Lotus flower II

This link points to the first version of Lotus Flower.
This is the second version.

On the day when the lotus bloomed, alas, my mind was straying,
and I knew it not. My basket was empty and the flower remained unheeded.

Only now and again a sadness fell upon me, and I started up from my
dream and felt a sweet trace of a strange fragrance in the south wind.

That vague sweetness made my heart ache with longing and it seemed to
me that is was the eager breath of the summer seeking for its completion.

I knew not then that it was so near, that it was mine, and that this
perfect sweetness had blossomed in the depth of my own heart.

Rabindranath Tagore, "Lotus".

Sunflower staring (at you)

This is a sunflower, staring at you. It really loves you. And it depends on your virtues, without you it is in the middle of the night (look at the dark background). Look how it glows because of you. Take good care of it.

Everything happened all of a sudden.
All of a sudden daylight beat down on the earth;
There was the sky all of a sudden;
All of a sudden steam began to rise from the soil.
There were tendrils all of a sudden, buds all of a sudden.
And there were fruits all of a sudden.
All of a sudden,
All of a sudden,
Girls all of a sudden, boys all of a sudden.
Roads, moors, cats, people...
And there was love all of a sudden,
Happiness all of a sudden.

Orhan Veli Kanik, "All of a sudden".

Here comes the sun (again)

I know it is not a good looking image, but I liked the difference between up and down shade, given by one supposed horizon.

When all the sun-kissed ways are dark
And silence reigns where laughter ruled,
Walk in the silent ways apart ...
And by much reticence be schooled.

Realities are not so kind
As many a lovely thing that's spun ...
Mere simulacrum-fantasies:
Take these to heart and you have won!

For action, you may find repose
No shifting scene can ever shake,
And thrive on fair imaginings ...
Not batten hard on life's lean ache.

When all the sun-kissed ways are dark,
And silence reigns where laughter ruled,
Walk in the quiet paths apart,
And by much reticence be schooled.

Jewell Miller, "Reticence".

Abstract Nº 25

"And if from the nature of the Universe we pass to what is called its order, which is supposed to necessitate an Ordainer, we may say that order is what there is, and we do not conceive of any other. This deduction of God's existence from the order of the Universe implies a transition from the ideal to the real order, an outward projection of our mind, a supposition that the rational explanation of a thing produces the thing itself. Human art, instructed by Nature, possesses a conscious creative faculty, by means of which it apprehends the process of creation, and we proceed to transfer this conscious and artistic creative faculty to the consciousness of an artist-creator, but from what nature he in his turn learnt his art we cannot tell."

Miguel de Unamuno, "The tragic sense of life", Chap, 8 (From God to God).

Octopus

My heart, display toward all your friends a changeful character,
Adding into it the disposition that each one has.
Adopt the disposition of the octopus, crafty in its convolutions, which takes on
The appearance of whatever rock it has dealings with.
At one moment follow along this way, but at the next change the color of your skin:
You can be sure that cleverness proves better than inflexibility.

Theognis, "Fragments".

Flower embraced by light

Two hundred posts with this one. Never expected making so many images so fast. Many times it was a feverish work for just a hobby; many times it took time from other activities.

I dedicate this to my beloved ones, of now and then, and the ones to come. All those beautiful souls that I was lucky to find, recognize, and keep close.

I have been here before,
But when or how I cannot tell:
I know the grass beyond the door,
The sweet keen smell,
The sighing sound, the lights around the shore.

You have been mine before,—
How long ago I may not know:
But just when at that swallow's soar
Your neck turn'd so,
Some veil did fall, —I knew it all of yore.

Has this been thus before?
And shall not thus time's eddying flight
Still with our lives our love restore
In death's despite,
And day and night yield one delight once more?

Dante Gabriel Rossetti, "Sudden Light".

Saturniidae

A Moth the hue of this
Haunts Candles in Brazil.
Nature's Experience would make
Our Reddest Second pale.

Nature is fond, I sometimes think,
Of Trinkets, as a Girl.

