Tutte queste piccole magie (e su i vecchi fantasmi)

Amo la pioggia d'estate
l'aria di quiete e di libertà
Amo l'odore dell'acqua
su questa terra affamata

Amo la pioggia d'estate
questa città che ascolta
le voci di vecchi fantasmi
i palazzi e i suoi silenzi

Amo l'odore dell'acqua
su questa terra brusciatta
qualcuno che sorride e non parla
e con gli occhi mi abbracia

(e provo a non dimenticare
che la felicità abbraccia già questa vita)

Not quite Carmen Consoli's Piccola magia

(I want to remember)

L'édifice immense du souvenir se reconstruye, one song at a time.

Moments of Being VII - The Moment again, the Present, always wanting to be filled fuller and fuller

I

If I let myself, I cannot be in the now because I am overcome by the power of the then, the beauty and grace of all that I have left behind. Life is like the sea. A wave of memory sweeps in that threatens to overwhelm us and then the wave retreats, leaving us to wonder at what has been washed ashore.  Today I must work to have faith, to trust the newness that has been made from my loss. To trust what has been put in place of all that went before. I must live, as the wise ones tell us, one day at a time. One day at a time.

The present is big enough to hold the past. I must let the present enlarge enough to become rich and deep. I must live in it, not just occupy its time.  The past is huge. The future may be huge as well. What remains for me, what is given, is to do the small tasks of the day, of the life that I have now, the choices I can make today to find beauty in what is given to me.

II

Instead of priding myself on the velocity of my life, I want to turn each moment to the light, cradling time like a fine Fabergé egg - or perhaps a crystal casting shards of light on my life. I want to be "in the now," not rushing ahead to a hectic future, not pining for the past, gilded by nostalgia.

Why not slow down? Half a year has hurtled past me, but I still have half a year left to savor moment by moment. That is what I will do. I will string together the beautiful beads that make up my life. I will slow down and savor my days as they unfurl. Slowing down and paying attention to particular moments, people, and feelings will help me to appreciate them - not to take them for granted.

III

You are making a portrait of your consciousness at this point in time.



Almost completely faithful excerpts from Julia Cameron's The Sound of Paper and The Creative Life.

A matter of Grace

A summer storm
Graces all of me
Highway warm
Sing silent poetry
And I could bring you the light
And take you home into the night

(Lately, I just can’t seem to believe
Discard my friends to change the scenery
It meant the world to hold a bruising faith
But now, it’s just a matter of grace)

Favus distillans: Ursula virgo est

A dripping honeycomb was the virgin Ursula

Milk and honey under her tongue

Like a fruit ladden garden and splendour of flowers

She gathered a throng of virgins around her

Therefore rejoice, daughters, in the noblest dawn

A personal selection of Hildegarde von Bingen's Favus distillans, from 11000 Virgins: Chants for the Feast of Saint Ursula.

Preacher in the Grey Cap y la cuarta dimensión

¿Qué es la meditación? Fue lo primero que dijo después de que me pidió permiso para sentarse en mi mesa -tan llena de mí-, sacándome del éxtasis creativo en el que me encontraba sumida.

En medio de la confusión sobre las intenciones de ese desconocido, I thought that the question could be addressed through an array of answers, a very wide color spectrum: but No, he said, No, la meditación es, y grábatelo bien: and then something I should remember very clearly and do but not in words: the journey through the self to some absolute truth which, in my opinion, is both absolute & absolutely relative: so many truths to learn, so many guises and shapes and sounds that make up an infinite number of different melodies through which that one truth manifests itself.

Being an absolute relativist myself, and having been trained in post-modern philosophical thought, I felt very uncomfortable with the word Truth, con su mayúscula tan imperativa. Still, I have never quite grasped that stuff about the 4th and 5th and 9th and etc. dimensions, something he did not promise to explain but kept talking about as though I understood it all: Reality is the fourth dimension. Piensa, repiensa, reflexiona, y... actúa? or another couple more non-negotiable instructions, which I unfortunately forgot rather soon, la sobreintelectualización being uno de los males de los cuales intento deshacerme en los últimos tiempos.

I do believe, though, he was right about something: Love is not a word, it is a fact. Factum, non verbum, haciendo gala de su erudición. Elaborando al respecto: Love is not love which makes a sound that does not reverberate. Anzi, Love is not a sound: it is an act. Como diría ese sabio y afamado cantante, El amor, amigues míes, es verbo, no sustantivo. Maybe, if I am misinterpreting correctly, the fourth dimension could be the dimension of the Reality of Love.

Aprende a amarte para que puedas amarnos: de todas las cosas que me ordenó que me aprendiera de memoria, ésta es la única que recuerdo con absoluta claridad.

Still I will harvest beauty where it grows

Her the inhabiter of diverse places
Surmising at all doors, I push them all.
Oh, you that fearful of a creaking hinge
Turn back forevermore with craven faces,
I tell you Beauty bears an ultra fringe
Unguessed of you upon her gossamer shawl!

Edna St. Vincent Millay

Un huerto

Murmura al ras
lo que gesta en secreto

Piadoso
mira lejos

Hacia la 1 y 1/2 de la tarde
pinta
forjando el camino del pájaro

Abriendo los ojos
ya durmiendo
rodó sus ruedas de horas ovaladas

Todos los días
                         el calendario

El muro de agua de los ritos

Su engranaje se diluye
pues es su magia algo diferente:

la existencia llevada a cabo
en la porción del ritmo
en el pulso de lo visto
entre el deshielo lampo del instante
que parte
arde
da cuanta forma la forma necesita

En las palabras de los mares
hay lluvia que acompañe su silencio

Andando por ahí
se llega al centro
de algún modo

veredas se transitan en los ojos
                                                   un huerto
                                                   un colibrí
                                                   un pavo real

el vaivén de un sauce
que se ríe sobre el arroyo


Palabras rescatadas de Josué Ramírez's Muda de raíces

Silver

para Myrna

                              

                                But she's just like lightning
                                She goes right through you
                                Then you know you'll never
                                Be the same

                                 - Mazzy Star, "She's my baby"



Mustard. Mustard and black. Mustard and black and silver.

Silver.

Her silver hair.

She is just like lightning.
Her whole self
it does go right through you
Pierces you
                        Leaves you breathless
                        Whole
                        Expanding

As she walks away
                      past you
                      behind you

But also beside you
Right beside you

Mustard and black. And silver.

Her silver self
Traps you
As she walks home, alone.

Someone else's angel

Every once in a while, we are all someone else's angel.

An entirely new thought

It made her curious
What would it be like
to weave in and out of dreams
an entirely new thought?

She liked the idea of going to sleep
beside the whales
down there
under the sea
where the north wind lives in an ice cave

(it asks for cool breezes
to make you comfortable
while you're getting well
And when you've recovered
they'll take you riding
whale-back

smiling
beyond the skeptical glance of the child
whose faith in fantasy has been shaken)

This afternoon
when I woke up from my nap
I heard you talking
about the air
more freely

Just for a few days
will you leave the thinking?
There's more to your being here

You'll feel the sea
which means
you'll rest a little better


(Built from words stolen -and borrowed- from Laura London's The Windflower)