Follow the Yellow
Stone Road
I am thinking out
loud as I walk the maze.
-Well, now that I
think of it, even though down seems to be the natural direction of a wheel if
we let it go free style, we should rather say that it takes us up the maze, if
we agree that the colors resonate with our energy wheels, the chakras.
Although, it’s true that for now we’ve been walking without looking for
something in particular, and maybe it was a coincidence to get started with red
and then orange…
-A what? asks the
voice who sounds to be on the brink of getting a bit angry.
-Oh, sorry, it’s
true, no such thing as coincidence… I didn’t say anything, voice… My bag is
starting to feel heavy on my shoulder. Right now, I wish you were more than a
voice, just saying. See, I’m progressing. I no longer feel ashamed or too shy
to ask for help.
-I see, but you’re
strong, you can carry it yourself, although I’m proud of you, yes: you are
starting to voice (heehee) what you need. However you still tend to hint at it
instead of directly asking for what you want.
-Well, because in
my culture, or maybe just my family, we assume that people know what is needed,
and it is considered rude and typical of spoiled brats to ask, I guess… No
wonder that not too many people think of me as an only child for that matter.
Those differences in what should be the “norm” constitute the beauty but also the
complexity of cultural codes among different peoples and places. Don’t you
agree?
-It’s true. And
even though I know you’re strong, I also know that carrying something for too
long can be unhealthy. An eagle standing on the edge of a glass once told me the
wise parable. We were under a juniper tree to avoid getting too soaked by the
thunder rain…
-Oh wow, that’s
poetic. What did the eagle tell you exactly?
-She (I think it was
a ‘she’) told me about that parable of the glass of water. Holding it for a
while is perfectly fine, but if you do it for months and years, it can lead you
to lose your arm that will break into tiny pieces…
-I certainly hope
that we won’t stay in the labyrinth for months or years from now, heehee… I’m
associating the eagle with the color yellow, by the way. And the color together
with this arm thing conjured up a very yellow image from that exhibition I
mentioned earlier, in the orange.
-Nice perspective,
says the voice, who, I guess, is seeing the image in the stump’s record player.
-Yes. It is taken
from what would be the eagle’s perspective, I think.
-It’s not very high
though, argues the voice.
-No, but it’s in
the east. I can tell because the booth facing the viewer is the west booth, which
was dedicated to a dear friend from New Mexico who got murdered. They erected a
tree in his memory by the duckpond. That reminds me of a picture by my dad… He
loves to make puns and little rhymes, I inherited that from him, and for some
reason I am thinking again of that movie, Elisa. Maybe she had lived under a
frozen pond and needed a stone to break the ice of her psyche.
-Or more than one,
chuckles the voice…
-Yeah, more than
one… Maybe it’s not only the image of the water making ripples that will bring
back some memories and break the spell of others. Maybe it’s the sound of
broken glass that will help in the process too.
-Maybe it is what
those stones you found at the entrance of the maze are there for, adds the
voice.
-Like the movement
of rattles, I say. I guess it’s why this Zia sunface rattle from Chimayó shows
up in the image. The sound of rattles can shake the soul when needed. Even
though it takes time to understand, heehee… And sometimes as complicated as for
a camel to go through the eye of a needle …
-Mateo, says the
voice…
-Yes, in one of his
love chants, or bible verses, it’s the same, I say. But I would adapt the
saying into this: “as complicated as for ducks to go through the cat’s eye,
because the eye of a needle is a “chas” in French; not the same selling but the
same sound.
-So it’s perfect to
break a spell! Laughs the voice.
-I guess it is, I
smile.
-What does “keuf”
mean in that expression “22, les keufs”? asks the voice.
-Cops, I answer… It
reminds me of the scene I had watched from Spain about my friend’s death. I
could not believe it, so I had to watch over and over again what the local news
said about it. Seeing this yellow ribbon, you know, the “police line, do not
cross” thing really caused me a shock. He was gunned down, together with his girlfriend.
I had chosen to honor him in a booth dedicated to the fall, and Halloween, when
the veil is at its thinnest.
-And at its finest!
adds the voice.
-Yes, at its finest too… And the statues close
to the booth where I had honored my friend are what came to my mind earlier. From
little boy with all his limbs to Apollo with no arms and no feet… Maybe it has
a deeper meaning, since arms could be compared to the eagle’s wings. So maybe you
or me or both of us were somehow armless, when I lived back in Granasa, oops, I
mean Granada...
-Heehee, Apollo and
GraNasa are a perfect match! giggles the voice. I just wonder if it would be
under number 11 or 13. I guess it depends if it’s a small step or a giant leap.
-Haha! Or a giant
flop if we wear flip flops… Oops… Well, humor is always good, and I think that
it’s a nice tribute to Sister Moon... even though we’re supposed to be in the
color of the sun in this present maze… Do you know that my folks called me “petit soleil”, little sun, when I was
born? Because I smiled a lot and I was way more morena than I was supposed to
be up there in Belgium among northerners… Way later I discovered that I was
born on the same day as Tonatiuh, el Tata Sol mexicano.
