The Daily Death, Meditation #21

The Daily Death, Meditation #21

I died a little yesterday night. It has become habitual, and, in the scant maturity I have acquired at 43, it is woven tightly into my rituals of being alive, of keeping my heart open, of caring, of loving... to die a little every day in order to live while I am alive. And this last death allowed me to wonder if this is what critics label as blue or gray periods in artists' lives. This latest death heaped despair in my heart as I finally mustered courage to finish an article I had began three months ago, called Blood Ivory ( Nat Geo Mag, Oct 2012)about my favorite animals, elephants.

I wanted to press control, alt, delete and reboot the relationship our civilization has developed with the mystery of the divine and our expressions of faith. How can destroying the gift of the life of the gentlest of giants, my beloved elephants, all for the ivory of its tusks, to carve inanimate objects, honor God? It is a crime perpetrated by Catholics and Buddhists, Hindus and atheists, but I fail to understand the utter lack of common sense that justifies this crime; hiding behind rationalizations of power, greed, need, or even worse, faith. My desire to voice, protest, rebel, educate, inform, pulled me out of the deep hole of my rage. I commit my spoken and written words, my heart, my art, my passion, to add drops of care and clarity to the trickle that might coalesce and create a river of reason to illuminate our behavior. Richard Feynman's words held my hand as I found my way back to face another day: "In order to make progress, one must leave the door to the unknown open- ajar only. We are only at the beginning of the development of the human race."

And as this picture seems to whisper in my heart, there is always hope, as long as baby elephants and baby creatures of all sort keep making their entrance into our world, that we might just get it right the next time around...

With love, Lina.

Meditation # 15 Dancing Around the Fire

Meditation # 15 Dancing Around the Fire

Let me hold your hand as we move from school memories about longing to belong and evolving new selves onto the trunk that is filled with our most cherished and joyous memories of our school days. We are invited to focus on the laughter, the wonder urged by the thrill of discovery of the gifts we found in our hearts, such as friendship and caring for our oth

ers; the new muscles being flexed in our brains, as we were led to explore our creativity and new skills were developed; and our physicality, as we were taught to enjoy sports and games with others. I remember vividly asking everyone I met about their after-school activities. I enjoyed school so much that I longed to stay active and engaged once the bell rang for dismissal. I now realize that might have been precisely the seed that matured into the books I have written; inspired by the urgency I felt to make the best of every day, to learn and explore the world relentlessly.
This weekend, I was reminded of the careless intense joy achieved while lost at play in the most magical way imaginable. I ended up dancing around a bonfire, laughing and singing with abandon at a phenomenal party to which I had not even been invited originally. Life conspired so that I could meet a new friend who needed to be reminded of her value, surrounded by love and care, and so we danced around a swirling bonfire, praying for fertility, joy and hope to flood her heart and body. I felt like a little girl, and allowed the powerful pull of the collective to surge through me. I surrendered to the primal irresistible pull of beating drums and syncopated human hearts and the seduction of the fire, which filled us all with euphoria as we shared intentions and the sincere desire for the well-being and happiness of a soul in need, mercy and compassion uniting us all.
In this very moment, I watch with trepidation fire and smoke burning as Gaza and Israel tumble to the ground in a tight suicidal embrace, brother against brother, blind strokes aiming at innocents and instigators, and I wonder…
Can we surround the burning fires of our self-destruction with the forces of self-less love,
the belief in hope,
the defiance of optimism amidst tragedy,
the confidence of forgiveness disarming betrayal, and manage to defeat the burning fires of doubt and fear with the love shared by beating and caring human hearts. I think about the millions of children that are being denied a serene, happy day at school or at home because of our adult complications, and I wonder if we, the lucky few who knew days filled with laughter and now have the gift of happy memories to cherish, can feel summoned to surround their wounds with prayers and care and manage to find the heart to persist and never desist and insist on dancing around the bonfire.
With love and an intense desire for peace in my heart,
Lina.

Meditation #3 A Spark of Love

Meditation #3 A Spark of Love

This week will allow us to explore the gratitude we owe to the two beings whom, in a selfless moment of surrender, deleted the barriers that separate individuals and by fusing their humanities, created the magic portal that allowed each one of us to enter this world.

This is the day of my conception, I know I was conceived in love and in a specific place, in a tiny cozy home in Medellín, Colombia. There was hope, faith and purpose in the act of communal creation that resulted in my pulsing heart. Life would become tangled and estrange these two human beings, Jaime and María del Pilar, eventually leading them on completely independent paths.

Yet, today I rejoice in that sacred moment when they answered my knock on the door and allowed me to enter the world as a result of a spark of love. I said yes to life and my mom housed me within her body for nine whole months. My heart is full of gratitude to my parents, both of them, with all their frailties and their gifts, they allowed me to be who I am.

Even though we might not remember or know specifics about the story of our conception, we can ponder about that season of becoming, those first cells multiplying at phenomenal speeds, pulsing with life, creating differentiated structures, growing within a carefully crafted plan, minute extremities, throbbing with purpose, each and every detail of a tiny, perfect person unfolding in order to carry out a divine design.

I imagine the joy of the Creator, of the Magic originator, rejoicing in that miracle, in the splendor of this physical expression of Hope, Life and Love. This was the beginning of the Sacred mystery of my Life, a spark of love within the cloud of unknowing that surrounded two lives, willing to stake a claim of belief in the world by creating a new life, mine to decipher and to develop, to unpack and evolve. In gratitude I celebrate my beginning, brimming with Amazing Grace!