Emily Dickinson, "A moth the hue of this" (poem 841).

Aztec Mask

I wanted a man's face looking into the jaws and throat
of life
With something proud on his face, so proud no smash
of the jaws,
No gulp of the throat leaves the face in the end
With anything else than the old proud look:
Even to the finish, dumped in the dust,
Lost among the used-up cinders,
This face, men would say, is a flash,
Is laid on bones taken from the ribs of the earth,
Ready for the hammers of changing, changing years,
Ready for the sleeping, sleeping years of silence.
Ready for the dust and fire and wind.
I wanted this face and I saw it today in an Aztec mask.
A cry out of storm and dark, a red yell and a purple prayer,
A beaten shape of ashes
waiting the sunrise or night,
something or nothing,
proud-mouthed,
proud-eyed gambler.

Carl Sandburg, "Aztec Mask".

Multicolour glass flower

Visible colours (Invisible passions)
Fade from
This world's
Human hearts
And flowers.

Ono no komachi, "Visible colours".

Flower of three petals

On 1807 Hölderlin was disgnosed, at best, three years of life. Died in 1843, 36 years later. Before, he suffered outbreaks for years, and walked a thin line of sanity. He was presumed forced to use a mask during his outbreaks.
He had too few moments of lucidity to write in his last decades. He was a beautiful soul, and was told that he still retained "his love of music, his sense of natural beauty, and a feeling for graphic arts" around 1830. He played the piano until his last days, was a source of joy for him. In one of his few good moments, during his last years, he could manage to write this poem for his benefactor.

The lines of life are various,
Like roads, and the borders of mountains.
What we are here, a god can complete there,
With harmonies, undying reward, and peace.

Friedrich Hölderlin, "For Zimmer".

Abstract Nº 24

I just hoped that Malcolm De Chazal would have been ever considered for the Nobel Prize in Literature... Nominee would have been too much?
May be it is my french roots, but if I would ever met this guy, I would have kiss him in the mouth. :-)

"L'art, c'est la nature accélérée et Dieu au ralenti."
(Art is the nature accelerated, and God is in slow motion).

Malcolm De Chazal, "Sens-Plastique".

Rainbow sky

For any vision of a rainbow-like sky I prefer my better accomplished "Rainbow clouds" artwork. However, this symbol of hope, enlightenment, redemption, will keep appearing in the blog once in a while, with better or worser quality, but it will be around regularly, for sure.

My heart leaps up when I behold
A Rainbow in the sky:
So was it when my life began;
So is it now I am a man;
So be it when I shall grow old,
Or let me die!
The Child is father of the man;
And I wish my days to be
Bound each to each by natural piety.

William Wordsworth, "The Rainbow".

Star of David

Walking one street of my town I saw this class III blast wall, in front of the israeli association, painted by their children.

I thought in making one star of David, (in the end it is a filled star of David). Dzeni had made many incredible designs of David's stars. So ask her for her designs :-) or better visit her blog. There are much better stars of David there, her blog is very popular. http://dzeni.blogspot.com
Or in Dzeni's Flickr too.


This is mine:

Not the peace of a cease-fire
not even the vision of the wolf and the lamb,
but rather
as in the heart when the excitement is over
and you can talk only about a great weariness.
I know that I know how to kill, that makes me an adult.
And my son plays with a toy gun that knows
how to open and close its eyes and say Mama.
A peace
without the big noise of beating swords into ploughshares,
without words, without
the thud of the heavy rubber stamp: let it be
light, floating, like lazy white foam.
A little rest for the wounds - who speaks of healing?
(And the howl of the orphans is passed from one generation
to the next, as in a relay race:
the baton never falls.)

Let it come
like wildflowers,
suddenly, because the field
must have it: wildpeace.

Yehuda Amichai, "Wildpeace".

Green leaves

I'm not this wise nor wit, so I usurp Anne Sexton's art. Of course the image concept comes from another in her poem. Dedicated for Diane. Take good care of yourself, please.

