Silence
silver rivers flow
unbeknown to humanity
till the end of time
at the end of the world
turbines stand still.
silence covers it all
the light punctures
the solid darkness.
minutes to sunset
33 words, Poem and Photography: Adela Galasiu, 2016
Waves
as I leave my marks
on the sand grinded by invisible teeth
I am followed submissively
by the force lying there underneath
do you know what amazing stories
the sea has told me last night?
of sea horses and drifting wood
and of death holding me tight
dancing madly in a waltz
of rippled lace, dragged back and forth
it gently caresses my ankles
slapping me suddenly from south and from north
roaring like an angry monster
that wants to engulf the whole modern time
embracing my being
in a moment where it belongs to nobody, but is all mine.
100 Words, Memyselfandela/Adela Galasiu 2015
Photos, Adela Galasiu, Isle of Wight, UK
Moment
Motto: “If you’re going to try, go all the way. Otherwise, don’t even start…
It’s the only good fight there is.” Charles Bukowski
Today is a gift. I am grateful to be here, feeling alive. I breathe in. I listen to a ring-dove singing in the tree next to me. I take in the air, the light, the smell of yesterday’s rain. Bumblebees come out sleepy trying to make up for the food they could not collect yesterday, hovering over lavender bushes and peppermint flowers that wave gently in the breeze. God smiles over us. The sun shines through the branches of the chestnut tree, my flowers bloom in the garden, their colours vibrating live a song in my eyes. Maybe they are, just like me, a part of God’s dream. Or maybe they are just a form of different frequency than the one of my soul. Maybe they are just strings that God plays with , like one plays a harp. It all makes sense, even though often my mind cannot even grasp the beauty of it all.
I drink a glass of water and contemplate life, like I do every once in a while, like we probably all do. Some people think that knowing that time is precious can make you lead a better life. What would I tell you if this would be my last day?
I’d say I’ve lost many things in this life, and sometimes it has felt like I’ve lost it all. Friends, time, love, children, relatives, sometimes even my mind. I’ve eaten too much or nothing for days. I’ve eaten my own bitterness and I drank the poison of my own ink-black thoughts. I’ve been freezing in train stations and on park benches thinking of why certain things happened in my life, feeling sorry for myself. I thought I was sometimes carrying too much luggage, but I think that was more the burden of my own life. Yet I have found out later that many of those things I’ve never really had, that they were never meant for me.
I have seen derision. And it was not the one coming from strangers that has hurt the most, but the one seen in the eyes of people I have helped out of their own ditch and considered friends. They say in my language that “the ones you don’t let die, will not let you live”. It was painful to find out what character some people really had. it has been gutting at times. Now it does not hurt any more, I have come to terms with all my experience. I have become older and hopefully wiser. I have learned not to regret things and I am mostly good at it, even though I can still catch myself doing it sometimes. I’ve often done my best and I know now that what people give is certainly what people will receive later in life.
Isolation? It is not a monkey thing. It feels sweet. It is not for everybody, I know it can be torture for others. But solitude is my gift. After all the pain induced by many things coming from the outside, my isolation meant discovering myself and finding peace, listening to my own soul tuning in with the one of the universe. And that is bliss.
Rejection? Yes, I felt plenty of that. I was one of those people that can feel like outsiders. Until I realised that I would have never belonged in certain circles of people or in the toxic environment that comes with them. So actually this was not a rejection, it was a discovery. It took me years to see that God had better plans for me , that He was opening me the right doors while I was trying like a stubborn child to open the wrong ones, again and again.
This is my path and you all have your own. Life is a journey. Some people learn from it, others get to the end of it not understanding anything, feeling bitter and angry. It may not be easy to walk on your own path, but it’s your quest. It all depends on how much you want it. And if you want it truly it will be better than anything you have ever imagined. It will equal conquering all your fears, it will mean finding your true self and facing God at the same time. Your days may be hard, but your heart will flame with the fire of all the passion you have in you. It will not be life that breaks you, but it will be you riding your own life.
I am only a tiny soul in an immense ocean of souls. All different, yet all the same. When I think of this I imagine a sky full of stars. The universe is immense, but we all have our own space, our own inner light and our own trajectory. I am trying to grasp what this life experience is all about, maybe just like you all. I’ve seen a lot and I still know almost nothing. But one of the few things I know now is that we should not be afraid, we should not let worry dry out our soul. Life is joy and we should experience the joy of being alive, the experience of our soul having a material body and interacting with others.
