Summer Report

From my balcony tonight I see many windows lit up just before Midnight. They weren't here last night. Or any night since August 1st. Vacationers are back to Madrid, and that probably means the "course year", as they call it here the year beginning in Autumn instead of Winter, will begin soon. Because Summer's kinda over in the Society I live in, and because it's been long since I last posted to my blog, I suppose it's time I wrote some.

I have enjoyed this Summer in many ways. Found a friend in a dog, burnt in the Sun King's fire a bunch of attachments to low-self-worth games I played and even-lower-self-worth communities I used to participate in, and blew the ashes to the farthest travelling wind. The cleared way brought me new blessings, especially a new hot Divination tool (Brian Froud and Jesa MacBeth's "Faeries' Oracle"), musical headway, and the German language. Each of these three alone, Music, a foreign language and the Faeries, are in their own right marvellous door-openers, but probably the best achievement this year was cooling down (despite the oppressive 95ºF heat), opening my eyes and letting go of the guilt to enjoy the first time in my life I am unemployed and not scared of being kicked from the flat, humiliated before family, abused by anybody or pressured to look successful to the neighbourhood. I have wondered many times throughout this Summer if I am given the blessing of a second youth to rethink my goals in life.

I've started working with a life coach. We're still in the very beginning, and already much shit related to my round-shape-forced-to-be-square days has surfaced, leaving me a bit frozen, too worried of slipping into a downward self-pity spiral, but just the questions he asks me and his invitations to set goals, define core values and plan strategies are very positively triggering.

I may not have been writing much, I may not even have moving stories to tell just yet--but the Storm keeps brewing, and I've been just fooling around with it.

It's my job, after all.

A Dog's Life

My parents-in-laws decided to go to Asturias on vacation, and our dog-loving siblings-in-law are away in Mexico. But dogs don't travel in the Summer. Neither do South-American immigrants. No matter what we ourselves had planned, and no matter what the little guy needs right here and right now, Jose's old people simply ditched the poor thing with us yesterday morning and hit the Road North. For over a week.

Beyond the trauma of the experience (for all parts involved who stayed in Madrid), the whole thing has been enlightening and very instructional for me, who gets to spend 24 hours a day imprisioned in the house with the new ghost. I'm learning a lot about what hurts my animal soul and what it needs.

I'm a dog-phobe, but apparently I'm doing a great job in controlling whatever scent we dog-phobes exhale that makes dogs attack, so so far Toy (the deadweight's name) hasn't attacked me. Jose, however, hasn't been as lucky. His middle and ring fingers are still swollen from yesterday's bite.

We don't have his toys here to play with him, my in-laws forgot them--though I'm sure the vacationers' booze was conviniently packed for the trip, with not a drop left behind. I try to refrain from touching Toy or showing a lot of affection and moodswings. I know dogs work under complex psychological laws, and are way more merciless than all the animals I love and can cope up with. Because I've managed to become perfect strangers with Toy, having me in the house is almost like having another ghost who doesn't care a bit about him, so he's desperately lonely.

He hasn't eaten for over 24 hours, doesn't sleep and everytime somebody opens a door in the building (i.e., all the time), he leaps to the hallway and wiggle what is left of his tail. He used to scratch the door, but I told him off yesterday, and he's obedient now. It breaks my heart to see him so lonely and so desperate for affection from somebody who can actually give it to him without losing a pretty useful and functional part of their body in the beast's teeth.

Dogs are territorial. Never underestimate the depressive effect it has on a dog to deprive him of the home he's known for eight years. He's given up exploring the house within six or eight hours yesterday, and this afternoon, he forgot to sit endlessly with his head up and ears open trying to hear when their owners will climb the stairs to reclaim him. But still, every now and then he goes to the closed entrance door, sits and cries his mournful, high-pitched dog-cry.

Whatever my in-laws had in mind (or in cunt), they are just big-time jerks for buying an animal, training him to have a co-dependency relationship with them, and then dumping the little guy like this.

Toy is a marvellous animal, really. Very polite and impressively clever, he knows that here he cannot bark like a spoiled, very Spanish drama queen, like my in-laws expect him to and trained him to be. So he's silent for the most part of the day. He learnt that when he goes out in the balcony, he can bark like mad and nobody will punish him. So he flees to the outdoors bit of our flat, howl for the Sun or the Moon, whoever is shining in the sky, and then comes back in, silent and invisible again. He knows what he needs, and now he gets it without causing any nuisance. I'm successfully training the dog to be a cat.

Today, he's let me take my German lesson at LiveMocha--it was the stupid ISP Orange who left me down once more. At this pace, I might actually enjoy having a dog in the house. No matter how depressed he is here.

Poor guy.

Image: Toy's race and colour. A shining, light-brown cocker spaniel. But Toy looks way sadder these days.

