Afternoon Break

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afternoon, break, Café, city, coffee, curtain, life, photography, smoking, street, summer, urban, window

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Clear Blue Skies And A Beating Heart

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autumn, bliss, coffee, fall, fresh brew, heart, morning, sky, stillness, sun, window

Precious autumn sun. Smell of Colombian coffee. Bliss is in the simple things. That’s when everything makes perfect sense.

 

 

More Grace

Tags

allowing, breakfast, coffee, control, divine order, exhale, grace, morning, semolina, slow down, sunrise, time, timing, winter

Time is not real. The separation between hours and numbers was made by us, so we can have some sense of control, also to make timing between each other easier. Sometimes we think we actually make things happen on time. Like there wasn’t a divine order already in place for us.

The day never rushes through us, we are rushing through it. The day just is. Giving it time is allowing ourselves not to run anymore.

Slow down. It’s OK. It’s winter.

We will always be here. Just not in the same form. We will change into more love, into more grace.

A Day In The Life

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coffee, dual, grass, invisible patterns, life, mirror, people, portrait, possibility, story, street, urban

I’m a story that could go either way…

The moments that contain us…

The moments that we contain…

Summer High Morning Shades

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coffee, dance, dream, flow, love, mood, morning, pink, purple, shades, summer

purple wind/

pink coffee/

somebody call the love back/

think out loud/

we don’t have much time to dance.

Yesterday’s Self Actualization

Tags

30s, blocks, blue star, city, coffee, depression, dream, Earth, future, illusion, lens, magic, mental, mimic, perception, reality, reflection, self, self actualization, skyline, street, subconscious, time, transformation, urban, window

I look out the same window over on the other side of the street, at the same tall, 8 stories high blocks, every morning, every day, every night, for the past 11 years. Most of them have a new coat of paint, the narrow roads between them got better with time, the trees got taller… Mainly silent, mostly early to sleep. Some new roof tops appeared at some point, over the old skyline of my view. Other than that, nothing really changed, and as I was preparing my late coffee, trying to figure out how near of far the rain was going to be, since that was going to decide my entire schedule in the next couple of hours, a peculiar feeling started slowly transcending from my subconscious into my mental chatter… Something seemed different, like someone had changed the lens on my viewpoint, not sharpening it, but stripping it of something I didn’t know before. I remembered how I use to feel about these blocks… they looked like anything was possible, like every life unfolding within their walls, every destiny behind those yellowish or dark windows, could be made into a movie, or at least, a string of photo albums. I felt like I was potentially missing out millions, if not more, of magic captured moments. As time passed, that feeling slowly faded, as I was becoming more familiar with all the details… some unchanged, some new for a while, but nonetheless with the same configuration, until one day it disappeared completely, leaving room for a subdued sorrow, the type that looks like the lack of magic… something similar to the lack of a sense of future. It happened so slowly, I almost missed it. My spirit didn’t though, my bones neither. I almost believed this is how your 30s are supposed to feel like, more settled, like you now know shit, and nothing really holds any mystery anymore. And partly it’s true, there are many places which you do know better. But even the places you think you know inside and out, still hold mysteries, and their discovery is yet to come. The truth is, I still know nothing about these blocks I see every day. Nothing was ever lost, it was just a trick of the mind, that sees the same object in its place, day after day, and mimics it unconsciously, while still measuring that against the knowing that the core of life is not sameness, but transformation. The unfolding of this truth finally found its respite on the now perceived reflections of a denser structure.

And I, dancing with the unfolding of that realization, on this suspended blue star, at equal distance between what comes to be and what is a mere illusion, the dream that dies into a thousand other dreams.

My Kindred Spirits

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coffee, dust, fear, grateful, kindred, love, ocean, reflection, spirit, surrogates, thank you, trick, truth, window

My kindred spirits love the ocean.

My kindred spirits stay in their truths.

My kindred spirits love coffee.

My kindred spirits know fear for what it is.

My kindred spirits can’t be tricked anymore.

My kindred spirits know when they’ve been served surrogates of love.

Thank you for following this blog.

Magic

Tags

belief, believe, chill, coffee, life, magic, morning, nonphysical, now, oranges, physical, physical plane, positive, possibility, reality

Don’t be fooled by what you see with your eyes only.

Every empty moment is actually filled with magic.

The magic dust of positive possibility.

Hard

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accept, agendă, allow, answer, apple, balance, blame, branches, breakfast, breathe, business, buttons, coffee, ease, easy, email, expand, fear, flow, freedom, friends, fruits, grades, guilt, happiness, happy, hard, joy, life, memories, mind, moment, no, notebook, now, painf, phone, play, power, questions, race, robot, self-help, shame, silence, soul, suffering, task, tea, teachers, today, tomorrow, tweet, understand, work, world

Nobody is as hard on you as you are.