There’s no path, make your own. Be bold, be strong, be yourself. Try it, go all the way, it’s the best thing of all.
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900 words, memyselandela, August 2015
Photo: Lavender, Adela Galasiu, August 2015
Luna Amara / Bitter Moon
This is a simple story that happened in the moonlight. A story streaming from my own life. A story about a small moment that will remain for life in my memory.
Maybe many of you have a favourite band. And I bet many of you have hoped or dreamed To get the unique moment to meet the vocalist they like so much , or shake hands with the guitarist they consider to be the best in the world- maybe it is not so for others, but it is so for them.
My very favourite Romanian rock band is Luna Amara, a Romanian alternative rock/grunge band. The name means “Bitter Moon” in Romanian, and has been borrowed from the Roman Polanski movie of the same name, inspired by Pascal Bruckner’s novel with the same name.The band was formed by Nick Făgădar (vocals, guitar) and Gheorghe Farcaş (bass guitar) in Cluj-Napoca, Transylvania, in September 1999, in Romania. I had the chance to listen to them first time live in Sibiu, and I have discovered them much more after I left Romania in 2011.
Luna Amara has played on stage over 200 times in the past years, throughout Romania. As a live act, this Romanian five-piece outfit has a style that combines heavy metal with alternative rock. Luna Amara is also the first Romanian band to introduce the trumpet sound into an Alternative Rock style, a struck of genius in my humble opinion.
All the artists in the band try to dedicate their lives to promote and support a modern European society in Romania. Beyond the poetry in the love songs , their lyrics have often a political message, Luna Amară being also involved in ecological projects such as “Save Vama Veche” (protecting the endangered seahorses), “Save Roşia Montană” (protecting the wildlife and natural surroundings of a mountain area from cyanide poisoning caused by companies that extract gold) and other social awareness projects.
“Luna Amară” is one of Romania’s most successful rock bands and was the top selling artist in a national chain of music stores (Hollywood Music & Film) from July until September 2004. Their songs “Folclor” (“Folklore”), “Gri Dorian” (“Dorian Grey”), “Roşu aprins” (“Scarlet”) and “Ego nr. 4” reached number one in airplay charts at local radio stations around the country.
Throughout the years they have released several albums: “Asfalt” (Asphalt), “Loc lipsă” (Missing Place), “Don’t Let Your Dreams Fall Asleep”(where mainly the acoustic side of the band is underlined), “Pietre in Alb” (Stones in White), “Live la Conti” (Live at Conti). The band performed tours all over Romania in clubs and open air locations as well as shows in the Netherlands, Germany, Bulgaria, Turkey and played live at the Sziget Festival in Budapest.
They may be neither angels, nor heroes, but they are some extremely talented people. It is more than their personal love and feelings decanted in their music, it is also their passion and talent for music. I used to detach myself from stress listening to Deftones, Metallica and Incubus, but they are nowhere near Luna Amara. At least to me, because I am Romanian and Bitter Moon sing the longing and the pain in my native language. But it is not only this. I have discovered such beautiful blue sad profound lyrics attached to their music. They contribute with amazing poetry, not only with extremely versatile sound. Their songs are colourful, they bleed and ache, they are just beautifully alive.
Two years ago when I was back in Romania for few days I have tried desperately to buy their “Stones in White” album, yet no music shop or online store had it available, it was sold out. After a long online research I managed to find a link and I was promised to get the album the next night, when I was going back to Cluj in the evening for my next morning flight back to the UK.
The evening came, I took a taxi and we drove in the evening to the address where the recording studio was. It was a very simple encounter, but it has struck me very profoundly: Nick Fagadar, the founder of Luna Amara, met me almost in the middle of the night because he cared that somebody really wanted to have their album. He handed it to me with a kind smile , he shook my hand like a friend , with no pretentious gestures, and wished me to enjoy the music. I have been truly honoured not only to get the long desired album, but mostly by getting to meet in person the legend behind it.
There was something beautiful that I cannot describe radiating through him as we left him behind. I could not help but smile. The moon was shining, yet this time not bitter, but full of hope and mysterious meanings.
