Saturday, May 31, 2008

DAILY LESSONS - ACCEPTANCE

Katia Grigsby Photography 2007 © All Rights Reserved

"If we learn to open our hearts, anyone, including the people who drive us crazy, can be our teacher."  
Pema Chodron
Have been learning a great deal, exercising patience, taking a deep breath and walking easily through life. Think about...

TO MY FRIENDS

If you read the front page story of the San Francisco Chronicle, you would have read about a female humpback whale who ha become entangled in a spider web of crab traps and lines. 
She was weighted down by hundreds of pounds of traps that caused her to struggle to stay afloat. She also had hundreds of yards of line hope wrapped around her body, her tail, her torso, a line tugging in her mouth.
A fisherman spotted her just east of the Farralone Islands
(outside the Golden Gate) and radioed an environmental group for help.
Within a few hours, the rescue team arrived and determined that she was
so bad off, the only way to save her was to dive and untangle her...
a very dangerous proposition.
One slap could kill a rescuer.
They worked for hours with curved knives and eventually freed her.
When she was free, the divers say she swan in what seemed like joyous circles.
She then came back to each and every diver, one at a time, and nudged them,
pushed gently around - she thanked them. Some said it was the most incredibly beautiful experience of their lives.
The guy who cut the rope out of her mouth says her eyes was following him the whole time, and he will never be the same.
May you, and all those you love,
be so blessed and fortunate...
to be surrounded by people who will help you get untangled
from the things that are binding you.
And, may you always know the joy
of giving and receiving GRATITUDE.
I pass this on to you, my friend, in the same spirit. 
And because, as my daughter says, I have friends to know who I am.

Transcript - San Francisco Chronicle

A DAY WITHOUT A MEXICAN

Katia Grigsby Photography 2007 © All Rights Reserved
This is one of my favorites movies. The productions is hollywoodian, very simple indeed, but delivers its message. It has all together: comedy, drama, reality and make you think (I hope), with all this debate about immigration, on how is easy to stereotype people. I know what I am talking about: as an immigrant myself I am often approached by people trying to speak to me in spanish just because of my feature and skin color; although I'm brazilian and my language is portuguese... And you know what? they get mad at me when I say "I'm sorry, I don't speak spanish"... (which is not true but I see no point to speak another language that is not my own neither of the country that I live in, when there is no need to do so).

My favorite line is "there are the mexicans from Guatemala, the mexicans from El Salvador, and the "regular" mexicans (from Mexico, of course - my comment). Maybe those people think I am a mexican from Brazil.


Katia Grigsby 2008 @ All Rights Reserved