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?

-Many, I say. It depends on the day, on the moment of the day, and on the mood too… Blue Beard or la Dama Azul… She was a dreamer who escaped her cold Spanish convent cell to let her soul (or more than that) fly to New Mexico.

-Yes, Sor María de Ágreda… says the voice.

-Oh you know her. Yes. One day, I think it was four years ago, I was lucky enough to be in an incredible house where Las Posadas were reenacted, and there she was, painted in the kitchen of our host. He had made her a saint already!

-It’s good to rewrite our stories, and other people’s stories too.

-Yes, I totally agree, and I guess it’s why I am rediscovering so many stories that bear Disney’s trademark with new, amazed eyes. Strangely enough, I did not remember being so in awe when I was a little girl.

-Maybe because magic is natural by then.

-I’m not sure it’s the reason. It’s as if something was off, or frozen. By the way, recently I’ve seen the movie Frozen. It’s pretty blue, a colder kind of blue than the warm turquoise we’ve just left. And it reminded me of Tangle, actually. I think it was produced by the same folks. The magic in the heroins’ hair, undoing what’s been done, when it’s a thing that does not benefit all… And of course, love is what will thaw all that once was frozen.

-It can take time.

-Yes, sometimes an incredible amount of time. It would drive me crazy actually, a few years ago. It still does sometimes. Like right now I’m not too much in a mood for talking and analyzing anything else, But I guess I have to, it’s like the last effort before we can rest.

-No wonder you’re tired. We’ve been in this maze since October, and we’re at a blink of an eye away from Christmas.

-Oh, wow… Really? Although it sounds like not that much compared with how I’ve kind of always felt, somehow. It is as if I had finally realized that part of me was frozen. It has to do with memory, a very long spanned memory, actually.

-Very timely memory for a new color recess! says the voice. Look where we are!

-Oh! The next station, I whisper. Hello Violet.

As I say this, I take the last copper bowl from my bag and wear it on my head, like this old lady that had appeared somewhere in the red station.

-Haha, laughs the voice. Are you afraid to lose your « awen », Cerridwenn ?

 -I have decided to use it as my crown, my dear… How do I look in the long shadow of the setting sun?

-You look as if you were fishing something, says the voice.

-Yes, a catfish maybe… I say, tongue in cheek. It’s true that la Sombra de este Palo Alto looks like a fishing rod. Let me have a closer loo…Ooooh!

-What? Asks the voice, who sounds a bit alarmed for no apparent reason…

-Have you seen this hat that just came flying and landed atop this stick? Olaf is impressed too!

-Who’s Olaf, asks the voice again, as if stuck within the shape of the purple sticks.

-Well, the snowman that Elsa had made for her little sister when they were careless, and the one she redid when she started to thaw, after so, so, so many years of sub-zero temperature in which the fear of being different had imprisoned her and all those who loved her.

-And who were loved by her too, corrects the voice.

-Yes, I agree. She had a peculiar way to show it sometimes, but it was all out of sacrifice, actually. And fear too, and maybe custom or belief in the need to be apart from the rest. Ana’s stubbornness paid in the end, and the help, strength and willpower of many others too.

-Let’s have a look at the stump, suggests the voice.

-OK, I say as I take the copper bowl off my head to leave it at the center of the purple station.

As I get closer to the stump, I see some images of the movie I’ve just mentioned.

-Oh, this image is giving me much hope, I say. “End of the trail”, we’re getting closer to warm fires. I know it.

-What does this Virgin have to do with Elsa though? asks the voice who truly needs an explanation here, unlike other times when the questions sound like a shrink’s textbook.

-Well, maybe she’s not a Virgin. I guess she’s the saint Monique in question. She was a bit lost and torn between contradictory creeds and customs. She was somehow bossy with her son, Saint Augustine, and would not let him marry whom he wanted. She was from North Africa, actually. You know, I cannot help thinking in French here, and I imagine 66 in the mirror of the frozen surface, it gives two “nines”, deux neufs. Neuf means “new” apart from nine. There’s this Celtic saying: “Au gui l’an neuf”, “New Year by the Mistletoe” pronounced first in the thick woods of my Celtic roots. Let me look for what I had written, it will be on my Facebook newsfeed, I say as I grab my cell phone from the bag.

