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suno.com/song/220c7914-dcd3-43e0-adc5-c8dddf0a6262
I heard the quiet breathing
In the room inside my chest
No storm, no sound, no warning
Just a heart that needed rest
A little light was fading
Where I used to feel whole
I lost the sound inside me
I lost my heart and soul
I woke beneath the moonlight
With silver on my face
Every breath was moving forward
But my spirit stayed in place
I wore my smile like velvet
Soft enough to hide the weight
Kept the world from asking questions
While I slowly slipped away
There were dreams I had to loosen
There were doors I had to close
Not because I never loved them
But because I needed home
I don’t know when I vanished
I don’t know where I went
I only know I kept on living
With a light I never spent
And if the past still whispers
I let it pass me slow
Some things were never wrong
They were just not mine to hold
I lost my heart and soul
In the quiet under my skin
I kept the whole world moving
With nothing left within
But somewhere in the low light
There’s a pulse I still know
I lost my heart and soul
Now I’m bringing myself home
Home
Bringing myself home
Home
I’m bringing myself home
There’s a piano in my body
Playing soft beneath the noise
Every note becomes a doorway
Every ache becomes a voice
I used to glow without asking
Used to rise without a name
Now I’m learning from the silence
How to meet myself again
I can bless what had to leave me
I can love what could not stay
I can cry without collapsing
I can heal and walk away
I don’t need to be untouched
I don’t need to be the same
I can gather what was scattered
And still answer to my name
If I gave too much of heaven
To a place that let me go
I will take my gold back gently
And let my own light show
I lost my heart and soul
In the quiet under my skin
I kept the whole world moving
With nothing left within
But somewhere in the low light
There’s a pulse I still know
I lost my heart and soul
Now I’m bringing myself home
Let the bassline hold me steady
Let the violin breathe
Let the night move through my body
Till the silence sets me free
I am not the hollow
I am not the fall
I am every hidden piece
Still rising after all
Let the strings pull out the sorrow
Let the rhythm take the cold
I was never truly empty
I was waiting under gold
I lost my heart and soul
But I feel the light begin
Like a golden little fever
Waking under my skin
I kept the whole world moving
Now I move for my own
I lost my heart and soul
And I’m bringing myself home
I lost my heart and soul
But I hear the violin
Calling every broken part
Back to life again
Somewhere in the low light
There’s a pulse I still know
I lost my heart and soul
Now I’m bringing myself home
Home
I’m bringing myself home
Heart and soul
Piece by piece, I know
Home
I’m bringing myself home
Whispered
I was never gone
I was waiting below
I lost my heart and soul
Now I’m bringing myself home
The lily I hold is not a decorative symbol: it is a lack. It is the purity I can no longer find in life, and that I try to recreate in this image. Looking at the sky with the lily in my hand becomes a necessary, almost desperate act, to remind myself that purity exists, even if the world has betrayed it.”
This close-up detail shows the complex structure of a grass snake's skin. Nature leaves nothing to chance: each scale is a perfect piece, designed for camouflage and silent movement. Yet, the biological rule of this pattern is that perfection is only temporary. When the time comes to shed, the snake is forced to strip off this armor and lose it along the way, abandoning it on the ground like an empty shell. A demonstration of how even the most precise surface, in the end, is destined to fall, be abandoned, remain on the ground and perhaps even be trampled on, while life goes on.
༶•┈┈┈┈┈┈୨♡୧┈┈┈┈┈┈•༶
"La vulnérabilité ressemble à la vérité et ressemble au courage. La vérité et le courage ne sont pas toujours confortables, mais ils ne sont jamais une faiblesse."
- Cit. Brené Brown -
"Nous essayons tellement de cacher tout ce que nous ressentons […]. Les gens essaient de refouler leurs émotions, comme si c’était une erreur d’avoir des réactions naturelles face à la vie."
- Cit. Colleen Hoover -
"Vulnerability sounds like truth and feels like courage. Truth and courage aren't always comfortable, but they're never weakness."
"We try so hard to hide everything we're really feeling […]. People try to bottle up their emotions, as if it's somehow wrong to have natural reactions to life."
