Magic mirror in the sand, Tell me who I am again #3

-Wow, I say, it’s the first time ever I see someone painting Mona Lisa with coffee…

-Yes, I’m an artist, and a Kermit-cœur-mythe too…

-I think you mean hermit, I dare to interrupt…

-No I mean Kermit, like the frog who always knew how to entertain the masses… Look, I know sometimes it must have been a wild ride for Frida and Georgia, but they had the choice to be strong, and they were, but they also chose to sometimes bask in that victim mode, and in the end, who’s most remembered, huh? Same for Mona Lisa siempre callada y sonriente… I say both parties always have their responsibility on how easy or tricky the ride is.

-I agree, I said.

-You do? Well, that’s great to hear. Ok, let’s erase Mona and have that coffee, shall we? I got this Hawaiian blend a friend gave to me, I don’t know its name, she just gave me a home-made pack with initials on it: KS, she told me to drink it as the day breaks, when I greet the sun. But here it’s like on the Little Prince’s planet actually. So many things seem to dawn on you and on us all that it feels like a new day after each a-ha moment.

-Well, I say, let’s give it a try at this KS coffee… As long as it’s not KO or KC (cassé / broken), it is fine with me, actually I think this coffee can fix many things. Oops! Watch out, don’t let the bag drift in the wind! Let’s use the desert rose you kept with you to put some weight on it.

I put the marvel of the desert on the coffee bag and remove the spilled beans with my hand. Without really noticing what I do, I draw the infinite sign with the word ‘Love’ above.

-Someone was inspired by the glasses of Bernard and Bianca’s special pilot, smiles Nico as he hands me a cup that he miraculously found, maybe from an unknown kitchen in a dream…

-Oh, wow, I’ve never seen a cup this full, and with a little heart, how sweet, Nico. I say.

Peridot begs to differ with me and says that he personally sees that so-called evil character from Wacky Races, Dick Dastardly. “You know, the clever one who always laughed with his dog at their goddamn funny tricks”.

-Well they were not very nice and never respected the rules, I protest.

-Rules, rules, rules! They’re there to be broken! answers an angry Peridot.

-There are some rules I don’t agree with either, I say, but why do I have the feeling that you need to systematically break all the rules? Plus this Dastardly guy NEVER won and always ended up wondering what went wrong as, out of rage, he was about to eat his red and blue striped cap…

-Well, yeah, it’s his tragedy. He’s fed up of being judged. SO few understand him.

-I think I do though, Peridot, I say. It’s like he is kind of being compelled to do those tricks by some kind of superior instance… Well, this is what my deep curiosity dictates my intuition to believe.

-Yes! You got it. See, it’s like me, says Peridot: if my boss sends me an electrical telegraph with a specific mission that I’ve seen earlier in something similar to one of those visions we share today, should I fail to comply, he might kill me…

-Well sometimes Santa is an old grumpy man but I doubt he would ever…

Peridot cuts me short saying that he is not talking about Santa, but that he does not feel it is right to go on with that conversation topic.

-Well, we sure don’t want any harm caused to you so… as you wish, Peridot, although I feel that this is what makes you lonely sometimes and that it might be good to talk about it…

-I said I don’t want to talk about it because I have good reasons not to talk. Besides, he says, you too sounded pretty lonely sometimes when you were analyzing the last images we saw… Do you want to do like Frida and open your Pandora’s box?

-Well, I guess this is the purpose of this journey…

Peridot snaps his fingers and he comments the new images that appear.

-What strikes us most in this collage? asks Peridot. As for me, the paint buckets by Penny’s box and the red nose, or is it a ball, inside of it…

Nico says that it’s the name of the orphanage and also the communication between Bernard and Bianca through the green glass of the bottle, and I say the same…

Peridot wonders:

-You’re not at all an orphan, though, lady Lacy, so why did you cry so much when you saw this next image? He says snapping his finger again and a new image from the same animated movie comes to cover the first one.