Ha! Here it is! Listen: “I was never really able to know the difference between misteltoe and holly. They are different though, in their leaves, and also one is red and the other is white. In French both have just one syllable. Misteltoe is GUI, the white one, and Holly is HOUX, the red one. But then I understood, thinking in terms of this red and white so-called opposition, of skin colors, and of the imposition of one faith over another, many times realized through horrible bloodshed. So I saw why I could not see the difference between gui or houx, because my indigenous roots, from the Celtic world, once were under assault too. Gui or Mistletoe is seen as a parasite plant, but in the Celtic world it was a miraculous plant, one that had the power to heal it all. So the Druids would encourage their fellow villagers to hang it above the door for health, abundance and love, hence the tradition to kiss under the Mistletoe. But the know-it-all Christian Church decided that it had to erradicate this 'horri-ble' pagan practice while still needing to hook its new flocks, so it changed the 'horri-ble' into... 'holly-ble', closer to the Holy Bible, which would force down the throat of gullible folks the conviction that their ways were bad and that red holly was better, holly/holy-er, because its leaves represented the thorns of Christ’s crown during his 'Passion' and red represented the bloodshed of his crucifixion... We still remember, though, in our Celtic hearts and souls, that we say “au gui l'an neuf”, which is a deformation of a Celtic expression, pronounced in a language that the French speakers no longer recognized as theirs and tried to rekindle through the lens of a new tongue of the colonizer. “O ghel an heu” is what the druids would really say, a blessing for abundant harvest: May the Wheat Germinate.”

-Well, it’s always good to wish for abundant harvests, says the voice. And why not doing it as we kiss under both plants?

-Ha! You’ve read my thoughts, dear voice, it is the solution that I had come up with as well. Kissing under Holly for Christmas, and under Mistletoe for the New Year’s Eve...

-Sounds good to me, says the voice.

-Sounds good to hear, I tease. I had posted images of unicorns and deer, I say as I show my cell phone screen to the sky, the only place I can think of when I want to directly address AND SEE the voice.

-You had spelled “unique corn” though.

-Yes, because “corn” is cool, and “cornE” is a horn in French. It takes us back to Olaf, actually, he thought that the carrot that Ana had given him as a nose had turned him into a unicorn, I say, amused at the memory.

-Hasn’t one of your white candles “thawed” into a unicorn, recently? Asks the voice.

-How do you know that? And when was it, by the way? It feels recent, way more recent than October.

-Because it was, says the voice. You were home, well, you were “in the hallway” as you call it. Maybe our encounters here in the maze take place when you dream.

-Oh, so this is a dream?

-I don’t know…

-Oh come on, voice, you always do that.You hint at something then you withdraw it and shut up and play dumb. It really irritates me sometimes.

-But don’t be mad, I want you to discover the mystery kind of by yourself.

-I know you do, it’s just that, GOD, it’s been a while… And I’m sometimes like Ana the red-haired princess… Trying and trying and trying, but getting a bit tired of it.

-You’re not going to retire now that we’re so close…

-No, I won’t. Of course I won’t, I never do… So back to the candle, it’s true. It was a nice present actually, it felt like I even did not need to write all this, wait, I mean to live all this, to let the universe know about my inner world.

-I guess writing or living it helps you make it more tangible, like a video that you would rewind, pause, play in fast-forward or just enjoy with or without sound.

-Like those multiple screens in a TV shop.

-Where a siren once exploded them all because she pronounced her name to the one she loved? Asks the voice whose mental image appears in the stump.

-Oh, I giggle. But you switched to an underwater image of that movie, heehee… And your psyche added images from Maleficent, who was not so mala but was just hurt in her feelings, as we’ve learned with a more recent version of the movie. The other day I imagined how it was to see from an indigenous storyteller’s perspective.

