The map is not the territory, image and self-image

Mirrors say the truth.
They display everything, conspire with the light to show a second you, ruthlessly.
That shape, that is not you, is the appearence of you.
Of your self.
So that's what everybody sees, when they look at you.
Maybe, maybe not.
Perhaps every one sees something else, adding their own features to yours, to make you fit better in their view, as if they were composing a painting.
They are no mirrors, after all.

So different than what you see from the inside, isn't it?
So unlike the self you know you are.

Now, that you realized it, how much do you care?
What are you going to do, to make the map more alike the territory or, at least, more similar of your own one?

Remember, whatever it is, that is, it is as it is, not as it should be.
Beyond evaluations.
Not good, not bad.
It just is.

8D Report of inner damage - Trust is made of the thinnest glass

Soheyla B. Fahimi- Osiris, 2009, Terrakotta in Bronze patiniert
http://www.soheyla-b-fahimi.de/

There is an exercise, in theater, in team building training, in psychodrama: you let yourself fall down on your back and a peer is there to catch you.
It enhances confidence, trust,  responsibility toward yourself and others.
Lately I did this in a real life situation.
Someone should have caught me.
He didn't.
He let me fall.
CRASH,
SBAM,
on the floor, without net.
I was suddenly falling, didn't have a clue what was going on.

During those fractions of seconds, I heard something was falling with me, it was my trust.
And I heard the sound of glass shattered in a million pieces, when it touched the ground.
Do you remember the sound of crashing glass?
It vibrates, reverberates, while the air fills with sharp tones, similar to the highest-pitched notes on a piano or a dream catcher in the wind. It was made of the thinnest glass I've ever seen, my trust.

In that moment I realized: I was lying on the floor, there was nothing I could do to prevent it from happening, it already happened, it was past. My trust was smashed in slivers on my left, on my right, everywhere.

It was brand new, only a model. A beautiful one, though, one of my dearest creations.
I would try to collect all the pieces and recreate it exactly as it was before.
Or I would leave it there and walk away, disappear from that disgracious place.
Or don't do anything, look at it, contemplate. Linger in the moment, outside of time.
Then slowly feel, more than see, if and what could be saved and brought into time again. Which pieces would I use, how could I make a more resilient?

Days before, I took part to a sculpture workshop by a talented artist, an amazing woman. She taught us to give life to our thoughts with steel wire and paper, solid stuff that embraces a more malleable one.
In the end, there is no wire to see anymore, only you know that your thoughts, that look like paper, are made of steel.

I was lying, the floor was cold, could feel it through the fabric, on the skin. I turned my head, once, twice, straight, a whole world around and above me. A whole world. New frontiers.

In that moment, I could have been falling into hell forever, just to wait for Dante and Virgil to meet me and tell my story.
Perhaps I was chained to a rock, an eagle eating from my living flesh, the punishment for disobeying. More likely, for not disobeying.  Wasn't it worth enough, to gain back fire?
Yeah, the Fire.
Perhaps I was bursting in blue fading flames, holding on, before I rose from my ashes.
Although I felt burning, freezing, melting, there was no trace of ashes, no drop of blood.
It all had an indefinable esthetic.

What happened there?

Most of all, did it happen to me alone, was I the only one involved?
Was it similar to those intricate figures of domino chips, where a single touch makes them fall gracefully, to leave in place a carefully designed plan? If yes, was my chip at the beginning, in the middle, in the end?
Was it a chess match, my piece is captured, so I had to go out of the chessboard? Was there a strategy behind that? Where was the pattern?
Good questions, no answers, wrong way.

Again, what happened there? My honest answer is: something.
I cannot explain the whole situation, because I don't see the whole picture, as I am not the whole picture. I am in it, maybe a part of it and yet something else entirely, the one who reflects about it.
I can only interpretate what happened to myself.

In my no more so short life, I learnt that your experience of things, what you call "truth", is nothing but an indistinct image, formed through the spider web of your inner filters, a precious gift you have been building into yourself your entire life. In fact, maybe you don't know it, but you are an architect, who bears his most valuable cathedral inside of his own mind.

Leaving back the mythical insights and the abstact speculations, I started acquiring a sense for the meaning I intended to give to the event. I finally stopped looking around, wandering in transcendence and watched inside, where everything begins, where the source is.
I started remembering who I am, who I was, who I want to be. What I can do, what I love to do, what I'd love to learn. There it was, the big picture. No matter what circumstances will cross my path, that mesmerizing story will be my company, while I go on writing it.

Trust can be built on someone else's words, promises, intentions.
It can be built in institutions, positions, beliefs.
Though the place where it's born is in yourself, in your core.
Don't ever think it can exist without you, or that it depends on something else, on somebody else but you.
Trust is always a jump into the unknown. What you can choose is what you carry with you.

Zwei Seelen in einer Brust oder Hymne an die Vielfalt

"The saddest phrase we ever got drummed into our heads was "Make up your mind!" There are people in this world who seem to be born for one single purpose, but they’re the rare exceptions", schreibt Barbara Sher.

