Treading... o un "copy-pasty" de aquí de allí.

1. Una historia:

“HACEDOR DE LLUVIA CHINO” 


“Había una gran sequía en el territorio en el cual se hallaba Richard Wilhelm; desde hacía varios meses no caía una gota de lluvia y la situación se hizo catastrófica. Los católicos hicieron procesiones, los protestantes elevaron sus plegarias, y los chinos quemaron incienso y dispararon sus fusiles para espantar a los demonios de la sequía. Finalmente los chinos se dijeron: Debemos buscar al hacedor de lluvia, y aquel vino de una de las provincias. Era un hombre anciano y magro. Dijo que la única cosa que necesitaba era que pusiesen a su disposición una pequeña casa tranquila, en ella se encerró durante tres días. Al cuarto día las nubes se amontonaron y se produjo una fuerte caída de nieve, en una época del año donde ello no era previsible y en cantidad no habitual.

Tantos rumores circulaban respecto a este extraordinario hacedor de lluvia que Wilhelm fue a verlo y le preguntó como lo había hecho. El pequeño chino le respondió: Yo no hice la nieve, no soy responsable de ello. Pero ¿qué ha hecho usted durante estos tres días? Oh, eso puedo explicárselo, es simple.

Vengo de un país donde las cosas son lo que ellas deben ser. Aquí las cosas no están en el orden, no son como deberían ser según el orden celeste, entonces todo el país está fuera de Tao. Yo dejé de estar en el orden natural de las cosas, porque el país no lo estaba. Así la única cosa que tenía que hacer era aguardar tres días hasta que me volví a encontrar en Tao, y entonces, naturalmente, el Tao hizo la nieve.”

 [Source >>]

2. Un hexagrama: 

10 LÜ, act in such a way that you can live where you live - and others with you.

Ban Xiang           Hu Gua            Qian Gua          Jiao Gua           Pang Tong Gua

Trigrams  lake heaven Nuclear  37 Inverse  9 Reverse  43 Complement  15

  Picture at top: Lܳ, the ancient character and its parts.
Lܳ: The character represents a corpse or a sitting man (1), who is impersonating the deceased person at a funeral. A foot on a road (2): going. A boat (3), also indicating a shoe: Chinese shoes look like boats. And a foot (4). The oldest form of this character was probably simpler, but I could not find one.
Lܳ: shoe, sandal, wear shoes, to tread, follow a track, traverse, accomplish, (right) conduct, virtue, rite, hold an office, domain (of a prince), path. Loan for dignity and for li², durable happiness.
In the Mawangdui YiJing it is the character li: sacrifice to spirits, asking for riches or good fortune. Ceremony; rite; ritual, courtesy; etiquette; manners, gift; present.

  The characters at left: words or compounds with Lܳ
1 Mawangdui: (altar-abundance) sacrifice, ritual, gift, courtesy.
2 (shoes go) perform; fulfil; carry out
3 (step shoes) walk; gait
4 (shoes history/experience) curriculum vitae; antecedents
5 (leather shoes) leather shoes
6 (fulfil shoes) keep, fulfil (pledge etc.)
7 (shoes ice) cautious, remain vigilant
8 (shoes new) assume new post.

Shoes, they stand for the way of treading. Not just putting one foot before the other, but the ritual involved, the way one goes one's road.

Both hexagrams:
   Hex.10: Heaven (law, create) above lake (exchange), the laws and creativity of human interaction. Heaven is the outer trigram, it manifests in the outer world. The inner trigram, lake, exchanging, is the source.
   For finding one's way in life one needs both, the hard work of building a life and making a living, and the right way to interact with all other creatures. They complement each other.
   Most of your life is made from small things, with little weight. So it is easy to do them in a small and light way. Don’t underestimate them though, the things may be small, but it is your whole self who does them, and it is your life which depends on them. You don’t notice how much you lose when you are sloppy or sleepy or too easy-going. Until, some day, you find your life to miss meaning. Or you discover that you missed the right turn on some crossing far back, and you don't like where you are heading now.
   Give all your actions all your attention. How you walk in your life and how you look after all small things in it will decide how its big picture looks. 

 [Source >>]

3. This seems to make good sense. 

- Aplícate el cuento - dice Alice. 

4. Nota mental: rituals, walk in the tracks of, tiger, path, interaction, building, making, small things, sloppy, big picture

Dreams in L2

I’ve been lacking some hours of sleep recently, I just woke up form a little nap and from a very confusing dream. One of those which makes your head heavy, very heavy. I need to write it quickly, but first and more important, I’ve been dreaming in English and I woke up thinking in English too, I’m losing it and I suffer in despair for trapping the words before they slip away from my mind… I want to let them slide down my fingers and fix them on the blank paper, make them mine...

