The KuKu Adventure
A couple of days ago a kuku peach decided to have an adventure. I had originally planned on a long random walk, but in a rare fit of good humor and un-laziness my little sister consented to come along. I had asked out of politeness, didn’t think my usually extremely lazy sister would agree! So the nature of the adventure had to change from random anything to a well organized family plan including all my favorite fun spots & less walking. I had to candidly disguise the walking bits so as not to discourage her & at the same time get her walking muscles warmed up. For the sake of my own privacy ;P I will not name some of the places we went to.
The first spot is a walk way on the sea front where u can also walk or sit on the sand. There are also some shaded areas designated for barbeques and families chilling together. And at 1 PM it was pretty quite. The only person we saw was an Indian guy we kept saying hi to every time we came and went! We got down on the sand and sat on some rocks taking pictures when out of no where a kitten came mewling at us! These guys follow me around I tell u! Lol We played with our little friend for a while and found out there was another one under the rock we were sitting on with a broken paw! The Poor little thing! They were so adorable! And they lived so close to the water, so I wanted to see what would the kitten do if I threw it in the water! I chucked her in (she’s a she, I checked ;P) paw deep only mind u, and she just stood there looking around, and then just pranced out like nothing was out of ordinary! How cool is that! Lol We decided to get them some food after our walk, which included a lot of sitting and watching the sea ;) (candid walking remember!)
Later, sweating like pigs & heady with fresh sea air we set out for some orange juice, peaches, apples, baby carrots, human biscuits & cat biscuits from Sultan Center in way of a light lunch. We went back to our little kittens fed them & fed our selves. There was a little family in our spot looking out at the sea, we gave their little boy some kitty biscuits for the cats & I smiled at the non comprehending eyes of the mother in borqa3 to reassure her that we were good girls in jeans and caps lol And off we went again looking for spots where there was a possibility of swimming in the future. We hopped the sea front like grasshoppers under the sun, from one spot to another till about 4 in the afternoon. Then we got our selves some deelish shawirma’s (Arabian style sandwiches with beef or chicken).
Our next stop after that was the walk way behind the scientific center. It wasn’t the walk I was interested in this time however, it was the little benches under the trees overlooking the sea & fishing missana’s. We headed straight to my favorite bench (I ain’t tellin wich ;P) where I took out my cheesy romance novel, gave sis my walkman & we sat back to back enjoying the sea breeze and the sunny looking energized ppl passing us by for a little more than an hour. On our way back we found another little adventure waiting for us. We saw a dog in the middle of a fenced park near the parking lot. He looks just like the dog in Frasier, Eddy! Only bigger and with a white body, now I’m a cat lover to the bone but I like dogs & I can tell u the exact opposite about my sister. She went totally nuts and had to just HAD TO touch lol. First I thought the dog was with someone so I gave her the ok, by the time I saw it was a stray it was too late, those two creatures were already in love with & all over each other! He even followed her bk to where I was standing and I ventured a touch to it’s head. Ya 7alaaata lol. We didn’t want to leave the dog there like that & we knew what the dog pound would do if they found it! A frequent jogger told us he sees the dog there everyday. So I called a friend of mine who’s very into dogs, she gave me the number a veterinarian who takes in strays and puts them up for adoption. I was answered by an American woman who thanked me for caring!! I think that’s extremely sweet because frankly I didn’t know anyone in this country Would care! ;)
So now the cats were fed, the dog was saved & our good deeds were done for the day. Time for a little walkasizing do u think? I totally agree. Our next stop I explained to my sister WAS about walking, no jokes. I decided it would have to be a 30 minute walk and nothing more, didn’t want to overwhelm my sister’s baby walking muscles ;) U’d think that we have more energy as kids and that we’d be more athletic when in fact it’s the other way around! We’re too lazy as kids and then we get older and start thinking “ I needz to get my azz in shape!” Then u start moving ur heavy behind! How come nothing goes the way it’s supposed to!! Hmm the irony of life and wasted youth ;) I love it!
So anyway, our 30 minute walk under the Kuwait Towers turned out to be a 45 minute walk and my sister didn’t complain once! She said the walkman helped but I’m thinking I musta done something right!! After all, me and bro are always debating weather it’s even possible for her to move without complaining and I did it! Lol Woohoo Big Whoop for Me ;D
And now I leave you with our days finds and treasures in the form of pictures that would speak a thousand words if they could ;)
My Feet (^.^) On the rock
Sitting on the Misanna
Broken pawed kitty!