I don’t know, I felt her pain deep inside of me, it’s as if I felt it for another me who was lost out there somewhere in the world looking for a long-lost family…

- The blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb, says Nico who appears to be deeply moved.

-Did you have a teddy bear like that when you were little, lady Lacy? Peridot goes on asking.

-Not of that kind, I think. Although I had a lot of stuffed animals, I still have a few! Here, apart from my real-life fur babies, I have a needlework kitty who is eternally trying to reach a green wool ball, a horse, well no, two, or three if I count that of my Barbies, and then weirder ones, like a raven (although I have the feeling he already flew and made it where he belongs), a coyote, a spider, a crocodile and a donkey.

-Well, says Peridot, I understand the donkey, I love their stubbornness and it is always a victory to ride them like I do, but the rest is weird, especially the crocodile!

-Since you wanted to compare me with little Penny, I answer, I think it makes perfect sense. My trecena or month of birth in the Aztec calendar is ruled by Cipactli, the primordial crocodile, and remember that Penny was not afraid of Brutus and Nero at all!

-What have you just thought right now? asks Peridot. Who’s that donkey?

-I think it’s yours, heehee. See, I have added cat earrings so that you would get accustomed to dealing with other beings of my world as well.

-Oh I thought they were baits for the crocodile… he chuckles.

-You can’t help it, eeeeh… You can bet I know how to protect them! I say.

-Oh you know how I am, what would I do if I could no longer tease you… What is this huge lamp over my donkey and your crocodiles?

-It’s Turtle Island, of course! I think it’s a good way to shed the light on stories of origins… I answer.

-Clever, he acknowledges. And by the way, let’s go back to your origins on earth in this lifetime and let’s shed light on other things you liked…

-Well I do know that I loved playing with puppets, Barbie and clay, watching beautiful musicals, playing instruments, writing poetry…

-What did you prefer in the Barbie game? asks Nico.

-Regarding the material aspect, I loved the RV, and the horse… He’s the only being from my Barbie world that survived this transition and accompanied me here. The RV felt great because I imagined beautiful travels in gorgeous sceneries…

-So what keeps you from moving this precise moment, asks Peridot? To me, right now, you look like one of those abandoned rusty vans at the edge of the road…

-You always know how to please someone, I taunt.

-I’m just a mirror that reflects all, and when I say all, there are some things you won’t like to see. I don’t choose to do it, the reflection chooses me…

-Yeah, right, hmmm, we’ll go deeper into that choice thing one day if you don’t mind, well even if you mind, haha! Although I repeat that I don’t want any harm inflicted on you by your boss, and I guess he’s the one who eventually chooses, buuut... Anyway, to answer your question, right now, right now, I’m righting, or should I say writing, this story, without witch or which you would not have a voice here, so… Be grateful for the rusty van, querido.

-I hate you, I hate you, in case you did not hear, I hate you… says Peridot.

-Thank you, I love you, love you, love you too… And I know that, eventually, apart from some obscure motives that you don’t want to share with us, all that you say now serves my future well-being, and contributes to my present growth, even though, paradoxically, you make me walk back to the past.

-Speaking of walking, why don’t we move? asks Nico. I need to walk way more than that, I want to stretch my legs because I hate sitting when on a journey.

The three of us agree and we start walking.  As we leave the area of Lady Liberty, we find wooden spoons half-buried in the sand.

-What is that? asks Peridot.

-Oh, these are the kind of things that I would do for my Halloween party. I always had many different friends over, and I wanted to break the ice between the people who did not know each other, so I invented little devices as a fun way to teach my guests some traits of the personality of one another. That one year I had made spoon characters for everyone and I had improvised a little presentation for each. My guests had to guess who was who…

-Oh that’s so cool! Exclaims Nico, and what is that piece of parchment on the ground?

-Oh that was for another year, when my guests already knew each other, so I had done a little poem about their characteristics, for them to take back home after the celebration. This specific parchment was a self-present.