That’s where the root of suffering lies.

Stop pushing yourself like that. There are no grades, no mean teachers behind you.

You don’t own all the problems of the world. Others were born on the same day as you were too.

–

Allow yourself to accept yourself.

–

Don’t wait for the end of the week to remember your freedom. Don’t wait for holidays to do what you like most. Balance between working time and playing time means they are both equally important. Work prizes should not be associated with pain and struggle. Play prizes bring more joy and your soul knows why. Honor the time you need to adjust to things. You are not a robot, you can’t endlessly push buttons.

You don’t have to worry about everything today, leave some for tomorrow too.

Give yourself the time to understand whatever you need to understand.

If you knew how wonderful you are, by just being you, at least two hundred self-help businesses would go out of business. Imagine that power.

Stop keeping your self in a prison of guilt, blame, shame. Forget all the reasons you ever felt those feelings for. Get a break. Get a drink. Breathe. Breathe long.

Be silent. Watch a water flow. Dream. Become friends with yourself again. Stay in the sun a little longer. Let yourself be carried by a thing: a feeling, an embrace, a wave, a breeze.

Don’t misuse your agenda and notebook. They are here to remind you of things, so that you don’t have to keep that information active in your mind all at once. They were not invented to imprison you in a ceaseless race, on a perpetuum of hundreds of tasks.

Repeat after me: “No”.

Make coffee. Make tea. Put a song on and just lay back for 5 minutes. Don’t look at your phone. Don’t check your emails. Don’t tweet about how great this song is. If the phone rings, let it ring. You can call back after you’re done with your moment. You don’t owe anything to anybody.

Take this moment for yourself. Take it now. Because no one else will for you.

Life is not meant to be dictated by others, by fear, or by pain.

Give yourself permission to choose only the easy things today.

Make memories. Feel happiness. Don’t restrict, expand the moments, and expand yourself with them.

Leave some room for life to grow branches.

Leave some questions unanswered.

Captured Moods

Tags

afternoon, city, coffee, construction, cranes, mood, mood board, mood boards, old style, spring, sun, walk, wind

Windy Spring

Urban Spring

Tags

b&w, black and white, break, city, coffee, concrete, life, modern, pattern, sepia, shaddow, tree, urban

 

 

sound of civilisation’s byproducts

 

 

The Most Rewarding Path

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authority, beautiful, belief, choice, coffee, creation, dance, know, knowing, life, matter, memory, moment, mood, mood board, mood boards, moody, moodyline, naive, need, path, patience, peace, permeate, questions, reflect, remember, rewarding, rules, self, sense, time, translate, understand, Universe, wonder

Many may not understand this about me, but in my mind I always chose the most rewarding path. I chose to be, to understand, to take it all in as often as life allowed me to. I chose to live, not like it’s the last day of my life, but as if I would live forever. I chose to stand for what mattered to me, not because I have a problem with authority, but because I believe that the Universe shared that authority with all of us. I chose not to play by a rule which did not make sense to me. I chose to walk away from what did not reflect any part of me. I chose to grow. I chose to know. I chose to take my time, to breathe. I chose to be the moody line I was meant to be. I chose to stop. I chose to ask the question no one wanted to ask. I chose to remain misunderstood, rather than not at peace with myself. I chose to do my best, even if no one saw or gave a f… about it. I stood by the ugliness of my creation, whichever that was, even if there was no way to translate it into beautiful words. I chose to have patience. It didn’t always work, but I always tried. I chose to live my life by my choices, rather than accept a path that was pre-chosen for me, because I believe life is not worth living otherwise.

I choose to permeate every moment.

I choose to make sense of it and remember.

London Coffee

Tags

Bridge, coffee, London, rainy

Rainy day. Brings back memories.

