Film Noir and Literature Festival a week from Halloween

It's not a secret that fast-paced plots of suspense and mysterious characters, strange events and thrilling stories appeal to all. And the stories told by some of the best writers in the world have been driven many to chilling bones. Last week we had the First Film Noir and Literature Festival as "Santiago Negro" where there were exposition of comics, films and tabloids as well as some very well-known writers of suspense of our times, Chileans such as Roberto Ampuero, Eduardo Contreras, Ramón Díaz Eterovic and Sergio Gomez, and the Spanish writers Lorenzo Silva, Juan Madrid, Andreu Martín to name a few.

But why all this fascination to all things spooky, mysterious and/or mistical??

There are Halloween Parties in many places, the idea of having one day to be creative and out of the norm is spreading like a sugar candy in the mouth of many. We do celebrate that now in Brazil as much as they do in Chile. It's been like this since I went out of College and it's growing in number. Funny though if you think that Halloween has Celtic origins and it's a Pagan tradition, but few people know the Celts also inhabited in the Iberian peninsula thus South America should have many people who came from there. We do have November First as our official day to mourn those who passed away. But I guess it's a great idea to just let kids have fun, "Trick or Treat" and all than being bored and sick. After all we only get to celebrate Witch's Day once in a year...yeah!! Much better than celebrating Bitch's Day at all, for sure...

"Wuthering Heights" I guess was one of my first literary experiences with the paranormal and mystery. I was a little girl when I first watched the movie, then later on I studied Emily Bronte at high school (an obligatory reading for someone who was actually taken "Translation and Interpretation in English" as a course) and I was already in love with the plot. Also Charles Dickens "David Copperfield" is another story who impressed me deeply and that image of his mother as a portrait on the wall with eyes so vivid and who seemed to being there in the whole story haunted me as a ten year old girl already filled with imaginations.

Which Day is Witches Day? And how has this idea been originated?

Halloween comes from “All Hallows” (hallowed, holy, saint) and it’s considered a very magical time, when the dead walk among the living and the veils between past, present and future may be lifted in prophecy and divination. Now why am I talking about Halloween? Well, we just passed through Spring Equinox, which symbolizes the return of life to Earth, when all things turn from gray to a vivid greenish hallow here in the South Hemisphere, or Fall Equinox in the North, and it is a Thanksgiving time. Why not celebrate those important and magical days as well? Send a flower to a beloved one, send a card to that friend you don’t see a long time, or a good thought to that person you keep some grieving for maybe too long. Or make a picnic into the wood and among friends and family, and give them a generous warming hug, or just shake their hands passing healing energy through your arms and hands. This is charity, as simple as it appears to be! For celebrating life means little things we do to make our lives more free of disturbances. Those little things that we think are so vain, they are actually much more important than sitting around watching the news and feeling powerless before so many tragedies.

We all have a bit of witch in each cell of our bodies… We are all magical in our own way. Every time we remember of someone and all of a sudden this same one calls us and says, “I was thinking of you!” And when someone from our far away past sends us an unexpected email saying that he didn’t know why but he had this urge to contact you for a week and that same week you were thinking of that person, for no reason, and the day before you passed a house that just resembled his home where you used to play together in your infancy times. And it happened that this person had a message for you, or he came exactly when you need that sweet touch. Or when you pray for your children when they are sounded quietly asleep on the other room. And the day after, your child hurts himself and you kiss his arm and he suddenly feels no more pain and gives you a smile.

So we all are witches in the sense of realizing our dreams, of having that old wise woman flying in a broom (our intuition and our own imagination) inside of us, saying which way to turn, to pick a pic, “tickle a trick or two or treat a treacle too”, seize or cease and sizzle! Have Yourself an Unforgettable "Hallo In"... And Happy Halloween!

A Mystery Novel by Ana Bowlova


The night of glooming halo, out and in,
And gauzy witty witches were not seen.
Some are red, and others light green.
Some are so bright they actually gleam.