800 words, Memyselfandela , 2015
Photos: Google
Video: Youtube
The Return to Innocence
Memory. One of the strongest muscles in our being. It can contract and ruin your life crushing you underneath or it can gently lift your soul in the light, no matter what life throws at you.
When I was a child my grandmother used to have in a corner of her garden a columbine that used to grow again and again every year. I remember how fascinated I used to be as a little girl by the filigree shape and the delicate yet robust structure of this flower. I could study it day after day when it bloomed or when it’s petals were falling. I used to be very caring with the flowers. And when I say flowers, I mean beings, living creatures that I respected deep in my child’s heart. It never ceased to amaze me and make me happy whenever I saw it, because only there, in that corner of the garden, hidden in shadow under a lilac tree one could have found my columbine. There were no others, it was unique and the neighbours had none. It’s incredible how simple things that adults don’t even notice can be such an awesome thing for a child.
Many years I grew up with the beautiful columbines, studying them as they opened their purple-blue flowers. Columbines meant holiday, freedom and childhood. Not in so many words, but with a warm cosy feeling deep within. Words meant nothing then, only the heart was full of feelings and of a light that an adult is losing somewhere on the way.
This year I was contemplating my bare garden, frozen and with no trace of life. Then suddenly an incredible invisible force, a singular touch of grace has awaken the life in the sleeping buds and wrinkled flowers that rose their heads and stretched their beings in the warm sunshine. Then mesmerised I have discovered hundreds of columbines.
Is it God’s message that life is beautiful and full of diversity on a multitude of layers at the same time? Or is it just a cosmic coincidence? No matter what it is, it has brought back to me that warm cosy feeling in the midst of a busy life full of stress. The morning when I saw the columbines bloom I felt how one must feel when they win the lottery. To others this means nothing. To me it means the return to innocence.
400 words, memyselfandela, June 1st 2015
Photo: Adela Galasiu, May 2015
Lake District
I took a walk in the land of still waters and running springs
Where clouds embrace hills and peace touches all creature.
Pungent colours, earthly and alive
Separate the core of the earth from the cross of the sky.
Raws of walls separate raw beauty.
Sheep and red squirrels live happily ever after
With Beatrix Potter in the shiny heart of the Lakes.
63 words, memyselfandela, January 2015
Photos: Adela Galasiu
BBC. Soul. Music. Peace.
Yesterday lovely Nicola Humphries, BBC producer and wonderful woman with a big heart, has given me the opportunity to tell a story.
It has all started with my beloved Rhapsody in Blue and Gershwin, but for me this represents the tip of my soul iceberg. I have dived very deep in my past to the times when I was a happy child. I have spoken about life in the Communism, oppression, the tragic death of my father which has coincided with the beginning of the Romanian Revolution on the 22 of December 1989. I have tried to describe life as it was, but time was short and words don’t come always easy. I have had moments when my mind has frozen and when I could not find my words as in the back of my eyes I have kept my tears, because I cannot get back in some moments in time without feeling again all that intense pain.
I am in love with music because it has always been for me a gate to freedom and a window of hope in the darkest moments. I have remembered the most intense moments that I have lived and witnessed, the blood on the streets of Sibiu, the fear when people were shot, the agony of not knowing what was happening with my father when he did not come back home, the death striking my family when we have least expected, the love and the absolute loss.
I may be different than other people given the intensity of situations that I have lived, things that could have made other people get insane. I have been through things that normally do not happen to other people. Those have been moments that have not destroyed me, but made me stronger. This is one of the reasons why I write and I have started my blog. I believe that despite all pain, beyond all loss, life is both a path and a fight. We can all create a better path and win our battle. I truly believe that none of us should give up, that we should all have peace of mind and hope in our heart for the day to come. I believe it because I have been myself on the edge of despair and I have looked into the abyss of depression many times in my life.
As I came out of the BBC I have entered the Church of All Souls. I believe nothing is accidental. I have been not given the chance to speak about me alone, but the chance to recall and mention my mother, my father, my love, my loss, my hope. Maybe it was a way of setting myself free and closing a deep pain of the past, a bleeding succession of losses that I have lived with for a long time.
I believe in God. We have all a lesson to learn. And I believe that at the end of the road we shall all find love and peace.
500 words, memyselfandela, February 2014
Photos: Adela Galasiu, February 2014
Many thanks to wonderful Nicola Humphries and BBC 4, Soul Music.
