2012/04/15
2012/04/14
2012/04/12
2012/03/10
For the highly sensitive
Found this on kandeej.com , the article's name is 10 Questions to see if you are HIGHLY SENSITIVE
WHY I LOVE SENSITIVE PEOPLE:
They are the heart of the world, the ones with compassion, that feel others pain, that celebrate others happiness, the ones that not just look up at the stars, but see the beauty of the twinkling glitter int eh night sky.
They are the ones that make sure you feel loved, and make you feel loved on your birthday, with a card or flowers. They are the ones that not just see a sunset, but see and feel the beauty of that glowing orb, grandly sinking to wake up another part of the world with it's warm glow. They are the ones that feel the ache of a broken heart or joy of a new love, and turn it into a song, with words to the paint feelings in your heart.
The sensitive people are the true wonders of the world. They are the hearts and hope and artists in the world...the dancers, singers, painters, musicians...the ones who notice beauty, where others just walk on by.
The sensitive people are the ones that notice the cotton candy color or the sky in the afternoon, they stop and smell the sweet perfume of flowers, they enjoy the sound of laughter and hear beauty in it, they take their shoes off at the beach to feel the sand. Music and art, and beauty (not the beauty that Hollywood promotes, but the beauty in the small things) are in important part of their life.
I am thankful I am so sensitive. All the great artists and people in the world, the ones that made a difference were sensitive, Princess Diana, Mother Teresa, Martin Luther King, and many countless people who loved, felt, and felt others' emotions, and by doing so, changed the world.
We are not just "highly sensitive", we are the heart and change in the world, we are "highly awesome"!
Go out today with your senses...and feel and see the beauty all around, and rejoice that you are sensitive....just like me!
huge love and lots of sensitivity, kandee
2012/03/06
2012/03/03
2012/03/01
Johann Johannsson - Sun's Gone Dim
Almost seems like the best music always comes from Iceland. Need to go there someday soon
2012/02/27
2012/02/26
2012/02/22
2012/02/20
2012/02/19
2012/02/10
Today I'm loving... STYLE
This university girl from Lithuania is sooo beautiful and she's got incredible style. Simply love her hair, makeup, clothes, room decoration, her name (Ieva) and even her youtube username (Chanelette). Besides having a beauty channel on youtube she's a style blogger too, at www.lipstickonyourcup.blogspot.com
2012/02/09
Meet Meeke Mutter, Dutch dancer and artist in NYC pt.2
You may remember the name Meeke Mutter from this blog post or my tweets about her. If you don't, here's a quick summary: I came across an interview with Meeke where she told about how she started dancing again in her thirties (she danced as a child but quit when going to university) and tried but couldn't get into any dance academies here in the Netherlands so she went to New York City 4,5 years ago at the age of 38(!). Initially for a 3-week workshop at the Graham School and now she is still there studying Ballet and Voice, for which she even got scholarship for a year!
Such a remarkable story, especially if you keep in mind that usually 38 is the age that a dancer's career is already over. Dutch dance academies have an age limit of 22. If you're older than that, you're really "too old". Meeke however, proves that beauty, excellence and artistry have no age limit whatsoever, not even in dance.
I was so inspired by Meeke's story that I decided to send her an email. I thanked her for inspiring me with her amazing story and asked if I could interview her for my blog. She was so sweet to me and she told me that she was gonna be in the Netherlands for a couple of weeks so that we could meet up in real life if I wanted to. So we did, we had some tea together and talked for hours about how she started a life in New York, what classes she's been taking, how she got into painting (yes, she's a painter too!), and of course about all kinds of dance styles and techniques and experiences. It wasn't really an interview, it was more like meeting a friend, so I decided to let go of the specific questions that I had collected beforehand and just learned and enjoyed it as much as I could.
To me Meeke is a great example of someone who has an incredibly strong intuition and has the courage to act on it, no matter what others may think or say. She knows how to really carefully listen to and trust her body and heart's signals. Which makes her a great role model for me as an aspiring dancer/artist, but even more for me (and anyone else) as a human being that wants to live life to the fullest.
Before saying goodbye we took a picture together (image above) and she gave me a photo copy of one of her paintings (image below). She wrote on the back "Dear Danielle, please keep on dancing and following your heart", which is exactly what she inspires me to do.
Thank you Meeke for everything and hope to see you again someday soon! (Maybe in NYC? :D)
Such a remarkable story, especially if you keep in mind that usually 38 is the age that a dancer's career is already over. Dutch dance academies have an age limit of 22. If you're older than that, you're really "too old". Meeke however, proves that beauty, excellence and artistry have no age limit whatsoever, not even in dance.
