Tuesday 11 December 2012

The somnambulists

The day... the amazing synchronicity, mainly. I can see them clearer. Maybe.

Here is a story, or the recalling of a dream...

The world of the somnambulists. Half asleep. Eyes always squinting as if because of the light. Half way between truth and lies. Ahhh but they wont turn around, since they prefer the ground. Crawl and howl! Twice she fell through the gap. When the dream feels this real, its hard to wake up.. He was walking around, yes, in circles, and then he told her a poem. First he asked for permission and dipped his feet into a small pond. A puddle of grey-ish tones. She claimed not to have much time left. Hurry. He started. You do rock me like a ship in the open sea. She could feel all the feelings but she couldn't see the sea. She had to go, like a wave. She was being called from another world. The call from another world. He wrapped his thoughts in a towel and mounted them onto a horse. Off we go. She woke up in a sweat and yes, there was an injured bird in her bed. Its feathers red. Dark red blood on bright red feathers, the bird also had some blue feathers. She turned around and curled up. Blanket in hand. She tried to ignore the bird, the elephant in the room and the day ahead. The bird suddenly started to make a sound. She recognized the first eerie, then familiar sound... children screaming in a playground.... She was then back in school running around with all the little children, scattered around like lost butterflies. The sleepers are expert escapists, specially when it comes to escaping their own selves.
She was her, she was her teacher, she was a man with a beard all dressed in grey, all at the same time. They all tried to fit into a small box. So small. She woke up out of discomfort. The bird was by then gone and the day was thus born. She got her legs out of the covers and slid her feet into a pair of sleepers., to avoid cold meetings with the floor.
The only problem with the world of the somnambulists is that it assumes that anybody, at all, is awake.

dreaming state.

Sunday 28 October 2012

Saving the world through a mustard seed.

It's 2012. The world is pretty mad. Political instability, economic crises, war going on even though we have been talking about peace and the brotherhood on man for a while. Technology is on a role, each new gadgets does something even more incredible and therefore you do even less. And then there is world hunger and world obesity going on at the same time. There is no Berlin wall falling or Chinese Revolution or the discovery of new lands happening, but anyway you see it, these are crazy times.
I am sure not to be the only one to have had this thought of changing the world, of saving the world! I have heard it so many times its almost a cliche actually. But what can we actually do?
I found a way, a something that gives me hope because it is so ethical and sustainable that looks like a way of saving the world.
Perhaps you have heard of organic farming, perhaps you think its something far removed and practiced by hippies or something. Its more than that. Organic farming is a way of fixing so many of the issues that make our world so crazy.
Organic farms are first of all, completely ecological and don't use oil based pesticides which are a big source of pollution (the fact that they don't use these pesticides is what makes them organic). They work with the ecosystem and allow natural environments to be what they are meant to be. The land stays fertile and your food is healthier. Because this farms are focused on local action and the people who work in them are mainly volunteers, this farms create a real sense of community. You know you grows the food you eat! Therefore you have more communication and become more involved with the area where you live, which means that if the council wants to build a bridge for example, on top of a beautiful garden, you know what's happening and can take action. Imagine if that happened around the whole world!
One of the reasons why there is a famine in Africa is because much of the water that can be used for growing crops is redirected for growing palm oil and roses and different things that Africa exports to Europe (mainly). The idea is that the money made by selling the exported goods aids the economy. The problem? People don't have land and water to grow the food they need to survive! Its a terrible situation that could be fixed with thinking locally. The big businesses are taking it all, we need to reclaim it back and food is definitely a good place to start. Caring about organic food means that you will add more vegetables into your diet and less crap, which also targets the obesity problem, by eating healthier and having a relation with what you eat. My claim isn't that you should go work in an organic farm, but if you have time, perhaps its not such a bad idea. Also, money has a voice now a days, if you choose to buy local organic produce rather than mass produced 'who knows what it's in it' imported stuff, you will be doing a bit both for your health, and for the world.

This is a great organic farm in the edge of London, check it out: http://www.organiclea.org.uk/


Tuesday 23 October 2012

Art as an explanation to everything...

To write about art philosophically is to me, to match two seemingly different worlds that treat seemingly different things. But they are not so different; both art and philosophy exist to fulfil the same desire, the human desire for meaning. Art has been a major part of human history and development, art has been our way of saying ‘we existed’. Thus art has walked hand in hand with humans throughout our millennia of experience. No one can tell you more than a philosopher that truth doesn’t come naked, it comes in disguise. Humans have since forever tried to undress it and the only way to make sense or explain the unexplainable is art. The history of art is the history of symbols and the history of symbols is the history of human life itself.

For a while I thought that Western rationalisation of thought had killed philosophy as such. Western reductionism limits that scope in which we can speculate about human life, as if nothing could be a possibility unless it logically made sense and fitted under a microscope. Logic to an extent cuts the wings of human inquiry. At a public level, this seems fitting and very rational, but at a personal level, we believe in profound realities and that’s were art and other numinous aspects come in. Art fills in the infinite pain that we have, because of our lack of understanding, because of our helplessness in the universe. Art heals our burns like cool water, we look, hear and feel symbols that reach deep into our collective human conscious and unconscious and whatever experience. Art that touches your pain is incomparable. Art reminds us that we do understand, only that we understand with different eyes.

The reason why I think art is so important is because it keeps its status of enigmatic, even in our times dominated by science and technology. Artist are treated different, as carriers of the truth but not important enough to be fed. The job of art is to transform our experiences, sensations, feelings and thoughts into symbols, into music and into something that can last in the memory of humans. In Richard Dawkins words, we don’t just leave behind genetic material, but we also leave MEMEs, little bits of our creative self, in the shape of art, like things you don’t think are art, like the way you like to fold your tissue. Art goes beyond the objective, beyond the times, as if its symbols gave us a little more access to eternity. It is not a coincidence that Religions are charged with art, art is symbolic and symbols are signs and expressions of our millennia of accumulated human experience, the pain is no new, the doubt is not new, art is not new.
Feelings and sensitivity are given to us just by being born, same as reason. Artists use them and transmute these into symbols, colours, sounds, words. The job of an artist is continuous, like experience. We are constantly receiving something from the external world and that has to be transmitted. Everyone should do art, constantly, any type of art. It’s better than psychotherapy, it’s the coat of varnish that will truly help you visualise the mess that you have been turning your head into. Expressive, representative, free of worries, creative, personal, impossible, based on reality, that doesn’t need to make sense but ends up making more sense, neutral, angry, happy, passionate make art. 