This is the night when swiftly souls fly
On whizzing broom (or room) on starry sky.
They stir up the clouds of their minds
And begin a new day with magical signs.

This is the night when old wives tell stories
Fascinating us with their charm and glories.
Wishes, spells, they offer spins around the fire,
As we can hear their whispers as a perfect choir.

This is the night when holographic angels flow
Through the gardens or winging on the snow.
They cleanse the houses and spread new rhymes
So that we are all ready for the Christmas time.
Ana Antunes

999 harmony or the energy on September, Nine

Some Oxygen to the Brain

Huging a tree is one of the best ways to feel the harmony around. While you plan to take a trip somewhere make sure you keep that same vibration as if you are about to hug a living being.

Taking into account that when you travel you walk more and make more exercises than if you were stuck on a traffic going to work (as I guess you would actually want to know more bits and pits about the places and the surroundings you chose to spend your next vacation) here are some tips for your trip:

Before you leave, make sure you have adjusted your heating and cooling systems. Unplug all of your appliances and chargers. Pay special attention to the refrigerator which consumes lots of electricity: if you intend to stay longer than a week see if you can take out all the food inside and then unplug. Everytime I leave to a longer period of time I check out if I can take all the food left on the freezer with me. You have no idea how many times that served to me as a snack, a lunch break or even to make a pic-nic later on the day.

Traveling makes you aware of other cultures and nature, making you appreciate more about the planet. So choose your own foot, or a bycycle to give more time to embrace all the beauty and the scenes around you.

Fill containers that you can reuse, give preference to plastic (that you can recycle later) over isolated products that may leave a footprint.

You don't need to take a bottle of water wherever you go. But as long as you can purchase a drink without leaving the content behind that is way better than drinking from a plastic recipient you cannot get rid of. If you're too much into the wild, a bottled water that you can reuse sounds like a good idea. Then recycle it as much as you can.

Travel light. Wear only comfortable clothes and shoes and as often as possible bring accessories you can leave behind (that meaning old and weary comfortable clothes, belts, etc that you can donate later on or, depending on the location, even leaving them to locals). Everytime I travel I always leave behind some clothes, leaving my bag with more space to bring gifts to the family (which can sometimes make my bag heavier than when I first started the trip). So bring with you any accessory you can get rid off along the way (especially if you can donate). Just don't leave the granola wrappers in the wild.

Reuse towels and sheets whenever possible. If you are in a hotel, don't wait for the maid to make the bed, and don't leave that towel on the floor, but back to the original place (or they will be replaced).

Support your local wildlife and ecosystem by going on vacation on your own city, or on a city nearby and learning about their yearlong activities.

Last by not least, bring a book with you, preferably if you can donate it to the local library when you have finished it (the book and the vacation). It's the best solution if you are trapped into inconvenient situations, such as to avoid talking to an annoying traveller next to you in the bus, or train, or when you just wish to be left alone at the beach, or the park bench.

Make sure you can "have your cake and eat it too" by being counscious about the spending and the impact you caused to the region you visit. Enjoying a great location and knowing that you have done all you can to minimise your environmental footprints is in essence the best vacation ever.

I am pro finding, so I believe that can make me too pro-found!

Just release, at ease, please: don't re-press for there is no re-prise n-more!






Hope you enjoyed my frankly treacle treat alter'd native language games created by me to get a smile
from you!

Seeing with the Heart

I once saw a movie made in 1962 about a rebelious girl who was blind, and a teacher with so much love, amazing patience and devotion who could make her read and spell words. The teacher was Anne Sulivan and the girl, Helen Keller. Helen recounted how she first learned about words:

“We walked down the path to the well-house, attracted by the fragrance of the honey-suckle with which it was covered. Someone was drawing water and my teacher placed my hand under the spout. As the cool stream gushed over one hand she spelled into the other the word water, first slowly, then rapidly. I stood still, my whole attention fixed upon the motions of her fingers. Suddenly I felt a misty consciousness as of something forgotten, a thrill of returning thought, and somehow the mystery of language was revealed to me.”

