Snow: and a Praise of Slowness

I am not the patient kind of girl.

I have too many ideas.

I want too many things.

I want to write a book.

I want to translate Greek poems.

I want to learn Turkish.

I want to develop my dancing skills.

I want to spend more time making art.

I want to take care of my kids.

I want to do yoga.

And then I realize that I am so slow.

Very, very slow.

And I want to cry.

And then I look out of the window

And watch the snowflakes falling

dancing their way through the air

and finally landing on the ground, completely effortless.

Tiny tiny flakes.

Yet the following day everything is covered with a layer of thick, fluffy, candid snow.

And I try to take one action at a time.

Step by step.

And then the next.

This will be my New Year's resolution:

To learn from the snowflakes.

To concentrate on every single tiny step, until I have reached my goal.

Completely effortless.

And what is your New Year's resolution?

Please share your thoughts!

Thankful

Thankful
for Art strepping into my Life
for unexpected Happiness just around the Corner
for Adorable Persons around me

Thankful
for New Lessons taught

Thankful
for Beauty Everywhere

Thank you 2010

Welcome 2011
When all our Wishes
May come True...

Impressions from My Life: What I Love in Winter

Frost flowers...

Funny bakery...


... and hot tea with christmas cookies!!

Enjoy the season!

Wonderful Life

One exciting week in Thessaloniki... a lot of work during an International Study Week, but also time for other things, e.g. fabric shopping ....

... and girly chit-chat over a cup of coffee ....

... and, of course, the coffee ground had to be read ;-)

... a spiral ... symbol for fertility and growth at the coffee drinker's handle ... how lucky I am ;-) and on the bottom of the cup ... a harp ... stands for harmony and happiness in the house.
Isn't life wonderful?

Coffee pictures: Ana Karaminova

Italian Wedding

I haven't been blogging for an eternity... After a very short and busy summer now I realize that the fall is at its peak, and a lot of ideas are still waiting to be written. For today I want to start with a few impressions from my cousin's wedding in Italy that I attended last week before I had to rush to Greece - more about Greece soon ;-)


It was a lovely day, everybody seemed to be completely relaxed, and so the ceremony was topped by a gorgeous lunch inside and outside a beautifully renovated farm...



Inside the former stall, decorated tables ...

... lovely table centers...
And, of course, the most beautiful bride!


And, to finish with some fall impressions, myself wearing a Japanese Haori jacket with fall motives...


... and a ripe pomegranate. Happy fall to everybody!

Pear blossoms

"The blossom of the pear tree is quite awful. It should be spurned and on no account ever be attatched to a letter. From leaf to bloom, its lack of color reminds one of a plain woman, utterly charmless. Yes, this is what we usually think of the pear blossom. Yet, knowing that the Chinese admire it, I decided to take a close look at one, and found that the edges of the petals were tinged ever so faintly. And I recalled the Chinese poem about the great beauty Yang Guifei, who, from exile, greeted the emperor's messenger in tears. The poet likened her face to a branch of pear blossoms sprinkled with rain. Then I realized that indeed the pear blossom is a splendid flower after all."

Sei Shonagon, The Pillow Book



Quoted from: L. Dalby: East Wind melts the Ice, London 2007, 31.

Happy Women's Day!

"International Women's Day is celebrated in many countries around the world. It is a day when women are recognized for their achievements without regard to divisions, whether national, ethnic, linguistic, cultural, economic or political. It is an occasion for looking back on past struggles and accomplishments, and more importantly, for looking ahead to the untapped potential and opportunities that await future generations of women."

Today I wish to connect with all my blogging friends around the world to celebrate the Woman's Day.
In Italy, where I was born, we have the custom to give to all women we love mimosas, a flower which blossoms in the first days of march. Here in Germany you cannot find them at this time of the year, and so I send them virtually to all the fantastic women I have met in the last year since I started blogging.

Please take this flower a s sign of my high esteem of your creativity, your interior and exterior beauty, the love and warmth you spread all over the world. I'm convinced that every woman has the possibility and the duty to make this world a better place, regardless if she prepares a special meal for her family, writes a beautiful and comforting card to a friend in hospital, creates something extraordinary with her own hands or caresses a baby. We all have endless potential to love and care if we only manage to free it.

Be yourself today. Take some minutes off to connect with your friends and loved ones. Make yourself a special gift like trying a new perfume or browsing through inspiring magazines in the railway station bookstore.
Celebrate Woman's Day today and everyday!

Picture from here.
More on history of the Woman's Day here.