I was so inspired by Meeke's story that I decided to send her an email. I thanked her for inspiring me with her amazing story and asked if I could interview her for my blog. She was so sweet to me and she told me that she was gonna be in the Netherlands for a couple of weeks so that we could meet up in real life if I wanted to. So we did, we had some tea together and talked for hours about how she started a life in New York, what classes she's been taking, how she got into painting (yes, she's a painter too!), and of course about all kinds of dance styles and techniques and experiences. It wasn't really an interview, it was more like meeting a friend, so I decided to let go of the specific questions that I had collected beforehand and just learned and enjoyed it as much as I could.
Before saying goodbye we took a picture together (image above) and she gave me a photo copy of one of her paintings (image below). She wrote on the back "Dear Danielle, please keep on dancing and following your heart", which is exactly what she inspires me to do.
Thank you Meeke for everything and hope to see you again someday soon! (Maybe in NYC? :D)
2012/02/06
Osho on creativity
Found this interesting view on creativity on osho.com
"CREATIVITY has nothing to do with any activity in particular – with painting, poetry, dancing, singing. It has nothing to do with anything in particular.
Anything can be creative – you bring that quality to the activity. Activity itself is neither creative nor uncreative. You can paint in an uncreative way. You can sing in an uncreative way. You can clean the floor in a creative way. You can cook in a creative way.
Creativity is the quality that you bring to the activity you are doing. It is an attitude, an inner approach – how you look at things.
So the first thing to be remembered: don't confine creativity to anything in particular. A man is creative – and if he is creative, whatsoever he does, even if he walks, you can see in his walking there is creativity. Even if he sits silently and does nothing, even non-doing will be a creative act. Buddha sitting under the Bodhi Tree doing nothing is the greatest creator the world has ever known.
Once you understand it – that it is you, the person, who is creative or uncreative – then this problem disappears.
Not everybody can be a painter – and there is no need also. If everybody is a painter the world will be very ugly; it will be difficult to live. And not everybody can be a dancer, and there is no need. But everybody can be creative.
Whatsoever you do, if you do it joyfully, if you do it lovingly, if your act of doing it is not purely economical, then it is creative. If you have something growing out of it within you, if it gives you growth, it is spiritual, it is creative, it is divine.
You become more divine as you become more creative. all the religions of the world have said: God is the Creator. I don't know whether He is the Creator or not, but one thing I know: the more creative you become, the more godly you become. When your creativity comes to a climax, when your whole life becomes creative, you live in God. So He must be the Creator because people who have been creative have been closest to Him. "Love what you do. Be meditative while you are doing it – whatsoever it is! irrelevant of the fact of what it is.
Have you seen Paras cleaning this floor of Chuang Tzu auditorium? Then you will know: cleaning can become creative. With what love! Almost singing and dancing inside. If you clean the floor with such love, you have done an invisible painting. You lived that moment in such delight that it has given you some inner growth. You cannot be the same after a creative act.
Creativity means loving whatsoever you do – enjoying, celebrating it, as a gift of existence! Maybe nobody comes to know about it. Who is going to praise Paras for cleaning this floor? History will not take any account of it; newspapers will not publish her name and pictures – but that is irrelevant. She enjoyed it. The value is intrinsic.
So if you are looking for fame and then you think you are creative – if you become famous like Picasso, then you are creative – then you will miss. Then you are, in fact, not creative at all: you are a politician, ambitious. If fame happens, good. If it doesn't happen, good. It should not be the consideration. The consideration should be that you are enjoying whatsoever you are doing. It is your love-affair.
If your act is your love-affair, then it becomes creative. Small things become great by the touch of love and delight.
The questioner asks: "I believed I was uncreative." If you believe in that way, you will become uncreative – because belief is not just belief. It opens doors; it closes doors. If you have a wrong belief, then that will hang around you as a closed door. If you believe that you are uncreative, you will become uncreative – because that belief will obstruct, continuously negate, all possibilities of flowing. It will not allow your energy to flow because you will continuously say: "I am uncreative.
This has been taught to everybody. Very few people are accepted as creative: A few painters, a few poets – one in a million. This is foolish! Every human being is a born creator. Watch children and you will see: all children are creative. By and by, we destroy their creativity. By and by, we force wrong beliefs on them. By and by, we distract them. By and by, we make them more and more economical and political and ambitious. "When ambition enters, creativity disappears – because an ambitious man cannot be creative, because an ambitious man cannot love any activity for its own sake. While he is painting he is looking ahead; he is thinking, 'When am I going to get a Nobel Prize?' When he is writing a novel, he is looking ahead. He is always in the future – and a creative person is always in the present. "
"CREATIVITY has nothing to do with any activity in particular – with painting, poetry, dancing, singing. It has nothing to do with anything in particular.
