On their way …

The Wise Men are on their way to Bethlehem…Will their wisdom touch some men and women during their long travel ?

Maybe they will talk together about  Peace, show love,  bring much needed food and presents ? Give protection ?

Looking at the bright sky above, they might see Stars of Hope for the coming year ?

May the Light enveloping them all bring a feeling of comfort  and understanding.

And the war roar be replaced by the angels’ singing.

Sometimes I like to dream and imagine how different things could be. Unrealistic, I know but then at this particular time, I like to make a pause, think of others and wish everyone moments of peace, togetherness, love, health, understanding, joy.

 WISHING YOU ALL  A BLESSED CHRISTMAS, HERE AND THERE !

We shall find peace

We shall hear angels

We shall see the sky

Sparkling with diamonds (like stars).

Anton Chekhov

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Thanksgiving

HAPPY THANKSGIVING to all, here and there, who are celebrating and sharing !

Thanksgiving
The year has turned its circle,
The seasons come and go.
The harvest all is gathered in
And chilly north winds blow.

Orchards have shared their treasures,
The fields, their yellow grain,
So open wide the doorway —
Thanksgiving comes again!
Old Rhyme.

Wishing you a beautiful day !

Peace, Love, Good Health and Joy.

Isabelle

“What I highly value” by Erri de Luca

Erri De Luca (1950) is an Italian novelist, translator and  poet. He is selftaught in several languages including Ancient Hebrew and Yiddish. De Luca is also a passionate mountain climber. “The Weight of the Butterfly” is one of his books I thoroughly enjoyed reading and that illustrates beautifully this facet of Erri de Luca.

I feel like sharing with you in pictures some lines of one of his poems : “Considero Valore” or “What I highly value” :

“I highly value any form of life, snow,

a strawberry, a fly,

the mineral kingdom,

the constellation of stars.

I highly value wine, for the time of the meal,

An unvoluntary smile,

I highly value the tiredness of someone who did not spare one’s efforts,

and two elder persons in love.

I highly value all that will not be valuable tomorrow and all that has not yet  much value today.

I highly value all kinds of pains,
I highly value sparing water,

repairing a pair of shoes and

keeping silent when needed,

Rushing up to the first cry, asking permission before sitting, feeling grateful without even knowing why.

I  highly value knowing where the North is in a room, the name of the wind that dries the laundry,

The travel of a vagabond, the nun’s fence,

The patience of the condemned man, no matter the wrong,

I highly value the use of the verb “to love”, Amore,

and the hypothesis there is a Creator

Many of those values, I have not known.”

“Oeuvres sur l’eau et autres poésies, 2002”

Erri de Luca

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erri_De_Luca

Quote about books :

“I read old books because pages that have been turned many times and that bear the marks of fingers have more weight for the eyes, because each copy of a book may belong to several lives.

Books should remain free, unattended in public spaces so that they would travel with passers-by who would take them for a while and read them.  Then books should die like their readers, used by sorrows, contaminated, drowned, put inside a stove during  Winter, torn apart by children to make little paper boats. Briefly said, books should die in any way but not because of boredom and  privately owned, sentenced to life on a shelf”.

Erri de Luca

Sewing for Life

Today, October 10,  is the 10th World Day for the Abolition of Death Penalty. Many events of all kinds are organised all over the world for this occasion. This year the emphasis is put on the progress  that has been accomplished for the past ten years regarding  a universal abolition of death penalty and also on the challenges to be  taken up in the future.

This quilt is a common project created in fact  for the International Day against Torture and Death Penalty, I sewed it  a few years ago.  The many embroidered squares of cotton were sent to me by members of various Human Rights organisations in my area, namely Amnesty International, ACAT, Lifespark.  Each plain cotton square has been stitched with the name of an inmate, one who is sentenced to death.  Behind each name there  is a life, its history and a fate which in several cases has already come to its end.

This quilt took me months to put together. It is filled with so many various thoughts and emotions. It was definitely not an easy quilt to sew. Nevertheless it was one  I wanted  to create with others for this special day, as a mark of our engagement for this cause.

As I sewed along, my thoughts went to these inmates, men and women sentenced to death, waiting for years  in their cells, a respite between life and death. In one month, one year,  ten years, even longer often, they will be escorted to the death chamber. Some prisoners receive a brief letter about their scheduled day and time of death. Others will never learn about their planned execution but in the end, all of them  have to follow the guards to a chamber or a yard.

How could I not think also of the victims and their shattered  families and friends ? I thought of their loved ones whose life had been changed forever in the most devastating way. Never to forget. Some families have found inner peace in a forgiving process. They are members of reconciliation groups, like  “Murder Victims’ Families for Reconciliation” http://www.mvfr.org/. I truly admire each and everyone of them, as I believe forgiveness is probably the most powerful action a human being can accomplish.