Helen immediately asked Anne for the name of the pump to be spelt on her hand and then the name of the trellis. All the way back to the house Helen learned the name of everything she touched and also asked for Anne’s name. Anne spelled the name “Teacher” on Helen’s hand. And that's what she would also become: A Master of her own destiny! She died on June, the first, 1968, peacefully, while she was sleeping. "No pessimist ever discovered the secret of the stars, or sailed an uncharted land, or opened a new doorway for the human spirit." Helen Keller


Eyes that love live not solitary!
No matter if a block was put,
She saw beyond the ordinary.
She could see with her eyes shut.
Ana Antunes

Synopsis

by Ana Antunes

"Geometry Of Designs"

Christy went from a normal to a paranormal life until the day she lost herself to become a victim of her shadows. As she steps in the deepest labyrinths of her own mind in a paralleled life, she becomes so obsessed with the things that orbitates around her daily events, that she deviates more and more from her own heart. That would cost her a price she never thought she would have to pay.

Preview Here

A Voyage into Another Dimension (A Science Faction)

Synopsis:

If you make a point in the core of the cube, you create nine vertices from two pyramids that kiss each other: one looks up and sustains the other pointing south. They are in perfect balance for they both have their own basis but are joined by a common center. And that's the point I share with the readers who watch "The Nine Journeys in America" as if remembering a dream flight. A metaphor based upon human relationships and the search for the equilibrium inside the soul. It is about the shift of reality, when the life of the protagonist took a new dimension from being 3D and jumped to the Ninth Dimension, as if a cube inserted inside a cube inside another cube. If you add the numbers of vortices you arrive to 25 points which in turn adding 2 and 5 it arrives to seven (a sacred number.) The plot is based upon the reality of a life filled with exciting adventures. Nonetheless it has a touch of fiction and fantasy around the whole scenario (much for the purpose of leaving an open door for the reader's mind to wonder if this has all really happened...and then it all look so fantastic? But isn't life a dream more real than the dream we have awaken??)

It starts as a test and it ends up as an entire journey accomplished with much success, even though it was aborted, for the real mission was not to complete the journey but to absorb the quintessence impregnated in the whole process.
You can find this book Here

Flat Feet: An Autobiography of a Cosmic Dancer

Synopsis:
This is a collection of Stories well distributed into Nine Parts, each containing an average of 15 pages, which I particularly developed by relating the stories with flying birds. In this book I write about Past Lives and about my Near Death Experience. In a variety of essays I tell how it all happened to me, and how it changed my life and transformed my entire being. Things that used to be so important got so less attention, and things that I didn't pay attention before now have essential values for me. I share some points of view while searching for a higher understanding of the Universe. The researches are so vast that they seem infinitesimal, every subject leading us to a much wider variety of endless subjects. Perhaps this is due to the vastness and complexity of our whole existence.

I dare to mix many beliefs, theories and experiences, in both a scientific and religious approach. Through a composition of dissertations, I do the best I can to make it readable, varying it from relaxing and rational to emotional, yet exciting explanatory principles. This book is about my own search for the truth, and a voyage to my self-discovery. I go to the light of it, to return to my own heart, my Home.

"Flat Feet" invites us to fly with this collection of memoirs and look upon a metaphysical way of living, with an entertaining and exotic travel throughout the feedbacks and many insights the book offers to us. My intent is to reunify Science and Religion, which I believe was once only One Truth, until the Medieval Age (The Age of Darkness) started to monopolize the truth to manipulate the masses. Then we passed through the Renascence and The Age of Enlightenment. Ideas started to pop up in our heads. Now, in our Modern Age (The Age of "Light" i.e. Electronics) we went from one extreme to another.