-We all have kind of the same perspective, says the voice in a slightly impatient tone.

-Well, not exactly if the indigenous storyteller is a spider, I answer. So many eyes, it must feel like that: seeing the world trough many different TV sets. It is one of the images from a movie that most fascinated me: Mughal e Azam, one of the best-known Bollywood movies of all times. I’ve recently realized that I somehow idealized the past and did not really see what I had to see. I was told in a weird vision, when the candle wax unicorn appeared in the room and I watched a clip of that movie. I was shown a totally different scene, more centered on a water statue and the prince’s mother who carried around something that looked like a dead baby crocodile. Anyway, the thing is, the Sheesh Mahal or Mirror Palace fascinated me, when Anarkali, the slave dancer whose name means pomegranate blossom, performs the song Pyar Kiya To Darna Kya. The Great Moghol sees her reflection in the thousand mirrors of the palace, which drives him a bit dizzy and mad because she is so blunt.

-Wow, I feel dizzy too, says the voice.

-Yes, no wonder. You’re not the only one, though… The funny thing is that, after an incredible number of spins by Anarkali, the raga singers say something that really sounds like “in the hag” 

-Haha! In the old witch? asks the voice.

-Yeah, right? It’s what I hear, although it could as well be “in the hay” or “in the hall”.

-In the maze or at your place…

-That’s it… I sigh. Anyway, so many reflections can make one feel a bit disoriented for a while. The dancer had found her means of expression through dance and song. The Great Moghol wanted to shut her up and bury her alive in the walls of some somber oubliette because of her love for his son.

-Oubli means forgetfulness in French, am I correct?

-Yes, voice, you are. Now we are in the opposite mode, a remembrance mode.

-Is it why you have changed my initial image in the stump?

-Oh, heehee. Maybe. When I saw Frozen I was reminded of the first and only time I tried to ice skate. It was not exactly my cup of tea. And I needed help, just like Ana. The sleigh thing, I guess, somehow reminds me of a tractor. Ana can afford buying a new sleigh to her true love, but I am sure that even though she could not, it would not be a problem for him. Maybe the blue tractor I saw before entering the maze is what makes me think of that machine, although I think the red ribbons on the sleigh would do good to the overall color of the tractor I have in mind.

-Yes, like we said many times, red and blue are the colors whose union makes us see things in 3D, says the voice.

-And if we make them dance together for a while, we obtain purple! I add. This is the color of the first images of Frozen. Powerful images of broken ice seen from underwater… Those reminded me of The Big Blue scene, when Jacques / Jack swims under a huge layer of ice. I was so relieved when he came back to the surface!

-Don’t we say that memories resurface after having been like under the ice for some reason?

-Correct, I say. And I was trained to understand how water retains everything, good and bad, and that it is true no only for this lifetime but many, many, many other lifetimes as well.

-It’s pleasant as long as they are good memories, but why would someone want to bring unpleasant circumstances or reenact painful moments? Asks the voice. I think it is extremely cruel, don’t you agree?

-There you go with your testing schemes again… I sigh. You know, it starts to be very obvious when you try to trigger something in me, or when you are willing to observe a reaction. I guess it’s why I can be impossible sometimes as far as you’re concerned, because I retrieve in my shell and block any intent of someone wanting me going their way. Well, helloooo, it’s me... But I will be kind enough as to answer your supposed question. I think that everything has a purpose, and since we’re in the pink, well, the purple, I am pretty sure that emotional triggers sometimes are necessary for us to crack the ice of our mind, or forehead, to let the third eye peek out and breathe after a long slumber lost in our too rational self. Well, I don’t know, I think some trolls told me so in an apacolyptical night.

-You mean “aPOCAlyptic”, corrects the voice.

-I beg your pardon, I say, it was not “poca” cosa at all, it was a big thing, big time, and actually I need to correct myself because it lasted more than a night and a day.

-Ah, says the voice who takes a fake neutral tone on purpose when something important is being said. And when was that?

