Your path is not the only one ....

“We can never judge the lives of others, because each person knows only their own pain and renunciation. It's one thing to feel that you are on the right path, but it's another to think that yours is the only path.”

Paulo Coelho

Ecstasy of Saint Theresa by Bernini

The Ecstasy of Saint Teresa is the central sculptural group in white marble set in an elevated aedicule in the Cornaro Chapel, Santa Maria della Vittoria, Rome. It was designed and completed by Gian Lorenzo Bernini, the leading sculptor of his day, who also designed the setting of the Chapel in marble, stucco and paint. It is generally considered to be one of the sculptural masterpieces of the High Roman Baroque. 

This is Bernini’s dramatization of a religious experience undergone and related by the first Discalced Carmelite saint who had recently been canonized in 1622. It was completed in 1652.

This is a fascinating piece of work which has more than one interpretation. 

The effects are theatrical, the Cornaro family seeming to observe the scene from their boxes,and the chapel illustrates a moment where divinity intrudes on an earthly body.It has been said "the transverberation becomes a point of contact between earth and heaven, between matter and spirit".Given the sexualized imagery of St. Teresa's written account of the experience, some critics have seen in the statue a depiction of physical orgasm; in particular, the body posture and facial expression of St. Teresa have caused some to assign her experience as one of climactic moment.

The art of timing ...

“Sometimes being a friend means mastering the art of timing. There is a time for silence. A time to let go and allow people to hurl themselves into their own destiny. And a time to prepare to pick up the pieces when it's all over.”

Gloria Naylor

How do I get to where I've come from?

I am so tired of not being comprehended ... 

I have been here too long ... 

Maybe it is time to go back home ...

Seal - People Asking Why


Why, am I changing?
Why do people, get complacent with the things they're told?
World disasters they come and go.
I'd give anything just to be back home.
'Cause there are people, asking why.
There are people, who believe in...

In life, gets confusing but I don't know why.
But I've made my plans already.
Had this trouble with it all my life.
Well world disasters, they come and go.
I'd give all my strength to be back home
'Cause there are people, asking why
There are people asking...

How do I get to where I've come from, now?
How will I paint this garden I've destroyed, green?
Can I get back to where I've come from?
'Cause there are people, who believe in life.

Well how do we get to where we come from?
Peace and love ain't enough these days.
Evolution says "Time is running out,
We've been here too long..."

'Cause there are people, asking.. why

Ohh, there are people, asking...

How do I get to where I've come from, now?
How will I paint this garden I've destroyed, green?
Can I get back to where I come from?
'Cause there are people, who believe it.

How do I get to where I've come from, now?
How do I paint this garden I've destroyed, green?
Can I get back to where I've come from?
Cuz there are people, who believe it

How do I get to where I've come from, now?
How will I paint this garden I've destroyed, green?
Can I get back to where I've come from?
'Cause there are people, who believe it

...How can I get back to where I've come from, now...?
How do I get back to where I've come from, now?

My little black heart ...

Little Black Heart by A-ha 

I never saw sunlight
Burn as bright
I never felt darkness
The way I feel it tonight

You say it's getting better
You say it's allright

But I never felt darkness
Like I feel it tonight
Little black heart

Raindrops on my window
I can't tell them apart
Like the few things forgiven
In my little black heart

You say it's getting better
We just never got it right

But I never felt darkness
The way I feel it tonight
Little black heart

Some day we will shine
Like the moon in the morning
Like the sun when it's dawning
Yes the sun when it's dawning
The sun

Some day we will shine
Like the moon in the morning
Like the sun when it's dawning
Yes the sun when it's dawning
The sun

Raindrops on my window
I can't tell them apart
Like a few things forgotten
And a few things ignored

You say it's getting better
You say it's allright

But I never felt darkness
The way I feel it tonight
Little black heart

About the impact of attitude on life ...

“The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life. Attitude, to me, is more important than facts. It is more important than the past, the education, the money, than circumstances, than failure, than successes, than what other people think or say or do. It is more important than appearance, giftedness or skill. It will make or break a company... a church... a home. The remarkable thing is we have a choice everyday regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day. We cannot change our past... we cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way. We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude. I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% of how I react to it. And so it is with you... we are in charge of our Attitudes.”

 Charles R. Swindoll (American Writer and Clergyman, b.1934)

Era - Ameno

Utopia ...

