Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.

Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.

It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.

We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be?

You are a child of God.

Your playing small does not serve the world.

There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you.

We are all meant to shine, as children do.

We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us.

It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone.

And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.

As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

Marianne Williamson (from A Return To Love)

The snow whirled around today and I let the Xmas spirit slowly roll in and settle on my hat.

I took a stroll around the so called bohemian-chic area I now live in and while peeking into people’s windows I could confirm that Stockholm flats really match up to the pictures in interior design magazines. Buying a place in this area is of course not impossibly expensive if you get a loan, but you don’t really want to calculate on the cost per square metre. You could say that people living here are on pretty solid financial ground. Then there are of course the hipster shops and hangouts, the trendy second-hand stores and the prominent music bars and multi culture restaurants. Just in an area of two minutes from my door there is an Indian, a Persian, a Czech, a Thai, a Japanese and a Greek. But it’s the Swedish touch of things that make em cool.

This used to be simple workers’ houses and still in some parts of the area the old charm is preserved. I brought my camera and took some pictures.

The other night, just outside the same house, a man was shovelling snow to get to his door. We talked for a while about all the snow that had fallen. Then he asked if I wanted to come in for a cup of tea. It was a sincere invitation, still I was a little taken aback. It was around ten o’clock at night and as much as I want to see the best in people, I politely turned down his offer. I could tell he thought I had gotten the wrong idea about it and he started explaining…a tea in the kitchen, that is…don’t get me wrong…but I said thanks and headed home, feeling slightly guilty. Have I been so effected by this cold city or is this just the reality of our world today?

What world have we come to, when we can’t even offer a neighbour a cup of tea?

When we don’t let people into our perfectly designed houses? How many people are not suffering, or feeling lonely this time a year, while others get caught up in the consumption carousel, spending money on expensive material things that people will have forgotten about in a year?

In my family, it’s always been about the food. That is why eatable things are always on the wishing list. Today I went to my favourite Deli – Cajsa Warg, where a friend of mine works. I got the whole staff engaged in my pursuit for the perfect gifts for my grandmothers. After an hour I had set together two wooden boxes of delicacies.

My mom, who is the most generous person I know, asked me what I wished for Xmas, but I couldn’t come up with one thing. World peace? That the world’s leading politicians reaches a good agreement at the UN Climate Conference in Copenhagen? That my loved ones stay healthy and happy?

I have everything I need. And in exactly a week I will be on a four hours’ bus, heading home to a house where the fridge is crammed with home made goodies, where the couch may be old and used, but the door is always open.

Inspired by the first snow that fell weeks ago, I wrote a guest post on Andy’s blog; a man that I connected with through this blog thingy we are all doing; pouring our hearts and thoughts out for someone to catch in a cup of resemblance and reflection. He had lost his wife to cancer and although I know nothing of death, I offered my words of comfort.

Today, as the snow whirls around I thought about all those that have lost someone this year and I thought I’d share this on my own blog after all.

Dear Andy,

It’s been a while since I welcomed your invitation to write a guest post.

I had many ideas at first but every time I sat down to get it down in writing it felt…fake.

Thoughts that were meant to be insightful felt rushed and made up.

What do I know about life and death?

What credibility do I have when I spread advice around me like leaves in the wind, but when the same wind blows; I change my sails in its direction?

Am I really one to talk about suffering, or sacrifices, when every time I am vaguely sensing pain, I hide inside a shelter of repair.

Too scared to get scarred.

All this time, the real heroes are the ones that live to tell the tale, rather than telling the tale for others to live?

But here I am none the less, writing. Do you remember I said that the keys are in our hands, or in this case, underneath my fingertips? Well, this is me gradually opening the door and respectfully asking for your permission to join you in the room.

I do not know how it feels to lose a partner, a friend, a loved one, all in one. I do not know what it is like to breathe in the absence of that person, or to see the presence of the same person, in a child’s eye.

I may not understand so many things about this crazy world we put our prospect in.

But I know this and I know it by experience:

Everything changes.

Some changes sneak up on us; others hit us right in the face. But the fact remains, nothing stays the same. (Or maybe some things do, somehow, in a greater perspective, but will we live to tell that tale? I don’t know)

Why are we so afraid of change? Why does it feel like every time we have just made out something from the picture, our world flips again and stirs up our view, like snow in a glass bulb with ourselves in the middle?