I look to my right, and I see Science. Some things I agree on, to what I say, Yes to other things, I would say. I'm not completely sceptical, neither am I an atheist. I want to believe. On the other hand, I am not a devotee. I look to my left, and I see a blind devotion, with no need to be explained. I need explanations. The way in the middle of both, the TAO, that's my Path. I look forward to what is ahead of me, examining the beauty of El Camino, but always making sure I'm not stepping into any other's shoes. I keep beholding the horizon in front, while directing my eyes to Eternity as I drink from the ethereal philosophy of Heaven from inside the wheel. In the middle of the turmoil, if you locate the eye of the hurricane and stay in the center you are safe. In the end you will see that life is no more no less than a dream made of pure poetry.

Some excerpts:

"I had a paralysis when I woke up. I wanted to move my body and it was entirely static. What a "fantastical" sensation! I couldn't move a finger. But this time I was not having a dream...

I dreamed of being in a place that pretty much resembled what we picture as Heaven. Actually it looked more like a faraway city in Mexico(although I had never been there in my physical state. Well, not at this lifetime, at least!) It also looked very familiar to me as if I lived there my whole being. There was a pyramid and I felt secure, as if I was home. People were so nice and the sunshine touched me in a very delicate way. I felt such peace!

(...)What about the Out-of-Body Experiment from sweet Clara at The Nutcracker?

Even Mickey Mouse had an Out-of-Body Experience. When he flies away from his body at the original Fantasia as the witch's pupil from the brilliant mind of Walt Disney. Before "Fantasia", in 1934's cartoon Gulliver Mickey, in a dream state leaves his sleeping body and takes flight. Of course, it is much easier for a cartoon, to make a paper drawing fly. He surely felt even lighter than he already was! It is a very common episode. Only that some just don't realize that we spend half of our lives in that state."

You can view more of this book Here

True Holy & Odd Story

"True Holy & Odd Story"- in a relaxed, funny account, this tale can captivate your eye reminding you of what it matters most when unexpected situations call for urgency: Love, Live and Heave!
This book is available Here

Fate or Faith?

A compiling of experiences in a compelling Memoir, a confession over troubled waters, and a reflection in English, Portuguese and Spanish upon a peregrination of thirteen days between Portugal and Spain. An invitation to join in a journey of a lifetime, a fair compound of an inspirational glare.

You can view the whole piece in the book "Fate or Faith?" Here

Cheat Chart

Cindy Laughter was a pretty sixteen-year-old girl who loved to sing and compose her own songs. Each time someone got closer to her she would start to sing as loud as she could.
But that was not only pretty annoying but also what seemed to be a case for a psychiatric treatment. At least, that was what her parents thought she needed, and what her younger brother felt she was: a nut case.

Everybody who knew her would just say about her: “She’s so unusual!!” And her response was usually, “I drove all night, I am just too tired for that.” Or she simply justified her own attitudes saying, “It’s hard to be me. I have enough of me to want to have you…I love to hate.” And sometimes when people tried really hard to be next to her she would just reply to them: “I don’t want to be your friend, that’s all.”

At school, Cindy was always ahead of her class. She had pretty good marks all of her years, and because she did so well with all her studies, and she was pretty good with all that she did, the teachers told her that she could be dismissed from the last tests which Cindy took as a gift for she felt very blessed to be able to dedicate most of her time into what seemed to be a promising career as a singer and composer.

“Oh, girls just wanna have fun!!” And she just laughed, making whoopee. All that she wanted was just to walk in the sun, to just have fun, sing and dance all day long and all along. She smiled all the way back home and even had one or two ideas to compose a happy song from rap music. She knew that some day she would fall into her dreams.

* * * * *

Is our destiny written in the stars? Are our lives a drawing of a major picture? Or do we play a major rule onto that? Are the changes and decisions that we make in life cosmically underlined in a U-turn? Are there invisible hands charting a map of our hearts? There are just too many questions to ask for our rescue. Is there a way to know it all?
You can view the whole piece in a book under the title "Cheat Chart" Preview Here

Dive-In-Action

Divinations that can c®ook up your mind!

