The answer

You arrived without memory,
double-faced guardian at the gate,
rooted down in this fleeting moment,
one face projecting to the future,
another one looking into the past,
one face watching for outside enemies,
the other looking after the abode.

Thinking that you know
what you have not yet seen.
You deceive me, and I still love you.
You mock me, and I still love you.
You spit on me, and I still love you.
You are angry, and I still love you.
You hate me, and I still love you.

You think you know,
but you can't see clear.
I love you so you understand
that without me you are not,
because Love gave you life.
I am Love.
You are me.

Anaga Park in North Tenerife, Canary Islands.

Why don't we talk to each other anymore?

Coming home from vacation on the plane, I watched two movies. "Hidden Figures" and "The immortal life of Henrietta Lacks". I cried, all the way through them. As a foreigner, I only come to understand Black culture and history through literature. I remember reading Langston Hughes in Spanish when I was a teenager, "Not without laughter". I didn't know he was black until I went to College in California! His novel seemed to me so normal and close to my own experience when I read it, that I didn't notice the real story behind.  But yes, I had also read "The Cabin of Uncle Tom" and cried, but that story felt like long gone history to me, in another strange world.

Now, the news hits us again. There is a picture of a small toddler with a white cone on her head in front of a police officer. There is pain. There is an unbearable pain in people's heart. We all know it's not just in this country. Every place, every people has its own pain history. I also have mine as a migrant, daughter, grand-daughter, and great grand-daughter and gggd of migrants. Even hundreds of years after, generation after generation we carry the pain. The suffering from this pain is now unbearable, and it's coming out violently, because people are hurt and broken. One only has to look at the faces of the Charlottesville aggressors arrested, they show deep emotional disturbance. They break others with their pain because that's all they have to give.

Why -one wonders- some people start hating each other?

At some point in their lives, they start believing "I am better, I am bigger, I am stronger, I am nicer, I am brighter, I am smarter, I am cleverer, I am more intelligent, I am slimmer, I am fatter, I am this or that more than you". Looking for identity, they can identify with a color, with a so called 'race', with a religion, with a country, with a nationality, with an ethnicity, with a culture, something they can represent and be. Why? Because we don't know to just BE (period). Then, they say, "mine is better, truer, stronger, nicer, smarter, cleverer, etc, or the only, or the best!". If you have been around children, you know that this is a toddlers' conversation: "my ... is better than yours". This is just human psychological evolution. The problem only comes when reality doesn't match what we are saying and we still have this need to BE SOMETHING, instead of just BEING.

So, in order to confirm the delusion, the person resorts to violence in fear (anger by now) of discredit. Then the other does not agree and also resorts to violence, etc.

I recently had the experience to share some time in a group with a person who was constantly stating how good, how smart, how clever, how beautiful, how skillful, how talented, how fit, how tall, how incredible, etc this person is. We were in front of quite a specimen! This person is in fact very talented, there was actually no need to boast about an obvious fact.

Why this person insisted in bragging about the qualities?

Is it to try to awake animosity? to make others feel inferior? to feel superior? Do the statements modify the reality? I don't know. Does it matter? In fact, there is no one person the same as another. We are all different. We have no chance to be the same. It's impossible. Another impossible is that in today's world we cannot keep an identity, of any kind. We are constantly changing, evolving at a pace we can't keep up with, because our identity is disintegrating with a purpose. Yes, our differences are important to help each other survive. Different cultures are different ways to find solutions to the problems we encounter. The more we contribute, the better are our chances to survive. In the end, deep down inside, we end up discovering that we are, in essence, all the same, a BEING. A being that experiences pain, sorrow, hunger, that needs love and fears not to receive it. We all have different and amazing talents that make us unique to serve each other, to help each other through this search of love, of wellbeing, and relief from suffering.

Why then, some people resort to violence?

Some people have suffered so much that they find themselves with no more emotional resources or endurance to find a way out by themselves. Often times, they don't even know, but they carry an ancestral suffering in their heart that they don't understand. In trying to answer this 'why', I think I understand, how oppression, rejection, social injustice, childhood traumas, conditioning, horrible environments they can't escape, lack of hope and ability. So many complex things happen in a person's life until one day, their heart burst into pieces. For some of us it's so hard to understand. I myself have been pondering this subject since I was a very young teenager. Even though some people are hard to bear, I was never able to hate anybody. I probably haven't suffered enough to get to that point.

