Just discovered that the marvelous Poetry Archive now has expanded out and has a poetry website for children, called (of course), The Children's Poetry Archive. There are various themes or poet interviews, all in a manner that hopefully children can relate to.
I wish I had done more to teach my children about poetry when they were younger, and can only hope that somewhere in their futures they will discover the beauty of this art. There is something essentially healing about poetry. It is as if words carefully chosen have the ability to put the world back into balance.
"Brene Brown studies human connection -- our ability to empathize, belong, love."
Brene Brown also does a marvelous job of arguing why we should all strive to be vulnerable instead of predictable, courageous more than brave, and kind to ourselves as well as to others. What I most enjoy about her TED Talk is the passion of her convictions is not highlighted through stories of grand deeds, but more subtly through her self-deprecating antidotes of her struggles and stumbling along the way to realising the most important thought, "I am enough."
At this time of reflection upon the challenges we have met this last year and perhaps recognition of opportunities we can stumble after in the next, watching this video places a milestone along the road of our journey forward.
Ok, there are really only two things I want to tell you, as I rush off to my first appointment of the day. First, if you are putting on an art exhibit in less than three weeks time (yikes!) there is little time to do art. Thank heavens I already made the collages. What happens to all those artists that need the buzz of pressure to work? Well, I'm certainly not one of those people. There are a thousand things that still have to be done, even the simple task of writing and sending out the invitations...
Secondly, time is not linear. There are days that skip by without so much as leaving a glip in my memory. Actually, I've forgotten what was the second thing I wanted to share with you.
For any of you who used to watch 70s American television commericals, you are in for a treat.
At the end of October, I watched the video below, which was taken six weeks after the flooding outside Pakistan's southern city of Sukkur. There is no commentary, only music and images. Please watch it. The video shows footage of enormous areas of land still under water and unconceivably large number of people living under tragically insufficient conditions as a result of the floods.
It doesn’t take any intelligence to know that while the news media has moved on to the next sensational story (i.e. today’s arrest of Julian Assange), the victims of the floods are still in desperate need of our attention and help. It is for this reason that I’ve decided to take this holiday season to offer what assistance I can, but also to take some time each day during Advent and study about the history and culture of Pakistan.
There is no time like now to shine some light upon my ignorance concerning this country and its people. If you have any suggestions as to which online newspapers, books, or blogs I should read, please leave me a comment or write me an email at the address given on this blog’s sidebar.
If you wish to find out more about how you can help, please go to the following two links (1 and 2) and learn more.
* I am not one to celebrate anniversaries, but this is my 1,111 blog posts, which is called a Schnapszahl in Germany and considered a luck number.
This is some serious kind of crazy. Also, how can someone possibly be doing this and making sure the camera is turned on at the same time, let alone making certain shots?
On another note of craziness, someone (or some ones) stole a stuffed reindeer from the top of the roof of a Finnish spiced wine shop at the Christmas Market in Luebeck. Now, without knowing any of the particulars, but after studying the scene of the crime... the robbers had to have,
a fair amount of brawn (the reindeer was heavy)
a least one ladder (the roof was high)
a means of transportation (rules out public transport)
thought the idea would be funny thing to do (could be spice-wined induced)
been ignorant of the fact that the police station was just two blocks away (so they might live here, but not be all that familar with the city infrastructure)
This might be a highly silly thing to say, but methinks the crime could have been a student prank. What do you think?
I just bought tickets to see Swan Lake with my daughter over the holiday season. It is one of my favourite classical ballets: both for its choreography and music. In one of my past lives, it was also one of the ballets I learnt to dance. That is such a long time ago, it is hard to remember or even believe in.
What I do remember was the experience of going to watch Swan Lake with an ex-ballet friend in Munich some 20 years ago (long after we had both had left the ballet profession). It was a stunning performance. I remember the pure unfettered pleasure watching the ballet brought to my heart. This was something I hadn’t experience during the years while I danced.
Gone was the critical scalpel vision every dancer posses while observing other dancers. Something that cuts each dancer’s movements into feet, extensions, pointe work, and arms; each solo into the number of pirouettes turned and heights leapt; and pas de deuxs into lifts mastered. Instead, I sat mesmerised by the graceful movement and was deeply moved by the music.
I was not feeling nostalgic for those past times, but rather the experience of watching the ballet was enhanced by the familiarity of a personal shared history. This made me wonder whether this is what happens in life in general. Do we, as we grow older, receive pleasure by watching others dance the dance of life’s ups-and-downs in a way we could not when we were younger?
