a toast to friendship (of the magical variety)

Magical Entanglements part II                       

Featuring my imagined meeting of Leonora  

Carrington and Remedios Varo.                

                                                                         

Hello dear Man Ray, I hope this Sunday finds 

you well. I wish us both luck on finishing this

 challenge. Sincerely, Sal (fairly awful penpal

 and perpetual chamuco)                        

Un tentempié para romper el hielo

A brief amouse-bouche to break the ice...

Act I The Soul’s bandaged tendrils begin to stir. 

Multiple reverberations of a mask-like face in profile (the Soul) hover above a body of water. The Soul is awakening. Near the front-most face lurks the hooded figure of the “ghastly fright” steadily climbing spindly steps built upon a small boat. An unexpected agent for catharsis that aids the Soul’s escape. The water consists of ribbon like scraps. Along some of these lie the first two stanzas of the poem.

Act II Behind the bee mask, basking in the escape.

The ecstasy of escape (and inspiration) achieved long at last. This scene depicts a world that has come alive and awakened through the joy of escape and palpable poetry. The Soul, disguised as a bee, revels and blooms in the crescendo of activity and flourishing flora. The boat that aided her escape now has turned into no more than a paper boat, it’s purpose has been achieved. Even the dried wood that had provided a ladder now is once again a living tree. Tangled among the blooms can be found fragments of ribbon that contain the following two stanzas.

Act III Far from the explosions. Back to the burdens of constricted constructing. 

The flights of inspiration have passed. The absence of those waves of fervent joy is palpable. The Soul now un-shrouded must return to its toil and limitations. This scene depicts the Soul as the Poet tenderly holding a robin, its fellow captive. While quiet exhaustion is felt, a writing desk can be observed in the background. The Soul retains the tools needed to escape and flourish once more.
This was all inspired by an Emily Dickinson's poem "the Soul has bandaged moments" and was originally written and conceived as a proposed installation that was, Alas, never to be... It is a re-interpretation as a visual poem in three acts blending the poem's actual imagery and other recurring elements of Emily Dickinson’s pictorial language. While originally composed as a diorama depicting three distinct scenes it is something that I currently hope to adapt to a different media.

Along with insufficiency...

On occasion I find myself invaded with bouts of emotions. Not so long ago when talking to a dear soul he asked me if I was sure they were my own. I've asked myself but cannot come up with an answer I jut become entangled with uncertainty. I feel as though I were oscillating between layers of either feeling to much or too little, my emotional cartography feels increasingly desolate at some stages, it also has a tendency to shift quite suddenly. I began to read "Howl's Moving Castle" when a feel began to wash over me. The last days I've been thinking of the measures I ought to take for my own benefit and towards finding harmony between my different bodies.

Thoughts During the Train Underwater...

    On the subway ride I kept thinking about the gap between one wants to do and what is actually done. I kept thinking about people, myself included, in situations that fail to full fill us. It seem a tragedy that on many occasions day go by when we are vessels filled with a longing to be immersed in a different activity. I've been going through a strange patch of the blues, a haze of blue in a way seems to have permeated into my immediate existence. This lacking has become a definite presence in my thoughts, it lurks darkly and silently when my attention is engaged elsewhere and before I can halter its movement it has found me again, vulnerable and receptive. I find that it is vital to explore my feelings, only by diving in can I regain inner balance and further understanding of myself.
     But I meant go along a different route, I began to take steps for the time and actions I need in my life. May this haze lift from my thoughts once it all begins to fold in and unite. The act of exploring this through writing already has helped.

The other notion that came to my head often during the ride was that of possibility.

Will continue...

Early discourses...

     It's been quite some time since I wrote something, anything really in English. I began writing in my mother language and the characteristics of Spanish lend themselves more for long winded sentences and a verbose construction. However, there has always been something about English that makes me be a bit more direct, somewhat less prone to fall into caveats of distraction. The act of writing usually hides some beautiful  cathartic qualities for me, the creative act, always has that for me. Without creating I would be closing my explorations of the universe and of existence. I feel that for the most part  I can remember and begin to re-understand life from a creative experience I need to help ideas make the jump from the intangible to the tangible dimension in order to further understand my self and my soul and the terms in which we find ourselves here...

Meandering Thoughts on a Monday Noon...

The book I am currently reading gives many thought. It makes me recall things from my current experience. It also makes me want to write more. Perhaps it is the fact that I'm in a building I don't come to often or maybe the fact they it is nearly desolated was makes me more pensive... Then again, it might be the meditative atmosphere, the book, and my latest reconnections. The question that came into my mind, and actually there is someone in particular I want to ask, is "how do you feel?" Not necessarily emotional. Actually, quite specifically I mean how do you feel as a physical being. The thing is that I don't feel accustomed to being a human... Fingers, movement, breathing... There is something marvelous about being a human and having the capacity to realize this, to ponder on our soul. I feel young, most the time I don't, but it feels on the surface. I am feeling my youth, my physical youth with my older intangible.

Nervous Breakdowns...

What is a Nervous Breakdown? And has anybody had one?
After a presentation on Joan Miro our professor asked this. Although  the term has become commonplace and we use it often when prompted with a question I could  not place it. I just looked it up, it is defined as "a bout of mental illness that is so severe it directly impacts their ability to function in everyday life". I suppose by this definition my answer to the latter question would be yes, often, sometimes, every once in a while. Although, I never described them as such but regardless here they are, inconstant, vagrant...