"Without the utopians of other times, men would still live in caves, miserable and naked;...utopia is the principle of all progress, and the essay into a better world. "

Anatole France

Utopia by Brendan Perry

I feel greater than the sum of all my parts
A domestic beast with a hairy heart
Trapped within a walled suburbia

I've found my tastes are somewhat underground
Between the shadows and the cracks
I'm building my utopia

I need to break free from all that binds
That makes me old before my time
In this world of dystopia
My love is like a bright guiding light
Shining in the darkness of the night
The star of my utopia

In the motion of the sea
In the air that we breathe
Can you feel me
In the stars and in the trees
In the sound of the bees
Can you hear me

Caged golden memories
Time has come to show your true feelings
I know it's the only way to be
When the same old feelings come out of me

I feel greater than the sum of all my parts
A space jockey from a distant star
Marooned upon dystopia
I've found my tastes are somewhat underground
Between the shadows and the cracks
I'm building my utopia

In the motion of the sea
In the air that we breathe
Can you feel me
In the stars and in the trees
In the sound of the bees
Can you hear me

In our utopia
You will be queen
And I will be king
In our utopia
You will be free
To be whoever you want to be

The Starry Night by Vincent van Gogh

The Starry Night is a painting by Dutch post-impressionist artist Vincent van Gogh. The painting depicts the view outside his sanatorium room window at night, although it was painted from memory during the day.

I was fortunate enough to see Van Gogh's work in Amsterdam. You are not allowed to take pictures inside, but here I am in front of the museum in 2008. 

I 

This long road I travel ...

 “The road of life can only reveal itself as it is traveled; each turn in the road reveals a surprise. Man's future is hidden.”

Power of thought ...

“The unreal is more powerful than the real, because nothing is as perfect as you can imagine it. Because its only intangible ideas, concepts, beliefs, fantasies that last. Stone crumbles, wood rots, people ... well, they die. But things as fragile as a thought, a dream, a legend, they can go on and on.”

 Chuck Palahniuk

Sometimes people are so disappointing ...

Painting: Solitude by Frederick Leighton

"The sudden disappointment of a hope leaves a scar which the ultimate fulfillment of that hope never entirely removes."

Thomas Hardy

And the more that I see, the more life means to me

Crescent by Brendan Perry 

The stars you see in the night sky

Have been dead for centuries

Starlight creates the illusion

Of life for all these years

Now I no longer trust these eyes of mine

The heart must speak to me

In tongues of forgotten voices

In ancient harmonies

So that I can see

Heavens are merely illusions

When you build them high in the sky

And hell is the final solution

For those who have no faith in this life

They are blinded by lies

Here in the garden, fountain of life

Here in the garden, arcane delights

Are born from the womb

Down here the seed will rise

From dark earth to the light

To kiss the sun again

She brings me flowers

To ease the pain

She brings me light

Where only darkness reigns

And the more that I see

The more life means to me

And the way you love the wild earthen dream

She sings her song for you and me

I don't care what lies beyond this world

All I really care about is you

For Mother Nature’s gifts of life have made

Have made this world a paradise for you and I

Learning how to love ...

“I must learn to love the fool in me ... the one who feels too much, talks too much, takes too many chances, wins sometimes and loses often, lacks self-control, loves and hates, hurts and gets hurt, promises and breaks promises, laughs and cries.”

Theodore Isaac Rubin

Days go by ...

What the eyes do not see... The heart does not feel...

You make me feel brand new ...

Nanete and I, friends forever! 

Simply Red -You make me feel brand new 

My love

I'll never find the words, my love

To tell you how I feel, my love

Mere words could not explain

Precious love

You held my life within your hands

Created everything I am

Taught me how to live again

Only you

Cared when I needed a friend

Believed in me through thick and thin

This song is for you, filled with gratitude and love

God bless you

You make me feel brand new

For God blessed me with you

You make me feel brand new

I sing this song 'cause you

Make me feel brand new

My love

Whenever I was insecure

You built me up and made me sure

You gave my pride back to me

Precious friend

With you I'll always have a friend

You're someone whom I can depend

To walk a path that sometimes bends

Without you

Life has no meaning or rhyme

Like notes to a song out of time

How can I repay you for having faith in me?

God, it's you

You make me feel brand new

For God blessed me with you

You make me feel brand new

I sing this song for you

You makin' me feel so brand new

Make me feel brand new

Makin' me, makin' me, makin' me feel so new

Make me feel brand new

You, you make me feel brand new

Make me feel brand new

You make me feel brand new

Make me feel brand new

You make me feel brand new

Make me feel brand new

You make me feel brand new

The magic is gone ...

“All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another.”