Anything can be creative – you bring that quality to the activity. Activity itself is neither creative nor uncreative. You can paint in an uncreative way. You can sing in an uncreative way. You can clean the floor in a creative way. You can cook in a creative way.
Creativity is the quality that you bring to the activity you are doing. It is an attitude, an inner approach – how you look at things.
So the first thing to be remembered: don't confine creativity to anything in particular. A man is creative – and if he is creative, whatsoever he does, even if he walks, you can see in his walking there is creativity. Even if he sits silently and does nothing, even non-doing will be a creative act. Buddha sitting under the Bodhi Tree doing nothing is the greatest creator the world has ever known.
Once you understand it – that it is you, the person, who is creative or uncreative – then this problem disappears.
Not everybody can be a painter – and there is no need also. If everybody is a painter the world will be very ugly; it will be difficult to live. And not everybody can be a dancer, and there is no need. But everybody can be creative.
Whatsoever you do, if you do it joyfully, if you do it lovingly, if your act of doing it is not purely economical, then it is creative. If you have something growing out of it within you, if it gives you growth, it is spiritual, it is creative, it is divine.
You become more divine as you become more creative. all the religions of the world have said: God is the Creator. I don't know whether He is the Creator or not, but one thing I know: the more creative you become, the more godly you become. When your creativity comes to a climax, when your whole life becomes creative, you live in God. So He must be the Creator because people who have been creative have been closest to Him. "Love what you do. Be meditative while you are doing it – whatsoever it is! irrelevant of the fact of what it is.
Have you seen Paras cleaning this floor of Chuang Tzu auditorium? Then you will know: cleaning can become creative. With what love! Almost singing and dancing inside. If you clean the floor with such love, you have done an invisible painting. You lived that moment in such delight that it has given you some inner growth. You cannot be the same after a creative act.
Creativity means loving whatsoever you do – enjoying, celebrating it, as a gift of existence! Maybe nobody comes to know about it. Who is going to praise Paras for cleaning this floor? History will not take any account of it; newspapers will not publish her name and pictures – but that is irrelevant. She enjoyed it. The value is intrinsic.
So if you are looking for fame and then you think you are creative – if you become famous like Picasso, then you are creative – then you will miss. Then you are, in fact, not creative at all: you are a politician, ambitious. If fame happens, good. If it doesn't happen, good. It should not be the consideration. The consideration should be that you are enjoying whatsoever you are doing. It is your love-affair.
If your act is your love-affair, then it becomes creative. Small things become great by the touch of love and delight.
The questioner asks: "I believed I was uncreative." If you believe in that way, you will become uncreative – because belief is not just belief. It opens doors; it closes doors. If you have a wrong belief, then that will hang around you as a closed door. If you believe that you are uncreative, you will become uncreative – because that belief will obstruct, continuously negate, all possibilities of flowing. It will not allow your energy to flow because you will continuously say: "I am uncreative.
This has been taught to everybody. Very few people are accepted as creative: A few painters, a few poets – one in a million. This is foolish! Every human being is a born creator. Watch children and you will see: all children are creative. By and by, we destroy their creativity. By and by, we force wrong beliefs on them. By and by, we distract them. By and by, we make them more and more economical and political and ambitious. "When ambition enters, creativity disappears – because an ambitious man cannot be creative, because an ambitious man cannot love any activity for its own sake. While he is painting he is looking ahead; he is thinking, 'When am I going to get a Nobel Prize?' When he is writing a novel, he is looking ahead. He is always in the future – and a creative person is always in the present. "
2012/02/02
2012/02/01
Hatha Yoga for Neck and Shoulder Health
I know, it takes some time & patience to complete the full routine but it really helps. I often have tension in my neck and shoulders and it sometimes gets quite painful so I tried this for the first time last night and when I woke up the tension was all gone. Yoga is a great gift, especially for today's world with so much computer work.
2012/01/31
AIFW: my experience there
My friend Winde Rienstra is a very talented fashion designer who had her second show at Amsterdam International Fashion Week just last week. Besides the fact that of course I really like her as a friend, I love her work and I feel so lucky that I've been able to help her prepare her work and assist her backstage at the day of the show twice now.
