Clouds

In this age of information 

and new century technology

We constantly hear about the cloud

Over our heads, holding our knowledge

But the way I still think of clouds

As fluffy puppies dancing in a morning's sky

As hippos that just are about to plow 

Into a juicy yummy cherry pie

As Elephants playing with a ball

Or sometimes nothing at all. 

Cows - Secrets To A Happy Marriage

Yep, there are secrets to a happy marriage. 

Understand that I'm not talking about keeping a spouse. 

Maintaining a relationship status is not the same thing. 

A marriage or any long term relationship, label it whatever you want, that you can claim to be worth your while, is one that makes you a better person on a daily basis. It is one that by the end of the day you can state that "I'm glad you are by my side today." 

It's not always an idyllic paradise, but if you can at least say that you are willing to venture for another day tomorrow, you have something special to hold on.

Now, back to the secrets, one of them is having a special language. 

My husband's grandparents literally made up a language. I guess they had to find a way to communicate secretly with all 13 kids they birthed, but regardless,  they were a great example of happy marriage.

We have not been that ambitious on our marriage, however, we do have a language that it only makes sense to the 2 of us, or the 3 of us in most cases, counting in our son. 

Another secret is laughter, and this is where the cows come into place. 

We once took an impromptus field trip and were on the road for over 2 hours. 

During this time, we had the most amazing brain-storming session about cow jokes. 

Utterly whimsical, non-nonsensical, 2 straight hours of silliness like:

Q: What are cows' favorite vegetable?

A: Cowliflower  

A: No, It's cowrrots...

Q: What do cows say at a funeral?

A: My cowdolences!

By the time we got home, we were exhausted and with our faces hurting from so much laughter. 

Even though it has been few years since this road trip, we still break out the cow jokes whenever one gift itself to us. 

And this, my friends, is a little slice of happiness.  

  

This Is An Otter Issue

I've been listening to Noel Gallagher's songs a lot lately. 
Some how, they all have new a meaning for me, a new-found appreciation for the poetry in his songs. 
However, one of them became quite comical. 
I was listening to "Don't look back in anger", for the millionth time, and suddenly, I heard parts of the lyrics to be...
""Stand up beside the fireplace
Take that look from off your face
You ain't ever gonna BIRTH MY OTTER""
From that moment on, this is all I can hear on that song. 
Maybe I did get infected when a had an incidental encounter with an otter (this is a story for another time.)
Go on, listen up. I bet you will never hear the original lyrics again. 

                           

Poisonous Nail

Recently I recollected an episode from childhood.

When I was little, maybe 4 or 5, I was chewing my nails and my mom and aunt Lu told me that I had to be very careful with his habit since we all have a poisonous nail. We all have one, and it varies from person to person, so it's better not to chew any in case you want to keep on living. 

That was the end on my habit. I simply stopped and forgot about the whole thing.

Then another day, something triggered the memory and I was baffled by it. 

I went my whole life not thinking about, but somewhere in the depths of my subconscious mind, I had the belief that we all have a poisonous nail. It took me about 35 years to bring that back and re-evaluate the facts. 

What else am I carrying around as "true fact", weighing me down along the process?

How many white little lies we just take it in?

Question the world kids. Question yourself, most of all. 

Thanks mom. I'll send you the therapy bill.  

Waves

Some days she rose up billowing like Neptune's fury, 

Some days she lay flaccid like Silentia's sleeping breasts,

She wasn't fueled by the phases of the moon, 

Her reasoning a mortal couldn't grasp.

She stopped explaining, she gave up on apologies.

She danced with the waves,

Crash, retreat, rise again.  

Cohabiting

One day she realized it was silly to be afraid of having a monster under her bed.

Along the years, they've moved up, one by one, into her head. 

Now they cohabit in a symbiotic harmony, 

Delivering new dreams, one by one, into her head. 

New Birth

Self-discovery was confused by a joint experience. 

It was put aside as meaning took precedence,

It laid dormant with mundane distraction. 

Self has been patiently waiting,

Its colors eager to show,

its labels  peeling one at a time

unfold and stating: THIS IS ME.

Meeting Gandhi

In the book Indian Summer: The Secret History of the End of an Empire the author Alex Von Tunzelmann added a bit about the death of Gandhi's wife, in 1944. 

I was very troubled by Gandhi's actions at first.

She pleaded with him to be given Castor oil to relieve her symptoms but was not granted. 

He refused to let her get any medication that could potentially cure her.  On her final days, when one of their sons came in with medicine, learning that it had to be injected, Gandhi refused under the religious belief that is was going to show a weakness of his faith.  

He stopped another son to see her on death bed because he was drunk. Instead, he filled her room with his followers and sang praise to God until she passed. 

For such an icon of non-violence, I found his actions very imposing, violating her simple wishes for relief and family. 

After all, he was Gandhi, right??? 

Well, maybe not. I had t stop myself and try to find another point of view. 

How many people do we put in altars and proliferate their words we find nice, but in truth, we know very little about them?

