy, very kindhearted Dutch friend in Spain. I'm a little bewitched.

"Come come.” she orders, and off we scoot to the top of the hill where we will catch a “collectivo."

The collective taxi's (collectivos)operate by demand. You flag one down, climb in, wedge yourself in , tell the driver where to stop, pay about 50 centimos and off you go. The taxi will carry up to five passengers and shopping. Each taxi has a number on it's roof.

When we arrive at the shopping Mall, Perla tells me to catch a number 5, or 55, or 25, or 75, home.

“Stand by that skip over there,” she says. “Wave, and one will stop”.

She disappears.

Puerto Montt is a port city, steeped in pioneer history, the gateway to Patagonia, and the home to a very active underworld, so the guidebooks warn. It is not advised to walk alone around the harbor after dark.

It’s 6.30pm, getting dark.

I am a bit freaked I’ll forget the number of the taxi and where to stand, so for the next hour while shopping and browsing I chant and mutter to myself “skip, skip 55, or, skip skip skip 5/5/5. I also have to remember the name of the crossroads where to get off, which is Cruce Trigal.

The shopping mall is vast and full of harassed mums with noisy kids. It’s on three floors.
I buy some supplies from the food store for tomorrow’s journey.
On the second floor there’s a shop full of treasures from India. It’s an Aladdin’s cave bulging with glorious things. This is retail therapy at its best, and I didn’t know I needed it.

I wonder if Perla is a tiny bit clairvoyant?

When at last I get into taxi No 55, it’s pitch dark.

I am the fifth and last passenger to squeeze in. To my horror I find myself totally tongue-tied and unable to get a single word out of my mouth. The taxi speeds off up a hill. Eventually, Trigal becomes Tigal Trisal Tiggle, nobody helps me.
Finally I must be getting close to it, because somebody says,
“Oh Trigal! Cruce Trigal!”
“Cruce Trigal” everybody in the car repeats in unison, in a bored kind of a way.

I feel extremely stupid for a moment. But really it’s all hilarious in the bigger picture of my strange and wonderful wandering exploring life.
The taxi stops and I roll out into the middle of the road. Horns hoot. Cars swerve by. Clutching my treasures from the wondrous Indian shop, and my food supplies for the next days journey, I stagger “home" to Perla.

Perla tells me she will leave breakfast for me in the kitchen as I have to be at the airport by 6am. She's not in the mood for more conversation. Breakfast will be a flask of hot water, instant coffee, with bread and home made jam.

The hostal goes to bed early. All lights seem to be out by 9pm.
I think I'm going to be sleeping in the last guest's sheets !
The bed is hard. I don't mind.
I'm happy.
I'm safe. My angels are always with me.
I'm in Chile, about to start a great love affair with the country, though I don't know this yet.
Tomorrow at dawn I'm flying 2000 miles south, to far away Punta Arenas. My mission is to find a particular mountain and a particular turquoise lake. I've been bewitched by a photograph of both, for over two years .

REAL Patagonia is now just hours away. My mountain and my turquoise lake are three days away.

I had wanted to go south slowly, by boat, it's a four day journey. But recently one of the two boats sank. My maritime dream plunged with it.

Still, I have no hurry.

Rivers know this: there is no hurry. We shall get there someday. ~A.A. Milne

"Wandering re-establishes the original harmony which once existed between man and the universe."
~Anatole France

I wish you a wonder-filled weekend.

Finding the joy within. Encontrar la alegría en su interior.

2011-07-29T20:02:00.020+02:00

Relaxation is the prerequisite
for that inner expansion that allows a person
to express the source of inspiration and joy within.
-Gary Zucav.

I am so stuck with the screen play, I've stopped thinking about it. Life is putting healing opportunities in my path so instead of writing a movie script about how creativity heals, I am being asked to do it. In the flesh. Over and over again. And this gives me great joy. And now it's time to rest.

La relajación es el requisito previo
para que la expansión interna que permite a una persona
para expresar la fuente de inspiración y alegría en su interior.
-Gary Zucav.

Estoy muy pegado con el guion, he dejado de pensar en ello. De repente, la vida me ha dado en mi camino las oportunidades de curación para que en lugar de escribir un guión de película acerca de cómo la creatividad se cura, se me pidió que lo hiciera. Una y otra vez. Y esto me da mucha alegría. Y ahora es tiempo para descansar.

Wisdom begins in Wonder. Soctrates. (In Spanish and Ukranian)

2011-07-19T20:35:00.052+02:00

I've learned that people will forget what you said,
people will forget what you did,
but people will never forget how you made them feel.
- Maya Angelou

Wisdom begins in wonder.

La sabiduría comienza con el asombro

He aprendido que la gente se olvida de lo que dijo,
la gente se olvida lo que hiciste,
pero las personas nunca olvidarán cómo las hiciste sentir.
- Maya Angelou

Я дізнався, що люди забудуть, що ти сказав,
люди забудуть, що ти зробив,
але народ ніколи не забуде, як ви зробили їх відчувати.
- Майя Анжелу
Мудрість починається в здивуванні

'If you judge people, you have no time to love them.'
Mother Teresa

"Si juzgas a la gente, no tienes tiempo para amarla".
madre Teresa

"Якщо ви судите про людей, у вас немає часу, щоб любити їх.
мати Тереза

Some of us are born wanted. Some of us are not.

'The truth you believe and cling to makes you unavailable to hear anything new.'

Pema Chodron

Algunos de nosotros nacemos quería. Algunos de nosotros no lo son.

"La verdad usted cree y se aferran a que te hace disponible para escuchar algo nuevo."

Pema Chodron

Деякі з нас народжуються хотів. Деякі з нас немає.

'Істини ви вірите і чіплятися за змушує вас недоступні почути щось нове.

Пема Чодрон

Today I had the disturbing thought that maybe my screenplay needs to be a novel ?

Hoy he tenido el pensamiento perturbador que tal vez mi guión tiene que ser una novela?

Сьогодні у мене був тривожні думки, що може бути, мій сценарій повинен бути роман?

Wisdom begins in wonder.
La sabiduría comienza con el asombro.
Мудрість починається з подиву.

Signs Signposts and Messengers?

2011-07-15T21:23:00.110+02:00

The screen play has become like my shadow. It goes everywhere with me, though most of the time I can't see it because the conditions aren't favorable, ie., I'm to busy focusing on something else.

"Is there a difference between happiness and inner peace? Yes. Happiness depends on conditions being perceived as positive... inner peace does not." ~ Eckhart Tolle

This blog is about regaining my writers inner peace, amongst other things.

So...
Back to procrastinating with my screen play , because Sasha can't be a savant.
No. She can't. Not possibly.
Much too complicated. Maybe she can just have an outstanding, unforgettable, haunting voice? And perfect pitch ?
Okay.
If she's going to be the protagonist in the movie, what's her flaw? Or, what's her special need she has to overcome?

I love how the Universes sends us the perfect messenger or sign or signpost when we come to a cross roads in life. Writing, for me, is one way of deciphering these messages.

Two significant messengers have appeared in my life these the past two days. They've come to help me find Sasha's special need, I'm sure of this, and to put the story solidly on a new track.

I never dreamt I would be able to veer away from my original film synopsis, which I found in Patagonia. But I have, and it's thrilling. It's also challenging. At the moment,it's like trying to run in thin flip flops through deep sand across a long beach. It's a slow process. The destination is unknown. No, that's not true. Destination: Cannes Film festival, 2013. I'm inching my way towards Cannes, though sand. That's where I envision my film being shown, so strong is the confidence which lies underneath this project. The objective : to touch many hearts with an inspirational story of healing unimaginable loss. Topical always, but especially today after the killings in Norway.

The first messenger this week has been a Russian film called The Island .

The second, a book called, 'If I get to five,' (What children can teach us about Courage and Character), by Fred Epstein, a neurosurgeon specializing in Children's brain and spinal tumors.
'Call me Fred' he says to his young patients. No white coats in his children's hospital.

The film is a dark believable story of a strange tormented healer monk living 'beside' a small monastery on a remote island somewhere in Russia. It left me...it left me feeling like the sea and the island landscape it portrayed. Icy. Vast. Predominantly blue gray. Uneasy. The ending, a clever twist of fate, making a lie out of the unhappy monks adult life. However bizarre his behavior became, I never doubted he was a healer. I loved this part of the film.

At the end of the movie, I reminded myself about the joy I want to invite into my film story. The monks talked about joy and peace, but none of them except the wacky artist abbot seemed to be having any joy, or much serenity.

The films setting : I was fascinated by the starkness and beauty of the small Russian monastery where most of the action takes place. Surrounded by water, reached only by rowing boat, set in the 1970's, its exotic wooden 'onion' domes, and its separate skeletal wooden bell tower, silhouette the landscape at all times. The monastery and chapel are built on top of snow covered permafrost, surrounded by calm water, a lake or is it an inland sea? A lake I think.
The snow covered island is connected by wooden walkways.

'Crazy' Father Anatoly lives in a shed near the monastery, by himself. He tends the boiler, sleeping for penance on the coals he shovels daily. He is permanently filthy. The sky is always gray. The story is set in winter. The monks, bearded, black robed, pray in their tiny wooden chapel, or , stand on huge smooth marbled rocks, swaying towards the ocean. They call to Jesus to redeem them from their sins. Father Anatoly goes to further lengths to beg for his redemption.

The Abbot is a weak man , with lessons to learn from the protagonist, the 'mad' healer Father Anatoly who has a secret which haunts him, 24/7.

The abbot is still attached to a few worldly treasures ,including his fine hand made leather boots, his gorgeous red duvet, and his painting studio with its magnificent resident hen . The hen's eggs are required for the abbot to make his own tempera paint. He is a fine and serious artist.

*****

The book. Where to start? And I haven't finished it yet. So many things are touching me profoundly. Lancing me I think is a better word. It's a book on many levels,covering many topics. But mostly it's about the healing power of love, the healing power of music, and the healing gifts of the clown/mime artist. These by chance (?), happen to be the themes of my film.

One day, the author, neurosurgeon Fred Epstein, after reaching the top of his professional tree in New York, realizes that technical skill and the excellence of newly designed apparatus to remove brain and spinal tumors from children is not enough. Love is what is needed. And comfort. He realizes this while reading a poem written by one of his young patients who died aged 17 .

'...I am struggling, O Lord, to stay alive
I am losing my sacred strength
I am living a life of confusion
And death is very near.
I ask you reader, whoever you may be,
Take my trembling hand and warm it with care and sympathy.

I believe that love is the soul purpose of man's life
And without love life is sterile and without meaning.
But with love life has wonder.
With love life has color and beauty.'

From a poem by the late Chris Lambert

Reading this poem demolished Fred, he says. The poem led him to re route his life, and he embarked on creating a brand new hospital to be family and child friendly. The hospital would be called , the Institute for Neurology and Neuro-surgery, (the Inn).

You might assume the author had had a glittering academic career. But no. He explains as a child he was probably ADHD and certainly dyslexic at school. He was extremely slow to learn to read, and born into a family of high achievers in the field of helping others. He was considered unintelligent. He describes how his learning process was not the norm.
I know many people who fit this description, myself included. It wasn't until he finally started his medical studies that his brilliance was able to shine.

He talks about his little patients with such... I cannot find the words...maybe respect and love, but there's somehting else. And he shares how he as father used to love telling fairy stories to his own children at bed time.

One of his favorites was the Snow Queen by Hans Christian Anderson. It gives an explanation of how evil comes into the world, Fred recalls. How it threatens to freeze our hearts, and how it ( evil) can be vanquished by love.

The fairytale tells the story of a wicked hobgoblin who creates a warped looking glass that reflects everything beautiful in the world as ugly, and distorts everything good into evil. One day the mirror falls to the ground and breaks into million pieces. The tiny fragments of glass float through the air. One sliver splinter lodges in the eye of a young boy named Kay and freezes his heart into a lump of ice. Kay turns against his lifelong playmate and devoted friend Gerda, mocking her mercilessly and tearing a rose from her garden. The first blizzard of winter arrives bringing with it the Snow Queen. The Snow Queen lashes Kay's little sled to hers and whisks him off to her distant ice palace. Early next spring, little Gerda journeys far and wide across the frozen tundra until she finds Kay imprisoned in the Snow Queen's palace. At first he stares at her coldly, without love or recognition. But Gerda's warm teardrops melt his heart frozen heart. Kay begins to cry himself and the glass splinter falls from his eye. Kay and Gerda gallop home on the back of a reindeer, their everlasting friendship redeemed and renewed.

Redeemed and renewed.

Father Anatoly ,in the Russian film, facing his own imminent death, is redeemed by a fascinating flip of fate, or is he redeemed by two messengers sent by... God... an angel... the Universe?

His redemption comes unexpectedly, as he prepares himself to die. Is he mad? Or is he just being a bit more of himself ? He has the liberation of one who cares nothing for social norms. I think he has become mad with guilt, and his savior ( a young woman), has become mad through grief. It makes sense to me.
The recognition of a a soul mate, a young demented woman possessed by an evil spirit who is rowed to the island in search of a cure, enables Father Anatoly to connect with another human being for the first time in over thirty years. The young womans father accompanies her. The father, the other messenger, is an Admiral in the Russian Navy.

The young woman speaks Anatoly's language. They screech to each other mimicking the call of wild birds. Anatoly's face lights up for the first time in the film. And as he asks Jesus to free her and heal her, he too is freed from his guilt, and a few days later dies redeemed. This last redemption scene is the one I can't share with you. It would spoil the movie. That's if this interests you enough to want to watch it!

So what is the 'message' for my screenplay in these stories ?

That's tomorrows task.
Time to walk out on the mountain now that the heat of the sun has subsided, before the full moon rises.

Thank you for sharing this journey with me. I value and delight in the fact that these stories are being read all around the world. Thank you from my heart. You help me get clear.

"Is there a difference between happiness and inner peace? Yes. Happiness depends on conditions being perceived as positive... inner peace does not." ~ Eckhart Tolle

The human spirit...

2011-07-10T16:57:00.002+02:00

We work on ourselves in order to help others, but also we help others in order to work on ourselves.

Pema Chodron

Cancer is a word not a sentence.
John Diamond.

The human spirit is stronger than anything that can happen to it.
C.C.Scott

We are continually faced with great opportunities which are brilliantly disguised as unsolvable problems.
Margaret Mead

For Helen. With so much love.

To touch the soul of another ...

2011-07-05T11:42:00.052+02:00

My dear friend Julia, near Ollantaytambo , Cusco, Peru.

'To touch the soul of another human being is to walk on holy ground.'

Stephen Covey

Photos of children in Peru, digital images of an angel originally made of paper and modroc, to celebrate our fourth food- aid -drop- off to more than seventy families living in remote settlements above the tree line, near Machu Picchu.
www.highmountainaidperu.com. Well done Wither.

