Magic Mirror in the hay, thanks for showing me the way #2

The World is an Orange (Federico García Lorca)

-Are you sure that you are not afraid to find scary things as in Stephen King’s stories as we go on our search among the stalks? asks the voice.

-Are you kidding me? I answer. Why would I? I left my fears being sung out by Jeanne Mas in her song that still resonates in the red stopover of the maze.

-We did not talk much about the lyrics, did we? I feel like knowing more.

-Well, the first lines state “si on m’avait conseillée, j’aurais commis moins d’erreurs, j’aurais su me pardonner toutes les fois que j’ai eu peur”. Basically, it means that she would have made fewer mistakes if she had had people advising her, and also that she would have known how to forgive herself every time she was scared. However, I also think that “what ifs” are not too productive. We learn from our mistakes, and we learn that we are faster and faster and better and better at saying “ok, been there done that, and I’ve been learning how to forgive myself now”. So I think it was just a catchy song, that’s why I liked it by then…

-Haha! Yeah, yeah… Catchy touchy… You know, as well as I do, that nothing happens “for nothing”, says the voice. But I also agree about “having been there and done that”, and I feel the immense pleasure of forgiving oneself too, so it’s the perfect timing for our next color step in the maze.

-Why? Do you already know where our steps are going to take us? I ask.

The voice stays silent, but keeps walking by my side. I smile as I walk thinking that this last sentence is weird, actually, because anybody who watches the scene can only see me walking in the maze. Oops, it also means that they can see me “talking to what appears to be just myself”. Oh well, just as fine. I don’t care. This paseo en el laberinto is too important for me to go on feeling shy, ashamed or guilty of non-standard behavior! Interesting, the two first words contain the sound [ʃ] as in “hushshsh”, as if a snake was choking me when I felt those emotions… The phonetic sign that represents the sound actually looks like a snake… I prefer the same sound in the French word “chat”, cat, although I must recognize that snakes are appealing to me too. Maybe it’s why I had dressed up like a snake for that Carnival we once celebrated at my house. As I think of that moment I roll my tinsel around my throat, remembering that the three adorable pumpkins gave it to me, and also thinking that, in French, tinsel is guirlande. It shares some letters with the third feeling I needed to get rid of: guilt. Maybe wearing this tinsel given by my three cutie-pie-pumpkins is a symbolic way to choke “guilt” that strangles my tonsils? I like that… And I think the pumpkins are ok with this interpretation too, because I have a feeling that I hear them giggling outside the maze. Also, I am remembering the first time I learned that word in English… I discovered its meaning while longing to help decorating a Christmas tree that was set far, far away from where I was… I had tried to call the tinsel setter but the phone went dead before anybody would answer, although claiming to love hearing my voice… It was weird.

-You’re pretty silent, complains the voice. What are you thinking about?

-Oh sorry, voice, I was so deep into my thoughts that I kept silent. Plus I believed that you always heard my thoughts, but apparently I was wrong. Well, I was thinking of how much I love the pumpkins who greeted me when I was about to enter the maze, and before that I was remembering a snake disguise once for Carnival. We celebrate it a bit like what you do here for Halloween.

-Oh, I thought I had heard something about a tinsel but maybe it was my imagination… Heehee, chuckles the voice, anyway, you’ve just mentioned something I adoooore! Halloween, so I think that we are definitely ready for our next color. Hey! What about some scary stories as we walk? I want to go back to Stephen King’s universe to test you a bit.

-You… wanting to test me… Really? How “you-ey” of you, haha!

-Why are you saying this?

-Oh come on, voice, I’m smart, you know… You really sound like a shrink when you ask me all those questions.

-A shrimp??

-Haha, yeah, a shrimp too… ¡Viva la madre que te parió!

-Long life to the mother who gave birth to me, right?

-Yes, it’s what I’ve said. Heehee, I am also remembering a joke in Spanish. This tourist on an Andalusian beach has spent his first day under the sun and his skin color now looks like something between a tomato and a shrimp. Nevertheless, even if he does not really look local, he sure wants to sound local, so when he comes back from swimming and sees a gorgeous lady sunbathing he exclaims “¡Viva la madre que te parió!”. The lady opens her eyes, looks at his burned skin and says “pues a ti te parió una gamba” (well I guess your mom was a shrimp…). I guess that joke stayed in my mind because of what once were my own issues about my skin color, maybe… and shrimps look pretty much like a fetus in their mom’s womb, so I’m realizing that even the slightest details that stick in our mind are there to whisper long felt memories to our attentive ear… maybe.

-Yes, and I’m honored to accompany you and help you unraveling them in the maze.

-Thank you… I am grateful even though sometimes, just sometimes, feeling your tests and observation of my brain connections makes things a bit artificial between the two of us, but rest assured that I’m extremely grateful for it and I know the purpose.

-Purrr! I’ll pause then, heehee. Grateful that you’re grateful! Plus, maybe what annoys us the most is what we are being given as a reflection of what we do?

-Hmm, hmmm, well, touché… Haha. I guess it’s why I would have never gone to a psychologist… willingly. Although I must admit that I do love psychology! And somehow it takes me to this saying in Spanish: “en casa del herrero, cuchara de palo”. “In the home of the blacksmith, all the spoons are made of wood” is the literal meaning.

-Oh, I see, we would say, maybe, “the shoemaker’s son always goes barefoot”.

-Ha! Well yes, it’s perfect, I say. And who says son also says daughter, wife, mother, father, husband, etc. right?

-Right, acknowledges the voice. Maybe it is why you have that thing with shrimps, or fetus, maybe your memory has too much memory and it makes things a bit fuzzy when you try to remember if you are daughter, mother, wife or all of the above…

-Yes, maybe. Wow, it’s deep. And yes, I do believe in our numerous earth walks: the same soul in different bathing suits in the river of eternity. Well, it’s more than just believing, I feel and know it. Your image of a son or a daughter going barefoot reminds me of a phrase that had come to me and that I had written out of letters of different sizes and fonts, like those anonymous blackmailing letters one sees in mystery movies. I think that my blackmail-font postman was Spirit when I had taken letters out of a magazine to write “le vent aime les petites amours déchaussées”.

-What does the sentence mean though? asks the voice, who sometimes really needs the translation, and some other times likes to make me think a translation is needed.