Then I also thought of other families, often forgotten, their distress and deep sadness is just as immense. They are the prisoners’ families, innocent of any crime and yet having to face this ultimate punishment : the scheduled execution of a spouse, a son or daughter, a Dad, a family member or a friend.

What about some of these death row inmates who had been claiming their innocence for years and who were proved right, only too late ?

So many thoughts went into every stitch of this quilt. Such inexpressible feelings under the embroidered names of those men and women whose  life or mental state went  very wild, violent and uncontrollable : feelings of despair, regrets, shame, revolt, remorse,  indescribable sadness, loss, hopelessness although at times Hope would shine dimly  in their borrowed time.

Yet, there is Hope that one day a universal abolition of death penalty will prevail. I truly believe that Justice, anywhere, can use other means  than a penal revenge to protect society from dangerous criminals instead of killing them. Is killing a good response and example for showing that killing was wrong in the first place ?  “An eye for an eye and the world is blind” said Gandhi.

I expressed my Hope in choosing colourful materials, mainly African, for sewing together the various embroidered squares. As if instinctively I wished bright shades could help healing painful scars in the heart of all those concerned, in an humble and compassionnate way.

Many thanks to all of you who joined me in this project.

“A Day at the Beach”

We were out in the recreation yard, just walking in our separate cages, exchanging thoughts. After they came to take F. back to his cell, I waited for my escort but he didn’t come. I guess he forgot about me.

I walked about until I ended up by the gate. A nice breeze was coming through the bars. The sun was shining and I closed my eyes and stood there, facing it.

The rays warmed my skin. It felt good, like when I used to stand on the beach. My eyes still closed, I saw oranges, reds and yellows, and I was somewhere else.

It was still and I could hear a bird chirping somewhere in front of me. My eyes still closed, I reached towards it but my fingers collided with the gate instead and I was at once brought back.

Still, It felt good to have been away, if for only a moment.”

Roy

More information on this World Day for the Abolition of Death Penalty here :

http://www.hrea.org/index.php?doc_id=889 

(Human Rights Education Associates)

carousel

A wonderful carousel of images ! This is what my camera, a Sony Cybershot DSC-W5 has offered me for almost six years. Now it is tired of this kaleidoscope of pictures from here, there and further.  We were a good team, I think,  always close, ready to point and shoot.  Sadly  it is no longer so. My camera is beyond repair and will rest now.

Until I get a new one I will post pictures from the past months and years. During a recent Spring cleaning, I was happily surprised to see how many pictures deserved to be brought to light.  Sony did a  good job  indeed ! I look forward to sharing with you some of my earlier pictures.

Let’s embark then for a another trip on the carousel and for more images  that I hope you will enjoy.

Here is a very old carousel in an open air museum in Ballenberg, Switzerland. It could have been made in Germany according to the style of its paintings.

As I was walking along the Yarra River in Melbourne, this ancient carousel  was waiting to turn and turn with the music during a big festival. Its decorative panels looked like alpine landscapes. Maybe they were painted by a European artist longing for home ?

A poem for you. Can you remember the music of your carousel, wherever it was ? I remember the accordion, lots of it !

I saw a carousel which went through the sky
With its beautiful horses, its planes and nacelles
And thousands of children of all colours,
Thousands of children laughing happily.

Turn, turn, carousel,
All around the world and show to everyone
That happy children have all the same light in their eyes.

Janine Dufour

Mother’s Day

Today we celebrate Mother’s Day in Switzerland.  My own mother is no longer here but she will be  lovingly remembered indeed. This flower is for her;  her love of nature and flowers, her pleasure to sit in the garden,  inhale scents and let her eyes wander quietly over the greenery. She sometimes started telling of her younger years in the mountains she loved so much, a life of hard work that taught her a lot about nature, its beauty and dangers. I am happy to have written down much of all she shared although her words are in my heart forever.

The weeks preceding Mother’s Day are even more busy at  school over here… My sons always brought me lovely surprises  on the second Sunday of May. They still do but at that time there was mystery and secrecy, something they could hardly keep for themselves…”I have a surprise for you but you are not allowed to see it !”

The D-Day finally came  and  the suspense was relieved.  Both would wait till I woke and then present their gifts, nicely wrapped in a paper they sometimes  had created themselves. What an excitement  and impatience for me to open those treasures ! I received many, many wonderful drawings and gifts of all sorts, made with love and care;  I cherished them all. One of them is still in our kitchen : it is a small decorative wooden panel made for me in primary school. There was an original handmade  notebook on the right hand side that has been replaced countless times since then. Very handy. What still brings a smile whenever I write a note on my “to do list” is the poem one of my sons had composed for Mother’s Day on that particular year.