Preview Here



S-Key Use Me!
Excuse Me!
But I one Two Three Myself.
Fo(u)r Fiver Seizes on a Shelf,
S-even Ate Nin's elf
And tain't ill even Two elve(S)!

X-K-U S But(t) We One-T(w)o-Free Ourselves T(w)o X-Press On(e) Dancing!

This is neither Latin nor Greek, but a lot of freaky break-in-puzzlers that
I e-labor-ate (yummy!) to make you exercise your brain and make you crack
in&out.

Would you MIND another exercise in this segment, for your brain cellules, to
keep them active? For a flexible mind don?t bend out of shape... So just
try to find the solution to diseng-age this problem cusS getting too o(l)dd:

1-The n(o)un and vi(er)b are about same age.
2-The vi(er)b is much older than the n(o)un.
3-The n(o)un is much older than the vi(er)b.
4-The vi(er)b is a little bit older than the n(o)un.

You can find more exercises to your body/mind/spirit on my book ?Dummy?s
DOW WorkIn&Out? I know time is a rare artefact in our busy scheduled lives. I
just want to ANA-ounce a peculiar pheno-moon-on:

A corroborant eminent event is imminent...Light the candles for Love surely IS in the Air... Go catch IT UP! If you cant, letting the gravity take you down, just relax then in a hammock with a Divination poem in your hands. For the "Divin' Action& Book of Poems, with One Hundred One Play-On-Words and Divinations hope(s) on the way of makin' you build a ham-mock of your lips and open a big smile over your cheeks:

She is a cool neat woman, so bright!
She is always ready to get into a fight.
She sings as one takes her clothes out right
And dances when she's ready to take a flight.

Just click on the cover of the book "Dive-In-Action" displayed above to get the answer... Or don't wait! Time is a precious gift. Pick-a-book from my desk on the link below and... Peek-a-Boo! Just read it... 'n get (a) real re(la)x... Rex!

The solution for the puzzler from ?Dummy?s DOW WorkIn&Out? shown
before is:

N(o)un of the alter-n actives.
Cheers! (No tears!)

And please, don't forget: There is always Time Enough...Just Play With (W)IT.
And then go and get it:

Dive In' Action

A On(e) Hun(t)re(a)d On(e) Play-On-Words, Poems and Divinations:

This is an original book
With a surprising hook.
Take it home or share with friends
From the beginning until the end.

Dummy's
DOW Work In&Out

Here are t(w)o brie(ea)f(th) quotations for pronunciation
practice and "fun'e-thiks" entertainment from the "Dummy's
DOW Work'In&Out Illustrated" Workbook.

This is a One-in-Two Action (on Intuition):

A (b) lad (e) has no strai (e) n (ght) if it's not pa (^t^)-em-pai(e)red
by a gree(a)t(n) f(l)ame.
Read More Here

Thank you so much to allow me to show my words/worlds, and to share my own experiences. I do have my limitations. I wished I were an angel, but I am a mere(?) human being. Especially because I cannot handle English as well as if I were dancing on my tiptoes, but true, I do have value. I do believe as I began Ballet with my flat feet I also can write with my flat English.

I can accomplish much with little: If God gave me a lemon, I would not only
make a lemonade but keep the seeds and plant new lemon trees. Instead of
crying for the lack of opportunities I take what I have and make them grow.
I see potential in each small thing. So I assure you that from the mostly latin
vocabulary that I use I can make it a good thing if you look into another
perspective; I do not have any vicious of language and no rigid style, I can
be reshaped any way you direct me to. You see, I'm very flexible (thanks to
my years of Ballet) and I can dance any music you play! I will dip into my
words, and? find my own voice", as a Senior Editor once suggested me to
do:

But how am I supposed to my own voice expose and find,
if there are just so many characters also playing inside my mind?
I should give them expression and voice as well.
And write the stories they are eager to tell.