-“Wind adores little barefoot loves”. Maybe “barefoot loves” was a metaphor for what society calls “illicit loves”? For a long time I had left it on a wall in my office at the School for Translators and Interpreters in Granada, where I had been working until I basically felt that it was time to leave, because of an atmosphere that was less and less bearable and breathable, so I had taken my blackmail love poem back home, and I used it to accompany that painting of a camel caravan. One day I had decided to post a picture of it online, when I partook in a cool initiative called “Movimiento de las Letras Voladoras”, Movement of flying letters. You were supposed to share positive words written on post-its or similar in different places of your hometown or house, in order to boost the Hispanic world with positive thoughts and beauty. If I remember correctly, it was at the end of October.

-Just before Halloween…

-Yes, dear voice… Aaaah, Halloween, the way I celebrated it had become my Spanish friends’ favorite celebration. It took them some time before they got accustomed to this celebration of death, which was still a big taboo for some of them, but little by little they came to appreciate my traditional party, in which I mixed Aztec and Celtic ways.

-You see that Cerridwenn has always been part of you… says the voice.

-Maybe it’s true, yes. Actually I did use her Cauldron of Transformation, a home-made cauldron, and I called upon her in the ritual of the fire purification.

-I see, mixing both colors, it’s good…

-What colors?

-Yellow like fire and orange like Halloween, good chakra colors, basic ones after the red… explains the voice

-Oh yes, the chakras, the chats-kra, chats cracras, heehee… Cracra is a diminutive of “crado”, French slang for dirty. But why do we automatically relate the dirt and soil to something unclean. How crazy is that… Oh, look! I exclaim, speaking of the earth and her products! We have just reached the second color in the maze, and it’s orange, like an orange, depicted on the sign! “La tarde canta una berceuse a las naranjas. Mi hermanita canta: ‘La tierra es una naranja’. La luna llorando dice: ‘Yo quiero ser una naranja’. No puede ser, hija mía, aunque te pongas rosada. Ni siquiera limoncito. ¡Qué lástima!”

-What are you saying? asks the voice.

-It’s a poem by Federico García Lorca to her baby sister. You know, Granada chose his name for the city airport…

-A town that chooses a poet to name its airport must be a good town.

-Well, I’ve heard what you are saying already, in a slightly different version though. The exact sentence was: “a town that names its airport after a poet must not be entirely bad” (I guess I must have been criticizing some aspect of Granada when I was told that). I agree with that great thought, of course, but then again the town previously killed the poet for his political views and for being homosexual, before its inhabitants started worshipping his name and fame… Life and its contradictions. You know, it reminds me of this horrible saying: “la maté porque era mía”, I killed her because she was mine, a mentality attributed many times to men who kill their wives. Pretty commonplace in Spain still…

After some time spent pondering about women’s death, I add that if women know how to rise from ill-treatment, they will learn to be even stronger and how to help others.

-You know, it’s good that you’re mentioning this, facing our next color. Orange stands for healing. And the second chakra, the orange chakra, also deals with our sexual organs, pleasure, and creativity.

-Oui, ce n’est pas un hasard. I add.

-Where is the danger?

-I’m not talking about danger or hazard, “ce n’est pas un hasard” comes to say that “nothing happens by chance”. And you know what? Right now I’m remembering the name of the street of the first school for translators and interpreters that I stayed at, but to study though. It was in Brussels: rue Joseph Hazard… With a Z… I even remember the number: 34.

-Seven…

-Seven, yes, 3+4.

-Seven is the age when our second chakra starts resonating, you know, everything usually goes in cycles, and seven represents cycles, apart from being the total number of our main chakras, by the way.

-Wow! I exclaim. It is definitely no coincidence. It’s funny that I am remembering those two schools for interpreters, since I was still studying in Brussels when I was sent as an exchange student to the second school for interpreters, where I ended up teaching years later. And since there’s no such thing, the sound of hasard takes me back again to my second country, since it rhymes with azahar, Spanish for orange blossom. Have you smelled its fragrances in the spring? It is a blessing for the senses… Just like jasmine, which also blesses warm Andalusian summer nights with its scent…

-I can imagine… says the voice half lost in some reverie. Hey! Why don’t we use this punching machine here to see what the stamp represents?

-Sure thing, I say as I take my parchment and activate the tool that will leave an imprint in the orange circle that’s drawn on it. A carrot is the result.

-What does this carrot make you think of?

-Well, “car rots”, the car is rotting, like the pumpkin…

-Huh? says the voice in that unmistakable tone which I always struggle to define, regarding what it implies. It is as if the voice wanted to infer my mumbling state of mind and confer my sanity or capacity for articulate expression… Infer, Confer, Conifer, haha. Anyway… Back to my answer to the voice.

-Well, I am remembering something that I had never experienced before, only here: a pumpkin rotting so fast. I had kept one home for a few days, planning to carve it for Halloween. I had put it on top of the fridge, and wow… It started to disintegrate. I think it was because of the fridge engine that brought too much heat, a contradictory move vis-à-vis the coolness supposed to come from the fridge. Plus the outside temperatures are still way too warm for the season.

-A rotten pumpkin would be a tragedy for Cinderella… whispers the voice.

-Oh, you’re brilliant! You got it! That’s the secret meaning of the orange marriage between carrots and pumpkins! The pumpkin was Cinderella’s cart, and she could not have come back home if it had rotten… Well, but who wanted her to go back to that horrible place anyway? There, with her step-moth… oh wow!

-What?

-Nada, something about the place I live now, but let me go on with this first insight otherwise I will lose the thread.

-Oh but the red thread is well attached to that cat pen’s neck, and I have no intention of letting it go loose either, says the voice. It took me too long to muster the courage to openly hold on to it… Fearless is now my nick!

-As in Saint Nick?

-Yes also, but I meant my nickname. However go back to Cinder so that you won’t lose the thread, I’ll take care of the glass shoe, heehee…

-Cinder…

-Cinder, sí, another nickname. Cinder, ella… conoces a esa chica…

-Ah, her! Oh… Cinder, little ashes… CiNder with an N in the middle of her nickname. And if you take it away you got cider, like the one produced in Normandy, where…

-…where VIP the pony took you through the maize maze, yes, so don’t lose the thread and go on with this rotting thing, if you don’t want it to start stinking…

-OK, let me start thinking…

-As if you ever stopped, haha! So, we’re all ears, maiden of the rotting pumpkin…

-Oh, that does not sound too good! Well the fact is that the neighbors carved two pumpkins and displayed them outside on their porch. The first one was a man with a very long, Pinocchio-like nose, and the second one was a cat, but it’s true that they let them rot too, haha, the cat face was getting all crumpled and frowned before collapsing.