-I love the gal on the left, says Peridot.

-I knew you would, I answer.

-And so what about the photographs, he asks?

-Well, those were attempts at seeing if my great-grand-mother Marie-Catherine was me…

-Mirror, mirror in the sand, tell me who am I again… sighs Nico.

-Well yes, sometimes I feel like I am the whole desert, I say, and other times just like a grain of sand.

Peridot tells me to concentrate on what I feel up to now in this journey, so I close my eyes and see a statue that I would like to describe as the female counterpart of the bronze escapee in the desert background when Nico was coming to me here in Underland. It is as if my outer structure totally collapsed to let the light in. I also see my black and white self, busy grinding corn between la mano and el metate.

As I open my eyes, a flash comes to my mind: “Justice Keeper… of something”

-Pardon me? asks Peridot.

-I don’t know, I think I’m remembering a secondary name of mine in a remote dream.

-I think I’ve dreamt that too, says Nico. It had to do with Blue People being guided by the "Love Child of the Lantern of Truth".

-What a weird name! exclaims Peridot. The truth, the truth, you’re all obsessed with truth!

-Maybe you don’t like it because pulling the truth out of you is like pulling a tooth, Peridot!

-Not worse than pulling one ‘I love you’ from you, answers Nico.

I am hurt by that truth that came out of Nico’s mouth and I look for a lousy excuse.

-Well I told you that it’s because the key to my trunk had been stolen and…

-Oh shut up now, says Peridot, we are working on building the new key right now. But if you don’t collaborate it’s gonna be kind of tough. So you, who complain you’re the only one to talk sometimes, please do talk, we are all ears.

-…

-That’s all you have to say? Teachers are supposed to be good at speaking in public.

-I’m not a teacher, I exclaim! I’m no longer a teacher, I’m… I’m… I’m a lost student sometimes.

Peridot looks at me with a huge contempt intermingled with pity and snaps his finger again.

-And you thought YOU were the one being patient… What was there by that clock on a wall of your house in Spain?

-The calaca I had made for myself for Halloween.

-And how was it?

-It wore a brown poncho with the Zia sign on it, had long hair and a feather in her hair…

-And where are you now?

-Yeah, got it, Peridot, I’m no longer THAT lost since I’ve made it here to this land… but…

-But what? Look at the room where you dreamed all this back in the day.

-Yes, I had retrieved my doll from the Garden of the Architect and as a pure gypsy she lent me her windy feet to fly above the ocean… And she can be whoever she wants to be as long as she remembers who she is, deep in her soul. So she can be Esmeralda, an Egyptian Goddess or a dancer from Lahore whose name has borrowed its being from a pomegranate blossom…

-That’s better, says Peridot. And remember what Anarkali, the slave dancer from Lahore, once told you, as she escaped from a Lakshmi fabric in that room. After another story you had written, she had given you precious information: that one is never given anything that they don’t already have deep inside.

-It’s true, Peridot, I say. Sometimes you seem to have more memory about my own life than myself. It’s pure magic! Speaking of which, I am really intrigued by those green hues on the Egyptian doll’s headdress. They are the same color as those we see here on the desert horizon.

-Yes, let’s walk in that direction, says Nico.

-Wait, I’m stuck, I say. I can’t move. I think one of your threads is holding me back, Peridot…

-Of course, it’s gonna be my fault again, he exclaims. Well my threads are all here in my hand, I can’t see a thing attached to you, he says.

-Minotauro… I whisper.

-What’s the matter with the Minotaur? he asks.

-It’s the name of a bar near a place in Spain where people usually gather by a fountain.

-So it’s a pleasant memory, says Nico. Why can’t you move on?

-That one is not a pleasant memory, I say pretty coldly.

-Why is that?