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Nikon D5200 + Micro-Nikkor 60 mm f/2.8
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Not every shadow is something you need to run from.
For years, Riley tried to be exactly who everyone expected her to be. Polite. Predictable. Perfect. But the more she adapted to other people's expectations, the more she lost herself.
One day, she stopped fighting her own nature. Instead of hiding her strength, ambition, and independence, she embraced them. What others called her "dark side" was simply the courage to live life on her own terms.
The shadow behind her doesn't represent evil. It represents every trait she was once afraid of — confidence, determination, and unapologetic self-belief. Today, she no longer hides them.
Because true freedom begins the moment you stop apologizing for who you are.
✨ What part of yourself are you still hiding from the world?
Half warrior, half breath.
My spirit still stands, even when my body can’t.
And from that light below —
where nothing should shine —
rises my breath, entire and undefeated.
I still wear, now and then, the pants from my old Aikido uniform.
I was never a great Aikidoka, and truth be told, I never liked to fight.
Aikido, for me, was a beautiful game: a dance of balance, of listening, of energy flowing.
Then I had a serious accident, and now I can only do soft, gentle movements.
But something remains untouched.
Not the technique, not the belt, not the falls.
What remains is the spirit.
That can't be trained — and can't be taken away.
💛✨ Waterfalls of Dreams I feel Blessed by the Journey ✨💛
Taxi: ✨🌌 Waterfalls of Dreams ~WoD~ 🌌 ✨
Before I share these new pages of my journey . . .
I would love to invite you into something very close to my heart . . .
Over the past months I created an album called
💛✨ Waterfalls of Dreams ✨💛
Album: ✨🌌 Waterfalls of Dreams . . . . 🌌 ✨
Song for this Pictur – I Stand in My Power
If you feel called to listen,
I hope you will find a little piece of yourself somewhere within it. ✨💛
Each song tells a different part of the journey.
Each melody carries a memory.
Each note became a piece of the story.
Sometimes life closes a chapter . . .
not to take something away . . .
but to make space for something new.
Looking back, I see so many moments,
so many lessons,
so many dreams that carried me further than I ever imagined.
And today . . .
my heart is simply filled with gratitude.
For every beginning.
For every ending.
For every person who became part of my story.
Waterfalls of Dreams exists again . . .
and somehow it feels like coming home.
A new book . . .
A new chapter . . .
A new beginning . . .
I feel blessed.
Blessed by the journey.
Blessed by the people I met along the way.
Blessed by the beauty I found even in difficult moments.
And most of all . . .
blessed to still be dreaming. ✨💛
Bevor ich euch diese neuen Seiten meiner Reise zeige . . .
möchte ich euch gerne an etwas teilhaben lassen, das mir sehr am Herzen liegt . . .
In den letzten Monaten hab ich ein Album erschaffen, es heisst
💛✨ Waterfalls of Dreams ✨💛
Wenn du das Gefühl hast, dass du hinein hören möchtest,
hoffe ich, dass du darin irgendwo ein kleines Stück von dir selbst findest. ✨💛
Jedes Lied erzählt einen anderen Abschnitt der Reise.
Jede Melodie trägt eine Erinnerung in sich.
Jede Note wurde zu einem Teil der Geschichte.
Manchmal schließt das Leben ein Kapitel . . .
nicht um etwas wegzunehmen . . .
sondern um Platz für etwas Neues zu schaffen.
Wenn ich zurückblicke, sehe ich so viele Momente,
so viele Lektionen,
so viele Träume, die mich weitergetragen haben, als ich es je für möglich gehalten hätte.
Und heute . . .
ist mein Herz einfach voller Dankbarkeit.
Für jeden Anfang.
Für jedes Ende.
Für jeden Menschen, der ein Teil meiner Geschichte geworden ist.
Waterfalls of Dreams existiert wieder . . .
und irgendwie fühlt es sich an wie Heimkommen.
Ein neues Buch . . .
Ein neues Kapitel . . .
Ein neuer Anfang . . .