Maybe it was a warning, because I have the distinct feeling that Gray is vanishing or has already vanished, turning to cinders or ashes…

-Who’s Gray?

-Good question, who knows for sure, heehee. In this case, speaking of where I live, it’s this shy alley cat who would never ever let me touch him but would come every day to greet me from afar and ask for his daily portion of dry food. In the end he was getting less scared, and once I even managed to have him eating by my side. It was a sweet victory, after more than one year of feeding him every day but having to go inside if he was to accept getting closer. You know, we have many coyotes here, I live near el bosque. So maybe he became coyote food.

-And coyotes have an orange fur, says the voice who opens the way towards an interesting avenue…

-You know, I had never seen coyotes “for real” before coming to this country. I would say that in my familiar European fauna, the closest to coyotes were foxes. And God knows foxes are important for me.

-And they’re orange too… adds the voice.

-And they’re tricksters too, they are seen as the one holding a mirror at humans to reflect upon their erring behavior.

-Yes, but the mirror also shows you your twin trapped in the reflecting surface, doesn’t it?

-Yes, and I prefer that interpretation, dear voice, although I acknowledge the trickster side. It’s been a while now that this song out of a series from my childhood kept popping in my mind.

I take the recorder out of my bag again and play the melody of “Le Renard à l’anneau d’or”.

-It was so sad and beautiful, I say when I stop playing. I remember nothing of the plot between humans, but I know that the opening credits showed a fox trapped in a snare, and how he was freed and taken care of by a young lady. I don’t remember either what the gold ring meant in the TV show, but I do remember that when I imagined or maybe remembered a story in which my great-grandmother went to see the Wild West Show, I used this gold ring in the plot, I say as I show the ring on my left middle finger. It was her wedding ring, which I have kept and never failed to wear ever since my mom gave it to me. In my story, Marie-Catherine would ponder about a feather that had fallen on her lap, from one of the riders of the show, and as she recalled their encounter she lost her ring amidst rosemary, there, at Reinhardstein, the stone of the fox…

-Yes, I remember…

-What, the story? Did you read it?

-Let’s just say that I remember… But hey, we’re getting nostalgic or too emotional here! So, what are your most important memories of past Halloween nights?

-A ver, I answer in Spanish. Los recuerdos más importantes de mis noches Halinaoweenanaianas…

-What the heck are you mumbling?

-Ouch, yeah, I did not get that right. It seems that my pony has tripped and then dumped me on the side during the ride. Sometimes it’s important to fall from one’s horse to shake one’s head, do a reality check, and then be back on the saddle again. Ok, so let me try again: noches Halloweenianas. Now that’s better, I am no longer mumbling, because I know the purpose of Halloween and disguises.

-Oh you do? Good. Do leave the mumbling to Rapunzel in Tangle, then…

-Tang? Oh! It was the brand of that fake orange juice, back in the seventies. I don’t know if you had that product here too.

-It’s not a product, it’s an adjective. It is a strong taste, like medicine, with some aftertaste, a bit like when you eat a lemon I guess.

-Oh, funny, since it was a brand for fake lemon and orange juices. It was actually a powder that you poured in your glass and added water to it, and voilà! The drinker was made into believing that they actually drank real orange juice. Or so the ad would claim. Many times the person who believed was made fun of, and all the different ads always insisted on that wrong conception.

-Yes, some people are too gullible and they need to taste that medicine more than once to learn… However it also gives them a taste of the real thing for when they’re ready for it.

-Yes, that’s my conclusion too. So when you’re more than a voice we might share a REAL orange juice sometimes.

-Oh I’m not sure, I have never liked oranges actually…

-Maybe because you did not linger in their presence long enough, or because you felt like all would inevitably be reduced to little ashes, like that Tang powder. But the miracle of the (fake) juice did happen when water was poured on it, and like I said, there are few fragrances as sweet as orange blossom, azahar… Maybe the secret for you to accept being around an orange juice would be to see the tree grow thanks to you hands and daily care of the seed.

 -That sounds way better than the powder one, yes. The way you describe it really sounds like those vitamins so many Americans take as a supplement of real food, thinking it’s good for you.

-Yes, I never understood that, I like real. No Tang. So what was the word I misunderstood for the fake juice brand? Did it have something to do with ‘entangle’?

-Tangle, I was. You know, that Disney movie, an adaptation from another fairy tale of another lost princess, whose hair had magical, healing properties, and therefore was “raised” and imprisoned by an evil witch who kept telling her that the world was a very nasty place and did not let her talk because she said she was mumbling…

-Aaaah! Oh but I’m sure that a good session of mutual hair combing will do the trick to ease any residue of tricky tangle that might have been left in her magical hair. You make me feel like watching the movie, though. I’ve learned so much through movies, and through reality shows too sometimes, but it has been a while that the genre is tanking for me… Haha! From Tang to Tank… And from Tank to Think Tank, and then Think and Thank, I say in a smile.

-You know, if I ever have to drink this orange juice, says the voice, I think that carrots would be a good additive. We were talking about them earlier, right?

-You’re right, let’s keep focused on good food. Although you know, this “car rots” thing, and also the evocation of movies and reality shows, shows how hard it is sometimes for me to distinguish between two celebrations based partly on real, partly on fake, or at least so they say: Halloween and Saint Nicholas. So I guess I need to talk about that Belgian celebration too. When Saint Nick would come to leave us presents on the night of December 5^th, so that we could discover them on the morning of the 6^th, we had to leave some carrots for his burro or horse (according to where the story was told, either in Wallonia or Flanders).

-I like burros, says the voice in a smile.

-Ha! I laugh. I picture you very easily riding a burro while holding a fishing rod where you tied a carrot, to have the animal walk and walk and walk in the hope of finally eating its well-deserved carrot. Aaaah, the concept of deserving… I’m pretty sure that we will mention it again very soon.

-Back to the carrot on a fishing rod, I would never do that, poor burro, says the voice in a totally unconvincing tone.

-Yeah, poor burro… In Belgium, families are very grateful, both for the saint’s pony (let’s call his vehicle that way, it fits our story and the need for consensus among the two main regions of my tiny country) AND for Saint Nick himself. So you have to leave some treat for the human too, maybe chocolate. I might have tried to tease Saint Nick a bit if he did that carrot trick with his pony… I would have stayed all night fixing chocolate for him, adding a little bit more water, a little bit more water, a little bit more water, hahaha. No more tang, but the sweetness of chocolate, pero, para mañana, quizás… Oops! Maybe that’s the orange trickster color that has faded on me a bit! Remember we were talking about mirrors…

-Yes, but you’re not as good as the número uno trickster, you trip a lot in the thread of the carrot fishing rod, and I’m sure that in the end what’s hanging from that rod is… a catfish, haha!