Sunday 14 October 2012

Create and Connect

Sometimes, when I become too sociable and go out too much I loose touch with creating. You start talking and mingling and of course, and the best one: sharing with people. But this strange thing happens to me you see, that I start to drift into sharing with people so much that I neglect doing. Is this a general occurrence  That you become a bee that flies from flower to flower, rather than a working bee that collects the honey. This little metaphor tries to say that I have stopped creating... for the days I became sociable. All sorts of strange thoughts then start to creep in when you don't create. The fear of not knowing what to do next. What to follow work with. Why. How. Then you start to compare. Big mistake. The emptiness of the words as you tell people you write poems/songs/paint things when you haven't done any of those things in a while! Breathe. Collect yourself. Remember your mind needs recharging, it needs to take breaks.

Creating is a very similar process to so called mingling. You do it for the people, you share with them, ideally your honest thoughts and feelings. I do both out of love for them, out of curiosity about them, out of a need to learn about them. And thus they are not so dissimilar. But at the same time, time runs like sand, its time to get to work. Some artists become hermits in a way, they isolate from people and dedicate to their work. I work better that way, but people are part of the world, I work for people, can't obviate people, shouldn't avoid them.

Thus the issue becomes a matter of balance again, of course. How to create and connect? How to go out and see the humans in action and also create in the peace of solitude? How to come back to the point of creativity among the seas of activity?
Well I am certainly looking for the answers and will let you know if I have any luck.

Wednesday 3 October 2012

Free writing on a train...

Truth is? Well anything I can say about it, I can only say it symbolically. I cannot escape the symbols. Can you?
Like an invisible cage of some flimsy sort, a filtering film that changes all, ever so slightly. But all becomes different nonetheless. I remain on one side of the film, trying to be acquainted with purity, sometimes...
Looking at the people next to me, they look at each other, imitated behaviour. I watch them, they do as their neighbour. I watch them watch me. I smirk. The important remains invisible, symbolically.
Maybe its the strong influence of my right brain. Disorder, Art, Innit.
If I wrote my story word by word it would still be a symbol. If I wrote your story word by word, I still wouldn't know you.
Red blood.
The table across of me was full and now stays empty. The people are gone. I replace them with a water bottle, an orange and a book. The landscape escapes my avid gaze. I try to trap it with my memory but its gone already.
The books. The Art of Loving and the Art of Living. Gender swapping. Psychologically we are everyone else at some point. We try to avoid the thought that we could or can be the worst. Love so hard. Act with more direction. Pay attention.
Plant good seeds.... Metaphorically and physically soon. Well, at least create a new melody! Brighter colours. Vivid colours. Full colours. All before the winter comes.

(somewhere in Scotland, I believe)

Friday 28 September 2012

Use what you learn.

Hullo world! haven't been posting for a while... I have been doing many non-digital activities such as playing the guitar. Very fun. I recommend.
About the Blog, from now on I decided to update to this blogs, the articles I write for a Newsletter called The Philosophy Takeaway. So here it goes:
Use what you learn
Life is a lesson. We fall and get up, and when we do, get up, we are awarded with a lesson. We learn something new. So this life thing is constant learning process as we expand our circle of experience. Don’t agree? Well, you are entitled to it, but much evidence points to it. Our vocabulary inclines to takes us from one premise to another in a succession that builds up from what was previously said thus our language and its structure are designed for instruction, for teaching and learning, sharing and listening. Our institutions are the same, we begin at school and parents want their children ‘to learn’. We then go to college and etc. And there are learning courses everywhere. In my opinion this idea is somehow flawed. We assume that we learn in the first part of our life and in the second part we use that knowledge. I believe both processes are constantly going on whether we want it or not, simultaneously; but we don’t have such a big element of control. Control is gained with awareness. Planet Earth seems like a big training ground sometimes, of our chosen subjects and of life of course. Surviving is thus a learning activity.

                                         The extent of our rational analysis still doesn’t change certain laws of nature, such as cause and effect. We are responsible of the consequences that stem from our actions and thus we are rational and can become more conscientious of what we do. This is why I propose that people should use all these lessons gathered in life, practically. We think we do, but do we really? We are so keen to learn from other people experiences, for example when we hear someone has done something terrible we say ‘Oh but I would never do that!’. We say. Unfortunately, all our education and gathering of experiences still has not sank in deep enough; we don’t usually act on what we know.

                                         My proposal is quite simple. Regardless of the economic system, the government and the weather, we could have a much better life if we lived it with awareness. If we took what we constantly learn and used it, instead of turning a blind eye on it or become lazy with our ideals we would save ourselves and world much loss and suffering. For example: if you think it’s unethical that when tuna are fished some dolphins get trapped in the nets, well then buy line fished tuna instead. In this world, unfortunately our money has a voice and a vote, so that is a place to apply our principles. This is a small example, but it can be applied to any aspect of life. If we do a little self evaluation, we will find that we do things that we know we know better than doing them. We can change this, by using what we have learnt and keep learning, expanding our world. Saying this, using what we have learnt does not mean charity, I believe that one person living an aware life, acting upon what they have learnt, will have a lifestyle that prevents poverty in the first place. Thus a person living a life well lived is worth more than ten who live a completely upside down life, perpetuator of chaos, and then give money to charity.

                                         Constantly adults tell children to apply the lesson they have taught them into their life. We say ‘didn’t you learn that at school’ we say ‘haven’t I taught you that before’ we say ‘you should know better’. But when was the last time we looked at ourselves and said the same things and actually lived by them. We constantly learn new skills; we learn how to use a new phone or how to take a bus to a new place, but our life lessons... do we apply them? Why being aware of what we do? Why are we rational? Because only awareness can reconcile chaos. Thus I say: Use what you learn. 

Thursday 28 June 2012

The person you need in your life...