Last years winter food drop off. Wither takes five basic supplies, rice, sugar, salt, matches and soap to over seventy families. The supplies goes up on horse back and on llamas. It is a three day trek to get to the families.

Lunch with Father Christmas at the Glacier. Patagonia 2006.

2011-07-01T16:23:00.224+02:00

I thought it might be fun to share some of my unpublished adventures in South America with you, as well as the unfolding screen play story, especially as the screenplay is becoming extremely intense.

Lunch with Father Christmas at the Glacier.

Perito Moreno Glacier in Argentina is world famous. It’s a three hour drive from El Calafate where Father Christmas and I are staying.

Jeff (Father Christmas) and I have chosen the Alternative Glacier Tour starting at 7am. We will be picked up outside our budget accommodation, and join a bus load of young world travelers.
This is the only way you can get to the glacier, except if you hire a car. We considered the car hire, but decided the guided tour would be a lot more fun.

Jeff is a big man. An extrovert. Originally from the East End of London, 25 years ago he became a sheep farmer in Australia. He is boyish, friendly, loquacious , and endearing.

The alternative tour leaves town by an old not much used dirt road. It includes a vigorous two-hour hike with a guide and a half-hour boat trip across an opal colored lake to the face of the glacier. All other tours take the main road though flat prairie like land.

After bumping along the dirt track for about half and hour,avoiding pot holes, in the purple far distance we see the shimmering mountains of the Parque National Perito Moreno. Snow -clad, majestic, they wait to receive hundreds of visitors today.
With wild excitement I feel I'm being 'drawn by a star,' once again. This is why I am here. These mountains feed my soul.

My guidebook paints up a picture of today’s destination:

Because of it's magnificent natural beauty, this national park and was declared "World Heritage" by UNESCO in 1981.
Perito Moreno National Park, is a virgin wilderness where jagged peaks are reflected in limpid lakes, and condors wheel overhead.

There is less than one person per square kilometer here.

Unfortunately for me, despite the spectacular views, the bus journey quickly becomes one the worst days ever for my cursed food allergies. All my energies go into preventing the food inside my body from finding a way out.

I try a simple mediation, hopeless. Counting to fifty and backwards, hopeless. Picturing every house in my village and the families who live in each house. This works till I stop visualizing the scene. Then, OMG, what am I going to do now ? Stop the bus without a tree or bush in sight ?

Just as I have this thought, we stop in the middle of a vast expanse of ochre colored prairie land. Twenty of us pile out into the cool early morning air and stampede towards a watering hole/shack/cafe.

Our young guide elbows his way into the only rest room. Oh NO ! I gasp. I have to be first. Waiting graciously in queues has never been one of my best life skills.

At last, safely locked in the rest room, one of the worst five minutes of my life unfolds. Slight exaggeration.
I am very ill, throwing up everywhere, awful terrible pain. No paper hankies. No towel. No soap. Thank God for the basin and the one trickling, cold water tap.

Then it passes, it's all over, and I float back to life like a feather flicked by the wind.

The delightful shack/café looks like it’s been nailed together by a poet, an amateur carpenter, and an artist.

They sell freshly made coffee peculating on top of tall pear-shaped iron stove. The smell is strong and somehow deeply comforting. There are fat cheese sandwiches in brown bread and honey and chocolate cookies for sale, handy for people how have forgotten to bring a packed lunch.

Plump long-haired sheep, lean brown goats, dogs ,cats, and horses wander nonchalantly around the cafe under a vast blue sky.

Back in the bus, we head north towards the glacier. Because we are having an alternative experience, we detour and stop beside the opal colored lake.

The water is limpid and very cold. In the distance we can see a small piece of the glacier, the rest is hidden by pine trees.

We begin a challenging hike along the rocky shore of the lake, then veer inland, scrambling up through a dense forest dotted by enormous boulders.

The unfit stragglers have a hard job to keep up. At various points we see the whole
magnificent glacier.

I find myself striding up with the leaders despite my inappropriate green slip on shoes!

“You’re like a mountain hare” Jeff tells me when we pause to regroup.

He lags near the end of our party . His recent four day hike in almost constant torrential rain, sleeping rough, has taken its toll. He explains this with a grin, stuffing a caramel in his mouth, then stroking his beard. His eyes twinkle. My heart skips a jump.

Three days ago when I met this larger than life sixty year old Australian he was wearing blue carpet slippers and an XXL outrageous yellow Hawaiian shirt, the only dry clothes he had left he told me.

He looked like Father Christmas on holiday. His long white wispy hair was tied in a ponytail but most of it was standing straight out from his ears, as if he’d been electrocuted.

Jeff is everybody’s friend, and mine for a short while. Big smile, big belly, and big heart pulsing with life.

After our exhilarating hike though the pine forest above the opal colored lake, we arrive at the viewing platforms of the Perito Morneo Glacier.

It is truly an awesome sight, despite the coach loads of visitors who have driven three hours from El Calafate (like us) to see it.

Hundreds of visitors apparently arrive every day, seven days a week, twelve months of the year. Twenty people a day come with the alternative tour.

Jeff and I find a place in the shade and eat our lunch. It’s a hot day. It’s nice to have friend. I tell him this.

We’d searched the local shops for treats for this picnic the day before. His is an enormous special baguette, mine is a large shimmering glistening raspberry tart. The dark sweet red fruit is utterly delicious, the pastry crisp and still fresh.

Jeff ploughs into his gigantic baguette, which has all the fillings that were on offer in the bakery.

We offer each other generous portions of our special treats, but neither of us accepts the others.

A plain looking German woman in her fifties comes and sits herself right between us! She proceeds to munch her lunch, which is a sandwich and a piece of cake.

I feel very strange about this intrusion.

Jeff gives a grin then switches his interest to the glacier, which is just about 500 yards away from us.

Our German companion tries to engage me in conversation but I’m not in the mood.

Jeff gets up and invites me to explore the viewing platforms of the glacier with him. They descend in tiers till the last one is very close to the ice.

Swarms of tourist now encircle us. Swarms. I decline.

The glacier releases great thundering roars every now and again and huge chunks of ice crack and fall dramatically into the lake. It’s a thrilling sight to see and the noise of the thunder behind the ice is primordial.

My new friend slings his backpack over his shoulder and asks me again to go with him.

Our German picnic gatecrasher flaps and chatters in my face so I can’t hear what he’s saying.

I want to retreat to a private place to savor all the sights and sounds, especially the sounds, so I let Jeff slide away unanswered.

He disappears like a rainbow after a lovely little shower. And when we re meet two hours later, like the rainbow, I know he’s gone, for good.

“For everything you have missed, you have gained something else, and for everything you gain, you lose something else.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Savant Sasha, one in much more than a million.

2011-06-29T19:28:00.362+02:00

And so once again, the screenplay takes a new turn.

I love when I can stop trying to regiment my thoughts and switch to the right brain, completely. I believe this is what savants do naturally, all of the time. I am not a savant. I have read there are only 50 savants known to be alive in the world today. Most of these extraordinary 'genius' people, but not all, are severely autistic.

So, the technique of letting my film's characters 'speak to me' has done the trick. There is flow again in the screenplay story, but new questions like small mushrooms keep popping up ! A hundred new whys, and a hundred new what ifs. Often answers or 'messengers' come in strange guises. Sometimes via the Internet ! This is what happened today:

Savantism.
What is this ?
As I read about savant-ism, my heart gave a startled little jump, then a smile, then my attention was 100% grabbed. It was an unmistakable ah-ha moment.

There's old adage which states that we utilize only 10 percent of our brains, 'but Savants remind us with startling clarity, that our brains are capable of so much more.'

Savants: People with genius gifts, and huge life challenges.

Sasha. A Savant ?

Synopsis of screenplay's new twist:

A small fortune is paid by Jewish impresario Reuben, to criminal Kaleb, to kidnap baby Sasha , Reuben's illegitimate granddaughter (aged three weeks),and find her a substitute family, for life .
The 'why' will be explained later.
Sasha grows up in dire poverty in an immigrant ghetto in Paris. Abducted by petty criminal and small time
drug dealer 'Uncle Kaleb,' a Moroccan car mechanic, and 'raised' by his alcoholic wife Fatima, Sasha believes she is adopted, and that all her family died in a car crash. Mostly ignored by everybody in the neighborhood because of her extreme shyness, and strange repetitive behaviors, aged eight, Sasha is befriended by elderly kind aristocratic, now impoverished, eccentric once famous Russian singer Vladamir, the organist and choir master at a local Russian church. He discovers Sasha's singing genius. When fifteen, Vladamir who has been tutoring her for years, takes her to audition for a place at the Conservatoire de Paris and amongst hundreds of applicants, shy slum kid Sasha stuns the selection committee by singing every required piece flawlessly. Sasha has a rare musical gift called absolute pitch. After hearing any aria just once, she can sing it faultlessly. After endless tests, astonished, the professors declare her a musical genius. A savant. She begins a four year course in Classical Singing with a full scholarship, and much national publicity.

This is where I've got to with the screenplay today.

Would you want to see this film ?

Sasha had to have a special need to over come if the story was to be a hero's journey.

Is this special need too special?

I couldn't think what Sasha's challenge could be, but discovering the inspiring story of savant Daniel Tammet today, a new door has opened.
Daniel has special skills which allow him to present his ideas to the public. Based on his form of savant syndrome, musical genius Sasha would be capable of singing in public, and traveling to South America, with a little help from a friend. Who could that be? A tutor at the Sorbonne? Another student ? Somebody else?

Sasha.

Savant Sasha?

Famous Creatives who have had special needs:

Leonardo da Vinci took twelve years to paint the Mona Lisa' lips, and could write with one hand while drawing with the other (Botham, 2006, p. 13). Perfectionist tendencies, with moderate cross over discrimination deficits, and savant skills

Goethe reportedly hated the sound of barking dogs (Botham, 2006, p. 60), which could indicate hyperactivity to sound or noises; and he "could only write if he had an apple rotting in the desk drawer," (Botham, 2006, p. 60).

Charles Dickinson dropped out of school and suffered from insomnia. He believed that if his bed was facing north, and he was in the center, he might be able to sleep (Botham, 2006, p. 61). Difficulty falling asleep, staying asleep, nightmares or night terrors, is common in people with Asperger's.

“Leaders are visionaries with a poorly developed sense of fear and no concept of the odds against them.”
Robert Jarvik

Read more: http://www.disabled-world.com/artman/publish/article_2086.shtml#ixzz1Qmjd3nJ2

http://specialchildren.about.com/od/autismspectrumdisorders/a/genius.htm

Sasha's story.

2011-06-27T12:49:00.026+02:00

"Your soul knows the geography of your destiny. Your soul alone has the map of your future, therefore you can trust this indirect, oblique side of yourself. If you do, it will take you where you need to go, but more important it will teach you a kindness of rhythm in your journey."
— John O'Donohue (Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom)

Many miles away there's a shadow on the door of a cottage on the shore of a dark Scottish lake.
Walter Scott

There's a shadow on the door of my soul. It's my film story.

My screenplay characters are walking though a new door. They've come out of hiding. For the moment this feels like a consensus, but anything can change at any time.

It will be Sasha's story now. The kidnapped granddaughter.

Her challenge is to find her mother. But first she has to find her grandmother. The story is about unearthing, then understanding an accepting a tragic holocaust family 'story', which finally, brings transformation to three generations of artistic women, through Sasha. It's an archetypal, hero's journey about slaying inner self sabotaging monsters.

Log line: this is a term used in the film industry for the briefest possible summing up of the film. A great log line should be a fraction of the below, and should contain verbs like: struggles with, battles with, grapples, takes on, clashes with, or crusades, etc.

'Abducted when three weeks old, 18 year old talented Jewish music student Sasha grows up believing she was adopted. On the deathbed of her Moroccan abductor ‘Uncle Kaleb,’ she discovers the truth. He tells her her real name, nothing else. Devastated by this revelation, Sasha clashes with the world in her attempt to grapple with the truth. She starts an inner crusade after meeting a clairvoyant who convinces her to drop her singing studies and head for Bolivia where she will find her mother Shifra ,in the slums of La Paz, teaching street kids theater skills. Shifra believes her abducted daughter is long dead.
Sasha needs a passport, so her odyssey first leads her to wage war on the France authorities. They are secretive and unhelpful, but finally she tracks down her French widowed artist Holocaust survivor grandmother Anabel, who then as an act of secret atonement, accompanies her to Bolivia....'

There is so much more... but for the moment this is all I can share with you. It's a new angle. A new protagonist has stepped forward. I think this is the outcome of the casts retreat time in the refuge ! I've let them sort it out.
Sasha has come forward.

The film started as Shifra's story. Then it switched to Anabel's story. Then it became Holocaust survivor Grandfather Reuben's story.
I sank so deeply into his tragedy I felt I was drowning in love and pity for him. I also felt I was meeting disturbing ghosts from my own unknown Jewish ancestry.

So now , today, it's the bright and beautiful granddaughters story.
Despite Sasha's appallingly disadvantaged upbringing in an immigrant ghetto in Paris, through her innate innocence and exquisite voice, she manages to effortlessly brake barriers, mend and melt hearts, and bring peace to her biological family, thereby ending three generations of women being traumatized and scared at the age of 18.

The women :
Highly strung artist Anabel walked free from Auschwitz aged 18.
Her 18 year old daughter Shifra(an acrobat and an artist) becomes severely depressed when her three week old illegitimate baby Sasha is abducted.
Singer Sasha finds the shocking truth about her kidnapping when she is 18.

But, I think Sasha has to have a flaw, or a special need: she will have had this all her life.

This too will be transformed by the end of the story.
What could be her flaw, her special need?

Would you want to see this movie ?

Any suggestions what her flaw might be ?
Facebook me with ideas ?

"Art is the act of triggering deep memories, of what it means to be fully human."

David Whyte

How easy it is to forget ...

2011-06-24T19:12:00.053+02:00

ブログへようこそ、私の日本での新しいリーダー！

"Remember that your thoughts are the primary cause of everything. So when you think a sustained thought it is immediately sent out into the Universe. That thought magnetically attaches itself to the like frequency, and then within seconds sends the reading of that frequency back to you through your feelings. Put another way, your feelings are communication back to you from the Universe, telling you what frequency you are currently on. Your feelings are your frequency feedback mechanism!"

Jack Canfield

How easy it is to forget ...that we create our own heaven or hell by the thoughts we choose to project, 24/7.

So, after a brief visit to hell on Friday morning, I've learnt the lesson, got the message, and will apply it to the screenplay. It' safe now for all the screenplay characters to come out of hiding.

Versión en español

Lo fácil que es olvidar...