-Yes, right? Let’s stay with cats… You know, right now I’m remembering maybe one of my first presents for Saint Nicholas, and it had to do with fishing.

The psychic stump reflects the images that pop up in my mind.

-Oh! exclaims the voice. Look at you, what a cutie. You definitely look like the little boy of the Shining though, same clothing, red and blue… What are you doing there?

-Well, like I said: I’m fishing… So in the box there was a piece of blue cardboard with sea-themed pictures on it. You had to fold it in order to form a cube. It then became kind of a3D sea, although it felt more like a square fish bowl, haha! Anyway… So you poured the little plastic fish and sea creatures in the pond that was created. All of them had a hoop, so your task was to use the hook at the end of the rod in the hope of having the fish bite! If so, HOP! The fish was yours… Over-simplistic but fun.

-Yeah, I like it! I’m sure you ended up ‘hooked’ by the stories told from the bottom of the sea, hahaha!

- I don’t remember, maybe I did, and fished too many Dori-like fish, the ones with una memoria pez (a very short-lived memory). But I’m getting better at remembering, especially what matters to me. So now I remember that I thought of that fishing as a magic wand, like the one I keep home now and that’s made of red willow, from the thin twigs that remained from the building material of the first basket I have ever woven, there by the watermill wheel at the ranch of the swallows…

-Panier – Piano – Panier – Piano – Panier – Piano…

-Oh you were there with me already out of the maze? I ask. Or did you know that childhood game from earlier?

-I’m always there, guapa… Always have been and always will be. Hey, I love how you used your parchment here to turn it into the same kind of fishing pond!

-Yes… I started with the extremity that had my name on it, and then I tied it to the other extremity, the one with the drawing of the maze on it.

-What’s written in the inside though?

-Oh well, I don’t know. I don’t recall writing anything… Let me see: “I’m a writer”, and then again “I’m a writer”, but in mirror…

-Well of course, in mirror it had to be written. Look at this cute little solid you created. And it is a Heptahedron, well with an opening both on the earth and to the sky!

-Wow, here comes the artillery of scientific words. It means that it has seven faces, right?

-Yes, like the seven faces of those elders by whom you dream in the water. It feels good to see you bask in the water above your child-self who’s busy fishing. You look like one of those precogs in the movie “Minority Report”. But are you really a precog or a postcog, did you prophesize or did you remember?

-Maybe a bit of both, I answer. At least this is what the elders’ profiles suggest. I remember seeing them somewhere else, they were accompanied by the colors of the rainbow, and they each stood for a virtue: Honesty, Truth, Humility, Love, Wisdom, Courage and Respect.

-Seven again, says the voice.

-Yes, and I can assure you that one feels as good as when floating on a turquoise pool when honoring those virtues.

-I agree with you, says the voice.

As we both silently ponder on the deep meaning of the seven virtues, the magic stump of this place starts playing its particular vinyl crêpe (not creepy) movie again, and the book by Laura Esquivel whose tile I had hinted earlier appears on a shelf.

-Ha! I laugh. The stump knew what I meant when I mentioned the frustrating effect of water for chocolate.

-Huh? Yeah… It’s good to wait sometimes… Wow! Nice bear by its side, chuckles the voice who obviously won’t address what I’ve just mentioned.

-Yes, I smile. Nice object, right? I like the comet in the sky too, or is it a magic carpet?

-Maybe a magic blanket…

-You’re right, I like blankets better, and where they can take us… A similar drawing of a bear was a faithful companion for me a few years ago, when I stayed at a friend’s house in town, on Fontana… Oh, heehee… Fontana. I like that, it takes me back to more recent mind associations. I’ve always loved fountains. I remember that when I walked in that neighborhood this bear fetish always seemed to wink at me, so much so that I had ended up taking a picture of that house number painted on the curb.

-Nice number, say the voice. It takes us back to the Shining, and the infamous room 237, and the incredible pattern on the hotel floor. Orange, by the way...

-Oh my God! I exclaim. Mind-blowing! Thank God I now know how to use some of my utensils to protect my poor spinning head, haha… I might use one of the bowls I still have with me, this nice orange copper material, to keep focused. OK, back to serious… I felt like saying that just like for the Children of the Corn, I don’t agree with the demonization of what happens in that movie. Some extremely powerful representations are seen in that hotel, and they are being totally disrespected. Maybe this is why 237 appears. This number bears (oh, heehee, “bear”) a very sacred meaning to me. It takes me back to another time in New Mexico, when I spent part of the summer in a sea of sage where a stained-glass star whispered to my ear some secrets brought by a sacred being. It felt as if he was the commander in chief of number 237, and at the end of my story he made a feather pillow rain, while shaking it from atop a cloud… I had written all those ideas in a story. However I did not fully understand its symbols by then. Well, I am not saying that I fully understand them now either, but maybe, I feel, I’m getting closer.

-Did you know that the average distance from the Earth to the Moon is 237,000 miles? adds the voice, bringing an ever-existing balance between sacredness and science, a balance that at least exists in the voice’s world.

-Really? Wow… Another magical meaning. Maybe it’s why I had felt an urge to virtually draw some American outlets in the sky when I remembered the days of that story…

-What do you mean by American outlets?

-Well you know, like I said earlier, everything looks different here, and your outlets in this country look like bewildered faces to me. Not only me, several artists expressed that with funny drawings…

-Ah yes, indeed…

-And you know, the more I think of it and look at it, the more I understand why, back in Spain, I had covered my Pierrot’s broken head with a jar of so-called Egyptian dirt to build my own Estevanico or Chakwaina. It was one of those make-up items that I never used. I was tanned enough living in Spain, heehee! I saw this bewildered face again when my computer “randomly” chose to show me Spain’s Tajo de Ronda one morning. The huge bridge’s arches over the river looked like a big mouth and eyes, maybe those of Estevanico from the other side of the veil, when he goes back to Spain to watch over the second continent he treaded before sailing West…

-Who knows what else stands in the eyes of E.stevanico, yes… Maybe sometimes it’s revealed in our heart songs and ancestral memories. You know, I think you’re right because you saw this at 8:08, and eight stands for eternity when it is laid to rest on its side… Here’s mud in your eyes!