Sharing The Fun

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2 AM, 4 AM, advertising, bio, brain, Bucharest, business plan, Centrul Vechi, coffee, control, democracy, eco, empathy, facebook, feelings, gold, history, interests, land, leverage, Lipscani, loud, manipulation, masses, Monday, money, morning, music, natural, neighbors, organic, paradox, pause, play, profit, Proud Mary, Romania, Saturday, Save Rosia Montana, sleep, sleep deprivation, solution, spill, spiritual, Sunday, Tina Turner, toxic, zen

I was feeling bad for not getting into bed earlier. I drank some coffee, around a time I usually avoid to, to make sure I don’t end up in the situation I am now: it’s 2 AM and I’m not sleepy. If I would at least have the energy to do something productive… my battery is low. My brain though doesn’t know that and doesn’t care. Well, what can you do? It was a bad coffee craving. So I was laying in bed, thinking of all the things my brain interacted with in recent hours. Half of my Facebook friends posted pictures, videos and statuses related to the “Save Rosia Montana” street protest in Bucharest. Seeing all that made me think that we should also have that kind of protest in the actual spot where all the injustice is being done. I thought about how these things begin to happen, about politics and related interests, the leverage systems which direct the course of history, and about probably the most beautiful thing we ever had in this corner of the world – the fact that until recent years, nobody had spilled hundreds of toxic chemicals on our land. And we didn’t face a few other hundreds in the near future, or the years of regret that come with it. Dusty as they may be, these lands were the main source of integrity for its people. On this soil we have always grown organic, bio and eco foods and live stock, we didn’t need any fancy labels to tell us they were that. Now we do. Control, manipulation, money, the vicious circle driven by the pursuit of the almighty profit. I get the need for profit, I really do, it’s not the profit that bothers me, it’s just the way in which you choose to go after it. I understand that things such as feelings or empathy towards a mass of people you don’t know cannot fit into your business plan. I’m not gonna debate the role of the government or the paradox of democracy, or even the advertiser’s faith in matters like this. It’s impossible though, not to observe how this profit seems to annihilate any natural sense, or spiritual one for that matter. But when your profit means what is happening now in that place, maybe it’s a sign that you should press pause. And look for a real solution. Of course there is one, it just needs to be married with a bit of (good)will. As I was trying to chase away the mist of thoughts stirred by the wondering vapors of my late coffee, music starts playing somewhere on a floor below me. Really loud music. At 2 in the morning. For a second I thought it must be Saturday night. But it was Sunday on the calendar. Maybe they’re on their holiday too, like me. Well, not quite like me, since do to a recent decision I made, I am working during holidays also. So I have important stuff to do tomorrow, people rely on me. I’m kidding, it’s not that bad. It’s not their fault, but still, I’m not the only one living in this building. Should I knock on the heater? Not sure they will hear me. Maybe knock on their door, although I have no idea which flat the sound is coming from, I might wake up somebody else, unless they’re already up. “A, excuse me, hi, sorry to bother you, I like loud music too, it’s just that tomorrow I have to get up early… ” If they’re drunk, I don’t stand a chance. And it’s not just any music, it’s Tina Turner‘s “Proud Mary”. I was listening to it too a few day ago, but it wasn’t around this time. They must really like it, it’s the fourth time they’ve played it. From time to time, someone turns the volume down, like there’s a guy there going: “I remembered this is an apartment building, not a private villa”. OK, now we’re on to contemporary stuff: Rita Ora or something like that. Then they get to “Lemon Tree”. The joy. ”Everybody is looking for something!” yeah, like the neighbors looking for an extra pillow to put over their heads. Maybe they were at the protest today and felt like celebrating, who knows?

It’s good I got the idea of getting up and writing this, eases the frustration a little. I didn’t read all those zen books to get mad now over this. Now they got to the ballads playlist. The effects of that coffee is running out. Should I email them an article about the side effects of sleep deprivation? I don’t know which direction to take: bed – the optimist one, or ironing/painting/editing – the nobil, but unrealistic one? This is why you announce parties. I wasn’t prepared for this up-all-night-anyway thing. Folk hits, oldies but goldies. A bit undecided, aren’t we? Play, pause, play, pause, play, change the song, we don’t like it, pause again. Seems like there’s a debate before every choice. That’s good, they must be getting tired. I’ll go with the optimist choice for now.

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

I was in bed. Was. I though “Hit The Road Jack” is a good sign. It’s 20 minutes ’till 4 AM now. I feel like I’m on the second floor of a bar building down on Centrul Vechi, on Lipscani, or of any building there. ”Play that fuckin’ music”. No, no, No play. Thanks for a lovely Monday, guys!…

Versiunea în română: https://soulpatterns.wordpress.com/2013/09/02/sa-nu-ma-distrez-doar-eu/

The Kettle And The Brain

Tags

aware, bigger picture, brain, cleaning, coffee, connections, discover, education, hoarding, inertia, kettle, learn, management, meditate, Miss World, momentum, motivation, out of order, productive, signal, sleep, study, unconsciousness, uneasiness, water

