Last day of January 2011

Love so needs to love,
that it will endure almost anything,
even abuse,
just to flicker for a moment.

Rumi

the kiss

I am your moon and your moonlight too
I am your flower garden and your water too
I have come all this way, eager for you
Without shoes or shawl
I want you to laugh
To kill all your worries
To love you
To nourish you.
Rumi


Tin Can Treats, Tec Petaja (wedding photographer) . Click Here to view the lovely images.

From the clear center of my heart
there are no edges to my loving you
I've heard it said there's a window that opens
from one mind to another
but if there were no wall,
what need of installing a window?

Rumi

waves crashing and splashing

Such vast and conflicting currents of love,
some tenderly pulling you along
others violently rocking against you
shades of longing and fulfilment
May you find your shore

m

to wed or not to wed

This cute picture reminded me of the two young brides ( Suzanne Crouse and Anri Theron ) who are getting ready to be wed.
Happiness and luck to you both

m

to go

I love pictures of bridges, walkways and such, as it emobodies the journey (which life is) the crossing over, "attraversiamo"...

And I think one of the glorious crossings'over into pleasure and relaxation, would be to visit this place with a special soul: Babylonstoren is situated between Paarl and Franschoek in the Drakenstein Valley.

book your meal there!

On the topic of special things and pleasure and beauty... I've written about ( and quoted ) this gifted female poet:

Jane Hirshfield

This is what the poets.org page says about her:

About her (Jane's) work, the poet Rosanna Warren has said: "Hirshfield has elaborated a sensuously philosophical art that imposes a pause in our fast-forward habits of mind. Her poems appear simple, and are not.
Her language, in its cleanliness and transparency, poses riddles of a quietly metaphysical nature.... "

and since I've been reading Elizabeth Gilbert's book: Committed, here is a wedding-poem amidts all the questioning and intellectual wrestling with this social institution we call marraige.

A Blessing for Wedding

by Jane Hirshfield

Today when persimmons ripen

Today when fox-kits come out of their den into snow

Today when the spotted egg releases its wren song

Today when the maple sets down its red leaves

Today when windows keep their promise to open

Today when fire keeps its promise to warm

Today when someone you love has died

or someone you never met has died

Today when someone you love has been born

or someone you will not meet has been born

Today when rain leaps to the waiting of roots in their dryness

Today when starlight bends to the roofs of the hungry and tired

Today when someone sits long inside his last sorrow

Today when someone steps into the heat of her first embrace

Today, let this light bless you

With these friends let it bless you

With snow-scent and lavender bless you

Let the vow of this day keep itself wildly and wholly

Spoken and silent, surprise you inside your ears

Sleeping and waking, unfold itself inside your eyes

Let its fierceness and tenderness hold you

Let its vastness be undisguised in all your days

thanks Jane

M

Twinkle Twinkle little Tuesday-star

I attended the enigmatic and charismatic: Ben Zander- "Alive with Possibilities" presentation today at the Baxter.
This wonderfully transformational company Symphonia (where Johleen works, thanks my friend for the ticket!) hosted this Boston-Philharmonics conductor in 2008 and they've expanded the message and influence to the roll-out of a "South Africa: Alive with Possibilities" dvd. Ben & Rosamund Zander is back in SA.

Symphonia for South Africa is a registered Non-Profit Organisation with a vision to strengthen the fabric of South African society. We lead and initiate projects that are intended to engage South Africans in processes of nation building so that we can truly be a country that is "Alive with Possibility!"

I had the pleasure of attending this.

We laughed, we sang and the audience had such a good time listening to and getting captivated by Benjamin's authentic life-lessons, stories, anecdotes and his piano-playing.
Darling young musician from the University of Stellenbosch played the tjello for us. Moving.

an extract of Ben & Rosamund's book" The art of possibility" (page18)
we grow up in a world of measurement, and in this world we get to know each other and things by measuring them, and by comparing them and contrasting them.

page 19:
Let us suppose now that a universe of possibility stretches beyond the world of measurement to include all worlds:
infinite, generative and abundant.
Unimpeded on a daily basis by the concern for survival, free from generalized assumptions of scarcity, a person stands in a great space of possibility in a posture of openness with an unfettered imagination of what can be."