-Oh, I exclaim, the first time I had heard this weird expression for a toast was in that movie that I LOVE: Sleepless in Seattle…

-I know, says the voice “in a wink and a smile”. I know that because I hear it, even though I can’t see the voice…

-Mud is dirt with water added to it, continues the voice. So it is a symbol for healing too.

-Oh wow! I say as I feel the urge to take a book out of my bag, the one that waited for me in my mailbox just before coming to the maze. Check this out: Healing the Soul Wound. The cover shows a barren land, on which a gray image that evokes a bookmark depicts water and a medicine wheel made out of round stones, like river stones. Isn’t it uncanny? This without mentioning what I found on the first page that I opened when I took the book out of its package: a post-it that says I love you, on page 11…

-But who wrote that to you if you had just bought it?

-Spirit did, in the form of this post-it once written to someone else maybe, because it is a second-hand book and its owner must have forgotten the nice note before giving the book away. I thought it was a good thing to bring the book with me, together with that other book about Synchronicity. And actually, the dolphin pattern (or are they sharks?) on Deepak Choprah’s cover is nearly exactly what was on a rug that covered the North wall of my room, in what I call the sea of sage, once my summer residence…

-I like the fish pattern. And the way they swirl reminds me of the triskell of your Celtic past… Plus it’s water again… We’re in the realm of orange, and the element of the present chakra is water, I think it’s why it keeps coming on and on. Water eases the thirst of the earth, it heals the soil wound / soul wound… I guess it’s what the cover of the book where you found the “I love you” note symbolizes… What does that page 11 say?

-Well it talks about the different names used to describe Native Americans, and the conclusion is that, and I quote the author, Eduardo Durán:  “the purpose in using these different terms is to impress on Native People that, regardless of the colonial identity given in a name, there is a unifying thread of identity for Original People all over the world and these different names have been used as a divisive tool of oppression. Most Native People prefer to call themselves “Human Beings”, and the purpose here is to do away with the separation that has been imposed on Native Peoples”.

-“Do away with separation” sounds good, says the voice. I guess it’s why the thread comes back… I also appreciate the emphasis on “original” and humanity’s origin as a whole.

-I totally agree.

-I am glad… answers the voice, although sometimes there is still some sadness lurking in the tone I hear.

You mentioned Pierrot, the voice proceeds. Does the name mean little “pierre” aka rock?

-Oh yes, it’s true. You’re the one who rocks! I answer. Maybe now the little rock will always stand firm and strong in the land that has been irrigated. By the way, I still have those stones in my bag, the ones that I gathered at the entrance of the maze. I feel that they will be of some use sooner or later. And back to your question, Pierrot was a ‘sad clown’ doll that my parents had given to me. The doll had fallen from its basket cradle hanging on the ceiling, so I used it as a prop for my exhibit about New Mexico, back in Granada. It was aimed at decorating the east booth, the first part of the exhibition that showed the different layers of populations who had settled in New Mexico, in a four-booth structure that was a reminder of both the Zia sign and the medicine wheel, like the wheel on the cover of this book about healing soul wounds.

-Full Circle, says the voice. Speaking of which, where did we come from when we started our “slight” thought derailment again?

-Let’s see… Oh! I remember. I was talking about the symbols found on the other side of the house, you remember? The bear and the book Like Water for Chocolate.

-Oh yes! Hey, says an impressed voice, your memory and focus seem to be in way better shape than some time ago. I don’t totally get the house thin, though. Is it or isn’t it your house?

-No, well yes. I mean it’s not mine, it’s the other side of the…, ay, no me acuerdo, how do they call this again, “stepmother’s house”?

-Haha… meaning it’s just a step away? I guess the expression you’re looking for is “mother-in-law apartment”, as in the house that the husband or wife’s mother occupies.

-Ah yes! Well, I mean, the meaning is the same after all, it’s always like a second mom.

-Yes. But they also call it “granny room” or “granny annex”.

-Grammy an ex? Haha… Hey who’s the granny? Is it me? I mean I’m still young and don’t see myself as a grandma, but I do live in the hallway so...

-The hallway?

-That’s how I call the place where I live now. But the other side is what we would call the mothership if I lived in a spaceship, haha! I actually call it the hallway because it is pretty small, and because of its tubular shape.

-How did we get to the “mothership” though? We seem to have pretty interesting objects in there…

-Yes, I answer. It’s thanks to Mr. No. Or is it Dr. No, I never “no”, heehee…

-Lady, you’re really losing me here…

-Oh, Dr. No is my landlady’s cat. When I take care of him, I get to step outside the stepmother house, I mean the mother-in-law apartment, and inside the mothership.

The voice bursts out laughing before stopping on its laughing track to whisper: “listen!”

As we pay attention to our aural surroundings we hear five metallic notes, played faster and faster: do re sib re fa, do re sib re fa, do re sib re fa, do re sib re fa do re sib re fa do re sib re fa… And flashing colored lights blink on the stump each time a note is heard. At the foot of the stump there’s a “Simon”, a musical memory game.

-Oh my God! I gasp… It is that melody that was used to make contact with aliens in…

-Close Encounter of the Third Kind, yes… says the voice. Check out the image playing on the stump! There are weird things apart from the music machine!

-Oh I love it! I say, it’s purr-fect…

-Maybe we would want to forget a bit about this pun that’s no longer that funny, lady…

-Sorry, I’m not the one who chose the cat theme for this Halloween though, it clearly chose me! And I am a purring person, heehee. You know why this image is great? Because it embodies a code language, spoken in another way than words. It also shows how some concepts can be demonized in a ridiculous way.

-You’re talking about the Devil Tower, I guess.

-Yes, among other things. I was totally fascinated by this image myself when I watched the movie for the first time when I was a kid. I would have been one of those people who tried to represent he ‘tower’ in any manner they could, hearing the call of the mountain, and of the alien visitors.

-Me too, and I think it’s really a shame to call this place of origin the Devil’s Tower. For most tribes who consider this place sacred because of their stories of origins, the original name was (and is) the Bear’s Lodge.

-I saw a bear and a Native man busy stargazing from a hillslope, at the source of the Darro river once in Huétor Santillán, the last village where I lived in Spain. I wondered which constellations, and whom they were looking at with such intensity. I had seen many other visions too, and all symbolized something that called me to this place on earth…

-The Bear’s Lodge is one of the most important places for the Lakota people. It is where sun dances are held, and also where Buffalo Woman gave to her people the White Buffalo Calf pipe and all the instructions that came with it… It can be considered the birthplace of Lakota wisdom. Some warriors are told to have been transported atop the butte when on a vision quest, and landed back at the foot of the butte when the ceremony ended. So of course those who were too ignorant or scared deemed the tower evil, or the devil’s abode.

