Sir John Falstaff

What is Sir John Falstaff doing in the middle of the Tower Grove Park of Saint Louis? Commemorating Lemp Brewrly! It was the largest brewrly in Saint Louis before the Prohabition, and Flastaff beer was one of its many offerings.

Rainy Morning ...

 During this rainy morning "I spy with my little eye"...so far

• A rabbit passing by

•  A squirrel, curious about a car

 

• A spiderweb, bejeweled by rain...
   
  

Here is to cultivating the skill of "noticing the small miracles"....

Creative Solutions..

 Like many people I dislike when my photos are taken - as soon as a camera points at me, I tensed up and just want it to be over. Sometimes though at home I play around with self portraits, mainly when I want to see how certain item of clothing looks on me.

 During those moments - I tend to simply have fun. In some instances  happy accidents come into play and the results inspire me to play around with the photos. Laying on my yoga mat I tried to capture the reflections of the early morning sun above me. Without turning the camera around apparently! 

The result was an accidental but interesting self portrait. Below are the fruits of my early morning creativity.. Same photo, two frames -  different feel.

"If I were the Queen of Spades."

Early morning hours.

Il Solleone

 The weather forecast promises high + 31 C and even at nine in the morning the sun is blazingly hot. It is certainly better than last weekend when the temperature hovered between + 34 C and + 36 C. 

Italians say that it isn't normal for June, it is usually at the end of July when it is getting so hot. While listening to the complains about weather , "C'è troppo caldo/ Fa caldo, si soffoca" - "Too hot/So hot, it's hard to breath" - I discovered two wonderful expressions:

"C'è un caldo da morire" - Loosely, "I can die from such heat"

And, the most magnificent, "Il Solleone". 

The word describes the scorching sun of the hottest time of the year. "I giorni del Solleone sono arrivati presto quest'anno./The hottest (the days of the Lion Sun) days came early this summer." It is one of the portmanteau words which combine two or more roots together, in this case Sole + Leone = Solleone/ Sun + Lion = Lion Sun 

Behold...                                                        "Il Solleone" 

 

Language Wonders

The quotes are often find their way to people without any effort on our part. They just appear in our line of vision and grab our attention. Consider this..

 Our young waitress in a restaurant was standing with her back to us, her hands folded behind her back - the words "Omnia mea mecum porto" were running along the forearm. They did caught my attention - it was Latin, which probably should not have been a big surprise considering that we are in Italy, but the meaning! The meaning was so good, "All that is mine, I carry with me". Considering my "nomadic" life style and upcoming departure from the city I had a privilege to call home for the past three years - I took it as a sign that all will be well. 

I searched for an appropriate translation to my native language and realized that I knew the phrase all  the way from childhood, "Все своё ношу с собой." It made me smile and think how wonderfully strange the life is. I recognized the familiar proverb only by reading it in Latin, and translating it in my head English...
 

Some quotes are just priceless

  "The first step doesn't bring you where you want to be, it takes you from where you are." Alejandro Jodorowsky *

*Alejandro Jodorowsky  - Chilean-born  French filmmaker and  writer

Small finds

Swing

A swing comes high
And then goes low
A perfect moment
To fly

Words, words, words

  A little bit of linguistic exploration brought in by my Qigong teacher. 

 I said in Italian, “Vorrei di fermare questo”. (I want to stop this) referring to my habit of negative thinking. 

 She corrected me, “No fermare – trasformare, c’e un differenza.” (Not stop – transform). 

It stayed with me not only as a beautiful observation but as a bit of linguistic magic as well. Simply by adding the prefix tras, she changed the only possible action into infinite possibilities: "fermare" into "trasformare". When we stay “stop” we evoke prohibition, and don’t leave any opportunity for discussion or a choice. When we transform something - an open endlessness comes into play, and there are multiple choices. So, I have been thinking about it and the little illustration in drawings was born… 

Note: Italian isn’t my first language – I just happen to live in Rome. Of course, English isn’t my native language either – I just happen to exist in it.

I dreamt../ И вот мне приснилось

 For several weeks now four lines from the  Russian poem come into my mind without any particular reason again and again. Not the whole poem, though it is lovely as most everything written by Nikolai Gumilev (1886-1921), but just four lines. So, to let that stanza travel to some other destination I felt compelled to do a very liberal translation along with an illustration... 

... И вот мне приснилось, что сердце моё не болитб Оно - колокольчик фарфоровый в желтом Китае На пагоде пестрой... висит и приветно звенит, В эмалевом небе дразня журавлинные стаи.

…I dreamt that my heart is a porcelain bell, It hangs, light and free, on a pagoda in faraway China. The whisper of wind makes it sing, And that song pulls attention of cranes, Passing by in the enameled heavens…

 

Copernicus was wrong

 A bit of healthy cynicism to start the day on a right note...

"Copernico si sbagliava: il mondo gira attorno ai soldi"

Copernicus was wrong: the world revolves around money.