Us

We run in our cages like little white mice, at fast pace, too concerned with the rhythm of his steps to realize he has no destination, no contact with the outer world, no understanding.

We fool ourselves with gods that don't exist, too frightened to do things on our own.

We forget we have roots and identities that go far beyond the nationality on our passports. If history is a garbage bin, we are the trash.

We build intricate webs and systems to push us forward only to find we're sometimes taking steps back.

We blame others, don't assume failures and and look anywhere else but ourselves.

We have fake dialogs each day, with ourselves, with the man next door that believes in freedom and with our working colleagues while negotiating peace.

We are consumed by ourselves, and we consume and act only for ourselves.

We are aggressive even in our harmless ways, imposing our thoughts, having to respect for the others p.o.v.

We forget to love and love to forget.

All these while we move forward.
How on earth is that possible??

Craving

Today I missed Emily and Anne and Sylvia and Virginia. How rare these moments got, when I could read and live and remember, and create. There were days when I couldn't get enough reading, when I sank into them, and they sank into me, days measured in pages read, not minutes or hours. Here's a taste for those who actually read this. You also might like Sylvia or The Hours.

I taste a liquor
by Emily Dickinson

I taste a liquor never brewed,
From tankards scooped in pearl;
Not all the vats upon the Rhine
Yield such an alcohol!

Inebriate of air am I,
And debauchee of dew,
Reeling, through endless summer days,
From inns of molten blue.

When the landlord turn the drunken bee
Out of the foxglove's door,
When butterflies renounce their drams,
I shall but drink the more!

Till seraphs swing their snowy hats,
And saints to windows run,
To see the little tippler
Leaning against the sun!

The Kiss
by Anne Sexton

My mouth blooms like a cut.
I've been wronged all year,
tedious
nights, nothing but rough
elbows in them
and delicate boxes of
Kleenex calling crybaby
crybaby, you fool!

Before today my body
was useless.
Now it's tearing at its
square corners.
It's tearing old Mary's
garments off, knot by knot
and see - Now it's shot full of
these electric bolts.
Zing! A resurrection!

Once it was a boat, quite
wooden
and with no business, no salt
water under it
and in need of some paint. It
was no more
than a group of boards. But
you hoisted her, rigged her.
She's been elected.

My nerves are turned on. I
hear them like
musical instruments. Where
there was silence
the drums, the strings are
incurably playing. You did
this.
Pure genius at work. Darling,
the composer has stepped
into fire.

Mirror
by Sylvia Plath

I am silver and exact. I have no preconceptions.
What ever you see I swallow immediately
Just as it is, unmisted by love or dislike.
I am not cruel, only truthful---
The eye of a little god, four-cornered.
Most of the time I meditate on the opposite wall.
It is pink, with speckles. I have looked at it so long
I think it is a part of my heart. But it flickers.
Faces and darkness separate us over and over.
Now I am a lake. A woman bends over me,
Searching my reaches for what she really is.
Then she turns to those liars, the candles or the moon.
I see her back, and reflect it faithfully.
She rewards me with tears and an agitation of hands.
I am important to her. She comes and goes.
Each morning it is her face that replaces the darkness.
In me she has drowned a young girl, and in me an old woman
Rises toward her day after day, like a terrible fish.



" Let a man get up and say, "Behold, this is the truth," and instantly I perceive a sandy cat filching a piece of fish in the background. Look, you have forgotten the cat, I say." Virginia Woolf

I never made long term plans, they were commitments I knew I could not keep. Somehow things connected and events and opportunities were flowing one after another. I never compromised so much I did not find myself in whatever I was doing.

Life after @ is indeed less dreamy, and more challenging.You become more aware of what your values are and how values govern the life you lead. Money, ethics, excellence, responsibility, family, helping others, they often go to war against each other. And where there are wars, there are victims. We have evolved so much, we dream of living our lives as professional human beings, with high purposes and conscious choices, but when I look around most people are just trying to survive.

I am moving forward and learning new things, however I am passing through one of those moments I had when I was a kid, when I was writing in one of my so many unfinished journals: " I wish I was able to see myself in 20 years. How I look like, what I do, what kind of life I have." The view is clearer now, but as time goes by, a sort of inner impatience is cornering my mind: What do I live behind???

Time after time

I'm wrapped up in a blanket, at my computer chair. I'm back. My luggage is still unpacked, somehow I'm not ready yet..I guess it's something us women can afford :)

Back at work today, the kids were sweet as usual. Most of the times they remind me how adults need attention and why. I shared candy to all the girls in the team, and was, once again, after mum, Razvan and other friends in the position to answer the question: How was it?