Anatole France (French Writer, member of the French Academy and Nobel Prize for Literature in 1921, 1844-1924)

Soldier of love by Sade

When I found out this love's undone
I was like a gun, sure as it was over
Felt like nothing good could come
Sure as it's gonna play and play
Like Michael back in the day
I'm gonna peel you away
Now as I begin to wash you off my skin
I'm gonna peel you away
'Cause you're not right within
I love you so
Sometimes love has to let go
So this time don't think it's a lie
I say goodbye
Now as I begin to wash you off my skin
I'm gonna peel you away

I am a dreamer ...

“The best thing about dreams is that fleeting moment, when you are between asleep and awake, when you don't know the difference between reality and fantasy, when for just that one moment you feel with your entire soul that the dream is reality, and it really happened.”

Bridge of Sighs - Venice

I took this picture about two years ago when I visited Italy.

This is the Bridge of Sighs (Italian: Ponte dei Sospiri). The enclosed bridge is made of white limestone and has windows with stone bars. It passes over the Rio di Palazzo and connects the old prisons to the interrogation rooms in the Doge's Palace. It was designed by Antoni Contino (whose uncle Antonio da Ponte had designed the Rialto Bridge), and built in 1602.

The view from the Bridge of Sighs was the last view of Venice that convicts saw before their imprisonment. The bridge name, given by Lord Byron in the 19th century, comes from the suggestion that prisoners would sigh at their final view of beautiful Venice out the window before being taken down to their cells. In reality, the days of inquisitions and summary executions were over by the time the bridge was built and the cells under the palace roof were occupied mostly by small-time criminals. Also, they could barely see any view from inside the Bridge due to the stone grills covering the windows.

A local legend says that lovers will be granted everlasting love and bliss if they kiss on a gondola at sunset under the bridge.

How romantic is that ...

Lamento della ninfa by Monteverdi

This is "Lamento Della Ninfa" from "Madrigali Guerrieri et Amorosi" (Libro Ottavo, 1638) composed by Claudio Monteverdi.

I listened to this song for the first time while watching a BBC documentary about Bernini. The song talks about a lost love and it is certainly a master piece. It is like an echo inside of my head, it makes me shiver every time I listen to it. 

I thought the Jupiter and Antiope painting would be appropriated to give life to such a beautiful music. 

Jupiter and Antiope by Jean-Antoine WATTEAU

1715-16
Musée du Louvre, Paris

Happiness is a butterfly ...

“There is only one way to happiness and that is to cease worrying about things which are beyond the power of our will.”

Epictetus (Greek philosopher associated with the Stoics, AD 55-c.135)

To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all. (Oscar Wilde)

Men have forgotten this truth -  said the fox. 

But you must not forget it, you become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed.

(The Little Prince by Saint Exupéry)

The sun always comes back ...

Secret Smile - Semisonic

Nobody knows it but you've got a secret smile

And you use it only for me

Nobody knows it but you've got a secret smile

And you use it only for me

So use it and prove it

Remove this whirling sadness

I'm losing, I'm bluesing

But you can save me from madness

Nobody knows it but you've got a secret smile

And you use it only for me

Nobody knows it but you've got a secret smile

And you use it only for me

So save me I'm waiting

I'm needing, hear me pleading

And soothe me, improve me

I'm grieving, I'm barely believing now, now

When you are flying around and around the world

And I'm lying alonely

I know there's something sacred and free reserved

And received by me only

It is my destiny to be the queen of pain ...

Alanis Morissette -  King Of Pain 

There's a little black spot on the sun today
It's the same old thing as yesterday
There's a black hat caught in a high tree top
There's a flag-pole rag and the wind won't stop

I have stood here before inside the pouring rain
With the world turning circles running 'round my brain
I guess I'm always hoping that you'll end this reign
But it's my destiny to be the king of pain

There's a fossil that's trapped in a high cliff wall
That's my soul up there
There's a dead salmon frozen in a waterfall
That's my soul up there
There's a blue whale beached by a springtime's ebb
That's my soul up there
There's a butterfly trapped in a spider's web

I have stood here before inside the pouring rain
With the world turning circles running 'round my brain
I guess I'm always hoping that you'll end this reign
But it's my destiny to be the king of pain

There's a king on a throne with his eyes torn out
There's a blind man looking for a shadow of doubt
There's a rich man sleeping on a golden bed
There's a skeleton choking on a crust of bread

There's a red fox torn by a huntsman's pack
There's a black-winged gull with a broken back
There's a little black spot on the sun today
It's the same old thing as yesterday

I have stood here before inside the pouring rain
With the world turning circles running 'round my brain
I guess I'm always hoping that you'll end this reign
But it's my destiny to be the king of pain

Queen of pain
I'll always be queen of pain
I'll always be queen of pain