"Recuerdas que tus pensamientos son la causa principal de todo. Así que cuando tu piensas que un pensamiento sostenido es inmediatamente enviado al Universo. Ese pensamiento se adhiere magnéticamente a la frecuencia como, a continuación, en cuestión de segundos envía la lectura de la frecuencia de regreso a que a través de tus sentimientos. Dicho de otra manera, tus sentimientos son la comunicación contigo desde el Universo, que le dice lo que la frecuencia que se encuentra actualmente. Tus sentimientos son tu mecanismo de retroalimentación frecuencia! "

Jack Canfield

Lo fácil que es olvidar ... que nosotros creamos nuestro propio cielo o el infierno por los pensamientos que elegimos , 24 / 7.

Así que, tras una breve visita al infierno esta mañana, he aprendido la lección, entendió el mensaje, y lo aplicará al guión. Es seguro ahora para todos los personajes de mi guión salir de su escondite.

Loved before it exists.

2011-06-23T11:25:00.011+02:00

Better than a thousand hollow words, is one word that brings peace.
Buddha
更好的千餘空心字，就是一個字帶來和平。
佛

The whole difference between construction and creation is exactly this: that a thing constructed can only be loved after it is constructed; but a thing created is loved before it exists.
Charles Dickens, all those years ago.

整個建設和創造之間的差異，正是這樣的：一個東西構造只能被愛後，構造，但創建的喜歡的事情之前它的存在。
查爾斯狄更斯，所有這些年前。

A work of art, a novel, a screenplay, a sculpture, a piece of music, still in the heart, loved before it exists.

一個藝術作品，小說，劇本，雕塑，一片片的音樂，依然在心裡，愛才存在。

一個特殊的打招呼，我特別歡迎新的中國讀者。

For my new readers in China, thanks to Google translate.

Peace

2011-06-21T22:39:00.000+02:00

'If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other.'
Mother Teresa

Don't walk in front of me...( in English , Ukranian y Español)

2011-06-19T16:37:00.250+02:00

Don't walk in front of me, I may not follow.
Don't walk behind me, I may not lead.
Just walk beside me and be my friend.
Albert Camus

All the colorful individuals I've created for my screen play seem to have fled. They've escaped from my mind . Jumped ship. I feel bereaved. I can't locate them.

Five years ago in the far south of Patagonia, after a long day on an old tourist boat exploring icebergs and awesome glaciers, I had a 'vision.'
We were crossing a turquoise lagoon. I was sitting alone at the back of the motor boat. Everybody else was inside, huddled together, sleeping off a late large lunch eaten on a small island. I forget it's name. I'd eaten half a tuna sandwich and an apple.I was thirsty. My gaze was focused on the mountains we were leaving, not on the view we were heading towards.

I felt profoundly sad.
A humiliating experience on the island had triggered a tsunami of self doubt. What I was doing with my life? Where did such confusion and agonizing embarrassment come from?
Though burning tears I stared at the snow capped mountain we were leaving behind. I prayed for help. Not true. I howled into the spray and the wind. I howled inwardly to God, to the Universe, to Jesus, to Buddha, to all the saints and angels I could name.
Show me a way I pleaded to transform this inner self sabotaging monster. Free me. Change me. Help me. Now. Please. Let me see everything 'differently.'

As we raced further from the shore, I remember thinking the mountain looked like a mysterious etching. Fine black lines were deeply etched across a mass of white snow, with inky- dark smudges depicting dangerous gulleys and unexplored ravines. My eyes became fixed on this scene.
Suddenly, the etching came alive. For no more than a few fleeting seconds, I saw all the exotic characters from all the paintings I'd ever painted process across a high narrow snow-covered ridge and disappear, one by one, into a magnificent yurt made of ice and snow.
It was as if they were showing me where they really lived. As is they were going home.

In an instant it felt like all the characters I've ever created with pencil and paint, have two lives. One in the two dimensional world of painting. The other here.
From behind their frames or in my sketch books, when alone, if nobody is looking at them , they leave. This is where they come. This is where they gather. I think they're an ancient tribe of extraordinary souls, communing in an ice yurt for the good of the world, in the depths of Patagonia.

I interpreted this 'vision' as the source where all my art comes from.
I felt euphoric for at least a week.

So , perhaps my film's characters also have a source to retreat to, and a shelter to surge from ?
Maybe they've sought refuge in this Spanish shepherd's shelter? It's comforting to think of them in there. Maybe they're communing with each other, waiting for me to calm down, or rather reconnect with the bigger picture.

For the past three weeks all of my screenplay characters have been begging, yelling, tugging at my arm to be the protagonist.
It's been chaos in my heart. I'm exhausted.
Time for another serious prayer.
This film was to have been Shifra's story. Then it became her mothers. Then her fathers!

Who's story is it now?

Faith has to do with things that are not seen, and hope with things that are not in hand.
Saint Thomas Acquinas

Photos of shepherds shelters in The Picos de Europa mountains in northern Spain.

And the same story in Ukrainian for my 14 readers there, thanks to Google translate and thank you all for following the blog!!

Не ходити переді мною, я не можу слідувати.
Не ходіть за мною, я не можу навести.
Просто ходити поруч зі мною і моїм другом.
Альбер Камю
Всі барвисті людей, яких я створив для мого екрану грає, здається, втік. Вони втекли з моєї свідомості. Дезертирував з корабля. Я відчуваю загиблих. Я не можу їх знайти.

П'ять років тому на крайньому півдні Патагонії, після довгого дня на старій човні турист вивчає айсбергів і льодовиків дивним, у мене було "бачення".
Ми перетинали бірюзові лагуни. Я сидів один в задній частині моторному човні. Всі інші були всередині, притиснувшись один до одного, сплять з кінця великий обід їдять на маленькому острові. Я забув його ім'я. Я б з'їла половину бутерброда і тунця apple.I пити. Мій погляд був зосереджений на гори ми виїжджали, а не на точці зору, ми йшли назустріч.

Я відчував себе глибоко сумно.
Принизливий досвід на острові викликали цунамі собі сумніви. Те, що я роблю зі своїм життям? Звідки така плутанина і болісною збентеження прийшли?
Хоча спалювання сльози я дивився на снігові гори, ми були залишаючи позаду. Я молився про допомогу. Це не так. Я вив на бризки і вітер. Я вив внутрішньо до Бога, до Всесвіту, до Ісуса, Будди, всім святим і ангелам я міг би назвати.
Покажи мені, як я благав, щоб перетворити це внутрішня чудовисько саботувати себе. Звільни мене. Зміна мене. Допоможи мені. Зараз. Будь ласка. Дозвольте мені бачити все "по-різному.

Як ми мчали далі від берега, я пам'ятаю, як подумав гора схожа на таємничий травлення. Образотворче чорні лінії були глибоко врізалися через маса білого снігу, з чорнильно-темна плями зображують небезпечні яри і незвідані ущелини. Мої очі стали закріплені на цій сцені.
Раптом, травлення ожив. Для не більше декількох швидкоплинних секунд, я побачив, що всі екзотичні персонажі з усіх картин я коли-небудь пофарбовані процес по високим вузьким засніжених хребтом і зникають один за іншим, в чудовому юрті з льоду і снігу.
Це було, як якби вони показували мені, де вони дійсно жили. Як вони збиралися додому.
У момент, коли він відчував, що всі персонажі я коли-небудь створених за допомогою олівця і фарби, мають два життя. Один у двовимірному світі живопису. Інший тут.
Через їх рами або в моїх книгах ескіз, коли на самоті, якщо ніхто не дивиться на них, вони йдуть. Це звідки вони беруться. Це там, де вони збираються. Я думаю, що вони древнє плем'я надзвичайних душі, спілкуючись у крижаній юрти на благо світу, в глибині Патагонії.
Я сприйняв це "бачення", як джерело, де все мистецтво виходить від моєї.
Я відчув ейфорію, принаймні тиждень.

Так, може бути символи мого фільму також джерело відступити, і притулок від сплеску?
Може бути, вони шукали притулку в житло цього іспанського пастушої? Це втішно думати про них там. Може бути, вони спілкуючись один з одним, чекаючи мене, щоб заспокоїтися, або, вірніше, відновити зв'язок з більш широкої картини.

За останні три тижні всі мої персонажі сценарію були жебрацтво, кричав, смикаючи мою руку, щоб бути героєм.
Це був хаос в моєму серці. Я вичерпані.
Час для ще однією серйозною молитві.
Цей фільм повинен був бути розповідь Шифра в. Тоді він став її матері. Потім її батьків!

Хто історію вона зараз?
Віра має справу з речами, які не бачили, і сподіваюся, з речами, які не перебувають в руках.
Сент-Томас Acquinas

English to Spanish translation

No camines delante de mí.

No camines delante de mí, no puede seguir.
No camines detrás de mí, no puede conducir.
Sólo hay que pasar junto a mí y sé mi amigo.
Albert Camus

Todos los individuos que he creado para mi juego la pantalla parecen haber huido. Que han escapado de mi mente. Abandonó el barco. Me siento terrible. No puedo localizarlos.

Hace cinco años, en el extremo sur de la Patagonia, en un barco de turistas explorando los glaciares impresionantes, yo tenía una 'visión'.
Estábamos cruzando una laguna de color turquesa. Yo estaba sentado sola en la parte trasera de la lancha. Todos los demás estaban en el interior, amontonados, durmiendo despues de un almuerzo grande que tomarion en una isla. Me había comido medio sandwich de atún y una manzana. Mi mirada se centró en las montañas que nos íbamos, no en la visión que se dirigían hacia.

Me sentí profundamente triste.
Una experiencia humillante en la isla había provocado un tsunami de dudas. Que estaba haciendo con mi vida? ¿De dónde viene esta confusión y vergüenza tan dolorosa ?
A pesar de las lágrimas ardiendo me quedé mirando el nevado que dejábamos atrás. Rogué por ayuda. No es cierto. Me gritó en el rocío y el viento. Yo gritaba interiormente a Dios, al Universo, a Jesús, a Buda, a todos los santos y los ángeles que podría nombrar.
Muéstrame una manera que se declaró a transformar a este monstruo de auto sabotaje interno. Libre de mí. Me cambio. Ayúdame. Ahora. Por favor. Vamos a ver todo de forma diferente. "

A medida que corrió más lejos de la orilla, recuerdo haber pensado la montaña parecía un grabado misteriosa. Líneas finas y negro se grabaron profundamente en una masa de nieve blanca, con tinta oscura, las manchas que representan barrancos peligrosos y barrancos sin explorar. Mis ojos se fijaron en esta escena.
De repente, el grabado cobró vida. Por no más de unos segundos fugaces, vi a todos los personajes exóticos de todas las pinturas que yo había pintado el proceso a través de un angosto y muy cubierta de nieve cresta y desaparecen, una por una, en una yurta magnífico hecho de hielo y nieve.
Era como si me estaban mostrando en el que realmente vivió. Como se iban a casa.

En un instante se sintió como todos los personajes que he creado con el lápiz y la pintura, tiene dos vidas. Uno en el mundo de dos dimensiones de la pintura. El otro aquí.
Desde detrás de sus cuadros o en los libros de mi dibujo, cuando está solo, si nadie está mirando, se van. Aquí es donde vienen. Aquí es donde se reúnen. Creo que son una antigua tribu de las almas extraordinarias, en comunión en una yurta de hielo por el bien del mundo, en las profundidades de la Patagonia.

Interpreté esta visión, como la fuente de donde todo viene de mi arte.
Me sentía eufórico por lo menos durante una semana.

Por lo tanto, tal vez los personajes de mi película también tiene una fuente a retirarse a, y un refugio para aumento de?
Tal vez han buscado refugio en refugio de este pastor español? Es reconfortante pensar en ellos en ese país. Tal vez estén en comunión con los demás, esperando a que me calmara, o más bien volver a conectar con el panorama más amplio.

Para las últimas tres semanas todos los personajes de mi guión han estado pidiendo, gritando, tirando de mi brazo para ser el protagonista.
Ha sido un caos en mi corazón. Estoy exhausta.
Es hora de otra oración seria.
Esta película tenía que haber sido la historia de Shifra. Luego se convirtió en su madre. Entonces su padre!

De quien es esta historia ahora?

La fe tiene que ver con cosas que no se ven, y la esperanza con cosas que no están en la mano.
Santo Tomás de Aquino

People like us

2011-06-17T13:11:00.014+02:00

People like us are people who love stories.

The earth is full of stories just as for a fish the ocean is full of ocean.
(Ben Orki)

We are born from stories, invisible stories. (B.O)

The purpose of art is to enchant the heart and mind into a sense of its true magnificence. (B.Okri)

Even when we struggle to put the pieces together as artists and writers, it's all there, if only we can allow it through. If only we can get out of our own way.

The journey of storytelling never ends.

People like you

2011-06-14T20:10:00.071+02:00

Only those who truly love and who are truly strong can sustain their lives as a dream. You dwell in your own enchantment. Life throws stones at you, but your love and your dream change those stones into the flowers of discovery.
Even if you lose, or are defeated by things, your triumph will always be exemplary. And if no one knows it, then there are places that do. People like you enrich the dreams of the worlds, and it is dreams that create history. People like you are unknowing transformers of things, protected by your own fairy-tale, by love.”

Ben Okri. Nigerian author who uses magic realism to convey the social and political chaos in his country, 1959

“Dreams are illustrations... from the book your soul is writing about you.”

Marsha Norman

For K. and Cristian in Peru and anybody out there who might be having a few doubts about their huge dreams...
'Nunca dudes por un segundo que tus sueños son reales y maravillosas y que el fruto de tus sueños se beneficiarán a muchos, de manera que no podemos empezar a imaginar. ( Never doubt for a second that your dreams are real and wonderful and that the fruit of these dreams will help so many in ways we can't begin to imagine).

“Stories can conquer fear, you know. They can make the heart bigger.”

Ben Okri

When a little fear sneaks in...

2011-06-12T13:36:00.064+02:00

Sometimes a little fear can sneak in and cause havoc in the body as well as the heart. The part of our body which feels the fear, or becomes ill because of the fear, gives us the clue. Legs. Eyes. Feet.
Louise Hay has a lot to say about this.

So, my legs are aching for help.

Is there any connection between my pain and Reuben's? Is all this research for the screenplay bringing something ancient and ancestral to the surface?

I just read inspirational Michaela's new blog post, her details are below.

It is true to say we can heal anything, but we can't always cure everything. This is the theme of my screenplay. Creativity Heals. Will Reuben heal before he dies of a heart attack ?

'There is a brokenness
out of which comes the unbroken
a shatteredness
out of which blooms the unshatterable.

There is a sorrow beyond all grief
which leads to joy
and a fragility
out of whose depths emerges strength.

There is a hollow space,
too vast for words
through which we pass with each loss
out of whose darkness we are sanctioned into being.