Es gibt Zeiten, wo es möglich sein soll, mehrere parallelen Leben gleichzeitig zu führen. 
 

Denn das Herz schlägt heute für das Eine, morgen für das Andere. 

Vielleicht IST man heute ein Mensch, morgen ein anderer und jeder von ihnen hat seine Vorlieben, seine Talente, seine Leidenschaften.

Ist es nicht Schade, sich für etwas entscheiden zu müssen und den Rest verderben zu lassen, wenn man eine innerliche wunderschöne, bunte Vielfalt an Potentiale verbirgt, die unsere Welt bereichern können?

Ist es nicht eine Schande, dass die Welt sie nicht sehen darf?

Wer oder was hindert uns daran, diese Möglichkeiten auszuschöpfen?

Gewohnheit, Bequemlichkeit, Angst, Sorgen, Ratlosigkeit, Beharrlichkeit, Kindern, Eltern, Pläne, Schulden, Verträge, Anderen, Umstände?

Sicher?

Wann haben wir gelernt, die Fülle aufzugeben? Da die Überzeugung, dass man nur EINEN Weg gehen darf, nicht eingeboren ist, sondern das Ergebnis einer kulturellen Verbiegung.

Eins meiner Vorbilder ist Odysseus, der Wendige, Geschickte, Flexible, Anpassungsfähige.

Was ich euch damit sagen will ist letzendlich...

 Stay polytropos, stay Odysseus

Arnold Böcklin- Odysseus und Kalypso- 1883

Last night a poet saved my life... Salesmen, rappers and marble faces

It was more than two years ago, when moved to the apartment where I still live. The guy who lived there before, a salesman who enjoyed wearing t-shirts of metal bands, left Germany and his student life back, together with the furniture and some books, mostly uninteresting. One thing I found particularly attractive about that IKEA bookshelf, full of dusty thriller novels, economy manuals and souvenirs of Spain: Ovid's Metamorphoses.
The speculation about the story behind such an exception, an interruption in the pattern was soon replaced by an inextinguishable desire to make that moment, those stories, a starting point of the next chapter to my own, everchanging story, my metamorphosis.
 And indeed, I started my journey on that day At first fighting against fear of tomorrow and shadows of the past, always feeling something great was waiting for me, if I would just dare to go through the threshold. The last two years brought me in places I could not even imagine to step in. I was blessed.
Today I received an update from Youtube.
An italian rapper I follow, who started a project in which he describes with every rap song the heroic life (btw, I love that "Heldentaten" in German is the perfect translation of "res gestae"*) of a classic hero published his new creation about Ovid (link from Youtube below).

I sat and listened to it, feeling like the time had come to realize that my destination was here.
I am home. I always have been, I will always be.
Because my home, my roots are much older than I am, they are inside of me and all around.
A journey comes to end only when a new one is going to begin, though.

Therefore, let's start from there, from the beginning:
Before the seas, and this terrestrial ball,
And Heav'n's high canopy, that covers all,
One was the face of the Nature...

Isn't that beautiful?

Incipit of Ovid's Metamorphoses from from: http://www.lateinoase.de/autoren/ovid/ovid.html

*it sounds perfect to me, it's not objectively perfect, of course.

Difendimi dalle forze contrarie o almeno dammi un GPS

Estate, interno di una Uno blu, sarà il 1988, il sole batte sui finestrini semiaperti, l'aria è fluida e appiccicosa, il caldo rende tutto giallastro e già vecchio. Io dormo sul sedile posteriore. Mi giro, apro gli occhi: "Siamo ancora "Incontinente"? Gli altri non mi rispondono ma tra il frastuono dell'aria proveniente dai finestrini aperti e quello del motore una voce mi riaccompagna nel sonno: "Cuccuruccucuuuu, Paloma...".

27 anni e spiccioli dopo, ho imparato cosa vuol dire "in continente", nonchè, concetto fondamentale, che sono due parole distinte. Queste sere invernali vengono attutite da una canzone, ogni giorno, talvolta in loop: "L'ombra del silenzio".