Miss World contest question: “Why do you think education is important?” I can’t remember what the woman said, but I remember thinking to myself: “because only when you learned more, you realized how much less you knew before”.
When you can’t seem to find the motivation to start something, start with something easy from your close environment, with an item that is temporarily out-of-order (it has gained new features, which make it hard to use, in the purpose it was built for) such as cleaning the coffee kettle (or any other pot, in which you boiled milk or made tea). It’s not a scientific method, but if you’re not a certified hoarder, chances are you’ll have a productive day. Once rinsed, the kettle becomes a contrasting point to the rest of he things around the kitchen that need attending. It becomes the starting point of cleaning, and it sends a signal to the brain, which knows something has begun and it has to be finished.
When you study, learn and discover new things, your brain gains momentum, in the same way you gained it when you started to clean that kettle. Once you develop the habit of making connections between things and seeing the bigger picture from which those things are a part of, you become more aware, and from understanding of things comes a calm, positive energy; something which you can build upon.
Curiosity is still free; use it. Not being at least curious can be the worst investment you ever made, and not even know it.
The decision to wash the kettle has the same effect on the kitchen and the house, as the realisation that you can think for yourself and that nothing can stop you from learning things for yourself.
Before you have inertia, you need to have momentum. It’s what fuels both consciousness and unconsciousness. The more you know, the more you realise you know so little, but the connections which are made during that process leave little room for unconsciousness. This is the moment in which chaos crosses over to order, “sense” becomes a word with meaning, not just some letters with no space between them. Unconsciousness feeds from the lack of understanding, the lack of will, order or purpose.
The basic structure of our personality is built on decision or indecision. The memories that we relive 50 times more, before we get tired of recycling them, or realise it’s too late to fight with the negativity resulted from that, the mental dusty collections of old rigid rules, which nobody follows anymore but yourself, they all have a correspondent in the physical world in your proximity, in the stuff that didn’t get the chance to be washed or cleaned, or put back in its place; in the kitchen, on the hallway, under the bathroom sink, on the balcony, on the computer-and-100-other-things desk, or your bag. This correspondence can be also found in our bodies, sooner or later, and it translates into pain and dis-ease. Uneasiness is unfortunately underestimated, although it never lies. Who has time for such nonsense as sleeping and drinking plenty of water, or meditating?
We settle for less, expecting a divine reward, but we forget that, in fact, we were given a divine space for free, and we are bound to take care of it.
We mistake escapism for wellbeing. Who bothers with the side-effects of a late-night, high-protein, Bacchic blast menu? There must be a pill for it.
When a messy environment becomes a natural state, it’s a sign that something needs resolving. Things put forever on hold accumulate a negative tension, and soon they will become like a huge luggage put in a tight place, and at first bump in the road, it will fall on our heads.
Nothing urgent springs out of nowhere; it is the result of poorly managed pre-existing conditions.
Yes, there is a type of order in chaos too; some even find inspiration in it. But it’s a fine line between a creative chaos, and the one which forms in the shadow of unfulfilled dreams, and apparently meaningless experiences. The choice of which to live in belongs to us, and it has different outcomes.
It may seem paradoxical, but at a certain level, chaos and order function in the same way; the difference is that one of them is easier to maintain. The difference can be huge. The difference is us.

 

 

Versiunea în română: https://soulpatterns.wordpress.com/2013/04/15/ibricul-si-creierul-colectionarii/

What I Like And Who I Am

Tags

being, coffee, connection, energy, flow, life, light, moodyline, reflection, sense, thought

I like finding connections and exploring all aspects of life, I like making (“new”) sense of it all, I like how coffee changes the way you do things, I like yellow, Greece and Van Gogh.
Then I like stripes, because they remind me of the energy waves that move around us, upon us, through us and inside us.
I like the story told by a man’s face and I like knowing what shapes the path of thought, from our minds and our hearts, by our hands, on the canvas of the world, to build and to destroy, to write, love, play and tell.
I am another being, on another spiral, just like you, maybe like the ones on the stary skies of impressionism.
I am a transparent cube trying to retain the light and sometimes feeling like I could erase my own reflection from the shiny floor.
I go with the flow and share my findings, while at times influencing its course, other times starting a new one.
I am a black and white fractal of diffusions, “desideri” and needs, or I color myself tenderly overimposed onto your filter structure.
I leave a trace and although I can’t justify it all, you get me, because we are both from the same cloth.
I get stuck, or lost, or levitate in a dream.
I am a future object of your subjectivity, with carvings of impatience and greed, laughs, orange zest and movie streets.
I am probably late for some things and early for others.
I get speechless and grateful, I oversleep and start again.
Join me on my journey in a world of connection and wonder, while we inspire and question each other.

Versiunea în română: https://soulpatterns.wordpress.com/2013/03/03/ce-mi-place-si-cine-sunt/