There is a cry
deeper than sound
whose serrated edges cut the heart
as we break open
to the place inside
which is unbreakable and whole
while learning to sing.'

Rashani, 13th century Sufi mystic

http://michaela-myjourneybacktohealth.blogspot.com/
Sufi poem thanks to Madge Brays's website : http://www.dandeliontrust.org/projects/loving_harmony.

Gratitude

2011-06-05T15:45:00.017+02:00

A friend who is far away is sometimes much nearer than one who is at hand. Is not the mountain far more awe-inspiring and more clearly visible to one passing through the valley than to those who inhabit the mountain?
Khalil Gibran

Yes.

The following photos are for all my far away readers in now so many countries. Each day it seems a new reader opens the door to my stories and paintings and it thrills my heart to share with you like this. So for the new reader today in Saudi Arabia, the seven readers in the Ukraine, plus all the readers in the US, Iran, India
Israel, and so many other countries, not forgetting Frances in Bonnie Scotland, thank you all for sharing this adventure of blogging with me.

“The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.”

Lao Tzu

“When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be”

Lao Tzu

These photos of the marble caves at Rio Tranquillo in Patagonia were taken during my second journey there to find a story to make into a film. Having found my characters and my 'settings' in Chile, I'm now writing the screenplay, which is what this blog is mostly about, at the moment.

Painting feelings

2011-06-04T15:22:00.021+02:00

I've just discovered how to post more than one image at time! Slow leaner . So here are three of my paintings which fit in some strange way with the theme and the feelings ( which I have today) of the screenplay I'm writing.
Today is a very down day. I'm feeling lost. The high of finding Reuben's motive has plummeted.

When your eyes are tired the world is tired also. When your vision has gone no part of the world can find you. Time to go into the dark where the night has eyes to recognize its own. There you can be sure you are not beyond love. The dark will be your womb tonight. The night will give you a horizon further than you can see. You must learn one thing. The world was meant to be free in. Give up all the other worlds except the one to which you belong. Sometimes it takes darkness and the sweet confinement of your aloneness to learn anything or anyone that does not bring you alive is too small for you.

David Whyte

Falling in love with Reuben

2011-05-30T12:40:00.114+02:00

Who is this wealthy French/Jewish art collector really? What is his secret scar? And why did he commit such a dreadful crime ?

Writing a screenplay is not the same as writing a novel.

'Some things cannot be spoken or discovered until we have been stuck, incapacitated, or blown off course for awhile. Plain sailing is pleasant, but you are not going to explore many unknown realms that way.'
David Whyte

I'm trying to create a psychological profile for Reuben, but I'm stuck once again.

The problem is, I've started to empathize with this character. A lot. Deeply. I want to know him. Hug him. I think I'm beginning to fall in love with him. He's starting to feel like a long lost brother. Or maybe an uncle. Yes, a mysterious uncle. I want something wonderful and good to come out of his suffering in the concentration camp. I don't want him to become a lying, criminal, misogynist. I'm empathizing deeply with the little boy who walked out of Auschwitz. My heart bleeds for him, and five year old Anabel, who much later becomes his wife. How can this story unfold if it isn't his plan to abduct baby Sasha, his granddaughter? The whole story hinges on this terrible act.

When I first wrote the film's synopsis I hadn't figured out he was a holocaust survivor with an extraordinary artist/teacher mother, and and an artist/designer mother in law. This changes everything. With such strong, creative, resourceful women behind him, what possible believable motive could he have for arranging the kidnapping of his own grandchild?
Money ? No. Revenge? For what ? Ideology? Possibly. Pride? Why? To get media attention for what... his business?

Now if anybody reading this has a startling intuition as to what Reuben's motive could be, (you would need to scroll back and read a few of the previous posts), please, please, please leave a note below. Thank you so much in advance.

Is it impossible for male prisoners of war in whatever context, to recover from heinous abuse? Is this a curse Reuben carries, and has to offload? Will he pass this curse onto all his offspring?
Does Shifra have siblings ?
Is there nothing anybody can do to help Reuben transform this curse? Is there a missing something in his life, a father figure maybe who could save him from his own poison?

In the case of my widowed Irish grandmother , what was missing in her life was her husband. Alone, she arranged my departure from Ireland , from my mother, as soon as I was born. The destination was to be as far as her mind would stretch. Scotland. All those years ago the shame of an illegitimate child in Ireland made many women loose their marbles, as well as their babies.

One of America's leading forensic psychologists. Dr. Richard Kocsis has devoted his professional life to figuring out how to spot criminals : arsonists, rapists,abductors , serial murderers etc., and in his opinion, there's no single method for undertaking this difficult task.
But, he asks, 'Does the evidence point to a perpetrator with a fantasy or a plan?'
A fantasy or a plan.
What a great question !

Which was it Reuben? Speak to me.

"Art is the act of triggering deep memories, of what it means to be fully human."

David Whyte

Reuben

Fireflies in the Dark. Rueben's Mother ?

2011-05-25T19:41:00.045+02:00

The research for my screenplay took another twist today. On the Internet I discovered two extraordinary Jewish artists: Bauhaus trained Freidl Dicker-Brandeis, and Felix Nussbaum. Could Rueben's mother be modeled on the saintly Freidl? And could his father be modeled on Felix ?

The following is from the first article I found about Freidl:

'I was doing my rounds of the thrift shops, and found this heart rending book in the children's section. It's called Fireflies in the Dark: The Story of Friedl Dicker-Brandeis and the Children of Terezin.

It tells the story of Dicker-Brandeis, a woman who packed more art supplies than anything else when she was sent to the Terezin concentration camp. And once there,she dedicated her life to distracting children--and helping them
document their fate--with the kind of self-abnegation one really only sees in saints. She gave lessons, invented contests with prizes, helped organize plays and musicals...anything to allow the children to have some semblance of childhood in a place of death. Daily one-way "transports" to Auschwitz occurred. Thousands of
drawings by Friedl's young pupils survived...whereas these same pupils did not.

Of the 15,000 children who passed through Terezin, only 100 survived."
Source: www.Scribd.com

And on a personal note, another email from Stuart at the Irish Jewish genealogical Society in Dublin today. Somebody has responded to his posting my fathers scanty details and false name on the 'wanting to find persons list.'

Somebody out there thinks they knew my father.

Could there be a link to finding the character of Reuben,and finding my father ?

To see some of Felix's work : http://ineselo69.blogspot.com/2010/05/arte-en-berlin-en-el-siglo-xx_8737.html

Reuben. Shifra's Father.

2011-05-23T20:25:00.022+02:00

Creating memorable characters for a screen or stage play is a must. Show, but don't tell is what's required. So the writer has to get to know her characters intimately before you the audience get to meet them. This is daunting in the case of Reuben, Shifra's father. He's the baddie.

So for anybody reading this blog for the first time, creating Reuben will be a huge step forward in writing my screenplay.
So far, in my head, he is basically scarred for life by his Holocaust experiences. As an orphaned child of 10, he walks free from Auschwitz, followed by a frail fatherless five year old child called Anabel, and her young (artist) mother Sonia, carrying two slim books. Many years later, Anabel becomes his wife, and Sonia becomes a famous artist in Paris.

At the moment I haven't got a title for the movie. Maybe SHIFRA, or The Songs of Cybele. Or Sonia's Sketchbooks.

The present synopsis goes something like this:

Jewish Shifra, talented artist/dancer daughter of wealthy,cultured, damaged, French holocaust survivor parents, immigrates to Bolivia with acrobat boyfriend after long abortive Paris search to find her abducted baby daughter Cybele. A clairvoyant convinces Shifra she won't find the baby, but the baby will find her in South America when she's 18. In La Paz the young couple begin a new life teaching street kids circus skills. Four years later ,on the death of her father, Shifra's mother Anabel discovers a shocking truth. Her art collector husband Reuben arranged the abduction.

Why ?

Just last night I saw the movie August Rush. It has the same underpinning theme: Grandfather gets rid of grandchild. Why ? It's not too clear in this film except the grandfather may have a prejudiced against the Irish ?

In my case, it was my Irish grandmother who wanted rid of me. She arranged my adoption. Motive ? Shame. Her shame. She locked my mother in the coal shed every time somebody rang the door bell.
Now, in the US more than 40% of births are to unwed mothers.

Morals and motives change...
So, the task in hand now, is to create Rueben.

Age : 76 when he dies.
Physical appearance: Bearded, medium height, slim, handsome, shifty, slight turrets syndrome .
Likes beautiful women, secretive, prone to terrifying rage outbursts, lost his faith years ago... hates...?

What does he hate ?

"All the true vows are secret, you make a promise it will kill you to brake"
David Whyte.

What has Ruben vowed for himself and his family?

PS. This is what I love about writing and the mysterious creative process, things just happen. In writing this post today,I've discovered a new character, Shirfa's grandmother Sonia, an artist. Last week during my research of French Jews between 1939-45,I re-discovered the colorful life of artist Sonia Delaunay. There is a delightful story of her making a quilt for her new born son which becomes the inspiration for many subsequent paintings. I wondered how I could use something of her life and art in my story.

Have a look at the article below, and scroll down to the pic of Sonia Delaunay in a dress she designed.
Imagine having the luck to have someone like her as your grandmother! Welcome to the plot Sonia.

http://obit-mag.com/articles/the-colorful-life-of-sonia-delaunay
obit-mag.com

Who really is Shifra's father ?

2011-05-21T18:25:00.000+02:00

If you are interested in miracles, forgiveness, compassion,healing and the mysterious creative process of how a finished piece of artwork or writing comes into being, read on. If this isn't your cup of tea, fine, no probs, plenty of other blogs to interest thousands of different points of view.

I am thrilled though to discover (through the stats on the blog site) that people in Russia, Bahrain, Australia, the US, the Ukraine, Pakistan, Belarus, Bulgaria, Singapore, and about 15 other countries in including Iran, India, and Peru are reading this blog. Thank you, every single one of you.

The motive for writing the blog continues to be the desire to share my belief in the healing power of creativity, and the belief in a loving higher intelligence available to all of us through prayer, meditation, being in nature, stillness, and music. Of course there are many ,many other avenues of connecting with the Divine.

Healing though creativity is the main theme of the film I'm currently writing. This screenplay is coloring my life, and becoming, yes, a love affair.

The late John 0'Donahue has been a profound influence and inspiration in how I view the world: always from the heart, and David Whyte's haunting poetry conveys a depth of poetic vision that I hope in some small way to create on screen. So if you resonate with either of these wonderful writers, you may feel at home in my world of stories.

At the moment, the film story is unfolding by asking questions.
The current one being: who really is Shirfa's father ?
Who is this man capable of arranging his granddaughters abduction ?

Here's a clue I think :
'All true vows are secret, you make a promise it will kill you to break.'
David Whyte.

Mystical Rain.

2011-05-05T19:31:00.000+02:00

Scarlet poppies. Friendship. Aloneness. Confusion. A piece of spinach quiche. A picnic. A river drunk with melted snow. Memories.

Andalucia. 3rd of May. Three women saunter through long low mysterious tunnels of beige bamboo, crunchy underfoot, following a brown and dirty-turquoise river. One walks quickly. High caramel colored cave studded mountains to the north, silent keepers of secrets of the terrible Spanish Civil war. An enchanted pool, a favourite swimming place last summer, trashed by relentless winter storms. This is the river where Pepe saved the drowning boy,eleven years ago.
These are some tags for yesterday.

'I think you've had a mystical experience.' I say to Sasha.
We're all laughing , but not disbelieving.

'Really?'
'Yes. Baptized in the middle of a poppy field. Cleansed. Watered.'
We laugh again. We are two artist friends and Sasha, 48, a writer from the USA.

'Well, I just can't explain this.'
The American writer is struggling for words.

'All of a sudden large drops of rain fell right out of the sky and rested on my arm. They were beautiful. The sky is completely blue. The sun is dazzling. How could this be? I swear to God drops of rain fell onto my arm. I saw them. I felt them.'
Slowly and incredulously Sasha strings out and stresses her surprise.

From a distance, and unseen by her, I became her silent witness. Too far away to see the raindrops, but near enough to know she needed to be undisturbed.

She sat cross legged, facing west, in the middle of Fraskito's field of scarlet poppies. Only her head was visible. Her shortish hair is dark brown, almost black, curly, crinkled. I sat with my textile artist friend on a stone, close to the river.

Sasha needed nature to commune with her heart.
She had crossed the Atlantic to do this.

Thousands of cadmium red poppy petals quivered all around her, and thousands of white Margaritas swayed every time a breeze whispered. Wild lavender, young olive trees, and fresh new mint surrounded us. We were resting in a valley alive with wild treasures.

'I swear to God,' she repeated,' it rained on me,just for a few seconds!'

Mystical rain.

Scarlet poppies. Friendship. Aloneness. Confusion. A piece of spinach quiche. A picnic. A river full of melted snow. Memories.

'Sometimes everything has to be inscribed across the heavens so you can find the one line already written inside you.'

David Whyte

Pepe and the drowning boy. Post 22.04.2010.

On the death of Osma Bin Laden

2011-05-02T16:04:00.000+02:00

Friday was The Wedding. Sunday the Day of Remembrance for the Holocaust. Monday, today, Osma Bin Laden and his son have been killed, and it's Mothers day in Spain and Portugal and Taiwan and The Netherlands. My prayer for all of us is that the feminine voice of compassion, not vengeance flood the world. Please let us not gloat. Please let us behave with dignity.

'An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.' Mahatma Ghandi.

May Day thoughts...

2011-05-01T21:47:00.000+02:00

It's May Day.
I'm longing to be back in Peru.
It's worldwide Remembrance day of the Holocaust.
I feel sick and sad and stunned, and numbed.
So many lives lost.
My Jewish father ran away from Europe. He found himself in Dublin, changed his name, and died his hair blond. And before I was born , like a puff of smoke, he ceased to exist.

I have a Jewish retreat guest in my house for five days.
I've found help for the screenplay. His name is Charlie. He's Jewish.

So many swirling thoughts and strange feelings today, and then, Fugitive Pieces by Anne Michaels. A book which uses language in a way that stretches the brain like a piece of elastic, enthralls the soul, and lances the heart.
'The most important book I have read for forty years,' comments John Berger, no less.
It's about the 'after effects', the after life of a young Jewish boy rescued from Poland by a scholarly and kind Greek bachelor archaeologist. They flee to Greece, then emigrate to Canada. The seven year old has witnessed the killing of his parents, and disappearance of his musical sister. The disappearance of his beloved sister haunts him. Sounds very grim but the story is exquisitely laced with extraordinary images, ideas, and wisdom. A friend lent me the book. I think you'll enjoy it she said. It was John Berger's endorsement that grabbed my attention.