Change…is hard to accept because in the movie played out in our heads, we travel light years every day. Every change sparks an idea that conceives another and there we go again…time travelling. Back and forth we go, rewinding what was in the past, fast forwarding into a film directed future, and forgetting the ultimate truth;

There is only Now.

We are just not there!!

And I guess that is ok. I guess that is a choice, the only choice for Now.

Ironic isn’t…? Everything turns in our favour…

Without pain there wouldn’t be a force of power.

Without frustration there wouldn’t be rock music.

Without desire there wouldn’t be passionate sex.

Without self pity there wouldn’t be pleasure in complaining.

Without fear, we wouldn’t know love.

Because without fear for loss, we really don’t have anything!

We can’t stop the season from changing, the infinite snow flakes around us from falling, but we can acknowledge their purity, their ability to change form, to dissolve and disappear, to live and die in elegance.

That; is how I look at life and death.

But then again…it is only in my mind’s-eye.

Flow into the knowledge that what you are seeking

finishes often at the start, and, with ending, begins

by Rilke – from Sonnets to Orpheus

Sunday I invited some friends over for a glögg gathering.

It was a foul and rainy dark evening but inside my little flat the world was warm and comfy.

The mulled wine was kept warm on the stove, the ginger bread cookies with blue cheese went really well with the pear marmalade that Fredric brought, the saffron sponge cake was yummy and the ginger and lemon infused chocolate was delicious.

I really hadn’t expected gifts but Sophie came with the cutest little glass angels and winter tea from the Christmas market in Copenhagen. Bibbi, Lito and Moa gave me a golden Moroccan style tray with candles. Emma contributed with crackers for the brie, Beatrice brought candy, Patrik and Pontus came with Julmust (a Christmas soda) more glögg and chocolate.

After they had left I sat in the couch and tasted the sweetness of having been surrounded by such good people. In a thank you note, Fredric wrote: good people have good friends. Well, in that case they make me good.

I guess it’s like the old 90’s song from New Radicals: You only get what you give.

The place is so much emptier now.

I’d never thought I’d write a blog post about…Shakira. But I just saw this stunning beauty of a woman in an interview on a Swedish TV show (where Dolph Lundgren was one of the other guests – how funny is that?) which completely changed my whole idea about her.

I’ve never really been a fan of her music although I must give her credit for some of the most floor filling tunes of the last decade. There is something utterly feminine about her that awakes the She Wolf in each woman.

The “She Wolf” as she describes it is “a woman of our time, individualistic, free of prejudices, that fights with teeth and claws for her liberties and doesn’t let herself be locked up in society’s cage”

In the interview she also quoted Rousseau, said that everyone should be “political” but not a politician, spoke intensely about her commitment to child care and education in Colombia, stated that she had just finished her history of western civilization studies at UCLA and that women may dress in short skirts but they know what they’re talking about.

I absolutely love watching modern dance and this is one of the best interpretations I’ve seen of resistance, strength, devotion and madness…a She Wolf breaking free.

I’d never thought I’d be so inspired by…Shakira.

It’s 1.47 a.m and I can’t sleep. The fact that my alarm is set on 5.05 doesn’t really make me relax. I give up and make myself a cup of tea. The advent lights in the windows across the street still shine, just like the moon. I open up my window to let some icy midnight air in. I take a deep breath and let it clear my thoughts.

Ain’t it wonderful how different air can smell?

This air has the smell of sweet concrete, frosty silence and snow anticipation.

Maybe if I close my eyes and rest there will be a cover of snow on the ground when I wake up?

Meanwhile, I let snow fall over my blog.

It’s nice sometimes

to open up the heart a little

and let some hurt come in.

It proves you’re still alive.

If nothing else

it says to you–

clear as a high hill air,

uncomfortable

as diving through cold water–

I’m here.

However wretchedly I feel,

I feel.

I’m not sure

why we cannot shake

the old loves

from our minds.

It must be that

we build on memory

and make them more

than what they were.

And is the manufacture

just a safe device

for closing up the wall?

I do remember.

the only fuzzy circumstance

is sometimes where and how.

Why, I know.

It happens

just because we need

to want and to be

wanted, too,

when love is here or gone

to lie down in the darkness

and listen to the warm.

Rod McKuen