But there is a way I can easily access to my core,
and make a chorus in poetic lines flowing from each pore
It is when I sing that I give voice to my soul.
May I sing high, may I sing low.
Just the poor neighbors,
Who have to listen to my labors...

I've always loved to sing. I'm not a professional singer; in spite of all, I do my best! Hope I sing for you, and dance in your stage, and paint a beautiful picture of us together making a remarkable composition soon!

When you bear a cross, you hold a sword
Where IT lives in union, your soul.
If you cannot find your voice, your word
Find yourself in the myriads of what you sow.
And from there you may grow!

Once I was at the Heathrow Airport in London and the woman at the Customs Service started to throw an avalanche of questions at me. In the end, she asked me what my father did, and after hours standing up there and quite tired, I felt squeezed and inquised, "He is a liar", I responded to her inquiring face. Then she looked at me, astonished. Just then I realized what I had just said, "No, I mean, a lawyer, a lawyer!" I corrected. She stamped the maximum of time permission Visa on my passport. "With that English, girl, you cannot go so far!" She must have thought...But no! I had my head down and I was about to leave after apologizing for my awful English with my quite too strong Brazilian accent."You did pretty well!?" That's what she replied to me, after I felt like a pliable puppet.

When I was at school, my colleagues used to write on each other's diaries with anything they could think about their friendship. Every time those kinds of memories and souvenirs would reach out into my hands, I would write poems into them. I couldn't find any better way to write about my feelings than through the rhythms of flowing words as in poetry. Then, they would all dispute to who could get the best poem Ana Claudia would write for them, for each and every one I would write something different for I had different feelings and outlooks for and from them.

Then, I would notice that some liked my poems so much that they would actually copy them into another diary, of course without saying that it was written by me.

I was flattered, although I realized also that maybe they wouldnt think that I wrote them by myself and they thought I had just copied from someone else's work. Then, I would really feel flattered. But I was indeed really the day I showed my first book of poems to my mother, and I saw tears in her eyes. It was the first time that I remember touching my mothers feelings so deeply like that. It filled my heart with so much proud and poured my soul in pure ecstasy!


My first three poetries that I drafted with a pencil when I was seven (and I
still have the diary where I scratched on and worte the words down) were
Rare, Innocence and Rhyme. Here I transcribe them from my memory for I still
remember them by heart (as much as FROM the heart):

Rare: Little word



In a huge world.



Rare is You



The precious jewel



That is so true.



 



But without love



Rare has no value



Everyone gets the distance



From those with no instance.



 



Rhyme



 



Run, jump, and give us a turn,



Roll and make the floor burn.



Is it the happiness from the girl?



She jumps with her hair in curls.



With her hands, and hair



In the air?



Or is it the rhyme



That it is so fine



That is in the tip of her tongue,



So that she can make us a song?






Innocence





He who has innocence is loved.



He who has innocence is gay.



He, who has not, always complains.



Innocence is searched above.



 



Innocence is searched below.



But for the ones who lost it



There is no return to post it.



That is what they do not know.



Maybe the innocence lies on each small look from a petit child who naively
wishes to be happy. And the idealism inhabits the wistful thoughts of those
who desirably fight and will never cease striving to bring happiness and
freedom to all. It?s simple as that morning walking contemplation of a
matutinal stroll by the sun in a candent candor from the beginning of summer
days at the shores of a roboranting beach city in the name of all Saints.



(Check out my book "Many Lives to Love...and The Eternity to Live"
with plenty of stories, one of them passed in a fructuous city called
Santos):







Copyright © 2009 Ana Claudia Antunes. All rights reserved.

Voyage to Jupiter

A Voyage to Jupiter




"The light over the front is haloed with a hazy, dazzling nimbus of mist. Two strangers intersect flutterin' up against the pyramidal screen, (fr)agile, wing-thin. Those eyes of a theanthropic matter observe all, awe-so(me) blinded, dazed, numbed by the brilliance of an overpowering existence."