Ich fühle mich gesegnet.
Gesegnet durch die Reise.
Gesegnet durch die Menschen, die mich begleitet haben.
Gesegnet durch die Schönheit, die selbst in schweren Momenten zu finden war.
Und vor allem . . .
gesegnet, noch immer träumen zu können. ✨💛
The complete shooting on my Instagram and Facebook profiles.
---
Model: Océan
Photo: @giovanni_contarelli
©2025 All Right Reserved Giovanni Contarelli
Follow me on Flickr and
A portrait not only of beauty but also of resilience — where every flower blooming from within tells a story of strength, healing, and rebirth. Beneath the elegance lies a soul that has weathered storms and still chooses to bloom with grace. 🌸✨
#BeautyWithin #FloralArt #DigitalPortrait #SurrealBeauty #BloomingSoul #ArtisticExpression #InnerStrength #FantasyArt #CinematicBeauty #ElegantArt #WomanOfStrength #DreamlikeArt #FloralFantasy #CreativeSoul #AestheticVibes #ModernMuse #ArtLovers #VisualPoetry #EtherealBeauty #AIArt
The complete shooting on my Instagram and Facebook profiles.
---
Model: Océan
Photo: @giovanni_contarelli
©2025 All Right Reserved Giovanni Contarelli
Follow me on Flickr and
Nothing is more flexible or receptive than the water in my Wild River…!!!
But in the same time nothing can resist to the strength of her water…!!!
All the Wild River of the world teaches to us that the most fabulous power to realize peace in this world is the flexibility… the receptivity to others…!!!
Author Unknown...
A little boy asked his mother
"Why are you crying?"
"Because I'm a woman",
she told him.
"I don't understand",
he said.
His mum just hugged him
and said, "And you never
will"
Later the little boy asked
his father, "Why does mother seem to cry for
no reason?"
"All women cry for no reason",
was all his dad could say.
The little boy grew up and became a man,
still wondering why women cry.
Finally he put in a call to God; and when God got on
the phone, he asked, "God, why do women cry so
easily?"
God said:
"When I made the woman she had to be special.
I made her shoulders strong enough to carry the weight of the
world; yet, gentle enough to give comfort
I gave her an inner strength to endure childbirth and
the rejection that many times comes from her children.
I gave her a hardness that allows her to keep going
when everyone else gives up, and take care of her
family through sickness and fatigue without
complaining. .I gave her the sensitivity to love her children under
any and all circumstances, even when her child has
hurt her very badly. I gave her strength to carry her man through his
faults and fashioned her from his rib to protect his
heart. I gave her wisdom to know that a good man never
hurts his woman, but sometimes tests her strengths and
her resolve to stand beside him unfalteringly.
And finally, I gave her a tear to shed
This is hers exclusively to use whenever it is
needed.
You see:
The beauty of a woman is not in the clothes she wears,
the figure that she carries, or the way she combs her
hair. The beauty of a woman must be seen in her eyes,
because that is the doorway to her heart - the place
where love resides.
************************************************************************
For my Distortions and Truths set
Model by ohlopkov at Devient art
Texture by Kerstin Frank Art
Texture by me
Half warrior, half breath.
My spirit still stands, even when my body can’t.
And from that light below —
where nothing should shine —
rises my breath, entire and undefeated.
I still wear, now and then, the pants from my old Aikido uniform.
I was never a great Aikidoka, and truth be told, I never liked to fight.
Aikido, for me, was a beautiful game: a dance of balance, of listening, of energy flowing.
Then I had a serious accident, and now I can only do soft, gentle movements.
But something remains untouched.
Not the technique, not the belt, not the falls.
What remains is the spirit.
That can't be trained — and can't be taken away.
Some of the most important moments in life happen when we’re standing on the edge of something - balanced between where we’ve been and where we’re trying to go. One foot still anchored in the familiar, the other hovering over the unknown. We rarely move with certainty. More often, we move with a quiet mix of fear and hope, trusting that the next place we land will hold.