I'm blessing you today with a hug which carries the universe of possibility.
m


I'm in love with classical music all over again.

of mud and marriage... and midnight oil

"A system could not well have been devised more studiously hostile to human happiness than marriage." Percy B Shelly.

Extract when the author, Elizabeth Gilbert, glanced back to her grandmother's existence and marriage:
"They cut up the finest and proudest parts of themselves and gave it all away. They repatterned what was theirs and shaped it for others. They went without."

so perhaps this sounds very negative to you... it is certainly not a reflection of my own opinions or current thoughts, but they do make me think.

I have seen women (now in their 50's) sacrifice a lot of themselves and being stretched thin trying to be everything to everybody (demands of themselves are being made by their daughters, husband, friends, Bible-study members, PTA- members, etc)
I am just worried that I see no or very little nurturing...little private space/ time/ investment.

But the happy-ending is: we are young and self-sufficient and we have infinitely more options and choices.

We do not have to marry for food & sustenance nor to secure shelter or even for survival.
We marry because we want to.
Because it is special to share life and have witness to the small & large moments which make up an existence.

I hope you are with someone you adore.. someone who makes your day kind & soft & worthwhile.

Companionship.

I think that is more important than marriage.
I've seen too many empty, fractured and heavy marriages and I'd like to see more sustainable, enriching relationships... call that love.. call it what you want.

If your relationship is one of gladness and partnering... then if you call it a marriage or not:

I'm happy and grateful for you that you have that.

If your primary-relationship is limiting you, reigning you in, blocking you from becoming the blossom you're meant to be, then I hope you don't call that a marriage.
It is probably limited to a living-arrangement where the assets & liabilities have all morphed and dwindled into administrative red-tape.
You are probably too exhausted to try and unravel that arrangement; so you stay.
I hope that is not the case.


perhaps it is just Valentines' creeping closer ( I don't like that global soppy sorry effort and demeaning show of love)
or perhaps it is the book by Liz Gilbert: Committed.

or perhaps it is just warm and I've had little sleep the last two nights and my husband is in Mpumalanga for the week.

anyway- wishing you joy, gladness and kindness. m




pic by talented photographer who sells her work on Etsy.

committed - Alain Cajeux is person of the week

Elizabeth Gilbert: "...this distressing truth: that every intimacy carries, secreted somewhere below its initial lovely surfaces, the ever-coiled makings of complete catastrophe."

my dad: "don't put all your eggs in 1 basket"

I am reading the sequel to Elizabeth Gilbert's "eat pray love", which is titled: Committed.

This is how her website introduces this book:

At the end of her bestselling memoir Eat, Pray, Love, Elizabeth Gilbert fell in love with Felipe, a Brazilian-born man of Australian citizenship who'd been living in Indonesia when they met. Resettling in America, the couple swore eternal fidelity to each other, but also swore to never, ever, under any circumstances get legally married.

(Both were survivors of previous divorces. Enough said.) But providence intervened one day in the form of the United States government, which—after unexpectedly detaining Felipe at an American border crossing—gave the couple a choice:
they could either get married, or Felipe would never be allowed to enter the country again.

So: it is odd and at the same time marvelous, how you sometimes buy or borrow a book and it patiently waits on the shelf for you to be ready to read it.
Well; I became ready this week and wonderfully coincidental to the theme of this book, my best friend pledged her love and loyalty to her Swiss-French partner yesterday. They topped the commencement of this special journey, with a stylish and beautiful celebration at Diemersdal Wine Estate.



Alain: you are person of the week.

You have been through a divorce and managed to coax your heart to open and to trust and love once again.

For somebody unfamiliar with the wreckage of untying that "eternal promise" of a knot, I have to rely on Elizabeth's description of her own divorce.
Here goes:

"...had also learned that marriage is an estate that is very much easier to enter than it is to exit. Unfenced by law, the unmarried lover can quit a bad relationship at any time. But you- the legally married person who wants to escape doomed love-
may soon discover that a significant portion of your marriage contract belongs to the State and that it sometimes takes a very long while for the State to grant you your leave.