Here area a few lines (from it) which glued themselves to my psyche:

'The best teacher lodges an intent not in the mind but in the heart.'
'...I tried to embroider darkness...'
'... write to save yourself and someday you'll write because you've been saved...'
'... our relation to the dead continues to change because we continue to love them...'
'... what a gift you had for making one feel clear-clean...'
'... when we say we are looking for a spiritual adviser- we're really looking for somebody to tell us what to do with our bodies...'
'... we forget to learn from pleasure as well as pain...'
'... is there a man who will slowly undress my spirit...'

The screenplay: more small steps.

2011-04-04T11:53:00.000+02:00

'If you are born into the artists tribe you have to be faithful to the artists vision...'
Lawrence Durrell via Roger Housden.

I would add : if you are born into the artists tribe, you don't have a choice, you have to create.

'Inspire others to question how we live...art is a process of spiritual awakening.'
Roger Housden.

This is part of the essence of Shifra's story.

'The secret of Life is to have a task, something you devote your entire life to, something you bring everything to, every minute of every day for your whole life. And the most important thing is it must be something you cannot possibly do.'
Henry Moore, Sculptor.

I'm challenged in some ways by the last quote. Are you ?

But, it's rich material for a film story. Shifa's artistic life after the abduction of her precious baby becomes obsessive and solitary, until she starts her new life in Bolivia where she finds her artists tribe amongst underprivileged children.

Roger's website : www.rogerhousden.com. Very interesting.

Shifting Shrifa.

2011-03-29T16:10:00.000+02:00

I have become an accomplished Procrastinator.
How long is it since I wrote: 'Buzzing with energy, I'm ready to restart writing my screenplay ?'
It's been a month, if not more.

Having decided to rename Rachel (my main character) Shifra , an avalanche of exciting new ideas and people rushed into my life. They mostly arrived via the Internet. My imagination was fired, but the screen play became like a damp squib. More graphically, like a box of sodden fireworks.
When the surge of new ideas and mind opening information subsided, everything regarding the screenplay went blank and then mute.
Every time I sat down to write, I was plagued by a dreadful feeling I simply couldn't do this anymore. I felt empty, perplexed,then completely discouraged.

My bare bones Pitch, this is the film's storyline in the briefest possible synopsis, omits all the interesting bits I feel give the screenplay it's specialness.

The Pitch:

A young talented Jewish (disinherited) French artist's illegitimate baby is abducted in Paris. When a clairvoyant foretells the baby will not be found but she ( the baby) will find the mother 18 years later in South America, Shifra, the mother along with her Bolivian street performer boyfriend emigrate to Bolivia to start a new life teaching circus arts, music and dance to thousands of street children.
Many challenges follow until 18 years later Shifra's elderly alcoholic mother turns up with the 18 year old daughter, a talented singer with a promising future and a fatal flaw. It emerges that Shirfa's late father arranged the abduction, and an ancient family theme of racial hatred is exposed and finally put to rest.'

A really good pitch would be about a tenth of the above.

To explain the back story why Shirfa has been disinherited, why her wealthy parents dysfunctional family life included racism, why the role of the family's kindly grandfatherly Bolivian Butler in Shifra's upbringing is still important, and so much more, all have felt impossibly difficult to show.

Screenplays are all about showing, not about explaining verbally.

The rich creative backdrop of Shifra's installation art work, her improvised music and dance, her partners acrobatics and street theater, each become healing tools which give the film's story a powerful visual impact.
'It sounds pretty tragic to me,' said a friend when I gave her the first brief pitch.
But it's not at all I said silently, sighing inwardly. It's inspirational beautiful and moving. It's a perfect example of how creativity can transcend and heal any tragedy. But I didn't have the energy to explain this to her. That day I was running on empty.

Oh God!
The alchemy of creative energy.
When it goes, where does it go ?

After writing the book, (which charts the journey to Chile to find a story to make into a film), after publishing the book, after dreaming the film has been produced, and picturing myself in a queue at a cinema waiting to see it, after taking a summer course in storyboarding so I can storyboard it, I'm stumped.
It feels like I had all the equipment to mount a fabulous firework display, but now that equipment is useless.

So what do you do with an enormous box of damp squibs?

I bought a book called Your Writing Coach.

I read the book avidly and loved it. But back in front of my screenplay, in my studio, the disappointment and frustration rolled right back. No chapter addressed my specific problem : namely, that the most interesting part of my films story, I think, comes right at the end. It's like a whole new story starts right at the end of the film.

How can I change this ?

Do I have to include the end story? How important is it?

This has been the wall I've been hitting my head against for many months. Recently, the what ifs and the whys and all the other question writers ask themselves wouldn't come.
The inner voice became silent.
Something was seriously wrong.

There was a sense of silent grieving, of failure, of sadness, and some shame. I didn't tell anybody. The story I had gone all the way to Patagonia to find wasn't going to become a film. How could this possibly be ?

Finally, today, partly thanks to the book which got me back to asking probing questions, I've discovered the problem, and now amazingly, a solution. It happened so fast. Then spontaneously , syncronistically, the Universe confirmed all this procrastination as a kind of rite of passage, a necessary part of the writers journey. The wise and illuminating words of the poet David Whyte hit the spot...

But first,The Problem:

I've been trying to write a screenplay which has at least ten separate possible themes!
I've haven't allowed myself for one moment to veer off the original story idea and create something completely new. It's been like I made a pact with myself I couldn't break.

The Ten too many Themes:

1. Family Issues leading to disinheritance.
2. Pregnancy, fathers who leave before their child is born.
3. Abduction, Clairvoyance, immigration.
4. Working with street kids to change the chip (in ones own head).
5. Ex pat life in South America.
6. How to cope with the death of a child.
7. Suicide.
8. Living your dream in a foreign country.
9. Meeting an abducted (or adopted) child after an eighteen year disappearance.
10. Forgiving alcoholic parents for their dysfunctional parenting.

The solution:

I've narrowed it down to just a few themes, and I've found a new one to add!
I've 'asked' each story how much potential it has to 'show' that creativity and compassion can heal anything, even the pain of abduction, and the reality of not being wanted.
The bit I've still to figure out is how to show the faith that an intelligence far greater than ourselves is the only real key to authentic healing. This has been the missing theme from all of the above.

Finally, by bringing the end story to the beginning of the film, by using innovative animation to explain the back stories, something hugely exciting and completely new has emerged.

Yessssssssss!

The energy is buzzing again. The Stalking Procrastinator has taken a sabbatical.

And then the Universe with exquisite timing revealed that all this stalling is a kind of rite of passage, it's all part of the bigger picture:

'Stay in the place (of unknowing*) until the current of the story is strong enough to float you out...'

' Apprentice yourself to yourself...'

'Become the source that makes the river flow...'

from David Whyte's CD The Poetry of Self Compassion.
More on the new screenplay ideas very soon!

"If you smile when no one else is around, you really mean it." ~Andy Rooney

* of unknowing are my words.
Your Writing Coach is by Jurgen Wolff

Shifra

2011-02-08T15:42:00.000+01:00

This morning started with the clear intention to delve deep into the character of the protagonist of my film. My screenplay has been on hold for over a year. I'm ready to start again. More than ready. I'm buzzing.
I 'know' Rachel, my main character well. But I don't know how to visually bring her to life, how to explain her complicated back story on screen. This feels essential to the end of the story. And I don't know how to make her relationship believable, because I'm not sure I believe such supportive relationships actually exist.
So I'm now open to allow her to change and grow in any way she leads, yet the seeds of the original synopsis feel like my life boat.
What if I abandon that also, and start completely afresh ? What if I take her relationship away,and make her a single mother? Well a single 'person,' because a mother she no longer is. Her new born baby's been abducted. This is the start of the film.

Nope. Don't think I can do that yet.
But, for starters, my heroine needs a new name.

This is how it all unfolded.

After breakfast this morning, I go for a hike on the mountainside beside my house. I fill my lungs with the scent of the almond blossom , soak in the intense blue of the cerulean sky, sit under a tree and meditate. Then I find a path I've never explored before. Imagine living in a village for nine years and still there are many unknown tracks.
My body, which has been sick with nausea for the last ten days, now seems alive and pulsating with energy. It's a bit like a part of me has been hibernating for far too long, and suddenly, yesterday, it woke up.

So after the hike , I search the Internet for Jewish names. There are many. I have a feeling Rachel's new name should begin with an S, just a hunch, and as soon as I find Shifra, I have that 'ah ha' moment, and also possibly part of the title of the film.

SHIFRA, meaning beautiful, lovely.

Perfect.

You have to use lots of mouth muscles to say it. It's a delicious word to play with in your mouth. Try it? String it out.
Excitedly, I then check out other Shifra's, and find them all to live up to the meaning of their name.

The story of one of the 'earliest' Shifra's has touched me deeply.
I have a feeling that in this story the seed of some kind of change for my protagonist may be hiding.

Take what you like from it and leave the rest.

Shifra and Pauh.

The Book of Exodus begins where Genesis left off: with the seventy descendants of Yaakov who came down to Egypt under the protection of Yosef. A new king arises in Egypt, who fears the growing Hebrew tribe; he issues orders to kill newborn Hebrew boys. Two midwives Shifra and Puah refuse to obey, which allows Mosses to be hidden away for a few months after he is born. Left in a basket in the river, he is found by the daughter of Pharoah, who raises him in the royal household. I'd forgotten that bit if the story.

The king of Egypt says to the Hebrew midwives-
'When you deliver the Hebrew women, when you see them on the birthing stone, if it is a son, you shall kill it, and if it is a girl, she shall live.'
But the the midwives feared God and they did not do as the king of Egypt told them, they allowed the boys to live.

Some time later, the king summoned the midwives and asked,
'Why have you done this thing, why have you have allowed the boys to live?'

Shifra and Pauh replied,
'Because the Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women, they are extremely vigorous, and before the midwife can arrive, they have already given birth!' " (Exodus 1:15-19)

Genesis is filled with flawed heroes: Avraham is ready to sacrifice his son; Rivka plans Yaakov's stealing of the birthright away from Esav.
Shifra and Puah, on the other hand, seem like truly outstanding moral figures: at great personal risk, they defy Pharoah, for no other reason than their religious convictions. We might have expected them "just to follow orders," as men and women have done countless times in similar situations, from Nazi Germany to Stalinist Russia to Cambodia under Pol Pot.
Yet they don't- somehow, they overcome fear and complacency and actively resist the immorality at the core of their society. Shifra and Puah it can be said are the inspiration for the women and men famous in history for their acts of conscience: Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Scharansky, and so on.

Would the midwive's stature as moral heroes have been even greater had they not lied to Pharoah, but instead committed "true" civil disobedience? ( I.e., the kind of civil disobedience in which they do not lie, but instead accept the consequences of their actions in order to demonstrate the evil against which they protest. ) One could argue that the highest level of conscience in a corrupt society involves an active confrontation with the authorities; we might think of the prophet Natan confronting King David (2 Samuel 12), or Martin Luther King's marches into the Southern police dogs, or the brave students of Tianamen Square. Yet there is a certain moral calculus involved- if Shifra and Puah had told the truth to Pharoah, they doubtless would have ended up jailed or dead, and then would not have been able to save the otherwise doomed baby boys.

The example from history that comes to mind is ( the incredible) Harriet Tubman, smuggling escaped slaves out of the American South to freedom in the North- secrecy was the only way to preserve the life-saving network of the Underground Railroad.

Modern scholars have suggested Shirfa and Puah were not Jewish. Seeing them as Egyptian women recasts their act of "conscientious objection" as not only moral heroism but exemplary spiritual vision. This is what it means to fear ( revere?) God: to see not categories or labels but only human beings, made in the Image of the Divine - no matter how different they are, no matter how distant, no matter how much you've been taught to hate them, no matter how much they are the "other." For if Shifra and Puah were Egyptian women, then perhaps they, no less than Abraham, deserve to be counted among the very first true monotheists- for they saw the suffering and injustice among the despised slaves, and were willing to cross barriers of politics, race, class, religion and language to act as God's partners in the redemption of the world. Their "fear of God" began as conscience but fulfilled itself in holy actions, preserving life where death reigned, and bringing hope to the desperately oppressed.

Extracts from an article from The Adult Center for Liberal Jewish Learning.

Free

2011-01-19T18:41:00.000+01:00

Christian is free.
He has left Cusco jail.
I don't know any details. They don't matter anyway, now. It's over.

After three months locked up in a terribe jail, this 20 year old Peruvian man will soon get back to working as a gardener in the Sacred Valley which leads up to Machuu Picchu. He loves plants and is knowledgable about them. He is also a talented photographer.

Wendy and Jose will have their big brother to play with in the evenings.

Teresa , his mother, will be cooking for him again. Thick vegetable soups. Rice puddings maybe.

His friend Carlos will give him counseling and CCMBA healing.

His ordeal has touched me deeply. I'm not quite sure why. The story, what I know of it, is ugly and sad. Very ugly. Very sad. Ugly is a word I rarely use. Sadness can be a doorway to wonderful new ways of being.

'God turns you from one feeling to another and teaches by means of opposites, so that you will have two wings to fly, not one.'
( also Rumi).

Suerte young man, y vaya con Dios.

A surprise

2011-01-08T00:18:00.000+01:00

"I would love to live like a river flows, carried by the surprise of its own unfolding."
— John O'Donohue.

I do love to live like this.
Carried by the surprises of each day. Not knowing where any hour will lead, but trusting all is an adventure in learning more about how to be in the moment, how to love more, how to be compassionate towards everybody , and how not be be attached to anything. What follows covers all of the above !

I had wanted to share some of the stories of the Chocolatadas (the hot chocolate fiestas here in the mountains around Machu Picchu) but yesterday's surprise is still with me, an unfinished experience, so the chocolatadas will have to wait.

Yesterday (Thursday 6th),was the festival of the Tree Kings in Ollantaytambo,Peru, a little town well known for it's Inca ruins, and it's train station. Most people visiting Machu Picchu will catch the train here. This anual festival takes the form of groups of traditional dancers wearing elaborate costumes and masks, dancing around the ancient Inca streets, accompanied by small brass bands and large loud drums.Each group of dancers has it's followers. Infront of each group, sombody will be carrying a baby Jesus in a basket or wooden box. There's lots of parading up to the little chapel at the top of the village, and lots of eating and drinking. Lots. For three days. Unlike the custom in Spain when the three kings enter all major cities and small towns and often villages bearing presents for the children, here in Peru presents aren't involved. Many people from the high mountain villages come down for this fiesta. The town bulges.

Early on Thursday morning, a smiling face caught my attention as I went looking for the dancers. Who was she ? Suddenly I remembered. It was Teresa, Christian's mother ( Christian who I visited in jail in Cusco).
She hugged me warmly and introduced me to her two younger children, Wendy aged 8, and Jose aged four. Jose was whinging and whining.