Words are picky, and sometimes not enough. I felt I came back from a far eastern part of Romania. I felt an instant connection to its people. I was absorbing stories and impressions, emotions and words with the thirst of a child or rather that of someone that is aware of it's bad memory and is trying to remember as much as he can.

So I started telling them about the warmth of the people, the hospitality, the history, bits of conversations like " We want to do something more but don't know how. We can do it too!", "I was out in the street when the language issue was out..we don't trust our political leaders anymore", " My grandpa and my grandma were separated....after some time, they met again, each with their families", " I now have Romanian citizenship!", " All my family is Russian", " My mum is Ukrainian and my dad is Moldavian", "I was born on the 4th of January on the way from Chisinau to Tiraspol", " Why doesn't Moldova have ambassadors? Can I be one?" (ambassadors for the P&G Pampers and shots campaign, "They (Russians) want to keep their influence on Transnistria because of its strategic position", "We started our own consultancy and translations business", "Hopefully, both Moldova and Ukraine will join EU and NATO", "Things are moving forward and a new generation will arise"..Part of the reason I liked it was because of it's diversity. Sure, diversity was and will be a reason for conflict, but all we need is tolerance and appreciation.

What amazed me more was AIESEC in Moldova. I can still remember Sergiu and Eugen at NPS, having lunch and connecting. There was very little of AIESEC in Moldova they could tell. Not the case nowadays though.

I was amazed of the professionalism of the conference team, the flexibility, and the impact. I was amazed by the hard work, dedication, beauty and originality of the OC and the greatest @song ever developed! I was amazed by the connections the delegates were making, by their maturity at certain points, by their view of the future. I have no doubt things are on the right track and the country will grow. If only at least 80% will walk the talk.

On my was home, this song was in my ears; Bits of words from the sugar cubes I received. Judging myself to see if I really deserved them; Thinking of my impact now and what more I can do. Thinking of values versus feelings / needs? and having the impressions of an unfinished conversation... Missing everyone, and the overall feeling of the conference. The magic of people brought together in the right context, the @spirit I was longing to reconnect to. Eagerly waiting to get home and open my condensed milk :P

I wish I had huge arms to hug the countries so tight there would be no borders. However it is, You will find me here whenever you will need.

Time after Time.

Wisdom

In 1851 Chief Seattle and his people were persuaded to sell two million acres of land in Washington State for $150,000 to the U.S. Government.

This is his response, which since inspired millions of people around the world; Today, the city of Seattle carries his name.

What if people would have the same way of thinking today?


How can you buy or sell the sky, the warmth of the land? The idea is strange to us.

If we do not own the freshness of the air and the sparkle of the water, how can you buy them?

Every part of this earth is sacred to my people. Every shining pine needle, every sandy shore, every mist in the dark woods, every clearing and humming insect is holy in the memory and experience of my people. The sap, which courses through the trees carries the memories of the red man.

The white man's dead forget the country of their birth when they go to walk among the stars. Our dead never forget this beautiful earth, for it is the mother of the red man. We are part of the earth and it is part of us. The perfumed flowers are our sisters; the deer, the horse, the great eagle, these are our brothers. The rocky crests, the juices in the meadows, the body heat of the pony, and man --- all belong to the same family.

So, when the Great Chief in Washington sends word that he wishes to buy our land, he asks much of us. The Great Chief sends word he will reserve us a place so that we can live comfortably to ourselves. He will be our father and we will be his children.

So, we will consider your offer to buy our land. But it will not be easy. For this land is sacred to us. This shining water that moves in the streams and rivers is not just water but the blood of our ancestors. If we sell you the land, you must remember that it is sacred, and you must teach your children that it is sacred and that each ghostly reflection in the clear water of the lakes tells of events and memories in the life of my people. The water's murmur is the voice of my father's father.

The rivers are our brothers, they quench our thirst. The rivers carry our canoes, and feed our children. If we sell you our land, you must remember, and teach your children, that the rivers are our brothers and yours, and you must henceforth give the rivers the kindness you would give any brother.

We know that the white man does not understand our ways. One portion of land is the same to him as the next, for he is a stranger who comes in the night and takes from the land whatever he needs. The earth is not his brother, but his enemy, and when he has conquered it, he moves on. He leaves his father's grave behind, and he does not care. He kidnaps the earth from his children, and he does not care. His father's grave, and his children's birthright are forgotten. He treats his mother, the earth, and his brother, the sky, as things to be bought, plundered, sold like sheep or bright beads. His appetite will devour the earth and leave behind only a desert.

