Six -Soccer

Spring in Vienna
Originally uploaded by francessa_Rich.

The last of March - it's really getting springy over here .... Lots of kids in the parks playing soccer - must have something to do with a boost in the national ego: yesterday Austria beat Wales in the qualification for the world championship for the second time in five days! But lots of trouble ahead .. Warsaw'€™s next, and how can we ever beat England???

Five - Train the brain

Train the brain

By researching brain activities of longtime meditating Tibetan monks scientists found out that meditation can change the workings of the brain.

"What we found is that the longtime practitioners showed brain activation on a scale we have never seen before," said Richard Davidson, a neuroscientist from the University of Wisconsin. "Their mental practice is having an effect on the brain in the same way golf or tennis practice will enhance performance." It demonstrates, he said, that the brain is capable of being trained and physically modified in ways few people can imagine.

Meditation leads to increased activation in the left, frontal region of the brain - an area linked to reduced anxiety and a positive emotional state. Also, the function of the immune system was increased.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A43006-2005Jan2.html

Lots of reasons to train the brain – on a plane, in the rain ...

Four -Once in a blue moon

feiningeronceinabluemoon
Originally uploaded by francessa_Rich.

I've decided for another example of Lyonel Feininger - "Once in a blue Moon". These transparent bluish green shades - it's almost like looking at the bottom of my hometown-lake in Carinthia and makes me wonder if watching this coolness will help on a really hot summer day.

L. Feininger, Street in Paris

Lyonel Feininger, Street in Paris, 1909
Originally uploaded by francessa_Rich.

Three

On a holiday like today when everybody seems to be so actively involved in leisure activities I indulge in looking at the posters of one of my favourite artists - Lyonel Feininger. His style of distorted and out-of-proportion houses and people adds mysteriously to their beauty, maybe because the colours are so powerful and bold? (See more in Google picture search). He wrote: 'Each individual's work serves as an expression of our most personal state of mind at that moment and of the inescapable, imperative need for release by means of an appropriate act of creation ...' (cited by W.D. Dube: The Expressionists, London 1972).

Isn't this what we are all trying to do? By the way, L. Feininger, born in New York of German parents, was also a wanderer between two cultures and languages ...