March

Photo by Monica Pinheiro CC BY-NC-SA (CC) March 2025.

March

"Emergent behaviors (...) are all about living within the boundaries defined by rules, but also using that space to create something greater than the sum of its parts." Steven Johnson (2001). Emergence: the connected lives of ants, brains, cities and software. Photos by Monica Pinheiro CC BY-NC-SA (CC) March 2025.

March

Photo by Monica Pinheiro CC BY-NC-SA (CC) March 2025.

February

"Our world flits between contingency and convergence, providing the illusion of structure and order, until one tiny adjustment changes everything. (...) Nature makes a random mistake, or a contingent deviation, and, poof, you've got a new kind of beetle." Brian Klaas (2025). Fluke: chance, chaos, and why everything we do matters. Photo by Monica Pinheiro CC BY-NC-SA (CC) February 2026.

February

Photo by Monica Pinheiro CC BY-NC-SA (CC) February 2026.

February

"To erect the framework for flourishing, we need a reliable superstructure that provides for our basic needs, a bulwark against a precarious survival. What we don't need is a society that regularly gets upended by major systemwide shocks that jerk us in undesirable directions, ripping us out of the present to worry about our existential future (...) and democracies collapse." Brian Klaas (2025). Fluke: chance, chaos, and why everything we do matters. Photo of tapestry with map behind by Monica Pinheiro CC BY-NC-SA (CC) February 2026.

January

“You cling to a thread of hope, of course you do. But in the face of the blunt instruments of silence and nothingness, the shadow of hope grows ever fainter.” Haruki Murakami (2025). The city and its uncertain walls. [20260314 update] Tapestries. Bottom, middle «Consciousness» (73 x 80 cm), January 2026, by Monica Pinheiro. 

January

 

"(...) remember that taking care of something else is an important part of taking care of yourself, because you are interwoven with the tentrillion things in this single garment of destiny that as been stained and torn, but is still being woven and mended and washed". Rebecca Solnit (2025). No Straight Road Takes You There. Photo by Monica Pinheiro CC BY-NC-SA (CC) December 2025.

Ferment

"It may look as if nothing at all is happening (...). Yet, deep underground, at this very moment, nutrients are being gathered, the groundwork for future ebullience and dynamism is being laid down, another summer is very slowly collecting its strength". A Therapeutic Journey by Alain de Botton. Photo and sustainable natural living creation by Monica Pinheiro CC BY-NC-SA (CC) December, 2025.

December

 Photo by Monica Pinheiro CC BY-NC-SA (CC) December 2025.

December

"You mix your metaphors, and a seed becomes a lantern glowing, or a flashlight, or a firefly hatching". Rebecca Solnit (2025). No Straight Road Takes You There. Photo by Monica Pinheiro CC BY-NC-SA (CC) December 2025.

December

Photo by Monica Pinheiro CC BY-NC-SA (CC) December 2025.

December

While creating another set of plants for a colleague at work, I was thinking about how true beauty is CO₂ negative and how sustainability is an easy practice if one uses, reuses, transforms, and shares what one has.

For the container, I reused the bottom part of a household disinfectant, giving it a second life instead of discarding it and buying a new container made from fossil fuels (i.e., plastic). Then, I looked around my small garden for available candidate plants that could thrive in that container and, hopefully, cooperate to lead a good life under the new conditions. After finding the trio, I placed them in their new container using my simple gardening tools powered by human energy. The soil was in short supply (as worms in the vermicompost regulate their work according to the heat). Used about 3 liters of commercial potting soil, which comes with an undisclosed carbon footprint. 

Creating with what is available around us is not only a good sustainability practice but also a way of multiplying beauty that goes on living and capturing carbon dioxide. Hence, real beauty is CO₂ negative.

Photo of a different and beautiful Nature creation. Monica Pinheiro CC BY-NC-SA (CC) December, 2025.

December

After seeing the video of Mark Rothko murals at Tate Modern, one of the artists mentioned in the book A Therapeutic Journey by Alain de Botton, sharing photo with a reminder of the other side of nothingness. Photo by Monica Pinheiro CC BY-NC-SA (CC) December, 2025.

