StyleNectar

a peek inside my moleskine notebook

How about a few random, quick sketches from my Moleskine notebook today?  I'm working on overcoming my fear of vulnerability and being that my sketchbooks feel private it seems a decent place to start. I stopped using pencil/eraser/charcoal long ago as I can't stand the contagious smear-factor & eraser confetti.  Always pen.  Fast.  Energetic.  No erasing.

Hmmm... Two topics are coming up:  Art as it relates to life

&

An update on one of the series of experiments in the adventure of my life.

Art as it relates to life: I'm usually repelled by the latest bandwagon, preferring to take the path that speaks to my true nature. When things become too popular it's as if they lose their authenticity. But see, i'm already off-topic. And that's ok. Simply because it's not ok. So. What draws me to art is not only my history with it, having grown up drawing & painting as the daughter of an artist, but even more so, the ability art has to teach me presence. My second lesson (yes, I know, I skipped the 1st) in presence took place back in college. Though, at the time, I didn't realize I'd discovered 'presence' per se, just that I loved the experience more than anything else in the world...  

There i'd stood for hours in the studio of the empty art building, late at night. floor-to-ceiling windows filled with dark evening, tall against the bright studio light. time had ceased. i'd been set free. one with brush, paint, the world, my canvas. nothing mattered. no problems. there was only purity. peace. love. gratitude.

I remember practically floating home to our off-campus house. Filled with joy. I'd found my life's calling!  

I realize now that it doesn't matter what I do. It's not what but how. I suppose if I had to put it in terms of do, I want to... spend my life in presence.  And for some lucky reason, painting has the capacity to illustrate that for me- what presence is. It's letting go. A freedom and easiness. Not trying hard. A commitment through simply showing up. Most importantly it has nothing to do with me. In fact, I learn how to get out of the way. I learn this through meditation also. And sometimes, yet rarely, through conscious choice no matter what I'm doing. 

I'd like to continue to be a lot more open on StyleNectar, about things that really matter to me. Perhaps I'll share a poem and it will go unoticed by the masses. that's ok. Perhaps those readers who look forward to my healthed-up cupcakes will yawn at my favorite choral piece. No, I still don't think I'm going to begin photographing my food with tea-towels on a rotating variation of wood slabs. Yes, my photos will mostly be taken at dinnertime, after the natural light of day has unfortunately passed, when we're starving and just want to eat our food rather than wait for me to take pictures of it until it gets cold:-) No, probably no instagrams either.

I'm going to be me. Not that I haven't been. But I'm constantly growing and this blog is going to reflect that.

What was the other topic- I've already forgotten:-)  Oh yes, An update on one of the series of experiments in the adventure of my life. As you may recall, this summer we launched head first into a Raw, Vegan lifestyle.  It makes a person feel amazing!  However, now that the weather is cooling and I've figured out just how much time it takes to strictly follow a raw, vegan lifestyle, I'm shifting to a nutritarian lifestyle. Basically, it's the same thing, just allowing for cooked food too! I'll share more on this later.

Until next time, here are a few quick sketches from my Moleskine which I may be turning into paintings one day soon. Oddly, the 1st two are my faves, yet they ended up posting incredibly tiny in an unfairly shrunken & sparse representation:-) If you're so inclined, feel free to click on them for a larger, better view.

I'll continue sharing a few pages here & there going forward.

xoxo 

~juliane

sandy path to Madeket Beach, Nantucket, summer 2012.

 

 some dunes, sand & ocean. Madaket Beach. Nantucket, summer 2012.

overlooking the front yard, driveway & woods, summer 2012.

partial view of cast iron urn of pansies on front steps. fall 2012.

sitting on the front steps. fall 2012.

Are you a meditator? If so, how did you get started?

Or, simply tell me what's going on with you so we can share your in your journey!

A Sunset

(From "Feuilles d'Automne")

  ~Victor Hugo (1802-1885)

I LOVE the evenings, passionless and fair, I love the evens,

Whether old manor-fronts their ray with golden fulgence leavens,

In numerous leafage bosomed close;

Whether the mist in reefs of fire extend its reaches sheer,

Or a hundred sunbeams splinter in an azure atmosphere

On cloudy archipelagos.

 

Oh, gaze ye on the firmament! a hundred clouds in motion,

Up-piled in the immense sublime beneath the winds' commotion,

Their unimagined shapes accord:

Under their waves at intervals flame a pale levin through,

As if some giant of the air amid the vapors drew

A sudden elemental sword.

 

The sun at bay with splendid thrusts still keeps the sullen fold;

And momently at distance sets, as a cupola of gold,

The thatched roof of a cot a-glance;

Or on the blurred horizon joins his battle with the haze;

Or pools the blooming fields about with inter-isolate blaze,

Great moveless meres of radiance.

 

Then mark you how there hangs athwart the firmament's swept track,

Yonder a mighty crocodile with vast irradiant back,

A triple row of pointed teeth?

Under its burnished belly slips a ray of eventide,

The flickerings of a hundred glowing clouds in tenebrous side

With scales of golden mail ensheathe.

 

Then mounts a palace, then the air vibrates--the vision flees.