A man was selling bread and biscuits nearby, Jose was hungry. After buying biscuits and sweet bread, we headed for the plaza. Jose cheered up condsiderably.
There, there were a hundred and one things to buy and eat. The four year old was still hungry. We had ice cream and then a man selling bubble mixture captured the children's imaginations.

The dancers arrived. The bands played loudly. A huge crowd of local and mountain people gathered. There were few foreigners. The music stopped and the speeches started. It was hot. I sat down on the steps and Wendy glued herself to my hip. About twenty other people were also sitting on the steps. There was an enpty space on my right. I vaguely remember a large local lady wedging herself in beside me.
We bought flimsy blue and yellow paper hats to shade our heads from the scortching sun. Every time the wind swept through the plaza the hats blew off.
We were all having fun. It was deeply touching to see Christian's sad mum enjoying herself.
I took a few photos.
The colours of the costumes were dazzling: scarlet and fuschia, oranges and purples.

Jose called me Tia ( auntie).
I bought Wendy the bubble kit.
It consisted of a small plastic bag full of pink washing up liquid, a small plastic saucer, and a little implement for blowing the bubbles through. Wendy carefully emptied the raspberry coloured liquid into the saucer , dipped the hoop into the mix , and produced huge, beautiful, bubbles much to her delight.
Jose wanted the same.
Being younger, he was not so quick to master the technique. I leant over Wendy to help him. The bands started up, the procesion began again. We walked up the hill behind everybody else, the two children blowing huge bubbles and filling the day with screams of delight.
Jose didn't always manage to make a bubble, but when he did , his little face lit up. When he didn´t, I said " Casi" ( almost). " Casi, casi, casi " he repaeted a hundred times.

At the top of the hill the band and dancers stopped infront of the chapel. Teresa wanted to buy candles. We bought candles. Inside the chapel, the family lit theirs then placed them in the three tier metal candle holder.
I was thinking about Christian and wanting to light a candle for him too, but there wasn't room for any more. The church was full of local people.

Suddenly Christian's dad appeared. He recognised me and stared to cry. His sobs wouldn't stop. He was very drunk. He hasn't been to visit his son yet. He was given money to go recently, but he didn't get further than the local bar. We stood in the chapel, in the middle of the isle. I heard myself saying to him, you must be strong for your family, you must't loose hope that he'll be free soon.

Eventualy he calmed down and said to me, "Sit down, I´ll be right back." I sat down, he disappeared.

I watched the local families pose for photos infront of the three processional boxes. Each box is attached to a plinth, on stilts. In each box stands or sits a sculpture of one of the three kings. The chaple was recently built. In their glass boxes, surrounded by flowers, the three kings are proecessed around the village for three days, accompanied by the groups of masked dancers and musicians.

I looked around for Teresa to ask if she would like a family photo. I rummaged in my bag for my camera. We could send the photo to Christian in the prison I thought.
Where's my camera?
No camera.
I rummage in my bag.
No camera. I rummage a little frantically.
I can't believe this.

Then everything turns around.

I am no longer the one supporting Christian's family. They decide to help me. I am now the one with a problem, not them.
Christian's dad Alan decides we'll go to the local radio station and offer a reward for the camera's return.
Teresa aggrees.

We have to push our way out of the chapel, though the thick crowd watching the dancers. I take Jose's hand. His whinging again , bordering on howling.
We meet Ronnie, a young friend of mine from last year's chocolatadas. Hearing the story, he decides to be my knight in shinning armour and comes with us.
Jose starts howling for ice cream. Wendy is like a fire fly, sometimes I see her sometimes she disappears.
We stop a few times for Alan to tank up again. Teresa joins him. I'm also offered a beer. I decline, not sure why.

At some stage during the walk back down the hill to the radio station, it transpires that Wendy saw a woman stealing the camera, off my lap. She is a local woman and a neighbour of Teresa.
We'll go to her house right now anounces Alan.
We traipse to the womans house .
She's not there.

We traipse back to the plaza in the boiling heat to look for her. She's not there. There are masses of people eating and drinking everywhere. This is like looking for a needle in a haystack.

Alan and Teresa decided to go back to the chapel to hunt for her. I decide I've had enough traipsing. Ronnie isn't keen on the stategy. Be very careful he warns me. The fiesta is a dangerous time. He tells me he'll ring Carlos and he'll surely help. Carlos is one of the organisors of the Chocolatadas, and a good friend.

We'll meet tomorrow morning Teresa says. Don't worry. I'm not worrying.
I tell them I will have to make a denuncia though, ( a formal registering of the theft) tomorrow, at the police station. I won't tell the police the whole story. I just need proof of the camera being stolen for the insurance back home. They understand.

So, this morning I set off alone to visit Teresa ,to see if anything has transpired overnight. Nobody's at home. Passing the neighbours house a young couple come out. They look at me with mistrust.
I head for the police station and meet Wider and Tatiana having breakfast in a cafe.
They are very upset to hear about the theft, I'm just baffled how I could have been robbed by a local woman, and baffled by my carelessness in leaving the camera on my lap while I was teaching Jose how to blow beautiful bubbles.

At the police station all is serious, slow , and slightly commical. I am told I have to go to the next town to a bank, and buy a voucher for 3 soles. This voucher is essential to making the denuncia.

I take a 'collectivo' to Urubamaba along with about 20 other pasengers, a chicken in a shawl, and a grat deal of vegetable produce. There is hardly room to breath. The rain lashes down. This is still the rainy season here
I buy the voucher, and return in another colectivo.
I go back to the police station to find the typed statement I made this morning has disappeared.
"Come back in a hour", I'm told by a young policeman. There is however an entry in the hand written log with my name beside it.
An hour later, after having my finger print taken, I leave with my denucia for the insurance company.

"My life is an indivisible whole, and all my attitudes run into one another; and they all have their rise in my insatiable love for mankind."

- Mohandas K. Gandhi

Yes.
Goodbye Ollantaytambo.
I hope the eventual new owner of my camera will have as much pleasure with it as I had.

Special Moments

2011-01-03T23:07:00.000+01:00

"Real friendship or love is not manufactured or achieved by an act of will or intention. Friendship is always an act of recognition."
— John O'Donohue (Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom)

Today I had one of those rare acts of recognition. It happened by the river as I was on my way to visit a healer.
But first I want to share another moment of recognition that happened last Wednesday in Puno, beside Lake Titicaca.

Last Wednesday morning, after a night with no sleep due to the alititude, I staggered to a chemist to buy some ibroprofen. It had rained most of the night, the pavement was wet.
Coming back, close to my hotel, I noticed a tall man maybe about 50 striding towards me. His eyes were distracted, one possibly with a catheract. His face was deeply lined and he was wearing the traditional clothes of the country people here. My first though was that he was from one of the islands on Lake Titicaca. But what was the drama, why the hurry ? He wore the familiar, local, rounded beige felt hat with red and purple ribbions waving like stremers on both sides, the thick short red fringed poncho, and black open sandles. No socks for country folk here, their weathered feet often look black.
He was unusally tall. I couldn't help staring at him as he came towards me.
Just as we became level, he caught my gaze and his eyes lit up. He grapsed both of my hands, and like finding a long lost sister, he pulled me around as if in a dance. I ended up facing the opposite direction. For a second he was elated and we both lauaghed. Then he became deadly serious and told me somebody had died. He asked me for one sole , that's about 25 centimos. I was so taken aback by this tragic story I wasn't able to take in the details.
Wait here I said, not allowing him to finish, I need to change a 20 soles note.
Crossing the road I bought a bottle of water and returned to the man with the change. I gave him five soles. He hardly looked at me , he was the picture of humiliation. Without a word he then rushed off down the street towards the lake.
Why didn't I gave him the 20 soles note ?
Why couldn't I hear the whole story ?

"Friendship is always an act of recognition."
John O'Donohue.
Money so often gets in the way.

This morning on the way to visit the healer I met an old woman by the river in Pisac. Pisac is a small village in the Sacred Valley here in Peru. It has fine Inca Ruins which draw many tourists.

By the river the sun shone and the brown water flowed fast.
I noticed a small figure standing by a signpost for a restaurant now abandoned. As I got closer I saw a fithy, tiny woman with a huge bundle strapped on her back. It seemed full of plastic sacks. Some cows were wandering infront of her, they ambled down to the river. I could see a man and a boy in the distance. The woman held out her hand and I greeted her. She couldn't speak and I think she was deaf. I pointed to the cows and she excitedly started to walk sideways towards them, still holding out the begging hand. I gave her five soles, and suggested we walk with the cows a little, I was early for my appointment.
At this stage she got more excited and started to mime something to me. I copied her mime and a small smile flashed accross her face. Still walking sideways, the same small smile coming and going, she continued to mine her story. How I wished I could understand it. Her dirty black dog got very playful with her . On his hindlegs he was almost taller than her. She brushed him away , now her smile was cheeky. I stopped, checked the time, and reluctantly realised it was time to go.

The desire to spend the whole morning, the whole day with her was so strong. What was her story, where did she live?

On this occasion money did not spoil the connection.

"Real friendship or love is not manufactured or achieved by an act of will or intention. Friendship is always an act of recognition."
"
John O'Donohue.

I am grateful that my life is full of moments of love that don't need to be categorised, just lived, breathed and shared.

And I am eternally grateful for the wisdom of the late much loved John O'Donohue. His priceless gift of illuminating the often incomprehensible lives on.

Being with the Unknown

2011-01-03T00:51:00.000+01:00

Pisac, The Sacred Valley, Peru.

Sometimes traveling is confusing. Illness or tiredness can blurr the vision of what brought one to a particular country. I have learned over many years that seldom if ever am I in a foregin country for the reason I think.

And so it's happening again.

What now ? What next ?

I have about two weeks left.

Exhaustion. Altitude sickness taking ages to wear off. Concerns about two young Peruvian friends who are in touble here, one in prison, the other separated from his wife and child. Christian's case will not be reviewed until April. The prison is grim beyound discription. My other friend feels lost to me.

Wonderful encounters along the way though with angels ( taxi drivers, steet sellers , clowns, ) who guide me to safe heavens.
The huge love I feel for the indigenious people here in Peru gets stronger and stronger. A nurse told me the childrens rosy cheeks are not just a sign of wind burn, but a sign of beauty. At birth the baby's cheecks are rubbed with the mothers blood.

Feeling very sad I haven't managed to get to Bolivia.

Confusion I once read is a good place to be. It's a thresholds, a stageing post, what has been has ended and what is to come is transpiring, finding a way to arrive, to manifest.

When the body and especially the mind is tired, the spiritual path can feel unreal. But I remind myself the bigger picture is always in place. It never leaves us, I am convinced of this. Jermiah 29.11. 'For I know the plans I have for you' says the Lord.

Often in these moments, hours, or days of not knowing what's happening, beautiful syncronicitous things can come our way, beautiful like humming birds hovering in front of us, or exciting like flocks of wild geese flying fast though a wild valley.

Wisdom is the art of being courageous and generous with the unknown.

John O'Donohue

Lake Titicaca. Peru.

2010-12-29T14:48:00.001+01:00

Lake Titicaca is just at the bottom of my road, but I haven't got the energy this morning to go further than the chemists!

The sprawling city of Puno at the north end of this famous lake, sits at staggering 12.500 feet above sea level.

It's fairly inevitable that at some point in a journey one's body will rebel against all the changes it's having to cope with.
This is what is happening right now with mine, today.

After a sleepless night, finding it very heard to breath, with two drunks shouting beneath my bedroom window at 2.30 am ( for almost an hour),I read the symptoms on the Internet this morning for altitude sickness. I am not a severe case. Thank God. I am just a poor patient. I don't have much patience with myself when my body is in discomfort, and a wee bit of panic tends to rear it's head.
At 3.30am (this morning) I got dressed, went onto my balcony, and asked very nicely if the two ' chicos '( young men) below could do me a great favour and finish their conversation further down the street. They immediately agreed and staggered off ! Beautiful silence ensued until the torrential rain started lashing the window, followed by the early morning traffic gearing into action.

Leaving for Copocabama this afternoon by bus. Hopefully the lower altitude will clear all the symptoms.

Unexpected adventures.

2010-12-21T22:20:00.003+01:00

I've been here in Ollantaytambo in the Cusco region of Peru for nine days now. Every day has been jam packed with leaning, love, and challenges !
There is so much to share and as I type so slowly I think I'll just share some 'headings' with you and then see what calls for more sharing.
Thank you to all my friends for your messages in Facebook. This is the very first time in all my years of traveling that I've had a laptop with me. WHAT LUXURY. No more searching out grotty cyber cafes in the rain or the heat.

Arriving.

I arrive in Ollantaytambo to discover my young Peruvian family are in crisis. They have separated. The young father with whom I have set up an aid project here in the mountains, tells me what he wants for his son is that he grows up to be a noble soul, with or without him at his side. His son celebrates his fifth
birthday the next day.
We meet later the same day having arranged to visit Julia, an old abandoned woman he introduced to me last year. She lives in pigsty a few miles away. I have had her in my heart and prayers every day since.

Julia

We meet Julia and after a while she remembers me. Her photo is at the top of this post. She now lives in a derelict house, in one room with a padlock on the door She wears the key around her neck. Her clothes as always are filthy. She has no inside cooking facilities, no bathroom ( of course), and for light, one candle. All her five children have died and her husband went off with another woman years ago. She has the most wonderful smile in the world.

We go for a walk and stop in the playground in front of the village school. I watch the children play. On the football field the older children are playing football, and the younger children are playing tag. They just run around each other. There is no problem that two games are taking place on the same piece of land at the same time.

Julia looks up at the mountains and as always has one hand wavering in front of her mouth.
All of a sudden she gets very excited.
'Tu papa' she says in Quechua ( she doesn't speak Spanish).
'Tu Papa...'

The most extraordinary 'thing' then unfolds.
My young friend translates.

Has your dad died he asks me?
I say yes, almost certainly, but I never met him. I was adopted.

Julia says his spirit is here, up in the mountains. Julia is jumping up and down pointing at the Andes.
I can't believe my ears.
'Your dad is here,' she continues, 'He is always with you when you travel. He is very happy for you. He says you are here to accomplish something, you have a job to do here, and he will help you.
He is very happy for you.' She keeps repeating this.
Then Julia starts to dance.

My young friend says she is experiencing my dad's happiness that I am here. Julia dances and smiles and keeps repeating the word 'Papa, Papa,' pointing at the mountain tops, looking at me in the eye.

I am overwhelmed.
'Look' says Julia pointing at the summit of one of the mountains, 'a condor.'
I can't see it, but my young friend can. He reminds me that the condor was- is the symbol for the connection to other worlds here in Peru.

