Ready to the outback - 1 day to go!

We're leaving tomorrow! This means I'm extremely happy, ready to have what I think it's gonna be an unforgettable experience in life.

But it also means you won't hear from me in the next 15 days. If you happen to visit the blog anyway, make a little pray and feel the energy I'm feeling there.

Countdown: 4 days to go!

The peak of my energy recently, though, has definitely been the Uluru trip. U..lu…what?

Well, Marina, Salma, Jhow, Lucy and I are going to face one of the nicest adventures of our lives, I suppose. In 4 days time we’re starting a 2 weeks road trip to the Australian desert, passing through a subterranean mining city, amazing rock formations, canyons, aboriginal sacred places and a lot of land and sand.

The trip is logistically demanding, personally exciting and spiritually relevant at this point of my life. (Soon I can update some more learnings about the aboriginal culture, history and myths)

Check what we’re gonna see soon – in 3 weeks time, pictures taken by me will be available ;o)

Social events: great company and dancing

Last weekend, two amazing social events took place:

1) My flatmate’s birthday, with a lot of friends from each of the flatmates, good conversations, some drinks and lots of dancing

2) A great Indian day, with 3 hours-long Indian movies, fantastic food, great people and some more dancing.

Good stuff…

Aboriginal Conceptual Beliefs

Getting prepared for the desert trip we’re taking in 2 weeks time, I started reading about Aboriginal history and myths.

Talking about conception, Aborigines believed that in the beginning the world was an immense featureless flat floating disc. On tjukurita times, mythical giant creatures appeared. They had many similarities with aboriginal rituals and life style and planted an inexhaustible number of eternal spirit children .

Tjukurita era finished and the giant creatures died, but natural features stand where they’ve performed any tasks. This way, the mythical snake man became a watercourse, the camps of mythical creatures are now mountain ranges, and so on.

The spirit children – independent beings, about the size of a sand grain, who will became the children – o continued living in some welcoming spot, until they choose their mother and enter her body to develop into a child.

I found this story amazing because it, at the same time, sees humans as part of nature, children as community blessings and the individual as an independent decision capable being, since early times. I guess our scientific society has a lot to learn with the native inhabitants of this planet.

Poems and quotes #4 - Kindness, Peace and Politics

"If governments were kind, they'd realize that conficts are resolved and wars prevented not by armies but by ordinary people.

[...]

If governments were kind, they would provide at least as much funding for people doing this work as they do for the military."

Scilla Elworthy

Learning from nature

Last weekend I had the opportunity to go to the Blue Mountains, which beautiful and just one hour and a half drive from Sydney. I went with 4 other people, each one from a different country: Priscilla (China), Albert (Romania), Roy (Canada) and Jake (Australia, our driver and scout guide).

Arriving there, I noticed a few trees have marks of fire on the bottom of their trunks. Commenting with Jake, he explained me some trees actually need fire to reproduce, an amazing adaptation to the Australian dry environment and frequent droughts.

Piano Bar and Aussie Songs

Last night, after a great dinner in MC house with shisha and Lucy’s presence after almost 4 months in Thailand, we went to a Piano Bar. I got to know a little more about the Aussie way of enjoying music and obviously learnt some new very Aussie-life-style-description songs. Check it out!

Among The Gum Tree's

I've been around the world a couple of times, or maybe more,
I've seen the sights, I've had delights on every foreign shore,
but when my mates all ask me the place that I adore,
I tell them right away.

Give me a home among the gum trees,
with lots of plum trees, a sheep or two, a ka-kangaroo.
A clothes line out the back, veranda out the front,
and an old rocking chair.

You can see me in the kitchen cooking up a roast,
or Vegemite on toast, just you and me, a cup of tea.
And later on we'll settle down and mull up on the porch,
and watch the possums play.

There's a Safeway up the corner, and a Woolys down the street,
a brand new place they’ve opened up where they regulate the heat,
but I'd trade them all tomorrow for a simple bush retreat
where the kookaburras call.

Some people like their houses with fences all around,
others live in mansions, and some beneath the ground.
But Me, I like the bush, you know with rabbits running 'round,
and a pumpkin vine out the back.

Car with history

This situation happen a while ago, but I do think it’s worth it blogging about it.
In Australia Day (January 26th), there was an exhibition of old cars close to where I live. And the car that interests me the most was definitely not the oldest or the fanciest or the most potent. The coolest one, in my eyes, is the following one:

As you see, it’s quite an old car. But it has done 2 absolutely amazing trip, one in the end of the 60s and one recently. It passed through Thailand, Vietnam, China, England, India and other countries. I think I don’t need to say John and his wife (in the picture) had tons of histories and culture to share, as well as an amazing complicity between them. It wish I have their spirit in my live…

Happy International Women's Day!

Sorry for the non Brazilians, but this post comes in portuguese. It was sent by Flavia Moraes, the CSR Director for Philips in Latin America and one of the fantastic women I had the opportunity to meet.

If you are one of them, congratulations for your day!

"Quisera eu nunca precisar parabenizar as mulheres por este dia, pois é uma data que simboliza o desequilíbrio entre as relações sociais dos últimos oito mil anos.

Ou seja, representa por um lado, o cerceamento dos direitos e da liberdade das mulheres e, por outro, a ousadia delas na busca destes direitos.

Estamos refletindo no 8 de março, a necessidade da Eqüidade, não um novo desequilíbrio, agora do feminino.

Só acabaremos com a violência cometida no espaço privado, a violência doméstica, sofrida predominantemente pelas mulheres e crianças, se acabarmos com todas as outras formas de violência. Um mundo onde o mais forte domina o mais fraco, em qualquer situação, é um mundo sem a participação do feminino.

Respeito às diferenças, à soberania dos povos e ao planeta passa necessariamente pela inclusão do feminino em todas as relações. Muitas mulheres, com coragem, leveza e determinação, estão tirando da inviabilidade o feminino, estão imprimindo um novo rumo na história.

Você certamente está entre elas. Parabéns!"

Maria Helena Guarezi - Coordenadora do programa de gênero da Itaipu Binacional

Amazing Ads

As a Marketer, I can't help noticing intelligent ads. And there are two which particularly called my attention recently (sorry forthe quality of the images, but one is scanned from a book and the other is a mobile phone picture).

The first, by Body Shop, is a celebration of women and help braking some paradigms stuck in our minds.

The second is part of an Oxfam campaign for people to behave responsibly in everything that they do: their resources usage, relationships, consumption and donations.
Enjoy!

It says: "Alex Elliot

Future prime minister, inventor, entrepreneur, philanthropist

(shown here with her brother Chris)"

It says:

"Florence Nightingale

For as little as $20 a month, I'm helping the 25 million of people in southern Africa living with HIV and AIDS.

What are you doing for others?"