Birds

Can you see one of the baby Robins staring at me? Every year  a new couple of robins choose our home to build their nest.

 This year their location –or I should say one of them, because we have multiple nests attached to our home- enabled us to watch the parents raising their offspring. No documentary would be better  than the experience of being so close to them... here is a very brief video of the babies.

Two years ago we had a nest built by the Say's Phoebe. 

 They do have a predilection for porch roofs near the door- and this is what they did in our house two years ago. 
               










 By the way, when I was writing this post on the deck I spotted a mother deer breastfeeding her baby. What a beautiful scene. A mother breastfeeding her baby.( Sorry, I couldn't take a picture of them.)

  I've always been impressed by the variety of birds that live here, in Western Wisconsin. On one of my recent visits to the ecopark I popped into the local library and borrowed this book to learn more about the birds that I see on a regular basis. 

The creeper's way of foraging always captivated me: starting at the base of a large tree, it spirals up the trunk, poking into bark crevices, until it reaches the first large branches, at which point it flies to the base of a nearby tree and starts over. You can watch the bird do this a few times before he disappears. They eat insects, larvae, spiders and their eggs from the bark crevices.

Two months ago I was delighted by the visit of a cardinal. He perched on our deck for a few seconds before he flew away. I know he was a male bird because the male is completely red except for a small black mask and  chin. 

The kind of hummingbird that we can find here is the Ruby-throated Hummingbird. They have a feisty personality and aggressively defend their nectar source from others. You can find some astounding pictures of hummingbirds here.

 They feed on nectar, small insects and spiders. 

Have you been watching any birds lately?

Corporal expression

“One’s dance is fed by one’s life.” 

Patricia Stokoe

 Corporal expression, also known as "free dance", is an art in which the body is the medium used to tell stories, express emotions and thoughts, and interact with the environment.

 It unleashes the creative forces that lie dormant inside the body.

Why can a writer be passionate about corporal expression? 
 Corporal expression is an art, just like music, painting, writing and many others. The different kinds of art are not separate entities. They are woven into a universal language; they feed on each other.

 Corporal expression is a transformational force. It releases tension stored in the body and uses this energy to mold something meaningful.

 It has three branches:

-Artistic

-Therapeutic

-Educational

 Emotions may not be visible, but they are locked in your body. They can stifle your mind and  bridle your creative potential. Through  body movements, we can materialize these emotions, and let them flow into other creative activities.

  

  Take your hand, for example. Explore all the movements that you can make with it. Let your arm and hand explore the infinite spectrum of movements that you can create. Try different rhythms and choose the ones that suit you. You can use music if you want. 

 Now imagine that the source of your creativity is an imaginary object. Imagine a shape and a color for this object. Pretend you are holding this object with both hands. Rock it, sway it; let your body follow your hands. Discover the story that your hands and your body want to tell while they play with this imaginary object. Invite your body to follow your hands and dance to the music you selected.

 Now release the object and let your hands touch each other and draw something in the air. 

 Are you having fun already?

Here’s another secret: your creative body movements are a personal seal of your own life story; by the same token, a poem is the personal seal of a poet 
 Your body can create its own poem through a unique combination of movements. 
Don’t you think this is fascinating?

Who created corporal expression?

Patricia Stokoe is the person who has been officially recognized as the creator of this art. 
 Patricia Stokoe (1929-1996) was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, but her native language was English. When she was ten years old her parents sent her to London to visit her relatives. In England she studied classical dance in the Royal Academy of Dance. She also studied modern dance. Years later she studied many different kinds of dance. In 1950 she returned to Argentina.
      Patricia Stokoe developed methods that facilitated the search for movement and expression with personal meaning. She gave several lectures and conferences in the United States, Latin America, Spain, Japan and Israel.
  During her life she worked to incorporate corporal expression in schools and to make sure that everybody had access to this art.

Wind, Sand and Stars

“You’ll be bothered from time to time by storms, fog, snow. When you are, think of those who went through it before you, and say to yourself, ‘what they could do, I can do.’”

  Have you ever wondered what it feels like to fly?

  Antoine Saint-Exupery reveals the pitfalls, dangers and adventures of flying a plane in the thirties and forties, but his anecdotes go beyond the flying experience. He will also make you float in the air through his musings and profound insights on life and human relationships.

  “Wind, Sand and Stars” is an invitation to fly away to distant places. This memoir will make you relish each moment of your life.

 The sour taste of tragedies and upheavals leads us to mold resilience, strength and comradeship. Saint-Exupery takes us on this path, while he inspires us to reflect on our own life experiences.
   His writing enchants and bewitches me, for he has the ability to put into words the emotions and feelings that we harbor in our hearts. His stories resonate on a personal level.

 As you enjoy his adventures you will visit different places: the Saharan desert, The Chilean Andes, the Argentinian Patagonia, the Pyrenees and many others.

 Reading this book is like embarking on a captivating journey to the past, present and future. His writing has the power to evoke childhood experiences:

“Gazing at this transfigured desert I remember the games of my childhood—the dark and golden park we peopled with gods; the limitless kingdom we made of this square mile never thoroughly explored, never thoroughly charted. We created a secret civilization where footfalls had a meaning and things a savor known in no other world.”

   Yet the greatest feat of this masterpiece may be the journey into the inner self and into the core of friendship and human connections. It has been extremely difficult for me to make a selection of quotes from this book.  I have savored each and every line, and I know I will return to them in search of wisdom and inspiration.

