Planet heart - Part 1: Weed your garden

Did you know your heart is a planet?


Dear fellow explorers,

What a long absence. I have been away from myself. I have been exhausted and stressed out because of long hours of  work, deadlines, obligations. I have taken a step aside for longer than a month and stopped the journey. Somewhat lost and longing to come back to this, my centre, my tree, the rough sand of the path beneath my naked feet.

I begin the journey again. I retake it at the point where I left. Please walk beside me, there are yet more wonders to be discovered.

Time is a whimsical creature that lives within our brain. Now the summer is here, it forces me to go back to the beginning of springtime. When the air was still sharp cool in the morning and the trees were starting to pump their sap up and down faster by the minute. The birds were returning to Gandhi's Gardens. The breeze had changed, the scent and aromas in the air had changed. The light hours had changed. The paths that the trees' shadows followed during daylight had changed. And people had changed.


At around 10 in the morning a young woman in her twenties, Lola, came to the gardens with a shopping bag in one arm and a notepad and a pen under the other. She sat on a bench opposite to the statue and with a long sigh, wrote on her notepad: Dear Marc, I have made up my mind, I will not continue pretending...

Calling the bees

To my father, Bernardino.
This is the true story of how he taught me to call the bees.


"Heaven is love. Hell is love. What matters is how you make your journey there." - Balinese wisdom

Dear fellow explorers,

Birds are returning to Gandhi's Gardens. The breeze has changed, the scent and aromas in the air have changed. The light hours have changed. The paths that the trees' shadows follow under the sunlight have changed. They are now closer to their trunks, warmer, kinder, sweeter, like the words exhaled by a new lover. And... the trees have awakened!

But it's not only the birds and the trees. Also the bees, there are very few flowers yet in the gardens, but a handful of industrious city bees are skipping from blossom to blossom, in their joyful spring collection. I am sitting at a bench far from Gandhi, in the sunny side, near the bushes and observing the flight of my buzzy little friends. An intense memory floods my brain as I start remembering, inundating it with a different light...

I was 17 or 18, an insecure adolescent, living in a mid-sized town on the island called Tenerife, just off the Northwest coast of Africa. My dad, Bernardino, had been a farmer all his life, even after he had an accident that almost paralysed him from waist down. Fortunately, that didn't happen, and although he walks on crutches since then, life found a way to continue flowing: about four years after that accident he and my mother managed to conceive me, and three years later, they also conceived my little sister, Inma. Many times I wonder what would have happened if the accident had been any worse... I wouldn't be here... these sentences would have never been written... but that's part of another story.

ˌɛkwəˈnɪmɪti

This is a rap, this is a blow
To awaken those in deep slumber
To figure out a way for the weary soul
The simple truth I see, suffering in you eyes


This is a mantra, this is a prayer
This is the sound of words in control
For every smack life delivers
There's a place to recover, a place of your own


ˌɛkwəˈnɪmɪti
If you're ill, if you're hurting
Let the pain be, stretch your mind
Toward this peaceful sanctuary
You can't move on if you don't feel
ˌɛkwəˈnɪmɪti


This is a rap, this is a blow
This is the sound of healing words
This is a mantra, this is a prayer
This is a peaceful sanctuary of your own


ˌɛkwəˈnɪmɪti
Useless to add one more burden on your shoulders
(A burden you mustn't tow)


ˌɛkwəˈnɪmɪti
Let the pain teach you, let the experience motion you
Toward your inner self
(Who is wise and strong)


You can't move on if you don't feel
ˌɛkwəˈnɪmɪti

The marathon

04/03/2012

What race are you running?

It is Sunday morning and I’m preparing my rucksack to go to the mountains. It’s been an extremely demanding week at work and my mind has said “Enough, get me out of the city, give me open space, pure air to breathe and lots of green to rejoice my sight”. So I have listened and I am ready to give it what it asks for. I’ve packed 2 bocadillos, fresh fruit and 2 soft drinks. I also pack my basketball hat and a light sports jacket, just in case it gets cold up there. The sun is playing shiny games outside. It’s about 10:30 in the morning.

As I step out of the old building which I call home, I can see many people motioning up the main street. They are wearing fluorescent green t-shirts with numbers on their chest. A really tired 4359 passes in front of me with small steps, puffing really hard, almost walking. From behind him, still running briskly, a smiley 1033 passes like an arrow, all healthy cheeks and wearing a funny hat. And somewhere in between all the others, I glimpse a 8162 who is helping 10343 stretch his muscles, as it seems he has cramps on his right leg. 

Winter arabesque (a thousand and one stories)

Gandhi once wrote "My religion is based on truth and non-violence. Truth is my God. Non-violence is the means of realising Him".