One thing I know, and it is that only compassion can get us out of this hate tsunami. We probably won't be able to appease a terrorist, but we can appease hate, by helping the needy, we can be fair in our business deals, we can comfort the sorrowed, we can feed the hungry, we can be gentle with the angry, we can serve those that cannot help themselves, we can be kinder, we can be gentler in our relationships. And most of all, we can start making peace with our own selves. We don't need to be better that the other. We don't even need to be taller, brighter, smarter, cuter, thinner, bigger, beautifuller or supercalifragilisticexpialidociouser. Let us just BE (period). No more statements of judgement. And remember, whatever we choose to do has a domino effect. There is no small action, no small thought, no small person. The ripples we cause are infinite.

Another way to act instead of reacting is to open the dialog, to learn to listen, to start conversations, to get to know that 'other' that seems so different. Our challenge is to approach others with an empty mind, no judgement, no pre conceptions, and listen to what they have to say, to develop a genuine interest in the other. People also can become violent when they feel isolated, when they feel they don't belong, they are not listened to, when they can't connect with others. I encourage to start the conversation with a comment below, tell us why you suffer maybe, your hopes, your dreams, your feelings about violence, fear, anger. Open up, connect. Are you old enough to remember when there were no electronic devices and we spoke to people? If you are too young for that, know that there was a time when people talked to each other, and face to face too!

;) Sending you much love...

bigger picture

I enter my house to find everything upside down, and downside up. Emptied drawers contents spread all over the floor. All the cabinets content piled chaotically everywhere. Things that are supposed to be in the kitchen, are now on top of the bed, things from the bathroom in the kitchen, mixed in inconceivable ways. Everything is filthy or dirty in every way possible, mud, feces, waste water, trash on top of furniture. It's a pretty mess.

It's been a robbery -you guess, or would like to know-, was there a tornado, flood, earthquake, or some other cataclysm? No, this is just a picture of what the world is looking like around us nowadays. We see an unrecognizable picture of an already taken for granted reality. We assumed that we had conquered this right, solved that issue. We thought we had overcome that shameful past problem, that we had written that law, that we had grown civilized, and had every item in its place, unmovable, done! We thought we had the reality under our control, right? NO.

The fact is that our perception is hindered by all kinds of limitations. It's only the mind that makes the idea of what we have in front, there is no possibility for us to grasp the real thing, but its 'image'. This process is just like a camera taking a picture. The image can have 6 mpixels or 20 mpixels, it all depends on the capability of the camera. Our senses are not so good at giving us the right information from our environment. Our emotions tint our lenses and we end up seeing what we want to see instead of what we have in front of our eyes. It's like when we "fall" in love, we just project ourselves onto the other person and that's what we see. Only to discover later that we have a completely different person from what we had 'created' in our minds, and we believe ourselves deceived, when in reality we just deceived ourselves. Therefore, reality is just what you make up your mind to be.

We live in times when it is crucial for us to approach the most approximate perception of truth. More than that, we are hungry, thirsty, longing for truth. We can actually not stand ambiguity, lies or misleading information anymore.  We want truth in all levels of our life. Political, social, personal, you name it, we have realized that we cannot handle life that is tossed around by deceptions. How we get to it? We have approached and started the Aquarian Age, and it's not small deal. The mind and information are no useful anymore. There are overwhelming amounts of information and our minds are not able to make the right connections anymore, it is too much for our mental ability. Then our emotions get overboard, data overpower us. I personally have experienced a switch at this point, when I just want to seek isolation and seclusion to find out the truth. Maybe you have felt this need also.

And there you and I have the answer, the way to find the truth, our own and the collective truth. We need to go inside, find the silence of our beautiful soul and listen to the infinite silence. Some call it "listen to your heart", or open to your "consciousness". I like Ajahn Brahm's idea of 'stillness', the quiet place where you're not disturbed, where you can be aware of your own Self, and access the Higher Self -however you conceive it-, the symbolic place up on the mountain where the ancient sage climbed. That stillness is where emptiness starts, where we can let go of our hinderances, sensory, emotional, shortcomings, guilt, shame, fear, that place where we feel safe, where we experience real and unconditional Love.