We walk back to Julia's room.
I am overwhelmed with gratitude. I thought I was coming to give her a little bit of support, but I am the one who is receiving a gift. She has given me something priceless.
Never have I felt so charged with spiritual energy.

The Prison

Another young Peruvian friend is in prison again in Cusco.
I can't remember if I offered or was asked to visit him. Either way I am very willing to go.

But First...

The charity I fund raised for and support here are very busy organizing the Chocolatadas. These are hot chocolate fiestas for children living in remote settlements in the mountains near Machu Picchu. I am going to take part in six days of these.

I join the team for my first Chocolatada on Friday. They have already done three. This year they have employed two clowns to come with us. We visit about three or four viilages each day. The clown's baby comes too!

The first Chocolatada is in a remote village above Pisac. We are not allowed to take photos. The village is supported by the work of an English woman in her late 70's. Afterwards we visit two lagoons above the village. We are at high altitude. It's a mystical place the Peruvian nurse who has been with us tells me. Meditate here she says.

The journey to the prison

On Saturday I am advised to go to spend the night in Cusco. Visiting at the prison starts at 8am on Sunday morning. I am two hours from Cusco.
I leave at 5pm , negotiate a fare in a taxi, and very soon we meet the landslide which completely blocks the road to Cusco. The rocks are gigantic. I seriously wonder if this is a sign I should turn back.
Never mind says the Taxi driver grinning, we'll take the Inka trai!. So we hurtle back towards Ollantaytambo, crawl over a very primitive bridge, and then driving on the other side of the river, follow on the old Inka trail till we come to another death defying bridge which takes us back onto the main road.

I am determined to go to the prison without fear. I am sure my father's spirit is with me. I will be safe. I have no doubt, albeit a few wobbly moments before leaving for the prison on Sunday morning.

The horror stories are terrible, the worst being there are no guards inside the prison. This turns out to be not true. There are a few. I go with a friends cousin ,she knows how things work there she tells me.

All will be well.
My heart is so full for these women ( Sunday is visiting day for women and children), I feel very calm.

After almost two hours queuing outside the jail, in the heat, two women close by us start fighting. One stabs the other with a knife. The guards are quick on the scene.

For a moment I feel very frightened. I'm not sure I want to go through with this now. Then calm returns. My father is with me. I have a job to do but I don't know what it is yet. I can't stand the sight of blood my young companion tells me. I didn't see the blood or the knife. It happened so quickly.
After more waiting and many, many formalities, slowly moving though a series of locked doors, we are finally inside. We've had to rent skirts and flip flops from a seller outside the jail. Women are not allowed in in trousers or shoes. I feel strange wearing somebody else's long black skirt and wonder who was in my flip flops before me.
I have to hand over my passport. Next we have official stamps stamped on both wrists, plus a number written in felt pen. Mine is 177-7.
My lucky number.
We are then strip searched.

La Chocolatada

2010-11-16T19:12:00.000+01:00

La Chocolatada (a hot chocolate fiesta), our third fund raiser, has been a huge success.
I think it will now become an annual event in our community here in southern Spain. Next year we'll have it on a Sunday, so the supermarket owners and other shopkeepers who so kindly donated produce and gifts for the raffle can come too.
Isn't it extraordianry how something can start as just a tiny little idea in your mind one day, and then hey presto, it manifests into a huge group activity, involving a few hundred people. And then magically, something gets triggered in the hearts of others, and good will flows freely, abundantly, and beautifully.

Of course on the big day there were small things that could be improved, and they will be next year. These were nearly all my little blips ! I forgot to assign a team to make the hot chocolate! It was on my list, but it didn't get ticked. How could anybody be so forgetful ? I mean, a hot chocolate morning and no hot chocolate makers !!
Trooper-Piluka came to the rescue and told hair raising tales afterwards about running in and out of the restaurant next door to use their hot milk machine.

But overall, everybody seemed to have had a really great morning, and we made over 3000€.
Piluka , if somewhat frazzled, and her stoic assistant Mabel, lived to tell the tale.
Why not make it all day next time somebody said.

My intention was just to create a bubbly fun family type morning like last year, and whatever we collected money-wise would be a help in Peru. But with a new team of helpers this year, the event quickly took on a momentum of its own, and when Diane joined the team ( a recently retired professional fund raiser), we seemed to rev up a gear, and soon got talking about money spinners !

On the day, which threatened to rain but didn't, Fabio the young Brazilian clown, Gym the accordionist, and Tina and Dave the jazz duo, charmed both kids and adults. The Ecuadorian flautist arrived late but added an wonderful flavour of South America to the event, especially right at the end, which helped the clearing up become a delight rather than a chore.

The auction of favors MC'd by Chris Stewart was a huge success. The favours included riding lessons; a delicious meal for two cooked and brought to your door; a weeks free dog accommodation; a geopathic stress evaluation for your house; a reflexology session, and more. The auction drew great enthusiasm from the crowd, and the goodwill on behalf of the donors of the favours was overwhelming for me. Such kindness, such generosity, such big-heartedness, all to help thousands of little children living in dire poverty in many mountainous pockets of Peru. This was my dream to help these forgotten wee ones. How lovely it blossomed so vibrantly.

There were fantastic prizes for the raffle, including a long weekend in a beauitful sea side flat not too far away from our local town for a couple or a family of four; a stunning pastel drawing by local artist Ainsley Platt; dinner for two at the acclaimed Limonero restaurant, and many more prizes donated from local businesses.

I mustn't forget to mention the hundreds and hundreds of mouth watering cakes people brought to sell; the home made jams and chutneys; Sue's relaxing hand and on the spot head massages; and Glyns Aladin's cave of goodies. Also a 'guess the weight of the squash' stall brought in many euros. We had planned a 'human fruit machine', but this got forgotten ( by me) in the chaos of the lack of hot chocolate makers!
There were wonderful games carefully and thoughtfully organized for the kids by two young mums, all of which made for many smiles, a lot of money, and a real feeling of community.

And thank you to everybody, including all the stall holders, makers of bunting, bringers of flowers, and all the unsung acts of kindness which may have escaped mention here. I feel I need to wear a badge every time I come to town saying thank you for helping, I so hate the thought of forgetting to thank people.

So, here we are now, two weeks on, almost in mid November, and this should be day one for me of a two month trip to Peru. I wasn't on the Lima flight last night. Luckily, on Saturday I managed to change my booking just before the internet crashed for the weekend. I'll leave in almost three weeks time. This will be plenty of time to recover from the counting house incident.

The counting house incident.

After the fund raiser, I had a large stash of notes, and five boxes full of coins that were so heavy I could barely lift them. Eventually,I had to take them to the bank in the shopping trolley, but first they had to be counted.
Just over a week ago ,late at night, I sat at my kitchen table and started to count the hundreds of mainly small brown coins. I felt like the queen in her counting house. I have never ever seen or touched so many coins in my life.
After a few hours I was exhausted. I washed my hands quickly, had a snack, and fell into bed. A few hours later the stomach pains and headache started, then just like thunder approaching, the tummy rumbling arrived, then the rest I won't go into.
I obviously didn't wash my hands well enough, and the filthy lucre attached itself to me. The rest is history. The next four days were not pleasant, and since then my strength has been so depleted I feel like I've had a major operation.
The doctor said I would be very unwise to travel. I knew I couldn't, but part of me was determined to go.

I think Pluto squaring your Neptune indicated you driving yourself beyond good sense for the sake of your ideals - which worked of course, but then you had to pay the price.

This was my wise astrologer friend Pam's response to my question, why did this have to happen?
So, I surrendered, learnt my lesson, and felt huge relief.

I am exhausted yes, but not just by the fund raiser. Having three retreats guests in a row, one right after the Chocolatada was stretching myself too much. I know, I know. All the money I earned from these retreats will go to two other wonderful projects in Bolivia and Peru. This makes me forget about myself, this makes me 'work' without remembering to exercise and look after my physical body. But it's what makes my heart sing on all levels, and sometimes I pay the price with tiredness. A vision without a task is a day dream. A task without a vision is drudgery. And a vision and a task are the hope of the world. And finding balance in all of this is the key to keeping healthy.

Huge kindness and generoisty have been flowing in our area these past few weeks, and I've experienced once again what somebody said to me after the first fund raiser I organized.
'When you help somebody else it puts a smile on their face, and a glow in your heart.'

Yes. Tired, but glowing with gratitude.

Thank you everybody out there.

And get well very soon Val, we missed you very much.

2010-11-05T00:16:00.000+01:00

2010-10-12T22:40:00.002+02:00

La Chocolatda. Bringing hot chocolate and presents to thousands of children and the frail elderly in the High Andes at Christmas.

This little girl in Peru is enjoying a mug of hot chocolate, a sticky sweet bun, and the plastic doll on her lap has been a present from the charity www.pathoftheheart.com.

This year I will be working with a different organistaion called My Small Help ( www.mysmallhelp.org). We'll be taking her hot chocolate again (and to 4000 other underprivileged children in remote mountain villages near Machu Picchu), but this year she will be given a beautiful fair trade toy made in Peru.

My life has suddenly been taken over by organizing a third fund raiser to help this Christmas project happen.
Such generosity comes out of the cupboard when people get involved in fund raising. More stories of this coming soon !

Amarantha. A fable.

2010-08-21T19:36:00.000+02:00

Throughout history patron saints have been chosen as protectors or guardians over areas of life. These areas can include occupations, illnesses, churches , countries, places, causes - anything that is important to us. The earliest records show that people and churches were named after apostles and martyrs as early as the fourth century.

'Yes, you may photograph me.'
Amarantha, the patron saint of this small Spanish river valley agrees graciously. Today though, she is invisible to all but a few.

The taxi driver smiles and photographs the river. He doesn't see Amarantha sitting on a rock, red poppies in her hand. His gold wedding ring glints in the afternoon sun. She smiles. He loves the river. He knows it well. He got married here three years ago.

'That's a great shot' says the thin man on holiday from Germany, nervously testing each unsteady rock beside the fast flowing blue grey water. His nicotine stained index finger clicks on his new Canon camera. Amarantha's attention is taken by a tattoo of a butterfly on the foreigners scrawny wrist.

Click.
Another shot, this time of the lagoon.
'Sehr gut.' he says. 'We leave now?'

The German is hungry and says he's thinking about food. He knows this is an excuse. He can't stand still. He says he didn't have lunch. He looks all around, as if expecting an ambush. He doesn't see Amarantha, smiling.

'Tranquillo' says the taxi driver. 'Chill !'

'How on earth did they find their way down here?' said the frog to his wife.

Butterflies continue to play around Amarantha's head. She waves her hand and pouting with her mouth, exhales a long 'shoo'. Her breath has the power and the feel of a cool breeze.
'God it's chilly' says the German to the taxi driver.

The frogs wife leaps into the river and swims strongly beside her husband.
'I believe they're here to celebrate something special. Why else would Amarantha be here?' she splutters.
'Maybe. Maybe not. Who knows ?' mumbles her husband, springing elegantly back onto dry land.

Butterflies, dragonflies and turtles watch as Amarantha stands up. On the opposite side of the river a farmer is sitting in his tree, picking oranges. He waves to her.
'Thank you for coming today Amarantha,' he calls.'We need your blessing. Winter has changed the course of our river. The pools are too deep. We might loose some of our children.'
He didn't need to say another word.

Amarantha wades into the middle of the river. Lifting her arms, her ancient face glows, and out of her mouth flow the sweetest of sounds. It is not a hymn that fills the air, nor a song. If it is like anything at all, it is like overtone chanting, perfuming the late summer afternoon with pure alchemy.

The river spirits rest on stones and branches and listen, time stands still. The breeze suspends it journey, the sun dims, the clouds gather, the eagles overhead swoop, and the small land creatures gather together mesmerized.
A few drops of rain fall.

'Swim?' says the taxi driver pulling off his shirt.

The German looks like he's seen a ghost, but slowly , he strips down to his green stripped underwear. Then with a terrible yell, he plunges into the lagoon, unaware that Amaratha is only a meter away.

Soon the two men are splashing about like five year olds.

After a while, the German stands up and grabs the taxi driver's arm.
'My son drowned in a river accident ten years ago' he says. 'He was three. It was entirely my fault. This is the first time I've been in a river since then.'

The taxi driver can't find words.

A cool breeze touches both of them.
'God it's cold' says the taxi driver.

Amarantha's 'song' gets louder, but they cannot hear her.
'It doesn't matter,' agree the tall wise bamboos swaying by the banks of the river. They will feel her energy.

And as the men dry themselves with their shirts, back to back, Amarantha begins to whisper:

"May you arise each day with the voice of blessing whispering in your heart.

May the sanctuary of your soul never become haunted.

May you know the eternal longing that lives in the heart of time.

May there be kindness in your gaze when you look within.

May you allow the the wild beauty of the invisible world to gather you, mind you, and embrace you in belonging.

May you know where you truly belong."

Now dressed, turning to face each other,the taxi driver puts a gentle hand on his passengers shoulder.

'We're done' he says.

'Yes' says Amarantha, merging into the spray of the waterfall, becoming one with her river.

'You're done'.

And the butterflies and the dragonflies and the frogs and the little creatures of the fields knew she would come again, when she was needed.

She never needs to be asked.

The Spanish name Amarantha means 'rare,' and is derived from the Greek 'amarantos' meaning 'unfading'.

Amaramtha's 'song' is from John O' Donohue's poem Belonging,
from his book To Bless This Space between Us.

Prayer for Strength

2010-08-19T16:07:00.000+02:00

May I live this day
Compassionate of heart
Clear in word
Gracious in awareness
Courageous in thought
Generous in love.

From John O' Donohue's Matins
(To Bless this Space Between us)

A Historic Day in the pueblo

2010-08-10T20:44:00.000+02:00

Today is a truly historic day in our village, at least for three of us. Many of us are not bothered, life will go on just as before.

Jose, the handsome middle aged Argentinian WiFi man arrived this morning with his young assistant Marcus.
They sweated a lot and drank gallons of iced water.

Three of us in the village are now connected to WiFi, thanks to Jose, Marcus and an initiative by the local town hall.
Before, it took anything from 9-20 minutes just to enter Yahoo.

I have been waiting for this day for the last eight years!

All I can say is Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah!

Photos and Paintings

2010-08-07T23:11:00.000+02:00

Finding the Sacred in the Every Day by Meg Robinson | Make Your Own Book

Goodbye Juan

2010-07-10T11:43:00.001+02:00

It's my birthday.
Between breakfast and lunch I have two unexpected visitors. The first is elderly Manolo who reminds me I reversed into his son's new car a few days ago and scraped its shinny bumper. We'll all have a chat about it at the weekend he says. He's being very nice about it.
A few hours later a young man in a grey and orange uniform arrives and tells me I need a certificate for my gas installation. He says it's a new law, and can I read Spanish. Yes, I say, and I read some of the three pages he hands me. I am then easily conned into parting with 138€.
It's a scam my neighbors tell me later.
Why didn't I ask them before I paid up?
I wasn't expecting to deal with 'life' on my birthday, and, I've never heard of anybody being conned in our village.