“Once again I had found myself in the presence of a truth and had failed to recognize it. Consider what had happened to me: I had thought myself lost, had touched the very bottom of despair; and then, when the spirit of renunciation had filled me, I had known peace. I know now what I was not conscious of at the time – that in such hour a man feels that he has finally found himself and has become his own friend. An essential inner need has been satisfied, and against that satisfaction, that self-fulfillment, no external power can prevail.”

“But by the grace of the airplane I have known a more extraordinary experience than this, and have been made to ponder with even more bewilderment the fact that this earth that is our home is yet in truth a wandering star.”

“Men are not cattle to be fattened for market. In the scales of life an indigent Newton weighs more than a parcel of prosperous nonentities. All of us have had the experience of a sudden joy that came when nothing in the world had forewarned us of its coming – a joy so thrilling that if it was born of misery we remembered even the misery with tenderness. All of us, on seeing old friends again, have remembered with happiness the trials we lived through with those friends. Of what can we be certain except this – that we are fertilized by mysterious circumstances? Where is man’s truth to be found?”

“Old friends cannot be created out of hand. Nothing can match the treasure of common memories, of trials endured together, of quarrels and reconciliations and generous emotions.”

"Each man must look to himself to teach him the meaning of life. It is not something discovered: it is something molded. These prison walls that the age of trade has built around us, we can break down."

“I lay there pondering my situation, lost in the desert and in danger, naked between sky and sand, withdrawn by too much silence from the poles of my life. I knew that I should wear out days and weeks returning to them if I were not sighted by some plane, or if next day the Moors did not find and murder me. I was no more than a mortal strayed between sand and stars, conscious of the single blessing of breathing. And yet I discovered myself filled with dreams.”

 

Choices

"Do not go where the path may lead; go instead where there is no path and leave a trail."
Ralph Waldo Emerson

Today I want to share this poem by Bekah Steimel.

The Invention of Morel

 After being accused of a crime he did not commit, a man flees to an island by boat. This man is a writer. He documents his experiences in a diary.
 This mysterious island has a museum, a church and a swimming pool.

 Living on this island is an experience of survival and discoveries. This is a place that hides many secrets. The sea catches him by surprise if he is not attentive to the tides. Surviving is a daily challenge. He navigates the vicissitudes of freedom, uncertainty and solitude.

 There are other human beings on this island, but they appear to be detached from him. One day he falls in love with a woman who contemplates the sunset every day. The woman ignores the narrator. Sometimes she reads a book. Sometimes a man with a beard is by her side, conversing with her. This man's name is Morel. Is she in love with Morel?
 Is this woman a real woman? Is the narrator truly in love with this woman, or is he obsessed with her?

 One cannot help but wonder, along with the narrator, if the other people on the island are aware of the writer's existence. Are they planning to catch him? Do their conversations have anything to do with his life?

Suspense, intrigue and magical realism intertwine throughout the novella to encourage our imagination to play with the vivid settings of this enigmatic island, and as we follow the writer's story, the limits between fantasy and reality become blurred.
 We are invited to accept our creativity as the soul of our own existence or as a projection of somebody's desires.

  The Invention of Morel is a novella written by Adolfo Bioy Casares(1914-1999), an Argentinian author who won several awards, including The French Legion of Honor (1981), The Diamond Konex Award of Literature (1994) and the Miguel de Cervantes Prize (1991).

Happy International Dance Day

Three things to remember


 As long as you're dancing, you can
   break the rules.
Sometimes breaking the rules is just
extending the rules.

  Sometimes there are no rules.

 Mary Oliver ( A poem from her collection "A Thousand Mornings")

Uncommon Folk

"I have had a joy from which no one can rob me - I have been able to touch some people with my art."
Mary Cassatt

Who could have predicted the destiny of these artworks? 

 This question came to me over a month ago, when I visited the Milwaukee Art Museum to enjoy the exhibition that is currently on display until May 4.

  The Uncommon Folk Exhibition includes an interesting variety of paintings, sculptures, toys, quilts and a few photographs.
 All artists were self-taught. Some of the works are anonymous: they had been abandoned or left behind on farms or on the streets, but they were rescued by people. Now they are preserved because of their beauty, artistic value and historical meaning.

  Let’s take a look at some of the captivating masterpieces.

Calvin Black (1903-1972) created a theatrical environment in the California desert. He delighted tourists with   wooden dolls, wind-driven and mechanical.

Ted Gordon, an artist from Kentucky, drew hundreds of portraits with simple curved lines. Through these lines he created these complex portraits.

I found the story of Eugene Von Bruenchenhein (1910-1983) fascinating. He was a simple man who  worked  at a bakery during the day. In his spare time, however, he was a passionate artist. During his lifetime he created thousands of works: paintings, sculptures and photographs.

 He also wrote poetry and recorded his thoughts on a variety of subjects.  What I find very inspiring about this artist’s devotion to art is that he was not attached to the outcome of his creative endeavors.  He just worked on them with fervor.
His ardent spirit vibrates in his masterpieces.

This photograph I took includes some of his sculptures and paintings. There is a whole section dedicated to Eugene Von Bruenchenhein at this exhibition.

 His work has been showcased in different museums in Chicago, New York city,  London and Venice. 

He noted that he believed his art was “ the result of unknown forces at work…forces that have gone on since the beginning.”

 If you want to learn more about this exhibition you can read this article or check the official website.
Have you been to any interesting exhibition lately?
 Talking about creative endeavors, I will take a break from blogging to finish writing a story.
 Enjoy the spring air - or the autumn air, depending on the hemisphere you live on...