It is in that place where we can start making sense of things, seeing them for the first time, reorganizing the chaos into a beautiful landscape. No, it is not putting all the items scattered throughout your house in their old place and order that you will find the peace of truth. It is only in your heart that you can arrange reality. Then, reality is what you make up your HEART to be.

When you try to communicate, don't listen to words said anymore, true communication happens through the invisible realm, from heart to heart. During the Aquarian Age, people will not need to use words and language the way we do now, because Love doesn't need them. Yes, we already feel more vulnerable, and that's why we are so afraid. However, once you know what is happening, once you get some practice at it, you can relax, let the energy flow, let yourself go, because that's where we are all supposed to go. Home.

Sending out much love!

For what end?

When we are young, we want to become a doctor, an engineer, a mother or father, a mail carrier or plane pilot. And we think that's the purpose of life, to become someone 'recognizable' by society, someone that can be labeled as something -useful is what society expect us to be. Then we get it, whatever we designed it to be, and we keep feeling that's not it, there is something missing, and start expecting events in life that may make us happy. When I find love, when I have a child, when I achieve this or that, when I buy my own car or house, when I travel to a certain place, when I receive that prize, THEN I will feel complete and happy. Those things come and go and we are stuck on the same feeling. None of that seem to fill that empty spot inside, right?

If that's been your experience, welcome to the club. When I was in second year of High School, I wrote a poem for my second French class. "Ne cherche pas ta liberté au-delà de tes frontières [...]" (don't look for your freedom outside your boundaries) I lost the paper, but even though I don't have all the words, I know very well the meaning "Ne cherche plus parce qu'elle est toute entière dans toi" (don't look for it anymore because it is all inside you).  One day I recalled that 'message' from my youth and realized I had gone too far astray from my real purpose. I have done so many things that are absolutely unimportant and very few that are in line with what it is actually necessary. Even though, and as Oprah Winfrey says "there is no wrong path", they all lead to The Path that sooner or later we have to reach.

My mother has recently suffered a massive heart attack and survived, but she has lost some mental abilities, like short term memory and certain acquired knowledge and skills that she used to have. She had taught herself how to use technology like a laptop and a smart phone at 80, but now she seems to struggle placing a phone call, raising the volume and doing other things on the device. I often send her pictures, but I stopped when I realized that she accidentally sends them to other people without knowing what she is doing. This past month, she's been sending me my own picture every day and several times a day. Today, looking at it, I thought it might be a sign that I need to look at myself more closely, more often, more deeply probably. Usually, I don't spend more than a couple of minutes in front of the mirror each morning -just the time to check I put on my smile-, so looking at my own picture may do it. And the question came like a lightening strike: 'who am I really?', and 'am I fulfilling my purpose in this life?'

What have I come here to be? One thing I have realized (for real) these past two years is that I will not find it in the external world. The freedom I need is from my own chains, the freedom from my sense of separation and duality. How much this-here-now am I on this side? And how much that-there-then are you on that side? Aren't we 70% water, and that % of iron, of calcium, of hydrogen, of oxygen, of nitrogen, etc. etc. etc.? We believe that we are separate entities from the outside and from each other, but in fact our material form is a clever combination earthly elements shared by all living and non living entities. Elements that are coming and going through us, passing... In that sense we are all just evolving piles of matter. Certainly the water I hold today was the rain, the cloud or the pee of someone else some time ago. What separation do I believe in? Ha!, I am just a space holder, becoming, decomposing and recomposing constantly. Considering that what holds all the elements together intelligently is energy, what kind of separation is possible?


What is the energy that holds me together? And for what end? This is what the returning Saturn means for people of my age. I recommend reading "Once Upon a Midlife" Classic Stories and Mythic Tales to Illuminate the Middle Years,  by Allan Chinen, MD.