Most of us seat and daydream, daydream so hard and so long about the X person we need in our life, so we can have a better life, so we can be finally happy. A partner usually, a boyfriend/girlfriend/wife/husband/lover and external being to complete our seemingly meaningless life. Sometimes we think we need a different mother, a teacher, a better boss in order to achieve.
What I have learnt in my twists and turns in planet Earth is that if you 'need a person in your life' the best for you is TO BE that needed person. Sounds weird, yet its simple. If you want a better partner, be a better partner, to yourself. Be that mother, be that teacher, be kind, actually, be nice sometimes, stop looking outside. To expect that complement to come from outside is to stay on the level of wishful thinking, you will for ever think life is unfair because it doesn't send you a pre-packed human being. Be it. You want someone irresistible and caring and that listens and encourages and supports you? Be irresistible. Be caring. Listen. Encourage yourself and others. Support yourself and others again. Play the part in the world, transform it with your music.
Be the person you need in your life. And no, I'm not talking about eternal loneliness with you as your own best friend (although that wouldn't be too bad) I'm saying that when you become the person you need... other people will be attracted to you and your encouraging, loving, supportive, funny, irresistible personality and ways. Because you are worth it for yourself. When you practice tolerance and love to yourself, loving others, just as they are, becomes easy, becomes fun, becomes free. And so, you can choose the people that make you happy and don't try to change the ones that don't, let them go. Next person you love, doesn't have to be 'what you need', but whatever they are will be perfect, because you will then really get to discover, each other.

Thursday 21 June 2012

Self-motivational words for you and me...

Personal growth does not happen in a straight line that goes up, like an arrow, as it's been by so many people portrayed. Growth goes in waves, up and down, wavy, in circles, non-static, growth is anything but single lined, single-minded. Personal growth and creation is the best we can do out of our brief life, or brief existence humans, here. I can't begin to stress how important growth is, to consciously better yourself, or anything. Yet, nowadays, growth is seen as a means to an end, usually money. 
Humans show you both anatomically and mentally that we are meant for growth or development. Like when you work a muscle and it gets stronger or you can train your lungs or flexibility, your body is there basically to be molded by you, to be your instrument, it only has a basic shape but it is entirely up to you on how you use this organism. Yet we insist on feeling trapped in it and feed it crap and try to cover it up with all sorts of potions that do nothing but poison our skin. Oh dear oh dear... Why drink water from the gutter when you can go to a spring? Why sit on a sofa watching other people's fake life when you can dance and sing?
Escapism.
To seek constancy is to seek to be static, to be unchanging is to not grow. Being fixed is not an achievement, because there is no 'top'. If you stop developing or stop learning, there is only one simple name for it, its giving up. Imagine if a doctor got his medicine degree and went on to practice and was a doctor for lets say 5 years, the medicine he would be practicing would be so outdated that it might be dangerous for him to treat people, he wouldn't know what medicines are around, what technology is around, nothing of the advances of medicine, which is actually pretty fast. In the same way, if a doctor can't stop learning, what makes people think they can? Why do we do it to ourselves? Why do we live this ridiculous comfortable existences that give us sporadic glimpses of happiness and a lot of fear and appearances and nothing else? Why? 
I sat around with my friends doing nothing. Literally nothing, we were kind of looking at each other's faces. I could sense the expectations in their eyes. They await to be entertained. They await for happiness, fun, even meaning to come from outside. They sit like public and let life go past. 
That's what annoyed me so much of that evening of doing nothing, how everyone felt and acted like an spectator, not an actor, of life. Laziness becomes the state of being, the disguise with which we cover our fear, our presumed lack of power, when we actually have all the power. We grow used to things to quickly, even bad things. Some say adaptation is a virtue, I say change the world and adapt it to you.
I've always felt this depth, not heaviness, but I feel deep inside me a sort of sadness, a caring of things, like things were really ancient, and important and sacred and valuable and alive and every word said was heard, like a spell. A feeling. A force. To use that force? To strive for something? To get some skills to make my days worth living. To make your days worth living. To unlock, to open up, to exist, to show, to create, to be, to move, to fall, to break, to breathe, to improve, to erase, to do... self-motivational words for you and me, that will hopefully stir at least the leafs. 
azile

Monday 28 May 2012

The Last Days- 25, 26, 27, 28, 29 and 30. The End

The end of the challenge. Unfortunately, I am not consistent enough to have written up every day everything I learnt. Essentially, this challenge time was a time to teach myself things and be more aware of my learning and surroundings. Two years ago I taught myself how to paint, I'm getting better all the time. This time I taught myself how to play guitar. I'm just starting. And all the time we are learning how to live. And why is this important or even worth mentioning you may ask? Well, its because in this day and age of uncertainty, when the world looks so mad (and it really is) the only thing you can 'have' are your skills. Teaching yourself or learning skills is incredibly important, for self-development, for creativity, to simply make something out of your brief visit to planet Earth; and when you try, something, it can be a wonderful place.
That is what I have learnt during this past 30 days. To enter information into my life, to learn more and try to know more and help more. People are really scared, we only have to look around, so if you can shake that fear of, because we are better than that and do something amazing, or anything at all, if we complain when something is unfair and do something creative, then we make this thing worth living. You may say that in destiny, everything is meant to be, you can say, but it rather is meant to be made, by you. I learnt to do something, be more honest, take more action and not live in regret. Everyday I learn to trust yet to be careful. To learn something important about our world, such as how the Federal Reserve works and also to get lost in a novel, some music or doing a painting. What can I say? Make. Your. Days. Count.

THE END.

Monday 21 May 2012

Days 21, 22, 23 and 24- Accelerated Learning

Again, I haven't been able to keep up with this blog daily. I guess that is why I couldn't keep a 9 to 5 job. Inconsistency. I work in spurts of energy. That's how I function. Still, the learning has actually been consistent, great and I would even say, accelerated. Maybe the numerology equivalent of the dates will help me explain: 18+19+20+21=78=7+8=17 1+7=8
Is a number that resolves dualities, its a number of expansion. Lately I have felt that my life is doing nothing but expanding. To see things more clearly. To breathe freedom. Knowledge is definitely freedom and power, specially over yourself. 8 connects spirit and matter. What can I say? I live for my spirit, how else is one to live, but we have to maintain this body. Happiness. Is it to know or to create? Creativity is the hue that paints my world with meaning. 8 also means developing confidence to follow a vision and breaks down barriers of transformation, reality, courage. Today I felt that the Universe likes me, thanks.
There was an eclipse last night. I spent it in a special place of this park, with a very good person. What happened? Grounded-ness, a bit of peace for my heart in this corner of the world, in the middle of such a hectic city as London.
If that peace could have been expanded and made to cover Earth like a blanket... if only.
So, in this life I learn to live... between stars, grass, arguments, love, music, jealousy, indecision, memories, milk, bread, chess, beds, embraces, knowledge, woods and disguised pixies. Clearing the path, a voice in the back of my head says. The path. For you, my friend.
Out of love I want to tell you that I don't want to rid you of your demons. Deal with them. Purify yourself. Face. The. Music.

