Man At The Crossroads

I compare your essence to the strokes in one of Diego Rivera’s murals,
Specifically Man At The Crossroads,
Bold and Daring.
Huge strokes placed strategically to please the eye in the lobby of The Rockefeller Center.
Some long, some short, some cris-crossed strokes on a silent 63-foot-long wall.
Controversial.
Offending some,
Causing a revolution in others.
Diego Rivera was asked to compromise his vision.
To alter his art.
To die down his creative mind.
To silence his opinion.
To remove the strokes and replace them with strokes made from the vision of others.
His passion for his art made no compromise and one day the floor of The Rockefeller lobby
Displayed broken up pieces of these beautiful bold strokes.
They died that day, but the vision remained indestructible and alive in Diego Rivera.
And I can recall walking into the Palacio de Bellas Artes where he recreated those same strokes,
Where he was free of the opinion of others and allowed to release his inner thoughts and passion.
Determined to make his vision come to light.
I stood there, the mural so large my eyes shifting left and right,
Rapidly like a ping pong game,
Attempting to capture every stroke,every color, and every detail.
I stood there feeling like a single insignificant speck in the universe.
My heart bursting with excitement,
I closed my eyes and could feel every stroke,
Every thought, and every passion that went into this piece.
I compare my reaction to your presence to the time when my eyes first met Man At The Crossroads.
I compare your essence to those undying ,
must be seen,
must be expressed,
strokes.
Bold, smooth ,hard strokes,
Passionate, expressive, unique strokes,
Never willing to lose that,
Beautiful and perfect even with its political controversy.
It didn’t matter if I agreed with the piece.
I adored it for what it was.
A vision.
A creation.
I compare your essence to Man At The Crossroads.
But especially to Diego Rivera’s imperishable force to create it,
To his passion for his vision.....

I Was There

Wednesday January 21 2008.

Wednesdays are usually the days when my eyes dread the morning light. When my tongue yearns for the taste of a hot cup of coffee. When my mind is at peace with the cycle of life, seeing and attempting to understand death and sickness in the world the night before. Yet this Wednesday was different. I woke up, tumbled out of the duty bunk room and into my 9-5 work suit. I waited for the bus and was able to find my regular seat in the back. Typically Ill pull out a book that I'm currently reading or let my mind drift into past memories triggered by songs that come up on shuffle. This Wednesday morning I did neither. As I sat there I couldn't help but notice all the passengers on the bus nose deep into the Washington Post, and on the cover in bold it read : " Obama Takes Charge - Nation Asked to Begin Task of "Remaking America". I instantly felt goosebumps all over my skin as I closed my eyes and reminisced on the events of Tuesday January 20, 2008. I felt the cold chill of the wind against my face again as I waited in a crowd full of people to be able to at least hear him. I could feel the true force of winter as it painfully numbed my toes and fingers, not to mention my nose that I swore I no longer had. Aretha's voice in the distance ringing through my ears as I looked around at faces full of Hope, Faith, Pride, Joy, and Happiness. Wow I thought, Wow was all I could come up with, Wow is all I can say to describe it. Faces of all races, religions, nationalities, social classes, and ages. All had the same emotions and feelings glowing in there faces as he spoke! We might not have been able to physically see him, but we heard him loud and clear and when the inauguration was complete cheers along with tears broke out every which way. Interviews left and right, and all despite the cold winter wind that was still challenging us. This "small" moment in time meant so much, so much that it was hard to grasp! It was unbelievable, I turned to my brother and all I could say was " We have a new president....WE HAVE A NEW PRESIDENT!" and we jumped up and down like children who just received the toy of there dreams!

Dreams, Dreams, Dreams ,Dreams.....

We continued to walk around waiting for the parade to start, my fingers snapping pictures left and right. I want to show the world what raw and true HOPE, looks like! I want to show the world what raw and true JOY looks like! I want show the world what achieving a DREAM looks like! It was all in the faces of the people around me! and I was completely overwhelmed. At one point I jumped on top of a huge pot holding a small pine tree, to get a better glance at the parade. All I saw coming towards me was a huge crowd of people running and chanting, "Obama, Obama, Obama", rising their fists, not for battle or war, but for joy and hope. I knew he was next to appear in the parade. I held my 35 mm Nikon tightly in my numb fingers turning left to catch the emotion of the crowd and turning right to attempt to catch a photograph of President Obama's limousine. All the film and digital cameras in the world couldn't capture the true essence of the moment, even though my 35 mm gave its best attempt. All of these memories rushing in and out of my mind during this morning's bus ride. My stop approached as I gathered my things and prepared to make my way into the cold winter weather again. I looked back one more time at the bus full of passengers busy reading every detail of the event, and I sighed....having one last thought run through my head......"I Was There"......

