After Many Stories (Camila Rodriguez)

“I have lived many stories through different eyes
I have seen worlds through different lives.
In this momentary place in eternity
I belong to everything
Nothing belongs to me
and Love binds me to the creating life source of all things.”

—Cami

Photo: "Summer Reading" —okei (2002)

Life is full of beautiful stories. Each person in this world has their own stories to share, billions of them. When we are lost or discouraged, books can open up whole new horizons of possibility, vistas for the imagination. Friendships can inspire us to keep going, those we admire can lift us up that we may stand upon their shoulders. Ultimately though, we all have to find our own way. But to get started on this journey, we do need the help and love of others. We always will. But our path is our's alone. Beware of leaving your path for another's though their charisma, or their need, may be great indeed.

A friend of mine met a flute player from Turkey who was arrested by police on his travels. He took out his flute and began to play. Like a snake-charmer charming a cobra, he convinced the police to let him go. The flute was his voice, his eternal calling. How badly we each need to find our own voices and to live our own truth, to tell our own stories, the stories that Nabokov expressed as distant horizons waiting patiently for us to explore, to write about and to share their wonder. A story is not only a recollection of thoughts and things, but also a creation in the telling. Even the empty speeches in managerial boardrooms and between political rivals, words spoken where no-one listens (let alone acts on), even these provide their participants with a kind of comfort to the soul. How much more powerful then is language resonant with truth...

What is my voice? Mathematics, poetry, philosophy? Perhaps all three. In the words of John Conway, "a mathematician is a conjurer who gives away his secrets". Following this trail of thought, a poet is a conjurer who does not know his own secrets, and a philosopher is a seeker in search of his own magic. They make a good combination if one could only dare to get started, confident in finding truth behind all the stories.

Love without truth is really what Fernando Pessoa expresses poignantly as the poisoning of the human heart by false representations and concepts:

Painting: J. W. Waterhouse, 'Mariana in the South'

1.

“Man shouldn’t be able to see his own face – there’s nothing more sinister. Nature gave him the gift of not being able to see it, and of not being able to stare into his own eyes.

Only in the water of rivers and ponds could he look at his face. And the very posture he had to assume was symbolic. He had to bend over, stoop down, to commit the ignominy of beholding himself.

The inventor of the mirror poisoned the human heart.”

2.

“We never love anyone. We love only our idea of what someone is like. We love an idea of our own; in short it is ourselves that we love.

This is true of every kind of love. In sexual love, we seek our own pleasure through the intermediary of another’s body. In nonsexual love, we seek our own pleasure through the intermediary of an idea we have.”

—Fernando Pessoa, “Book of Disquiet”

But Pessoa is too negative. Truth does exist behind our false representations and ideas. We must have faith in that! Then Love is no longer something egocentric, no longer an idea that separates us from the world but an expression of deepest belonging. In the words of Cami's poem,  

I belong to everything
Nothing belongs to me
and Love binds me to the creating life source of all things.

If only we could truly live this, to express this in every moment, in every action, and not get caught up by the stories, the attachments, the hopes and fears and distractions, but just to be pure expression of a deeper longing: to trust in dreams, act with kindness, follow our heart and give our all in all we do. 

And when we do feel caught up, distracted once again, let us recognize that state and see it for what it is: a beautiful signpost on our path, a question from the infinite, an opportunity to choose again.

Love & Blessings light your way!
okei