Thursday 17 May 2012

Day 20- Navigating through Life

17th of May 1+7=8 again. Spiritually, 8 is the goal of the initiate, after going through 7 stages. I have my second to last exam tomorrow, so it's not graduation time yet, but in other senses, today was a day of goals.
8 is the symbol of infinity, only standing up. A man in a shop asked me where I was from. I told him and asked him where he though I was from, he said 'anywhere, everywhere'; he sounded slightly disappointed that I wasn't Chinese. I like to have an infinite possibility of places to belong to, in my face.
Today has felt like my heart is sitting on the edge of a razor blade, unsafe, sharp, but somehow not as dangerous as it sounds, although it could be. I've navigated through life with a fraction of a second timing and a nervous heart, still, everything keeps working out perfectly, in the end.
I almost got ran over by a car, it missed me by a millimeter, I bought a coffee and had the exact money. Really small yet interesting things. Like a security guard that didn't let me enter a building, I had to get a card of some sort, got the card, turns out I needed the card for some other things and would not have gotten it otherwise. The man in the counter looked hypnotized, he even forgot to charge me. People can act so strange.
The only reason why we can't see order is because we don't understand order, I believe.
An incredibly beautiful woman was standing outside the station holding a McDonalds sign. I looked at her and she sensed the disbelief in my eyes, she laughed, I laughed, this is how my disillusionment in the world gets refreshed and then broken down, everyday. So ridiculous. She shouldn't have been there, but maybe she did. Some times all I can say is 'what do I know?'To then find perfection in the development of life. If we could only see the bigger circle outside the small circle of our mundane problems... if we could read the clues of the universe, interpret the symbols and talk with infinity, if only. Still, today I navigated through life with considerable grace, wrote a poem and even if my heart felt as unstable as ever, at least, at the very least, it always feels something, something intense. Oh and for tomorrow, wish me luck.
Some Concentric Circles that compose our world.

Wednesday 16 May 2012

Days 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19!!!

The reason why I haven't lived up to my challenge (blog wise) this past few days has been that I went to Liverpool, for a long, amazing weekend to celebrate the birthdays of 2 very special people indeed.
The dates have been: 11, 12, 13, 14, 15 and 16. To follow my numerology pattern, I will add up all the numbers and the total number will be the number that will somehow explain the reality of the moment.
1+1+1+2+1+3+1+4+1+5+1+6=27   2+7=9
9 The highest degree of change.
this painting is called Dreams Door by Kevin Hooker. And there could not be a more appropriate image to describe the mental journeys that have been taking place on this past 6 days.
9 is a number of completion and fulfillment. I can say, that in my friend's (beautiful M&M) flat and in some incredible hideouts in the streets of Liverpool, I enjoyed my existence to the fullest.
Life has a certain way to elevate you and ground you. The Earthly Paradise. The Dreams Door.

Thursday 10 May 2012

Days 12 and 13- Nocturnal Reality

9th (yesterday) is in numerology an all powerful number, means completion and attainment. Beginning and End. At this point I have finished half of my year, which mean I'm very close to graduating. I still tend to loose myself. I tend to loose my way and wander into the night. I build things up and get myself full of hopes and then mess it up. Emotional life seems like a collection of ups and downs, moments worth living for, and moments not so good.... still worth living for :) Live music has turned into my savior. From jazz rescuing my heart from the grasp of melancholy, to a classical piano elevating my whole being, my soul, to a pop-ish gig where my best friends and I dance till our bodies drop, to a group of beat boxers in the train, putting some color in the life of the passers by. Life. Each one so different, remind me of the many levels we are composed of.
I some times loose my way, I sometimes loose my self. Drugs. 9 is a highly spiritual number. My best friend and I saw reality differently  yesterday, it was our world, it all made sense for a night. It all makes sense anyway, when you are willing to perceive it with your heart. I succeed and fail at the same time, like a warrior with a vulnerable mind. I'm trying to wake her up. In some cultures 9 represents supreme intelligence. Ours was numb and twisted and sometimes very deep and sometimes very superficial. We danced and then we danced in our minds.
paper we wrote last night. Each one had one side and couldn't see what the other was writing. Pure smokey honesty. The best comes out.
Today is the 10th. After a nocturnal raw soul exploration, raw raw raw, the 10th appears as Rebirth, or that which stirs and awakens your soul at this time. As usual I can say 'what have I done?'
Ten is the number of the cosmos. I feel no doubts, I just don't know how to approach you, or him or her. The decad contains all numbers and therefore all things and possibilities. You can do whatever, you know.

Ten is also the number of completion of journeys and returns to origins. Like things moving in a circle. I owed you that night. I want to tell her. You and my old self have a long story don't we...
Recover, remember, re-set, rebirth. She says I have more experience of the world than I think, I smile. Who knows. Today we can decide whether we sink with the Babylonian boat, or we fly or we float.

Tuesday 8 May 2012

Day 11- Strength

8th. 888. Spiritually 8 is gaining a goal. It means infinity, means regaining paradise.
Eight is solidarity, as the first cube and it shows perfection by virtue of it's six surfaces. Eight represents the pairs of opposites. The octagon is the beginning of the transformation of the square into a circle and vice versa. Perfect rhythm.
I did my last presentation today, for my course. Mind and Madness, a class I've attended every Tuesday for a year is over. There was an anti-climax, followed by regeneration. 8 is the number of intelligence. Hopefully I used mine.... Sleep and Jazz followed. 8 is also the number of resurrection. After 7 days of fasting 8 comes with renewal. Today I truly felt that time was mine, for a while I felt compelled to do certain things, today was fully my choice. Indecision did knock at my door but in the end, you have to breath deep and say 'yes' and 'no' to your choices.
In Buddhism 8 compresses all possibilities. At the end, any possibility compresses all possibilitites. I found my self with one foot in and another out the door. Hesitant. In the end I went out, the night felt surprisingly how I felt inside. Warm yet dark and sometimes cold. I just let the wind take me. Went to see music. That was my celebration. Music makes me be in the moment, not expecting. Even the saddest pieces made me smile. 8 is regeneration and rebirth. And the number of Thoth.
Again, 8 is the number of all possibilities. I started a new painting. 8 is the number of immortality. Immortal. 888. This is a surreal version of card 8 in the Tarot, Strength.