Free.

Sometimes I just feel like writing....

Seeing how certain words look together, See how sentences turn into paragraphs and moving in and out of subjects. Maybe the words reflect my thoughts and maybe they don't. Maybe they go from being whole to becoming nothing at all. Seems like when I pressure my thoughts to turn into words they don't seem to come out of my mouth or ride through my fingers on to paper and pen. The pressure to turn my thoughts into labeled words gets me no where. Sometimes I just like to write. Today I like how the word vibe feelings in my mind....When I make it a verb my heart skips a beat....Vibing....no not Vib-ing....but Vi-bin' ....skip the G and when you start the word hold on to the Vvvvv....close your eyes and relase the Binnnnn, holding out the Nnnnnn...yea that's right....vvi....binnn.....Because when I hear that word I can feel the insides of my body do flips and turns. Lets talk about my stomach....maybe its just heart burn...but I swear it feels like I drank a tall glass of pepto....some times I call that sensation butterflies and sometimes I call it anxiety...but for sure I know I only feel it during special moments...moments that I cant seem to erase from my head....

Viiii-----biiiinnnnn.......hmmm...Viii---biiinnn.....the word can sound like music after a while if you continue to let it run from your mind and off your tongue....like a chant...the pleasure of finding someone you vibe with just right....someone who you might not know to well....whom you might not know anything about their past present or future but when they speak, the words that come out of their mouth are just the right ones.....even if its something as simple as I like to chew gum when I ride any kind of public transportation.....the word just tumbles around your mind and you feel it all over your body....Vibing....vibinnnn....vibin so hard that nothing else in the world makes sense but your conversation.... Vibing so hard it feels like your jumping out of an airplane without a parachute....vibinnn....Vibin soft....Vibin hard....soft...hard.... so soft that you completely understand the meaning of silence....so soft that you know what it feels like to ride on clouds.....hmmmm....vibin.....so hard then soft then hard... that the words in my mind that cant seem to come out whole....come out perfectly through her lips.... Vibin I'm so inspired...vibin I'm so full....feeling like I've had thanksgiving dinner every other hour..Nearly impossible to find you sometimes vibin...nearly impossible to be around you vibin...always hiding from me vibin....almost certain you have me addicted vibin.....almost certain Im a damn fool to keep toyin with the idea of me and you vibin....but Vibe....I Vibe....We Vibe....Your lips vibe....my lips vibe....dont have to ask if we vibe.... In the darkness without your presences I still vibe....off the meer thoughts and memories I vibe....much like when I was a child and I'd fall asleep to mi abuelita praying the rosary...her soft words tucking me into the covers keeping me warm all night long....vibing through my mind assuring me the world was not full of monsters....till this day I still feel her words , I still see her image inside of my head, siting at the head of the bed holding her rosary in the dim light...that kind of vibing.... I want to talk about the swings in the jungle gym.....legs floating into the air pushing outward then forward to continue the feeling of flying.....close your eyes and throw your head back ....that kind of vibinggg...flying....vibing...you take me back to those days when I had no limitations....when I felt no boundaries, when I believed that if I pushed and pulled hard enough on the swing I could catch a bird, and maybe once I caught that bird we could switch places.......that kind of vibing....that kind of flying.....Someone once told me I want to be your art.... I stared at her and knew I could make her into art....but not my art....because we weren't vibing....I didnt vibe her....her conversation her presence didnt make me vibe....my hands, my paint brush wasn't vibing.....but you .....you make me want to paint the clouds I thought I could reach and touch on the swings when I was a child....Now that's vibing....I want to make you my art....my paint brush vibes you....my creative vibes from you.....Ive used the word vibe incorrectly so many times in these jumbled words....but I don't care because I'm vibing...Vibing off our last encounter...Just Vibing.....

