i’ve had this stuck in my head all day
“Do you know how beautiful You are?
I think not, my dear.
For as you talk of God,
I see great parades with wildly colorful bands
Streaming from your mind and heart,
Carrying wonderful and secret messages
To every corner of this world.
I see saints bowing in the mountains
Hundreds of miles away
To the wonder of sounds
That break into light
From your most common words.”
~Hafiz
…lifts us up where we belong
…makes the world go ’round
…is all ya need
it is not a feeling but a state of being.
“i have forgotten all my learnings, but from knowing you I have become a scholar…”
it has to start from somewhere deep inside yourself. if you don’t have an understanding of what it means to be in love with you, how can you be able to love anyone else? everyone else is a mirror.
no one will ever be good enough without first loving yourself.
strength must come from that infinite place,
you came alone and alone you shall leave
and in between there will be beautiful people and place to love
and that is the beauty of life
it expands you
it flows through you and makes you look at the world with child-like eyes of wonder
“The lovely one whispers under her breath, and you go mad, witless, no reason left…O Lord, what is this chant, what magic art, that weaves its spell on even a stone heart?” ~Rumi
where your thoughts end, love begins
“…en el amor como agua de mar te has destado:
mido apenas los ojos mas extensos del cielo
y me inclino a tu boca para besar la tierra”
“…in love you have loosened yourself like sea water:
I can scarcely measure the sky’s most spacious eyes
and I lean down to your mouth to kiss the earth.”
~Pablo Neruda
where there is love there is no question.
in love, the impossible becomes possible
No one can measure, not even poets, how much a heart can hold.
just leave me here love
I just get so filled up with…well, with what? Love? Oh god that sounds so cheesy. Lust for life? Maybe.
I bet you have already heard this song already but it is one of those ones you can’t listen to just once in a row. It amazes me how relevant this song is for so many people I know right now, myself included. This song has everything going for it, good lyrics, good vocals, good background music. Oh and not to mention the music video is captivating. Raw.
Whatever it is, it makes me want to throw all social norms out the fucking window and dance and sing at the top of my lungs. There are not many things I can do in a daily routine that will quell this thirst of self-expression.
I want to be in the woods. I want to commune with the trees and the natural cycles of life, not this concrete jungle that force feeds me lies of an ethnocentric, consumerist culture focused on the individual.
I’m figuring out how to channel this energy into more productive things than dreams. Dreams ain’t gonna pay the bills or save the world* (my #1 priority)
a piece of my heart was left there
I love how he just belts this out, and the guitar is pleasantly reminiscent of Vampire Weekend.
*I have a healthy understanding that no person, no matter how amazing can “save” the world. It is just too long and wide and contains way too many conflicting interests for anyone to feel burdened by this grand task. There is no need to place so much pressure on yourself. Still, I am an optimist and will never give up the hope that maybe I will be able to effect some positive change that will last.
…. w h e r e do we go from here……..?
my meditation spot on the roof
Lately I’ve been sad. I’m not really sure, and I think that is how it goes, sometimes you can’t really figure it out. I’m trying to work with myself to be more balanced in my life. Recently I had a few freak outs because of stress which found me kinda crying hysterically and feeling like my life was ending. I seriously thought about buying a bus ticket to Mendoza and disappearing into the Andes…
Just, seeing all my faults lately ya know, getting kinda down on myself, er…a lot down on myself. This is always how it is though, it gets worse before it gets better. Destruction before reconstruction eh?
I basically just am praying. a lot. Like oh dear god please just let me find the strength within to get through these challenges I am facing right now! And I’m also like, ok chop chop you are supposed to take care of me, make it happen! Show me what direction to go in cause I am totally confused…
Oh my dear lord what I would give to be at the Golden Temple right now. It is literally my “happy place”. That and sometimes also the forest. There is really nothing like meditating there during the early early hours of the morning when the city is still quiet.
Every time I travel somewhere and get settled enough to start to love it, it becomes a part of me. Argentina from now on will always have a special place in my heart (awwww). But, I feel so nostalgic already for places when I’m not there, India, US, now Argentina is added to the list. Great. haha. There will be more to add to the list of places to miss within the next few years. I have no doubt in my mind that I am going to be doing much more traveling in the near future.
El Padrino!!!! jajaja
was pretty dumbfounded when I saw this. one of the coolest murals I've seen here. I just stood and stared...
old ladies talking in the park 
new cafe discovery!
one thing I love about cafes here is they all have "liquados" which are smoothies yum and good sandwiches. this one had fresh spinach, tomato, basil, cheese and olive oil and vinegar
puppy!!!!!!!!!!
park at twilight
another cool mural
haha ok this picture is kinda funny....well it's not really but it's funny in the way that right after I took this picture, three people who were in front of the kiosk asked me to take a picture of them...