I love the explosion of creativity, beauty and style at Fashion Week but I have to admit that, even though people constantly thought I was one of the models (I'm 5'4 LOL no way I'm a model) I didn't feel very much at home there. There were many very "stylish" and "beautiful" and "successful" people but I met very few that I really liked or found attractive. I guess it's a matter of what you value in others, but even though I think I'm very into fashion and style and beauty for someone who's also very into awareness, I feel like there's really no point in making yourself look beautiful unless you truly are beautiful (from the inside out). But of course everyone's entitled to their own opinion.
Anyway... To me Winde's designs are anything but superficial, they are beautiful artworks and I think her shows are very daring because everything about it is so vulnerable. The super young models with barely any makeup on, the very fragile wooden sculptures and shoes, the white and pastel colored organic silk that she uses... It really stands out because everything is so pure and well-made.
Beautiful pictures of her actual collections are all over the internet, so to be slightly exclusive I'll share some crappy self-made behind-the-scenes pictures :)
For official pictures and video of the Winde Rienstra show and the other shows at AIFW january 2012, visit www.aifw.nl
I love the explosion of creativity, beauty and style at Fashion Week but I have to admit that, even though people constantly thought I was one of the models (I'm 5'4 LOL no way I'm a model) I didn't feel very much at home there. There were many very "stylish" and "beautiful" and "successful" people but I met very few that I really liked or found attractive. I guess it's a matter of what you value in others, but even though I think I'm very into fashion and style and beauty for someone who's also very into awareness, I feel like there's really no point in making yourself look beautiful unless you truly are beautiful (from the inside out). But of course everyone's entitled to their own opinion.
Anyway... To me Winde's designs are anything but superficial, they are beautiful artworks and I think her shows are very daring because everything about it is so vulnerable. The super young models with barely any makeup on, the very fragile wooden sculptures and shoes, the white and pastel colored organic silk that she uses... It really stands out because everything is so pure and well-made.
Beautiful pictures of her actual collections are all over the internet, so to be slightly exclusive I'll share some crappy self-made behind-the-scenes pictures :)
The wooden sculptures from Winde's collection last summer
At the atelier this winter
During the rehearsal, of the january 2012 show. Models weren't dressed yet. Guy in the blue shirt was the choreographer.
For official pictures and video of the Winde Rienstra show and the other shows at AIFW january 2012, visit www.aifw.nl
2012/01/30
Good to be a woman (in Buddhist country)
First of all, I haven't been posting a lot of blogs this month because I've just been super busy with other things. I really miss blogging though, so I'm definitely trying to get back into my daily blogging routine.
Still sooo many great things left to write about and show and share!!!
For example: tonight I watched this video where a girl from Switzerland answers question she got from viewers about her 1 year backpack trip to Asia. Really interesting to me since I love traveling and never been to Asia but really wanna go one day.
What surprised me is that the main thing she said was hard about these countries was that men were constantly being really disrespectful to her as a woman, randomly grabbing and touching her at the streets or on the bus. While she's talking about it I can see it really hurt her inside. She says that she feels for the women who live in these countries and got so aware of how lucky and privileged she is to be born a woman in Western society where she is respected, appreciated and safe.
The most interesting part of this to me, was that she says in Buddhist area this disrespectful treatment never happened. This doesn't really surprise me cause I know Buddhism is a very loving and respectful religion. (Though I don't think it's an actual religion since they don't have a God? But I don't know how else to call it?) But I still think that even though maybe not very surprising, it's very beautiful and worth mentioning.
Still sooo many great things left to write about and show and share!!!
For example: tonight I watched this video where a girl from Switzerland answers question she got from viewers about her 1 year backpack trip to Asia. Really interesting to me since I love traveling and never been to Asia but really wanna go one day.
What surprised me is that the main thing she said was hard about these countries was that men were constantly being really disrespectful to her as a woman, randomly grabbing and touching her at the streets or on the bus. While she's talking about it I can see it really hurt her inside. She says that she feels for the women who live in these countries and got so aware of how lucky and privileged she is to be born a woman in Western society where she is respected, appreciated and safe.
The most interesting part of this to me, was that she says in Buddhist area this disrespectful treatment never happened. This doesn't really surprise me cause I know Buddhism is a very loving and respectful religion. (Though I don't think it's an actual religion since they don't have a God? But I don't know how else to call it?) But I still think that even though maybe not very surprising, it's very beautiful and worth mentioning.
2012/01/26
2012/01/24
Today I'm loving... Kandee's Holiday House Tour
I don't care whether it's Christmas or not, watching this makes me feel sooo very happy and inspired :)
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