Magic mirror, in the hay, thanks for showing me the way #1

The red way

Here I am, at the entrance (and also exit) of the so-called maize maze which actually is a sorghum maze. A post indicates, through wooden signs, the direction of important points of reference in Albuquerque: Petroglyphs, Balloon Fiesta, Biopark, Old Town… Oh, that is nearly my part of town, because I’ve always been attracted to the old, I guess. It is strange to enter this realm through its west gate… As if we were going backwards, well, maybe it is what is intended after all, at least to take a look back to understand what brought us in the now. My first steps take me on an intuitive walk among tall wannabe maize stalks, and I hear a voice in my head that asks me if I am ready to step into the past and the future, to put on the coat of who I am.  

Magic mirror in the hay, thanks for showing me the way #0

Here are my memories of when I walked the maize maze. Maybe they’re accurate, maybe they’re blurred. Maybe they’re from the real realm or maybe the dream realm. Maybe it’s me, maybe it’s you, maybe it’s all of us, dancing in the mirror. Are you ready to take this journey? Believe me or believe me not, érase una vez un laberinto, where the journey was about to begin in the Kan ya Makan, the land of the edge of me, au fil de l’autre, au fil de l’eau, the land of il était une fois et puis une autre pas, suivez mes pas... Follow me...

Magic mirror in the sand, Tell me who I am again #4

-Between you and I, goes on Peridot, I must confess that I’ve always seen all those dolls in Santa’s office like red drops in a unique shade of pain(t) tossed in a bucket that I call the “Mirageous (an adjective between miraculous, mirage, and rage) Harem Pot”. Sounds a bit like Harry Potter, by the way. How about transforming that name I chose for the particular paint bucket?

-I would love it! I say. Nico, grab my hand, and we’ll see what we can make of this fake harem…

After a few minutes of deep concentration, Nico and I come up with a funny line made of our boggling mind:

*Harem pot* dance, born in the old *hate prom*, I’m grounded again and have built from the *earth* *THE* perfect *mop* to cleanse my *heart*.

-I needed a heart mop too, Lady, says Peridot. Thank you for helping me finding it.

-De nada…

-We all needed it, says Nico. Now that you seem to have expelled the black sap from your heart again and turned the interrogation marks into a big red heart, the sacred cow and I have a gift for you…

Magic mirror in the sand, Tell me who I am again #3

-Wow, I say, it’s the first time ever I see someone painting Mona Lisa with coffee…

-Yes, I’m an artist, and a Kermit-cœur-mythe too…

-I think you mean hermit, I dare to interrupt…

-No I mean Kermit, like the frog who always knew how to entertain the masses… Look, I know sometimes it must have been a wild ride for Frida and Georgia, but they had the choice to be strong, and they were, but they also chose to sometimes bask in that victim mode, and in the end, who’s most remembered, huh? Same for Mona Lisa siempre callada y sonriente… I say both parties always have their responsibility on how easy or tricky the ride is.

-I agree, I said.

-You do? Well, that’s great to hear. Ok, let’s erase Mona and have that coffee, shall we? I got this Hawaiian blend a friend gave to me, I don’t know its name, she just gave me a home-made pack with initials on it: KS, she told me to drink it as the day breaks, when I greet the sun. But here it’s like on the Little Prince’s planet actually. So many things seem to dawn on you and on us all that it feels like a new day after each a-ha moment.

Magic mirror in the sand, Tell me who I am again #2

The landing is not too rough. I fall on sand again, and I have a balance problem like Alice when she fell on the ceiling under an upside down candelabra. It also has to be similar to what Peter Pan must have experienced when he left without his shadow, or what the shadow must have felt when he left without it.

-You’re YOU though, says a voice in my head. And remember: Rumi said that “doing as others told me, I was blind. Coming when others called me, I was lost. Then I left everyone, myself as well. Then I found everyone, myself as well.”

-Yes, I whisper. And Jung also said “My soul leads me into the desert of my own self”, so let’s have a look at this me-desert…

Magic mirror in the sand, Tell me who I am again #1

-So you’re doing “wind angels” or something?

The words pronounced in the Gypsum Sea of the Tularosa Basin are meant to be scornful but the voice is still warm and clear… It seems to come out of nowhere, and as I look around, a bit perplex, I stop my silly moves on the white sands of this unique scenery in the south of my beloved New Mexico.

-…Huh? Do I finally utter out there in the warm air.

-It’s not how it’s supposed to be done, you’re only half way grounded; how do you want any angel to be seen from above if you have one leg and one arm in the air?

The Beauty of Identity

UNM (University of New Mexico), Albuquerque,
first semester of my master’s in Cultural Studies

“Let us introduce ourselves”, and the introductions began. I felt a little awkward when my turn came in this Native American Studies’ course, “Politics of Identity”, taught by Professor Lee. I was the only “white” person there, whose last home was Granada, Spain, the very place where Columbus had been given the green light (and huge funds partly taken from the Jews who were expelled from the Kingdom) to go “discover the New World”. Many of my peers introduced themselves in Dineh, in the traditional Navajo way, which gives utmost importance to stating the clans and places one is from. This was my first ‘live’ introduction to what I knew in theory, and it was a good way to show how profound is the connection to the Earth, one of the ‘identity markers’ that would be thoroughly studied during the whole semester.