Watch out for power,
for its avalanche can bury you,
snow, snow, snow, smothering your mountain.

Watch out for hate,
it can open its mouth and you'll fling yourself out
to eat off your leg, an instant leper.

Watch out for friends,
because when you betray them,
as you will,
they will bury their heads in the toilet
and flush themselves away.

Watch out for intellect,
because it knows so much it knows nothing
and leaves you hanging upside down,
mouthing knowledge as your heart
falls out of your mouth.

Watch out for games, the actor's part,
the speech planned, known, given,
for they will give you away
and you will stand like a naked little boy,
pissing on your own child-bed.

Watch out for love
(unless it is true,
and every part of you says yes including the toes),
it will wrap you up like a mummy,
and your scream won't be heard
and none of your running will end.

Love? Be it man. Be it woman.
It must be a wave you want to glide in on,
give your body to it, give your laugh to it,
give, when the gravelly sand takes you,
your tears to the land. To love another is something
like prayer and can't be planned, you just fall
into its arms because your belief undoes your disbelief.

Special person,
if I were you I'd pay no attention
to admonitions from me,
made somewhat out of your words
and somewhat out of mine.
A collaboration.
I do not believe a word I have said,
except some, except I think of you like a young tree
with pasted-on leaves and know you'll root
and the real green thing will come.

Let go. Let go.
Oh special person,
possible leaves,
this typewriter likes you on the way to them,
but wants to break crystal glasses
in celebration,
for you,
when the dark crust is thrown off
and you float all around
like a happened balloon.

Anne Sexton, "Admonitions To A Special Person".

Long stamens

Normally I prefer to not indicate the symbology of the image nor text, as a mean of respect for the reader's intelligence. In this case it might be somehow obscure (better said weak) so I tell that as the stamens are the male part of the flower which allow the production of pollen, and reproductive maturity of the flower, I just thought, based on the dream posted down here, that long stamens would be a symbol of late maturation on a male person; I applied the symbols to myself after what the dream means to me, or put me to think about. Will try to not repeat the disrespect of "explaining" a (weak) symbology again. ;-)



One shameful content of a dream, from last night. It came to the case of some issue that I was writing about in one e-mail today, to a friend who is passing through a very hard time; so now that one person knows the dream I dreamt, why not posting it for whoever else is around: :-)

I dreamt I was a child who can hardly walk, on a pedestrian street here in town. I saw many people walking my way and passing by. I felt they were all great, they were all lovely, and that I, in fact, do loved them; so I saw one tall guy walking fast to me, seemed to be a university student, minding his own business, he looked very tall and had a short beard; when he was close I threw my little arms to him and told him: I love you [spanish, close to that, but not quite: "Te quiero"], he looked at me fast, reached a hand, looked around looking for someone, "Oh, Ok", he said, and kept walking away, hurried by his own problems. I saw a lady, she looked very nice, I told her the same, "Oh, are you lost?" she said, very nicely, grabbing one hand of mine, [silence] "no", said I, [I thought "I don't mean that"] and released, and walked away, "Come with me", said she, very nicely. "No", said I [thought: "don't want that"] and walked away. Saw a couple of female teenagers from highschool coming my way; like the previous ones, and like everybody else I thought they were lovely, they were, but when I reached them and said the same, one of them said "release!", almost joking, and both laughed to each other. Too annoyed, with difficulties to speak and walk, I moved to one side, seated on the first stairstep in the entrace of a house, saw the people moving fast, and there, yes, I cried and screamed "mommy!".
And woke up.

"Only by love is life made real", the poem says.

Child, child, love while you can
The voice and the eyes and the soul of a man;
Never fear though it break your heart —
Out of the wound new joy will start;
Only love proudly and gladly and well,
Though love be heaven or love be hell.

Child, child, love while you may,
For life is short as a happy day;
Never fear the thing you feel —
Only by love is life made real;
Love, for the deadly sins are seven,
Only through love will you enter heaven.

Sara Teasdale, "Child, child".

