Magic Mirror in the hay, thanks for showing me the way #4

Blue Skies, Maze has got blue Skies ♫

-So are we going to hit the green yet, since you’ve been impatiently whining about it? asks the voice.

-I was not whining, I was just eager to get to it. Well you know, something tells me we are not exactly into the green yet, and it’s ok. I feel way more relaxed now, I’m not in such a hurry as I was earlier in our maze walk. I am learning how to enjoy the present moment.

-Beautiful, says the voice. It’s a big improvement!

-I guess so, I answer.

As I walk silently, taking a deep breath from time to time, the voice, for a change, is the one who seems to need to fill the void.

-We have not talked much about that image that showed up when you mentioned the heart-shaped lollipop. Why the horse jumping obstacle in shadows and a drawing, and the weird shape in which the rider seems to dive into?

-The drawing was by a cousin of my mom in my poetry notebook.

-What is that?

-Well I was given it, I think, for my first communion, and people would draw and write in it. It was a way to show one’s friendship. It was very commonplace in Belgium. Cousin Jean had done his part using an amazing strokillism technique.

-Stroki what?

-Haha, I don’t know if it exists. I mean pointillism using parallel, horizontal penstrokes.

-Sometimes painting is like knitting. Cross-stitch is what I got started with, says the voice.

-“Point de croix”… I translate. By the way, that cousin had an interest in the Rose Cross.

-Oh… Interesting. I like that meaning of the cross as the human body and the rose in its center that represents our unfolding consciousness.

-Beautiful when it blooms, yes! I smile. After overcoming obstacles, I guess. What I like in his drawing is that the rider is looking ahead of the obstacle, not focusing on it. So, yes, I think it shows that I had some obstacles to overcome, basically related to what I needed to work on: self-confidence in some areas of my life, and assertiveness. Now this weird shape, to me, looks like a devil that shows “hush” with his index finger. Someone told me that if I saw that in the shape of a torn, rusty roof, maybe it was my problem, silence that is. I did not answer, but I thought that it was kind of funny to hear that, considering the fact that there was a voluntary silence and awkward atmosphere created by the very person who told me so. But it’s true, I just thought it and did not utter it by then, because I was trying hard to understand what was emitted, and what it was that I felt was going to happen. A few days after that, when I was told, by another person, “you don’t talk” (it was in another language too), I felt that it was like a slap in the face by that know-it-all who had just stepped into my circumstances. “WTF do you know” I felt like saying… But sometimes, you’re being denied so much of a clear or real situation, emotion-wise, that you’d talk and seek comfort even with who’s supposed to be your worst enemy. There’s no such thing as a “worst enemy” though. Well maybe there is, relationship-wise, and it’s absolute secrecy about absolutely everything. At least it is what I think. When you gag someone for a very long time, and when you make that someone doubt many things, you cannot expect that someone to be a carefree and confident chatterbox again in the blink of an eye.

-Well it’s how I see you many times, though: a chatterbox, says the voice, whose only tangible presence, the voice that is, does not sound as strong for a second.

-Bavarde comme une pie, as we say in French. It means “talkative like a magpie”, haha. It’s pretty appropriate, here and now. Magpies in their tuxedos have taught me a lot as I tried to learn the adequate steps I could tread on their peculiar chessboard. And it reminds me of another episode, here in New Mexico, a traditional celebration in an old village one summer, when my shyness or awkwardness had made me eat very little, “like a bird”. The overall feeling was good, though. I think I will experience that feeling soon, now: the joy of sharing a meal with people who tease a little but in a way that shows appreciation and communion. I long for that, very much.

-Me too, says the voice.

-Yes, it’s about time.

-Why hasn’t it happened sooner though? asks the voice.

-I guess I had a few things to learn, understand and accomplish. I also felt that some “formal and normal” things coming my way too were fair enough to expect. Well anyway, in the end it is all about being able to give, share and receive.

-Maybe you did not notice what was being done.

-True to a certain extent, and now I know. It is not at all the first time that I am rewinding events to have a better understanding of them. I am unraveling many things after this weird and long ride in the yellow, reason why I feel way more relaxed, now that I understand the purpose of many deeds or lack thereof in the past. I also need to organize all the insights that I’ve had, trying to remember them too. It might take a while, but it’s an exciting task ahead.

As I say that, a big smile makes my face beam in joy at the sight of the station we have reached: Blue.

-Mi cielo azul, I whisper.

Three geese fly above the maze, with whispered promises of migrations in their flapping wings.

Other birds, before landing on the maze to eat the grains, form the faces of three kitties in the sky. Magic seems to be everywhere.

I look above as I go on walking into the blue station, and of course I end up with my chin bumping into one of the turquoise poles that were erected there.

-OUCH!