-North America and
its side of the sun were already calling you, huh… A child of the sun
remembering her connection to the moon… says the voice, who starts singing so
beautifully that I’d choose the melody among 1000 if we were in a singing
contest: “Sister moon will be my guide / In your blue blue shadows I would hide
/ All good people asleep tonight / I’m all by myself in your silver light / I
would gaze at your face the whole night through / I’d go out of my mind but for
you / I’d go out of my mind but for you / Lying in a mother’s arms / The primal
root of a woman’s charms / I’m a stranger to the sun / My eyes are too weak / How
cold is a heart / When it’s warmth that he seeks? / You watch every night, you
don’t care what I do / I’d go out of my mind, but for you / I’d go out of my
mind, but for you / My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun / My hunger for
her explains everything I’ve done / To howl at the moon the whole night through
/ And they really don’t care if I do / I’d go out of my mind for you / Sister
moon…”
-Be still my
beating heart, you sing so beautifully, voice! And I do care that you do. Ah,
the moon… I like Sting’s songs very much.
-Yes, a little
sting from time to time is not a bad thing, says the voice. Just like when you
eat a limoncito, a little lemon.
-Yes, I say without
really acknowledging the voice’s very improved skills in Spanish nor wondering
if there’s a hidden meaning behind the lemon (and its tree…), because I am busy
imagining the sky’s lanterns reflected in the mirror of our souls, our eyes
that is. So I say: Moon or Sun in one’s Eyes, it all depends on where you look
at and when. Like this other Cherokee tale about the two wolves fighting inside
of each of us, the positive one, the negative one, fighting for nurturing and
therefore victory. I think that my eyes are more of the color of the warm sun,
or sweet honey, plus a coyote once told me so… when I was still on and off in
foxy land…
-I see. We are
lucky to have such deep conversations with our four-legged relatives.
-Yes we are, mi
voz…
-¿Mimos?
-Yes, to give and
get mimos or cuddling is very good too, I smile.
-So maybe they’ll
come to stay once we find the perfect harmony of colors, says the voice who
LOVES to sound and act mysterious.
As I think about the
reason for this tendency, a raven caws in the distance, as if wanting to hush
my thoughts.
-You sound as if
you had just landed from Neverland, I smile.
-Neverland is the
land of Peter Pan, and I like rocks, the meaning of Peter, and also pan pipes…
-You sure do, mi
voz, you sure do, and Peter Pan did play the pipes... I think I love Neverland
too, heehee. I’m thinking that you’d also like two other sculptures of little
boys. Actually, maybe those are our “lost boys” and we did find them!? One
sculpture is in Santa Fe, on Canyon Road, and the other one is really close to
where I live. The one on Canyon Road is called Bearfoot, of course it made me
think of “bare-foot” as in “le vent aime
les petites amours déchaussées”…
-He looks somehow
sad though… says the voice.
-Sí, un poco tristón.
-Tristan? Like in Legends of the Fall?
-Oh, wow, I like
that, although Tristan ends up being killed by a bear. TristÓn with an ‘O’ as
in H2O means sad-dish in Spanish. Maybe he was hiding in a grotto where momma
bear came to his rescue and now he’s a bit sad because he has to leave the
security of the shell to proudly show it to the world.
-It seems to fit
you too.
-Maybe. I’m bold
for certain things… And if I’m not I know where to find the little boy facing
the buffalo, once I finally head north from the hallway…
-Nothing more
perfect than the North for a buffalo, says the voice. And Tristan in the movie
was last seen in the north country… The voiceover or narrator says that he always
lived in the borderland, somewhere between this world and another.
-I do remember
that, yes… In between worlds, I try to grasp the concept better;I think I am,
little by little. Maybe it means that I will see buffalos soon. I automatically
think of several concepts when buffalo comes to mind, and Yellowstone is one of
them.
-Well maybe we are
supposed to find more stones in the yellow!
-In the jellow
jelly, heehee. Yes, you never know…
Caw, Caw, Caw!
Raven calls again.
-Neverland… Nevermore…
-Or always more,
answers the voice.
-Oooh! I exclaim. I
am reminded of this movie with Louis de Funès, Yves Montand and Alice Sapritch.
It was aired on the year of my birth. Wow, a while ago, haha! All of those actors
“mangent les pissenlits par la racine”,
like we say in French!
-What does that
mean? asks the voice? I do better at Spanish than French.
-In Spanish the
expression would be “criar malvas”. I
don’t know if it helps.
-“Malva” means a
bad girl? tries the voice.
-Ah, that’s interesting.
MalvaDA would mean bad (girl).
-Ah yes, I know
that girl! Quino is the cartoonist, am I correct? I remember one of the best
drawings ever, where that clever little girl was giving a spin to a globe and
said that the earth was sick and needed a band-aid on some parts of her injured
sphere.
-Oh! Yes, I know
that great vignette you mention. But that is MaFALda, and she’s all but
malvada, poor sweet one. Hmmm… We have an
interesting “tangle” here, un interesante lío de vocabulario, un lío con Mafalda.
Mi falda, my skirt, tu falda, your skirt… ¡Vaya Lío de Faldas! Haha… Oops, sorry,
I am getting carried away. Languages are my best allies. “Lío” is a
complicated, “entangled” situation. That’s extremely funny since I am
remembering a singer, half Belgian and half Portuguese, who had chosen Lío as
her singer name. I remember the song Banana
Split!
-A yellow yummy
fruit, says the voice; and also a game similar to Scrabble. I think you’d love
it: Bananagrams.
-Yes, I love anagrams!
And bananas. Once I saw a great way to play with a couple of those fruits. An
artist transformed them into the hind legs of a horse…
-The big leap…
That’s a pretty hot concept!
