Ask the Priestess

I am staring into a dark place, and its unresisting pull scares me. I know it of old, and I wonder why I have to come back again. I left it behind, glad to do so, way way back. Yet now, when the days are getting longer, lighter, warmer, inside I shrink, shiver, cower. Why do we have to revisit the dark places? The most interesting thing, for me, is the fact that I am fully aware of the gap, the step I teeter on but mustn't take, the abyss I dip into one day, look at from the shore the next. I guess that's the part I have already learned, and for it I'm grateful. I am now trying to relearn how to raise my gaze, to reacquaint myself with the stars, with the creatures that wait for me up high. So I call out, awaiting for an echo of inspiration, a breath of help, a hand to hold on to while I steady my legs, while I walk away. Dark places are not bad: we all have them, because we all need them, so we all can learn from them. It doesn't matter how 'strong' you a...

We all live together on this planet, we huddle close is cities, we cram into popular pubs, and yet... Are we together, or are we alone? And I'm not talking about aliens. I have had for quite some time a feeling of contradiction: I live in one of the biggest cities in the world, I commute daily with a few other millions of people - a few thousands at the same time as me, I cross an incredible number of individuals wherever I turn, and yet...I find that people are starved for human contact, for human recognition, for human kindness. Seriously, the more people you find together, the less acknowledgement you'll observe. And I talk from lengthy observation. Take, for example, a rural community we visited at around New Year's. We stayed in a secluded cottage, in a remote farm at the bottom of a valley. There was no internet connection, no mobile phone signal and, being the darkest time of winter, the short days meant we'd be back 'home' in the afternoon, not to ge...

There is something beyond, something I cannot see. I know it is there, because others have gone before me. There is a perfect symetry to the Universe, and nothing goes to waste: energy begets energy; matter begets matter; and they both create and destroy each other. However, there are questions that remain, the shadows of what was, of what we miss, of what we cry for and let go off all at the same time. There are memories of joys and sorrows, which day by day seem further away until, upon a number on a calendar, come rushing back. Then there's wonder at how fresh it all feels, at how long it's been, at how little we notice the vanishing, the going, the was and is no more, creeping up like a monster upon a sleeping child. There is something  beyond, I know. It's just that, sometimes, when the here is too empty, when I miss too much, I wish I could see through for a moment, a smile, a wave. One year is all the time there is, yet it is not nearly enough.

Once upon a time, not quite so long ago, people travelled only rarely and only for specific reasons. Back then, the focus of travelling was divided into two according to the travellers' social and economic status: rich people travelled for the joy of travelling itself, whereas the poor travelled in order to arrive somewhere. The love of travelling as a leisurely activity has left us tales of sumptuous trains and ships – think Orient Express and Titanic; tales of mystery and romance – Agatha Christie, for example, or the homonymous film about the sinking goliath; tales of artistic and courageous development – the Romantics travelling to sing to Etruscan urns, or the Arthurian legends; tales, oh so many tales! Stories we love, we envy, and which we cannot really give up. They are stories of lives unlike our own, of people so decadent in their daily existence they could spend time in a suspended state between here and there. They are stories that tell us that what matters is not whe...

We often talk about the different seasons, identifying their characteristics, separating them from the rest of times in the year. We even make up seasons, like the holiday season around Xmas and New Year’s, which stand well defined from any other. But, why do we need to do so? The year is a cycle, a turn of the planet around a star. Both the planet and the star are in constant change, constant movement, so they don’t really care all that much about a couple of bells or a number on a calendar. So, too, is the satellite that rules flows and tides, but which never shows its back. The metamorphoses evident in Nature (alterations in temperature, in foliage, in the number and species of animals around, to name but a few) happen gradually. Indeed, it seems that all that green appears all of a sudden, but the seeds, roots and shoots have been hard at work for months before we get a glimpse of them; the newborns have sometimes taken years to fully gestate; and even as one half of the plane...

I was sitting here, getting frustrated at an interface that won't allow me to do what I want to do, and I looked at my poor, spotted, week-old bananas. They were fading fast. Oh, dear! I looked back at my screen, back at the bananas, back, back... So I did the only logical thing! I sent off an email message to the people in charge of the interface, switched off the computer, then turned to the worktop: out came the eggs, the flour, the sugar, the butter..., and the bananas. I rolled up my sleeves, tied on my apron, and set to making banana bread. What else? I like making things with my hands. I don't use electric mixers (though I love them), so I can really feel the weight of the dough at my wrist, the rasp of the spoon handle in my palm. There is an intimacy to it, knowing exactly what is going into the bowl; what is coming out of the baking tin; what is on the plate of those I love, whom I will serve the food. There is an intimacy to the taste as well, unique each time: m...

I realise that, in the later entries, I have been dealing mostly with things that worry me. I've also realised these 'darker' entries are a by-product of an intent not to be too peppy all the time, not in public, least of all in writing. I suppose, to some extent, I still suffer from 'literary (artistic) prejudice'. That's when someone is immediately considered a 'better' author just because s/he deals with very serious matters (drugs, crime, depression, and similar). This person is then deemed to have a 'deeper understanding of society' by the mere fact that s/he chooses to dwell on the less auspicious sides or events. As a consequence, there are cases like that of Jane Austen, who was slighted for presenting the seemingly frivolous and partial existence of genteel society. Or the way some films are sneered at for being just 'feel good romps', automatically making them unable to carry a worthy message on life.  This 'artistic pre...