He had to find rhymes. For example : Isabelle/belle  – bruns/lapins – noir/loir – maman/tendrement. In English though it may sound a bit strange to your ears but so lovely to your heart 🙂

“Dear Isabelle,

How beautiful you are

With your  eyes

As brown as rabbits

And your  hair as black

As a   dormouse

This is just to tell you, Mama

That I love you tenderly “

The  French spelling is as creative as the images/rhymes he found and I just love the fact that his teacher left it untouched 🙂

To all mothers, mamans, mamas here and there  and elsewhere I wish a Very Happy Day filled with love, sharing, joy and gratitude.

With love

This is  quilt I sewed several years ago for a Mexican mama of many children who happens to be also a dear friend of mine, Fina.

Inchies, in images and words

They were so much in Love !

Sweet letters never stopped going to and fro.

Many tender words were shared

As flowers shone brightly for them.

Listening to their heart

They happily nestled in their home.

At sunset the breeze carried away their whispers

For a life of Love and Peace.

The  End

A Happy one 🙂

HAPPY VALENTINE´S   DAY!

“Inchies indeed”, another daysprompt suggested by Gerry in her  Gently Used Ideas Store.

http://todaysprompt.wordpress.com/2011/02/08/inchies-indeed/

An “inchy”  story I imagined for today,   few words and   tiny photos : a heart of soapstone, a pretty stationery, a Japanese book, an amaryllis, another heart, natural sculpture of moss, a quilt of houses seen in an exhibition, a Summer sunset in front of my home,  one of my friend Nicole’s mandala drawings that I colored and a pause, coffee for two.

? Spring, really ?

Today is a stormy day, rain and wind and cold temperatures again. 10°C less than these past days.  Such will be  our weekend according to the  weather forecast… No wonder if  some trees  have adopted the “question mark attitude” and ask themselves questions about the  real arrival of Spring !

Oh well, Happy Spring weekend to all anyway !

Spring (8 haiku)

spring breezes
blowing bubbles
puppy tails

spring breezes
whispering now
our secret

spring wind
sail boats in the fountain
my first kite

spring wind
Easter dresses
white flashes

spring wind
foul air
circus in town

spring wind
gazebo gone
April fool

spring wind
kite in the sky
pulling my hand

spring night
our last dance
song without end

Ben Gieske

Going South

More snow fell yesterday, a Siberian North wind blows over the landscape today and although the sun is trying to shine, its rays are still too weak to warm up the atmosphere. So I thought why not going South ? in my memories at least. When I mean South, I mean one of the most Southern parts of the world if you live in Europe. That is Australia. About three years ago I went there for a while, I left Winter behind  and found Summer in Victoria, beautifully warm and green in many places.

Walking in the bush was quite a discovery for me. Eucalypts and  plants unheard of over here. Forests that seemed to have grown in a kind of disorder  but once you walk through them, you notice a natural harmony in those twisted tree trunks and wild plants covering a rather dry soil.  The woods  were either silent or very noisy with the cockatoes’ calls.

An amazing entanglement of trees, bushes, high ferns. Sometimes a beautiful confusion, at other times a forest as imposing as a cathedral.

The beautiful canopy of a eucalypt, its silvery leaves barely moving in the heat of the day.

Here and there the Australian forests reminded me of a poem of Baudelaire :

La Nature est un temple où de vivants piliers
Laissent parfois sortir de confuses paroles ;
L’homme y passe à travers des forêts de symboles
Qui l’observent avec des regards familiers.

Nature is a temple where live pillars
Sometimes whisper confused words
Man walks across it through forests of symbols
Which observe him with familiar looks.

Charles Baudelaire
Extract from the poem  “Correspondances”

Here is a site about Australian nature that I love to visit :

http://robertburcul.wordpress.com/

Robert Burcul’s  amazing and artistic pictures of Queensland are well worth seeing.

Persistence

A real cool Sunday morning (-7°C), not much snow but frost adding a touch of magic to the landscape. The last roses in the garden, growing against the South wall of the house,  are still strong and shining in the early sun. Persistence that brings bright sparks of colour under the pale blue Winter sky.

“The Rose is gowned in petaled grace and lovely beyond telling;
She always lifts a friendly face, regardless of her dwelling.
Her golden silence can express to us, no matter where, joy shared;
give solace in distress from those who fondly care. The Rose has ways of saying things we much delight to hear;
without a spoken word, she brings and keeps our loved ones near”
~Laura S. Beck

Wishing you all a pleasant Sunday !