“When the sky is breathing tears… rain will
wash away all silence…” Gulnara Karimova
The sounds of the
raindrops, yes they wash away the silence of the earth, because each contains a little story from heaven. I wonder if raindrops have names? Michael, Gabriel, Raphael, etc. And what stories would they tell of the faces
on which they have dropped and the hearts that they have cleaned, and the tears
they have mixed with.
I was washed away once by a
river which took me to a distant shore.
“Where am I?” I asked. But there was no one there to answer me.
“My name is Glen Salo.”
[NOTE: I had always searched for an English-version
of my name Gonzalo; there isn’t one. Sometimes I used “John” when I didn’t care
if the person remembered my name or not—and I didn’t want to spend a lot of
time trying to get the person to say my name correctly. One day I was in my office and I received a
telephone call from a salesman who was trying to sell some product. I normally hang up quickly, but the salesman talked
well and got me interested. I told him
to fax me his brochure. He asked me for
my name and I told him “Gonzalo.” He
didn’t ask for the spelling as people usually do. A few minutes later, I received a fax
addressed to “Glen Salo.” While I didn’t
buy the product, I did love the name… So
“Gonzalo” became “Glen” for
casual acquaintances and for my blog] Anyway…
The river did not answer
me; its cataracts roared and foamed. I wondered why the river did not say, “You
are here and my name is _____.” Deep
calls to deep amid the roaring waters.
They are speaking in foam and in their splashing on the rocks. I try to
answer them but my breath is shallow and I cannot make myself heard.
I strain to see more
distant shores… they call me in a language unknown; yet I hear their call. I wonder if the Sirens called Ulysses in this
way. But he covered his ears with wax
and could not hear them in any case. I
did not cover my ears with wax, yet I only heard the rushing waters… perhaps I
did not speak their language.
"Your vision will become clear only when you look into your heart.
Who looks outside, dreams. Who looks inside, awakens." Carl Jung
I tried to sing with the
water but my song was lost in the river. No, I am not a boatman; more of a falcon
than a salmon. I fly in the sky and soar in open spaces, upward ever upward
into the blue of space…
I wonder if the fishes in
the river sing? Would the sing “The song of the Salmons” as they swim
upstream. Who knows… Perhaps Neptune if he existed… Perhaps the fishes would
sing a song… a simple song of freedom…
In his Seventh Letter,
Plato complains of the weakness of language—the inability to
properly describe the four things necessary to know a thing (first, name;
second, the definition; third the image; fourth, the knowledge and as fifth the
thing itself which is known and truly exists).
These four necessities attempt to show what a thing is like, not less
than what each thing is. I do not think
that people are so complicated. The true
person always reveals themselves. You
cannot hide who or what you are.
I climbed to the top of a
mountain and yelled out loud, “I am calling you.” The echo of my voice gave me double reassurance…It may be that I needed double reassurance of what I wanted to say. The heart
sometimes needs a voice and someone to hear it. It takes courage to say what
you mean even if only an echo.
After rains
comes renewed life.
I visited the
Redwood Forest in Northern California, with truly majestic trees. But what really got my attention was
something I noticed on huge Redwood tree had been cut down. I usually don’t take many pictures because I’m
not very good at it but I like this one.
The picture
of the redwood bud is life renewed and more. Vladimir Navokov, who in discussing Chekhov,
observed that Chekhov in his characters shows that “The greatest of the great
laws of nature is not the survival of the strongest but the survival of the
weakest.” So it is…
The rains
ultimately lift our burden captured in Goethe’s apothegm: “Was uns alle badigt—das Gemeine.’” (That which hampers us all—the commonplace.)
We are now ready
for another day… and more songs of rain. Nice.
By: Homeless with a Laptop, That is my Name
Бездомные с ноутбуком, это мое имя
By: Homeless with a Laptop, That is my Name
Бездомные с ноутбуком, это мое имя
