Saturday, July 23, 2011

For my beloved fellow New Yorkers...

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For my beloved fellow New Yorkers getting married tomorrow: a classic love song for you!

You're just too much
and just too very very
to ever be in Webster's Dictionary.
And so I'm borrowing
a love song from the birds
to tell you that you're marvelous,
too marvelous for words!
(Johnny Mercer)




Have a beautiful day, everyone! Congratulations and best wishes!

Love,
Eva

Tuesday, July 12, 2011

hummingwitch's new look

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Dear Friends,

I hope you like the new hummingwitch template!

I woke up this morning with the thought that she needed a fresh new look. When I opened the Blogger page of template thumbnails, I hit on this one right away but just to try it out. It was really too small to be judged until I applied it to hummingwitch. So I took a chance, and it turned out to be gorgeous! It took me mere seconds to choose and make the switch when I had anticipated having to go through many templates and spending a lot of time customizing my choice. Amazing!

Let me know what you think!

Thanks!

Eva :-)

Monday, July 11, 2011

Brazil's "Chico Xavier"

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Chico Xavier
a film by Daniel Filho
(Brazil, 2010; 125 min.)

from Chico Xavier
Photo courtesy of Lereby Produções

Daniel Filho's film--making its U.S. premiere this week at the Museum of Modern Art's Premiere Brazil! festival--traces the life and work of Spiritist medium Chico Xavier (1910-2002). From childhood, Xavier ("Chico" is the diminutive for Francisco) just knew things about people, and his touch could center and calm them. The youngster's abilities unnerved his abusive godmother and ran counter to the teachings of the Catholic Church. But Chico drew widespread support as he grew into a gentle, unassuming young man who dedicated his life to serving the needs of the people, refusing to profit from what he says he had been given by the spirit world. Bringing individual messages and numerous books by way of automatic writing, he toiled--through personal suffering and sacrifice, through family dissension and turmoil--to offer comfort to others. Xavier became an important figure in Brazilian culture where Spiritism--introduced by the writings of the Frenchman Allan Kardec--accounts for a wide swath of spiritual practice, even among people who are, ostensibly, Roman Catholic.

How will non-Brazilian film-goers--especially skeptics or those with little interest in metaphysical practices--take to Filho's moody and languid narrative? The film has a muted, even dark, palette and can often be lulling over its two hours. But it benefits greatly from the presence of sweet-faced Ângelo Antônio who plays Xavier in his young adulthood (1931-1959). Antônio first appears on screen, and we grab him like an anchor. Few things can throw this guy--the character or the actor playing him--off course.

Visit the Chico Xavier movie site.

MoMA screening schedule:

Friday, July 15 (5pm)
Thursday, July 21 (4:30pm)
Friday, July 22 (4pm)

For a complete program information and schedule of Premiere Brazil! screenings (July 14-27), click here.

The Roy and Niuta Titus Theaters
The Museum of Modern Art
11 West 53 Street (between 5th and 6th Avenues), Manhattan
(directions)

Review of Teresa Brady's "Ignite Your Psychic Intuition"

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Ignite Your Psychic Intution: An A to Z Guide to Developing Your Sixth Sense
by Teresa Brady
Llewellyn Worldwide, 2011
paperback, 269pp
ISBN: 978-0-7387-2170-5

No surprise that Teresa Brady is not only psychic but also works as an attorney. She wields a clear, assertive, persuasive writing style. She's confident and clever--but not overly clever--and aims to instill a similar confidence in her readers. All of that, and some entertaining tales of how she has used clairvoyance in her legal practice, might be the most valuable things about this guide. Unfortunately, the A-to-Z format looks a bit gimmicky and forced.

Brady employs "...a 26-letter mnemonic method I believe will make recall of the tools in this book easy and fun to experience. Years after reading this book, you will instantly remember chapters just by thinking of their corresponding letter" (p. 59).

Do we really need separate chapters on "Breathing" or "Keep Journals" or "Love" or "Peacefulness" simply because of the initials B, K, L and P? This format might visually set Ignite apart from other New Age-y psychic development workbooks, but the material within lacks sufficient distinctiveness and substance. Now consider that Llewellyn's market for books of this nature is probably not absolute newbies but readers who have already eagerly consumed a lot of information--good, bad and indifferent--about all things psychic and paranormal.

Brady's advisory chapters are less useful than earlier passages that help readers connect to one woman's actual experience of being psychic. For instance, she mentions that the heightened senses often overlap, and we simultaneously receive "messages coming through more than one sense" (p. 5). She acknowledges that "third eye vision" might be a misleading term since "you can experience third eye vision from the top, front, sides, and back of the head; or when your eyes are open, closed, looking up or looking down" (p. 8). Her description of how she uses directionality and color in clairvoyance to determine the time factor in her received information can be helpful to psychic development students struggling to recognize, accept and utilize their own idiosyncratic ways of getting and interpreting information.

Ignite is advertised as being "designed for people with busy lives," but if your life is truly so jam-packed that you need a lightweight introduction to opening your mind to the Universe, that condition already offers you a lesson worth learning.

by Eva Yaa Asantewaa, hummingwitch

Sunday, July 10, 2011

That warrior stance

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Recommended:

Mother India: The Goddess in Indian Painting

at the Metropolitan Museum of Art

June 29, 2011–November 27, 2011

I loved the wall plaque that read (paraphrasing as nearly as I can remember): “Devi looks like she’s dancing but actually she has taken a combatant warrior stance.”

Metropolitan Museum of Art
(Plan Your Visit page)

Wednesday, July 6, 2011

It's "Eva, naturally!"

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Inviting you to Eva, naturally on tumblr!

Rampant (c)2011, Eva Yaa Asantewaa

Visit, follow, enjoy! Thanks!

Monday, July 4, 2011

Enjoy your holiday!

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from Liberty State Park (c)2010, Eva Yaa Asantewaa
Hey, InfiniteBody friends all over the USA! Happy 4th of July! 

But if you're not really feeling those Sousa marches, try this.