Red Thread

I remember when I moved to São Paulo, lots of secret doors opening for me where many people took for granted as solid walls. Once, on a quite magical day, my mother went to visit me, and we went to the Japanese district. Passing by a huge fenced gate with a thick wall of treetops behind it, I ringed the bell. That’s an odd (if not risky!) thing to do, but it’s certainly something that sounds like me. Somebody must have pressed a remote-control button inside, because with a buzz, the fenced gate opened wide. I checked to see if there were dogs, and entered. Inside, I discovered a temple of Sukyo Mahikari, a pretty young Japanese religious tradition whose practice of Okiyome helped me ground, cleanse and break free from much of the garbage I had with me from my previous life experience for the whole first half of my São Paulo days.

I love these moments when my impulsiveness leads me to great discoveries. I sure feel that they are my connection to something higher than me, something that has received many names, but is much more of what brings us together than what tears us apart. A nimble and compassionate intelligence that sees us through and follows us so close that we very seldom acknowledge its presence.

My story here in Madrid, although a bit harder, at last begins to reveal this Red Thread weaving pieces of it all together, too, it seems. First, I take a free magazine on the bar. I always picks these up around here in Madrid, that’s how I give the Thread a helping hand (but the neverchanging skeptic Jose calls this a symptom of Diogenes Syndrome—when he’s generous, otherwise it’s just ‘collecting junk’). It all began with an article in a magazine about a place that has exhibitions, concerts, events and, my favourite thing to do in public, workshops! I took a workshop there on Sufi Poetry and Music, met Iñaki, who mentioned some weekly Harmonic Choir meetings almost for free downtown. There, I got the heads-up for a Tensegrity group on holidays for the Summer, but that will start again in September.

The other Red Thread I can track by now began with the Europride events. At the parade, some people were distributing fliers nobody took. I took them all, and looked to check what they offered. Of course 99% were those boring barbie sex parties with drag queen performances and ultra-expensive tickets, but one was about a group of gay buddhists who meet twice a month for yoga and walking meditation. For free, too. Today, I took the heart to go to the first meeting. Since I left São Paulo, I haven’t seen so many nice people together in one single place!

I’m confident more good things will come from there, if I stick to them. If I ever ‘made sense’ and said no to any of these, I’d have broken the chain, and blocked my own unfolding. The Red Thread is always there, and it takes you as far as you keep saying yes to it. Say no, and you cut yourself short of your promising blessings.

[Disclaimer: The Diogenes Syndrome entry on Wikipedia says that frontal lobe injury may be a cause. Don’t tell anybody, because everytime I talk to my mom she asks everything twice to test me and check if I had permanent injury from the accident in late April. I’d rather be collecting junk than being considered impaired by people a lot less capable than myself!]

Here’s a song I wish to dedicate to the omnipresent, multinamed Presence that guides, inspires, opens doors and weaves bits of the story of our lives together in one single piece. Written and performed by the great Dougie MacLean, ‘She Will Find Me’:


He walks he does not run
He has no overwhelming need to fly
His heart remains unbroken
no need to search the sky
But me I’ve found that place
I wander recklessly ..and

CHORUS
I know that she will find me
I know that she will find me
Even if I vanish without trace
O and though I’m running blindly
I know that she will find me
Hiding with the shadows that I chase

No-one can rock his boat or make standing
waves upon his sea
Everything is calm and even steady safe
as it can be
But me I’ve never found that place
I wander recklessly …but
CHORUS

Sometimes we search too deep
that’s when the darkness feeds our fear
We turn away from one another
just in case we get too near
Me I stand this mountain top
I shout so she can hear …and
CHORUS