Abstract Nº 23

I have thought from time to time that the only thing without mystery is happiness, since it justifies itself.

Jorge Luis Borges, at one conference.

Novalis's blue flower

I've already posted this quote, not this image. Wanted the image in low-contrast, secretive, hard to find, private.

"It's not the treasures I care about" he said to himself "such coveting is miles from my mind, but I long to see the blue flower. I cant get rid of the idea, it haunts me. I never felt like this before, its as if I dreamed of it years ago, or had a vision of it in another world, for who would be so concerned about a flower in this world? and I've never heard of anyone being in love with a flower. Where did this stranger come from? None of us had ever seen anyone like him. I don't know why his words impacted on me so deeply, the others heard him, and they didn't produce the same effect on their minds. I cant even express the strange state I'm in. Sometimes rapt in delight... but when I forget about the blue flower, a nameless longing takes possession of me, no one can understand this. I'd think I was mad, if it were not for the fact that my thoughts are so clear and connected, and I understand so many new things. I've heard it said that in the olden days, animals, rocks, and flowers all spoke to humans. I'm haunted by the idea that they have something to tell me, and I feel as if I could comprehend their speech. I used to be devoted to dancing, now I love music."

Novalis, "Friedrich von Osterdingen".

Hollow petals

I've had a lot of activity over the blog today, don't know why; posted five times on 24 hours. However you can never have perfect meaningful posts in a blog, in the end, is a blog, not a book.

Still looking for the meaning of this dream of last night, something about morals or society, I shouldn't overthink this, I have enough interior life to drive myself insane, if that didn't happened already. :-)

A short dream, last night:
One blind man, living in poverty, and his dog is seated on the sidewalk selling little packs of mustard (?). Between many other people, one wealthy man (I only see his pants and shoes) walks by, slower than the rest, like killing time, and late he sees the blind man, turns around, reaches the little packs of mustard lined up on the floor and step on one, which explodes, the dog suddenly looks up and stare at the face of the wealthy man, with half a grunt. No face is ever visible, except for the dog. The hollow man, the wealthy man in this dream, goes away walking slowly again, but in the opposite direction from which he came from.

Above a hollow of rock
An ivy hangs.
One small temple.

Masaoka Shiki.

Flower of twofold petals

I've been hyperactive today with the blog. Four posts! I never post more than one post and "artwork"!
The paper pulp mills of this Botnia multinational enterprise, on the other side of my province, crossing the river, over Uruguay, started working against all the protests, backed-up by the uruguayan government.
Very short article, if you want to be updated, click to know about Botnia and the protesters by Associated Press.

But I also have graphic news for you, look at this picture, this is not an overcast sky, so imagine:



More news for you, look this picture, this is not just normal dirt on the glass:



The protests comes from a long time, will continue for long too. The determination is clear around here.
Damn the moment this enterprise with double standards wanted to come over here. There have never been problems between uruguayans and argentinians and this crap is testing us to the limit. :-( The good part of it is that many on both countries and shores are united against the same. In a double sense of it all, this is a problem with twofold petals:

[...]
But the time is ripe for changes
There's a growing feeling
That taking a chance on a new kind of vision is due
I used to trust the media To tell me the truth, tell us the truth
But now I've seen the payoffs
Everywhere I look
Who do you trust when everyone's a crook?
Revolution calling
Revolution calling
Revolution calling you
There's a Revolution calling
Revolution calling
Gotta make a change
Gotta push, gotta push it on through
[...]

Queensrÿche, "Revolution calling".

Abstract Nº 22

Norman Mailer (1923-2007). Wrote as he lived. No need to say goodbye to l'enfante terrible; beauty never dies, genius either.

I feel that the final purpose of art is to intensify, even, if necessary, to exacerbate the moral consciousness of people.

Norman Mailer, "Advertisements for Myself ".

Abstract Nº 21

Facilis descensus Averni:
noctes atque dies patet atri ianua Ditis;
sed revocare gradium superasque evadere ad auras.
hoc opus, hic labor est.

