ramos dos sonhos, 2008
técnica mista sobre papel, 100x70.

This pen and ink and ecoline drawing is by Pedro Madeira Pinto, a 36 year old artist in Lisbon, Portugal. Go to his blog, Desenhos De Pedro, to see more.


I wrote (at Facebook): "Somehow says everything to me about uniting the globe - can't say exactly why. I'd love to see this drawing as a poster for the United Nations. The child, the golden tree, our heritage, we are all on those branches. Tree of Life. Stunning image, Pedro."

He wrote: "thanks brenda.
we all have dreams in our minds. when life is hard our tree doesn't have many leaves, but still has that light that allows us to keep on dreaming. the boy in the drawing is a homeless kid that i knew in cabo verde who teaches me that our dreams must live no matter what.
this one is on my bedroom's wall!"

I wrote: "Dear Pedro, This drawing is burned in my consciousness and everywhere I turn I see it and it fills my eyes with tears of compassion and warms my heart because of the spirit in us that lights the way. The boy is someone I want to protect and yet his vision is strong and I bow down before him. How much would you charge for a print of this drawing? Thank you so much."

I draw deep red curtains over the dimming remnants of fire opal in the sky as darkness sweeps over the continent I live on.

Dear Reader, I need not tell you what an unexpected afternoon of delight he had. We shall discover the details, for I am as curious as you, and after all this is a book of erotic fiction.

Though, dear reader, you understand that I but partially write the story of these characters. My idea had been for Ambra to discover his innocence and for he and her to spend a delightful night together as she indoctrinated him in the arts of love. Then I could have written of deep emotional love, of indissoluable bonding, and thereby written of the poetry of their souls.

But Ambra, on the brink of being written into the text as the woman who deflowered him, decided to meet with her rich lover and disappear.

I was surprised as you, dear reader, by her quick and complete exit.

It doesn't look like she's coming back either. I'm not sure where she's gone, or what happened to her. In this regard I, though the author, am as 'in the dark' as you, the reader.

Never mind. The story continues. It appears to be, more-or-less, writing itself. I have found any planning I do for what may happen next goes for naught. The characters have other ideas.

I'm learning in my daily life to forget that I am writing a novella since nothing I decide in terms of direction or character development happens that way.

Rather, it is as if the text decides its own direction moment to moment.

Things develop logically out of other things, but what happens to characters seems based on the inner logic of the story rather than my control of it.

Hence I shall relate Mœdello's afternoon at the Bordello, though you understand I, too, am entering the Bordello along with him; this writing has not been thought-through beforehand, there are no notes, or plot outlines, or even overall moral for the story.

Everything in this story is created in the moment.

Though I have unsuccessfully tried, no premeditated directions of any kind have been permitted by the writing itself. I sit before my computer, or my legs stretched out on the couch or bed, touch typing.

The writing tells its own tale.

No, I'm not "chaneling." Such a ludicrous notion!

It surprises me, what goes on in the subdued buried populations of my mind, where these characters roam close to a wild abandon to the senses, racous, on the edge of social decency. They are like dreams called forth through the act of writing without prescribed notions of what is to happen, or not happen.

What unfolds through these pages might embarrass me, but dreams are like that.

Botany Photo of the Day

"Plant Family / Families: Aizoaceae
Scientific Name and Author: Conophytum maughanii N.E. Br.
Name Location: cultivated in Altadena, California, USA"

"The genus Conophytum is closely related to the living stones, or Lithops. Both genera are in the Aizoaceae. Like the living stones, species of Conophytum generally produce two above-ground plump succulent leaves. In the picture above, the Conophytum maughanii specimen is breaking dormancy, revealing new wrinkly crimson leaves. Last year's bloom is also present in this photo as the shriveled projection between the leaves."

All I can say is, sexiest living stone I've ever seen!

Painting with water-soluble oil pastels, a figure that became sinewy with flesh tones, reds, greens and tree-trunk browns, while listening to "Alex," my computer's best voice, reading a long piece of writing by a young friend...

Highlight the text to be read, hit the keys you've set up to start the text-to-speech recognition, and voilà! Free to work and listen to whatever you'd like in the big net-wide world.

Walked to Kensington Market to shop, Indian Summer bluesky, carpets of crumpled gold, flame-red bushes, copper canopies of Maple, Linden...

12,011 NaNoWriMo words, wrists hurt, story's raunchy but sad, made my daily word count, I did, sleep in peace now, till tomorrow's count...

Click on this for a larger size. It seems spontaneous and not posed. It brought tears to my eyes this morning. This is how it should be.

Way to go America! So proud of you, my dear American friends. You've elected a great statesman and leader to run your nation.

Here, in this little apartment in Toronto, Canada, tears & celebrations~ it's like a possibility we might have imagined a hundred or two hundred years into the future is happening now.

Phenomenal. Awesome. Truly GREAT.

A heavy mantle to carry, times are complex and difficult, but if anyone can do it, Barack Obama can.

Congratulations!

Let me tell you, if you Americanos don't vote Barack Obama for President we'll be happy to have him as our Prime Minister up here in Canada.