From a distance, it can look like confidence. People see the stride, the posture, the forward motion. What they don’t see are the questions that press against the ribs, the doubts that flicker like shadows, the private negotiations we make with ourselves before taking the next step. Every choice carries the chance of falling short. But it also carries the chance of becoming something we could never reach by staying safely inside the lines.
Maybe wisdom isn’t about avoiding the ledge at all. Maybe it’s learning how to walk it - how to breathe through the height, how to steady yourself, how to move even when the ground ahead is uncertain. A life built only on safety may be comfortable, but it rarely expands. The moments that shape us are the ones that ask us to trust our own balance, even when the outcome is unclear.
We don’t always know where the next step leads. But sometimes the simple act of taking it is what turns uncertainty into possibility.
I am not my hair.....I am not my skin......
Get over the skin color you were born. Call the Waaaaaahmbulance. You'll find no pity here.
Be a good human.
“When we meet real tragedy in life, we can react in two ways--either by losing hope and falling into self-destructive habits, or by using the challenge to find our inner strength.”
― Dalai Lama XIV
Il y a des moments où il faut simplement tenir. Tenir sa place, ses choix, ce que l’on est devenu. L’épée ne sert pas ici à menacer. Elle trace une ligne entre elle et le reste du monde. Son regard ne cherche pas à impressionner. Il dit seulement qu’elle ne reculera pas. La force n’est pas toujours dans le mouvement. Parfois, elle se trouve dans cette capacité à rester debout quand tout pousse à céder.
EN There are moments when you simply have to stand your ground. To hold your place, your choices, and the person you have become. The sword is not there to threaten. It draws a line between her and the rest of the world. Her gaze is not trying to impress. It simply says she will not step back. Strength is not always about movement. Sometimes, it is about staying where you are when everything tells you to give in.
“Look well into thyself; there is a source of strength which will always spring up if thou wilt always look.”
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
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There are moments in life when an old self has to die. Not in the physical sense, but in the way an organism sheds a skin, discards what no longer serves, and allows something truer to emerge. It is a violent but necessary process — a collapse of what was bound by the chains of the world’s toxicity, the slow cancers of doubt, fear, and compromise.
In real time, it feels like disintegration. The structures you built around yourself crack, the illusions of safety peel away, and the scaffolding of who you thought you were crumbles into dust. But within that destruction is a release. The organism, stripped bare, is free to draw breath without the weight of corrosion.
And then comes the rebirth. Slowly, tenderly, a new form takes shape — one not dictated by the poison of the past but by the clarity of liberation. It is catharsis embodied: raw, unfiltered, and alive. What rises from the ashes is not a version of what was lost, but something entirely other — a creature that carries the scars of collapse as sacred markings of survival, and a heart that beats untethered to the world’s chains.
To witness this process — to live it — is to know that death is not always an end. Sometimes, it is the truest beginning.
A figure carved in shadowed stone tears open the cage of her own chest, unleashing a torrent of golden radiance that refuses containment. Cracks race across her form like ancient runes awakening, each fracture a testament to pressure survived and truth reclaimed. The light is not gentle; it is sovereign, erupting with the force of a long buried lineage demanding to be seen. This is the moment of ignition—the uprising of the inner world against the silence that tried to hold it.
I.
I was sculpted in quiet, shaped by centuries of restraint.
Stone learned my name before I ever spoke it.
But beneath the carved stillness, something burned.
A truth too bright to stay buried.
II.
The cracks began as whispers—small betrayals of the mask.
Hairline fractures tracing the map of my becoming.
Pressure made scripture of my silence.
And the stone could no longer hold its lie.
III.
When I tore myself open, the world flinched.
Light surged out like a forgotten inheritance.
It was not pain—it was revelation.
The body remembering its original fire.
IV.
I am not breaking; I am returning.
Returning to the glow that predates the wound.
Returning to the power that outlived the burial.
Returning to the self that refused extinction.
V.
Witness the radiance that survived the crushing.
Witness the heart that refused to dim.
I rise not as statue but as storm.
A luminous revolt against erasure.
VI.
Let the fractures widen; let the brilliance roar.
Let the old shell crumble into myth.