Monday 7 May 2012

Days 9 and 10- Productivity and Divinity

I have yet again had to compress 2 days into one post. This time, I've been thinking about the purpose of this whole challenge, it seemed so important, yet so vague. I guess what it really does for me, as any routine or activity that people do with constancy, is to ground you. It gives you an opportunity to analyse how things are, where they are heading and the relation to numerology helps me to see 'coincidences' or patterns in daily life.
The 6th of May, as 6 represents equilibrium; harmony, balance, it was a good day, dedicated in trying to keep balance within the people I interact (my family, friends) although lately I find solitude to soothing...  1+2+3=6 thus is also is the most productive of all numbers. I have found myself doing so many little projects, learning so many little (yet important) things that I need to be productive, at least in one. People around me seem to have this 'productive' state of mind going on too. Finish what I started, I'm so close.
Six is the symbol of luck; love; health; beauty; chance. Lovely. I am grateful with life in that at the minute, I seem to have luck, love, health and the world is beautiful. The chaos. Beautiful still. Life can be like the winning number at the throw of the dice, a rolling 6 if you let it.
If 6 represents humanity, then 7 (7th of May) is the center of the spiral, it's humanity's connection to its source, god consciousness or whatever you name it. Seven, ladies and gentlemen, is the number of the Universe. It is the three of the heavens (soul) combined with the four (body) of the earth; being the first number containing both the spiritual and the temporal. 7 also represents the virginity of the Great Mother, feminine archetype/ She who creates! Today, besides productivity, I have been guided to have a look at the divine. Why do we want to do things for at the end of the day? For a better world? To satisfy our souls? To live a life for livings sake? Underlying meaning, I seek for you.

There are 7:
ages of man
ancient wonders of the world
circles of Universe
cosmic stages
days of the week
musical notes - sound as frequency plays a key roll in matters of Universe. MUSIC. Deep language.
To create for a higher meaning, to live in all fullness... it's difficult, this life thing.

Saturday 5 May 2012

Day 8- Shape

5th of May, In numerology, five is the number of the human being, human forms and the pentagon when arms and legs are out stretched. The pentagon shares the symbolism of perfection and power of the circle.
Today, I came back to my family home and spent a lot of time reading up on my Ascendant sign: Gemini. It explained a lot. It's a curious sign, always curious, always fidgety, quite nervous, thinking of duality (yeah baby that's me... at least to others), talkative, always has something to say and extremely adaptable. I was reading about the physical characteristics, the 'human form' of it, and it says that long limbs are almost always the case (me again) and a generally adaptable physique, specially the face. I've always felt that my face changes more than other people's, really, I can even see the changes, my voice can do it as well, I keep certain things but it can change so much that my own friends don't recognize me in the streets. That's why I like piercings and tattoos, they seem more permanent than my "features" and that is also why I have the habit of taking a picture of my face everyday, because I know how much it changes. I just morph and adapt and like to have friends of all shapes and sizes that have nothing in common with each other, yet they all blend in me. When I read this and thought about it, I got scared, my human form is so undefined haha... I thought that maybe that's why I didn't use to let people get too close... because of my weird real self. It also said I'm gonna look forever young, sweet. Gemini is a sign of communication though, I guess you have to adapt in order to spread messages to as many people as possible. I like that.
It's strange how once you feel your identity is threatened you can act in such strange ways, like me getting scared, yet the human form is so irrelevant.
As with everything, you don't have to go full-in with your believe in it, I mean, its been good to find this out but it doesn't need to define me, or I can just morph into something else haha.
5 also represents meditation, religion and versatility (versatility and adaptation, here we go again).
It also represents the 5 senses, to which I gave attention today :), in the East there are 6 senses, the Mind also counts. So the five pointed star depicts individuality, spiritual aspiration and education when it points up, but when it points down it represents witchcraft and it is widely used in black magic. I spent quite a long time today talking with my skeptic (yet not so skeptic) mother about energy and magic. We recalled a time of our lives when this was evident and present. It was a great conversation.
just a chameleon doing it's thing, like my face.

Friday 4 May 2012

Days 6 and 7

Yesterday and today's posts are combined into one, for two reasons, one, we already encountered number 3 in numerology and secondly, because both days were dedicated to similar activities, all within the 30 day challenge of learning to live life better.
4th of May, 4 represents the 4th dimension which is time, which is an illusion. Time seems to be flying by lately, this illusion goes by in quick chunks of entire hours! But 4 is at the same time, the first solid number, wholeness, totality and completion occur today. I did do complete (and keep completing practical things today) specially in life respects (what to do with my days?) and some creative things, I have many poster ideas and both yesterday and today I've been writing a song, its silly and its finished.
I booked a ticket to Liverpool. I'm gonna visit friends and I'm excited like a child who has been promised infinite chocolate.
4 is a number of justice and rationality. I have to write a just and rational essay today.
There are 4 cardinal point,  4 seasons, 4 directions and 4 elements, 4 faces of the moon, 4 points of the cross.
This spring day calls for a 'come back down to earth!' attitude to my spaced out self. It's acted a warning telling me to look after practical matters. Writing essays, budgeting money, cleaning, and practicing my fun things, like playing with a guitar and painting, which have to be taken seriously as well. I'm off before I become a square (4) as opposed to a groovy person.
Square (4) picture of an eye I made in paint today.