(It is easy to go down into Hell;
Night and day, the gates of dark Death stand wide;
But to climb back again, to retrace one's steps to the upper air,
There's the rub, the task.)

Virgil, "The Aeneid", Book VI.

Infernal duel

Yesterday was the anniversary of a day ill-fated. On november 11th 1995, my father and I had a physical fight, yes: sin admitted and already redeemed and forgiven now. After that day everything changed for better, instead of for worse, regeneration came after redemption, and the redemption came spilled over a large piece of my life, not only that particular act of aggression. When that happened I was almost 23, and living through hell. Cannot be specific. After the night of november 11th, at that age, just that old, I stopped being unconciously immature.

On this last four months of caretaking my father, I've been told how of a good son am I... It has been a tortuous road, I can tell. In my naturally immature way to be, I've had to introduce random and concious acts of goodness just to feel "normal". Also I've done many things to maturate, as feeling pushed by circumstances and people to be more mature... in spite of that, something of it always remains, exactly like a child inside not wanting to give up its faith in santa claus. After many years, these last weeks of intense self-questioning brought yet another immature thought: "Well, buddy, may be this is the most you can maturate without losing your personality". Hm.

There are some things that I can understand perfectly, from which I can see why they happen and what their consequences are... those are notions about how to lead a healthy life, a healty relationship with others, how to interrelate with mankind, with feelings... although, in the observation of the details of those notions, I cannot learn to behave according to their ethics. Are simply inappropriate to me.
I've always paid much attention and had so much respect for the opinion of others about how life should be lived (that contradicts my actions towards my father in the past) that, because of that, I've been also fighting one infernal duel between these two fields: how others consider a life should be lived; and how I am plus want to be, or can I be. My morality, and my way of learning, are not taking the shape of many regulations instituted, after all these years. There are always been something rebel and uncombed in me. So at eight very different moments of my life I've went to see a psychoterapist to take one personality test, based on the Carl Jung's psychological archetypes, or Myers-Briggs's or whatever, only to face eight times the same thing: INFJ, one person between 0.5% of the world population. Great way to feel less alone. :-/

As twelve years on the past, -in that infernal duel with my lovely dad: this struggle -that became another infernal duel, now with society morality and values- it must end with my redemption -acceptance. Big question: how moving my strictness which is directed onto myself, to a more productive area, when being self-strict it is part of my temperament -a constituting part of my own self? Do you understand now why a person can be immature at 34?
Whatever, I might be wrong. And I'll be moving out of this.

If a good man were ever housed in Hell
By needful error of the qualities,
Perhaps to prove the rule or shame the devil,
Or speak the truth only a stranger sees,

Would he, surrendering quick to obvious hate,
Fill half eternity with cries and tears,
Or watch beside Hell's little wicket gate
In patience for the first ten thousand years,

Feeling the curse climb slowly to his throat
That, uttered, dooms him to rescindless ill,
Forcing his praying tongue to run by rote,
Eternity entire before him still?

Would he at last, grown faithful in his station,
Kindle a little hope in hopeless Hell,
And sow among the damned doubts of damnation,
Since here someone could live, and live well?

One doubt of evil would bring down such a grace,
Open such a gate, and Eden could enter in,
Hell be a place like any other place,
And love and hate and life and death begin.

Edwin Muir, "Thee good man in Hell".

Alien egg (nothing special)

