Common Treasures: 2017

Walt Disney World, Orlando, Florida, USA

The Parades (Fantasy Parade and Electrical Parade)

There's so many ways of looking at the same things. The following three observers are looking at the same thing but see very different things. Probably no one is completely one of them, just may have a bit of each of them. Imagination and sensibility play a great role in the way we see. Sometimes there's telescopes, sometimes microscopes, sometimes mirages, sometimes curtains in our eyes. And sometimes some eyes are blessed with inner vision that sees beyond all curtains.

THE CURTAIN BEHIND THE CURTAIN
(Dialogue between three observers)

OBSERVER 1

The princess, the dragon, the unknown, the adventure
Good and evil, candor and trickiness, happy end and sad end
All together they follow in the same pace
Behind the same wavering curtain.
Don’t peep more than you should
Don’t touch the velvet behind the claw
Don’t dance the devil’s dance
At the sound of a sweet ballad.
It is sweet the ballad
As sweet as the colours, the faces, the smiles
As neat as the embroidery in the silk dress
As obfuscating as the golden ring
As magnetic as the eyes of the snake.
Retreat to your kingdom
Because this kingdom was not meant for credulous minds
Once you come in, high walls will grow around you
And you’ll never get out again.
So much beauty, you think.
So much illusions and traps, I tell you.
Who will you believe:
Yourself or me.
It’s still time to get away
It’s still time to be free…

OBSERVER 2

Two eyes you have wide open in your suspicious mind
Two layers you see in each layer before your eyes
I’m blind, I have no eyes and my ears are very weak
I see no good or evil, happiness or unhappiness
I can’t even hear the sweet ballad
I can only guess what’s going on
Like a reader tries to foresee the next chapter
Yet I have no previous chapter to guide me
I’m reading a blank book with blind eyes…
To me there’s only what I feel there is
I feel no fear, I feel no walls
I feel joy and amazement in the air
I can’t see the cause of it
But I know there is a cause
And that invisible cause makes me feel good
In spite of all that I can’t see, hear or live
So leave me in peace and let me enjoy what I feel
Can you only feel the sun caressing your skin?

OBSERVER 3

I don’t know what you both are talking about
Probably that’s because I’m only a child
I guess I’m lucky
I decided to be a child long ago
When I was still a child
Some were saying
I’ll be a doctor, a lawyer, an engineer, an architect
A writer, a painter, an actor, some kind of star
And they were asking constantly to me
And you, what do you want to be?
I want to be a child!
They laughed and became
Doctors, lawyers, engineers… and all that stuff
I also made my studies… in college, in life and in Nature
But along the years I remained always the same
For some years I kept meeting them
They were growing richer and some became important people
For some years I tried to understand them
To see through their points of view
Then I gave up
We had different languages
We were living in different worlds
And I didn’t belong to that world
Now I belong to all the pure worlds there are
I feel well among truth and transparency
I feed of imagination, light and love
And those are the things that make me who I am
Now I’m old but I feel I achieved my goal
I’m a child and I can see the beauty there is
Even beyond high thick walls, lies and illusions
Why can’t you be a child too?
At least try, for a while…

São Ludovino, 31/5/2017