The Borda Gardens

The Borda Gardens is one of the most famous monuments in Cuernavaca, it was the residence of rich families since the colonial times, it was chosen by its location beside the Cathedral of Cuernavaca and by its main road (now Morelos Avenue); this road comes from Acapulco, crosses Cuernavaca, Mexico City and ends in Veracruz. 

By this road passed the richness the Nao of the Orient brought to New Spain and also was the residence where many famous travelers were lodged. Don Jose Borda was the builder of the residence, he also donated to Taxco the beautiful Santa Prisca church and its Parvis Square. Don Jose de la Borda used this residence such as rest home and rest of silver caravans that came from Taxco to Mexico City.

Manuel de la Borda, his son, was appointed priest and was the first person in charge of the Santa Prisca church, at the death of his father, he already lived in the residence. Don Manuel made the gardens that in that time was extended until the ravine. The gardens received the name of Botanical Gardens, by its varieties of fruit trees and ornamental plants that were brought from all over the world. The mangos were brought by the travelers priest that came from the Spanish Philippines.

In the same way Manuel built the fountains and the paths, and in 1783 he inaugurated the ornamental lake, to water the Botanic Gardens. Manuel de la Borda also built the Chapel of Guadalupe in 1784, near the gardens and the residence; this church originally had two beautiful towers. It was also famous by the books and articles that the important visitors who were lodged here, wrote about the same.

The residence never lost its attraction for the rich and important persons and in 1865 the Emperors Maximilian of Hapsburg and Carlota Amalia, chosen this place as their summer residence, and then it took again a category of simple elegance.

The Emperors offered spectacular Gala Receptions in the Gardens and in the ornamental lake. The rooms were decorated with luxury as the Chapel of Guadalupe; you can still see the personal shield of the Austria Emperors, in the reception room, the residence is know as "The Borda Gardens". Nowadays  the morelenses celebrate great receptions, popular feasts, cultural events among others. [Tour by Mexico.com]  

Sculptures by Gabriel Ponzanelli

Other images here.

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"Your first 10,000 photographs are your worst."

~Henri Cartier-Bresson

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The Other Reality

Gulf of California. México

The Wit and Wisdom of George Bernard Shaw

“You see things; and you say, 'Why?'

But I dream things that never were; and I say, 'Why not?'”

“Life isn't about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.”

“If you have an apple and I have an apple and we exchange these apples then you and I will still each have one apple. But if you have an idea and I have an idea and we exchange these ideas, then each of us will have two ideas.”

“You use a glass mirror to see your face; you use works of art to see your soul”

“We should all be obliged to appear before a board every five years and justify our existence...on pain of liquidation.”

“We don't stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.”

“The things most people want to know about are usually none of their business.”

“Take care to get what you like or you will be forced to like what you get”

“The minority is sometimes right; the majority always wrong.”

“The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who haven't got it.”

“Imagination is the beginning of creation. You imagine what you desire, you will what you imagine and at last you create what you will.”

“The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact than a drunken man is happier than a sober one”

“A gentleman is one who puts more into the world than he takes out.”

“The possibilities are numerous once we decide to act and not react.”

“Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.”

“Two percent of the people think; three percent of the people think they think; and ninety-five percent of the people would rather die than think.”

“Human beings are the only animals of which I am thoroughly and cravenly afraid.”

Happy Dad's Weekend!"Joy To All Of You"

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Building

Corporative Center Calakmul by Arq. Agustin Hernandez Navarro. Santa Fe. Mexico City

Torre Mayor. Mexico City

Restaurant Los Girasoles. Mexico City

Towers. Santa Fe. Mexico City

Juarez Theater. Guanajuato. Mx

Brooklyn. NYC

Manhattan Building. NYC

Academie Nationale de Musique. Paris

Fri Jun 17, 2011
This week's challenge:
'Building'.

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Trip (Inner)

Talks and Writings of G. I. Gurdjieff

THE EVOLUTION OF MAN CAN BE TAKEN AS THE DEVELOPMENT IN HIM of those powers and possibilities which never develop by themselves, that is, mechanically. Only this kind of development, only this kind of growth, marks the real evolution of man. There is, and there can be, no other kind of evolution whatever.…      In speaking of evolution it is necessary to understand from the outset that no mechanical evolution is possible. The evolution of man is the evolution of his consciousness. And ‘consciousness’ cannot evolve unconsciously. The evolution of man is the evolution of his will, and ‘will’ cannot evolve involuntarily. The evolution of man is the evolution of his power of doing, and ‘doing’ cannot be the result of things which ‘happen.’                                                  

 IN SEARCH OF THE MIRACULOUS, pp. 56, 58

BUT THE BEING OF TWO PEOPLE CAN DIFFER from one another more than the being of a mineral and of an animal. This is exactly what people do not understand. And they do not understand that knowledge depends on being. Not only do they not understand this latter but they definitely do not wish to understand it. And especially in Western culture it is considered that a man may possess great knowledge, for example he may be an able scientist, make discoveries, advance science, and at the same time he may be, and has a right to be, a petty, egoistic, caviling, mean, envious, vain, naïve, and absent-minded man. It seems to be considered here that a professor must always forget his umbrella everywhere.

IN SEARCH OF THE MIRACULOUS, p. 65

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Steps

Sweet Dreams (or Nightmare)

Cuernavaca (Open air market))

Williamsburg Street, New York

“Throughout the centuries there were men who took first steps, down new roads,

armed with nothing but their own vision”

~Ayn Rand

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Invisible Sphere

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Keyboards

Music:  Enjoy this piece of Art by Jimi Hendrix!