Ligero de equipaje - Travelling light

El sol despierta más temprano cada día

pero la casa está aún sombría,

atiborrada,

los muebles alzan sus cuerpos sólidos

los cuadros manchan las paredes, 

y una multitud de recuerdos olvidados,

se eparcen y deslizan por todos los estantes,

ocupan los espacios, me obstruyen la vista,

Esas cajas en el placard

y las otras en la alacena,

repletos los cajones,

los grandes electrodomésticos 

y los pequeños, 

las mesas y sus sillas, y esos taburetes, 

y una histórica acumulación de libros 

en la biblioteca. 

Papeles sobre el escritorio, 

y todos esos almohadones, 

descansando en el sofá,

el piano y esas lámparas de pie,

ropa y más ropa, y zapatos,

revistas y folletos y rollos de cocina.

Toda esa abundancia satisfecha 

que me ha anclado en esta casa,

hoy no es más que montonera,

atrabanco peligroso,

ocupación excesiva de mi espacio. 

¡Demasiado!

Todo obstruye la luz de la ventana,

y aquel rayo de sol que la vida me asoma.

Armo cajas y las lleno,

una y otra, y unos bolsos y bolsas repletos de vejeces en desuso,

y de inútiles objetos fantasmales,

que una vez tuvieron vida, pero que hoy están muertos de cansancio.

Me despojo, me deshago, me desdoblo,

me desnudo, me despliego, me desahogo.

Vacío los placares, los cajones,

los estantes y descanso.

Cargo el auto y me las llevo lejos.

Alguien más lo necesita más que yo.

Cuando vuelvo, la casa se ha agrandado,

hay luz por los rincones;

ese eco de mi voz y de la música es distinto,

y hasta el aire se mueve y es más fresco.

¡Qué alegría!

De pronto se me ocurre que es un poco así morirse,

vas soltando las amarras para respirar mejor, 

para ir más ligero de equipaje,

para subir más fácil a sentarse en la nube de la esquina

a tomar sol.

How to tear down walls

Uncountable walls have been built throughout history between territories, between cultures, between peoples as protection from invaders, attacks to the uniqueness, integrity of society, culture, economy, and basic human rights. Paradoxically and to our dismay, we see a revival of walls as a fashion of our day, here now in the XXI Century.

Livestock fences in Guadarrama, Spain.

But why do people build walls? Before building them physically, we, human beings build them in our minds and heart. The materialization is just a reflection of what we have inside. So why do we erect walls, and what kind of walls we build in our subconscious or consciousness? We do because we live in fear. Thinking we are separate, we create boundaries in an attempt to keep the "other" out. We are afraid of being hurt, afraid of being "naked" in front of everybody. First wall is our clothing. Yes, clothes protect us from the weather, the heat, the cold, the wind, the rain, the snow, our fragility. Then we have doors with locks. They protect our privacy, the vulnerability we invented when we started accumulating "things" for our survival and comfort. Walls make us feel secure, but also give us the illusion of stability, permanency, immutability, the illusion of suspension in time and space. Walls also guard our illusion of ownership. We imagine that what is inside the walls is our property to keep forever. More obviously, walls, nowadays physical or virtual,  protect us from invasions and attacks.

But there is a more detrimental reason why we want walls. They represent our psychological and emotional restrains and limitations to our own personal growth and expansion. Do we have a wall so we don't go out and see the real world? So we don't learn different lessons and grow? So nothing changes? So we don't change? I think some people are afraid of migrating people, because they have broken their walls, they have dared to change, to learn a new language, to think differently, even though they have probably been forced to change. People who know how to change may represent a threat to our illusory state of "eternity".

Fear is also the opposite of love, so we also erect walls because we don't love ourselves, or each other. Do we use clothes to hide? Some people wear black clothing because they have the illusion to hide the overweighted, "imperfect" body. Still others wear them too big ... to hide "inadequacies"? Others cover their faces with thick layers of makeup to hide even more "imperfections". Still others build thick walls around their behavior in order to keep the "other" away. Some cultures have a well defined "personal space" of a certain measure, so when the "other" crosses the line, they feel invaded. And still others will not even taste new foods, try new ways of doing things, meet new people, make real connections with others because they are afraid of change, afraid of what others might think of them, afraid of getting sick, afraid of the ridicule, afraid of getting hurt some way, afraid, afraid, afraid, afraid, afraid. Alienated by fear!


