Pictures of Læsø

Some friends have asked me to post some pictures of this Island where I am posted, posting... it is a beautiful place famous for it's Lobsters, a salt factory and a brand new, fantastic SPA!!!! So, here are some images of it...

This is a picture I took while we were coming back from a swimming session...

This is how the sky looks like at 11 pm

The inside of our house...
Myself and Malini who spent some days here with us...

This is the little light house island

This is the salt we buy being produced... very old way of doing it...

Our new trend at home at night, soft music while we draw and paint Mandalas, it is very centering...

A typical house... the roof is made out of many layers of seaweed

On the net again...

On the net again and the literal translation of "net" into Portuguese is "rede" and rede in Portuguese can both mean "the net" and a Hammock!!! So, when in Brazil, "na rede" can both mean that you are belly up looking at the sky suspended from the ground or curved on top of your laptop surfing the Internet. In my case, right now, both things could apply. I am in the net, lying in a rede...

What I hate about blogs or any other printed idea/thought is that, if you are a living creature, and not a stone, chances are the thoughts you have just written, sooner or later, will morph into something else and not rarely morph into the extreme opposite of what you have just described. Stay, stay, stay was my "yesterday epiphany" and later on, reading my own posting I felt like running away from all this self proclaimed truths... I received an email from a dear loving friend of mine and she is soooo wonderful. She said: Yes, I want to stay... stay with myself! It is true, so true because staying is not about being somewhere "period"! You can be stationed somewhere and still be so unrooted, scattered around... that is the most beautiful teaching of many Hindu philosophies I have come across with... it is within! Rooted within!!! Then who cares where we are. That is the sole reason why I meditate in my life. No matter where I am, what is going on in my life at any given moment I only need to close my eyes, follow the path I have been trailing for the past 22 years to get in touch with this familiar space...

My older sister wrote down, in a very bitter sweet note, almost a good bye note, saying that she would feel sad but understands that I would not see them anymore (OK, now I am exaggerating a bit but it almost had this "vibe" of a farewell...) No, No, NO!!!! I did not mean I am never traveling again, seeing my friends, my family... it was all about being in peace with the fact that, this specific summer Holiday I was not going to Brazil cause it has been such a difficult decision to make and I remember a dear teacher I had, when I did the "Workshop for actors at the Globo network", we were studying mythology and Silvia Morgenstein taught us about this Greek Goddess (I wish I could also remember the name of this Greek goddess) that is the Goddess of the "left behind path" and that once you chose a direction you should never look back or she would curse you. The curse of the "Unchosen path"... and so many different traditions talk about this same syndrome. "Don't look back or you will turn into salt", comes from a tale in the bible. Salt, salt... tears are salty.... don't keep on looking towards the path that you left behind or you will keep on crying over it, covered in tears, salty water... oh, I wish we could just really extract all the beautiful meanings of these biblical stories that are now so covered in Dogmas, blindness and dust... if we could only "translate" all these symbols into what they meant for real we would have such a brilliant source of inspiration and teachings...

Yes, soooooo... for the summer holiday of 2009 I have decided not to go to Brasil but Brasil is part of who I am and my goal is to create a bridge between Denmark and Brasil, having friends and family coming over, working in specific projects that would make me stay in there for months and then coming back to this strange Kingdom of Denmark that I have grown accustomed with... just because as Carmen Miranda so beautifully sang: "Na hora do chamego eu digo mesmo é eu te amo e nunca I love you"!

One of my Workshops at Novo Nordisk

Well... little misquotes here and there... but as Adrianne galisteu (brazilian über nothing) says: there is not such thing as bad press! This is a little article about one of my workshops... I feel proud about these workshops I create, translating certain thoughts and concepts into living and dynamic experiences. Taking business people out of their desks, making them dance (without even noticing they are dancing), moving and REALLY throwing a bomb into their comfort zones... and... they love it!

How do we respond to globalisation

By CHWV (Charlotte Weimann Vilner)

23/06/2009

Globalisation. The term itself sounds like something very modern and academic....

But is it really? A recent LearnShop arranged by the Global Quality Identity Programme, dealt with globalisation and how we respond to it in a - to many of the participants - entirely new and unorthodox way.

The facilitator, Brazilian actor Marcello Bosschar, took the learnshoppers on a trail around the globe. Exploring cultural traits from Brazil to India, from China to Denmark. Inviting them to take a step out of their comfort zones and into a world of exploration of cultural boundaries, assumptions and group distinctiveness.