La Bodega

Restaurant La Bodega (La Condesa. Mexico City)

One needs the mood of a warrior for every single act, otherwise one becomes distorted and ugly. There is no power in a life that lacks this mood.
      A warrior is a hunter. He calculates everything. That's control. But once his calculations are over, he acts. He lets go. That's abandon. A warrior is not a leaf at the mercy of the wind. No one can push him; no one can make him do things against himself or against his better judgment. A warrior is tuned to survive, and he survives in the best of all possible fashions.

A warrior could be injured but not offended. For a warrior there is nothing offensive about the acts of his fellow men as long as he himself is acting within the proper mood.

~Carlos Castaneda

Uno necesita el ánimo de un guerrero para cada uno de sus actos -dijo-.

De otro modo uno se enchueca y se afea.

No hay poder en una vida que carece de este ánimo. Mírate tú mismo.

Todo te ofende y te inquieta.

Chillas y te quejas y sientes que todo el mundo te hace bailar a su son.

Eres una hoja a merced del viento.

No hay poder en tu vida. ¡Qué feo debe de sentirse eso!

"Un guerrero, en cambio, es un cazador. Todo lo calcula. Eso es control. Pero una vez terminados sus

cálculos, actúa. Se deja ir. Eso es abandono.

Un guerrero no es una hoja a merced del viento. Nadie lo empuja; nadie lo obliga a hacer cosas en contra de sí mismo o de lo que juzga correcto.

Un guerrero está entonado para sobrevivir, y sobrevive del mejor modo posible."

-Un guerrero podría sufrir daño, pero no ofensa -dijo-. Para un guerrero no hay nada ofensivo en los actos de sus semejantes mientras él mismo esté actuando dentro del ánimo correcto.

Así me sentía exactamente. Don Juan parecía compenetrado de mis sentimientos. Dijo que mi estado de ánimo le recordaba una canción y empezó a cantarla en tono bajo; su voz cantante era muy agradable y la letra

me arrebató:

"Qué lejos estoy del suelo donde he nacido.

Inmensa nostalgia invade mi pensamiento.

Al verme tan solo y triste cual hoja al viento,

quisiera llorar, quisiera morir de sentimiento."

~Carlos Castaneda

Fri Jun 10, 2011

This week's challenge:
'Shade'.



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Parenthood

The mother-child relationship is paradoxical and, in a sense, tragic. It requires the most intense love on the mother's side, yet this very love must help the child grow away from the mother and to become fully independent.

~Erich Fromm

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Take Five

Rural little market

“Wise men speak because they have something to say;

Fools because they have to say something.”

~Plato (Platon)

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Light Games (with strings and a heart)

Detail

Happy Weekend!

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Manipulation

Manipulation:

The masses were deceived and manipulated by a tiny group.

The principle that human nature, in its psychological aspects, is nothing more than a product of history and given social relations removes all barriers to coercion and manipulation by the powerful.

Noam Chomsky

Fri Jun 03, 2011
This week's challenge:
'People'.

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June 2011 Theme Day : Under Construction

Clouds appear


and bring to men a chance to rest


from looking at the moon.

~Matsuo Basho

Click here to view thumbnails for all participants.


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Time

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Imagenes

Gort

Ing-1 by Leonora Carrington

Tepozteco (The Sacred Valley of Tepoztlan, near Mexico City)

A warrior chooses a path with heart, any path with heart, and follows it; and then he rejoices and laughs. He knows because he sees that his life will be over altogether too soon. He sees that nothing is more important than anything else.

Man has a dark side. It's called stupidity. In the same measure that ritual forced the average man to construct huge churches that were monuments to self-importance, ritual also forced sorcerers to construct edifices of morbidity and obsession. As a result, it is the duty of every nagual to guide awareness so it will fly toward the abstract, free of liens and mortgages.

~Carlos Castaneda.

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The Look

Tepoztlan (Sunday open air market)

For me there is only the traveling on the paths that have heart, on any path that may have heart.

There I travel, and the only worthwhile challenge for me is to traverse its full length.

And there I travel—looking, looking, breathlessly.

~Carlos Castaneda

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Liquid Mix

In the Art of Dreaming Don Juan tells Carlos,

"… most of our energy goes into upholding our importance…

If we were capable of losing some of that importance, two extraordinary things would happen to us. 

One, we would free our energy from trying to maintain the illusory idea of our grandeur; 

and two we would provide ourselves with enough energy to ...

Catch a glimpse of the actual grandeur of the Universe."

~Carlos Castaneda

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Anonymous Citizen

Anonymous Citizen
by
Javier Marin (Mexican sculptor)

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Street Vendor

Tunas vendor in Pachuca (near Mexico City)

Opuntia species are the most cold-tolerant of the lowland cacti, extending into western and southern Canada; one subspecies, Opuntia fragilis var. fragilis, has been found growing along the Beatton River in central British Columbia, southwest of Cecil Lake.

Prickly pears also produce a fruit that is commonly eaten in Mexico, known as tuna; it also is used to make aguas frescas. The fruit can be red, wine-red, green or yellow-orange.

Charles Darwin was the first to note that these cacti have thigmotactic anthers: when the anthers are touched, they curl over, depositing their pollen. This movement can be seen by gently poking the anthers of an open Opuntia flower. The same trait has evolved convergently in other cacti (e.g. Lophophora). [Wiki]

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Lago de Chapultepec / Chapultepec Lake

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