I recently listened to two interviews which were full of life and which I want to mention here.

Both were hosted by NPR’s Tom Ashbrook, one was with Eve Ensler and the other with Philip Hoare.  First Eve.

Eve was the originator of The Vagina Monologues which sets out (my experience) to make public some of the experiences which girls/women have had and which are either taboo or simply difficult to express.  Experiences such as rape, incest, domestic and other forms of violence, female genital mutilation (violence), and orgasms, and taboo issues such as how young girls see their bodies (obesity, anorexia), and to their genitalia, how girls relate to pleasure, relate to sex, … and on and on and on.  I guess The Vagina Monologues basically encourage women to speak out about their situations by letting them now they are not alone, not the only ones facing those issues.  It does so by having performances, on stage, of women reading a huge variety of monologues.

In regards to the interview (which you can find here).  In general I was very moved.  Moved by the excerpts she read from her new book, by the stories she shared, by her motivation to the cause.  I have watched the performance at the University of Florida and was very impressed by how much passion was in the readings and how much the whole public (men and women) ressonated with the stories, I think that helped me to connect better to Eve when listening to the interview.  Tom Ashbrook is my favorite interviewer at the moment.  I liked how he allotted plenty of time for Eve to read from the book.

I have to say, though, that I was surprised, even stunned, by his words at one or two points; it seemed he was … rude to his guest.  In particular there was one man who called in and asked something of Eve that she was unable to respond to, and Tom said: “I thought you’d be more empathetic than that Eve” and then right afterwards: “I thought you had a lot of capacity on that score”.

I just want to go a little further here.  Overall the interview really worked for me but from here onwards I feel the interaction suffered some shift and didn’t return.

The caller started his comment by saying:  “I just want to ask the author is there a way you can kind of temper your enthusiasm for emotion because I’ve been in two relationships, I’ve been married twice, my first relationship, which didn’t work out that well, my former wife used emotion as a trump card to you know play and say that emotion was more important than what actually occurred.  My second wife…”

Eve wasn’t sure what to respond, saying that she didn’t fully understand the caller and that it is hard to respond because she wasn’t there (in the caller’s interactions with his wives).  To which Tom said those above comments.  I have to say I agree with Eve; is the caller really asking Eve to be change how enthusiastic she is about emotion because the caller had an experience he wasn’t pleased with?!  I imagine the caller simply wants Eve to acknowledge that the card “emotion” can be used as verbal violence in a relationship.  He isn’t going to get that acknowledgment by asking the author, or anyone, to temper her enthusiasm.

Overall, I applaud both Eve and Tom for broadcasting these ideas to the world.

photo copied from website: How to teach autistic children.

A couple of nights ago, at a reunion of friends spurred by an anniversary, the topic of teaching came up.

Will you teach me?

A young child’s letter to a teacher.

by Ivor Sparks (ivormarleysparks(at)gmail.com)

Will you teach me that who I am right now is more than enough? That I am a complete being, a child of the universe. That there is nothing I can memorize or learn to perform now, or in the future, which will make you love or respect me more than you do now. That I am complete, whole and if I willfully choose to learn anything at all, it is for the Joy of learning at that moment, not for a reward at some point in the near or distant future. Will you teach me that the destination is all along the way?

Will you teach me that compassion and empathy, which all children possess an abundant supply of, should be nurtured and treasured? That if i lose the ability to shudder at my fellow beings pain and misfortune anywhere on this planet, I will be loosing sight of one of the universes simple truths, that we are all the “same light wearing different lampshades”.

Will you teach me how to build shelter for family, and myself and reap the harvest mother nature provides free and abundantly in the garden? Without these basic skills, I am resigning myself to a life of dependency and mindless comsumerism in an economic system, which creates and capitalizes on the misfortune of many, for the benefit of few?

Will you teach me by living your truths, by understanding that the most effective method of passing on knowledge is through the heart, not the mind? Show me, don’t tell me.

Will you teach me the art of meditation, the joy of disconnecting from the chatter of the mind, not as a chore, but as a joyful activity, which allows me to live a life led by the heart? A skill, which will serve me for the rest of my visit on this planet.

Will you teach me unconditional love, not only for others, but above all, for myself? That my ability to initiate and sustain healthy relationships with others at all levels, is only possible if I love and know myself first and foremost.

Will you teach me about the temporal nature of this reality, and the underlying eternal nature of it all? The beauty of conscious birth and death? That life gives birth to death and death gives birth to life. That both can be embraced ecstatically. Above all, never to loose my sense of Awe and Wonderment of the miracle of this reality.

Will you teach me that history, (His story) is just that, and that unless you can show me how to think, instead of what to think, I will be at the mercy of special interests whose motivation and purpose for writing their version of how things went down, may not always be in my best interest. That the ability to think critically is a characteristic of an open mind?

Will you teach me that the greatest illusion of all is “Fear”? That love is the absence of fear. That love is what we came here for?

The author, Ivor, enjoys communication around this topic so drop him an email if this text touched you.

I was hesitant to watch this, I mean, I had this idea of David Blaine as slightly full-of-himself kind of person.  But it was in TED, so I gave it a chance and was very impressed.

Inspiring video:

It was often the case that I would look out at the mountains of Sintra, be in awe at how beautiful it was and wish I could show it to others.  I would sometimes snap a photo but then I would look at the photo later and be disappointed at the result.  So after a long time I figured out how to use the camera and quicktime to make time-lapse sequence of photos.  Below is the first experiment and I’m really pleased with it!  The photos were 45 seconds apart and taken over about 30 hours.

I plan on repeating this experiment with both the same angle and different angles overlooking the mountains!

p.s. the movement you may notice at the end of the land is due to the chickens and geese and ducks and turkeys and et cetras.

This is today’s morning, as seen from the window of my house.  Sintra, Portugal.  It is worth waking up early don’t you think?

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But here is the link: http://videos.sapo.pt/jhnV7ZAaS9Zh27AJ22W8

I used to watch videos of tennis games and tennis players practicing and I would notice that my stroke would improve significantly.  That phenomenon extends itself to many other topics; nowadays I watch videos of climbers, yogis, massage therapists, swimmers… a learning through empath.

Microsoft has just put 7 hours of Feynman lectures online, for the free viewing.  I recommend you go learn through empath by watching and listening to this inspiring person.

http://research.microsoft.com/apps/tools/tuva/index.html