And the ForecastFrog rules! :-) As predicted in the previous post the weather was lovely, sunny, fresh breeze until noon, then it changed, but it gave me and my friends a really nice saturday morning for a meeting after months. Felt lucky. At returning home knew that my mother's dog died, so I took care of it and of her mood. Life is like that but in runnerfroggie's life, most like that, and every day; somedays harder or lighter, but like that.
Then I finished an opinion that a painter and friend asked me for. I loved many of the artwork she asked me to give opinion upon, but I think I was ruthless, accurate, and useful, and wanted to be. She thanked me the honesty that I offered in my opinion, and said she was thrilled about it, as other friends of her doesn't do that to not hurt her feelings; or may be she was certainly being only lovely kind :-) I hope she may manage to not feel hurt about it.
For what it respects to me: this I'm doing now, revealing personal things, is not my idea of a blog as I like it for me. Just testing right now (since it's my blog) what this tiny (but annoying) change can it bring of good to my peace of mind, lately seized. This blog was thought as an "artist blog", but as long as I don't clearly hook up to the idea of this hobby to be an art, well...
One loved friend of mine is in Paris, and I'm awaiting pictures for monday; but about today, I'm entering sunday, and it has to be nothing special, it must. I'd appreciate, and later give good use, to the physical and mental rest.
These days are giving birth to some strange and new (sorry: unknown) behaviour; somehow looks now like an alien behaviour to me. Remember the movie Alien? :-) naaah, not that much; something new will not break my chest in agony at coming out, but for now it certainly looks like an alien egg, like in the image, still slightly visible in the foreground of the changing colours of these days I'm passing through. This sunday must be nothing special.



I like the poem below, very much, it fits the mood. The elements of its allegory fits these days, and what I've told here in the post. Sunday needs to be nothing special, to not work and to feel the breathe of the world for a little while. As the poem says: "just as long as his look is wise"... we all need some break of activity to allow the mind to breathe. I've had months without it, and three years of stress. Also I'm expecting for the creative block to disappear these days. Well, in the end, sunday seems it needs to be special instead then, as the poem turns out to mean at the end of it; although it's a fierce questioning on shallow "artwork", over which I have a strong agree; and from there it comes my "artistic" self-punishing. Perfectionism needs a mind in peace to grow effective. That's what these days are pushing me to achieve, to recover my peace of mind as a base for work. That's how the creative block will crumble; and some new flowers may bloom after, or the blog will crumble with the block itself.

nothing special
boards paint
nails paste
paper string

mr artist
builds a world
not from atoms
but from remnants

forest of arden
from umbrella
ionian sea
from parkers quink

just as long as
his look is wise
just as long as
his hand is sure -

and presto the world -

hooks of flowers
on needles of grass
clouds of wire
drawn out by the wind

Zbigniew Herbert, "Nothing special".

Sun and breeze

Today was a rainy day. Last night couldn't slept more than two hours. Today had to take a nap after coming back from work, because of the lack of rest, and I never took naps (Oh, this is news for some away-friends then, I have a new job since a couple of weeks already). After waking up from the nappie, I could take some minutes of laziness, this frog needs that to allow the brain to breathe; while in that, had a strong hunch that tomorrow will be a sunny saturday with a lovely breeze, just a hunch. Tonight I left a list of the friends I'll call tomorrow to meet up in the morning, drink something, take pictures, talk about our families and ourselves, about art, our national news, and go back to our lives at noon. I wish some of us can sit down on a park bench for a while under that sun and southern spring breeze that I strongly believe that will be there tomorrow. We have to catch up with what's going on in our lives after months of few contacts.
Made for the occasion today, sun and fresh breeze:

The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you.
Don't go back to sleep.

You must ask for what you really want.
Don't go back to sleep.

People are going back and forth across the doorsill
where the two worlds touch.

The door is round and open.
Don't go back to sleep.

Mewlana Jalaluddin Rumi, "The breeze at dawn".

Another flower for hummingbirds

Another flower for hummingbirds. Yet another time dedicated for Tai Moses (raising moon), and her three regulars of the terrace (Alma, Champagne, and another vardøgr of mine: Frog) :-) Refer to september 24th in her blog as needed.

Whence, and what art thou? O thou beauteous little thing!
That like a dazzling sprite
Appearest in my sight,
Sipping from sweet flower-cups the honey stores of Spring.

I have sought for many days to find a proper word
As a fitter name for thee
More pleasing unto me,
But cannot find a better than that of Humming Bird.