Blue Moon Report

Lately, my mailbox, blog list and conversations have all mentioned the current August Blue Moon Blues. Change is in the air right now, they say, but when isn't it, really? Also, "karmic issues are on the table" and everything is "messed up". Personally, since Thursday (maybe Wednesday), I've been surfing an incredible wave, reaching high altitudes in all my current projects (especially German, Spanish and Music). Even the food I cook tastes better these days, and today it finally rained in Madrid! Last night, when all neighbourhood was asleep I went outside in my balcony for a brief Drawing Down The Moon ritual. Tonight, I'll do a full ceremony.

I'm loving the momentum, and if there's any menace in the Blue Moon, it's that it'll be over by tomorrow!

Empfehlung

In case you guys want to use the rest of the Summer for getting unrusty or trying a new language, or even are planning to take on a new language when Summer is over, I've found this great website you might enjoy: Livemocha.com is a community website with neat, free courses in several languages and other cool resources such as flashcard sets, dialogues sorted by difficulty levels and live chat for language practice with natives or other learners of the language you're studying. All for free. You can also tutor/help students in a language you master, and last week they've released a podcast for advanced learners. I've been studying German there for two weeks now, and I'm quite excited about my results already.

Visit Livemocha.com. In case you decide to join, add me as a friend there:

http://www.livemocha.com/profiles/view/816386

Image: Neuschwanstein, emerging from the fog.

A Step in Faith

My issues with pitch are still haunting me, to the point of considering giving up the closest thing I have to a life purpose, so I decided I'd do what got me unstuck and took me to new places against all odds many times before: pretend like I have no other choice than insisting. And I've just ordered through Amazon.com W. A. Mathieu's "The Listening Book". Sheer intuition and wise irrationality. I'm proud of that.

I'll probably read his other works in the Future, too.

Threshold

The engagement, a numerologist friend, monsters under my bed, shades of Saturn's Return already, die-hard old habits in check, an impeccable and very sound cycle end in my blogging activity, and an eerie silence are announcing a new dawn.

And I feel like I have nobody to hold me, for better and for worse.

Wonderstock, new round

Again, the Waning Year opens the pages of my Pressed Faeries Book, and all the fantastic fauna that has been haunting my kitchen pops out to dance on air like fireworks.

I’ve taken on the task of reproducing my blog on a new account I’ve opened on Blogspot.com since I’m unemployed, experiencing tranquility and deep grounding in the new home/Old World, and generally open to the blessings of the Universe again. And, naturally, ready to take it in from the Man In The Mirror (who—truth be told—changed a lot over three years and 200 entries!).

Through reading posts and comments with the right state of consciousness and an eye of a miner, gold surfaces. Gods, I love my junk!

I am reminded of and impressed with how far I have travelled with baby steps. Witnessing my own unfolding in retrospect teaches that great spiritual powers like Resiliency and Commitment are not born neither inborn, but rather gathered along the road with delicate memos you write yourself on the best moments, wound-licking on the worst, and the lessons you are taught through it all. When shared with a community tuned to the same frequency, Time speeds up and the next blessing ripens before the next need sprouts.

I watched both from the outside (in Time) and in 1st person memory rerun how the sprouting, the growing, the blooming and the strengthening of the roots take place. Most comments were right: no matter the weed and the toxin they feed you, over the long haul you’ll grow strong and shine your light. Weather is everchanging, but the stuff of dreams is forever. A vision charged with Passion is all it takes to drive the flowerbud through the green stem. The best lessons in an environment that’s making everything possible to deter life force.

Overseeing the whole process, fortunately recorded, evaluated and commented on the Book of the Crossroads, I have come to understand how every episode, merry or not, is part of a longer journey, and the direction is very important. I see now how my days in São Paulo were a necessary stepping stone toward a greater fulfilment as a human being. I could see, too, how I wanted to hold on to it, resisting in letting go of it. Who can blame me? It was probably the most successful stage of my life and the most organic growth I have ever experienced. The Springtime of a whole lifetime condensed in two years. I wanted it to last forever. And now I know it can...

I see how much of the flora I have grown and the fauna I have bred in these 200 entries are fruits of the ways I have chosen to tread, or just random acts of kindness and senseless acts of beauty from generous fellow travellers I crossed paths with at some point. For almost three years, this has definitely been the Book of the Crossroads in that sense.

As the garden of commenters grew (and indeed in many instances the comments were more remarkable than the entries), new colours started to be added to the black-and-white so typical of vile juvenile thinking, creating the Rainbow pattern so typical of actual maturity: inclusive, accepting, open to change. Dreams were left along the way, some just buried in an (actual) time capsule, and many sprouts that I took for granted grew to be my personal Anandabodhi in many occasions. Above all, I gracefully built many relationships on the grateful foundations of honesty, sharing, trust and kindness.

What a long journey. It’s depressingly easy to forget and let go of all I’ve earnt, built and created along the way, and how integrated I have been with my community and my environment. So, I’m really glad I have everything recorded. The next step will be applying tags to entries, and then on to the third and most groundbreaking round of Operation Wonderstock: my Morning Pages!

Whatever appreciation for my writing people manifest, truth is that nothing can pay the gratitude I feel right now for living in Wonderland. Wherever I physically am.

Thank you. All.