Thus, you can feasibly find yourself trapped for months or even years in a loveless legal bond that has come to feel rather like a burning building.
One in which you are handcuffed to a radiator somewhere down in the basement, unable to wrench yourself free, while the smoke billows forth and the rafters are collapsing."

so with that horrific description: I feel it is very fitting that the escapee (be crowned person of the week) as it is courageous to see how this person manages to trust the opposite sex again and devote his/her time and attention to the immense investment, which a long-term relationship/ life- partnership is.

I'll be writing a lot more about and quoting from Liz' book as it really is so tactfully, wonderfull-sincerely written.

Happy Sunday.

from swinging music and laughter to hugging the cool cheeck of the basin...

where music and soul meets... on the rolling hills of Diemersdal-vineyard of love

two special men in my life...

The Cajeux Family (Joshua was missing the party)

We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are."
— Anaïs Nin

Michelle & Marcelle

"And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom."
— Anaïs Nin

Beauty’s Punishment (Sleeping Beauty, #2)

"It is a brave and stupid thing, a beautiful thing, to waste one's life for love."
andrew sean greer

beautiful


♥


bye bye
m

Adrian and Conny Braai

Monday went for a run, followed by Primi- dinner (the "aaawwh I can't believe you're going away for 6 weeks" - comfort eating commences)
I'm being wined & dined and the house is being fixed up, DIY every day... what is he planning...?
not coming back ?!

No, he says that he wants me to be happy and safe in the (neatened-up, fixed up) house while he is gone.

Tuesday: dinner again.. I can't even remember where..
Wednesday: braai at Adrian & Conny's place.... just imagine the view they must have from those bedroom-windows over Tygerberg Hill.

and the abuse of the German Weisse- beer started... and did not end until 23h.
look at this wheaty-beauty!

it reminded me of the German beer garden outside Langen, Frankfurt, where I had a Weisse-beer for the 1st time... yum: tastes like cooldrink. Adrian & lady will be supporting the real Bavarian beer-fest in October this year !!

Thanks Adrian & Conny for lovely evening... great food & wonderfully easy- company.

Thursday... went to the shops.

If the lady (who waters my plant at work) can get a small pack of boys underwear aged 3-4 ( her son went to visit the granny in Klawer and the evil taxi-men stole their luggage!)
I can get a little top... from Mr Price. geezz where can you get anything for R49.99 not that I harbour ambition of years-worth of service from the garment, but hey.


Look at the cute branding Jet did on their packaging...
love it !

and with my heart filled with summer-loving: enjoy the evening.
oh, ps talking about love...
Marcelle becomes Mrs Cajeux tomorrow.
Celebration is Saturday-evening. Can't wait !!

m

Fran is person of the week...

Fran is person of the week for the following reasons:

♪ she is true to her likes & dislikes (and vocal about it) a good mix of feminine flair and masculine "I can take care of myself"
♪ she has got the whole "boundary" intelligence down to a T.
♪ she stuck it out during cold UK - winters and some lonely autumns, for a bigger goal she had set for herself

♪ she obtained her "indefinite leave to remain" which is, I'm told, the final step towards getting your British passport and citizenship. (see me turning green with envy)
♪ she flew out for Adri's wedding in 2008, our wedding in 2009 and will be returning in March 2011 for Charl & Annemie's wedding. Commitment to the family !

♪ she is determined not to exhibit the "only-child" spoilt-syndrome.
♪ she still eats biltong & droë wors and is equally passionate about trying global cuisine (Portuguese and Hungarian treats are her midday-snacks too)


go girl! keep "stomping"

Fran and me in London -shop ( Sept 2010 )

Fran, me and Suzanne in "The Dog & Fox"- pub in Wimbledon Village
(Sept 2010)

much love & safe flight home tomorrow cousin!
m

melancholy

a sadness so complete and familiar
and yet
you stay with me
with it
to it
from it

and now I am whole.



M