Il Maestro mi accompagna ancora. In particolare, quella canzone mi strega ormai da settimane. All'apparenza è il solito Battiato criptico, ma a ben guardare, non posso fare a meno di notare che è una canzone un po' furbetta, anzi, furbetta assai.
Intendo dire che si rivolge a chiunque abbia anche un vago senso della spiritualità, proprio chiunque, anche il pastafariano medio ci si ritrova. Ma non lo fa alla cieca.
Parla all'individuo pre-razionale, che invoca Zeus potenza celeste, perchè lo difenda dalle forze contrarie (grazie, Baricco, per il riuscito pastiche di Eschilo e Battiato, apprezzo moltissimo); che si procura talismani contro il malocchio, nella casa buia, piena di centrini e statuette e caramelle Rossana, di una vecchina vestita di nero; che si guarda alle spalle di tanto in tanto, di nascosto, vergognandosi di credere agli spiriti e vederli con la coda dell'occhio.
Ammicca senza pudore alle religioni istituzionali, conquista i cuori infelici dei peccatori, i quali, puntualmente allontanatisi dalle Sue leggi, invocano che venga loro infusa la Grazia, così da non sprecare il finito tempo di questa vita mortale.
Vogliamo poi tacere quanto -oddio quanto- ci si sente colti se si intravede nell'ombra della luce caverne di platonica memoria?
Tuttavia ciò che tiene insieme la meravigliosa costruzione che è questa canzone è, l'impalcatura post-razionale, in cui l'Io che prega e l'oggetto dell'invocazione sono un tuttuno, dove ci si riconosce appartenenti a una coscienza più alta, nonostante parlare di appartenenza non abbia molto senso, giacchè nell'Uno al di sopra del Bene e del Male non ci sono parti, semmai percezioni parziali della coscienza di essere.
È un gioco di cerchi nell'acqua, quelle note allungate che ti rimbombano dentro come un mantra, sciolgono qualcosa nel profondo, accolgono, scaldano. Bisognerebbe provare, mettere su le cuffie, 
alzare il volume, chiudere gli occhi e lasciare che il Maestro faccia il resto.
Lui non dà risposte, però ti guida sapientemente attraverso un persorso il cui traguardo puoi deciderlo solo tu.
Ma la domanda è: e tu? A quale te parla la canzone?
Soprattutto: sei soddisfatto nello stato in cui ti trovi o magari c'è quella punta di vuoto, sottile sottile, vecchia compagna, che ti chiede di essere sentita?

Buon ascolto.

Spiral dynamics -from the web-

Bilder des inneren Kriegs oder der goldene Schnitt

Goldener Schnitt, C.F.

Wer mich kennt und in den letzten ca. 18 Monate beim Theater meines Lebens teilgenommen hat, weiß dass ich mich begeistert und bekümmert mit dem goldenen Schnitt beschäftigt habe. Genauer gesagt, der Gedanke dessen drehte sich öfters in meinen Verstand: da Vinci Bilder, geometrische Beweise, bis hin zu Broccoli oder DNA-Doppelhelixe. Dieses Chaos wollte ich auf einer Leinwand übertragen, für mich, außerhalb mir selber, anschaulich machen.
Wofür (was für einen komischen Plan, du bist doch keine Künstlerin, es ist verschwendete Zeit, bleib bloß bodenständig!)?
Dafür, dass meine verschlüsselte Idee von ewigen Schönheit und Poesie eine konkrete Gestalt nimmt. Das Vorhaben hat sich als schwieriger wie gedacht ergeben. Je bunter, strahlender, komplizierter meine innere Bilder waren, desto mehr haben sich meine manuellen Fähigkeiten gewehrt zu kooperieren.
Wie sehr häufig in meinem Leben, es galt das Ergebnis nicht zu akzeptieren. Wenn ein Bild sein musste, es musste dann ein perfektes Bild sein, ganz und gar mit der ursprünglichen Idee übereinstimmend, keine Kompromisse. Entweder so oder nichts. Eben, nichts.
Kennt ihr jenes Gefühl, wenn ihr der Welt etwas, an euren Augen wichtiges, zu sagen, zu zeigen hättet, jedoch irgendwas euch daran hindert, euch überhaupt in dieser Richtung zu bewegen?
Vielleicht kennt ihr das, wenn man einen großen Wunsch hat, traut sich aber nicht zu, der notwendige Schritt voranzugehen, weil es sicherlich nicht enden wird, wie man geträumt hat. Man muss ein gewisses Risiko angehen, sich zeigen, sei nur sich selber um wahrscheinlich von sich selber enttäuscht zu werden. Wer will denn bitte von sich selber enttäuscht werden??
Jedenfalls, wie in meiner konsolidiertesten Tradition, habe es sein lassen.
Die Zahl drehte sich jedoch weiter in meinen Gedanken, jetzt leise, im Hintergrund...leise Doppelhelixe...leise Kreise...verblasste Mona Lisa, Blumen,
noch mehr Blumen,
Blumen die gedeihen,
erblühen...
ERBLÜHEN!
Plötzlich war es wieder völlig da, mit dieser schönen Metapher der Entwicklung. Dann war klar, was ich von meinem Bild verlangte: nicht eine perfekte Abbildung einer Idee, sondern die materielle Repräsentation eines Ziels, des Werdens in der gewünschten Richtung. Ich merke, die Wörter verwickeln sich schon, wenn ich versuche, das Konzept sprachlich zu beschreiben. Was bringt diese Anstrengung, wenn alles so einfach mit einem Bild vollständig dargestellt werden kann? Es geht nicht darum, zu verstehen, es geht mehr darum, sich von dem Gegenstand ansprechen zu lassen. Ich wünsche mir, es sieht angenehm aus, es fühlt sich im Gleichgewicht an, es gibt den Eindruck dass eine Linie, von A nach B, alles, räumlich und zeitlich, enthalten kann. Jeder kann sie mit seiner einzigartigen Komplexität füllen. So viel, über meine Absicht, den goldenen Schnitt zu malen.