-Some like it hot,
heehee. En español, Con faldas y a lo loco…
-…Nobody’s perfect.
- We’re doing our best,
heehee. I knew you loved that scene by the way!
-Did you?
-Oh yes, I can
picture you pretty well in it actually.
-Oh and who would I
play?
-The woman…
-And you would be
the boat driver?
-Of course… Turning
down one so-called inconvenient after the other. So back to “lío de faldas”:
“falda” means skirt, and “lío” is entanglement. So a movie can get tricky when a
scriptwriter imagines some skirt-wearing malvadas brujas who want to put a
spell on his world, heehee.
-And is the curse
lifted in the end?
-Oh yes. Nobody has
to die… or to dye their flowers… since we had started very innocently with
flowers. Malva in Spanish is a purple
flower, and it gave its name to the color malva or also morado. Pissenlit is also a flower, in French,
so “manger les pissenlits par la racine”
means to eat dandelions from their root, which therefore means that one is
dead.
-RIP… I like
dandelions, says the voice. I developed an interest in them a few years ago.
-Me too! They
actually have two names in French: the one I’ve just used, “pissenlit”, which,
to my aural taste, sounds a little bit too much like “pisse au lit” (peeing in
one’s bed), and then “dent-de-lion”, which was used for the English version of the
word. Dent de lion means “tooth of a lion”.
-A brave lion or a
cowardly lion? asks the voice.
-Oh… Oz… My dear
Oz. Where is the yellow brick road, voice? Haha… Maybe lions are yellow because
they have eaten many dandelions, and this is their secret to be inspired in
mightiness when they see the flower seeds fly high in the sky in their
ascending parachutes! You know, speaking of eating and lions, I realized the
other day that I have always lived with the cowardly lion… I mean physically… I
was watching a clip of the movie, the Wizard of Oz, and all of a sudden when
the lion smiled (Or maybe he was crying, it’s hard to say), I had to grab the
first ever little friend of my childhood and place it before the screen, to
compare their faces.
And I came to the
conclusion that they were twins.
-If I may, pretty
flower, your version of a lion looks more like a naked cat, like that Egyptian
one we mentioned earlier in our maze walk, only that this one is yellow instead
of grey.
-Yes! It is exactly
how he’s called. Please meet Pèlé Tchèt,
“bald cat”, a Walloon name he was given by my maternal grandmother when she
looked at the once-furred kitty toy.
-What happened to
its hair though?
-I ate it…
-Whaaaat??
-I know, it sounds
gross… I actually don’t remember eating that cat’s hair at all, but my parents
told me I did. And if it serves as an explanation for such behavior, they also
told me that it was because the cat had a vanilla smell… Let me tell you, I
slept with that cat up until my mid teens. I even took him with me for sleep
overs. I think I stopped after I forgot him once at a friend’s grandparents. It
was a huge place, a castle actually. I was so ashamed that “I still slept with
that bald thing at my age” that I did not dare to ask for my Pèlé Tchèt back. The “separation” lasted
for a few days. Thank God I did get him back! And see, I still took him with me
here in New Mexico, after such a long time and so many travels around the
world.
-Good for you! Why
were you ashamed though?
-Well you know… The
things that society tells you that you’re supposed to do and then not supposed
to do once you’ve reached a certain age.
-Bullshit!
-Yeah man. Why do
we say that though? Why not “cow piss”, haha! Now that that anecdote has popped
in my memory, I remember the last name of my friend’s grandparents. They were
of noble descent. It sounded pretty close to my mom’s maiden name, only that
here it meant “potter” instead of “pot”.
-Like Harry Potter!
And it seems tha we’re coming full circle again, don’t we talk about a “pot of
gold”, says an amused voice. And check this out, there’s something glittering
in the distance, maybe it IS gold after all!??
-Maybe, although
it’s not what I’m looking for. Straw in mud is the kind of glitter I long for.
Oh look, it was a flower smiling in a ray of sunlight.
-Pretty. A
brown-eyed susan, says the voice who seems to know absolutely all the names of
the flora and fauna of this place.
-Oh so pretty, and
witty and bright, haha… What a funny name for a flower, isn’t it? Maybe this
eye-thing suggests that we are not the only ones to look at flowers: maybe they
look back at us! Speaking of admiring, I like how it looks by my
great-grandma’s golden ring, although I’ve switched the hand where I wear those
rings, so now it’s a mischievous fluteplayer I sport on the middle finger of my
left hand.
-Maybe that the
fluteplayer needed to stay on the right hand to help you realize that more right-hemisphere
skill was needed, and now it is the right time to be on the hand that you write
with, the one which is closer to the heart.
-Oh, did I mention
that I was a southpaw to you? I don’t remember it.
-I know many things...
Do you think that there are hierarchies among flowers? Maybe some flowers look
down upon others, or some are intimidated by others.
-Aah… An
interesting theory. So in your story, dandelions would be intimidated by
brown-eyed susans?
-I don’t know.
-I really don’t
think so. Or let’s say not anymore and never more… Because if some consider
susans prettier, dandelions are a must in any botica de la abuela, grandmother’s
drugstore, aka the curandera’s closet, I guess. So both flowers have nice and
important aspects for us to consider.
-Yes, it is good to
see the beauty and the good that each and every one can bring. But something
tells me that it took you time to reach that conclusion regarding dandelions.