-Approximately three years ago.

-I see, says the voice. Does it happen in other occasions?

-Last year not really. I guess I was too immersed in a rat race to be able to include a third eye in all that was going on. I tried to perform a little ceremony but those around were obviously not at all in the mindset for it, so the movie we watched together was good enough.

-Which movie?

-Labyrinth.

-Ha ! Hahaha ! It’s perfect.

-Yes it is. I felt I was the only one going against the current and wanting to remain in that castle though… If I had been the protagonist, that is…

-Well, maybe the movie was giving you very personal signs and insights that could not be understood by others.

-I agree, you clever thing.

-I believe in miracles, giggles the voice.

-Wait, is that from the same movie?

-I don’t remember, says the voice. But Bowie said sexy thing, not clever thing.

-Oh the two are synonyms in my mind, I smile. And I know that in yours too.

-True… Speaking of “sexy”, look who’s popping up in our space? Who’s this nude lady and her feline replica?

-Oh! La Vénus de Miló aux tiroirs ! I exclaim…

-Oh wow, it’s the mirror girl of the cat’s cradle again ! And the cat Venus has two faces! Says the voice.

-Ah, see! I say in a victorious tone. The third eye! I was right.

-I like the black cat with the beaver hat, says the voice.

-Me too. Maybe it was made by some trapper from times bygone. And I think that the black cat is there to remind me of so many years when the man in the mountain would stare at me through the cat’s eyes…

-Huh?

-Oh don’t play innocent now, I know that you know what I mean… Sitting Rock, that is...

-OK, I will shut up.

-It’s not what I meant, but I am really fed up of not being able to address things in plain light, yes. “Be Water”, my friend, once said a famous actor. Well, be like the Venus and let me rummage through your drawers…

-I have no problem with that. YOU are the one who blocks that.

-Let’s rephrase this: I have problems with some aspects of it, and you have problems with some others. So let’s find a way to balance all this… Maybe we would need a body of frozen water to express ourselves in a good, physical way, trying to break the freaking ice that you’re so good at carving…

-Who, me?

-Oh come on… Let’s be creative instead of pointing fingers, shall we?

-Yeah… This balance thing kind of got on my nerves though.

-Yes, and I understand why now. But I was not born a walrus so you’ll excuse me if I need time to understand your incredible subtleties…

-A walrus?

-Yeah, it’s because we give that sea creature the same name as the Morse code in French. And frankly, sometimes, even the morse code, which I do not know, would fail deciphering your ways… But I do, eventually I do. Man, am I proud of this! Sooooo, yes, I was a bit unfair when I asked for balance, when swimming in your pond without noticing it… Because your pond is extremely deep and made of subtleties, and it is also more used than I am to read in the dark layers of times, like in the scrying surface of mercury. But I recognize now that you spent an incredible amount of hours crafting many, many, many things for me to learn how to dive and spin in the rapids.

-Good to hear, miss Spin.

-Oh you look good in this pirate attire.

-It’s not me, protests the voice.

-Really? I think it is a good portrayal, though.

-Well I like to see you spin as I wonder if it will stir your faith but I don’t need any device to find my way to your psyche. We’re not doing milkshakes here, even though I like to shake you a little sometimes, but hey, it is to mix your colors better, heehee.

-Heehee… You’re extremely funny. Know that I can be a good pirate too, the only thing missing in the maze right now is water, so that I could show you…

-Be careful with what you wish… whispers the voice. And for now, just turn around!

The copper bowl about which I had forgotten starts to grow, grow, grow till it becomes a replica of Solomon’s Sea of Bronze.

-Is it the Fountain of the Lions of the Alhambra? asks the voice.

-Oh, well maybe it’s a mix of both. Or even a hybrid of many different things. Solomon had twelve bronze oxen as the base for his fountain, and the Alhambra had twelve lions. Here I see many creatures underneath the bowl: two lions, ok; two oxen, fine; two eagles or hawks; two deer; two rams or churro sheep and two horses…

-They can’t move though… Looks, it seems that there are other creatures under the ice.

