Earth tripping

From APOD today:

Flying Over the Earth at Night
Video Credit: Gateway to Astronaut Photography, NASA ; Compilation: Bitmeizer (YouTube);
Music: Freedom Fighters (Two Steps from Hell)

Explanation: Many wonders are visible when flying over the Earth at night. A compilation of such visual spectacles was captured recently from the International Space Station (ISS) and set to rousing music. Passing below are white clouds, orange city lights, lightning flashes in thunderstorms, and dark blue seas. On the horizon is the golden haze of Earth's thin atmosphere, frequently decorated by dancing auroras as the video progresses. The green parts of auroras typically remain below the space station, but the station flies right through the red and purple auroral peaks. Solar panels of the ISS are seen around the frame edges. The ominous wave of approaching brightness at the end of each sequence is just the dawn of the sunlit half of Earth, a dawn that occurs every 90 minutes.

6 months

Six months since my surgery, and minus 28 kg.


Amazing --- Having a second chance!

"Losing"

One Art

The art of losing isn’t hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother’s watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn’t a disaster.

–Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan’t have lied. It’s evident
the art of losing’s not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.

                                       ~ Elizabeth Bishop

Beira Mar

BEIRA MAR
Beira mar, beira mar novo
Foi só eu é que cantei
Ô beira mar, adeus dona
Adeus riacho de areia.

Eu não moro mais aqui
Nem aqui quero morar
Ô beira mar, adeus dona
Adeus riacho de areia

Moro na casca da lima
No caroço do juá
Ô beira mar, adeus dona
Adeus riacho de areia

Arriscando minha vida
Numa canoa furada
Ô beira mar, adeus dona
Adeus riacho de areia

Adeus, adeus, toma adeus
Que eu já vou-me embora
Eu morava no fundo d'água
Não sei quando eu voltarei
Eu sou canoeiro

Vou remando minha canoa
Lá pro poço do pesqueiro
Ô beira mar, adeus dona
Adeus riacho de areia

Procurando amor de longe
Que de perto eu já deixei
Ô beira mar, adeus dona
Adeus riacho de areia

Violeiros do Brasil
  by Myriam Taubkin em 01/09/2009 [Youtube]:

'Beira mar' de domínio público.concerto de lançamento do projeto "Violeiros do Brasil", no Chevrolet Hall, Belo Horizonte, em 8 de maio de 2009. Participação de Adelmo Arcoverde, Almir Sater, Braz da Viola, Ivan Vilela, Passoca, Paulo Freire, Pena Branca, Pereira da Viola, Roberto Corrêa, Tavinho Moura, Zé Mulato & Cassiano.
direção musical: Myriam Taubkin
direção executiva: Gabriel Paiva
video cenário: Luiz Duva

There's a hole in the boat!

  

Helena

Show in São Paulo, 1994 — 70 years old

Helena Meirelles
* Bataguassu, 13 de agosto, 1924   † Presidente Epitacio, 28 de setembro, 2005

Where the waters meet

From the 2009 show Violeiros do Brasil that I had the priviledge to go to.

 Encontro das Águas, by Tavinho Moura,
with Tavinho Moura and Almir Sater

Christmas Eve

Prepared the turkey for its roasting early tomorrow morning
(Note to self: Put in oven at 07:00!), and other ingredients for tomorrow's Christmas dinner all organized.
Ufa! What a week, but everything's now pretty much done/planned...
I see that I still haven't recovered my stamina after the surgery.

Tonight, we go to my friend and youngest son's godmother's home, for their Christmas Eve family dinner.
It will be lovely, I'm sure — dear friends, laughter, and caring.

Merry Christmas!

Gerard van Honthorst, 1622
(click to enlarge)

Christmas: Butzelmann&Roses

Remember my Butzelmann bottles?

Here they are, all dressed for Christmas!

I sent the photo, along with my Christmas card, to the friend who sent them from Germany.
To you, dear:

Christmas

Got the tree up!
Happy dance, happy dance!
(This year, I actually got it up on Dec. 12th — Yea! Triple happy dance!)

 Tannenbaum 2011

click to enlarge

Got some candles lit...

And a few friends 'round the house...

 

(it's blurred cause the critters won't stay still!...)

(... not my hand shaking!)

Happy Holidays to all!

Christmas penguinis

Christmas heart

  "Christmas is not just a holiday for sparkles, roast and trees.
   It's something you do by sharing your hands and your heart
   with people everyday."  ~  overthinking

A Touching Christmas Day by ~overthinking

Photography / Conceptual©2010-2012 ~ overthinking

Qigong

For some time now I've been interested in qigong. Its soft, flowing movements appeal greatly to me. I haven't yet found a teacher where I live, but found many videos on Youtube.
I especially liked the ones by Cheyne Towers.

The following one, although for someone who already knows the moves, is very calming to watch.

