Brave magic

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‘Dzielny Prosiaczek’ Brave Piglet

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No one knows it better than children that darkness can be  beautiful and exciting. That shadows can have their charm. That solitude can bring up our creative spirits and make them hear voices that naturally disappear during our daily ramble of routines. No one knows it better than children that the unknown is always a promise of discovery, that the scary can easily be turned into the unusual or the magical.

Sometimes we need a bit of help to tread into the unknown and to become childen whose curiosity is stronger than fear, we need to be helped with going through the darkness of self-discovery. During our darkest moments we rarely resemble children who are interested in observing or making the magic happen. During our darkest moments we are utterly confused, stuck in the difficulty. And this is when we reach for somebody or something and this is usually the time when many of us start to pray again – or to pray for the very first time ever. The prayer works, mostly when we understand that

“The function of prayer is not to influence God, but rather to change the nature of the one who prays.” Soren Kierkegaard

It’s when we start to smile at darkness that the magic begins. It’s when we take the responsibility for making the magic happen, that it does.

Today

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“There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.” ~ Albert Einstein

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Change the pattern

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“Notice everything. Appreciate everything, including the ordinary. That’s how to click in with joyfulness or cheerfulness. Curiosity encourages cheering up. So does simply remembering to do something different. … You can … just go to the window and look at the sky. You can splash cold water on your face, you can sing in the shower, you can go jogging – anything that’s against your usual pattern. That’s how things start to lighten up.” ~Pema Chödrön

 

 

Spain

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Park Güell, Barcelona
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Montserrat
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Montserrat

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Mas del Pi, Restaurant, Castellon
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Valencia
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Valencia

 

 “Everything you can imagine is real.”
― Pablo Picasso

 

*Photographs from my recent solo-travel to Spain. :)

Sweetness and Setbacks

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When I’m going through a period of strong self-doubt I always reach for my camera. My camera is my reassurance tool. It always makes me bounce back from failures and depressing news. The lens works for me as a bad-to-good news filter. It allows me to remember that really there is so much sweetness in life, sweetness that we make ourselves oblivious to when our minds are anxious. When I take my camera out, I re-focus.  I see the treats and the treasures of our daily life and at times I even look at myself with a more positive eye – have you noticed that smiling to the camera makes us more playful almost instantly? And ironically, play makes us find more solutions to our problems then anxiety does. How do you cultivate a playful mind?