Night
I have lost my way often lingering on cursed unknown streets
Hoping to find the invisible path that leads to you.
I am grateful for the gift of being alive
For the roses I bewilderingly find blooming under your blue sky.
When night comes, when my eyes cannot close
They can sometimes seize the star that lights up your dreams.
As it twinkles high above you, almost fading,
The distance to you means nothing anymore.
One day when my soul will look for a place to hide and to rest
It will find the shadow concealed between your loving arms.
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100 words, memyselfandela, November 2013
Dawn
You asked me: “Lover, tell me, how do you love me?”
“Like life itself, like the dawn rising from the darkness” I said.
You nodded: “Lover, what hope do we have?”
“None, lover, but I will still find some hope just for us” I said.
You smiled at me: “Lover, what makes your life worth living?”
“You and the love in your eyes, lover” I said.
Then you turned and disappeared in the midst of my deepest dream.
And a distant spark of hope ignited my rising dawn.
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88 words, memyselfandela, November 2013
Walking In The Air
Come dance on countless whispers, in the pure atmosphere
High above, beyond all worries.
The same lonesome trumpet illuminates my night
Come float with me beyond all words.
I won’t forget you, weary soul
In this dimension where we found each other.
If I would turn the distance in a golden thread
It would lead me far away to the moon.
Our clay existence, the cage of our bodies are nothing
In this realm where our deepest thoughts ignite.
Sleepless nights sublimated in the dark shadow under your loving eyes
Will never ever keep you from floating in the air.
100 words, memyselfandela, November 2013
Photos: memyselfandela, November 2013
Letter
Words streaming from the heart that used to know her, a piece of paper bearing the trace of his feelings. It did hurt her but in her soul she was still in love, she was still there in time, in his arms. It did break her but her mind was still touching his as she thought of him. And no matter what she could still reach him, no matter where he was now. Life has never broken her love. He was away. He was on his own way carved through life. On his way. Maybe on his way back one day.
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100 words, memyselfandela, September 2013
A Million Shades of Blue
Shades… A million shades… The afternoon was made out of so many shades between the black and the white.
The sky was not perfectly blue, the heart was not perfectly light, the hope was not really a hope.
If it would have been love or no love at all, all would have been so simple, but the heart was flooded by all those shades of colors and feelings and electricity boldly lingering in their touch. It was a delirium of things and images passing before her eyes while she was processing the remains of the previous days.
“Why is life not simple like in those romantic movies where all is fine?” was the thought lingering in her mind while watching him stop in front of another little shop, with the amazement of a child that has just seen something he was hoping to discover for a lifetime.
Entering the shop she realized that it would make a beautiful present to compensate his birthday. She missed it, it’s true, but not because she didn’t care, but because she didn’t know him yet back then. But still, she would have loved to have been there with him that day, and in her heart she was.
He loved them all. It’s true, they were all beautiful ties, hand made, real, just like he loved to feel authentic and sharp and real…
With a smile in the corner of her soul she sent him to have a look in the back of the store while she took the tie he had admired in the very first moment. 69 pounds, that was the price. It was perfect. The colors were perfect, shades of color, shades of life. The price spoke volumes. To him it would have probably meant an erotic thing, but to her it was a tangible translation of the moon dust trapped inside their bones, of their breath as they were kissing and talking about the muses watching over their love, of the raise and fall of their entwined souls, or the incarnation of all the things that were present in that very second when she wished him happy birthday, now, better later than never.
In the back of her mind there was only a song lingering talking about the raise and fall of the same moon dust that was still shining in his eyes just like that night when they have met the first time, not even knowing if tomorrow will ever come or if there will be a chance for another minute together.
The day was fading, in the corridors of the city, in the tunnels covered in graffiti, as the two lovers were getting back from a city adventure that meant all and nothing, while lights were shining on the side of the road, like fireflies dancing songs known only to themselves.
And the light was dying in millions of shades of obscurity, while the moon, all alone, saw the loneliness crawling back in the souls of the eternal loners.
500 words, memyselfandela, September 2013
Life
Life starts with what we have received at our birth.
It continues with what we learn.
It’s shaped by what we lose.
It grows proportionally with what we dream.
It’s filtered through what we feel.
It’s intensified by what we miss.
And ends up by being what we allow it to become.