En Nombre De Paciencia.

I've been contemplating the idea of patience.
Recently Ive had the pleasure of being able to feel patience run along throughout my body and deep into my heart. Its an indescribable feeling. I could sit here and google the definition of patience , but to all of us it means many things.
To me it means allowing my heart to be at peace when things around me might be unresolved .
Its easy to get lost in the depths of questions and resolutions,
to allow the anxiety to fix all things to run your life, but in the end you have nothing to show of this anxiety. This anxiety eats at you like a parasite and asks for things that you cannot possibly attain.
Patience, Ive found, isn't an answer to the questions of life, but rather a way to live your life. There are many words that tie into this one simple word,
Patience.
Patience can bring peace,
Patience can bring joy,
Patience can bring understand,
Patience can bring enlightenment,
Patience can bring appreciation for the earth and the people around us,
Patience can bring hope.
I must admit this week I've jumped from losing this feeling of patience to having it circulate throughout my body, like blood. I can ask and beg to understand how to keep this feeling of patience, but asking leads to attempts at finding an answer, and at times seeking answers drifts you into the depths of anxiety. So I stopped myself from contemplating the answer to keeping patience and I'm practicing the act of patience.
Its interesting to see how everything around us demands answers at time,
our mind at times more so then our heart.
To have patience is to allow your mind to clear itself and allow your heart to speak,
and I think that is what we are most afraid of at times. Many of us have dreams in our hearts
that seem unattainable, dreams that might seem impossible. So we choose to silence our hearts and listen to the logic of the world around us, which tells us, your not enough for this, your too much for that, your not this and your not that, molding us.

As I type this I feel further away from patience than closer to it.
A stranger on a wind boat who knows nothing of the sea and nothing of the direction of the winds. Stranded out in the open, full of anxiety that I might never see land again....

Other Difficulties....

I had the pleasure of reading a few of Rilke's thoughts on Love and I found this one to be very interesting....I wanted to share and see if anyone agreed with these thoughts or disagreed...Ill give my opinion in a later post once I meditate over these thoughts a bit more....Looking forward to your comments....

"At bottom no one in life can help anyone else in life;this one experiences over and over in every conflict every perplexity: that one is alone.

All companionship can consist only in the strengthening of two neighboring solitudes, whereas everything that one is wont to call giving oneself is by nature harmful to companionship: for when a person abandons himself, he is no longer anything, and when two people both give themselves up in order to come close to each other, there is no longer any ground beneath them and their being together is a continual falling.

There is scarcely anything more difficult than to love one another. That is work, day labor, day labor, God knows there is no word for it. And look, added to this is the fact that young people are not prepared for such difficult loving; for convention has tried to make this most complicated and ultimate relationship into something easy and frivolous, has given it the appearance of everyones's being able to do it. It is not so. Love is something difficult and it is more difficult than other things because in other conflicts nature herself enjoins men to collect themselves, to take themselves firmly in hand with all their strength, while in the heightening of love the impulse is to give ones wholly away. But just think, can that be anything beautiful, to give oneself away not as something whole and ordered, but haphazard rather, bit by bit, as it comes? Can such giving away, that looks like a throwing away and dismemberment, be anything good, can it be happiness, joy progress? No, it cannot....When you give someone flowers, you arrange them beforehand, don't you? But young people who love each other fling themselves to each other in the impatience and haste of their passion, and they don't notice at all what a lack of mutual esteem lies in this disordered giving of themselves; they notice it with astonishment and indignation only from the dissension that arise between them out of all this disorder. And once there is disunity between them, the confusion grows with every day; neither of the two has anything unbroken, pure and unspoiled about him any longer, and amid the disconsolateness of a break they try to hold fast to the semblance of their happiness ( for all that was really supposed to be for the sake of happiness). Alas, they are scarcely able to recall anymore what they meant by happiness. In this uncertainty each becomes more and more unjust toward the other; they who wanted to do each other good are now handling one another in an imperious and intolerant manner, and in the struggle somehow to get out of their untenable and unbearable state of confusion, they commit the greatest fault that can happen to human relationships: they become impatient."

-Rainer Maria Rilke
Rilke on Love and Other Difficulties