Does size matter?

There is a coan, well known to Tao students that is used, like the other coans, to stop the mind and attain meditation state.  In fact, coan is a question that it seems that it has no answer.  The mind trying to solve the riddle reaches the state beyond thoughts, which is the desirable result.  Of course, this kind of desire is beyond desire too but that's an other story.
Back to our specific coan.  Its question says: "If everything is reduced to its unit, then its unit to what is reduced?"  Here, of course, when we say unit, we mean the smallest part of what this everything is consisted of.  So, if everything is reduced to its unit that consists it, this unit to what is reduced?  Hmmm...
I thought about this coan when I recently saw a youtube video that compares the sizes of different masses out there starting from small moons to stars to galaxies to clusters and going beyond our known observable universe of the 93.000.000.000 light years (omg!) to reach at the end the unconfirmed Omniverse, where no man has gone before and etc... This is too huge for a mind to really think about it and remain sober and sane.  But it is also a reality that we, here, take our eyes from in order to concentrate on our small and insignificant everyday trends like fashion, football and gossip.
The point to all this is that when the video reached Omniverse, I realized that it reminded me of something.  And I remembered... omniverse looks like a cell, yes, a human cell, as I had seen it in biology many years ago. And that was the moment that time froze and the objects around me got a new meaning and I was not so sure about anything in particular.  Because I also remembered the answer to our coan.  And it says: "If everything is reduced to its unit, its unit is reduced to everything"...
I call you to realize what this may mean and start counting from now the uncountable worlds above and below us that may exist this very moment according to a thought that can seize the ground where we stand and remind us that life is alive and extraordinary by nature.

my second app!

9 days ago it went out of the shell and into the apple itunes app store: my second app.  I know I am late to show my happiness for my new born baby but it was a tricky period for me and didn't feel like it.  Now some things have gone behind me and I can be myself again for ...well, I hope forever. :P
My first app was "Ελλαδάρα Quiz" and it was made in greek to test our knowledge about greek stuff in a funny and entertaining way (http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/elladara-quiz/id448996047?mt=8).



And now, my second one, "How Greek Are You?" is a hilarious app in english with 100 funny questions and many many funnier answers in our pursue to find each one's percentage of the traditional greek figure.  How Greek Are you? is not to frighten people, some, very few I would say, have no greekness at all and being 100% greek in this app I don't think is the best thing that can happen to a human, but I really love the procedure and it may prove that we have some hidden greekness the way that non greek people, and even greek ones, consider really unacceptable. But we will have fun for sure.



http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/how-greek-are-you/id508367255?mt=8 - this is where my baby born app is about 9 days now and I can't wait now to start my third one.  Sometimes I worry a bit about me, but what the heck: all things are for humans and some of them are excited and interesting and I prefer to jump and swim than sitting at the beach.
Hmm, ok, I may do some break to paint too.  I miss it terribly.

tricky fairytale

Ok, I found it while cleaning... Who said cleaning is not cool!  I am up to new drawings and paintings.  Things started moving up a bit lately and this is surely for good!  I also have some news that kept me busy lately and now will give results at last...  I will keep you wondering for some week more till my news are out and I can talk about it. :P

We saw a white day!

When I woke up yesterday morning to go to work and stepped out of home, I saw a snowy car.  I thought "where this car has come from?"!  Then I saw a car next and I thought that these cars were somewhere together.  And then I saw the third one and I thought "they were at the same wedding!"  And I got out and saw the rest of cars too and thought "wow, it was a big wedding or something is happening".  All the cars at the streets around my home were snowy but not a single puff of snow at the streets.  And I realized that it had rained and the snow didn't touched them...
All day I was thinking my daughter's complaint, that "in all Europe was snowing, in all other Greece was snowing and in Katerini, no, it was not going to make us the favor".  But this same afternoon, I realize how small-minded we both were.  From the moment the first snowflake met our blink, we were mesmerized by the white dance of the uncountable crazy tiny dabs that were covering everything we could see ceaselessly but with no hurry at all.  They had all night, they knew it and they were just having fun.
Today I saw the white scenery like from a fairytale first thing in the morning.  Still dancing snowflakes but now white on white background.  I went out to go to work and I stopped at the door facing half a meter soft and tasty fluffy solid water.  All the streets were white in front of white houses with white cars parked next to white bend from weight trees.  I was just happy.
After more than fifteen mins to do the distance of five, I reached work.  Very few of us reached the building, very few people came, but what?  Nobody cared for this.  All day we were in front of the magical dance that was still at play out of the glass.  Now, snowflakes are very few but the snow has covered almost everything, the schools closed because of the weather and happy children were playing snowballs and snow angels.  And they had one more reason to be happy about: schools will be closed tomorrow also and they will have an extra day to have fun before the weekend. :P
So, in Greece of crisis, yes, we finally saw a white day!  No thanks to our politicians but thanks to a blessed phenomenon that brightened our day.  Because if we waited for our politicians, we wouldn't enjoy even this first winter snow that we hadn't seen, in such extent, for around a decade here in Katerini.