Her frisky little sister
Snails anyone?
Kitty in the Garden
Kitty on the Rocks
ah .. The Deep Blue
A dieing sun!
My sister & the rescued Pooch
An added bonus, we stopped at a store for water on our way back and found this young man with his pooch ;)
I knew it was gonna be a good KuKu day ;)
End of Summer Whine Blues & A Kuku Peach Adventure
!!! يا جماعة الصيف خلص
الشمس غابت
! والبرد قعد يزحف علينا
!!!!و أنا ما سافرت ولارحت مكان
!!!!ولاحتى يومين البحرين
!يالله مو مشكلة. شفيها الديره!! حلوة الديره
! شمس ... و بحر
!!!بس وين البحر!!!! ماكو بحر!!!! بحر مافي
..أبوي باع الشاليه ووهقنا !! الله يسامحك يا يبا شردتنا بعز الصيف
!!!!!!!!والمسيلة بحرهم لوعة
!!الله يرضي جذي!!!يا ناس! انتو ترضون؟
!!!شسوى أنا يعني شسوي
!!!!!!!!أبي بحر يبا شلون
!!أبجي يعني أبجي؟
!!!لأ خل أبجي
!آه الصيف خلص
... الصيف خلص يا جماعة
!!وأنا ما سبحت
إهئ إهئ
! أ بي بحر
Remember “When I want something I want it now!”? *sigh*
Ok .. defiantly a Kuku Peach day, I’m overwhelmed with restless energy & impatience. I’m kuku up to here! <--- levels hand at brow. So I’ve decided to go out on a walking adventure .. I have no idea where I’m going or what my destination will be, I will just drive around till I find a spot that grabs me, park there & continue on foot where ever these little feet of mine will take me. I got my jeans & a plain t-shirt on, a double bra & of course my walking shoes (on these random adventures I’ve found it’s best to look very ordinary & as little attention grabbing as possible), my Harley D’s cap holding my pony tail back (my bro’s actually, I’ll be doing the Deeeestruction today, we switch roles sometimes ;P), got my back pack filled with tissues to wipe my sweat, water to drink, lip balm, a lil note book & pencil to jot down interesting stuff, a book to read incase I wana rest (The Love of a Bad Woman, sound cheesy enough?), my cd walkman And, check this out, a little Swiss army knife to ward off any unwanted potential harassing (not that I think I’ll need it, but I don’t know where I’ll be going so better be prepared!). I would have preferred my mace but I’ve stupidly misplaced it and can’t find it ;/ Aaaaanyway, details of the walk will be shared later. I got a feeling it’s gonna be a good Kuku day after all! ;)
Cats & Moms
At about the same time Anubis was born a year & four months ago, a black feline gave birth in our garden to a litter of 5 black kittens. These little rascals became my pride & joy outside the home, Anubis’s street brethren if you will. I called them my Black Velveteers & couldn’t help but feed them every can of tuna, sardines & sometimes even cat food we had. Sadly my dad’s complaints finally caused me to stop after our house became a Mecca for stray cats! In addition to the 5 velveteers & their mom, neighboring cats often visited for a nibble, including a white spotted little thing my brother fell in love with and named Cookie. It was not uncommon for someone walking in to spot 8 or 9 cats lazing about in the garden.
Then summer’s heat started to move in full blast. And with the food supply running short, The Velveteers one by one all moved out. Save for the mother, who I found out later had stayed behind!
I saw her a few times & fed her (still can’t help it ;P). I know her by her tail, the clumsy thing got it cut somehow & it was reduced to a nub! And she is a naturally small sized cat. Seeing her wasted form eyeing me in the dry deserted garden always sent a chill up my spine. Why had she stayed behind? What was here for her that wasn’t for the rest? It puzzled me that all her babies had packed up & set sail yet she was still standing at the place of birth!
I had never taken much notice of her before, it was her kittens I was interested in. they would all lounge around me after feeding, licking their paws and looking at me with their orange satisfied half closed eyes. Two of the larger males would even push their noses against my palm & let me scratch behind their ears and briefly run my fingers along their backs. It was as if they were mine! Although I suspect it’s probably more accurate to say, I was theirs! But the mother always kept her distance. She never came close & never even ate while I was watching. She would calmly sit at a distance eyeing us and wait for me to leave. And yet they all left. And here she was!