-This kind of unfortunate reactions happens all over the world, many times because of misunderstandings or lack of real intercultural interest. Those colored kitties on the pillow remind me of the hand sign displayed at heavy metal concerts and then adopted by many other music lovers. Many people think it represents the devil too, or the so-called beast, when it’s precisely a sign used to ward off evil, it’s called “corna” in Italy, the horns. You can blind the devil by poking your little finger together with the index into his eyes to become invisible to him. You can also wear a crystal in the shape of a horn as a charm… Well, they sometimes use the sign to mean that someone’s wife or husband has cheated on them. But well… I remember that it was on the cover of the Yellow Submarine: John Lennon’s comic character was the one who made the sign with his index and little finger.

-And you know where it was used too? asks a voice obviously very interested by this topic. I’ve read about it in Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Jonathan Harker notes that villagers in the Carpathian mountains make the sign of the cross AND the two-finger sign when they see him passing by. It is to protect themselves from the possible “evil eye” brought by a foreigner. Here in the States, if you open your thumb as you maintain this two-finger sign, it means “I love you”, and in Hawaii if you drop the index finger it still means I love you, or its indigenous version on the beautiful island, Aloha.

-I love you too, dear voice…

-Thank you…

-De nada…

-What about the other hands though? The colors are a reminder of the colored cat’s ears, that’s for sure…

-Yes, and it was one of the posters designed for the Olympic games held in Barcelona in 1992, the year I left Belgium for Spain and first lived in Vitoria. But I would travel a lot, and Barcelona was among my trip list. Here on those two pictures I am leaving the Basque city for a visit to my Catalan friend Marta. We had met in Denmark where we lived for two weeks in an Iron Age camp. By the way, speaking of elements, I am seeing that I still had that crystal pendant…

-Look at your legs on the picture on the right, says the voice. They are in mirror with the V of Victoria.

-Haha! True, another mirror, huh. The city name is Vitoria but I guess it means victory too. And that crystal, I remember it was totally turquoise when I got it, and it faded to grey when I wore it. Maybe I absorbed a lot of its energy…

-Where was that crystal from?

-Vernal, a trading post in Northern Ute territory, from the Uintah and Ouray reservation, I say.

-Have you been there?

-No, I visited Salt Lake, the city and the lake, and then other areas in the countryside. A Mormon friend from Utah had given the crystal to me, in Belgium.

-Oh, maybe he knew Wovoka’s folks… hints the voice.

-Who knows, right? And maybe the person who sold the crystal to my Mormon friend was family with Carlos Nakai, heehee… What I remember the most of Utah was the orange part of the state, actually… Arches National Park. Oh my God, it was amazing. I remember that I had chosen the soundtrack of Thelma and Louise to accompany the video I had shot there, haha!

-It implies again another vehicle and a road trip, huh…

-True, I recognize, also thinking of friendship between women. Why did the scriptwriter have to kill them in the end though? Anyway, what I remember from my visit to Arches was that I had not seen the vending machines on my way to the park, and I my only drinking “source” was the bottom of a soda I had bought at the beginning of the road trip, so I sipped from it from time to time. It was a bit painful to walk towards Delicate Arch seeing all those tourists, especially the Germans, very well prepared with what looked like a drinking backpack. They were not impressed nor moved by my imploring looks, haha! Maybe it was a good thing to experience though, in order to remember the delicate balance of this earth and the vital need por el agua…

-Yes, a very delicate balance. Did you see the petroglyphs when you were visiting?

-No, unfortunately.

-Ah… I was remembering deer-like figures and a horse rider, says the voice. I think I’ve seen such petroglyphs there in Arches.

-Maybe, I say. Don’t you think it smells like someone is burning something? Like burnt leather?

-I don’t know, you have a strong sense of smell, maybe better than mine. Or maybe it’s just a memory…

-Yeah, maybe, I say. And now I am remembering the victory sign on the Olympics poster, and the song Barcelona comes to my mind. Had you seen it performed by Montserrat Caballé and Freddie Mercury, for the inauguration of the Games?

-I don’t know. Maybe, says the voice. What were the lyrics like?

-It was a bilingual dream. It said “I had this perfect dream / Un sueño me envolvió / This dream was me and you / Tal vez está aquí / Un instinto me guiaba / A miracle sensation / My guide and inspiration / Now my dream is slowly coming true / The wind is a gentle breeze / él me habló de ti / The bells are ringing out / el canto vuela / They’re calling us together / Guiding us forever / Wish my dream would never go away / It was the first time that we met / How can I forget / The moment that you stepped into the room / You took my breath away / La música vibró / Y ella nos unió (…) let the music play… Make the voices sing / Nace un gran amor / Start the celebration / Ven a mí / And cry / Grita / Come alive / Vive / And shake the foundations from the skies / Shaking all our lives / Such a beautiful horizon / Like a jewel in the sun…”

-Like a jewel in the sun… Maybe that crystal that you once wore was meant to bring memories from when you knew that you’re a child of the sun, something that the mercury of a once lost scrying mirror told you.

-Wow, it’s deep, dear voice…

-Well, speaking of which, let’s try to go deep into your most important memories of Halloween, so that hollow can win…

-Ha! Ok… Actually it was hard not to know that it was Halloween this year, the computer, again, had chosen a very appropriate background image when I switched it on, and then Google had personified its logo too. By the way, have you noticed that the Google symbol resembles a lot the Simon music memory machine?

-Basic colors plus green, a mix of el cielo azul y el sol para que la tierra luzca verde, I think you would say in Spanish.

-¡Muy bien! Yes, you are becoming very gifted at Spanish! I say. Check out those screenshots for this year’s big hallow or hollow day…

-Wow! I like the time at which you took the screenshot.

-Yes, three thirty-three. If you check out the cat behind the google letters, its goggle-like eyes look as if one had taken one three and put it to rest on the cat’s face, don’t you see?

-Yes I do see it.

-Then the cat’s black ear seems to have turned into the Jack O’Lantern’s eyes and nose, or also into the “play” triangle, actually. The rainy skyline under the ‘play arrow’ had reminded me of one drawing by my cousin. He lives by the railroad tracks and had taken a picture once, when electricity had made the cables go for a wild ride.

-I love that! says the voice.

-Yes, it’s powerful, in many aspects!