I do not know. Our ways are different than your ways. The sight of your cities pains the eyes of the red man. There is no quiet place in the white man's cities. No place to hear the unfurling of leaves in spring or the rustle of the insect's wings. The clatter only seems to insult the ears. And what is there to life if a man cannot hear the lonely cry of the whippoorwill or the arguments of the frogs around the pond at night? I am a red man and do not understand. The Indian prefers the soft sound of the wind darting over the face of a pond and the smell of the wind itself, cleaned by a midday rain, or scented with pinon pine.

The air is precious to the red man for all things share the same breath, the beast, the tree, the man, they all share the same breath. The white man does not seem to notice the air he breathes. Like a man dying for many days he is numb to the stench. But if we sell you our land, you must remember that the air is precious to us that the air shares its spirit with all the life it supports.

The wind that gave our grandfather his first breath also receives his last sigh. And if we sell you our land, you must keep it apart and sacred as a place where even the white man can go to taste the wind that is sweetened by the meadow's flowers.

So we will consider your offer to buy our land. If we decide to accept, I will make one condition - the white man must treat the beasts of this land as his brothers.

I am a savage and do not understand any other way. I have seen a thousand rotting buffaloes on the prairie, left by the white man who shot them from a passing train. I am a savage and do not understand how the smoking iron horse can be made more important than the buffalo that we kill only to stay alive.

What is man without the beasts? If all the beasts were gone, man would die from a great loneliness of the spirit. For whatever happens to the beasts, soon happens to man. All things are connected.

You must teach your children that the ground beneath their feet is the ashes of our grandfathers. So that they will respect the land, tell your children that the earth is rich with the lives of our kin. Teach your children that we have taught our children that the earth is our mother. Whatever befalls the earth befalls the sons of earth. If men spit upon the ground, they spit upon themselves.

This we know; the earth does not belong to man; man belongs to the earth. This we know. All things are connected like the blood, which unites one family. All things are connected.

Even the white man, whose God walks and talks with him as friend to friend, cannot be exempt from the common destiny. We may be brothers after all. We shall see. One thing we know which the white man may one day discover; our God is the same God.

You may think now that you own Him as you wish to own our land; but you cannot. He is the God of man, and His compassion is equal for the red man and the white. The earth is precious to Him, and to harm the earth is to heap contempt on its creator. The whites too shall pass; perhaps sooner than all other tribes. Contaminate your bed and you will one night suffocate in your own waste.

But in your perishing you will shine brightly fired by the strength of the God who brought you to this land and for some special purpose gave you dominion over this land and over the red man.

That destiny is a mystery to us, for we do not understand when the buffalo are all slaughtered, the wild horses are tamed, the secret corners of the forest heavy with the scent of many men and the view of the ripe hills blotted by talking wires.

Where is the thicket? Gone. Where is the eagle? Gone.

But why should I mourn at the untimely fate of my people? Tribe follows tribe, and nation follows nation, like the waves of the sea. It is the order of nature, and regret is useless. Your time of decay may be distant, but it will surely come, for even the White Man whose God walked and talked with him as friend to friend, cannot be exempt from the common destiny. We may be brothers after all. We will see.

We will ponder your proposition and when we decide we will let you know. But should we accept it, I here and now make this condition that we will not be denied the privilege without molestation of visiting at any time the tombs of our ancestors, friends, and children. Every part of this soil is sacred in the estimation of my people. Every hillside, every valley, every plain and grove, has been hallowed by some sad or happy event in days long vanished.

And when the last Red Man shall have perished, and the memory of my tribe shall have become a myth among the White Men, these shores will swarm with the invisible dead of my tribe, and when your children's children think themselves alone in the field, the store, the shop, upon the roads, or in the silence of the pathless woods, they will not be alone. In all the earth there is no place dedicated to solitude. At night when the streets of your cities and villages are silent and you think them deserted, they will throng with the returning hosts that once filled them and still love this beautiful land. The White Man will never be alone.

Let him be just and deal kindly with my people, for the dead are not powerless.


There are several versions of this speech, if you are interested or more accurate versions click here.

The teaching Bug

I caught it or it caught me, I'm still not sure of the proper version. I guess you know when you're passionate about your work when:

1. You can't stop thinking about it
2. You give it a lot of your free time
3. It makes you feel good, and gives you a sense of purpose
4. You want to improve yourself and your work
5. You are eager to see results
6. You contaminate others :)
.
.
.
and the list could go on.

I get flashbacks from my childhood, I laugh everyday, I get surprised, I learn, I feel satisfied. I look back and see how little I knew at the beginning, hoping few months from now I'll look back and think the same.

I get tons of ideas. Leadership development programs, crafts, games, trips, activities; I have a strong urge to make things different.

This is how I feel 80% of my working time. The other 20 will get better :)

First MTC ever!

Looking forward to the end of November!