The Smoker Caterpillar: smoker caterpillar

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About. My first floral workshop.

Last Saturday was a very special day for me: I hosted my first floral workshop!
It took place in a Spanish bookstore/library called Bartlerbly & Co where I go often to pick up lending books.

Back in December I was there one day to give back a couple of novels when Ana, the owner of the shop, told me that she had seen my blog where I published flower arrangements I made. She said she liked them very much. Suddenly she offered me her space to give a floral workshop. She caught me completely by surprise (Thank you very much Ana for the surprising proposal).

The great opportunities come like this: unexpected. And if there is something I know it's that catching the unexpected is often the successful path to grow up.
I accepted the offer and started to prepare everything. I designed the content of the workshop and the strategy to put together the materials for a reasonable price.
The fixed date was getting closer while I was getting more and more excited.
Manfred helped me a lot. He gave me strength and support. He also spend that full day with me, carrying stuff and looking for Fauna (and also Deacon). Thank you husband of mine.

You know what? It was a perfect day. As soon as the workshop started I felt relaxed. I could enjoy every minute and I had a lot of fun. We all did.
We were five persons because the room couldn't hold any more but I think that it was a good amount for the first time. All the girls who came loved flowers but never tried to work with them before. They were complete novices and this was a good thing. What I wanted to achieve was to create a joyful atmosphere were they could delight themselves creating beauty. I gave them some basic and important information about the tools we were using and I offered them some visual inspiration. For the rest, I let them do. And sometimes I gave them some advise. I didn't want to bore them with to much knowledge about design and composition.
When they finished it, each got a little arrangement to take home. One of them did even two. When the class was over I did one arrangement with what was left. Would you guess which is the one I did?

Since that day, my head is spinning around. I am thinking when I will make the second one. What would be the next exercise. Which other ways I can sell my floral work. Etc.
Because there is something sure about this experience: That I want to make a living out of floral work.

Inspiration. November: flowers and memories.

November is a Gothic month, don't you think? October is really colorful and still warm. December brings already the promise of a shiny and cozy Christmas time. But November is there in between. Just Dark. In November the days are short all of a sudden. The fall, the real fall, happens then. In a couple of windy days all the trees that were golden become totally nude.
Surprisingly, this month inspired me a lot aesthetically speaking. My mind is full of images dominated by sharp forms and non saturated colors. It also makes me think in plants: bramble, adormidera, thistle, belladonna... It reminds me too my childhood obsession with witchcraft. The books I used to look. The drawings I used to do. All the magnificent female and dark protagonist of my fantasies.

With the grey sky and the rain some forgotten memories came to me really clear. The time when, in primary school, me and a classmate painted a door of the girls toilet with glitter spray as part of a magic ritual. We were putting a spell on the hamster of another classmate. A couple of days later the hamster died... Or that time when me and my friend Maria took all of our sorcery objects and, dressing with a totally unpractical witchy clothes, we went on the fully snowed fields in a search for new and unknown lands. We crossed the second stone fence and found a cow cemetery. Then our feets were freezing and our long skirts wet, so we went back to the warmth of our mother's house to drink milk-cocoa. Or that another time, when were in our late teens. We didn't want to go to school the following day so we went to some high rocks, carrying all kind of witchery utilities to make a ritual to call the snow. The snow didn't came, but some truly shitty weather occupied the skies for one week.

I think that November is a great time to do witchcraft.
Since October I am trying to help a waiter from the Italian restaurant under my home to get a girlfriend, a good one. I tried it because he is a really charming guy and I truly think that this is what he needs. Well, and because he asked for it. I did my thing and then he slowly entered in the flow, meeting different girls. Finally he was into some really romantic long distant story. But....ah... She had a boyfriend. A long term relationship. Of course, she finally chose to continue what she had.
The other day, 14th of November, I came down to make a walk and he told me the sad resolution of his romantic adventure. So I told him I will tried again, immediately (kind of joking). Then I entered the park and suddenly there she was. The Moon. Huge, bright, powerful. It felt like she was there for me to make my thing. I really didn't remember that this was the day of the big full moon. For sure, chances have to be taken. So I stopped in the centre of the circular hollow that the park has and I confronted her. I absorbed all the power that she was offering. I felt so good and strong. It was a very special moment. When I got enough I just continued my walk. Hopefully for the end of the month my friend will get what he asked for.

I made magic a lot of times in my life. I learned it somehow in the way to my womanhood. It is something that cannot be described nor explained with rules. It is abstract and invisible. But notice this: I don't take it seriously. When it works out, I am excited and happy. When it doesn't, I just laugh about myself and continue my ordinary life.

- The pictures that accompany the text of today are some flower arrangement that inhabited our living room the first weeks of the month. As I said before I was inspired by a gothic and magical direction. I liked them so much that even named them. I present you: The Undergrowth Goblin, The Volatile Nymph and The Omnipotent Witch. It's easy to guess which is which, no? -

Worn 74. My 25th birthday and thoughts about it.

Today I reach a quarter of a century. Hopefully I will reach two more, maybe even three. It's strange how I feel: young, full of energy and visions, yet quite old. I feel calm as if I would have lived much longer. I'm not in a hurry to live life. I like to think that I still have plenty of things to go through. God and bad. Even things that are typically lived in the early youth. I won't press them to happen. I am patiently awaiting. Ready for the years that are to come. Totally satisfied with what have lived until now.
I have learned that I enjoy life the most when I give time to things. When I live slowly, taking whatever time is necessary to understand what I experience. Time to learn. Time to taste every little bite. Without pressure. Perhaps not everybody can do it that way. I guess is a luxury to have the possibility to live like this, so open. I feel fortunate about it.

Some people have told me that I am an old soul. Others, that I have an atemporal kind of beauty. Both seem great compliments to me. They represent my way of thinking: the extremes which coexist in one place, in harmony. The female inside the male, the male inside the female. The young inside the old, the old inside the young. The beauty inside the ugliness, the ugliness inside the beauty... Not the black nor the white, but the infinite shades in between.

Have a nice day. I will too.

WORN 73. Silky blue

It's long time ago that I made the last worn in here, my blog. Almost four months, to be concrete. Becoming a mother is such a full new experience that doesn't leave space for so much else. To dress up becomes a practical task. You suddenly have no time to build up outfits. It is complicated to make clothing choices. There is the fact that I have gained weight, most of my clothes don't fit me well. There is the another fact: the clothes have to let me bring my breast out easily, pragmatically, plenty of times a day. I discovered then that my tops are not good for that task. I struggled a bit in the beginning. I didn't feel inspired, neither motivated, to dress up.
Nevertheless the other day I felt the need, the urge, to dress up. To be sophisticated. To use a bit of make up. Here you see the result: silk trousers (in my new size), this lovely top I inherited from my mother (my breasts barely fit inside), this kimono-like tunic...A celebration of good quality textiles. The outfit reminded me of some asiatic vibes so I made the photos in a corner of the park that makes me feel the same atmosphere.
It felt good to be elegant. Even if is just some kind of luxury, not for every day.

By the way, we are leaving tomorrow for a three weeks trip. To enjoy a really needed holidays. To enjoy a really needed time next to the sea. I didn't see the sea for a really long time and I miss it intensely.
Maybe I will make posts from there but I don't promise anything. Manfred, Fauna and me will be with the totality of my siblings and my mother. It will be a full time of joy for me.

PD: We went to the doctor and he conclude that Fauna is growing correctly. Despite she is slim and gains weight slowly, she has good reflects and energy enough (especially to cry loud).