It's evening now after a day with too much heat. Here in southern Spain, summer has sneaked in. We've been sitting for hours in the patio of our favourite restaurant, El Limonero. The owner is Wes, our friend the Canadian sculptor. He's created dishes for us that we've shared with the delight of eight years olds. I speak for myself. John's appetite after his chemo is small. When the deserts arrive, they're works of art, and as we dip into chocolate a rum cake, meringues with cream and blueberries, and a little mountain of cooked apples for John topped with a flower,fireworks explode outside.
Spain has beaten Germany.
Out little town goes wild with excitement.

I walk back to my car. The main street in Orgiva is alive with a group of young boys enjoying themselves recklessly, each one shouting and brandishing the Spanish flag . They run in a pack into the middle of the road as cars approach, shouting madly, VIVA ESPANA, VIVA ESPANA! The drivers respond by hooting their horns, their passengers yelling out of the windows, flags waving everywhere. It's a riot of delight, and it's a miracle nobody getting run over.
I stop and watch, momentarily overwhelmed with huge emotion. Real tears of allegiance to my adopted country take me by surprise. I love this country, and I love these people.

As I start to drive home, every car I pass blasts its horn at me. ' VIVA, VIVA ESPANA !' they all shout.
'Viva Espana', I shout back as loud as I can, and blast my horn for the next next ten minutes.
Imagine being 65 today,having meringues and blueberries, being with three dear best friends, and blasting your horn for ten minutes in the city center, well, the village center.

I'm very tired half an hour later when I park my car in our mountain village. It's a five minute walk to my house. The olive and mulberry trees always look beauitful at night lit up by the old fashioned street lights. There are many stars in the sky, Venus is especially bright. The frogs in Josepha's pond are in full throttle. All over Spain people will be celebrating, and blasting their car horns. I'm listening for the song of a nightingale, but instead I hear the sound of many subdued voices. As I approach my house I see a large group of neighbors huddled together in the lane under Juan's vine. Before my tired mind can work out what's happening, Fina runs down the slope and grabs me by the arm.

Juan's died she tells me. He died this morning. We came to tell you, but you weren't there.
'I'm so sorry,' I say. 'I'll just put my bag in the house and come up.'
This is the tradition in Spanish villages in the south. The villagers arrive to support the family. Some will stay all night. 80 year old Juan will be buried tomorrow at six.

I join them. I search the faces for Mari Carmen, Juan's daughter -in-law. She's looked after him with expertise and care for the last four years. She hugs me tightly and I tell her I think she's been a really wonderful daughter in law. I mean it and she knows I mean it.
She smiles. We're standing under the ancient vine. At last the air is cool.
She's in a state of shock. I know it hasn't been easy for her.

'Where's Joaquin ?' I ask looking around for her husband.
'Inside.'
Inside Juan's small house a room has been cleared of furniture and his tiny coffin sits on two supports. Behind the coffin is a tall silver cross with electric 'candle effect' lights.
Joaquin, aged forty, Juan's younger son, stands by the door facing his father's coffin. I kiss him on both checks and say
'Lo siento mucho,' which is what I've been taught is the right thing to say.
He looks extraordinarily beautiful in his grief. His serious weatherbeaten face is somehow softer, without defenses now, and he is wordless, guarding his father's small body. Three village women stand beside the coffin. I edge towards it. I have never seen a dead body. I want to say goodbye to my friend. Elderly Ariseli says 'Happy Birthday Margarita.' Carmen says 'I wish you many more', but I don't hear her, so she repeats it louder.
'I'm sorry', I say, 'I.....'. I'm lost for words when I see Juan's face. His face is grey. It is so dear. And he's smiling. I've never seen him smile like this. The white silk shroud comes up to his chin.

I join the women in the next room until 1.30 in the morning. We are all ages, from 14 to 80.
Somehow, maybe as a result of the intensity of the situation, the conversation veers off towards my encounter with the rip- off- agent this morning. Before I know it, all the women are grinning and laughing. It doesn't quite seem right that we should be laughing so loudly with Juan just next door in his coffin. But on reflection, had he known, I think this gentle quiet man might also have had a little laugh. May he rest in peace.

Adios Juan y Viva Espana.

Corpus Christi

2010-06-06T17:45:00.000+02:00

I nearly blotted my copybook with José our young Argentinean priest last night. I arrived early for mass for once, and Jose, who was lighting the candles, looking thinner than ever, asked me if I’d made an alter.
Madre Mia, I almost said out loud.
'I thought Corpus Christi was next week. Don’t worry,' I reassured him. 'I’ll run home and make one now, quickly. Everything I need is at hand.'

Corpus Christie is when in June we make outdoor alters around the village and then process from one to the next, singing. It’s an ancient custom here in Andalucia, but it's beginning to die out in places.

So I rushed home, got the tall green angel out of the meditation room, found the pink drapes, plucked the red Peruvian bit of fabric off the table in the hall,and collected ceramic baby Jesus from the top shelf in the pantry. This particular Baby Jesus is pure Kitsch , but gifted to me by a neighbor and absolutely obligatory for your outdoor alter. A plate with bread is required, and there should have been grapes too, but I didn’t have any. Also needed is a glass of wine, and a lighted candle, and lots of flowers in vases. The alters are made in the street, mine on the ledge below my front door where my herbs and empty flower pots sit at the moment. Flower and rose petals are strewn on the ground in front of the alter, surrounding a little cushion placed strategically for the priest to kneel on. I also brought out one of my two new Indonesian horse -candle- sticks which now stand regally and protectively at the end of the hall, beside the little chest of draws where the ceramic holy family sit. I wasn't sure if this was going a bit over the top.
When I’d almost finished arranging the alter, my neighbor Mari Carmen ,who moved to the big town three years ago but who still comes back to the village with her family for weekends in the summer, arrived splattered with paint to see what I was doing.
‘You not going to the mass?’ I asked her.
‘No’ she said grinning, pointing to her paint spotted legs. ‘I’m repainting the house.'

During my first years in the village, Mari Carmen’s alter was always the most grand, the most impressive. Hours were spent arranging and hanging the elaborate drapes, collecting broom and rose petals to scatter on the ground. All the significant props were arranged with thought and much discussion. In those days it was a communal effort with at least ten people, men and women helping. In those first years, 9 years ago, we had about 5 alters all around the village.

The custom is that after the mass, the whole village processes behind the priest, singing. The priest stops to bless each alter, and the singing stops and starts. Incense is waved over the alter. We say the Lords prayer. It’s very moving. Each year less people process, and this year there were only three alters, almost only two, had I not got the church early.

One of the most touching things about this traditional ritual is that after leaving the church and starting to process, there’s a moment where people decide who they will link arms with. This to me is such a symbol of neighborly and family love it touches me deeply.
Yesterday I had a moment of pure agony when I remembered how I had linked arms with my beloved elderly Angustia in the early years. How she had tottered, huffed, and puffed on my arm as we wound our way around the little hills and slopes of our village. Last night her small,orphaned,orange colored dog barked madly as we passed her empty house. I miss her too I said silently.
'It’s a miracle that dog’s still alive.' I said to Pili who owns the village bar.
The dog lives alone for weeks on end, feeding herself on dry food left in a shed. Pili wearing a glamorous beige tight fitting silk blouse with short sleeves said, 'Yes. Poor little thing.'
'She has a tumor the size of a grapefruit hanging under her belly.' I said.
'I know.' said Pili. 'Poor little creature.'
We tottered down the steep slope together, arms aorund each other waists for balance, she with her red sling back summer canvas shoes, me with my new white crocs.

The procession arrived at Carmen's house. The theme was blue, the alter beautifully assembled with huge pot plants of scarlet geraniums on either side. Mases of rose petals neatly surrounded the priests cushion. Carmen's fourteen your old daughter Amelia wearing new silver dangly earings and a blue top took many photos.

We sang a little breathlessly as we climbed the hill to the other Carmen's house. Her alter was the sweetest pale pink, assembled with immense love and charm. On the ground behind the rose petals, little baskets of sea shells and beach stones caught my eye.

I was so glad I had made my alter, even though it was put together so quickly, and was scruffy at both sides. I didn’t have time to hide the empty flower pots and there was quite a lot of mule shit on the track.

Loli , my dear friend of the beautiful blue and white house in the village, didn’t come, which means she was probably suffering from a terrible migraine. Her dad, Vicente, of very poor health but with a very large loving heart, walked slowly in the procession, often gripping the arm of Augustine. This alliance between the elderly man who lost his beloved wife 51 years ago, who then brought up his four daughters by himself, and my builder Augustine, a kind man in his 40’s no stranger to heartbreak, scorched my heart. It made me feel so privileged to know these people, my energy bubbled and bled, rose and tumbled, and finally settled into a state of indescribable bliss.

Viva Espana ! Viva Corpus Christi !

Wish Big

2010-06-06T17:00:00.000+02:00

I sat on a mountain track above our village last week intending to read my wise friends letter once again, but a choir of at least twenty birds, bees and insects interrupted this intention. Nightingales, cuckoos, doves, blackbirds and many other tiny birds were right in the middle of their early evening-song, their vespers. It was one of those moments of pure surprise and delight. Split second bliss. I had anticipated being on my own in quiet contemplative silence. These joyful sounds of early summer surrounded me and with a smile on my face I offered them my full attention. Right in front of me was a clump of wild purple lavender, and beside it tufts of pale green sage and willowy wild fennel. The evening scent was heady. Many hundreds of feet below on an outcrop of rock nestled our magical village, the flat- roofed whitewashed houses strewn in the shape of a half moon . Behind the village, the snow capped Sierra Nevada Mountains were in full view. Large families of slim white clouds were racing each other home before sunset.
I'd come to think about the contents of my friend’s letter. I need guidance, and I need help to promote my book.

‘Imagine that you are not affected by flattery or criticism.
Imagine that in your presence all hostility is overcome by a profound peace’.
(Deepak Chopra)

I’ve been reading Deepak Chopra again recently. One of these two lines above has been gnawing away at me. Criticism. There’s this stealthy little fear creature lurking in my head which is feeding and encouraging the dread of being damned and rejected because I talk about things in my book that some people may find uncomfortable, embarrassing, or taboo. But also, I realise I am embarrassingly susceptible to encouragement. It’s nice. I am a magnet for uncomfortable thoughts right now.
Promoting your own book is extraordinarily challenging if you’re not a naturally extroverted kind of a person. The horror of being misunderstood by those on a different path is proving to be paralyzing.
So, after a lot of un necessary agonizing about how to start publicizing the book, and after re reading my wise friends letter many times, I decided to spring into action and take a young American friends’ advice. Send it to Oprah she said. I checked her website. Oprah is approachable and Oprah loves snail mail. I have a plan.
Deepak says all we need is clarity of intent. Then, if we can get the ego out of the way, the intentions fulfil themselves...we don’t need to become involved in the details- in fact, trying too hard may backfire, he concludes.

Apart from Deepak Chopra’s Synchro Destiny (harnessing the infinite power of coincidence to create miracles) I’ve been re-reading my Danish dentist wife’s book on the Law of Attraction. It’s one of those books that mysteriously comes your way exactly when you need it. At the back of her book, Else suggests 26 affirmations to kick start the laws of attraction into action. Affirmations are those punchy little lines you write for yourself that are guaranteed to change negative beliefs and bring good things into our lives, but frequently get forgotten after a few days. Ten years ago I created and remembered a brand new one. I mouthed it, silently chanted it, and said it out loud on and off all day for months. It worked.
'All that I seek now finds me.'
And that’s how I found my tumble down house in Spain, and my new life in the magical village.
One of my dentist’s wife affirmations is:

'I think BIG!' (She goes on to elaborate...)
I think big. I wish big. My imagination is limitless. I will accomplish my wildest dreams. I will focus on what I most want to manifest. I see only possibilities. I don’t have to know how my dreams will come true. The how is the domain of the Universe.
(Jeremiah 29.11. My addition.)

I like this enormously.
And why not think big?
Why think small?

My last (Good Grief) retreat guest left yesterday. His week went well. We had some wonderful moments, many shared laughs and some lovely walks. One day he remarked after a walk around the village that nobody was very friendly. I resisted telling him the reason. My last male guest four years ago came for two weeks, stayed for four, and did a runner without paying me !The villagers were horrified. But there’s more. He disappeared saying he was going to Granada to withdraw the money he owed me, and well, went on a bender for five days leaving his precious manuscript and all his clothes in my house. I left for a pre-planned short trip to Morocco and returned to find him living like a wild animal on the mountain behind my house. The women and children in the barrio were terrified. The men took him water and sandwiches. My neighbours were very worried about me and made me promise not to have any more male guests. Just think what could have happened Margarita they said.
During the last four years a few male friends have stayed a couple of nights, and I thought it was time to trust the Universe to send somebody honest who would benefit from the peace, the beauty, and the magic of our village. John left yesterday, and emailed the same evening:
I have returned with the best of souvenirs - a self awareness and an action plan to move forwards with my life.
I think that is priceless. Thank you.

One of the ideas John and I discussed was what we are, and what would we like to be a magnet for in our lives. Annie, my last retreat guest who got caught in the ash could drama and ended up in Madrid, says she’s a magnet for fulfilling moments. John decided he’d like to be a magnet for goodness. I think I’m a magnet for people with amazing stories. Last post, I didn’t get round to telling you the story about Annie’s heroic fiancé 20 hour drive from London to scoop her up in Madrid. And when they returned to London, the next day, he was back at work. That evening he was mugged and horribly attacked by four youths on his way home.

A composer friend on hearing this story told me about his would- be attackers. Twenty years ago, he sensed he was about to be robbed, possibly beaten up and dumped, by some youths who’d given him a lift. He was hitching home after a weekend’s ‘camping’ near Stonehenge. As the car lurched along, they asked him what he’d been doing at Stonehenge. When he started to tell them about the prayers he offered, the rituals he’d made, sleeping out under the stars, they feel into a state of awkward silence. Weren’t you terrified they asked? Stonehenge!! All those ghosts, and all that stuff? No, he said, and went on to elaborate. The energy changed between them. Suddenly he was interesting, no longer their victim.
Had Annie’s fiancés attackers known what intrepid adventures he’d had in Patagonia, what his dreams are, how he is a wilderness survival guide who can live for a week or is it a month with only a piece of sting and a knife, anywhere, well, how might their lives have been changed?

So Annie is a magnet for meaningful moments. John is a magnet for goodness. I am a magnet for amazing storytellers worldwide, and would love Oprah to be magnetically attracted to read my book !

What are you a magnet for?

Wish Big!