-Because of your thread, I’ve just told you. I have the feeling that it’s where I got stuck and where someone tried to steal my life starting using my lines, and literally my thread… You know that quote of the red string of fate, don’t you? No matter how tangled it gets, the cord that ties us will never break? Why did they use it in my name?

-Maybe because it takes you forever to follow the thread, and your story threads somehow sounded like that of the ugly duckling. Plus, where’s the problem, says Peridot, if you know the cord never breaks…

-Well the problem is that when there are many knots, they end up choking us, I say in anger.

-Tying the knot is not bad, he says laughing… There are many reasons to mimic entanglements sometimes, a little bit like this math trick, “a negative times a negative is a positive”, he says as he assembles little faces on the ground with pebbles he found.

-Yeah, I mumble. And like images on a negative are black where they should be white and vice versa.

-You got it, he smiles… OK, since you are still learning something, against all odds, I am going to tell you a little story about one of my favorite activities: jokes and knots that drive me (and you) nuts. I heard it from a wise man in Lakota country. He told me that jokes take your thoughts, tie them in a knot and then, at the punch line, the joker takes the two ends, pulls them, and the knot is untied. Many times you’ll realize that you have not only been part of the joke all along just by listening to it from beginning to end, but that your defeating thoughts were the creator of what you call the bad joke in the first place. And the purpose of the joke is also to have you expecting the best but also preparing for the worse, which only lasts for some time.

-I see…

-Perfect then. And since we want to see too, why don’t you train at producing your own mental images? You have no idea how draining it is to do all the work for you here!

-Menos guasa, quieres, menos guasa… You don’t want to block me further…

-Maybe start with focusing on the image of the surroundings of that Minotaur thing, it’s interesting…

-Thanks for your help, Peridot, let’s see…

-Wow, yes, Hallelujah! I see! I am right to believe and have faith in capacities you think you don’t have, because voilà! You got your first mental projection without me retrieving it for you…

-What do those images mean, Lacy Shrine? asks Nico.

-Oh! Well… I think I have projected a yin and yan, masculine / feminine illustration here. Because the day picture of the Alhambra shows what used to be called ‘Borj al Shams’ in Arabic, the tower of the Sun, which was turned into ‘Torre de la Vela’, watchtower, by the Castilians. Control, control… It is the military, masculine side of the palace. Then the picture at night shows another tower: ‘Borj al Qamar’, the tower of the moon, something the Castilians misunderstood again and they changed its name into ‘Torre de Comares’, which does not mean anything… That is where the sultan would receive ambassadors and represented divine power on earth, it is close to the courtyard of the lions, the private section of the Alhambra, where the royal family lived and received their guests, organized parties and encouraged the development of science and arts. I remember reading somewhere that Qamar or Comares with its rectangular pool actually represented the Egyptian Ankh, from above. The whole building is like a huge talisman.

-And what are the images below? asks Peridot.

-I think they represent the masculine and feminine again, sun and moon, and those are pictures of the spires of the Cathedral of Chartres, in France…

-Spikes? teases Peridot.

-No, I know spikes inspire you but I said ‘spiRes’, although we call them arrows in French, I answer with a smile.

-Why Chartres? asks Nico, and I still don’t see any relationship with that Minotauro.

-Don’t you? Well it’s obvious! I exclaim. Now I got it! That Cathedral is where the labyrinth is. Minotaur was the hybrid, monstrous “toy” of Minos who placed it at the center of his labyrinth and required that seven random Athenian youths and maidens be sent every seventh year to be devoured by the Minotaur. Theseus volunteered to slay the monster. His beloved was Ariadne, the very daughter of Minos, so she helped him navigate the labyrinth with a ball of thread, allowing him to retrace his path. Theseus killed the Minotaur. The Minotaur is our dark side that prevents us from reaching the center as we walk in the labyrinth’s circles. I went to Crete when I was a teenager, I learned about the Minoan civilization, and I also walked the labyrinth’s reproduction here in New Mexico. It is true that as you walk, getting closer and then further from your center, you observe life in a spiritual way, to understand how you can grow out of a given circumstance. It is like a flat ladder, actually, to help you ascend from within…