I was teaching, doing my thing… no, I was teaching English but these kids could already speak English. That was a very old building as from the end of the last century. I wasn’t in Linares. I had a boss… I had a boss I had been talking to earlier, in my mind I assumed him to be him. He was definitely the one of mine. Hang on a second, I’m in, say, Louisiana, and my students are all black folks. This girl with her plaited hair is exactly the same as the little girl I taught in Morocco. My lovely little one. She is singing and when an older boy starts following her and clapping, she starts dancing. It is amazing, still I had to do my thing, and I have to teach them something, no matter what really. But I’m there for a reason. First I need them to realize I am there. Suddenly we are engaged in the class, we are reading something, I don’t remember that. I must have been doing well as I am satisfied. They look happy and into whatever the woman who is me is saying. I say something, say “Good guys, now let’s move this and think about how…" I can’t hear her very well, but suddenly I’m trapped in her body again while all the kids start packing her stuff and leaving, I run to the door “Seriously? We haven’t finished and until we finish we are not allowed to leave the building, you know it” they look amused and I can feel a sense of complicity as if we shared a common knowledge; yet I’m not aware of it. The woman who is you goes back to the board and I remain observing the whole picture again. The teacher approaches her desk, the students take out her books and notebooks, the woman who is me starts talking and the little girl with plaited hair starts singing. An older boy starts clapping and she dances. They all join a bit and the woman opposite me smiles at them. She nods and then holds the little girl’s hand follows her movements and finally leads her to hair chair kneeling next to her, she caresses her hair and stands up to start it over again. We are trapped. I go next to some of the big boys and I start annoying him. He can’t see me. Some men with very long dark brown coats and expensive shoes and hats enter the classroom and take some of the students away out off the blue. And the room is also blue-ish. I run away. Now I’m out, I run along the corridors searching the boss' office, the little girl is holding my hand and I’m rushing her. We are scared and we need to find the Head of Studies' Office. I find it. There are lots of people waiting outside. That is shocking and makes me feel impotent. You can see that the petty place is packed with big business men. You can see it through the old ocher coloured glass of the double door. There is a little room on the right side of the corridor, the cleaning women smile at us in a cheerful way as if it were normal to pop out there. But it is not, you can tell for their sudden frown. “Aww... Sweeties, what are you doing here?” “Oh! mummy I promise I won’t do it again. I won’t have pudding tonight” the little one says. “It wasn’t that serious, though, don’t you think?” I respond in an authoritative way, in order to play the fact that I am the teacher and I’m taking the little girl to the office down. I cuddle her and lift her in my arms. I walk towards the door and it is open, at least five or eight big body guards come out laughing in a very familiar and confident way, cracking jokes. I can see two young men sitting on the chairs in front of the desk, quite relaxed, too comfortably, I would say. My boss' laughter echoes in every corner of the place. He is massive and so white he’s ugly “Hahaha! Forget this not! Neglect this young man here!” he says pointing to the one sitting on the left opposite him, who leans back a little bit smiling, as he taps the brim of his beret with his first and second fingers as to say good bye to the men leaving, and I can’t believe you are hear, I kiss them and hug them. Dom, and James! They have come to take me out from here.
I can feel something wet and warm on my waist. The girl has pissed on me, she looks petrified. I have to run. “I can’t believe you are here! I’ll see you in a bit, sorry Sir, for interrupting like this. I can wait” I rush out and I go down the wooden stairs. They are old and I can here the steps creaking as I slide them down. There is an enormous door and the dust in the air, and the amount of light coming from the outside make it the blurry picture of an old massive door against the light. I almost doubt whether to open it and go through the doorframe, but she holds me tight, I can still feel her fear and I get out.
Now everything is very light and we are not there anymore, we wander around the place. I feel as if there were no way out or I was in a very big film setting. I can smell the sea. I suddenly notice that I am dreaming and that this is Atlantic City. I’m in Boardwalk Empire again. Look at my lovely clothes! I turn round and there he comes walking towards us in a smart casual coat, wearing the hat I gave to him. “Hey doll! Who is the young lady?”. Cosy.

I have not seen Boardwalk Empire for ages. Still I can say that the music the radio was playing when I fell asleep was perfectly tuned with the first part of the dream, and then… what can I tell you? Dreams are just that, are they not?

We are having lunch in a fancy café by the sea. He asks me “What do you want me to call you?” while he is still looking down at his fish and pouring some sauce on it in his particular way. I panic and I decide I want to wake up. He turns round in joy and kisses me first, just right before I reappear here-perhaps at the same time- Where am I no? And I wake up with the taste of his kiss on my lips and the sight of his smile in the back of my eye.

Aw… I want to get back there again… by the time I finish writing these lines I’m not thinking in English anymore and I’m completely awake. I’d better go back to study...


Jace Everett – Bad Things

¿Qué podemos hacer con ......

¿Qué podemos hacer con un aro de plástico rojo?

- Hacerlo girar en un brazo, en la cintura, una pierna
- Lanzarlo a ver si acierto
- Saltar dentro y fuera
- Abrir un portal mágico y traer objetos invisibles de universos paralelos
- Colgar bufandas
- Hacerlo rodar y ver si lo atrapas
- Dejar que entres en Wonderlands..
- Hacerlo rodar a ver si vuelve
- Do the hockey pockey
- ...