-We all have our
ups and downs, and it’s not always “either or”. Here we are back to yellow, by
the way, since “or” means gold in French. Oooh! Thanks to this new bilingual
interference I’m back on track. Or reminds
me of the movie I’ve mentioned earlier: “La
Folie des Grandeurs”. One scene that I remember very well is the servant
awakening his master: “Monseignor,
Monseignor, il est l’hORe, l’hORe de se réveiller!”. Instead of pronouncing
Monseigneur, (with “eur” as in, let me think in English, ah, got it: the lion’s
fUR) he pronounced Monseignor with “or”, aka gold. And the wake up “call”
always had to be realized with this magical sentence pronounced as the servant
stirred gold coins in a cauldron. You see, the master was pretty avaricious and
wanted this reverse lullaby to be sung to him every morning. He seemed to be
partial to the sound of gold coins rather than to the rays of el astro rey, the
sun…
-Ain’t it
incredibly synchronic? beams the voice. It seem that we have reached the yellow
station!
Sure enough, I spot
between two big stalls the station that we were hoping to reach.
-Oh beautiful! You
see, it works, yes, we are actually following the right order for the cha…
kra-patatra- Ouch! I complain as I fall head first on the ground. As I bite the
dirt, one of the copper bowls I had found before entering the maze gets out of
my bag and keeps rolling until it reaches the yellow structure in the color
station of the maze. Amazingly enough, the bowl stays put, on its side.
-Wow! Exclaims the
voice. I wish I had had a camera to capture this in slow motion! A dandelion’s
parachute seed would have helped you, haha! Oh but wait! This is amazing! Look
at that incredible bowl!! It has stopped rolling and it is standing on its
side! It reminds me of the Celtic tradition, when the second bowl is tipped
like that at first, and it symbolically deals with motion. Oops, and I hope
you’re ok by the way…
-Oh thanks, I’m
glad that you’ve asked, even though it was after letting the bowl put a spell
on you.
I try to look at
the runaway bowl that is fascinating the voice, but the sun, which has already started
its descent, blinds me for a while and all I see is a vague silhouette in a
greenish hue. My retina has stored the “wrong” color because of the dazzling
feeling of the sun. Actually the oval shape that I discern reminds me of a vision
I had had once in the heart of a volcanic area full of obsidian shards, where
something that looked like a green chile was patiently waiting for another
chile to embrace it and form a heart through their reunion. As I look back to
see what caused the fall, I see a stone, a yellow stone, and I experience a new
vision.
-Oh, my, I tripped
on that stone. What a rocky terrain in this maze… Voice, do you see, like me,
three energizer bunnies, copycats of the one that thrive on pilas alcalinas,
and a shelf full of singing birds?
-Neighheeheeheeheehee!
-I am glad that I
make you laugh but you are not answering, dear voice…
-It was not me
laughing. I think it was a horse neighing from outside the maze. I saw it
galloping and then I just saw two hooves, maybe the horse tripped at the same
time as you did! But I still think that it’s funny. Usually people HEAR singing
birds and see flickering candles after being hit on the head, or at least it is
what cartoons want us to believe. But your vision is pretty original.
-Yes, weird, I know.
Do you think that some horses laugh at their riders when they fall?
-Well, I guess it
depends on the conversation they just had before the fall, or if the horse
trips and falls too, like I think is what happened outside the maze.
-I want to take a
closer look at this stone though, to see if it had written on its belly “no
more shuffling and look where you’re going!”
-Good idea, many
times when we stay silent and observe is when cosmos knows that we listen and
therefore sends us signs.
A little “ding” is
heard after the voice tells me this piece of wisdom.
-Silent, listen… They are anagrams. It’s
something I am now understanding that had come unnoticed when I first watched that
movie, La Folie des Grandeurs. Go to
the stump and maybe you’ll see what I am seeing already.
-No offence but you
are the one who needs the stump, not me… says the voice in a scornful tone. But
your description is useful because this universe belongs to your psyche and
your cultural background.
-Well Yves Montand
cleans his master’s ears using a cloth that supposedly reaches to the other ear
through the rich man’s brain…
-Oh maybe it’s a
visual representation of the camel and the needle’s eye…
-Cool! I like that…
I am realizing now that the movie is full of symbols like these. Anyway, let’s
check out that stone that I tripped on.
As I turn the stone
around, there actually is a paper spiral attached to its belly, a message
similar to those of the fortune cookies that you get at Chinese restaurants.
-What does it say?
asks the voice.
-“Do not wish to ‘fit
in’. You’re fine just as you are. Showing your true colors with confidence is
how you will no longer trip, but remember that a stone thrown on the surface of
your pond can also make you discover glorious water holes”… Hmn, that’s nice, I
whisper after reading the stone’s wisdom.
-Yes. It reminds me
of something I’ve read by the friend of someone very close to me: “This is not
a time to run away and hide our radiant light. It is not a time to keep a lid
on our truth. It is a time to give ourselves permission to step into a new,
never yet experienced sense of our power, presence and beauty.”
-Haha, I laugh. Lids
are comfortable sometimes because they prevent us from spilling the content of
our cup on the floor, like I did the other day in the hallway of “Ortega”.
-Who is Ortega?
-A white kitty, I
answer. Well, that is in the maze, though. In what the rest of humanity calls
the real world it is the grey building where I spent many hours last year in an
office with no windows (a killer) and where I attended a class in film theory.