-Yeah, but there are many hurdles in there, all those chairs that cover the labyrinth…

-Yes, I say, maybe they represent inaction or blocks. Maybe because something froze me like the little mouse in the mirror on which Señor Serpiente nearly broke his fangs on… Wow, I sound as if I were my own shrink inviting me to lie on a couch…

-Yeah, maybe it would be beneficial to shrink your head sometimes, hahahahahha. Ok, back to serious, says Peridot: chairs won’t prevent you from reaching your potential, or will they?

-I guess not. I am going to try to project myself in the heart of the labyrinth…

Well, I don’t know where I am. It’s a church image though, but not the labyrinth yet, I say slightly disappointed.

Peridot is curious:

-What are those purple bats?

-Those are not bats, they are Isis wings, says Nico. The shell looks as if it was the big head of the belly dancer who wears them… Also, the dancer seems to protect the little frog that swims in the holy water of the shell stoup.

-I have the exact same wings, I say. Haha! This is funny, the cute frog makes me think of a cascade of expressions: “grenouille de bénitier”, literally stoup frog, is what we call too fervent church-goers in French; whereas “concha”, meaning seashell, is a Spanish vulgar word for vagina. Miss Prude and Miss Slutty enter a church…

-It’s brilliant, says Peridot, it makes us ponder about name-calling and tags we so easily put on people. Fervent churchgoers are ‘church mice’ in my dictionary.

-Oh, mice again, says Nico.

-A very sage comment, Peridot, I say. Although sometimes it feels good to liberate anger though, and it is true that one tends to use derogatory terms when doing it.

 As I say that, a new image is visible for all to see.

-Oh, my! I laugh, this is hilarious! Well, if ‘bitch’ is a spelling mistake by a little child who thought of a nice day spent at the beach, it makes it less mean, right? Plus if she says that she loves the bitch, well, it’s a very peace-and-love-ish kind of thing in the end! Oh I love puns. ‘Cheeses’ for Jesus is not bad at all… And the frog thing is very profound. All those French words are pronounced in the same way, but their evolution in spelling makes them be like: croak, believe, grow, cross.

-CROAK, BELIEVE, GROW, CROSS… the invisible barrier that keeps you from the center, lady! Says Peridot.

A loud cracking sound is heard in the sky and I finally seem to project my labyrinth, but it’s very crowded and the center is still blocked.

Peridot keeps on playing with stones on the ground and he suggests that I should throw stones at them dancers who are blocking the center where edelweiss flowers are waiting for me. During a fraction of second I see the edelweiss as the three desert roses with which we started this whole process.

-No, I can’t, I say. Why should I hurt anybody?

-And what about your hurt? He asks. You should leave no wound unturned, and certainly not dwell in them either. But in order to leave them behind, you have to address them.

-“I don’t dwell in them, I expel them so that THEY don’t dwell, nor swell, para que no dwell…âne! Para que no duelan in my duel au soleil”, I say without really being sure that it’s me talking.

-Very dwell, oops, well! laughs Peridot. You are starting to create your own magic spell!

As he talks, he throws a stone at a pigeon passing by and he goes on:

-Magic spell, yes you can, expel the pain, Yes you can, Yes you can, through ”kan ya ma kan”! That’s the Arabic “once upon a time”, as you know well (I actually stole this from a tale you wrote about a Sheherezade from your old dwell…ing place, and I’ve learned thanks to you that it literally means “there was, there was not”). This world is a dream, what you see is a mirage, a metaphor, what you see you shouldn’t believe, what you feel is what is real… Yes you can. Have you noticed the similarity of color between Santa’s attire and those dancers’ dresses?

-Yes, genius, I have, and yes, teacher, I can. I know, Peridot, that you were instrumental in sending those clone doll dancers in my waking -bad- dreams.