Tears in the Rain

I've loved science fiction since a teenager.
When the Blade Runner movie, based on Philip K. Dick's 1968 "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?", came out, I recognized that world from so many alternate futures I'd come across.
One scene in its touching, longing, beauty became part of my emotional make-up.

Aptly expressing the human condition, to which the android Roy Batty most ardently desired —and, in my view, in the end achieved it with this soliloquy— is one of the most beautiful and heartbreaking moments in cinema...

 "Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it?

  That's what it is to be a slave."

 "I've seen things you people wouldn't believe...

  Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion.

  I watched C-beams...

        glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate.

 All those...  moments

       will be lost...  in Time,

       like...  tears...  in the rain.

 Time...  to die."

                                              — "... The final form of the speech was improvised by Rutger Hauer, the actor who delivers it." from

Thanksgiving

via

Today I spoke with/saw with Skype my family in the States, while they gathered and cooked for Thanksgiving dinner at my sister's house.

How wonderful are comp video calls?

One more blessing to give thanks for today.

There I was, albeit stuck in a propped up flat box, in the their midst sharing the holiday in New England!

Simultaneously, I'm sitting in my chair in the spring/near-summer of my hemisphere, roughly 7427.1 km (4615 miles)* away, as some crazy bird would fly.

And that's about a third, very roughly, of the Earth's diameter!

(This little bit of info to add to my collection of interesting but useless information.)

HAPPY THANKSGIVING TO ALL!

via

For Mothers and Lovers

From my newest passion, for all mothers and lovers, with a humorous twist...

Safe Travels (Don't Die)
                               — Lisa Hannigan, from album her Passenger
Please eat your greens
and don't sit close to screens,
your eyes are a means to an end.
And I would be sorry if, due to your hurry,
you were hit by a lorry my friend.

Like you always say,
Safe travels, don't die, don't die,
safe travels, don't die.

Don't walk on ice, no matter how nice,
how sturdy, enticing it seems.
Please cross at the lights
and don't start fires or fights and
don't dabble in heights on caffeine.

Like you always say
Safe travels, don't die, don't die,
safe travels, don't die.

Don't swallow bleach
out on Sandymount beach,
I'm not sure I'd reach you in time my boy.
Please don't bungee jump
or ignore a strange lump
and a gasoline pump's not a toy.

Like you always say
Safe travels, don't die, don't die,
safe travels, don't die.

                                   — Lyrics from her site

For sure I'm asking Santa for two cds!

Halleluja!

I'm always amazed at Youtube...
All these songs that I've wanted for years to discover the what and the who about, I can now with a few jumbled words actually track them down.

Amazing.

Such a song is this: beautiful melody and voice - Leonard Cohen singing his composition Halleluia.

Hallelujah 
             — originally version, by Leonard Cohen

Now I've heard there was a secret chord
That David played, and it pleased the Lord
But you don't really care for music, do you?
It goes like this
The fourth, the fifth
The minor fall, the major lift
The baffled king composing Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah

Your faith was strong but you needed proof
You saw her bathing on the roof
Her beauty and the moonlight overthrew you
She tied you
To a kitchen chair
She broke your throne, and she cut your hair
And from your lips she drew the Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah

You say I took the name in vain
I don't even know the name
But if I did, well really, what's it to you?
There's a blaze of light
In every word
It doesn't matter which you heard
The holy or the broken Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah

I did my best, it wasn't much
I couldn't feel, so I tried to touch
I've told the truth, I didn't come to fool you
And even though
It all went wrong
I'll stand before the Lord of Song
With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah

The Halleluja part is especially apt for this moment: the process I've been working on since February has finally came to fruition after a loooooooot of ups&downs and work & prayer. Signed, sealed and delivered. Halleluja!

Paper, Music, Magic

Lisa Hannigan: a new face for me. Loving her music and videos,
... and fun!
(for the title add: "... and Some Paint!")

I have to thank Content in a Cottage for sending me Lisa Hannigan's way, as well always being a sure source of many pleasures: delightful snippets — pictures, sayings, ideas... and Webster and Piggy.

Auto Lurking

I haven't had the urge to blog for awhile now... but I have been coming here, lurking about my own blog for several days now.
This to catch up on my the doings of the people of my blog list (I guess that would be in newspeak my blog peeps).
Although not in a blogging mood, an executive blogging mood, I'm enjoying catching up with those who are cheerfully posting away. There some of my favorite bloggers who also seem to be having a time off ... a long while between posts for them also.

Today marks the second month since my surgery. I'm starting to feel human, slightly, again. Or maybe the term shoud be normal, whatever THAT is, as human can aptly describe the highly fragilised state I've been slogging through.
Post-op, even the excellent ones like mine, basically
                   just
                          plain
                                   suck.

So, 2 months and 14 kg returned to the Cosmos, or Gaia, or who/whatever needs it most at this moment.
I'm having more energy now, more mobility... so now I'm actually starting to get a happy feeling about it.
And fitting back into some of my old clothes. Yippee!

Beautiful

Some true beauty for the equinox!