True, I might thee call A Fluttering Ray of Light
Decked in prismatic hues,
Which a radiance diffuse
Just like a beam of glory straying from a Seraph bright.

Yea, I could picture thee as a new-born infant's soul,
Bidding adieu to Earth
A moment after birth,
But having love for flowers which it scarcely can control.

Or, I might describe thee as a precious, new-coined thought
Illumined by the Truth,
Always enjoying youth,
Till into Wisdom's Temple 'tis by its Builder wrought.

Yet, whatever thou may'st be, or howsoever called,
Thou'rt welcome to remain--
My garden sweets to drain,
And a lonely _Vision_ be evermore enrolled.

Thomas C. Cowherd, "To the same (the hummingbird)".

Flower for hummingbirds

Half-closed corolla and strange fiery stamens, but the black colour doesn't helps for clarity here. Noticed too late.
This time a dedication for Tai Moses, to share with her three regulars of the terrace.

A piece of dandelion down,
A microscopic apparition,
Flew
Into a rainbow.
Out flew
Mottled fog,
A gram of the sun's spectrum,
Not bird,
Not bee,
But wind
Wafting the fragrance
Of flowers.

Henrikas Radauskas, "Hummingbird".



EDIT: a second version (flower for hummingbirds II), better colouring, to discriminate the layers easier:

Ceiling fan

We are in the middle of the spring here in the south of heaven, and it's too hot already. Almost 30ºC (86ºF) in the afternoon. In the other hand women are wearing less clothes, but, well, as if we'd need another reason for sweating :-P Hihi.
I hate air conditioners, those dry my eyes, which still can see 20/20 after decades of reading and receiving display's radiation, so I take care of them. My ceiling fan is still in the lower speed, as you can see, down here. :-)

O wind, rend open the heat,
cut apart the heat,
rend it to tatters.

Fruit cannot drop
through this thick air—
fruit cannot fall into heat
that presses up and blunts
the points of pears
and rounds the grapes.

Cut the heat—
plough through it,
turning it on either side
of your path.

Hilda Doolittle, "Heat".

Abstract Nº 20

My first intention was typing something personal at the moment of uploading every abstract image, but I'm sooo lazy. Will not happen with every image, then.

Finally I'll do something now. I remember my first trip alone.



Ruins...

Reminding this now, at the flow of thought: When I was 12 I made my first trip alone. (Before that I had made my end-of-course trip with my elementary school class to another province, much farther, but it was a frustration, and I was not alone.) A month before my 13th birthday I ended elementary school, then I took two weeks to prepare the trip, called a hostal to reserve a place, and convinced my parents and grandparents that I was mature enough for the travel and accomodation; I had secret savings, was secretly preparing a trip to a secret place, the kind of place I always liked secretly too. I always liked deserted places, specially ruins and cemeteries. That is because of their melancholic characteristic. Through the years I've seen that some people attach the value, or tag: "depressive" to melancholy. Melancholy and spleen are not depressive, they are delicate and delightful states of the soul, that a mind not prepared might confuse with a destructive state of mind. The history of the most genuine artform of my country is built over melancholic states: the Tango, which is a slightly unknown form of art, in its genuine state.
So I earned the trip, and I did it, completely by myself. It was for two weeks, to return home by my birthday. I traveled to the Cayastá ruins, more than 500 kilometers away from home, in a bus. As soon as the bus hitted the open road an immense sense of freedom took over my soul. I slept in a hostal at arriving at night. (The owners looked at me curiously, and the night after invited me to eat with them, and asked me many questions.) I woke up before the alarm clock sounded, before the sun, took a shower and went to visit the ruins, walking through the prairie, no-one was there, everything deserted. The moisture of the ruins was perfect, wet bricks with moss at the breaking light, my left and right hands were touching those walls while I walked with my backpack through the narrow corridors... I seated several times inside the ruins, it was very cold. I went to some dry place later that day, meters away from the ruins, lying on the grass with a stick of grass in my mouth. I was alone with my thoughts, and my Miguel Hernández's book of poems. I had enough friends to make the trip "stupidly cheerful", but why ruining a perfect possibility of sweet own melancholy adding company? Keeping the melancholy alive is very difficult at that age, when you have a lot of people around. Even for a silent and bullied child of elementary school it is almost impossible to feed melancholy and having moments being truly alone. I was so far away of earthly mundanity, that I felt becoming an ancient wall with moss myself. Later moments were sweet too, lying over the grass of the sunny prairie with my walkman, the Beatles and the Miguel Mateos band. Other students that year were listening Baltimora and the Ghostbusters soundtrack, :-) "god help them all". Alone with my thoughts, saw, at my twelve years, at that moment over the grass, that the trend is to go into melancholy by force and not by choice in life... I reminded those two old women that I saw alone at the funeral service of another old woman months before... reminded the neighbour whose wife died; reminded that the bully in school never tolerate the silence, the own self, and talks to you, as a person, when they are enclosed in the same place alone with you... reminded one friend, daughter of a violent family, and suddenly saw the pattern: I was lucky in my time alone, I choosed it. I saw the time flowing to the future, and people was going alone by reasons not clear to me at that moment... people in ruins were building over ruins, like Troy built over Troy many times after a seizing war. I watched the ruins, I lived the ruins, the upcoming ruins, the all-present ruins. Outside the ruins the sky was beautiful, great summer sun, hard thick green grass, wide prairie sight, nobody around... lovely ruins from the outside, but extremely cold at touch from the inside... freezing remaining walls of defense.
I went home and they almost screamed: "look at your tan! how good it made to you". I said "Yeah", with my shy look of those years.

