mardi 14 mars 2017

Mirror in the Hay, thanks for showing me the way #8

Siete son los colores del arcoíris reflejados en las ocho puntas de la Estrella de Lakshmi

When I feel that my lady guests from the past are fully awake and present with me after some time spent, for all of us, pondering about the meaning of the mantra I had created, I tell them about one of my realizations.
-You know, ladies, I took advantage of the night to “sleep on” some of my prejudices, and I re-watched the beginning of that stupid movie, “El pecador de la pradera”, “The Sinner of the Prairie”. I have heard more than once that what gets on our nerves is actually very revealing if we are willing to know why it makes us nervous or mad or impatient, because it has to do with something we should deal with. Soooo, I have decided to listen to that “comedian” again, because I remembered a sentence that had come to me one morning as I woke up from a dream that I could not recall: “if something seems off or odd, it must be, somehow, Spirit speaking... So let’s make sure that we’re not deaf to signs, otherwise they will fade”. The repetition of “f” and “d” in that strange “wake-up greeting” had naturally led me to repeat the Catholic Monarchs’ motto: “Tanto Monta, Monta Tanto, Isabel como FernanDo”, which stated the equal power and status between husband and wife. So I armed myself with patience and rewound this piece of… anthology. I started to accept that, maybe, Chiquito’s nonsensical gibberish could actually be Spirit talking through the guy, and that I should therefore give it a second try because I could find something of interest for me, especially if it was “off” or “odd”… I was able to “stand” the first minutes of it, watching the actors crawling as they talked nonsense, but there was something actually really cool in the end of Chiquito’s speech: “Lucas, estamos perdidos… Perdí la última huella “distilar” en aquella montaña gris. Cuidado con los alacranes y cocodrilos… ¡Tú has tenido la culpa! Por aquí no se va a París. Hay tanta sequía que se ven las ranas con cantimplora. Lloras por estos conductos vocales lo que no supiste defender como una mujer”…
-I guess he meant instead: “Ibki l-yawma bukā'a n-nisā'i ʿalā mulkin lam taḥfadhu ḥifdha r-rijāl”, well I mean: “Lloras como mujer lo que no supiste defender como hombre”, says Soraya.
-That’s what I thought at first too, I answer. But then I pondered about it. And I heard a melody from the past. As I say this, I take my recorder and play: la, fa, re, re, la, sol, fa, sol-fa-mi, sol, fa, mi, sol-sol-sol, fa, sol, la-la… Fátima, allash, b’kit ana, Fátima mi corazón te llama” I sing in a smile.
-Any chance that someone would find a translation button in your wonderful machine, Nathalie? asks Annie who really doesn’t like it when she does not understand something.
-Haha, push MY button, I say, I am your flesh and blood translator… I was singing a song that Soraya reminded me of. The song I’ve just played is bilingual, in darija (Moroccan) and Spanish, and says “Fatima: why am I crying, Fatima: my heart is calling you”. It was a song by a local Moroccan band in Granada, something I remembered because of the hyper famous sentence Soraya and I know about. 
-It was uttered by Boabdil’s mother when they went into exile in the Alpujarra, says Soraya: “You are crying like a woman over something you were not able to defend like a man”. That’s what Fátima told her son, my stepson, when he cried over his (our) lost paradise: Granada, on his way to exile, with all his people, including his cold momma and his weak wife who would not make it to the other side of the Mediterranean when time would come for them to leave Spain for Morocco... Destiny seems to be doing things backwards, at times, isn’t it? she sighs.
-Well that’s exactly what I want to focus on here, Soraya. I answer. What sounded like an inversion in that stupid movie, a mistake in the sentence, is actually fantastically accurate. Chiquito de la Calzada says “to defend like a woman”, instead of “to cry like a woman”. Even though I profoundly dislike the guy’s so-called humor, which I’d rather call dumbness, I have to recognize that he made a point there. He shut Fátima up! Even though she was “official” for society, she had never been Hassan’s true love… But she held on to the idea of it because she had married him, and when he left her, her pride, more than love, had been hurt so bad that she relinquished on what I now learn to see as divine feminine traits: compassion as strength, love as weapon, and emotions as what keeps the world in motion. We, mujeres, are powerful beings, but not in the war-like sense that Fátima gave to it. So thanks, Chiquito, even though I’m pretty sure that you managed this “sin querer queriendo”, heehee… And I choose to say, instead, “thanks, Spirit!”

lundi 27 février 2017

Mirror in the Hay, Thanks for showing me the Way #7

In the Green Hallway… “Tus Labios pa’ mí, Tanit, Turai; Tu Estrella en Mí, Tara, Thurai”


Swoosh! I hear in the wind, as I see a silver cord dancing in spirals around me. I grab it and hold onto it, happy to know that kites always have cords long enough as to never get lost. Before making it back to the green hallway, I look at my surroundings and I smile at the little bridge over the acequia, facing a park across el bosque. Sunrays on the snow have given the bridge a whole new dimension. “EstA Puente, mi Espalda”, I whisper in an homage to Gloria Anzaldúa, and then also to my favorite Native writer, and finally to some place up north in LA NuevA México. It now looks like a series of wheels in motion.


lundi 20 février 2017

Mirror in the Hay, Thanks for showing me the way #6

A Black and White Dream

-Wake up, sleepy bear, wake up! Maybe if I tell you a story, it will work in reverse to become a “get-up-time” story, and it will make you come back from wherever you’re wandering as you sleep... So here it goes. Once upon a time, as I saw you in a dream, you were a little girl, and you were staying at a place where a birthday or similar was celebrated. From that attic’s window, one could see a school ground below… People had decided to play a prank on little you. They had you lie on a couch, then asked you to close your eyes, and with a burnt cork they painted parts of your face black, under the eyes and on the cheeks. They wanted you to believe that you had been sleeping for months. You kind of knew that it was not true but were so stunned at their blatant lie that you did not understand that it was a joke. Everybody laughed and you did not. You were not offended or mad; you did not feel as a victim either, you were just wondering why they felt the need to do that, and your personal need was to understand their mindset. You felt a bit like an E.T. and your inquisitive mind secretly wondered if it would actually be possible to be sleeping for so long, and what it would imply.

vendredi 23 décembre 2016

Mirror in the hay, thanks for showing me the way #5

In the hay, in the hag, in the hall…

-So which color is missing from the maze to complete our chakras? asks the voice.
-Well, I answer, the conceptors of the maze have mixed two kinds of blue, actually. Because the physical station, where it felt so good to relax and have a chat, is painted in a color very similar to the New Mexican sky, turquoise. But then on the paper they have painted a darker hue.
-cobalt, azure, lapis, navy, indigo?
-I really don’t know, I say. Although I guess it’s indigo, to make it match the color of the sixth chakra, that of the third eye… I must admit that I have a hard time differentiating the colors of the last two chakras: indigo and purple, they look pretty similar to me.
-Well, it’s ok, we will go with the flow anyway, to see what comes up eventually. Speaking of which, what character does ‘blue’ conjure up for you?

mercredi 21 décembre 2016

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?



dimanche 18 décembre 2016

Magic Mirror in the hay, thanks for showing me the way #3

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?

lundi 28 novembre 2016

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.