Spring Corner and Japanese Inspiration

It is still extremely cold here these days, icy wind stirs up snow, but my heart longs for blossoms and fresh green... Sigh... To beat my lingering sadness I decided to bring spring into our bedroom.

It all started with the inspiring books - I featured one of them in a previous post - of the anthropologist and writer Liza Dalby. She is the first foreigner to study the ancient Japanese art of being a geisha. Liza Dalby's experiences inspired several books on Japanese culture. "The Tale of Murasaki" was the book I read first; a novel on the life of the world's first novelist, a court lady in the 10th century. I had found it by chance on a rummage table of a local bookstore - or should I say the book found me? In any case I couldn't resist the charme of the refined Japanes court culture since then and have read avidly everything I could find.
I admire most the connection between poetry and observation of nature and the beauty that lays in the changing of seasons.
This inspired me to create a spring corner with a runner of vintage kimono silk on a bamboo tea table, matching tulips and some of Liza Dalby's books...

... in the original and some in german translation...

Next came a kimono scroll mural with lovely handpainted blossoms again on vintage kimono silk.



Now I feel much better :-)
In her recent book, "East Wind Melts the Ice" she creates a diary of the seasons divided into the 72 five-day segments of an ancient Chinese almanac. Today belongs to the second section: "dormant creatures start to twitch" (february 10 through14). I try to imagine little animals deep in the earth of my backyard starting to move unter the white snow. And, was it a dream or did I really hear small birds singing when I woke up at dawn?

Happy New Year to Everybody!

Got up early today... It is still completely dark outside, but the fresh snow reflects the street lights with a mysterious glow...
First coffee in 2010... Today I feel the coming year as fresh and untouched like the fresh fallen snow outside. Impatiently I wait for my second daugter to be born (in two months), lots of happiness! But the challenges to come sometimes scare me, a PhD thesis to write, working and keeping the family together at the same time, and still being able to find some hours here and there to spend my creative energy. I can't wait to recover my physical strength and flexibility, the past months without being able to dance have been terrible!
Big New Year's pledges make me feel constricted, so I have only small ones... definitely I will blog more regularly ;-) now that I have finally fixed my new computer (yes, the stubborn girl wanted to fix all by herself, and it took an eternity...)! So many posts are still in my head. Second... Find more time for myself. Resume regular dance and yoga training. Talk to interesting people. Read books for pleasure. Catch moments with the camera. Let ideas grow. Slowly. Seems to be the most difficult task... If I can make at least some of these things happen, next year will be a good one!
I wish you all a blessed 2010 with many wonderful experiences!

Early morning arabic coffee. Cup and pot from the Westbanks, Palestine. Suzani from Uzbekistan.

From the Japanese Garden

Take a tour in the Japanese Garden in the city of Erfurt ...

... admire the breathtaking colours of autumn...

...and fly far away to another continent...

...be someone else for a few minutes.

Farewell to Summer and Hello to New Activities!

(Mediterranean Summer Sky)

I have been neglecting my blog in the last weeks due to summer temperatures and the beginning of my second pregnancy which is still slowing down my path noticeably.
But now a new season full of challenges is about to begin and I'd like to celebrate it with a few Mediterranean End-of-Summer pics from the archives.
I wish to everybody a great week and many new things to experience!

(Home cultivated honey and home distilled plum brandy)

(Cornel cherries)

Pictures shot in Cres, Croatia, 09/2006.

Leaving ...

... for a short vacation hoping to rejoice in a few last summer days!

Summer Weekend

We had a great sunny weekend, and finally it was warm enough to dress my daughter Lina in the oh so cute Kimono pajama my brother brought us from Japan (Thank you, Sandro!). I love the traditional pattern printing decorated with beautiful court ladies in the style of the Heian-Period (794-1192) with their beautiful long loose hair. If only I knew where to buy similar cotton fabric to sew something for myself!

Summer Means Strawberries

Life in this country mens long, dark winters and a few weeks of summer ... but every year I enjoy the intense smell of local fresh fruits like strawberries!

Walking down the memory lane

As time goes by... in my hometown Weimar
Today I have been strolling around in Weimar periphery, between the old barracks, once of the German Wehrmacht, and until the early nineties home of Soviet soldiers. Now nature is retrieving this area, and you can watch the traces of time at work...
shining through colourful palimpsests...

and offering space for new purposes...


... and new works of art ...


I love to watch this process of changing forms and meaning
when objects discover their own life
and time becomes visible
as the most powerful artist.