-Well because you dreamed them in the first place!

-Not sure who dreamed what though here… I know it’s your way to perform a ceremony, so I accept it and show up on the edge of the labyrinth to exorcise all the bad feelings because I no longer want them spinning on this  half-cut brain!

I take a deep breath and start my ceremony. I throw a stone at the first dancer who clearly is a hologram and therefore does not even need to stumble on its fake axis since the stone just passes through.

-I may not know all the natural secrets of this old new earth but I sure can learn, and I don’t like the NRA, so give me a break and go back riding a sea horse or swamp mobile like Medusa! And this time if you fall from the horse, I won’t have to suffer the consequences… because I know that someone is indeed waiting for me!

And you, dancer number two who was born from under the horse’s hoof, I really have nothing against you. It’s more the concept of what I call the ‘frou-frou’ life, but I know how to look inside the heart and beyond the interwoven fabric of family threads, so please just help me get my red thread back, to no longer be distracted and rather keep enjoying what I can learn from your weaving skills, although the master weaver is Peridot, which is what made me mad in the first place.

As I say this, I grab a red thread from the dancer’s dress and start pulling and pulling, engaging a spinning motion to all the dancers who stumble in their long red dresses, until I reach the third one.

-Excuse me, “hermana”, but I still have some issues with you, precisely for stealing all my lines and memories in my face and hearing you telling me that you would not be robbed of your memories. Well, you know, all your memories are older than you think, and most are mine. In a sense you really showed me where angels feared to tread, but since I’ve survived three practical lessons of the course “when your fears are your disappointments”, I can tell you now that my angel wings are armored and bullet-proof, well, at least I will choose which kind of bullet I want to pierce my angel’s wings and ears with, do you hear me? Because if witch I am, I am of the kind kind. So thank you for the love you gave, though. And, yes, I remember that you gave it to me too, just like I was the first of us two who gave it to you too, against all odds. What hurt me most maybe is that you gathered tears that I wanted to dry myself. I praise you for reciting your lessons like the good little sheep in Saint Nick’s song, and for being a good spiritual soldier, but I think I do know Santa slightly better than you do, and let us not speak of Peridot, and they know I won’t obey any instruction that goes against what I consider fair. Maybe that’s why they used you through Peridot’s so-called jokes. They found you on a fisherman’s net and thought it would be perfect to tell me the things they wanted to tell me. As Peridot already said, it felt as it was taken from my Sheherazade story, the one I had called “la perla devuelta”. So yup, the pearl is mine and I took it back in the shape of the acknowledgement of my light. Oh I know those guys can be very convincing, but you see, we all have free will. I know oh so well why your mouth said all the things that you told me, some might even be kind of true, but all gestures and words were these guys’ mind talking to me. So after being moved by your sadness as you saw them go, you really got on my nerves when you started whining and calling every three seconds on Peridot’s cell phone (actually he had stolen that one from me too) and crying crocodile tears that inundated my dream. But, yes, I thank you for being the instrument for my soul to re-understand the connectedness of all things. It is just that when a metaphor like you, beautiful doll, gets too real, I won’t dwell in its part of the mirror. It’s all about a game of light power and its reflection. And I know my inner light now because it shines really bright.

-Very well, Lady Lacy, very well, smiles Peridot. I see that even though you miserably stumbled three times in your own wings, you’ve learned your lessons and are now, maybe, ready to learn more about where white men fear to tread…

-Oh you are a learned being, Peridot. You know your classics… But you know, I never want to be “mean” and I’d rather be a light warrior, not in the meaning of weakness or lack of weight, but in the sense of a warrior of the light… And I know, thanks to you, that there’s also a price for healing gifts, but I wish to learn more from this sacred gift of yours.

-Beautiful, lady, beautiful… Do you know the story of the pot of gold at the bottom of a rainbow? I think you are not too far now from walking the rainbow. 

(To be continued: here)