They invited me to drink mate with them! it is so funny how mate is treated almost like a drug here. If you have ever been in a circle of people smoking pot, well it’s kind of a similar thing. The mate is passed around in a circle, each person taking a turn to drink the full cup before it is filled up again with water for the next person. A popular subject that always seems to come up is whether I have a boyfriend or not. Everyone dates here and PDA is suuuper common. You always see couples on park benches making out, sitting on each other and… yeah P-D-A and many times T-M-I…
I answer no, and that I’m not looking either and they say “porque no?!” They always ask, oh what do you think of the Argentinian boys? Why don’t you have an Argentinian boyfriend? I just say, yeah not interested… but the guys are definitely muy dulce I say, and then they smile.
On another note, there is this adorable little book I bought from a boutique shop in Eugene with a gift card from a friend. “How to be Happy” by Lama Zopa Rinpoche. It has just a bunch of little inspirational tips on different subjects. It also has some meditation techniques in the back.
“We might have big ideas about how we can contribute to world peace, but if we can’t help bring peace in our own family, our own workplace – even our own mind – how can we ever start?”
I appreciate this because it is so easy for me to feel like, gahhh I’m only ONE person, and I have such big aspirations, but how can I ever do what i want to do?! I’m not capable, I can’t…blah blah blah. Well, I can at least start within myself, making myself a positive example and being in a place where I can uplift everyone who comes in contact with me. That is something I CAN do and that does make a difference.
Here are a few others I like,
“Mind is like dough, which means you can mold it into any shape. you can roll it into suffering, or roll it into ultimate happiness. Mind is like a disciple, which means you must strive always to be the guru, always teaching. Mind is like a child, which means you should become like parents, the father and the mother carefully and lovingly watching the child and guiding her. If you too act like the child, believe everything the child says, if you become the child, you create obstacles and life becomes suffering.
Mind is like a boat, and you are the captain; mind is a car and you are the driver. Lean the waters, watch the road, steer the vehicle, follow the map – letting the mind run haphazardly where it will, rudderless, captainless, driverless, is the path to great harm”
“Approach you mind the way a spy approaches his target. Spy on your mind. Get to know everything about it: what it is thinking, planing, acting out, whether it is working for good or causing harm – and carefully work to interfere when the mind is being negative.”
"not one step back"Los Madres de la Plaza infront of Casa Rosada, Argentinas version of the White house, but Pink.una madrePlaza de Mayo.
artists popped out of nowhere and busted out paintings prob to try and sell to tourists there to see the Madres
view from my classroom at University of Buenos Aires
special Gurdwara a few weeks ago at Casa de Luz
happy laughing picture with Kiran Jot K.
San Telmo at night
We got to watch a movie during spanish...probably retained about 3% since it was a local movie (everyone talked really fast and with a lot of slang). In the conference room at I.D.E.S.
on my walk home. its a hair salon.
across from my appartment
what i come home to errday
UBA!
Diane at UBA
From your hands, we take the flags, until victory forever!
Olimpo is one of three main "military schools" in the Buenos Aires area where los desaparecidos were held and tortured before being killed
A room for torture. There were no windows then
faces of los desaparecidos
This they couldn´t destroy, history of the lives of the detained disapeared comrades of Olimpo
boy chasing pigeons in Plaza de Mayo
street view to plaza de mayo
cute apartments in San Telmo neighborhood
if you ever come to BA, walk down defensa ave. from plaza de mayo in San Telmo
plaza at the end of Defensa ave. in San Telmo, cute!
tango performance in Plaza Dorrego in San Telmo
girl drawing, tourist with a big camera like me!
in san telmo
cute second level
que linda!
Christina Kirchner is the current president, elections are coming up in October
cute guy on the way to school
walk here everyday to get to class, Avenida Santa Fe in Palermo neighborhood
along Avenida de Mayo which connects to Plaza de Mayo en el Centro
along Avenida de Mayo
Nueve de Julio, the widest street in Buenos Aires, takes three stoplights to get across
associating Cristina Kirchner and her husband (who died last year in October) with Juan and Evita Peron
cute old couple holdin hands (awww)
nom nom nom everyday
36 Billares, an old famous cafe in Buenos Aires, just down the street from Cafe Tortini, basically THE most famous cafe in Buenos Aires, both on Avenida de Mayo. Tortini has become a tourist trap so ive heard and the prices are higher there than anywhere else.
my saturday
my saturday cont...
oh Lola!
Uma wants some scratches!
Universidad de Buenos Aires, there are different buildings all over the city that house different parts of the university. This is the language building tucked in between banks and other businesses in el Centro, where we have spanish class three times a week in the afternoons
there were more policemen in plaza de mayo that day because there was a protest planned for later that day
