More than two years have passed since my last entry. I have recently found myself reading some of my old posts, and for some moments I couldn't help feeling that they were written by other person than me. Time is nothing but distance, and now, when I read those entries, it becomes clear to me how far we can travel from our old selves as time goes by, even being in the same physical location.
Fortunately I started this year travelling, and after being devoured by the most imposing corners of Patagonia, I wanted to share what I felt down there, which I believe is in tune with the beginning of a very special year for most of the people that surround me.
I would dare to say that more than light beings, humans are movement beings (which would be pretty much the same anyway). There is something about the way we move and what leads us to move, and I'd like to call it here 'the road', just to be clear in the metaphor. So, there is this certainty under our feet, the road we follow, with different intensities, more or less passionate, more or less confident, but still there: the road. If there is a road, therefore there is a goal, there is a destination, projects, ambitions, just movement, and when we move, we often have a kind of marked road underneath us. But recently, I have come across the thought that sometimes we put so much attention on the road, that it makes us unable to see where are we actually heading to.
But beyond that, the big thing comes when the road forks, or even worse, when it disappears. How difficult it is to keep us as movement beings when we can't descry the road! On a small scale, I felt this uncertainty when the trail vanished in the middle of a forest day-trekking in Fireland. There we were, standing still at the end of the road, at the beginning of the real world, looking forward but unable to move even a toe. Of course it took us not long to start walking our own path, avoiding swamps and passing through tunnels of fallen trees. What happened: we had to switch our source of confidence, what takes time, of course, and the bigger the scale, the more time it takes to unblock the fears and get back into the ring.
On the flight back home, it was extremely cloudy and I thought of the pilots, trying to catch sight of any hint that could locate them in the space. The cabin has to turn very very mystical when the plane is shrouded in clouds so thick that impede any vision. Even for them, the road disappears. The have to switch their sources of confidence: they can't trust their senses any longer, since those become fuzzy and confusing, but still they have other ways to feel that they are on the right path. There is no fear.
When the road disappears, one feels itself small. Roads make world look smaller, certainty makes world look smaller. As soon as the path vanishes and darkens, we feel tiny, minimum, fragile, but part of a huge expanding universe though. It puts us in a place where our boundaries, in communion with the outside, are effaced, and we cannot do anything but cultivate ourselves and grow. And once we dispel all our fears, we are able to move again. That absence of fear is the closest thing to God I've experienced in recent years, and in the Andes, in the middle of nowhere, it becomes stronger and emotional.
This year comes to me as a year of uncertainty. A kind of tabula rasa, empty. Far away from all the previous ones. I feel that what is certain today can change dramatically tomorrow. Everything changes, but actually. The evidence is everywhere. I've visited yesterday La Menesunda, a 1965 mythic work of the Argentine art’s history by Marta Minujin, which has been recreated at the Museum of Modern Art in Buenos Aires. Anyone in Buenos Aires should visit it, mainly to feel this discomfort of the sudden, of the surprise, but also to realize how comfortable it becomes the uncertainty, so postmodern, so hedonist. This year appears as a year of uncertainty: which means, I need to switch my source of confidence. That's why, when I look back in time, those old entries on my blog strikes me as being remote and distant. There was a road, and now it's disappeared.
Fortunately I started this year travelling, and after being devoured by the most imposing corners of Patagonia, I wanted to share what I felt down there, which I believe is in tune with the beginning of a very special year for most of the people that surround me.
I would dare to say that more than light beings, humans are movement beings (which would be pretty much the same anyway). There is something about the way we move and what leads us to move, and I'd like to call it here 'the road', just to be clear in the metaphor. So, there is this certainty under our feet, the road we follow, with different intensities, more or less passionate, more or less confident, but still there: the road. If there is a road, therefore there is a goal, there is a destination, projects, ambitions, just movement, and when we move, we often have a kind of marked road underneath us. But recently, I have come across the thought that sometimes we put so much attention on the road, that it makes us unable to see where are we actually heading to.
But beyond that, the big thing comes when the road forks, or even worse, when it disappears. How difficult it is to keep us as movement beings when we can't descry the road! On a small scale, I felt this uncertainty when the trail vanished in the middle of a forest day-trekking in Fireland. There we were, standing still at the end of the road, at the beginning of the real world, looking forward but unable to move even a toe. Of course it took us not long to start walking our own path, avoiding swamps and passing through tunnels of fallen trees. What happened: we had to switch our source of confidence, what takes time, of course, and the bigger the scale, the more time it takes to unblock the fears and get back into the ring.
When the road disappears, one feels itself small. Roads make world look smaller, certainty makes world look smaller. As soon as the path vanishes and darkens, we feel tiny, minimum, fragile, but part of a huge expanding universe though. It puts us in a place where our boundaries, in communion with the outside, are effaced, and we cannot do anything but cultivate ourselves and grow. And once we dispel all our fears, we are able to move again. That absence of fear is the closest thing to God I've experienced in recent years, and in the Andes, in the middle of nowhere, it becomes stronger and emotional.
This year comes to me as a year of uncertainty. A kind of tabula rasa, empty. Far away from all the previous ones. I feel that what is certain today can change dramatically tomorrow. Everything changes, but actually. The evidence is everywhere. I've visited yesterday La Menesunda, a 1965 mythic work of the Argentine art’s history by Marta Minujin, which has been recreated at the Museum of Modern Art in Buenos Aires. Anyone in Buenos Aires should visit it, mainly to feel this discomfort of the sudden, of the surprise, but also to realize how comfortable it becomes the uncertainty, so postmodern, so hedonist. This year appears as a year of uncertainty: which means, I need to switch my source of confidence. That's why, when I look back in time, those old entries on my blog strikes me as being remote and distant. There was a road, and now it's disappeared.
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