Dear fellow explorers, one more week has passed and the cold hasn't gone away. The first true winter in many many years, or so they say. The weather patterns have changed, the planet has changed, the people who inhabit it have changed. Getting warmer and faster, or so they say. And I would like to ask you a question, please think about it for a minute before you continue reading, close your eyes if you want, and try to visualize it, picture the words, as in a big banner, with a white canvass where you can paint the answer in big, black, bold letters.

The question is: Through the years, what remains the same in your life?

Close your eyes, breathe, see the white canvas, breathe, paint it with your true words, your true, big, black, bold answer.

In praise of lightheartedness: Periquitos attack!

Gandhi many times taught: "An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind".

Dear fellow explorers, are you wrapping up to survive the Siberian cold wave? Please drink plenty of hot tea, different kinds of tea, so that your body savours the heart of all those good leaves coming from diverse parts of the planet. Or if you prefer, coffee, or cocoa, or chocolate, whatever makes your body warm and turns your ears red with happiness.

What a serious and terrible world we live in. I read with worry that the newest nation in the middle east wants another powerful nation to start a war against a rising nuclear neighbour. None of them is known for its kindness and diplomatic approach. All three employ religious views to justify their positions and actions. All three see one another as a menace. All three keep a close watch. Grumpy, gossipy, selfish giant neighbours who can't find anything better to do.

Last Saturday morning was an oasis in the midst of the cold, the sun came out and caught the wind and the frost off-guard, so the temperatures rose by at least 5 degrees celsius. The trees in Gandhi's Gardens timidly straightened their branches and trunks to catch every single ray of sunlight. Suddenly their bark seemed to show a less rugged surface, and the sap started to circulate again within their bodies. That's the way trees smile. Within their most intertwined branches appeared the sleepy green faces of periquitos, the wild parakeets whom people say have become a plague all around Barcelona. They do cry loud, but the trees don't mind them.

The rains of now

Gandhi once wrote "I do not want to foresee the future. I am concerned with taking care of the present. God has given me no control over the moment following."

Dear fellow explorers, how has the week treated you? Last time we met, Gandhi's gardens were almost frozen by la Tramontana, the gelid winds of the northeast corner of Spain, yet there was one person who found meaning, warmth and the company of a loyal friend in these grounds. This week the trees are still asleep, but the wind has gone, leaving behind a trace of frozen silvery roads over the waves of the Mediterranean.

Like the rain washes away all the blurry memories and brings the mind to the present moment with its big, refreshing drops. 


Like the rain wishes away all the unnecessary ambitions in life and awakens the mind to the present moment with its cold, refreshing drops.



Matilde has come out of the family flat overloaded with bags, there's the black bin bag with the rubbish from yesterday, but also the blue bag with paper for recycling, and the other two, yellow and green, also for recycling plastic and glass bottles respectively. There's her own handbag with paper tissue, keys for the car, keys for the parking lot, keys for her mama's flat, keys for the office, two mobile phones, a couple of almost forgotten lipsticks and her big purse full of memories made of old kodak paper.

Gandhi speaks (frozen silvery roads)

All the trees are huddling together in this freezing week in Gandhi's gardens. The icy fingers of la Tramontana  stretch over their branches and divest them of any trembling leaves that desperately attempt to hold to the bark. The trees have stopped whispering and remain dormant.

Over the grass, in the morning, one can see small dew paths, like snail trails, frozen silvery roads. And Gandhi remains the sole figure that bows not to the wind. His tiny shoulders appear capable of carrying the world in the dawn's glow. Yet no birds come to rest on them.

A short man, with his face full of dirt has come to rest at the statue's feet, exhausted, cold, afraid. He carries numerous plastic bags inside a supermarket trolley, covered by a worn and tired blanket. A red hat distinguishes him from the grey of the pavements, and the grey of his beard's hairs, frozen silvery roads. Devoid of any energy, the man cocoons himself inside the blanket and faints into sleep.

"Listen, my good man, 

You've endeavoured to lead a good life

You left your country to search for a bigger chance

You left behind the Christmas sun

To step onto frozen silvery roads.

The gift

Gandhi once said "Love is the strongest force the world possesses, and yet it is the humblest imaginable".

Dear fellow explorers, as the new year is silently ushered  in, I have been fortunate enough to spend some days with my loved ones, my family, who I hadn't seen for 6 months. From my youngest niece who is an energetic, playful two-year-old, to my dad, still healthy at 79. I got to tell them the stories I had saved, and to listen to theirs.

I hope that you also have been able to put your backpack down, lay your walking stick on the floor, clean the dirt from your face, have a drink of cold, crystalline water and share your adventures and discoveries with your family and close friends. And listen to theirs. This need is deep within yourself, in your genes, being passed on from generation to generation across the ages.

Tell your stories. Protect them from oblivion. Tell your stories.

It is January in Gandhi's Gardens, yet unusually sunny. I can see old people walking slowly, basking in the sun, recovering from the Christmas hangover. Not a lot to look forward to. Just the slowness of the few first weeks of the year. An illusion that their lifetimes could be extended for a few weeks.