-You like movies
very much… Is it because of the stars?
-The star system in
its Hollywood sense, no. The stars that some movies hang in the skies for the
magic they offer, and behind the wrap paper that glitters in the dark of the
movie theater or my own particular cave, the gifts of insight I’m given through
them, those stars, I worship. Not war or battle ship as in Star Wars, hahaha!
-You know, says the
voice, I’ve always believed that the stars are our true abode. At some point of
our beautiful story with Mama Gaia, we landed on her skin, like a newborn baby
coming from the infinite cosmic sea above through the dark waters of the womb
of a flesh-and-bone mother. But before us, stones were the first creation on
earth. That is why they remember the very first breath of the planet. After
they were born, water was created. Water also remembers everything, it is our
data bank.
-I prefer that kind
of bank rather than the banks that focus on richness that they materialized
through the exploitation of the earth: gold, bank notes and oil… Yellow, Green,
and Black.
-We may say that
modern world is colorblind and deaf of the heart, yes. Because so many have
turned their hearts into stones. But there’s hope, because like I’ve said,
stones and water have memory, and their contact enabled life to develop. So it
will be wise to listen to them…
-I hope I will gain
part of that wisdom, I sigh.
-Keep the faith, I think
you’re on a good path… Hey, check this out, my dear friend Peter Pan, after our
stone episode, told me that I should read this sign here on the post by the
stump, and it says something funny about cows. It’s as if you had felt it or seen
it beforehand when you mentioned another version for “bullshit”. The sign says
that yellow was first obtained by drying… urine from cows that were fed mango
leaves and water only.
-Ha! Holy Cow… Poor
cow though. Varying her diet would be a good idea. So they were taking both her
milk and urine. No bullshit here! For the love of all burping bisons…
-What???
-It’s a funny thing
I had heard in a cartoon for kids, about chakras. The little boy who was
undergoing his initiation to become the Avatar was given onion and banana juice
by his master who said that it opened the chakras. And when they reached the
yellow chakra, his master said that the way the little boy opened that chakra
sounded more like the burp of a bison.
-Haha! Now I
understand. Sometime burps are useful, and maybe it explains your scatological
talk about the cow’s pee and the bull’s shit.
-Well you know what
they say about bullshit... The metaphor it stands for.
-How would I ignore
a metaphor… smiles the voice.
-Yes, and sometimes
it’s a bit tough to digest some of them, or just to even grab their context, content
and intent.
-So this is why you
need a little help from your friends, even if sometimes it feels like a real
violation, and yes, even rape of your privacy and deepest feelings, one of them
being trust, of course.
-Yes, that kind of
violation or rape takes time to accept, and I myself know that I have a slow
digestion process. A grey snake on the curvy road back home when I lived in
Spain once told me so when I was riding / driving my red pony after another
type of ride in a cake spaceship, aka space cake.
-Heehee! I trust
that your digesting process is on its way now. It always comes at the right
time! You know, maybe it’s why you thought of that banana horse… And I’m
thinking now that with a third banana used on the horse’s forehead, it would
draw a unicorn.
-Ooooh! I love the
concept. You know, it makes me think of yet another sculpture, by one of my
favorite artists, Dalí. Oh and also his painting with Earth as an egg or womb
that focuses on this continent. I think it is called something like “Birth of a
New Man”.
-Oh so we have to
add an egg to the onion and banana juice. What do we do symbolically with that
onion, though?
-Well, onions are
made of layers, so I think that “peeling one’s love like an onion”, the title
of a Chicano book by the way, goes parallel with peeling one’s psyche like an
onion, stripping it naked for whom we love: ourselves, and others.
-I think I will add
a vanilla flavor to that impossible juice, says the voice.
-Why?
-Well, don’t you
remember your “Peeled Cat”?
-Oh my God! Pèlé
Tchèt who had a vanilla scent… Thank you, dear voice, for always keeping in
store all the details of who I am…
-Oh you finally see
it.
-It’s been a while
that I am seeing it, even though you have tried so hard not to show it or tried
to hint at me that you didn’t get that I got it.
-Ouch, touché, says
the voice.
-“I know”…
At that precise
moment, three sharp sounds are heard in the maze: Snap! Twang! Thud! And an
arrow falls from the sky a few inches away from my feet. As I lean down to grab
it, I notice that it has a flower attached to it.
-Oh wow, it was
scary, says the voice. Are you ok?
-Sure, I’m ok. It
did not hit me. And we left fear back in the red, do you remember? Let me take
a closer look. Wow, this is a very beautiful arrow, and it came with a gift.
Look: this is a vanilla flower… Ok let me grab the arrow to free the flower.
Ouch!
Touching the arrow
is like setting it ablaze, although the fire is still flickering.
-Oh what a weird
blinking yellow arrow, says the voice.
-Yes, heehee… It’s
a yellow light that goes one step forward and then one backwards. Do you know
that stupid joke about the old couple in a car, when the driver asks his wife
to lean out of the car to look through the window and see if the blinker
functions? It’s in Spain so the woman says “de acuerdo”, looks outside the
window, and then says “ahora sí, ahora no, ahora sí, ahora no, ahora sí, ahora
no…” I told you it was stupid, heehee, mais j’ai des petites joies simples, I
have simple joys.
-You know, a few
years ago maybe it would not have made me laugh. But now it does, I am happy.
-Then I am happy
too… Maybe the yellow horse would want us to ride him as we take this arrow
with us.