Oh I’m so clumsy, I chuckle. I feel like those drunk witches that people set up as Halloween decorations. They make me laugh so hard. This year I found a new model that basically crashes into the sky bowl, which ends up all crackled. It made me think of that incredible scene in The Truman Show movie, when the main character has to step up those stairs to be free from the reality show he was born into. It’s a bit like I felt myself for so many months, actually. Some time ago, a painter from my Belgian region, Horst Kreusch, shared a work of his in which he uses that concept of a piece of the sky detaching itself like a worn-out ceiling panel. It really struck a chord. I mixed it in my mind with what my dad had dreamed once, about me being a shepherdess. When I was a teenager I slept in the attic, which was divided into my room, painted the same color as these poles, and his office. A red curtain acted as a door for my place, and one night, when he was about to go down the stairs after his work, he heard me ask: “do you think he will say yes?” He had no idea what I was talking about, the only thing he knew was that I was sound asleep. So he just answered “sure!”. I had no memory of it when he told me the next day. Anyway, when I remembered that shepherdess dream of his, my imagination ended up creating the young lady (a “remix” between Manon of the Sources and Goldilocks) counting bears instead of sheep in the blue night sky of her dreams.

-WOW! exclaims the voice. The painting is a beautiful rendering of Monument Valley.

-Yes, I acknowledge. And have you noticed the two feathers on the left, and the only remaining leaf on the right? It seems to fit just in the open space of West Mitten Butte, like the last piece of an unfinished puzzle.

 -Are we ever finished, though? wonders the voice… I like the decorations you’ve added to the composition. Nice five-pointed stars.

-Yes, they felt right. And the bear family is there because I guess that when you’re a shepherdess, counting sheep would feel like you’re still at work, so instead you count bears to go to sleep, heehee…

-Three bears, like the Magi.

-Yes, and they followed a star, like the seven little stars of Ursa Maior are following the lead of the North Star.

-It’s a song by U2… That star is also called the Pole Star…

-Yes, not to be mistaken for a porn star, haha! Whatever… So yes, maybe the seven stars and the three bears have things in common.

-You’re aware that the way the stars are aligned is a reminder of one of our fifty flags, are you? asks the voice.

-Yes. I noticed that in a class I took in Native American culture. The northernmost state must be beautiful to visit. It reminds me once when I flew here from Europe, the plane followed a weird route: we were nearly touching Greenland, from Spain, before heading back southwest. Maybe to have more perspective, heehee…

-I really love that Navajo scenery, and not only because I love westerns, says the voice.

-Me too. I remember reading somewhere that one of the rock formations was called “the three sisters” because it looked like a nun and two pupils. Frankly, no disrespect, but I think it’s nonsense. It would be way more logical to see the three sisters of agriculture in the Southwest, or the three Magi again, why not! Actually, this whole debate about how to call rock formations is something I struggled with back in Spain. There was this “fraile” rock near where I lived. Fraile means “monk”. I totally disagreed with that and said that to me, it was Boabdil, the last sultan of Granada. Now, after my three little mishaps in the yellow, I beg to differ with myself. It must have been his father, Hassan.

-Hissan?

-Well it’s close. Vowels are not as defined in Arabic. But I think that Hissan means horse, and Hassan means good, handsome, and benefactor. I think it fits. And Muley Hassan’s remains are said to have been buried atop Sierra Nevada’s highest peak.

-You’ve said that already.

-Well it’s worth a repeat, especially when memory has failed me for a long time, I answer. Look how the sultan rock sits before his mountain, here in a picture taken at a friend’s house, I say as I lean over the stump of the blue station.

-Sitting Rock appears a bit too tiny to me, complains the voice.

-Wait, I’ll find a better image…Geeze, if I have anything in this life, they are pictures… I think that this “fraile” thing, if we add a G in the middle, shows how fragile memory is and how photographs allow us to rekindle slumbering embers. Ha! Here, look at this close-up, it does Sitting Rock more justice.

-So is it the peak where he’s buried that we see right behind him?

-No, this one is el Veleta. The Mulhacén peak is hiding behind the rock promontory behind Sitting Rock. I think both like to hide, I smile.

-Maybe because they were waiting someone with enough memory to unfreeze them.

-Unfreeze them to free ‘Z’em, I tease.

-Right, heehee…

-I picture cosmic memory like a tunnel or an alleyway in a labyrinth, actually. It is tough to say what is really yours and what is fabricated, constructed from what they told you, or what belongs to one earth walk and what does belong to another, also what belongs to one individual or the other… Cats see that way better, I think. Sometimes their huge eyes look like the lights of a truck at the end of a tunnel.

-Like in the snow scene in the labyrinth of The Shining, says the voice, when his mind’s sight appears in the stump, together with that of a blue cat and the embrace of night and day.