Se me acabaron las ideas.

Tonight

When on the verge of this melancholic state of mind
Which hangs around me, waving emotions,
At this time of the day... I feel deeply alone.
Then I breathe, I control, dominate, on my own
And turn loneliness into enjoyable solitude.
Detaching myself from unnecesary ties...
Lifting the essential, walking through in the nude
It feels as growing stronger
Yet none of this I want the forthcoming nite
But embrace vulnerability and get myself sheltered,
Nestled in the thought of thine cuddling sight.

Oren Lavie – Her Morning Elegance

Where people are pleasently strange

En Jaén la luna platea océanos de olivos..

En Jaén la luna platea océanos de olivos,
ondeantes ondulandtes
se deslizan se arrastran
y como un suspiro de pensamientos ahogados
silba en la noche suspiros callados de amor velado.

Píldora #14 todavía no es navidad or it is always a good thing to do a to-do list..

Que una ha de citar sus fuentes es una gran verdad, pero no está en mi lista de hoy, igual nos basta con reconocer que la píldora que hoy lanzo al aire no es mía. Al alcance de todo curioso esta hacer un elegante copy-pasty y preguntarle al Google God. 

Tuve que dejar de hacer varias cosas de mi lista de hoy, por haberme alcanzado el tiempo con otras que había dejado de hacer previamente. Dulce ironía.

Descendí las escaleras del centro comercial adentrándome en un mundo de artificial armonía navideña. El hilo musical escupía villancicos y casi me resultó tortuoso -puede que frunciera el ceño nada más darme cuenta de dónde me metía. El malhumorado funcionario de la oficina de correos que se encuentra en los navideños sótanos del centro comercial, estaba molesto, muy molesto, pero mucho, mucho, vete tú a saber por qué. Al principio me apoqué y luego decidí no indignarme a pesar de que su parsimonia iba a tener como consecuencia que dejara sin hacer otra cosa más hoy; solo pude abofetearle con la mejor de mis sonrisas, toda mi paciencia y algo de dañina comprensión. "Muchas gracias y tenga usted una buena noche", sin ningún resentimiento, reprometo.

Volviendo a las listas: la píldora de hoy..

I've had an epiphany [...]. A breakthrough. I am making—ha ha ha—a list! [...] Lists solve everything. You put the thing on the list, you do the thing and then you tick it off. And in that way, order is achieved. And the world becomes a better place.

A BETTER PLACE. A pesar de todo, al escabullirme de la (in)cómoda burbuja de falsa irealidad, no pude evitar sentirme lejana, muy lejana, alienada, absoluta outsider y totalmente feliz por un instante que aún saboreo.. Whoops! This is too sweet, perhaps. El caso es que eso tampoco estaba en mi lista.

Esto me hará gracia solo a mi, pero esta noche es luna llena.

Os tiro este vídeo que acabo de descubrir

Akron Family - Future Myth

Counting shadows in the sun, 
There's enough for everyone. 
Here amongst us now and then, 
Telling stories with no end.

No sé a dónde volar hoy..

Me gusta soñar despierta y viajar con la imaginación, así nunca paro quieta. Estoy allí y aquí, y un ratito un poco más allá. He pisado casi todo el globo y recorro las huellas de historias pasadas que otros han ido dejando para mis futuros devaneos en ciudades y callejuelas. Por eso, allá donde vayas piénsame, para que vuele y revuele en experiencias robadas. 

Hoy me pierdo en la duda fantástica y no sé hacia dónde tirar: quiero bajar a la playa a jugar a las palas en bikini en  Noviembre con MCruz , o volar, volar, volar para saltar a través del espejo. 

Se celebra en Liverpool hasta el día 29 de Enero una exposición que recorre los diferentes Wonderlands.. en los que aterrizaron artistas como René Magritte, Max Ernst o Salvador Dalí aldejarse caer por la madriguera; además también estarán celebrando una serie de conferencias el próximo fin de semana para discutir todos los aspectos discursivos y artísticos -cross-disciplinary aspects- que se acercan al País de las Maravillas; eventos y actividades para niños curiosos; días de estudio y talleres para adultos... ¿volamos?

 

Siguiendo el enlace de la imagen llegamos a

What Does Your Alice Look Like?

daros una vuelta por aquí también:

El atelier de Marta

Y con esto os dejo por hoy que llego tarde! 

Tengo mucho sueño..

..and I wanna go back to bed... and dream.

All I Have To Do Is Dream - Everly Brothers

Pildora #13 u otras prioridades factibles.

Photography: from here >>

I don't know if I should care for a man who made life easy; I should want someone who made it interesting.

Edith Wharton

No sé si debería importarme un hombre que te haga la vida fácil; debería desear a alguien que la hiciera interesante.