-Maybe lady, but if
you are the one at the feet of the unicorn and I’m the one in the egg, maybe
we’ll need some TLC before anything else.
-Yes, heehee, well
this walk in the maze is supposed to give us the final props for the TLC to be
performed so we work like clockwork afterwards, so all is goot, all is goot!
A bleating is heard
coming from the stump by the yellow structure, and it sounds like a silly
giggle.
-I said goot, aka
good, not goat!!
-Skreeeeek!!!
Sorry, my bad, says the record stump-player.
-Man, this maze is
quite something, I whisper.
-Mayayaybeebeebee
youyouyou would wanananant toooo looook cloooser at the si-si-sign though, adds
the stump which seems to be experiencing some sound problems.
-OK, I say. Let me
grab the arrow that is colder now. Let’s see what else is written apart from
the cow piss thing. Oh, I see…
-“Icy” like you are
really far from finding our way out of the maze? asks the voice.
-Never
underestimate my power again, dear voice… No “I see” as in “I spy, with my
little eye, the text dealing with yellow”. It says that this arsenic sulfide
mineral called Orpiment was used for yellow pigment, and that it is highly
toxic therefore dangerous to work with yellow, but that it can also be used as medicine
if one knows the precise quantity to administer to the patient. Also, it was
used as poison for the tips of arrows… Woooow, I sure hope that this tip does
not come with the orpiment gift! Or-Piment would mean gold-chile though…
-Yes, it’s getting
a bit chilly, says the voice.
-No, I mean the
opposite, voice! Chile, the spice, you got red, you got yellow, you got green,
let’s go for greeeeeeeeeen!!! Oh wait, I’ll wear this beautiful vanilla flower
for the rest of the walk.
I wear the flower
behind my ear, as I craft a nice little post it / poem in my mind to remember to
“always listen to and with my heart and to smell for fragrant signs sent to the
four winds on the helicopter seeds of smiling dandelions”.
-You look beautiful
with that yellow rose.
-Thank you. But
it’s not a rose, it’s the vanilla flower that was brought by the neon arrow.
-Sorry to
disappoint you if I do, lady, but you are wearing a fake yellow rose, right now.
Maybe it has to do with the burping bison that you mentioned earlier.
-Huh?
As I touch the ornament
that I have just arranged in my hair, I feel the artificial texture. At that
precise moment I hear a song that had moved me immensely when I watched a movie
by Gregory Nava called My Family / Mi Familia:
Rosa de Castilla by the
Folkloristas.
-What is that
sound?
-It is a song in
Purépecha, an indigenous language of Mexico. I think it is spoken by the
Tarascans. Oh! I realize now that it sounds like “la Tarasca”, this so-called
monster, a dragon ridden by Saint Martha, although in Granada for the Feria
Grande of Corpus Christi they say la Tarasca is the woman… Saint Martha was
among Christ’s family when they miraculously reached the shore of les Saintes
Maries de la Mer…
-Wow… Nice shore, I
reckon. I would love to visit.
-We will, I say.
-How can you be so
sure? Asks the voice.
-I just know… You
know, remembering this song, and the Tarascan people, maybe it is related to
the myth of Quetzalcóatl, a dragon would be the same family…
-Who knows, says
the voice. And why were you so moved by that song?
-Well, the movie
was very moving (heehee), but that song felt like something was off with that
famous rose from Spain, something was fake, I don’t really know how to explain
it.
-Something to do
with that movie “La Folie des Grandeurs”?
-Well maybe, yes.
Many lies in the movie, which put the liars in an uncomfortable situation; many
impersonators as well. The movie has many hilarious moments though, like this
scene in the Generalife… maze, when there is a confusion of who loves whom, and
it has many ramifications that make the protagonists end up as slaves in Berber
Country. Wow! I’m noticing how relevant all this is regarding my own life path…
It’s a bit like magic. Well now that you’ve asked, I think that maybe the fake
feeling came from who held the Golden Fleece. I have a feeling that I should
have paid more attention to Greek Mythology… I was in Greece, though, and what
impressed me among other places was Knossos.
-Where the Minotaur
kept the labyrinth…
-Ha! Well, yes…
Wow, it’s getting incredibly exciting! And you know what, when I heard the
Tarascan language, I think it also made me think of Malinalli, la Malinche. She’s
a whore for the Mexicans, and a mother for the Chicanos… It all depends on how
the story is told, right? Hey, voz, have you noticed that the vanilla flower
has crawled up the sign post? It looks like a critter… You’re better than me at
this, which insects are six-legged?
-Why do you underestimate
your knowledge or skills?
-Santa paciencia hay que tener… A ver, let’s see... I don’t
underestimate my skills, but in this world we all have our strengths and
weaknesses, and it’s only normal to acknowledge what we are good at and what
others are good or better at. It doesn’t mean that we are not trying to be
better at what is not our cup of chai (oh, by the way, “chai” pronounced in a
slightly different way means “Life” in Hebrew)
-Le'chaim (Here’s
to Life), dear Chaia…
-Shy Gaia?
-Yes, also,
although I meant Eve…
-Je m’apelle
Nathalie, here and now… And like I said, the beauty of it all is to put our
talents together to work at painting a rainbow world among the clouds. Have I
stated it better now?
-Way better.