If we want to tear down a physical or collective wall, we need first to study our own personal "walls" (read "fears") and accept the challenge of transformation. Imperfection is fine, our imperfections are perfect. Change is unavoidable, actually, change is the only constant. We discover that we are all "damaged goods". Vulnerability is unavoidable if we are to fulfill the purpose of our coming to this life. It is OK to be one way today, and another way tomorrow. This is unavoidable too. If you don't believe it, look at your own past. It is in the state of vulnerability and mutation that we have a real life, that we can have the experiences we need for our spiritual growth, and human development.

When we discover and identify our own fears, then we can work on accepting and loving ourselves as we are, and let them go. The best way is to let fear overcome us, feel it, overpower us. I know it takes courage!  I have done it myself. I almost died in my first child's delivery, so I thought "if I don't have another child, I will carry this fear forever". Then I decided to have a second child to overcome my fear. The second delivery was nothing like the first, and I felt liberated. It was not the only time I tried this strategy, since then, I always do the best I can with what I have.

I also developed patience this way, because there is a process of "digestion" involved, and you need to wait for the results. Big experiences may feel like a boa eating an elephant, for example, taking months to digest it, years maybe. Some fears are like elephants, and we need to find patience, compassion, comprehension, self love, love for others to overcome them. When you discover your fear this way, you understand that we all, human beings, fear the same things; we are all in the same journey, so we can also have patience and comprehension with each other. That's when you have torn down the walls between you and the others, because you have realized that we are all afraid of the same things. We don't feel separate anymore. With the stones of the torn down wall, we have built a bridge.

Something else I discovered is that the gut sensations of fear feel the same as those of courage. When I first started writing hesitantly in English, I thought people could be laughing about my mistakes, word misuse, grammar errors, and such, and frankly, I was afraid of the ridicule. But I thought, Oh well, who doesn't make mistakes? In any case, the message goes through, which is the most important. In any case, no one will live my life and do what I am supposed to do here. So, I named those feelings, courage, and went on to write, even though I knew I needed an editor. Walls can be as simple as that, not doing what you are called to do because of your own insecurities. They may seem small walls, but they have huge effects on our development and self esteem. Fear never makes us feel good about ourselves, it diminishes us. Love does. Love instills expansion in everything we do, it breaks walls, borders and frontiers. What we do in love liberates us and others at the same time. Choose love instead of fear, and walls will fall of their own weight.

Doors

Doors

I come from a shadow world 

groping my way,

hitting my head, stumbling around,

sometimes slowly, often running,

in the hope of seeing 

a little light at the end of the tunnel.

From time to time, I hum my old saying,

“Don't look for freedom

beyond your fences,

don't seek beyond anymore

it is all inside you.”

But one day I heard that song 

and sang it for the first time.

Then you've arrived slowly,

also blind like me, 

I understood you, you understood me.

without even knowing,

I was at the door where the light blinds the eye,

you called me, I answered,

and the Door opened wide, 

I called you, you answered,

and you too were there, ready to cross the threshold,

each with our own light beam,

you saw your path, 

I found mine.

~ o ~

Dicté

Je viens d’un monde sombre 

où je marchais à tâtons

en me cognant la tête, en me cassant les pieds,

parfois lentement, souvent en courant

avec l’espoir de voir 

une petite lueur au fond du noir.

Je chantonnais de temps en temps ma vieille chanson,

“Ne cherche pas la liberté 

au-delà de tes frontières,

ne cherche plus au-delà

parce qu’elle est entièrement dans toi.”

Mais un jour je l’ai entendu 

et l’ai chantée pour la première fois.

Alors je t’ai vu arriver lentement,

toi aussi, aveugle comme moi, 

je t’ai compris, tu m’as compris.

Sans même savoir,

j’étais à la Porte où la lumière aveugle,

tu m’as appelée, j’ai répondu,

et la Porte s’est ouverte de par en par, 

je t’ai appelé, tu as répondu,

et toi aussi tu étais là, prêt à franchir le seuil d’argent,

chacun avec son rayon de lumière,

tu as vu ta route, 

j’ai trouvé la mienne.

Picture by William Colsher, Quadrifrons Arch of Janus