-So what do you store in your memory from this year’s Halloween?

-Well the Monday Writer’s session, in which I saw and heard many great synchronicities, and from then on the weeks that followed were very rich in signs, voices and insights. When I was in the “mothership”, heehee, something made me feel as if I was going through a tunnel to visit the land of lady Cat-rina. One of the grids on the floor turned into a Mexican decoration for the Day of the Dead, and my mind dove through the grid spaces to visit a whole new reality. It felt as if I was “Alicia in New Mexicolandia”, the girl in Amy Cordova’s painting.

-Wow! admires the voice.

-Meow, I answer.

-I love that space! And I see our chakras in that tree.

-Yes, the New Mexican version of the Cheshire cat seems to appreciate it too. In that reality, all the every day cats embodied other meanings. It started, again, at the Monday Writers session, because after all, it was the night of Halloween. On that evening we were sharing the space with our hostess’s two cats. One cat in one room, each across a hallway where there was an old mirror. I saw the head of praying mantis in the golden decorations of the mirror. And the cats in each room across the hallway where the mirror was hung reminded me of those decorative items one sometimes uses on shelves or a chimney mantel to hold books together. The cats’ inquisitive look also made me see a vision in which, like in that Google customized page, their ears were pointing in the direction of the middle of that hallway, and in the direction of the praying mantis above that old mirror. They were using their ears as powerful sensory machines, like arrows, or mini pyramids, and were pointing at me like hunters closing a circle around their prey. It was not negative though, more of a careful observation and a training of some sort. So when I shifted my thoughts towards my own “hallway”, I thought of my two cats when they sleep by my side, one on each side of my body, as if I myself was the hallway and they hold me together, the ‘me’ who would be a chimney or tunnel of some sort, a mimesis of where I live…Maybe it is telling me about the transitional aspect of my life in the hallway. Then, back at the writing session, I was given a cat mug, and the dominant colors were orange, again, then grey and black and white. It made me think of the way Ricardo Caté had depicted the bragging, pussy-grabbing “orange guy” in one of his cartoons. I liked how Rick had drawn some of the pussy cats who had escaped and sought refuge behind one of the Chief’s tribal friends.

-And why are real cats appearing on the drawing? inquires the voice.

-Well those are my real-life cats. Lilith is there observing the escaping cat of the drawing in a caring manner. She is always a protective figure who also knows how to fend for herself, hey, she was named after a woman warrior… Then the one who sticks his tongue out is Gray, the one who vanished, like I said earlier. I’ve met him when he came to me shortly after I moved here in the hallway. Then up there on the edge of the cup is Dr. No observing him. He can’t go outside so he has to find ways to observe life from his casita’s window.

-You know, interrupts the voice (who’s welcome to do it…), I am thinking that the “orange guy” shares his skin color with a fox fur. Maybe it triggers memories of what you want to protect or be protected from?

-Well I definitely dislike the orange guy and I love the fox, so yes, definitely it may have triggered a memory of what I want to protect, and also what I needed to understand.

-That other cat drinking from a barrel is weird.

-Oh that’s the Rabbi’s cat, a cartoon by Joann Sfar. The cat is very wise and wants to be a real Jewish cat and he is being trained for his bar mitzvah.

-So was he circumcised too? asks the voice.

-Ouch, well I don’t know, he’s a cat, and I think that I remember him being afraid of that… You know what? This painful moment in the life of a Jewish male baby reminds me of the image a friend of mine saw in the Kasha Katue stone structures. We call them fairies’ chimneys in French, and that friend had seen the result of the rabbi’s cutting work, haha!

-The rabbi’s cat is seeing his reflection in the water, and I have also noticed that his twin in real life form is sticking his tongue at the orange guy.

-That’s true. Maybe he’s seeing a barrel of water or a pool that we cannot see, and he looks into the past and the future. That type of cats comes from Egypt, where they were seen as semi Gods.

-When I see that, it makes me think of a poem by García Lorca about a well… How did it go again?

-La guitarra hace llorar a los sueños / El sollozo de las almas perdidas / se escapa por su boca redonda / y como la tarántula / teje una gran estrella para cazar suspiros / que flotan en su negro aljibe de madera, I recite.

-That’s it! says the voice. What does “negro aljibe de madera” means?

-Black cistern made of wood...

-Oh wow, so our metaphor meets its poetic match here… Contemplating one’s soul in the darkness of water, in the darkness of mercury or obsidian… You know, the shape of a guitar has always made me think of the body of a woman, and maybe what’s dark about the woman is the womb where she conceives life, both in a physical but also a metaphoric way.

-It’s true, I say as I look at the new image reflected on the stump’s surface. Do you think that these cut trees are reminders of their sacrifice made music?

-I don’t know, whispers the voice. I notice that you had an orange ribbon on your forehead as you sang along with your friend who played the guitar. I like seeing that image of you holding the guitar on your womb.

I start singing “mi guitarra y fox”, willingly changing the lyrics by the Argentinian singer Jorge Drexler, whose real words are “mi guitarra y vos”, my guitar and you…

“Hay tantas cosas; yo solo preciso dos, mi guitarra y vos… Estás conmigo, estamos cantando a la sombra de nuestra parra una canción que dice que uno sólo conserva lo que no amarra…”

After singing, I tell the voice that I remember one of my first creations in English, and the images that went with them. One represented what the shape of instruments conjured up, and together with a guitar there was an oud on the image. That instrument looked like a sad clown’s face to me. There was a fox in there too, if I remember correctly, a fox and a rooster.

-Maybe we’ll need to address this oud thing later again, I say in a warm voice.

-Maybe, says the voice.

-I’m also glad to say that there is no more guilt associated with guitars, ouds, flutes, or whatever other instruments…

-That’s good. Anything else about your grey cats though?

-Well grey is the color of in-betweenness, I am pretty sure that they are talking about transitions, especially since the grey cats of my reality form a triangle on the image… This is like a nice cosmic vehicle.

-I see, says the voice.

-Sight is one of my most cherished senses. I smile as I see a new image of Halloween on the stump.

This is what I have recently written to those two friends of mine, former students, former neighbors… They got married not too long ago…

-Nice flowers you wore on that pic! says the voice in that tone which sometimes I have trouble analyzing. Is it sincere, is it scornful?

