Tag: mind

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contemplations Germany morning coffee talk Photography street photography war

Daily Coffee Talk~ 86/365

Have you every had the feeling that even when you are alone, you are really not?

In my mind, there is never a dull moment. Thoughts, ponders, queries, hopes, questions, memories, investigations, plans, connecting of dots, and yes, sometimes fears and worries.

I am finding it difficult to not be concerned about what is happening around me in Europe. How can anyone not be? But why are we feeling the pain of others so much more acutely? Has something changed in the conductivity of the world?

It is quite unfathomable what humans are capable of doing to other humans in the search of their own self glory and greedy agendas.

So myself is telling me today to keep going, to keep hoping, to continue sending strength and good thoughts toward the innocent people caught up in this crazy war and to know that there is always light behind the darkness.

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contemplations inspiration Malaysia morning coffee talk Photography street photography

Morning Coffee Talk~ 9/365

Casting the net~ Malaysia

Good morning,

Some days like today, when the mind feels very busy like it is working overtime, thoughts flying here and there without any apparent rhyme or reason, I stop.

Stopping is not as simple as it sounds. I remember as a 21 year old, taking a trip alone to India with a the sole purpose of finding focus. Once there, I decided to take up a vow of silence for one month. I did that in the confines of an ashram in South India, and during that time, I discovered among so many things how busy the mind and the brain can be in a single moment. They are so much more complex than I ever imagined… So many lines of thought can act themselves out at the same moment and on so many levels of perception, some emotionally connected, some random, some related to past events, some future projecting, and others to do with immediate needs of the moment…

I learned to quiet my thoughts down to try and focus on one or two threads at a time. And that experience was a pivotal moment in my life that I can link back to when needed as life gets hectic and chaotic.

So today felt like that and I needed to cast my net on one single thought, and that was ‘thought’ itself.

Thankful for having the gift of choice to be able to focus on one line of thought… how amazing is that? Feeling grateful for being human today.

Wishing you all a peaceful and inspired rest of the week.

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contemplations inspiration Photography Seoul street

The Way

along the yellow line~ Seoul
along the yellow line~ Seoul

I remember walking as a very young child  in our small mountain village in Lebanon, and just as I passed the old movie theater that used to only play Indian tragedies, an English word popped in my head. At that time, English was quite foreign to me and my vocabulary was extremely limited, yet somehow an adult word appeared: “determined”. I never forgot that word and I only learned its meaning years later as a teenager. It was one of those strange life moments that are very difficult to explain. This little story brings me back always to ‘the way’, and for me there is a way that I know I need to follow if I listen carefully to the same nudging that introduced the word “determined” to me. And as with all good things, the way is never the easy one…

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art CHINA contemplations inspiration life Photography shanghai street

Identity melting

the great melting

Only when we expand our perception to a much bigger picture does our inflated identity begin to melt revealing the truth that lies behind the walls of our minds.

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art contemplations inspiration life New York Photography street

Day 23~ November 23rd~ New York

blurred shadow~ New York

Why is it that our memories fade and blur like shadows of what has been, and only moments of passion and pain remain vivid in our minds?

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life Photography street Yunnan

Day 19~ October 19th~ Yunnan

our bodies labor so our minds may soar

Man going to work in the fields~ Yunnan~ China

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Photography

Day Two Hundred Sixty, October 9, 2011

breaking through

At a certain point in our lives, our bodies grow to maximum capacity and from that point on, they begin to deteriorate. The only part of the human that continues to evolve is the head, the spirit and soul that drive it, and what lives in it and around it. That is the only place out of which a human can make a breakthrough, isn’t it? Humans evolve through their mental development, their art, their creativity, their revelations, their connections.. and if these are trained correctly and well invested in, then the greatest reward of all, wisdom and human development can occur. Which begs the question, why are we humans so obsessed with the outward looks of our bodies and why do we fear the signs of aging instead of looking inward as we are meant to do when we get older?

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Photography

Day Two Hundred Fourty Two, September 21, 2011

the state of the artist

When the world quiets down, when the mind expands, when time gains elasticity, when the hands buzz and tickle, when peripheral vision activates, when a strange kind of awareness attends you, when you become so focused on the task at hand, when you are transported to a dimension you can only call ‘other’, when you feel the process of being a vehicle for art, an instrument of art, when ‘you’ step out of the way for ‘it’ to do its work… then perhaps you are living the state of the artist.

photo taken: a man sketching in the very busy yu gradens in shanghai totally unaware of the chaos around him.

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Photography

Day One Hundred Fifty Six, June 27, 2011

It's a matter of perspective

It’s a funny thing our perception of size. When we are young we perceive our parents to be bigger than life, our homes and gardens to be a large domain where we build our memories and our planet to be out of this world huge. Then we grow up, and we go back to visit our old homes, schools, gardens and we scream, “who shrank my world?”! Our perceptions have changed!

And knowing this, I made up a technique that I  called ‘zoom out’ while growing up that each time I had to face a problem, an issue that felt so big it almost crushed me. I would mentally ‘zoom out’ and pretend to view myself in my home, in my village or city, in my country, on my planet, in my solar system, in my galaxy,  spinning at enormous speeds, and suddenly, as if by magic, my problem would shrink down to insignificance and it would no longer be threatening to me in ‘perspective’.

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Photography

Day One Hundred Thirty Two, June 3, 2011

strength in unity

This particular and ancient truth has been quite upfront lately in world affairs. Somehow this ancient lesson is being applied and demonstrated repeatedly in the last few years from events in Iran, to Egypt, to Yemen, and to most recently the current events in Syria. I am normally not someone who is drawn to writing, commenting or thinking too much about politics, but I do look at this issue in terms of trends happening in the world. And this recent phenomenon of people coming together and protesting a valid cause, an injustice or an oppressive regime, is becoming the way these nations forcing their way into reformation.

And this concept works just the same within our minds. One of the biggest enemy of our personal development is dispersion and conflicting thoughts. Somehow a magnetic force is needed to align our thoughts to all face in one direction, towards our purpose and away from our past patterns. Only then are we able to draw on enough inner strength to overcome hurdles and obstacles in our way and to reform our old ways of going on.

photo: potpourri twigs tied in a bundle from Ikea 🙂