-Oh because of course the water is frozen too… I say. They look like seahorses. Like that belly dancer’s fancy bell of mine. Once I saw a seahorse in its shape…

-What can we use to break the ice? complains the voice.

-I know! I exclaim. I still have those stones I had gathered at the beginning of our walk, they’ll break the ice and free the seahorses!

-Sure, good idea, let’s give it a try. Actually I remember that we had mentioned this possibility earlier in the maze.

I smile as I see myself climbing a giant water jar that I remembered as a decorative item at a friend’s bathroom.

-See! I told you I could be a pirate too, I laugh.

-Yes, well, knowing your “amazing” orientation skills, we’ll see where it takes us…

-Do not dare to underestimate me, like I won’t underestimate myself either, I say as I blow on the jar image to add my own representation of equality after showing off a bit about my climbing skills.

-Oh so nobody’s worrying about the rudder here?

-Nah, we have good spirit with us, and seven league boots, I answer.

-Ah… Ok!

-Here, I have found my stones. You remember the strange line we saw on them? They were zippers actually…

-Logical…

-…not, but I love it anyway. Let’s see what there is under this first one. Oh, a face…

-I have a feeling I won’t like this part of the journey, says the voice.

-Well, just like I was not fond of some parts of the yellow station, I dare to add. But they are stones… Only stones, which are useful because of what they can teach. Remember that stones also are what enabled the little boy of the fable to find his way back home. So why not reenact this. I will let you throw the stones in the water if it makes you feel better. Find a magical phrase as you do it, like, I don’t  know, it’s your action so make up your own phrases.

-Well, how do you want me to throw them if I’m only a voice?

-In the same way as I hear you, I know that I can feel you too if I concentrate very much. So you’ll be the one guiding my hand, deal?

-Deal, says the voice. And here is the magical sentence: “Ghost, thank you for your teachings, but like the bee still looking for its best honey, bee free to go now!”

-It’s a good one. I’m afraid that for real ghosts of disembodied nature, we won’t have enough with those stones, though.

-Oh but we have other ways for that kind of ghosts…

-Ah, true…

-OK, so I will open the zippers one by one and will give one thing to be thankful for, and then we’ll throw it on the ice.

Intercultural approaches! Crack, SPLASH!

Growing beyond my age and facing terror! Crack, SPLASH!

Taste for songs and crystals! Crack, SPLASH!

Magic of images! Crack, SPLASH!

Music, storytelling and belated discernment! Crack, SPLASH!

Value of turning around! Crack, SPLASH!

This one has no zipper, and it feels way warmer… Look, it has nice sepia tones. This one I wish to keep and put in this copper plate that is waiting in my bag… It will help me remembering what we call “plate” in French. Balance… when we ride a horse…

-Oh really? Says the voice in a tone that sounds a bit embarrassed.

-Yes. Look how precious it is, I say as I roll it in my hand. Oh, wait, there are marks on it too though, on its belly. It’s a Zia sign made of little arrows…

At this precise moment, three arrows fall from the sky and land in the “sea”.

-They were needed for my training, I say without paying too much attention to them. I am curious, and I value the teachings I received. I think I am stronger, wiser, and more open now than some time ago… I value the time taken in crafting all the details of what led me to a better me and an incredible gift of memory. It takes a while to understand the energies…

-Not bad, says the voice, not bad… Any details?

-No, I keep them for when you stop being just a voice… I just remember a moment by another fountain that had inspired me for a story throughout space and time, and the last time I was there, by el Corral del Carbón, I had to hold an ice cream that prevented me from looking at the water surface again… I have nice research and writing plans for the future, if the water agrees, and if you help me reading a bit better in its reflection.

How are those sea horses going?