This is an enticing invitation with an alluring connotation surrounded by a mysterious and mystical mist of a fancy atmosphere and also the title of my futuristic/surrealist artistic book (blame not me for my lack of self-modesty but truly honesty) a lucid dreamy romantic expedition. It starts as a test and it ends up as an entire journey accomplished with much success, even though it was aborted, for the real mission was not to complete the journey but to absorb the quintessence impregnated in the whole process.



Dreams In Sight Deem In F(l)ight



If you make a point in the core of the cube, you create nine vertices from two pyramids that kiss each other: one looks up and sustains the other pointing south. When they reach that place of perfect balance, stat, they seem in countervailing resistance. And although they both have their own basis, are joined by a common center. And that's the point I share with the readers who watch "The Nine Journeys in America" as if remembering a dream flight. A metaphor based upon human relationships and the search for the equilibrium inside the soul. It is about the shift of reality, when the life of the protagonist took a new dimension from being 3D and jumped to the Ninth Dimension, as if a cube inserted inside a cube inside another cube. If you add the numbers of vortex you arrive to 25 points which algorisms added turns to seven which is a sacred number. What make my books unique are in reality the experiences of life that only a soul who emerged from the underworld (from the depths of death and so relieved relived) could have had and that I try to translate into poetic lines.



The plot then is based upon the reality of a life filled with exciting adventures. Nonetheless it has a touch of fiction and fantasy around the whole scenario much for the purpose of leaving an open door for the reader's mind to wonder if this has all really happened...and then it all look so fantastic? But isn't life a dream more real than the dream we have awaken?? This book is permeated with snazzy words like cube points pivoting from pervicacious obliterations to weed out revolts evoked with lapidary sentences.
----------------------------------------------------------


A Little Story To En-Light-En'In Your Eyes:



"I AM blind. And I dream in Technicolor!"



Someone once emailed me a story supposedly to be true that happened on the streets of Paris. There was this blind man holding an empty hat. And as his tack, beneath the hat there was a plaque saying: "I am blind!" A man who actually worked at an advertising agency passed by, and seeing this scene took the plaque and wrote on the back of it:



"Please help me to be able to see the beauty from the sky of Paris!"



Some time later the man came back to verify if his marketing plan was having any success at all, to cheerfully realize that the blind's man hat had then plenty of coins.



In the end of the message it says: "Sometimes all you need is to change the strategy to get the results. Find a new tactic to resolve old problems."



I did happen to have literally crossed many a blind man or two at the pretty dangerous streets of Sao Paulo where, as much as in Paris, the drivers seem to care less if you are blind or not.



One of the blind men I caught up with seemed to eddy around him as if he were being swept away by a strong wind, swirling around himself like a hurricane. I grabbed his elbow and accompanied him. And as we walked together like two old friends he told me about his entire life. He said that he was born blind. He had a wife who was also blind and they had three terrific kids. Of course I had to ask if their children were also blind, and he replied to me with an emphatic phlegmatic pride that not one of them were.



His wife worked in a Braille Institute helping other blinds to learn how to read. And he himself was in his way to catch a bus, as he told me energetically that he worked as a librarian.



And just before I left him at the bus stop he said: "I AM blind, but when I go to sleep I can see on my dreams. And I dream in color!"



Now I ask: "Which one of the blind men is closer to be able to see the Heaven's sky?

...............................................................................


Xsearch!



"We were worried that it could crash in the middle of this nothingness. So we decided that it would be better to stay in Ganymede first, at the largest moon of Jupiter, which appeared to be more inoffensive, with its brightness so light and yet so soft, it was appealing to us, so that we could explore its property.



Its dazzling light, but not as bright as the moon we know, could illuminate the atmosphere of Jupiter. It didn't have the glowing as the full moon into our planet. Yet it was not as clear as it could be into the darkness of space. But it was beautiful! I never thought it would be possible to exist such an amazing moon.