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memyselfandela, August 2013
Photo: memyselfandela, 2012
The Eyes of Love
I found love in my mother’s eyes
Keeping her baby asleep
In the shelter of her heart
And in my father’s eyes
When came back home
Late at night
I saw love in the eyes of the newly weds
Snow flowing from heaven
Dressing them in white
And in the eyes of children
Running free, smiling
Picking flowers
I saw love in the eyes of the soldier
Holding at his chest like a treasure
His killed comrade:
Tears falling endlessly
From the eyes of the living
On the cheeks of the dead
But the Eyes of Love, I have found them only once
In an old Church with heavenly doors wide open:
Endless eyes, with the irises of the sky full of stars
Endlessly loving
And endlessly healing
The wounds of our wide open eyes.
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memyselfandela, 2013
E lucevan le stelle
Even if our wings would ridge the heaven
we would not melt the cold chains pulling us towards the ground …
I pass my lead fingers through your hair and lose myself in your arms …
Your forehead alone radiates heat on my forehead …
I’m hiding in your eyes, extending the light of my eyes, bridge for our sorrow and joy …
The fear of collapsing in ourselves is looking at us over our crushed shoulders….
Come, open wide your eyes, let’s not get lost …
What could lift us anew? Self-denial, the hope in the world, hoping in someone else? …
Do you still remember the path?
We got lost in words, come and find me …
We had a glimpse of the way back to ourselves, from me to you, your heart beating in my heart …
And the stars were shining …
memyselfandela, 2010
Dreamweaver
my love lost in another world, the desert sends you endless waves of sand
in the cold night when you sail from shore to shore asking
mermaids and bards and lonely women and shamans and the fata morgana
for the absolute beauty and the golden wool
seeds of whispers get born on my silent lips as I try to get you out of the corners
of this universe, me undressed of day dreaming, you covered in dreams
that cannot get real because you don’t set them free while you linger too long
in the chaotic nightmare hammered in screaming ancient walls
the springs of my soul search for the sky in your never seen eyes
so that the day when you’ll find your way back to me
you won’t step on the blaze of our burning hearts
while you’ll break my life in two with a kiss
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memyselfandela, 2013
April – Parkinson’s Awareness Month
Dear friends,
April is Parkinson’s Awareness Month.
There’s a life lesson that has truly amazed me here on WP, it is the story of Benjamin Michael Prewitt, gifted painter and fantastic father and soul who was diagnosed not long ago with Young Onset Parkinson’s Disease, a disease that is not confined to older people and can affect people of any age.
You will have seen some of his work here on my blog. Yet not enough, so I invite you to browse the galleries on his site. You won’t be disappointed.
http://benjaminprewitt.com/
As with many degenerative diseases, the ramifications and extent of the effects of PD are not generally known or understood until they touch our own lives or the lives of those whom we love.
http://benjaminprewitt.com/2013/03/31/april-parkinsons-awareness-month/
Please take a moment to read Benjamin’s post and see his amazing work. He is an unique soul who turns his sorrow and pain into passion offered to this world. He offers his vision, feelings, paint, music, words, heart and soul so that others understand what Parkinson’s is. I bow in respect for his amazing sacrifice, keep fighting Benjamin!!!
Thank you for reading dear friends.
Much love to you all,
Ela
Prayer
I’m only a drop in Your sea of lonely souls, God.
And deep inside me reside the pain, the smile,
The unrequited love and the same fear
That run through all the others.
Maybe of all Your particles I am the most blue
Maybe my voice tries to scream the loudest
Like a lost desperate child, like a bird fallen from the nest
So that You can hear.
You , the only one that cares,
The only silent witnesses to all of our inner pain,
Heal our wounds, calm this restless sea and
Hide us in the peace of Your Holy Eyes.
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memyselfandela, 2013
Beauty
Snowflakes dance outside
On a tune known only by them
While the wind sighs.
Warm and bright inside my heart.
The day blooms her eyes full of light
Smiling upon us like a waving flag.
In my hair and on my soul
Shine blue ribbons of
Peaceful beauty.
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memyselfandela, 2013
Night
let the night swallow
the last traces of my smile
fading slowly as I dare not to speak anymore
let the darkness devour
the last thoughts, so that my spirit can rest
let me die for today. turn off the light
so I can get back to life when I see you again
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memyselfandela, 2013
memyselfandela 