-Look, they are beautiful… and there is also some unique corn here, it looks like a rainbow… full of colored beads…

-Oh, perfect, a seahorse and a unique corn, perfect stallions…

As I try to ride the seahorse, all the water around turns green and I float on the surface of the sea, while holding my beautiful plate with the flower of life and the most beautiful stone in it. The movements of the seahorse are smooth and gracious. So this is why I had never reached green, I think… Green is at the heart of one’s journey, at the heart of oneself. It feels good in this place. At that moment, the seahorse starts to spin and turn into a silver thread. I hold onto it so tight that I’m afrait it can break, but I remember words from wise beings who say that this silver thread is what relates body and soul, and it is even stronger when it gets mixed with a red cord that knows its way towards Emerald City. Hi, Ho, Silver, I shout, and in the sky two last images take me back near a place that was called the mirror in Arabic.

Below strange gypsum tepees, a new kind of gate writes the purpose of the maze walk. It shows some masked characters not too difficult to recognize, and soothing white clouds in which I long to rest for this quiet season and always. Here is my green, I wear it on the horse.

I’m sure that the voice, in spirit, whispered to the mare’s ear that she had to stop by this structure made of gypsum karst from Sorbas, in the hope of reminding me of my own constructions on the beach of “the mirror”, so long ago already, there where the windmills of my heart spinned and spinned and I could not hear their song yet. Now my skull feels like this incredible carving out of selenite from the Naica caves in Chihuahua, Mexico… They say that giant tubular crystals are big enough to hold several humans… And I wonder: is it on them or into them? As this question arises, I find myself back in “the hallway” writing these lines, weary, tired and in need of a break, but with a knowledge that only asks for more space, time and shared experiences to add magical pages to the album in the making. As I look at the “hallway” with new eyes, I understand that I was in the green all this time: the front door, facing south, is covered by a somehow tattered green sari that got tired of being stuck behind the hook and opened a gaping mouth to protest against such scar.

-We all scar, sari, but sometimes it’s neces-sary… This pun was not even intended, by the way…

The other door never opens, it’s been condemned, and another beautiful green sari covers it. This one is embroidered with shining stones that look like delicate flowers or morning stars that adorn a picture of Qalat al Hamra above, the red castle. I crossed many seas, many times, I got lost, I got wrong, I got hurt, I did hurt, I got back up on the saddle again wishing to always believe my heart’s whispers. I tripped in the process. I learned from the stony ground here I fell.

-Why are you still in the hall, then? Asks the voice whom I really started to miss.

-Partly because I’d like to be told something else than “you know where we are”, and to see something else than an icy plume of the fleeting breath of a voice in the shadows: like you coming for me... But also because now I know that to be where I want to be I needed to go back, waaaay back in time and space, to understand where I come from and how energy works, all this as I learned how to listen to the silence. I needed to be in this hall, this tubular green home that was like an airlock from one state to another, a bear’s lodge, a gipsy cave, an alchemist’s den. I needed to see my reflection in the tiny stars of a sari that I now call Turai. I needed to somehow be cut into pieces to reshape a new, shiny mosaic that finally found the pieces that have been missing ever since I was born and were waiting in a home across many seas. The airlock was my cat’s cradle indeed, where I entered through the south “land” and longed to leave through the north sky’s gate. There are thousands of things still left unsaid, but I don’t want to write them here. I want to spot all the glistening stars on the surface of the water when you’re there to see them from the same side of the veil, I want to unravel one by one all the beautiful threads that were being woven from behind the North gate despite moments of sadness for my lack of memory, or of pain for what all-seeing eyes would see when I was still stumbling here and there. But here and there are now sleeping in the bottom of the sea. Pretty Woman in her movie wanted the fairy tale, I was in a thousand fairy tales at once and did not even know it. Yes, my voice, sometimes you were misunderstood, but you and I know that you were and always will be loved. And I am loved too, by you and me, as it should be, and by many others too, all will end and start in beauty. I close my eyes and maybe you’ll be there when I open them again. And if not, well my very important pony knows the way... Oh and one last thing; VIP aka Very Important Pony says "no more trick" for a while, we need a smooth ride now!

(To be continued: here)