-Good… YOU are
freaking good at recognizing which is w(h)itch, critter-wise, so please, share
your knowledge with me so that I can weave my little tale from it and make the
ideas and words bloom and become bountiful with my home-grown fruit of the
loom.
-Ah, ok, I like it
that way. Well, among six-legged creatures, you have ants, mosquitoes, moths, beetles,
cockroaches, bees, wasps, butterflies…
-Oh… Quite a range, todo un abanico. I like this
expression in Spanish, using the country’s emblematic fanning tool to talk
about variety. I see abanicos in the crown of the Apache crown dancers,
actually. I don’t know if it has anything to do with our conversation…
-Well, maybe
because when they dance by the fire their crown looks like open bellows blowing
on the embers of your deepest memories…
-Wow! I love that
very much. So back to the insects you’ve just mentioned… Well, I like
butterflies and bees, but there’s a voice (not yours or you, another kind of
voice) that’s whispering that right now it could be more of a beetle or ants in
a line… or that bees and wasps will somehow be asked to fight while mosquitoes
and moths are watching. I don’t know… Bah, let’s leave it there, together with
the bowl that had rolled on its side, and let’s walk on to see what happens! I
want to play a new tune, I say as I grab the flute to play the first notes of “Time after time” by Cindy Lauper. As I
play, I am thinking that “Loper” means “Runner” in Dutch… The same word also
sounds like “L’eau / Peur” in French. Water, Fear… Well, we’re in the yellow,
the color of the fire. Is water afraid of fire? No, actually it is the other
way around. However I am reminded of a river, the river of the souls, the
Animas River in Colorado that turned yellow because of the burning spill of 3
million gallons of toxic mining waste that escaped from a ghost gold mine that
had been slumbering for nearly 100 years. Oh wow! Maybe all this is related to
the concertina that the orange-yellowish Artistocat gave to me, in the form of
this parchment that takes us through the maze. Because, through the breath of
the fire bellows, I am taken again to the image of the dam in my home country.
Imprisoned water takes me to rekindled fire… A similar image was on a mural
that fascinated me a few years ago. I had taken a picture of it and kept it as
my American cell phone background picture for a very long time. And now I seem to be connecting so many dots…
-Yes, says the
voice. And water should never be kept prisoner, water can never be scared but
rather sacred, and when we recognize such sacredness, our scarred moments will
flow away with her, down the river…
-Ok, I say as I
fail to develop my deep thoughts any further, where should we go now? I wish I
could fly like a hawk and see where the green is!
-That would be
cheating though, says the voice.
-Yes, you’re right,
but who cares, heehee… Anyway, I’ve closed my eyes for a second trying to
imagine myself flying above the maze, and what I saw was something that
actually happened: the neighbor across the alleyway has that old, gilded car
parked in front of his back door, and I swear that I saw the same car from the
sky, during a balloon ride in the summer, only that it was parked pretty far
away from home, in a private courtyard. It was among horses and fields. It felt
as if someone had flown the car there instead of driving it. You know, like the
new series that is to be aired, about Oz. The latest embodiment of Dorothy
locks herself up in a cop car and the car flies away in a twister.
-Oh, so maybe we’ll
have some more surprises along the yellow road, dear Dorothy, and you will have
to play “hopcop”…
-Huhuhu, very
funny, but I want us to be done with yellow, voice.
-Ah… If you say so…
I would not be so sure though…
-Well, I will prove
you wrong because here’s a new stopover and we are facing…
-Yellow, says the
voice.
-What? Oh damn, not
again…
-Well, I told you
so, with smoke signals and other devices, but sometimes you’re so “amazed” at
puns for the pure sake of them that you miss the point and fail to apply what
they whisper to you. Like this “listen” advice given in La Folie des Grandeurs.
-Yes, you’re right.
It seems that it’s more complex than what I had thought. Sigh. You know, now that
I think of it, maybe the arrow had to do with something from the statues of the
little boys that I mentioned earlier, Bearfoot and the buffalo hunter. There
was a spear at the hunter’s feet. I think it means that in my care to spare
other’s feelings, or to spare myself from necessary efforts, I actually turned “spare”
into a “spear” that ended up hurting both of us, apart from those who would be
hurt anyway no matter what, so that’s why the sting came in return.
-Maybe, says the
voice who clearly sounds like wanting to remain silent now.
-One can see the signs of the little hunter’s
delicate crafting of the spear. Well actually it’s the hands of the sculptor
who made both the spear and hunter, but somehow he took life for me. Those
finger marks remind me of the door knob of the “mothership”’s door, on Gold
Street. It’s all hammered. One could argue it’s just a style but sometimes I
think those details can magically reveal soul secrets. One should not act like a
ram but wait for the right time to open some doors.
-It sure feels good
to hear, whispers the voice.
-Yes, well, don’t
get too accustomed to it, though, I say tongue in cheek. Well, so I guess I
have yet something else to learn here, the third time that I have to stop in
the yellow… I am starting to understand why yellow is also the color of those “dead
end” signs here in the States.
-Well sometimes it’s
only a little death and you find another way to start anew, but that is a way
that many others may overlook.
-Ah… It’s good to
know. Ok, soooo… Let’s see what I have not yet seen…
As I say those
words, I fall again, but this time head first on a metallic object that hurts a
lot, and I start hearing my cell phone playing its tone incessantly. It is very
annoying since I cannot answer, and actually do not want to answer either. It
sounds like a wailing siren; its piercing shriek drills a hole in my ear. Naaaaaaathalie
it seems to call in a whining tone, ugh, I hate that. I don’t know if what I
hear or see is for real or a dream. Now I hear the sea, and Shakira singing her
song “yo soy gitana”. She dances with the tide and takes on different shapes
and shadows.