Until a few weeks ago it remained a mystery to me why she had stayed behind, until that is, the maid came to me with news of kittens! She had a new litter! She had apparently stayed behind because she obviously thinks it’s the best place to have her second litter! Free food & lodging! Go figure lol. And I apparently have very much underestimated the endurance of a mother, who stands tall and put when all else crumbles to dry dust! When the kids have grown and left, it’s always the mother who is still there and continues to be there. I should have known! Because I already know that no matter how old I get or where I go, when I need her, I will find my mother right where I left her, standing tall and there for me! That when all seems barren & lost, all I have to do is go back to the place of birth, the place of my mother. It pains me somewhat that I had underestimated this fact & had to relearn it from a cat! But that also says something don’t it! Open Your Eyes & Appreciate ;)
I love cats!
& I love u mom ;)
Ya a7la cata b7ayati
Prayer vs. Meditation
What is the difference between them?
When ever I meditate, I usually have a feeling of god in & around me. There is also a feeling of connectedness and sometimes even communion. I’ve always considered it to be almost a form of prayer. In prayer, I feel the exact same way, a closeness to god, connectedness & communion. So in conclusion they are either one or indeed very similar.
Upon researching it online I didn’t find anything concrete & nothing professional, mostly other people’s opinions and ideas. It seemed I wasn’t the only one confusing the two. Some claim it’s as simple as Talking vs. Listening. And some claim that in our age we have meshed the two. This seems similar to what I’m doing, meshing the two. What’s interesting is that prayer and meditation are both included in most religions. In Islam for instance, we call it “ta’amol”, watching or contemplating nature and god’s creation to feel his existence. We also use a rosary with which we repeat words, just like a mantra. In Christianity there is also a rosary and a mantra, more over it is said in the bible “Be still, and know that I am God" Ps 46:10. Meditation at work again.
This proves that it really is a matter of talking vs. listening. But why then, do I feel in contact with god when I meditate? Isn’t that the purpose of prayer? And some might argue that meditation can be done by focusing on any object not necessarily focusing on God. I would argue back that God IS everywhere and IN everything, so what ever you focus on, aren’t you essentially focusing on god through it? And when you meditate with the purpose of having something materialize in your life, wouldn’t u then be talking? Wouldn’t u be asking the forces of creation (God in other words) to manifest something in your life? Sounds like talking to me!
So really what is the difference?
Any ideas out there? Anyone? Guru Ayya? ;)
Aloneness
The Osho Zen tarot is among my very favorite tarot decks. Because regardless of what tarots are supposed to do, these cards have a wisdom in them that far surpasses any other deck I’ve come across, or even any book! I shuffled the other day and drew Aloneness. It’s such a beautiful card with a beautiful meaning. A meaning I think a lot of us need to understand. I’ve been noticing a lot of lonely girls and guys out there lately and been wanting to say something to them but every time I tried I didn’t know how! And yet I think this card pretty much sums up everything I need to say and more.
So without further ado, I give you
Aloneness ...
When you are alone you are not alone, you are simply lonely - and there is a tremendous difference between loneliness and aloneness. When you are lonely you are thinking of the other, you are missing the other.
Loneliness is a negative state. You are feeling that it would have been better if the other were there - your friend, your wife, your mother, your beloved, your husband. It would have been good if the other were there, but the other is not. Loneliness is absence of the other.
Aloneness is the presence of oneself. Aloneness is very positive. It is a presence, overflowing presence. You are so full of presence that you can fill the whole universe with your presence and there is no need for anybody.
Osho The Discipline of Transcendence, Volume 1 Chapter 2
Commentary:When there is no "significant other" in our lives we can either be lonely, or enjoy the freedom that solitude brings. When we find no support among others for our deeply felt truths, we can either feel isolated and bitter, or celebrate the fact that our vision is strong enough even to survive the powerful human need for the approval of family, friends or colleagues.
If you are facing such a situation now, be aware of how you are choosing to view your "aloneness" and take responsibility for the choice you have made.
The humble figure in this card glows with a light that emanates from within. One of Gautam Buddha's most significant contributions to the spiritual life of humankind was to insist to his disciples, "Be a light unto yourself." Ultimately, each of us must develop within ourselves the capacity to make our way through the darkness without any companions, maps or guide.
the new Drawing On The Right Side Of The Brain
By Betty Edwards.