Confounded to its base, the fearful cloudy edifice

Ruins immense in mounded wrack;

Afar the fragments strew the sky, and each envermeiled cone

Hangeth, peak downward, overhead, like mountains overthrown

When the earthquake heaves its hugy back.

 

These vapors, with their leaden, golden, iron, bronzèd glows,

Where the hurricane, the waterspout, thunder, and hell repose,

Muttering hoarse dreams of destined harms,--

'Tis God who hangs their multitude amid the skiey deep,

As a warrior that suspendeth from the roof-tree of his keep

His dreadful and resounding arms!

 

All vanishes! The Sun, from topmost heaven precipitated,

Like a globe of iron which is tossed back fiery red

Into the furnace stirred to fume,

Shocking the cloudy surges, plashed from its impetuous ire,

Even to the zenith spattereth in a flecking scud of fire

The vaporous and inflamèd spaume.

 

O contemplate the heavens! Whenas the vein-drawn day dies pale,

In every season, every place, gaze through their every veil?

With love that has not speech for need!

Beneath their solemn beauty is a mystery infinite:

If winter hue them like a pall, or if the summer night

Fantasy them starre brede.

 This English translation of "A Sunset" was composed by Francis Thompson (1859-1907).

The Happy Shake

The Happy Shake, recipe created by Stacy Stowers

I don't know about you, but I definitely have a sweet tooth.  I love  (raw) chocolate... and (vegan) ice-cream...  and all the sorts of things that make one energized, happy and feeling fabulous in body, mind and spirit.  Wait!  You say.  That sounds too good to be true!  Does something with all that actually exist?  In fact it does.  It's called...

 The Happy Shake!

Inspired by supremely talented raw food chef, Stacy Stowers, this superfoods-galore smoothie, disguised as creamy, chocolate, soft-serve ice-cream, is so unbelievable it's become a staple at "Blissed Out", the Organic Juice & Smoothie Bar on Martha's Vineyard.  So, next time you're visiting the Vineyard, make sure you stop in to try it out... just kidding, of course I have shared my version of the recipe below:-)  

Jim and I enjoy The Happy Shake as a decadent morning kickstart.  Be prepared to experience exuberant energy, an outstanding mood and satiation likely to take you well beyond lunchtime. When you wake up the next day, don't be suprised if you feel extraordinarily well rested. Perhaps you may even notice a new glow to your complexion... 

then you'll know how this recipe got it's name ;-)

The Happy Shake

The Happy Shake (Serves 1) 

INGREDIENTS & METHOD: Make sure you follow the method exactly! You will need a high-powered blender such as a Vitamix.

1.  Liquid Base.  

• Start with 1/2 cup water
• Add 4 cups loosely packed spinach
• Add a Good FAT. You need the good fat for metabolizing the spinach and keeping you satisfied for hours. You may choose from: 1 Tbs. Hemp or Chia Seed or 1/4 Avocado

2.  The Happy Part...

• 1/2 Tbs. Maca Powder for stamina, endurance and mental clarity.
• 1 Tbs. Raw Cacao Powder for that HAPPY BLISS feeling. 
• A great option for some additional alkalizing GREENS... add 1/2 Tbs. Vitamineral Green Powder or Spirulina (I always add it)
• Liquid Stevia to taste

3. DO NOT add fruit yet... Blend preceding ingredients into a green concoction FIRST!

4. Finally, add 1 1/2 cups frozen blueberries & 1 frozen banana to your green concoction & blend into a chocolate, soft-serve ice-cream. BLUEberries + GREEN = Chocolate BROWN!

5. Optional: top with a teaspoon of cacao nibs.

Now go out and have the BEST Day Ever!

* Superfood Note: Super Foods like Maca and Cacao are very powerful foods bordering on medicine. This is a good time to do your own research on these two amazing foods. Start in small doses and listen to your body. 

You may also enjoy: Poached Egg Topped Quinoa Cakes

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Water Night

"Water Night" first took my breath away when I heard it performed on "From the Top" by the highly aclaimed Norman North High School Chorale in Oklahoma. This translation of a Spanish poem, adapted by Eric Whitaker, is a beautifully evocotive, metaphorical piece formed in a series of vignets about the connection of the water to the soul, and the quest to find the innermost spirit in ourselves. Further interpretation reflects the experience of holding something difficult inside over a period of time, and finally letting it go to find peace.

"Water Night" is the inspiration for one of my upcoming paintings.

(Please press play. Feel free to read along with the lyrics below.)

 

 

 

Water Night

Night with the eyes of a horse that trembles in the night,

night with eyes of water in the field asleep

is in your eyes, a horse that trembles,
is in your eyes of secret water.

Eyes of shadow-water,
eyes of well-water,
eyes of dream-water.

Silence and solitude,
two little animals moon-led,
drink in your eyes,
drink in those waters.

If you open your eyes,
night opens, doors of musk,
the secret kingdom of the water opens
flowing from the center of night.

And if you close your eyes,
a river fills you from within,
flows forward, darkens you:
night brings its wetness to beaches in your soul.

Octavio Paz, 1914-1998
(Adapted by Eric Whitacre, Translation by Muriel Rukeyser)

**The original poem is "Agua Nocturna" by Octavio Paz.  Peace is connected to a long tradition of "night" in visual art, poetry and music.

 

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