I have seen our pretty moon, in its fullest, in the desert of Arizona, and also in the center of Brazil, at the heart of the forests, when the sky is still clear, and the moon seems to be closer to the Earth. But, I don't know if the reason was that there were no other lights, only this immense pearled champ, and the silence of the black space, that the moon, not as brighter as ours, still could empower such magnificence into this huge planet. It was so close that I could feel its light as if I could touch it; I could even see the details of its surface.



It was composed of small craters, its soil was barren and gray, as the horizon was black as the darkest night in the solstice with no stars, though there was a scarcely clarity coming from it. Its light didn't hurt our eyes, so we could speculate about it as much as we wished for.



We meditated. The huge silence of the Universe leaded us to do so. It was an ecstatic moment, and in a static moon! Then, I realized that the soil of Jupiter had also as much crater as the surface of its moon; maybe composed by the same substances? A crystal pearled surface, but full of craters, more than in Ganymede. No gas. No foggy sensation and definitely no smoke.only the black sky and the white moon composing the picture.



And this was our honeymoon.No food, no water, only the moon! And love.it was time to come back. How did we get there? Well, that is a long, long story."



(Excerpts from the Book "Sweet Secrets-A Voyage to Jupiter" by Ana Claudia Antunes)



The Nine Journeys and the Tao

There are some quotes from the Tao that are quite confucius-ing. I'd mention t(w)o:



"Tao is an eternal mystery, and everything starts with Tao. Everybody has Tao in them. They just have to use it."


"The moment you try to use Tao you have already lost it."




I do have some contradictory and contra-dictionary quotes too and I'd like to expose seven connotations and quotations from the "DOW" if you may allow me:



"When you try to use it, you are tempted to abuse it. It's a question between 'sins&senseability'!"



"You cannot loose what you already possess inside of you."



"Stick on what you got and you can even get a t®ick or t®ue."



"If you are not "out-law'd" then you might be for bid'in."



"If you think you can it, you already lost it!"



"Those who are afraid of loosing never had it from the first place."



"Once you use it, you can bruise it if you misuse it. But if you loose it, don't snooze: it suits you!"



"My Very Educated Mother Just Showed Us Nine Planets" and she also just helped you remember the names of the planets of the solar system. But the most important one (at least hopefully for ALL of US) will always be our mother Earth. She is a cockeyed (not to confound with cocky) place, for it is in constant flow of motions with a superb, lapidary precision, in an everlasting rotation, oblivious to all and dancing in obliquous, unrestful and insatiable angles. But you should also know that you are responsible for her moving as well. For you carry the whole world in your hand. Take Care fot IT!

------------------------------------------------------------


A Pho(e)tic Star(t)



"I feel a vertigo all at once.



It is my dreams that blow.



Filling my heart I announce



All the love my life can show.





Dreams that make me a child.



Wild dreams bringing me memory.



Desires that make me smile



All remembering my whole story.





A tender look for all those years



Memories of flights over the hills.



The child on me that still remains



Remembers how it made me feel.





Loosing the ground I fall from the stars



And go straight to a brand new start."







A Phun-ethic In-Star (To JC)



"The tumultuous heavens above


Affect not the color of our love,


For though the clouds are heavy in the skies,


The clouds tend to disappear in your eyes.




They have a clear and brilliant hue.


Those deep eyes that are so blue...


See the heavens so peaceful above,


Clearly your eyes problems may solve.



If you show the color of your essence


I still believe we can grow in senescence


As odd as it sounds, together, you and I.


For that 's what I see in your eye.



I feel it in my heart so strong


And I know I can't be wrong.


That our love will grow on and on.


And forever will never be so long."



Ana Antunes




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Check out Ana's latest releases on Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/Ana-Claudia-Antunes/e/B002DBHE30/ref=ntt_athr_dp_pel_1