Wednesday 2 May 2012

Day 5- Dependence

2nd of May. I hardly slept, if at all. Started writing this post at 8 am, although I usually love my bed. For the 2nd night in a row I woke up with a sudden gasp. Weird. This time everything feels out of place, I'm over ridden by both hope and anxiety. I have no patient animals/elements in my zodiac, I have looked at 8 zodiacs including my native american sign (falcon) and celtic animal (fox) and no patience. Now I'm gonna wear 2 amethysts, for patience. I want everything now. I love change. Can I calmly solve a situation and give time time? 2 of duality and conflict will show. In numerology: DUALITY, alteration, conflict, DEPENDENCE (my big lesson). Two is a static condition. Polar opposites. Transitory and corruptible.
This day is going to be used to think about all the attachments I have, all the things I am dependent on, which both make me happy but also tie my down and make me sad. I can't help but think that I'm graduating soon, life will start a new face, by the time I finish the challenge. Happy/sad tint to it.
(I saw a picture of some shoes in a jar and it made me hungry, I'm so human...)
people, other people make you think of the number 2, couples and relationships. Can I be free and coupled (coupled?) at the same time?
My own duality lays between acting in a self-preserving way or an all-giving way. Something tells me the all giving way is the right way, to spread love and then the universe will provide. Can I let go?
This time two pictures. Me doing something "symmetrical" and two foxes.

Tuesday 1 May 2012

Day 4- Alone-nesss



May 1st, number 1... represents the single entity. Single entity. We come to the world alone. Considered the prime number. The beginning. The creator. First cause. May 1st is a strong pagan day. Essence and center. Some refer it to isolation, I wanted to be all alone today, people didn't let me. I wanted to pay my respects to 1, the sum of all possibilities; but the contrary happened and I spent all day in company of loving friends. One of them said: right now, you are my family and this wine I'm getting you is your food. Pretty symbolic. Family. In Chinese culture it refers to the Yang, masculine. I spent my day among males, with the exception of my best friend who is a girl. 


this is a painting of various birds, note how they are all alone and unique but give company to each other.

The day when I willingly choose to accept the absolute alone-nes of life, people come to show me what is to have a community. We are all alone, we are all connected. We are all moving in this vast beautiful circle. 
"I was reading and you made me a latte, you asked what I was reading, I told you but you didn't care. You played a song that moved me to tears. I'm alone with you."
Lesson: still this day taught me I don't need anyone (you), and when I set you (someone) free is the only time I really have you (anyone).

Monday 30 April 2012

Day 3- Reality and Synthesis


30 of April, day 3 in the challenge.. Coincidence?
In numerology 3 represents the third dimention so we do things in threes so that they manifest in the physical realm. It means creative power, growth and the moving forward of energy. Overcoming duality, expression, manifestation and synthesis. It contains the beginning, middle and end.
The power of three is universal and is the tripartide nature of the world as heaven, earth, and waters. It is human as body, soul and spirit. 3 is birth, life, death.
I stayed up all night having a very meaningful chat with a girl. The sunrise was beautiful, incredibly clear, sunny and the day was warm. There was a bird outside my window. I decided to do something in this 3D reality and celebrated the number 3 by piercing my nose. Self-shaping and self-defining. A painful physical synthesis. Doesn't hurt anymore. I asked this piece of titanium to inhabit and co-exist with my body harmoniously. Then when I went to University, the ideas just came out of my mouth, fully coherent. Like there is synthesis and transcendence in my life even in the smallest things :)


this is me with a nose stud

Sunday 29 April 2012

Day 2- The Change

29 of April- 2+9=11 in numerology, represents impractical idealism, visionary, refinement of ideals, intuition, revelation, artistic and inventive genius, avant-garde, androgynous, film, fame, refinement fulfilled when working with a practical partner.
It carries psychic vibrations and has an equal balance of masculine and feminine. Because eleven contains many gifts such as psychic awareness and a keen sense of sensitivity, it also has negative effects such as treachery and betrayal from secret enemies.

Today has been since for ever but especially since 4 years ago, a date associated with pain, today that is being changed. Today I'm transforming the pain into music.


This is me hugging a guitar.

Saturday 28 April 2012

Day 1- The Beginning

Today, 28 of April 2+8=10, the number of completion and return to origins. Today will be a day for closure and new beginnings. My heart is too heavy to go and get the world, so I'm going to start this self-healing, self-discovery, self-accepting project. The project will last 30 days and i will include a daily picture in this blog and a series of activities as the days pass.

Day 1- Young Eliza


I look at this picture and almost want to look after the little girl. How many turns of life each person goes through. Little human starts the big adventure. Children make you think of how can this fragile creatures have to enter a world of such antagonism and difficulty. How to stay pure? How to stay gold? The funny thing is that I also remember having the same character and the same underlining personality then. The same soul of course, and even more knowing than it became after years passed. In those days I used to just be. Be a present to the world. Be, my own existence. Be. So there we go, it has started. 

Wednesday 18 April 2012

for a minute there, I lost myself...


The only thing constant in my life at the moment, in terms of activities, is my stall in Greenwich market. I have a stall called Philosophy Takeaway in which people come and talk to us, mainly my mate Sel and me, about philosophy. We have a hat of questions or people just ask whatever. Of course we don't have the answers, but we do try, even just to make people break their routines. I want to ignite a flame, any flame, any curiosity I can on people. I want people to realize things, by themselves, to open up, to open their minds... Philosophy is the way I found, almost a year ago. The stall was a leap of faith, when Sel and I felt that we were doing nothing of any use about anything. I feel different now, having learnt things, having my whole perception of reality being turned inside out. But the stall is still there. We talk to many types of people, all ages, all sizes, all backgrounds. It happens every Wednesday and feels like the only constant. I feared for a minute, that the incredible gap between what I think about reality and what random people may think would be too much. I feared I'll start preaching or getting frustrated at them, at myself, at everything.
It didn't happen. People, at some level, respond to your disposition. I constantly remember that we are all on the same quest.
I would like to spend my time meditating, hugging people, listening to music, painting, reading, writing and laughing... but it can't happen right now. I have to live 'life'. We can't help but live in the world. Interact. Talk. Use transport. Go places. See people.
I go to my stall and ask people if they are free, ask people if they feel as though they are being programmed, ask people if they feel controlled, fulfilled, awake even... I talked to them all. This seems like a time for communication.
I came back home today and felt as if the voices in my head, the voices of other people and my voice were an overwhelming cloud of buzzing electricity all around, ingrained in my heart even, confusing, almost heavy.
I listen, they listen. They speak, I speak. Am I saying what I mean? Am I speaking my heart at all times? Unfortunately not really... at this moment I can say that I empathize with all but understand none and end up saying words to make them happy.
Some times for the sake of this contact, this communication, words can become vacuous, pointless if the message is not what you mean... and for a minute it can feel as if you loose yourself.
azile x

ps: the chalk drawing was done by me today.