Gandhi himself said that we should not have a sect after him since he was just learning according to truths that are as old as the world. 

Once we realize that we are all humans, all learning, we will see that in truth, we are also gods in a path of self-discovery. 

Tereza's Diary

She thought her words documented days

She thought her Blog told of childhood antics

But she was writing a history book, 

the only history that really mattered to us.

We were kings and queens, 

knights and hobos, 

Fairies and beasts,

We were kids. We were dreams.

We were spring's self-realization. 

The Day I Questioned Buddha

I'm currently enrolled in a Coursera class about "Buddhism and Modern Psychology" where I had to write an essay for the midterm exam, answering one of few questions. Here is my essay. I'd love to hear your point of view. 

The Buddha offers a specific diagnosis of the suffering that is part of human existence. Explain the Buddha's diagnosis. Does this diagnosis ring true to you, or has the Buddha ignored some aspect of human life, or made some other mistake?


The Buddha’s diagnosis of human suffering shows the concept of humans clinging to pleasure, and with that, creating a world of suffering, referred by the word DUHKHA. Buddha explains that any time we are seeking pleasure, we not only become dependent of the eagerness to find it, in an increasing necessity, but we also create a universe of suffering, since pleasure is impermanent and fleeting in our human essence.Even while experiencing pleasure, we are already suffering from the thought that it will end.Buddha suggests that the way to become enlightened and achieve Nirvana is to avoid grasping to any pleasure, any source of satisfaction that would create anxiety in seeking to make it permanent.
Coming from a different spiritual background and studying dogmatic religions, as well as spiritual concepts and physical laws, I have just a slight grasp on what Buddha is referring to.

1. For our modern life, the best “translation” of the diagnosis of the suffering, in my opinion, would be that we don't live in the moment. We tend to not even understand what the moment is, concentrating all of our energy on preparing for the next second, or regretting the minutes passed. We spend our entire lives looking for the best way to prepare the now so we can have a better “later on”, while the later on is always one step ahead, therefore, we are always depriving ourselves of a real life.
2. We also have a genetic disposition to gather, either supplies or societal links, in which makes us possessive of things and relationships. We spend most of our time strategizing to keep them in place, creating the circumstance for our endurance as a species.

Seeking enlightenment seems to inflict a constant battle between our physical nature and our spiritual being.I believe that the decision to seek enlightenment or be Buddha-like is already putting you in a position where you invite Duhkha into your life. In seeking it, you start to suffer from the set backs along the way and cling to the notion of what it would be like when achieving it.
Maybe the message he wanted to pass was more of “let it go”, or, "observe what comes to you" instead of absorbing what comes to you.

Homesick

Yesterday I had a taste of what pizza should really be like. We went to a Brazilian Grill that had a Pizza Rodizio night and it was fabulous.  No wonder we have the saying there that "everything ends in a pizza party."

The toppings, piled high, are different than what we have here in America, and are combined in a way that makes Americans question our taste. But once they try it, it's a sure winner. 

One thing very strange for us there was the language we spoke.

We walked in and automatically said Hi instead of Oi, just because that's what is natural now. Then they look at Alex, with his Army t-shirt, assumed that we are not Brazilians, and kept talking to us in English. Half way thru we said something in Portuguese and that we are Brazilians, but throughout the night, we all kept going back and forth between both languages. It feels so unnatural to me talk in Portuguese with people that are not close friends or family. 

By now I have spent more time of my life here in the US than I had in Brasil, and that seems to take its toll sometimes.  

How to save a life?

It's so hard to take the path of least resistance. 

Last week I had such a moral dilemma about saving a lizard's life or letting the bird eat it (or take to her babies).  Who am I to choose who will live, right? I wasn't fast enough to even make a decision in that case, but it bugged me the whole day. Or maybe more, since I'm still thinking about it. 

How can I just let the bird eat him?  In the other hand, the bird also needs a meal to survive. Arghhh!

Today, I sat at Subway, eating my lunch, and a big ant in the corner of the room caught my attention. She was climbing the glass wall and falling. Climbing again, getting a little higher, and falling... This went on for about 20 minutes, each time she was making a little more progress. What a tenacity (That in itself was already a lesson). 

But then she got all the way to the top and fell. She was clearly looking for a way out.  I looked down on the corner of the floor where she kept falling and found 3 other ants there, dead. 

Then, I could not resist and became the crazy one in the restaurant saving an ant. 

Took me few tries and maneuvering to get the ant, but I got her out.  

As she walked outside, free, I could actually feel her relief.  So, I patted myself on the back and went on with my day, walking just a bit taller. 

Parallel chatter

Multiple traits of our personalities 

Having strings of parallel conversations.

In each line, we share who we are.

In each line we peel the many masks we carry around.

We feel lighter. We get deeper.

We trail between reality and the mundane.

We fly among fantasies and dark wishes.

Bulgarian wine, silly poems,

intense projections and quantum physics

All sharing the same appeal.

Wet skin, hot tea,

peculiar travels and magnetic pulses

All sharing the same desire

In each line, we lose ourselves

In each line, we find each other.