I don’t understand
what’s going on. Medicine Wheels seem to invite me to steer them to navigate on
the sea surface, and Gala, Dalí’s muse, appears with her twin self looking
outside a window by the sea. Two scarves, one green and one yellow, cover a
mannequin with no head, and as I try to grab the green one it turns into a
necklace similar to what had inspired me for a paper about coolies and starts
floating around the Zia sign, the New Mexican flag that covered a trunk back
home in Spain. Then it dives in the garden pool, under my room’s windows. “Tu
nages pas dans ma piscine / you don’t swim in my pool”, I hear that line from
Lelouch’s movie “La belle histoire”.
I also remember when the one who was told not to “swim” in the couple’s pool
was a painter in a dream, and a woman asked him to paint her apartment all
white. “Al-Baḥr al-′Ābyaḍ” says another voice in Arabic, meaning “the white sea”,
the Mediterranean, that is. Then the scene switches to a fountain near a bar
called Minotaur, and even though I expect to see a labyrinth, what I see is a
stone lion spitting its heavenly water in a pool where I know for a fact that
the lion no longer stands. It is me drowning for a while, only that I drown
behind the fountain instead of in its water. I see my face in the reflection of
water, but I know that this is happening in some other place, I wear clothes of
another time, and a beautiful lady clad in the same kind of attire whispers in
the pool that water has more memory than I do, but that all will come back, all
will come back… “Sometimes a sharp tool is needed to break the ice under which
mermaids cannot breathe”, she says. Cats who are guardians of the gates of a red
palace look upon a broken bridge over a river and shake their heads in despair.
“When will she finally see and remember what she needs to remember?” the oldest
cat says. The river is frozen at some points, and as I reach out to break it,
what stays in my hand has the shape of a mountain… And then I see…
I see that what I fell
upon is an astrolabe, and the mountain that stared at me for so many years of
my life has added the illustration of the Spanish meaning of the name of the
first peak that I saw from my Windows: Veleta, which means weather vane.
Nevertheless, this strange dream tells me in a masculine voice that I should
remember my Arabic, that it was not a Spanish name but rather “Balata”, which
meant cut, slash, cliff or gorge. “Natalia, it means gorge… Do you remember
now? The rooster atop a weathervane constantly changes directions, I do not, I
do not. Those who hold their fingers in the V-shape of Veleta and Victory are
in a hurry, and don’t really take time to analyze what they say. Those who
stare at my peak from the south see it in reverse, but you stared at me from
the North… The Peak behind el Veleta is more solid, Mulhacén is the one you
need to remember, because it is the biggest peak of the land of snow… Drop the
snake scarf, leave the kaftans behind, and remember the smile after your first
big awakening. I was there all along. I am always there…”
I start crying, as
scenes from a Spanish series appear in my mind’s eye.
-Yes, now I
remember, I whisper…
-Wake up! calls another
voice. Wake up!
-What? Why?
-It’s ok to
remember but it’s good to live in the present too, what’s on your forehead
though? asks the more familiar voice of the here and now.
-I don’t know, I
say, I cannot see my face.
-Mira, says the
voice, you have an “M” impressed on your forehead.
-Ah, I smile. I
guess it’s M as in Mountain… Maybe…
I get up a bit
dizzy and look around me.
“Mooooh-Ak” I hear
in a triple voice. And there are signs popping around us in the yellow station.
Three arrows point in opposite directions, and a cow under a UFO seems to be
happy to see me back.
-Hey, you’ve been
around, I laugh as I see that iconic four-legged and her cosmic hat. Do chakras
dance around what they call karma?
-You need some
fresh air, says the voice. Here, I made a flower for you. If you blow on it you’ll
see an everlasting rainbow…
Oooh! It is a toy windmill…
I love it. Thank you, voice.
-De nada. I think
that now it can replace, how was it that you called that once… Hmmmm, ah, yes:
a GPS for the heart.
-Oops… Yes, I
smile. I have this mark on my forehead now, la marca del astrolabio. Have you
noticed that the word is made of “astro”, which means from the stars, and “labio”
which means lip? I will do my best to no longer slip and trip now that I know
how to send real kisses to the sky as I blow on a Molino de viento.
-LOL chuckles the
voice.
-Yes, lol-lipop… I
had received one when I mistook gasoil for gas in a rental four-wheel pony. After
a good purge the mechanic gave me a heart-shaped lollipop.
-I prefer to feed
my pony soft green herbs and clean water, says the voice.
-Me too, me too…
Let’s go and see what’s still to be seen in this amazing maze, I smile in peace…
Lolli, lolli, lolli, lolli, lollipop… I sing.
-What is that tune?
-It was a fun show on the
Belgian TV, with the “feather
father” of “Le Chat”, an absurd cartoon anti-hero that I love, and an ugly but
funny witch called Malvira.
-Elvira?
No… Elvira is
another woman, a very beautiful woman from Granada. She has spent centuries
looking at the sky from the same river shore where the cats guard the gates,
but that’s another story. Let’s get out of yellow, which nearly rhymes with “value”
to remind me of what I know. I am eager to discover new colors with you. Let’s go voice,
it’s time…
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