I am the ember that learned to roar like a sun.
I am the inheritance of every hidden flame.
VII.
Call it awakening if you must.
But I know it as remembering.
The light was always mine—
I simply stopped apologizing for it.
VIII.
So I stand here, incandescent and unbound.
Stone falling away like obsolete scripture.
The heart blazing its sovereign decree.
And the universe finally seeing me as fire.
Page 3 of the coffee dyed, hand stitched UnCovered Zine - this time what armory is at my hero's disposal as she journeys forth.
There’s defiance in the eye, but also fatigue. A single glance cuts through the fabric of the hood, the curve of the hand, and the unspoken weight behind them. This is not a pose—it’s a pause. A moment of shielding, but not surrender. The lines on the forehead speak of stories lived. The hoodie, the hand, the tension in the grip—they all become armor. But the eye doesn’t lie. This portrait captures what it means to be guarded yet present, distant but still watching.
going through some 'stuff' and just trying to find the inner strength to rescue myself... because if i don't, i just know this lesson will just keep repeating..
Christine Banlog has been a market woman for 22 years. She is now 64, widowed, and raising her three grandchildren in Nyalla, a locality in the city of Douala, Cameroon.
In 2011 Christine’s daughter died from complications during childbirth, leaving her with three girls, the youngest being only a week old at the time. Today her granddaughters are 17, 12 and 7; and they motivate her to keep going.
Christine’s day starts early, at 5 a.m., as the neighbourhood mosque announces its morning prayers.
Douala is the economic capital of Cameroon and known for its whole-sale and retail markets. Christine belongs to the Association of Market Women (ASBY), a national network of women who buy various goods from whole-sale markets and sell them in smaller markets. Locally, the market women are called “Bayem-Sellam”. Since 2014, UN Women has supported the Association by providing financial support and various training sessions for women entrepreneurs.
Every morning, Christine rushes to different markets to pick up produce—some specialize in potatoes, others are known for their plantains or fresh vegetables. She buys her produce and loads up the sacks on a motorbike-taxi to take them to the Nyalla market by 7 a.m., where she has a stand. The early hours are the most profitable time to sell, and the market closes by 3 p.m.
For Christine, 3 p.m. is too early to stop working; she has four mouths to feed and her oldest granddaughter is registering for the public-school examination this year, which will cost her 22,000 Franc. “I use the income to pay school fees even though it’s very difficult; money is not enough,” she says.
After the market closes, she sets up a small stand near her home to sell the produce that’s left.
Every month, on average, Christine makes about 30,000 Franc. She started her business with a capital of 50,000 Franc. However, the profit margins vary by the season. In the potato season, she could make 40-50 per cent profit sometimes.
Since joining the Market Women’s Association last year, she has started growing her business. The Association has provided her with training on life skills and how to manage her finances better.
“Yes, the training has helped me improve my business skills. First, they taught us how to handle the capital, plan expenses and then calculate the profit,” she says.
This year, money is tight. During the recent elections she was not able to keep her usual market hours. Some of the market women, like Christine, are also members of political parties who involve them in campaigning, cooking food for campaign rallies, etc.
When asked about her biggest challenge, Christine talks about the red dirt road that leads to her home.
“The first problem is access to road,” she says. “The roads are bad, during rainy season the potholes are full of water. Because of the road, I fell from the bike and sprained my ankle in October.”
Christine doesn’t have insurance, so if she cannot make it to the market one day, she incurs losses.
Access to credit is another challenge for her. “I want to buy a container to store goods. It costs 300,000 Franc to buy a locally made container,” she shares. If she has access to credit, she can buy this container and minimize her daily transportation cost to buy and sell goods and also the time it takes to go back and forth. With some credit, she can grow the business.
At the end of the day, Christine goes home to cook dinner.
“The market woman’s house doesn’t lack food,” she says, grinning. “Whatever’s left over, comes home and we eat that.”
Today, she will make a soup out of smoked fish and dried okra.
Pictured: Portrait of Christine Banlog in front of the small produce stand she runs near her home.
Photo: UN Women/Ryan Brown