'The key challenge', said Marcello Bosschar, is using only the right side of your brains in order to explore feelings, imagination and risk taking".

"Our goal will be to understand how different we all are and how differently we perceive the world around us", continued Marcello. "The way we perceive even the most basic things around us such as colours, words and social codes can take unexpected turns depending on the context".

And so they did on this morning in the fitness gym in the basement at Nybrovej. 24 people from Global Quality took part in the LearnShop and were in for a real challenge on working only with their bodies and the right side of their brains.

And so through theatre games and exercises, the globalisation LearnShop offered a brief moment where the learnshoppers got a glimpse of how the external influences such as the use of space, language and culture can either work in our favour or against us.

No doubt, the learnshoppers left this morning session with a whole bunch of new reflections about globalisation.

The Global Quality LearnShops have been developed as part of the GQ Identity Programme as a means to share knowledge and experiences as well as to strengthen the common Global Quality Identity.

Yes, I am staying... and this is the hardest thing for me to do. To stay. For some people, to go is challenging. They stay! For me, to stay is hard (or as Sondheim wrote in one of his beautiful songs: "anyone can whistle": "What's hard is simple... what is natural comes hard... maybe you could show me, how to let go, lower my guard, learn to be free...)

This holiday I had do decide if I was going to Brazil or staying in Denmark for the summer... well... going to Brazil: Catching the metro, catching a plane, arriving in Rio, catching a bus, going to a friend's house, 2 days later going to another friend's house, 5 days later catching a bus, catching a plane, going to Recife, staying there for some days, catching a plane.. that is soooo 7 years ago in my life... and I have just come back from Poland where, to get there from Denmark, I had to catch a metro to the train station, catch a train to Malmö, catch a bus from train station to airport, catch a plane to Krakow, spend the night in an unpronounceable city (where I heard Michael Jackson turned into glitter), catch a train to Wraclaw, spend 4 days there (in an amazing festival, where I took pictures with Peter Brook and realized what soft hands he has) than catch a cab to train station, catch a train to Krakow, catch a bus to airport, catch a plane (that felt more like a bus I had to take years ago in Jakarta going to Jelekong), catch a bus from Malmö airport to Malmö train station, catch a train to Copenhagen, catch the metro, walk 5 minutes tog et home, go up 5 stores high (no elevator) get home and sleep cause I had to work the next day...

Well, maybe now you know why I decided to stay where I am. Lying in a hammock, outside our sweet little house on the beach, listening to birds and typing this very text that very few people will read but that will give me a sense of existence, somehow...

Yes, I am obsessed with staying... maybe my therapist, back in time, back in Brazil, back in Rio, so many years ago, would have been so proud of seeing that I stopped! Maybe my dear friend George Furth (that hated the fact that I came to Denmark, to begin with) is smiling in his BROADway in Heaven by realizing that I am not "making a Geographic" anymore (this is an AA terminology that stands for every time somebody changes location instead of changing attitudes and habits that are descructive.

My sister came to visit me for new year's last year, she is now living in London. The day she arrived with her husband, before even unpacking, they started to talk about where they should go after... EXCUSE ME? It was their first time in Denmark and they were already talking about Norway and Sweden... I almost had a heart attack (with my new STAYING OBSESSION) and gathering all the zen power I must have earned from previous life times, I "suggested" that maybe it was a nice idea to concentrate their minds and feet in where they were... after initial defense mechanisms got engaged and disengaged they were somehow convinced to drop their maps and routes and just relax! And then came daily brunches and relaxing biking around and late night chats steeped in hot chocolate and cakes and more brunches and biking and saunas steeped in cold sea swimming and more hot chocolate and soon the holiday was over, they were over the hill with the feeling that to put it into their own words: "we have had the best holiday ever"...

So, next time I sing this "Should I stay or should I go" song again I will probably have the answer...

AAAAAARRRRGHHHHHHH!!!!!

There! I started!!!! That is the most difficult step: the first. And it is only with this single effort that one can one day reach the Himalayas, the pyramids, the grocery store and the local Chiropractor, no matter how painful this walk might be... but now I am on holiday, in an Island called Læsø, Up North Denmark... so that means that although I will be blogging here I will also be living out my life and soon I am catching a boat to watch some sea dogs (kind of seals) so see you around and let's see where this might lead us (it almost sounds like internet dating text but I guess this is not so far from the reality).

Vi ses

(or see you around )