A couple of months ago, I was considering taking up drawing to further develop my creativity & provide a new outlet for things that needed to be expressed through me. I’ve always had a thing for drawing. Combined with my affinity for mathematics this was one of the main reasons why I was directed towards my first major, architecture, at a very early age.And I’ve always liked to decorate my bedroom walls and doors with my own symbolic drawings; yin yangs, arcs, smoky curves & dots all put together to represent one thing or another. Sometimes in wacky moods I even like to paint and write on my body & watch the prints move with my limbs like temporary tattoos! I’ve also dabbled with drawing on silk & glass. But as much as I like drawing, like many other talents I have they are all “mini talents” & not fully grown. Heck, I can’t even draw a straight line! In a way this is a good thing, because weather it’s writing, drawing, piano, guitar, needle work or any other art form, I always have something to work on and play with.
And as lovely fate would have it, it was just about this time when I was fumbling with ideas on how to develop this “mini talent”, that my father came up to me with this book stating he thought me or one of my brothers might find it interesting. Interesting! I was ecstatic with joy, this was the answer I was looking for! And although my youngest brother does have a thing for drawing and I might add has a bigger “mini talent” than I, in general they are not much into reading, they’re more of computer game freaks :P Needless to say, I poured over the book immediately & found it so enjoyable I had to write about it.
The basic idea of the book is that drawing is a function of the more creative right side of the brain, as opposed to the liner left side. According to Betty Edwards, anyone with average eye sight & average eye-hand coordination could learn to draw fairly well by learning to “see” or to perceive things the way an artist does.
Now inside each of our skulls, we have a double brain with two ways of knowing. Those are the left & right hemispheres. They both gather in the same sensory information but they handle them in different ways. The left hemisphere analyzes, abstracts, counts, marks time, plans step-by-step procedures, verbalizes & makes rational statements based on logic. The right hemisphere on the other hand is how we see things that are imaginary- existing only in the minds eye. We see how things exist in space and how the parts go together to make up the whole. When something is too complex to describe we use gestures that communicate, we use and understand metaphors, we dream and create new combinations of ideas, using the right hemisphere mode we are also able to draw pictures of our perceptions.
Through various exercises, such as copying drawings upside down(like the picture below taken from the book), we learn to shift our perception to R-mode producing a slightly altered state of consciousness which most artists experience while drawing, painting, sculpting or doing any kind of art work. “This state is probably not altogether unfamiliar to you” says Edwards. ”You may have observed in yourself slight shifts in your state of consciousness while engaged in much more ordinary activity”. “For example, most people are aware that they occasionally slip from ordinary waking consciousness into the slightly altered state of daydreaming. As another example, people often say that reading takes them “out of themselves.” Other kinds of activities which apparently produce a shift in consciousness state are meditation, jogging, needlework, typing, listening to music, driving & of course drawing itself”.
Pablo Picasso's Portrait of Igor Stravinksky
R-Mode state is described as a pleasurable state in which you are unaware of the passage of time, alert, relaxed, confident, interested, absorbed in the drawing and clear in your mind. If someone talks next to you, you might hear the sounds but you probably wouldn’t care much to figure out the meaning of what is being said.
“The object of painting a picture is not to make a picture- however unreasonable that may sound … The object, which is back of every true work of art, is the attainment of a state of being, a state of high functioning, a more than ordinary moment of existence. The picture is but a by-product of the state, a trace, the footprint of the state.”
From The Art Spirit by Robert Henri, 1923.
“We begin with a concept of some kind of awareness, some kind of basic ability to ‘know’ or ‘sense’ or ‘cognize’ or ‘recognize’ that something is happening. This is a fundamental theoretical and experiential given. We do not know scientifically what the ultimate nature of awareness is, but it is our starting point.”
Charles T. Tart, Alternate States of Consciousness, 1975
So far, I have finished the basics and I’m about to begin chapter 9 where I’ll learn how to draw portraits. Here are a couple of the drawings I’ve made so far. The first tackles the issue of dimensions; how to properly portraying foreshortened views. The second tackles the perception and proper portrayal of edges and angles.
my hand ;)
My sisters door ;p
Not bad, eh! ;) Unfortunatly the pics didn't turn out as clear as I expected, but u can click then for a clearer view ;) Now I know I will NEVER EVER be as good as
ArtFinale mashallah 3aleh but this is some serious fun shit :P and let’s see what I can do with it! I’ll post some portraits for u when I’ve tackled those ;)
PS: the link is to my favorite drawing of Art’s, the sleeping child in the middle. I just LOVE how he magically, brilliantly and so realistically portrays the innocence and peace of the baby, don't u just love those lashes!! *sigh* Now that’s a real artist! Mashallah 3alek ya Art ya Finale ;)