-Exactly, I answer. I’ve read somewhere that the Egyptians would call cats “mau”, or something like that, which meant “to see”. To them, a cat’s gaze was in search of supreme truth, and it could see beyond death.

-I believe it is true. Plus they see in the dark way better than the majority of four-leggeds, and than humans for sure.

-I remember that I had a hard time understanding why some people are afraid of cats, but I can understand that their reflecting eyes can be intimidating.

-Maybe their eyes reflect the souls of many of us, and not everybody is ready to take the plunge and dive into the cosmic sea.

-It’s worth it though, I say. Back to The Shining, what do you believe really happened in that hotel, voice?

-What do YOU think?

-Well, I don’t think it was “cabin fever”. The hotel was a bit more than a cabin, haha! I mean, I know it means isolation, whatever size the ‘cabin’ is, but I remember a blatant desecration scene in the movie, when the character of Jack Nicholson plays baseball on Yei figures.

-And when the family arrives for the tour of the hotel when the rest of the staff is ready to leave, someone tells them that the hotel was built on Native American burial grounds, I think, or at least where harsh battles had taken place.

-Correct. I think that what happened in the hotel, apart from the reawakening of a former life of Jack Nicholson’s character, had also something to do with the spirits of those who had been desecrated again and again. And you need strength to be confronted to that. I guess it is what really happened… The character was not strong enough, or respectful enough, or not ready to embrace his shadow, like that image that shows up in your vision. Well, it’s easy for me to say so from the relative comfort of the maze, right? But still…

-I believe you’re right, acknowledges the voice. So what does blue conjure up to you?

-Well, right now I feel profound peace and the liberation of my capacity to speak out and up. It also brings me back to pleasant memories of stories and characters created by others, which have had a profound influence on me.

-Like the Smurfs?

-Haha! Yes, of course. Smurfs are a good way to reflect upon language and ponder about human complexities. The little character may also replace Zwarte Piet in some parts of Belgium and the Netherlands, because of the controversy about the racist traits of the looks of Saint Nicholas’ helper. So blue instead of black could be an option. Plus, hey! They say that blue blood is royal blood, and blue skin comes from dyed fabrics of wandering tribes like the Tuaregs and Berbers in general, so it fits.

-What did you exclaim in Spanish when we first entered this station? Asks the voice… out of the blue…

-Mi cielo azul, I say. It means “my blue sky”. By the way, ‘azul’ means hello in Tamazight, the Berber language. Everything is related, heehee.

-Yes. Something from your country that I’ve always liked is surrealism, and paintings by Magritte, among others.

-Me too. I think there’s an exhibition of his work in Paris as we speak.

-Ah… Paris, says the voice. I made it mine, as I flew on the wings of ancestral whispers, and let my spirit go with the flow to reawaken memories of old. Then I vowed to picture myself and the one in my mind and heart just like a painter does with a creation of his: brushstroke by brushstroke, but always from the perspective of both introspection and enough outer perspective to be conscious of the creation in process.

-I like that. And also the central painting where the sky is what is hidden behind the red curtain, like in a movie theater. By the way, have you noticed that many of the film studios opt for dreamlike illustrations in the opening credits of a movie, be it the sky, clouds, little boys fishing while sitting on the moon crescent or magnificent castles reflected on the surface of water?

-Yes, says the voice. And in Magritte’s central painting, red and blue are working together again, like the 3D glasses that I think we may have mentioned earlier in the maze.

-True. You know which blue character I always go back to ? I suddenly say.

-Who’s that?

-Amélie of Montmartre.

-She’s not blue though, says the voice. Her skin looks pretty white to me.

-Yes, except for one moment in the film, when, precisely, she's at the movies.

She looks straight at the camera, which is a supposed “violation” of the Hollywood codes, because in Classical Hollywood Text the character usually does not look directly at the spectator who is mainly a “voyeur” and is not addressed directly in the action. She whispers to the spectator that she loves turning around and look at other movie goers when she is in a movie theater. Then she goes on saying that she likes to spot a detail on the frame that nobody but her notices, like a bug on a window before a romantic kiss. The she goes on saying that she dislikes when, in old American movies, a driving scene takes place and the protagonist does not look at the road.

-Do you think that it is because if they do so it shows that it is a movie instead of a real car ride?

-Maybe. But I think that it is also because she’s a little bit of a control freak and would not like to let the car decide for her, if she were the one driving on the other side of the screen.

-Aren’t we all control freaks?

-Oh yes, I laugh. Very much. We are working on our recovery though, if I may say.

-I like the little kit of all her attire. I think it is also a display of all the personas we may take when dealing with society. So why does that film speak to you so much?