Tuesday 17 April 2012

seriousness of the issue.

gif creator
Gif creator

Life has so many twists and turns. We learn so much yet some times I feel emptied of all knowledge and just thrown into a pool of interactions. People. One of my most serious struggles at the time is how to handle the people around me. There is a line between what I want to say and what people want to hear/are used to hearing/accept hearing. Conversation can be difficult. Sometimes I get so frustrated. It's been increasingly difficult to look past things that they do and say that are plain terrible. Everyone complains about money. No one talks of love or solutions. Everyone is caught up in the made up net. Not enough love. I try to love everyone, that is my first approach on everything, yet it gets hard, when you realize that people are being controlled and plainly destroying themselves, swimming in ignorance. I've always tried to know more, make myself more aware, make this experience more of a life. Honestly, I want everyone doing that. It's impossible, I know.

Weird beliefs? I have many. So the only way to handle a blind world is by not taking it too seriously. Don't get caught up in unimportant things, in small hooks, dramas, what people think/say, money and all the others that keep us preoccupied instead of occupied in things we like. Humour, humour helps a lot as well... and finally, laugh at yourself.

life is a wide experience with a wide variety of feelings, strong and fleeting feelings that wave in and out your heart. Love it, love others. Make others happy, make yourself happy. Do something that is worth it. That's all for today.

Friday 6 April 2012

Spring




It's some days into April. Full spring. My life feels like its blooming as well. My soul feels so strong and fragile at the same time. I'm talking about my soul, let's begin there. Spirituality has had different faces during my life, many different stages, everyone has their own path, I guess. When I was 17, I went to a spiritual trip to the jungle for a few days. I didn't understand what it was about, my feelings understood, my intellect was as lost as ever. One thing I did feel/understand, I felt like I was absolute love, absolute healing and one with nature. I felt amazing. Then life moved. My life changed dramatically. I moved to London, a very materialistic place and I got beaten up (metaphorically and literally). For years I hid my love and lived my material life, as I thought I was adapting myself to a new culture, a new culture that seemed more advanced than my abused Latin America. I was so into it, this new life. I forgot about my soul. I was so scared. I tried to find escapes. I went to study philosophy and make art in my own time (I always wanted to know more, I felt there was something more, I always kind of felt like a creator of some sort). I joined the new culture and forgot about the amazing vibrations and security I let my soul be once. I drank, did drugs and went to dangerous places, I talked to dangerous people, I heard stories of soldiers returning home from killing, I danced with the rejects and hugged homeless people. I didn't know why of anything. I was dancing and forgetting. I wanted to feel alive but I didn't know how. My present self can look at those days, those 5 years, looked at as days, like you would look at your past child self. Oh I was so naive when I was eight someone might say, I can fully say I was so clueless and naive about a month ago. I've learnt more than ever, ever. It has taken me 5 years to come back to what I learnt when I was 17, 5 years and a lot of information, a lot of learning and a lot of love. I'm not saying I know it all now, all I'm saying is that I've been found.

Tuesday 27 March 2012

22



The person in the picture is me 2 days ago. I turned 22. I actually felt happy. This birthday was different, special even, at a personal level. I didn't feel like I had to celebrate it or party, I didn't feel like I needed loads of attention and presents. This is not due to me thinking/feeling that I am growing up and 22 is 'adulthood'; this was due to another reason. The crux of the issue is freedom, or rather our lack of it. Most people feel overwhelmed about the nature of our crazy world, about what we are doing here and about why things happen the way they do and why they feel how they do. Unfortunately, most people ignore this or avoid this and seek momentary methods of happiness to deal with this and deal with the overwhelming-ness of it all. That means that we are never free, we are always entrapped in cycles, in worries, fear and what not. This day, this time and specifically on this birthday, information and not things are coming, and it is far more fulfilling. I keep the stream flowing, I am informing myself all the time. First, you don't have to accept things as they are, keeping an open mind is infinitely more valuable that a set of hypocrite values and informing yourself means that you cannot be so easily manipulated, which is not uncommon in our world. Everyone tries to tell you what to believe. The world is not simple, but it can be felt and understood. So this birthday out of all birthdays, my heart was looked after and I received truth.

Sunday 11 March 2012

Dream story

There's no way of telling where is it that she's walking to. Her pace, un-paced, her movements, jerky, her breathing, erratic, her figure, jagged. She still walked. All she did was walk and think about the pointlessness of the landscape. With her clumsy movements she carried on down the path in the field, one of those old paths created by too many people walking through them. Years, no, decades showed in her fragile wrinkly hands. They still touched nothing, caressed nothing. Ages of the universe reflected in the freckles, but still, she resounded like a shell. Her eyes, a foolish glaze, her gaze, indifferent... She doesn't even need curiosity. She smells grey. She smells inhuman. She walks pointlessly because she can't find anyone to give her answers. She breathes in the past and breathes out intentions, bad intentions sometimes. She's a ghost. She's nobody. She's everybody. She is a young woman physically, she remembers. She tries to feel something, anything. She makes a tea in her mind. She spins and spins in circles as she makes a cup of tea in her mind. She stops. She breaks the cup. She breaks herself. She's numb. She can't remember how to make her heart beat again. She's not lost, she's bored, whispers the wind. She's bored of nature, she's bored of herself. She fell asleep dreading and wondering what it would be like to loose all love. The warm fussy love that feels so real that flickers like a candle or roars up in flames, all inside your heart. She's in dream world, she walks and she's feeling it. She knows she's limbo without love. This would be it, her without love. Pointless. A shadow of a reflection, wandering not wondering, straying, empty and shifting. All she does is wish she wasn't there, she wishes hard she wasn't there. She's having a nightmare. There would be nothing without love................ she wakes up. Its ok, she wakes up.