Wow, turned out a pretty round story, good to post, will never happen like this again :-)
Cheers.

Flower of darkness

Flower of drowsiness,
lull me but love me not.
How you profuse your perfume,
how overdo your rouge,
flower who kohl your lids
and exhale your soul in the sun!
Flower of drowsiness.
There is one resembles you
in your deceiving blush,
and too because she has
black eyelashes like you.
Flower of drowsiness.
(And I tremble alone to see
your hand in mine,
tremble lest you turn
into a woman one day!)

Alfonso Reyes, "The menace of the flower".

sisyrinchium campestre

I think I mistaken the flower's name and image... don't know right now... I just love the poem and I always associate it with one wildflower, and one girl.

When I open my wallet
to show my papers
pay money
or check the time of a train
I look at your face.

The flower's pollen
is older than the mountains.
Aravis is young
as mountains go.

The flower's ovules
will be seeding still
when Aravis then aged
is no more than a hill.

The flower in the heart's
wallet, the force
of what lives us
outliving the mountain.
And our faces, my heart, brief as photos.

John Berger, "The flower in the heart".

Abstract Nº 19

"But what! Shall we, losing all hope, shut our eyes and plunge into the voiceless depths of a universal scepticism? Shall we doubt that we think, that we feel, that we are? Nature does not allow it; she forces us to believe even when our reason is not convinced. Absolute certainty and absolute doubt are both alike forbidden to us. We hover in a vague mean between these two extremes, as between being and nothingness; for complete scepticism would be the extinction of the intelligence and the total death of man. But it is not given to man to annihilate himself; there is in him something which invincibly resists destruction, I know not what vital faith, indomitable even by his will. Whether he likes it or not, he must believe, because he must act, because he must preserve himself. His reason, if he listened only to that, teaching him to doubt everything, itself included, would reduce him to a state of absolute inaction; he would perish before even he had been able to prove to himself that he existed"

Félicité Robert de Lamennais, "Essai sur l'indifférence en matière de religion", Part III, chap. LXVII).

heart-shaped leaves

Ars naturam superat.

Starfish of sea foam

A starfish made of sea foam (cushion sea star this one, patiriella calcar to be specific). :-) The "magic" you can do with interactive genetic algorithms. I like the quote down there; I like the author.

"The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked, it has no choice, it will roll in ecstasy at your feet."

Franz Kafka, "Reflections on the Great Wall of China".