-The first time I saw it, I literally saw the light, I said “I want to be like Amélie” when I went out of the theater. I want to do little things for people. So it gave me ideas. The thing is, I did not realize that I was a bit like her too when she was being “fixed” by the Glass Man, who knew how to observe her and her little stratagems to spot her own weaknesses, so he adopted her indirect style to help her understand that she had to be more daring and open to the roughness of the world. He did that through paintings, and also acted as a mirror when he answered to her own video message through a similar message in return.

Actually, when I was calm enough as to rewind and replay in my mind certain events of my own life that felt like a real bad taste in my mouth, something of the impression that my life was collapsing a little as in a domino effect, things became clearer. For example, the scene of the TV set, with candles lit to invite Amélie to switch the TV on, was reenacted for me, and a THOUSAND of other similar details, by the way, thanks to an acute observation of my world and the reenactment of parts of what spoke to me.

-Ah, says the voice.

-Yes… Let’s say that “some” complexity in the behavior that went with it was added, for more flavor maybe, so that I could get used to the spicy Wild West style! This explains why sometimes I would not get it at once…

-Haha! I guess so… It’s ok if you don’t realize it at once, it takes time to notice that kind of little details from others. It can take many seasons actually.

-Yes, it’s another image that I like in the movie, which tells us how time passes by with the same still shot of a window box with an abandoned teddy bear stoically standing exposure, rain, heat or snow.

-Is it the loss of innocence too? asks the voice in a very “shrinky” way.

-I think so, or the desire to retain childhood’s magic and our way to cope with events that are a bit of a challenge.

-I particularly like the idea of the torn photographs and the puzzle that Nino works on in his albums, to reconstitute the faces of strangers, plus the mystery of the reappearing man. In the movie it has a “logical” explanation, but one can also read it as those feelings we sometimes have of looking for someone who is very familiar and shows up in the face of many others, even though we never met the person, or when we meet the person, it’s a a-ha moment of “ah, there you were”.

-Heehee, I could not have expressed it in a better way, mi voz. Back to the jigsaw puzzle, it is exactly how it feels when you reinvent or redefine yourself. Have you noticed that this kind of fragmented image appears in another movie “for children”, Beauty and the Beast? In one scene it is through a thorn portrait of the former Beast when he was a handsome but shallow Prince, and the other is when Beauty goes to the forbidden area of the castle, where the painting is, and she sees her reflection in a broken mirror.

-Yes, both of them need each other to fix what was broken inside. Have you noticed that she was clad in blue too, by the way?

-Yes, like Alice in Wonderland in the first animation movie I remember.

-I think creative writing and any kind of art is a healing tool that helped, in that case, Lewis Carroll to show the rest of the world how to embark upon a hero’s journey.

-Some people would argue that he was schizophrenic, says the voice.

-This really bothers me, I answer. You know, as soon as someone is experiencing something unusual, which the rest of society does not experience daily or just does not understand, bam, they’re mad! No wonder Lewis Carroll created such a wonderful character as the mad hatter. I love him very much. And you know what shamans say when they see how Western mainstream society treats people with so-called schizophrenic bouts: many times, it is a shaman’s awakening that is mistaken for madness.

-I totally agree. I was just testing you, actually…

-But of course, I tease.

-There’s one moment in Beauty and the Beast that she looks into a mirror that is not broken, and she wears a beautiful yellow gown, just before abandoning the Beast, with the magic mirror.

-I beg to differ, I say. She is not abandoning the Beast, and he has learned to let go of her. She just needs to get a few things done with her family. Sure enough, it will bring some distraught to the castle when the villagers follow her back to the castle and try to kill the beast, but it is also what, in the end, will break the spell once and for all. So if one reads the scene through colors only, saying that all that glitters like the yellow gown is not gold, I would say “just wait and see, and trust”. Easier said than done, sometimes. I totally agree.

-I did not say anything, said the voice.

-No but you were about to say it.

-Oh so you have a magic mirror of your own?

-Well, I don’t use it yet as well as you do, but yes, I start to understand a bit more of its functioning, I think… The tough part is to express it without sounding totally crazy to others. Not that it matters, but as a way to go on learning while surfing on the “regular” wave too.

-Well you said it, it’s like surfing. You will gain that balance little by little.

-I guess I will. And I am so happy to rely more on my writing capacity in English, and to be working on my oral capacity. It takes longer, but we’re getting to it, once the brain and tongue find their cruising speed. Have you noticed that we’ve been applying the chakra system when the colors of the maize are only six?

-Oh it does not really matter, says the voice, I think chakras are always good to apply, and it is also an opportunity to learn how to adapt one system to another, and therefore see the interconnectedness of everything. So shall we proceed, lady in green boots?

-Let’s proceed, voice of the shadows…

(To be continued: here)