The Sun still shines

Virgin Mary at San Cristobal Mount seen this sunny Sunday in Santiago, Chile

History, as in life, seems to always be presented by a young role model for the next generation. Such were the cases of many female figures, some of whom became saints, as Joan of Ark. But others were heroines in their own way. Yesterday I saw for the first time "Sophie Scholl-The Final Days" a movie directed by Marc Rothemund and released on late February of 2005 about the last nine days of terror that this twenty-one-year-old German student of Theosophy and philosophy (It helps when we know that her name means "Wisdom's School") had to endure for having a conscience and fighting to keep being sane in a world who many had already lost their minds and heads. She was caught spreading the leaflets of the White Rose, a manifesto about tyrannous acts and crimes against humanity, written by her older brother. To leave in such an early age like a flower which had just blossomed. A leaf left to die... "Die Sonne scheint noch." The Sun still shines. "God, you are my refuge into eternity" were her last words.

And what was the price for her to become an icon for the peace and freedom of speech? She was beheaded and so were her brother and her dearest friends. Such a huge price to pay with your life. Did she care enough about her life? If she didn't she wouldn't be willing to sacrifice her own head to give liberty and try to share the truth she knew with others of her own age. And did it work? If it didn't I wouldn't be writing about it here and now. She died on a cold day of late February of 1943; two years later, Margot died also on late February and followed a few days by her immortal sister Anne Frank. Why do I write immortal? Because they actually never died for those who believe in their right to partake truth, justice and faith as an everlasting flame chanting in their hearts. We are all on the same boat. We will all die eventually. But our conscience, that we can never escape (or erase). For those with a sane mind the light will forever remain. And I write these words earlier rather than late. To keep my life in chain. It makes no sense, but that's free will: to be able to pursue our convictions and yet be attained by our own truth. To jump inside our own hearts and find out that we still have some hope left... a leaf left like a joke(r) to poke(r). Oh, sweet yoke...
YUNOHANA, YU meaning "hot water" NO "of" HANA "flower", here in a Japanese Garden with water lilies or Lotus flowers (The lotus is born under the mud, growing through the water towards the light. This green/growing desired elevation reminds of our own:)


Moi j'ai un jardin rempli de fleurs
Un monde d'amour tout en couleur
Que je fais vivre en mon cœur
Elle s'appelait Anna
rappelle-toi
La plume courait entre ses doigts
Elle écrivait des mots d'amour et de foi
Car elle avait 13 ans Anna
Elle se cachait dans un grenier Anna
Si chaud l'été, l'hiver si froid
A l'horizon de quatre murs et d'un toit
Elle écrivait pourtant Anna
Ces mots là{Refrain}
Elle avait souvent si peur, Anna
En écoutant des bruits de pas
Et quand, ils s'approchaient trop près
Quelques fois, auprès de son grenier, Anna
Chante-moi
C'est par un beau matin d'été je crois
Qu'ils sont venus chercher, Anna
Ils ont laissé juste un cahier, les soldats
Un journal dont les mots, Anna
Sont pour moi.... (Musique de Francis Lopez)


"Life is always on the edge of death; narrow streets lead to the same place as wide avenues, and a little candle burns itself out just like a flaming torch does. I choose my own way to burn." Sophie Scholl

The only way is up!

A Flower in my Garden...


(This is the result of a seed I just planted a month ago)
I just planted a sunflower which is now as high as half meter. Its head created a beautifully constructed mosaic, spiralling upwards. I've got (and I just counted) seventeen sunflowers on its way to blossom as well. And on my recycling I have already got more than ten avocado trees more than two feet tall! What a reward for being angel/ecological.

