Author: Elizabeth

Abhanga :: the supper is ready

spiced Indian eggplant
crisp chickpeas, delicious
mangoes are nutritious
chai, just perfect

This evening I cooked garlic Indian eggplant for supper. It was delish, I didn’t have time to take a photo. The recipe is super easy: Slice a few Indian or Chinese eggplants into rings, roast in the oven with a little bit of oil until golden. In a pot, saute garlic in olive oil, add the roasted eggplants, and spice up with salt, black pepper and turmeric, you can add a little bit of lemon juice too. It’s ready to eat with rice or bread. it’s so simple, nutritious and delicious. And very affordable too, this supper cost was less than 10 dollars for 2, me and hubby.

Tanka Tuesday this week is to write a poem using the Abhanga form that originated in India, Colleen describes it: We write Abhanga in any number of 4-line stanzas with 6-6-6-4 syllables each. L2 and L3 rhyme. The end rhyme scheme is abbc. It is customary to title your poetry.

I love Indian food, but I can’t eat most of their dishes because of the spice, so I created a few variations of it at home, like the spiced eggplant where I added garlic instead of spices.

Hope you enjoy the poem and the recipe 🙂

Yellow beauty

first tulips of 2022
yellow
catching my breath
mellow

sunshine and summer
welcoming radiant days
freedom and lightness

the beans of power
bitter and hot, delicious
at the crack of dawn

snowflakes and freezing
on my doorsteps, going out
hat, scarf, gloves and boots

Lots of tulips at the grocery store last weekend! All colours, spring was in the air, I almost forgot the freezing weather outside. I got the yellow ones to warm up my home and my mood. This poem depicts my mornings this week, the yellow tulips on the kitchen countertop, the coffee brewing, the warm indoors contrasting with the cold and the snow outside. Hope you find wonderful flowers on your way today, if not in the garden at least at the grocery store!

Tanka Tuesday – Taste the rainbow

Unknown

“The Crystal Ball is a charming painting from John William Waterhouse which features a plethora of influences from Renaissance architecture to British Pre-Raphaelites like Dante Gabriel Rossetti, William Holman Hunt and John Everett Millais. ~ via John William Waterhouse” – Colleen Chesebo
exuberant confidence
caressing the skin
in the hands, a dark future
oddity murdering joy
present mingling with unknown

Tanka Tuesday this week is Ekphrastic poem and the photo is provided by Rebecca Budd. I have chosen a Tanka to describe what the photo depicts to me.

A pop of colour

winter blues
it's dragging me down
bright colours

lifting up
creativity
stagnation

Middle of January is always difficult, winter blues guiding to lack of creativity. I hadn’t worked on any art page for so long, today I decided to add yellow and pink to a page. A pop of colour to lift my mood. I like my choice of colours: yellow and pink! Yellow means happiness and reminds me of sunshine; pink is related to self-care and love. This reminded me to buy flowers this weekend!

Haiku poem for Tanka Tuesday.

Tomorrow, an Etheree poem

moon
new moon
a fresh start
a bright new year
and what to wish for?
a blank page, or canvas
to be overflowing with
delight, respect and boundaries
for now, twinkle lights and soft music
until tomorrow, always tomorrow

It’s 6 pm, Jan 2nd, Sunday, new moon. I’m in my living room looking at the Christmas tree and thinking that it is always about tomorrow. A new day, a new challenge, a new me, a new…, STOP! I told myself, this moment is what matters, the twinkle lights, the snow outdoors, the warmth of indoors. Words and verses are dancing in my mind, finding their way to the keyboard and this poem is born.

Tanka Tuesday, taste the rainbow for Jan 3rd. The colorful twinkle lights are the rainbow 🌈 in this poem. No photo, I leave to your imagination to compose the scene.

Respect

first pages of 2022

Hello and Happy 2022 to you! If you are following for a while you know every year I choose a word to focus on during the year. It’s a tiny thing but always brings me back to the moment. This year I’ve chosen R E S P E C T.

Basically, RESPECT in relation to setting limits and boundaries for me. Setting barriers for protecting my values, mind and body.

In another hand, I need to give more space to my kids, young adults, to explore and to speak up their wishes and thoughts. I need to let go of my helicopter mother instinct. So, in this case, it is respecting their boundaries.

I’ve just come back from a long overseas trip. If you have noticed I haven’t posted for a while. I had many triggers during this trip, both physically and emotionally. I’m still processing them, but it’s clear that the lack of self-respect and boundaries is something I need to work on.

Journaling is my form of therapy. Using words or/and images I express myself and make sense of my thoughts. I’m pleased the page number for my first page of this year is the 100th. It has a feeling of resetting, starting anew. I used to have a new journal for the new year, but I’ve given up this habit. Now I just keep going with my pages, freedom of choice.

It’s wonderful to travel, to go away a little, but the best is to come back home, to come back to myself.

Hope you are home wherever you are!

Have you chosen a word for the new year?

Hugs,

E.

turquoise wings

in my garden
moments
childlike wishes
the precious turquoise wings
secret message for the chosen
loved ones
connected by a split second
to the intuition
eternally
belief

Today’s prompt for Gratitude week with Michelle is about being grateful for paying attention and awareness to our surroundings and feelings. When I’m in my garden I pay attention to all the tiny little things/moments: a bird song, a butterfly, a feather, all the beauty that makes me smile, and also, to the not so nice stuff, like worms, beetles that eat my beautiful plants and make me angry. Well, I pay attention, and one day without expecting a dragonfly sits on a leaf close by, and at that moment I knew it wasn’t only an insect on a leaf but a beautiful messenger delivering love when I needed most.

Tanka Tuesday is week is “Write a butterfly cinquain (2-4-6-8-2-8-6-4-2) and include a colour”. I didn’t have a recently butterfly photo, however this dragonfly is gorgeous and perfect for my poem.

Twinkle lights vibe

Daily journaling practice

The days are getting shorter and shorter. It’s dark when I leave home in the mornings and when I come back later in the afternoon. I like this feeling of grounding and going inwards this time of the year when we start to pay more attention to being and not just doing. Although I miss the sunlight entering my studio through the window, I enjoy the twinkle lights I’ve in there. The softness that comes with them, little tiny dots of light. I’ve twinkles on my dressing mirror as well, they are shining at me while a get dressed.

Today starts Gratitude week with Michelle, I’m looking forward to it as I know her posts will be just wonderful to turn my focus on what matters and to be grateful for the tiny things I’ve close to me. You can check out gratitude week and other of her lovely offerings here.

Today I’m grateful for my journaling practice. Over the years this practice has helped me to know myself, to understand situations and people and to clarify my mind when I had it clouded with thoughts.

Hope you have a great week ahead and focus on gratitude.

Hugs,

E.