Real luxury is carbon negative

Sustainability in practice. Bouquet with plants grown locally. No artificial fertilizers or pesticides. Collected manually, near creative assembling point. Made with love and care. Hand delivered by the creator in nearby location, reached in less than 30 minutes by foot. Including complimentary smile and a good day hug. To dispose end of life bouquet, compost, cut in small pieces to use as mulch or use the dry plants as materials to do tapestries ;)

Photo by Monica Pinheiro CC BY-NC-SA (CC) November, 2025.

November

Sim, existem muitos quilómetros de alternativas para colocar paineis solares no nosso pais. Para além dos locais em ambiente construído, grandes extensões foram identificadas pelo Centro de Investigação Comum Europeu (JRC), em Portugal e nos restantes estados-membros da UE, com imenso potencial: autoestradas e caminhos de ferro. 

JRC (2024). European transport infrastructure as a solar photovoltaic energy hub. Utilizando dados geoespaciais para quantificar o potencial de implantação em larga escala de painéis solares ao longo das principais estradas e ferrovias da Europa, tendo em conta “geografia, restrições ambientais, limitações de uso da terra e parâmetros técnico económicos”, resultados revelaram potencial de capacidade de “energia fotovoltaica de 403 GWp na União Europeia (UE)”, ou seja, o “equivalente a 55 % do objetivo de capacidade solar fotovoltaica total da UE fixada para 2030.” Considerando apenas as linhas ferroviárias, “a produção anual total de eletricidade fotovoltaica teria potencial para atingir 250 % do atual consumo anual de eletricidade da rede ferroviária da UE.“ 

JRC (2024). Communication on the potential of applied PV in the European Union: Rooftops, reservoirs, roads (R3). Neste artigo, avaliaram também o potencial de instalação de painéis em autoestradas e linhas férreas, constatando que a “capacidade instalada total de energia fotovoltaica poderia exceder 1 TWp, o que é muito superior à capacidade total de energia fotovoltaica para 2030 da Estratégia de Energia Solar da UE (720 GWp) e seria uma contribuição significativa para os vários TW necessários para a transição global atingir o zero líquido, até 2050” Podiámos também pensar na utilização das faixas de gestão de combustíveis para instalação dos parques solares.Todas elas, formas existentes de baixar e evitar custos ambientais, como alternativas à ocupação e destruição de paisagens protegidas, florestas, montados, corredores ecológicos ou solos agrícolas, incuíndo o abate de todo o tipo de povoamentos florestais que tanto necessitamos neste momento.

Mas falta o tempo gasto no scroll para a leitura de publicações credíveis. Falta a pausa para pensar no que se leu antes do break everything. Falta serenidade (e seriedade) para ver mais longe. Só assim se justifica que se continuem a destruir áreas vivas de importância fulcral para manter os sistemas naturais que ainda funcionam e que precisamos como pão para a boca e como o ar que respiramos. Literalmente.

Photo by Monica Pinheiro CC BY-NC-SA (CC) November, 2025.

November

Photo by Monica Pinheiro CC BY-NC-SA (CC) November, 2025.

November

"The paradise lies in the fluid possibilities of emergent alliances, associations, and organizations, and the ways they network through the impacted area to circulate what's needed. And in both the deep kindness motivating that action and the agency and alliance that emerge." Rebecca Solnit (2025). No Straight Road Takes You There. Photo by Monica Pinheiro CC BY-NC-SA (CC) November, 2025.

November

"(...) new ideas often travel from the margins and the shadows and move to the center". Rebecca Solnit (2025). No Straight Road Takes You There. Photo by Monica Pinheiro CC BY-NC-SA (CC) November, 2025.

November

“The organized expression of collective interests is what gives shape and meaning to democracy, and requires trust, continuity, structure – and the willingness of people to join things”. Yuan Yang, 2024. Why We Should Join Things. In Democracy: Eleven Writers and Leaders on what it is – and why it matters. Image of tapestry «Democracy vessel» (83 x 80 cm). November 2025. Below, fresh flowers of agapanthus collected in July. Dry flowers. Multipurpose tools used during work. 

All photos by Monica Pinheiro CC BY-NC-SA (CC).