anne herbert
Two recent bits of brilliance by the mysterious Anne Herbert of Peace and Love and Noticing the Details.
Related posts: xanne herbert’s wise + teeny meditations
going from “can’t” to “can”
fling and be flung (jackson pollock)
ann herbert: unaccumulateann herbert: unaccumulate
a reminder, via anne herbert (open doors!)
(Video link here.) A reader sent us this lovely little video her friend Julia Warr made. It is about 95-year-old Maia Helles, a former Russian ballet dancer who she met on a plane four years ago. Warr became convinced that Maia “remains resolutely independent, healthy as a forty year old…through the benefits of her daily exercise routine, which Maia perfected, together with her Mother, over 60 years ago, long before exercise classes were ever invented.”
Towards the end, Maia reveals the keys to her long life:
“My secret for a long life is simplicity and work and enjoyment. “
And we would love to know her exercise routine.
Related posts: role model: lucien freud, 82, painting
advanced style: doing your thing at any age
aging as an invitation to reinvent oneself
m.f.k. fisher’s “mystic materialism of a hungry woman”
This video came from a CD/book called Graceful Passages: A Companion for Living and Dying
Thanks Maria!!
Related posts: reminder: shooting stars all around us (gif)
insta-perspective: this is where we are
travel the known universe
“what’s not wrong?’ and other ways to start your day
sagan’s mixtape of the human experience – for aliens
photo: john deane
Ever since we found this quote by the legendary choreographer Martha Graham on Elephant Journal the other day, it’s been haunting us, because we relate to SO much to it and because we DON’T relate to some of it, a curious mix.
“I believe that we learn by practice.
Whether it means to learn to dance by practicing dancing or to learn to live by practicing living, the principles are the same.
In each, it is the performance of a dedicated
preciseset of acts, physical or intellectual, from which comes shape of achievement, a sense of one’s being, a satisfaction of spirit.One becomes, in some area,
an athleteof God.Practice means to perform, over and over again in the face of all obstacles, some act of vision, of faith, of desire.
Practice is a means of inviting the perfection desired.” read more…
(Video link here.) Ekso Bionics, creators of a robotic exoskeleton that enables paraplegics to walk, has created a compelling video about their remarkable invention. Much of the video is of Amanda Boxtel, an early product tester, who has not walked since she sustained an spinal cord injury 20 years ago (though she has mastered – and taught – many sitting-down sports.) Watching her, and listening to her speak of her experience, is to be reminded of – and really “get” - the little ordinary things that we take for granted…“putting my heal on the ground…being able to bend my knee..taking a step and then another step…a walk in nature.”
(Video link here.) We were just getting disgruntled at Pandora’s “Bjork” stream when “All Is Full Of Love” came on. We WOKE UP, amazed at what we were hearing and went looking for the lyrics. They are beautiful, somehow making us think of the creative process as much as love. “You have to trust it, despite wrong turns. It’s there.”
This video of a young Bjork performing the song is a bit unfocused until 1:20 when it really picks up steam. At 2:30 she holds a note – the word “love” – for a stunning 17 seconds. It has an utterly forthright, courageous quality that reminded us read more…
joe villon
We don’t know what we’d do without Cara de Silva, who almost daily sends us something moving and interesting. Even if we don’t post it, we feel like she threw a gift our way: something we would have otherwise missed. This weekend she alerted us to a stunning piece in the New York Times written by novelist Henning Mankell (famous for his dark and beautifully-rendered crime novels). Mankell writes about the art of listening and the importance of story-telling in everyday life, his great lessons from living in Africa for nearly 25 years. It is a quick, essential read: a perfectly written story in itself, rich with images and wisdom Henkell learned…by listening.
“…It struck me as I listened to those two men that a truer nomination for our species than Homo sapiens might be Homo narrans, the storytelling person. What differentiates us from animals is the fact that we can listen to other people’s dreams, fears, joys, sorrows, desires and defeats — and they in turn can listen to ours.
Many people make the mistake of confusing information with knowledge. They are not the same thing. Knowledge involves the interpretation of information. Knowledge involves listening.
So if I am right that we are storytelling creatures, and as long as we permit ourselves to be quiet for a while now and then, the eternal narrative will continue. read more…
harry bertoia
“Sculptor and designer Harry Bertoia was just 15 when he moved from Italy to the United States. Two years later, struggling to assimilate in school, he made this list of personal attributes as part of a class project. After high school he attended the Cranbrook Academy of Art, in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, where, along with his neatness and accuracy, he developed a fluid sense of sculptural form that made him a leading designer of modern furniture.”
What quality would you add?
Related posts: mind bath: jackson pollock at work (by hans namuth)
messages from the future, written in the past
for amy winehouse
tool for improvising: defer judgment
tool for improvising: embrace mistakes
These two images, with their amazing statement, are from a series of twenty posted on the blog Rolu recently, in which the late fashion designer Yves St. Laurent gives an unexpectedly candid speech announcing his retirement. In a few words, the famously private man reveals the impetus for his immense creativity – his “fatal lineage” and concertedly shatters the illusion of a seemingly charmed life.
The images-with-statements are taken from the first minutes of L’Amour Fou
(Video link here.) The other day on on Constant Siege, we found this clip of a young Steve Jobs stating one simple, transformative fact that is curiously easy to overlook:
“When you grow up you tend to get told the world is the way it is and you’re life is just to live your life inside the world. Try not to bash into the walls too much. Try to have a nice family, have fun, save a little money.
That’s a very limited life. Life can be much broader once you discover one simple fact: Everything around you that you call life was made up by people that were no smarter than you and you can change it, you can influence it, you can build your own things that other people can use.
Once you learn that, you’ll never be the same again.”
No matter what you think of the guy, this is an amazing bit of wisdom.
Related posts: the other sides of steve jobs: good + bad = ?
apple’s ‘think different’ video: tribute to steve jobs
steve jobs: ‘you have to trust…’
the dalai lama on $$, loss, “failure”
photo: peggy markel
The streets of Tangier in North Africa are a mix of the ancient and the contemporary but some traditions still hold fast. Outdoor cafes are populated with men who seem to sit for hours on end, drinking strong coffee or Moroccan ‘whiskey’ – gunpowder green tea with loads of fresh mint and sugar. Passing the day in conversation or sitting quietly is normal. But every day? Don’t they work? I wondered.
“They are working”, said our friend Said. “Did you see the paint bucket sitting on the side of the street? read more…
(Video link here.) When Amy Schoening told us about her friend and teacher Alonso King, founder of Lines Ballet, we went right to a video she made about him. King is clearly a transformative teacher, the kind of person we’d love to have as a mentor. His teachings about dance and movement are really teachings about life…its essential principles: being honest, generous, fearless in expressing your true self.
King sees his mission as a teacher as “waking up the sleeping artist in the student. The dancer is listening to his own internal teacher, and that’s what you want to wake up.”
Waking up our internal teacher… read more…
As you may have noticed, we have a thing for images of people flying and leaping, free falling and sailing through the air – to where? – with no constraints. (Because it’s what we want to do). Today we found a delicious trove on John Foster’s Accidental Mysteries column on Design Observer...
Related posts: fly! (merce cunningham)
practice flying (via the uganda skateboard union)
photo of the day: ‘leap into the void’
danny macaskill’s bike lesson (setbacks + difficulties + perseverance = mastery)x
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