Here my younger daughter plays with her friends.  And this is the beauty of winter. :)

Curiosity - pencil on paper

Ok, they are curious about the butterfly under the branch...  A small sketch, pencil on paper, around 15 x 21 cm.  It was so fun to draw them that I want to do it again soon.  Drawing something else, of course! :) 

Merlin

I do have a cat, well, the same way that my cat has a human, me!  In fact, he has three mammies.  I am mammy A, my elder daughter is mammy B and my younger daughter is his mammy C.  As you already understood, it has to do with age.  Merlin, the magnificent cat, our love that walks in the house with all the grace of his synonymous wizard, knows his power very well.  He knows that he will miao and we will run to find out what is happening and why he did so.  And he knows also that, in this time of crisis, his bowl will be full all the time in case he wants to have his meal.
It's a bit embarrassing to admit that we love him so much when we have, at the same time, so many problems.  But he is not to blame for the crisis.  And from the moment he came home, as a tiny kitten the size of a handful, he changed all the atmosphere in a positive way.  He is there for us, especially when we need him the most, with the tenderness and the unconditional love that a human would hardly give.
Lately, he explained us, his own way, that he wants his soulmate.  After a lot of search and a lot of difficulty, we found a possible mate at a friend's house at a village outside Thessaloniki.  We went there to spend the weekend with them and their cat, a beautiful confident female named Sourtouka.  We, both families, were watching their first meeting the way a scientist watches his first discovery, that would lead definitely to Nobel prize, at the microscope.  Totally rudely and tactlessly.
They didn't kill each other at the first moment and this was good.  They kept a safe distance for some time and then they started talking in a strange way.  It was the first time to hear Merlin having a deep voice, something like Scotty McCreery but in a cat's way, maybe even deeper.  Once they were to fight but it didn't happen.  After some time we found them in an other room, on the same sofa, the one at the one side and the other at the other side, looking each other for more than half an hour.  They had more adventures, of course, as the time was passing which we talked about next to the fireplace in the evening.
In the end, next day, we left without the inevitable to happen.  I was puzzled and wondering what went wrong till my friend explained to me that cats don't mate just because they will find each other.  They need at least three days to flirt, to examine each other, to smell and pass a lot of tests and ritualistic procedures.  And it may not happen in the end.  But they are animals...  So what?  They have their codes and their psychological gradual approaching to prove that they worth the honor, something like courting and getting engaged and coming closer one step at a time.  But humans many times do this "procedure" much quicker, I said smiling.  Yes, but cats are not humans, she said seriously.  I looked at the floor and, in some way, it was coming closer to me.
Back at home, from the fiery manly male he had become for a day and a half he became our own pampered guy again.  We will go back to Sourtouka's home and I hope they will remember each other and we won't start the rituals from the beginning.  Because we won't have three whole days for him to flirt.  But I have a good feeling about this newly born relationship.  Even away from e-mails and skype, it will flourish one day and Merlin will become a proud partner of her.  And I don't want to think of his rivals, since I saw with my own eyes that under the spoiled look he hides carefully a small tiger...

The ...tiger!  Here he is much younger than he is now but I just love this photo!

22SUCQDG6Y52

22SUCQDG6Y52

IDAP community and more

I recently joined IDAP (I Draw And Paint) community, which is a friendly place for people who love painting and drawing using different mediums like oils, watercolors, acrylics, charcoal, pen and anything two dimensional art can be made of.
It's a place where I feel comfortable presenting my art and looking at the art of others, both newbies and professionals, and still be able to become a friend with some of the most interesting and creative persons.  I hope this will help me keep alive and even develop my artistic life, which is not at its best right now because of too much non artistic work...
At the same time, Greek people see our lives getting tough day after day.  So, we have to survive.  This is not easy at all for some who lost not only their jobs but their homes also and the ground under their feet.  My elder daughter, who is a student at Thessaloniki university, told me that last week she was walking at a main street with her boyfriend and they saw old people trying to get warm or sleep on the benches of Aristotle square covered with coats or blankets or nothing with their body warmth.  They gave them bread and milk and heard stories of loneliness and abandonment.  Some of them lost their pensions, some other were thrown out of nursing homes that closed because of the crisis...
My younger daughter went to the camp on August 2011, where she goes every year, and she told me that she met some girls that came with an arrangement of the orphanage where they lived and the camp headship since they had no family but after a couple of months their orphanage was to be closed, because of the crisis again, and they wouldn't have anywhere to go.
This is no joke and both my daughters, as everyone else here, are growing up quicker than their age because of what they see.  I am really concerned on what will be done and how low we can go as a country when we leave unsheltered the elder and the young.  Where do our "values" go and how much time will pass till we realize that we have already hit the bottom?  This is not a real question, this is hanging over our heads and weighs on our hearts till we break this situation.

back soon

Coincidences (!), that, of course don't exist, and soon to end deadlines didn't let me to come here during last period.  I am up to cover the void soon. :) 

more memories

Below I have two more I found from 2005.  Just small sketches, more about remembering.  I love chess and candles.  I enjoy a good game of chess, when I have the chance to play and I almost always have some candle light when I am at home.  More memories...  I hope you like them.