Friday 9 March 2012

De-cons-truc-tion



By feeling the two extremes simultaneously I keep my self balanced. I feel the fear and the courage, the energy and laziness, the isolation and connection, the disdain and the identification, I feel the reason and I feel the emptiness, the envy and admiration, the hate and the understanding, the wholeness and the pointlessness and as I feel both edges, at the same time, I can keep myself going and breathing every living moment. I couldn't tell you whether our individual tunnel vision, our biological stroll through the planet is all there is. No, that I couldn't tell you... I couldn't tell you if we are another primitive stage of life in this vast changing universe and that our centuries are specks in the vastness of universal terms. I couldn't, with certainty, tell you whether we are just repeating this same instant of experience again and again, afraid to give up our status of doubters...
All I can tell you is that I live for the moments when I can clearly not with my eyes but some other way, feel the glue that holds this whole thing together. The glue that makes paper, cherry, illusions, coffee, leisure centers, telepathy and maths exist in the same world. By feeling the two extremes simultaneously I can taste the bitter sweet, turning it into a new life script. My scanning, curios, awake (sometimes) eyes cannot be satisfied with the given answers, no more, I can only tell you that all the love travelling through your veins is no coincidence and that there is nothing we need more than to understand that we are made of infinity.

Wednesday 7 March 2012

The State of Affairs.



the current state of affairs in the world right now, is not great. All the media is telling us to get scared and then to get distracted, to watch a film, to get drunk, to look away... anywhere but to the state of affairs we are living in. Overpopulation, they say, climate change, the powerful are disgustingly psychopathic and greedy. The state of affairs also shows us that until the problems hit our economy, and hit it hard, things are not going to change... and at the moment everyone seems to be selling out.

Even Yoda sold out....

azile
x

Monday 20 February 2012

I wanna go trekking here....

On a cold February day....



This is what Mondays are for. Updating life. Re-arranging. Re-grouping. Re-programming. Life, Things, Habits. Never on a Sunday. Sunday is lazy depressing hungover Sunday, leave the work for the Monday. This Monday I'm turning the stereotype of the bad energy of re-starting the week into fuel. The same type of fuel that salads and fruit give you. So clean, so fresh, so light, almost as if it wasn't happening, but really really, is everything.
Monday bloody Monday, 2012 bloody 2012.
Sometimes blogs are for ranting, but today I have no reasons to complain. I could tell you my phone and purse got stolen, ups! I just told you. But really, I'm more concerned with building life, not with loosing it. Things come and go, you stay.
Like these past 5 weeks, I've been "dieting", eating extremely healthy, I'm a vegetarian but some days I go vegan. Green tea is my best friend. Although my body is changing a bit, I'm still exactly the same. Always you. Youer than you.
I have a little new found energy that I didn't find in January in the light of the new year, I found my 'mojo' in the cold lonely days of February.
And so this small selfish target of physical fitness and well-being will (and it has been so far) be a trampoline to greater things. Will power. Work. Energy. For me and for others
I feel so hippie and happy to say, spread the good vibes. 

Sunday 15 January 2012

party like its 1999 again

making an animated gif
Making an animated gif

the funny thing about being me is that I am so aware about the actual state of my self. The anxious, defenseless girl that feels less and is really geeky and brainy and thinks in quotes from books and grew up in Spanish vs. the confident, life of the party, I don't care what people say I have more fun than anyone in the world ever that people see. They think I have reached a level. I'm not even half of half way. I just learnt to have more fun, in life.

Monday 9 January 2012

Longing....

how do you make gifs
How do you make gifs

This incredibly fun gif above which you probably don't understand or find irrelevant is a nostalgic review of my younger self. The girl with the fringe in both is me, she, rather. I remember a time when I used to tell girls how its done and party with my friends, usually boys, usually funny. Those were easy times....
The difference from now is the awareness that I should be planning the future. More mature concerns. I have to re-learn to have fun. I don't feel like telling the girls hows its done, I guess what I really want to tell them is to read more books and learn things otherwise people who know the things you haven't learn will find it very easy to use yo. I can't have that same cerelessnessnesss anymore. Those were the times when ignorance was bliss. First year of uni. I didnt know philosophy was gonna mess my brain around so much. I guess its normal to feel a little bit of longing at the beginning of a new year, when everything is so unexpected and only the past seems somehow real.

cheers
x
azile

Wednesday 4 January 2012



I have essays to do. In order to finish my degree. In order to have papers that say I should do a better job. I don't feel like it. Only painting makes me happy. The future is confusing. What am I gonna do in the future?

Tuesday 3 January 2012

Oh hello 2012


after a piece of fiction and three days procrastination, here it is: a post to the newly born year.
The important thing about this new year besides the changing number in the calendar is I guess, the fact that something in the Universe, in the planet or nature must move a bit as well, or so I hope. We need a change. I honestly fear the problem is that humans have become too materialistic when actually we are beings with feelings and affections. Trust me, a kid with nice shoes is not guaranteed to be a good/better/happier kid that one without the shoes.
Anyway, that's my view, I hope for change but like MJ said, you have to start with yourself, so I'm gonna do resolutions...
1) I realize on this blog I rant a lot about my job, so my first resolution is going to be to spend my work money wisely, because its costs me my dignity or to find a better way of getting paper (ideally writing and/or painting). Basically don't spend my pay in £5 t-shirts from bad quality shops. No. There's people who would eat with that moneys.
2) To learn more violin. This is an enterprise I actually begun at 16 but since then I've moved countries and shmoked too many trees to remember, anyway, this year its happening.
3) To finish my degree with a first class degree. This one is ambitious but do-able if I put all my effort into it. I say aim higher than your arrow 'realistically' can achieve and it will go higher.
4) Be more tidy.
5) Find something to do when I graduate. I want to travel South America (my homeland) and do some volunteer work around the world, my mum thinks I need therapy before I go, its true, she thinks that'll be good for my mind. Still, I need to sort out where to go? how?
6) I've been thinking about this one for a while, this year I want to start making traditions/habits, I know its late and weird, but I want to make some traditions like 'drinking red tea on Sundays' and 'doing my laundry on Mondays' or 'always setting the table on fire on Christmas' and things of the sort, I believe having those little traditions will give me some sort of home feeling or stability in this ever changing world and specially with my ever changing mind.
7) Do more paintings and sell at least 5 of them. Why? Because I need to paint more and learn to let go.
8) Be more healthy. Like crazy Healthy. Like gree-tea-breather-olympic-runner-optimum-heart-beat-disease-free-freak healthy. and sleep more.
9) To tell the truth and get more into my philosophy.
10) (last but not least, cus I decided to do 10) is to learn Russian, my dad's language, very useful for life.

disclaimer: resolutions may be added or subtracted but only between the months of January and March, so till my birthday.

If the world ends, oh well... but I want you all to know that I tried, I tried so hard. If it doesn't, then know that I am that thing that Mayas warned you about.
x
azile