Peachy Pitches

Yesterday I decided to face the music and follow the flow ("Dancing As One":)
I subscribed to the meettheauthor site where authors get the courage to show up their faces (sometimes their "Flat Feet":P and talk about their books. I wanted to differ from the circle, so I exposed myself in different angles. I am getting some pretty good "pinches" already: Such "Stigmas"...

www.quedeletras.com

Secret, Sacred, Socrates

Today I went to a lyrical gala, with the amazing interpretation of marvellous sopranos, tenor and baritone, accompanied by a chorus, in various arias from famous Operas, all that presented in the middle of a park, near the streets, in a bridge/stage and the sound of the river constantly flowing. No, that was not one of my favourite dreams, but indeed it did happen this Sunday at noon, here in Santiago. A man sat beside me started to cry when the tenor sang the aria "Che gelida manina" from La Boheme, although I myself felt inside the role of "Rudolph" when he said in Italian, "Who am I? I am a poet. What do I do? I write. And how do I live? I live."

Then when it started the duet of flowers, from the Opera "Lakme" by Delibes, my eyes were filled with tears, as I listened to those two angels singing, which transported me into their garden, like a Taj Mahal made of an holographic vision. They were so in sync, so delicate and perfectly in tune that I travelled beyond time and space. I was, then, one of them, breathing in that beautiful scene, living there, between swans of white wings, over the margins of the flowery rivers, softly sliding among mythic creatures, where the bird sings to collect the blue lotus and make a collar of love for our protection.

t'was "a democratic (culturally, not in politics) event, accessible to all" to quote the ambassador of Spain in Chile who had just arrived from Madrid. And I believe Santiago is perfectly "cosmo-polite" city, pleasant to both tourists and neighbours, for this type of eventful content. But then I noticed that even in a public space in an open (democratic;) area, only a selective amount of people was able to appreciate it, like a sophisticated food that only a palatal experience can improve with a trained taste. Opera like Ballet is an elitist art. But elitist not in terms of a monetary access but of a cultural assessment. Education is a matter that money can buy, but the inclination to appreciate fine arts is only available to those who have a refined soul. And to achieve to that point one must experience life, something that no school may teach, though it might show the way. And the way, like a circumference of possibilities might as well one day, as always, return to itself, or "mighty swell" turn into the centre, the source of all life: "Know thyself" as the maximum visceral and exponential search of the human soul. But for a river you don't need to mention about its freshness in the hot summer.

Even in architecture, for all its textures, rhythms and tones, one should take the journey, the enterprise as a feminine role, for it should engage in unity, in comfort, rather than dissuade, separate, concur or conquer. A city must be composed as a feminine entity for it doesn't judge its habitants, it awaits patiently and with a compassion for each citizen, just praying that whoever walks through her streets may feel it belongs in her arms, like a child, or a lover, lost in its labyrinth but finding her way in each corner. Each obstacle is nothing but a challenge that may facilitate the brave ones and digress or dissipate the weak ones in their profanity attempt. So to reach into the core of a city one must first learn how to obey and abide within her limitations, for there is not a definitive place in this world, but many daily places we may call our own.

With paintings from one of Chopin's most favourite artist, William Adolphe Bouguereau, and the Opera from one of my favourites musicians, Leo Delibes (the same who composed one of my most favourites Ballets, Coppelia) here an homage to the feminine in time and space:

Sous le dôme épais où le blanc jasmin
À la rose s'assemble
Sur la rive en fleurs riant au matin
Doucement glissons de son flot charmant
Suivons le courant fuyant
Dans l'onde frémissante
D'une main nonchalante
Viens, gagnons le bord,
Où la source dort et
L'oiseau, l'oiseau chante.

Sous le dôme épais où le blanc jasmin,
Ah! descendons/ Ensemble!
Sous le dôme épais où le blanc jasmin
À la rose s'assemble
Sur la rive en fleurs riant au matin
Viens, descendons ensemble

Doucement glissons de son flot charmant,
Suivons le courant fuyant
Dans l'onde frémissante
D'une main nonchalante
Viens, gagnons le bord
Où la source dort et
L'oiseau, l'oiseau chante.

Sous le dôme épais où le blanc jasmin,
Ah! descendons/ Ensemble!" Lakme et Mallika

Under a dome of white jasmine
With the roses entwined together
On a river bank covered with flowers laughing in the morning.(Flowers Duet)