Common Treasures: STAGES OF PERFECTION

You were born at home, my brother, but in the big city, surrounded by a doctor and a nurse and the omnipresent vigilant look of grandmother Áurea. I was born in the middle of nowhere in an old stone house, only with the help of a midwife and the precious loving and strong hands of grandmother Áurea. In the beginning of a new life she was always there. Mother was lucky for having her.

We were both born in January, the first air we breathed was the cold air of Winter. So we could only seek the warming sun. Spring wasn’t very far and that first Spring surely brought us the first of many moments of amazement, fulfillment and freedom. It was as if it was given to us the privilege of being born before that rebirth, to behold the eternal renewal of life at the dawn of our lives. In your first Spring you saw the blooming city gardens reawakening the joy of living. In my first Spring I saw the immense blooming mountain fields creating the most amazing painting of colours and sensations. Those fields fulfilled my soul with beauty and gave me the first impression of my fragility and tininess. I was just one more being amongst the untamable energy of the wild around and the universe beyond. The awareness of this process outside and within only came much later, but that first unconscious perception was surely decisive in our lives.

You were born in the middle of the afternoon; I was born at the beginning of the night. Perhaps that’s why I always felt there was a second day within the day; a new day that always begins at nightfall. Perhaps that was why, when I was 4, 5, 6 I would wait until everybody fell asleep to get up again, very silently, and crawl around the house… to do nothing special, just to be there, feeling life, watching the moonbeams reflection through the curtains. Everything was peaceful and magic, a secret world of myself within the vast world of everybody. Watching my own hands dancing with the moonbeams was just the first stage of an endless creation of simple magic moments, with no other purpose besides the beauty of the moment. Moments out of time that remain until today. I still watch my own hands dancing and building multiple realities in the air.

When I remember the different places and ways we were born, I think that maybe that’s one of the reasons why I never had any ambitions, only dreams and missions. I never wished to possess nothing material in special or accomplish high social or professional objectives in life. Never cared or worried about having success or get recognition for this or that reason. It was exactly the opposite. It was as if I was always trying to pass unnoticed, just flowing naturally in time and life as any other natural thing. It was as if I wasn’t entirely human, more like a plant, a cloud, the wind, the birds or the waters of the ocean. That sensation still remains and still is very reassuring.

You had some concrete ambitions and accomplished some of them. When you were 6 you already wished to have a big house with a big garden and a big swimming pool… I always felt strange and awkward in expressing what I wanted. I only wanted to be alive, free and walking under the sun until the end of time… and, of course, learn, always learning everything. Now, how can anyone say this out loud, even a small child, without seeming a little crazy…? Yes, they thought there was something crazy about me. And they still say that I seem to float over reality the most of the times. Some years later I understood perfectly why but I didn’t stop being this way. What I see in front and around me is always the same thing, a magnificent bright path that always leads me to the sun. The sun isn’t beyond the path, it isn’t a final destination; it’s a constant companion that keeps walking by my side, in the brightest and in the darkest days of my life. It is still so mysterious to think that in those three days of Winter and beginning of Spring, when you, mother and father went away, the sun seemed to be shining brighter than ever. What more proof do I need to know that he’s always travelling by my side?

Spring is knocking on my door in this earthly ground and at your door in the stars too. I wonder how is your Spring… Here, she walks slowly with her new dress of buds and colorful flowers. She’s like grandmother Áurea, loving, fragile and strong at the same time. She shows me again and again how everything changes without changing. Endless cycles of recreation that bring new energy and light to the old matrix of each soul. Stages and stages of perfection, time after time. Total perfection doesn’t exist, only stages of perfection. That’s why I know that the cycles within are also endless, an endless journey in life and time, here and among the stars.

I began to compile aphorisms in a notebook around 6. Some were quotations about something that I considered interesting or important, others came from my head. At 8 I wrote there: “Always do what is more difficult to do” and “Do well even the most insignificant thing”. I heard father repeating these words many times. I know I said I had no ambitions… but when I think about the ideas and principles that guided me since my childhood, I think that probably I am extremely ambitious… or perhaps I’m just an incorrigible idealist and dreamer. Well… on the other hand, perhaps not… If I wish that the days had 500 hours I also wish simple things like breathing pure air, walk in the sun or eat tasty strawberries… That’s a kind of ambition too, the ambition of a simple mind with a simple life like mine. Possible and impossible wishes and dreams, all stages of perfection…

APLLES FROM THE SKY

Don’t stop, you say
You ask me poems to breathe
Earthly air with cosmic senses
Apples from the apple trees
You left behind…
They’re still growing in every season
Upside down… the right way!
I know as you know
The roots are in the stars.
The fruits grow upon my head
Ripen, sweet and juicy
And never fall on the ground.

Strange new seasons
Those you brought to me
Things change constantly without changing
A new freedom envelops the senses
Not five, nor even one thousand
Inner reality is beyond all numbers
No time or need to fear time
No time left behind
No time or need to set or tame the clocks
Just now, an endless now,
Without beginning or end.
Now is always a beginning
An endless beginning… without end.

In the purest fountain
I wash your apples from the stars
With light thoughts and light hands
And while I taste the immaterial taste of this wisdom
I look around the soil, known and unknown
To find each and all the apple trees
You left behind
Voyager and gardener, you left your legacy
In the shape of apple trees
It was I who told you to plant them, until the end
It is I who eats the fruits
Within they become dreams
And dreams always become poems.

Don’t worry, I won’t stop
Life never stops, here or among the stars
Travelling sparkles of life-light.
Some things are meant to last forever
Some things are meant to last until the end of time
And time has no end.
I know as you know
Perfection doesn’t exist
That’s why we seek and find it
Time after time in so many new ways
Now is the beginning
Stages and stages of perfection
Season after season
Of hard and rewarding inner labor
That’s why we are mortal and immortal
Because we are not perfect
We just have perfect dreams
And that’s enough to follow the stages
Light and soft is our path
Because we know where we are going
Now, in each now, we only need to know how
We know how… now we know
This is only and always the beginning
Isn’t life perfect, after all?

São Ludovino, 17/2/2015 - 3:27 a.m.