-You know, I say, you remind me of one day when I wondered if I was the one that someone had called an M&M for Halloween. I am saying this because I see an M&M’s heart on the pic, but also because the other day I was offered a couple of those sugary things. The ones that fell in my hand were orange and yellow… It was really too sweet to swallow; it felt like one of those cocktails with a little parasol on top of it. For some reason, when I think of that, I kind of know that I am not a sugary M&M in the end, haha!

-The yellow rose is in the middle of your flower crown, I like it, adds the voice.

-Me too. And I like the thread thread, inviting us to a good cup of chai, and also the metaphor between vision, life and camera, and that vision can give us wings, maybe, or at least helping us see the light?

-That’s a good one, yes… I’ll place the sky within your eyes…

-Oh! It’s David Bowie’s song!

-Yes, we’re in the labyrinth after all… Will you sing with me, since I am still a voice and I can’t physically dance with you for now?

-As you wish, I answer, although I wish I could see you and actually dance with you.

There’s such a sad love / Deep in your eyes / A kind of pale jewel / Open and closed / Within your eyes / I’ll place the sky / Within your eyes / There’s such a fooled heart / Beating so fast / In search of new dreams / A love that will last / Within your heart / I’ll place the moon / Within your heart / As the pain sweeps through / Makes no sense for you / Every thrill is gone / Wasn’t too much fun at all / But I’ll be there for you / As the world falls down / Falling / Falling down / Falling in love /’I'll paint you mornings of gold / I’ll spin you Valentine evenings / Though we’re strangers ‘til now / We’re choosing the path / Between the stars / I’ll leave my love / Between the stars

-Yes, I say, between the stars is how I see you sometimes, even though I know you’re way closer. You know, with that song you’ve just taken me to my first Halloween here. It was very dull, except for that movie that I got to watch with a few people. But then again it was a bit weird because I did not really felt like I was on the same page as they were. I’d rather have climbed in the TV set if I could have done that…

-Maybe images from the movie will be back soon, then… Let’s see if we can get some more images from former Halloween nights…

-Oh, I say, we’ve skipped THAT Halloween… The one where I really felt the power behind the veil… You know, we’ve just mentioned guitars, and I have a feeling that the latest “tang” aftertaste that I experienced was a kind of “revenge” for a guitar moment during that powerful Halloween. I won’t say that it’s fair enough though, because by then I was trying to understand what was going on, and I needed a prop to feel what I really tried to materialize in my… tanking world. I hadn’t planned anything though. But as we say in Spanish, “pelitos a la mar”, and here’s mud in the eyes of deeper understanding…

-What does “pelitos a la mar” mean? asks the voice.

-It’s like saying “it’s all good, let’s forget about it”, but maybe we’ll get to experience a more physical illustration of it later in the maze. Back at my Halloween reflections, since you’ve asked, I am grateful that this year 2016 I was able to consciously learn from the latest Halloweenian experience (see, I’ve said it right now, without mumbling). I really enjoyed taking so many notes of the things that were whispered to me, having a lot of fun, actually, understanding one thousand tiny details that had led me here in New Mexico… Back to the Halloween depicted on the picture on the stump, I like seeing friendship, and Sammy the mirror cat; he was already sick by then, a year before I helped him cross over. Yes, that’s how I see it now. And I also love seeing a candle and a fireplace, and jack o’ lanterns in the shape of cats or aliens.

-Oh it reminds me of that silly movie of an alien cat whose super power resided in its green collar, says the voice. His name was Jack too, I think.

-Green is the color of the heart, I whisper.

-Yes. But do not rush or push that color.

-I know… I sigh. Now I know butter, I mean I know better, haha! I think that we have run out of pictures for Halloween, but now I am remembering pretty clearly the first Halloween party I organized. It was around the time when I had done some camping on a Cabo de Gata beach in Almería, and it is around that time when Sammy came to me too, from Almería as well. I remember that for my first Halloween party, I had a fever, but was still preparing tacos at like 3 am. Everybody had gathered in my kitchen; it was fun. I remember some of the guests who had come to the party. There was a couple. They were dating by then, and we started playing games of personality. The storyteller tells a tale with open answers. So each participant has to remember or write what they decide to do at each step of the story. And the couple girl, a Spaniard, was answering everything in resonance with her boyfriend’s Moroccan culture. It was sweet to witness. Now they have formed a big, happy family. I remember another friend also, who would not talk much about his family back on an island facing the African coastline, but I could feel his longing for a father, and it made me feel so, so, so sad. I think that whenever I empathically felt that specific longing for a father, with some other people too, my face showed far-away eyes for a while… Oh! You know what’s orange too? The flame that burned the childhood items which Vanessa Paradis flushed down the toilet when she played the main part in that movie, Elisa. Again, my eyes were as far away as hers when I discovered her character’s story. The film had moved me to the core. The plot is as follows: when her husband walks out on her, Elisa attempts to kill her young daughter Marie (Vanessa Paradis) strangling her, and then commits suicide. Marie, however, survives, and grows up in an orphanage. Twenty years later, Marie’s troubled past is reflected in her lifestyle. She and her “bff” Solange occupy themselves by shoplifting and generally causing trouble. When she discovers where her missing father is living, Marie sets out to find him, with the intention of killing him “a fuego lento” (like water for chocolate, but chocolate would be deadly in the plan she had in mind). When she meets him though, he turns out to be not the heartless brute she had expected...

-Why did the story move you? asks the voice.

-Well, because I feel sorrow in others easily, but also because I’ve always felt it as the longing of someone close, although I could not yet put a face on that someone. And some things experienced by Paradis’ character belonged to that someone, others in turn belonged to me, although it was my future me when I first saw the movie, so then I guess I was being a pre-cog! It’s not that easy to grasp at first, I only knew then that I was profoundly moved. I guess it is why the soul makes you store that kind of stories in your emotional mind.

In the center of the image here, there is an example of what I’d experience in the future, which is now my past: an asthma crisis. Now I know that there are not only physical or environmental reasons for asthma to develop. It can have something to do with either a trauma in this life, or in a former life, or even in an ancestor’s life or that of a family member… Then I saw in her face on the last picture here the desire of making someone suffer because of her own suffering. It was the beginning, maybe, of my deeper understanding of the apparently simplistic adage “hurt people hurt people”…

Oh this scene is so powerful too, and somehow it was, again, part of what I would experience later in my life when I had to leave so much behind. She tells the lady at the restroom “office” that she has just flushed her life. I have not flushed down part of my life in the WC, I’ve burned it in a fireplace…

-So maybe it’s time to look for fire, says the voice.

-Yes, let’s roll, let’s spin and let the wheel take us down our next colored step…

(To be continued)