Kintsukuroi - In the land of dreams

My beloved readers, again I stand here before you who are - maybe- eager to hear from me.

It's been a while and much has happened, mostly unexpected.

I left for France with a happy heart and little sleep, a sweet sacrifice in the night I would not dare change. Great steps were taken while Wallace's legend became a noteworthy part. So much joy and beauty.

We left for Marle to live and feel like barbarians among Romans, to enjoy the hard weather of the Ardennes. The trip was hard, but nice. And then came the news of an outrageous deed. Many have already heard of the heinous acts committed in my home town. Disbelief, rage, utter impotence, and fear, but not fear of death, but fear of loss. Thank the gods none known to me were lost that fatal day, but I did fear loss as never before, and I wept when news came, I wept out of joy and previous fear.

Then the rain came, and it cleansed us, it calmed us, and we spent the night in a camp of wolves sharing mead, joy and new-found friendship. And we were identified as barbarians.

We spent several days, among half-muddied fields, near a Merovingian village, surrounded by greatness of the past, Roman and Barbarian united. I got to see some of my heroes as well, like a fangirl I was all giggly and shy and proud and merry. Such beautiful people, such good vibes.

We trained for battle, we changed sides, we laughed, and ate and drank. And at night, by the fire, staring into the endless skies, the Roman vexilla glowed with the ember color of the peaceful flames before an infinite starry background. And I felt pride in this, the present past. Then a sage did speak, and part of my fate was read, truths from my own self were told, yet I uttered no word, but those eyes did see beyond. And an uncommon relief took over.

Songs of old were sung, and there was much merriment, and the stars brought thoughts in the distance that turned to smiles and wishes, and surprising yet positive realizations.

More people were met and introduced, great conversations with great individuals and excellent reenactment porn I was able to enjoy visually and digitally.

Those were good days!

High hopes on the road back led us to Alessia before taking back to the road. Words, thoughts, plans and deep conversations. Miles and miles that ended up leading me to a lost town were stars were seen again in an unexpected embrace.

A spiritual travel, revelations, raging beast awoken, but mellowed down to a whisper of foundation and joy. I smile.

You know I like being enigmatic, but poetry is returning to me, I wish to sing in images that I can always recall. My ramblings have mellowed down a little, but much is on my mind. However, the ever faithful Amon Amarth accompany me in these night trips to the corners of my mind.
Much negativity has been surrounding me and those close to me, but I defy and fight against fully sinking in. I wish myself positive, looking at the present and at the future, taking my fortune to spread so others may smile as well.

In regard to the previous sentence, I recently read about love. But not as in a romantic love, but love in all its potential. Love, real love, is or might be born from pain, not build on top of it. Loss, betrayal, pain are the foundations from which love must spring. Only then can we truly be happy and share this happiness with others. And it made so much sense to me.
I need to point out that I love Kintsukuroi, the Japanese art of fixing poetry with gold or silver-filled enamel which makes it unique and takes a part of you within. I know what I have fixed, and do not know its shape, but it goes "thump, thump" every once in a while. And I'm happy for it.


I leave you today with 3 gifts:

One is a beautiful sentence from a short video about judging too prematurely:
"A single act of caring creates an endless ripple"

The second one is an excerpt of a play by Shakespeare which I have always believed truly beautiful.
(Two Gentlemen of Verona)

"And why not death rather than living torment?

To die is to be banish'd from myself;

And Silvia is myself: banish'd from her

Is self from self: a deadly banishment!

What light is light, if Silvia be not seen?

What joy is joy, if Silvia be not by?

Unless it be to think that she is by

And feed upon the shadow of perfection

Except I be by Silvia in the night,

There is no music in the nightingale;

Unless I look on Silvia in the day,

There is no day for me to look upon;

She is my essence, and I leave to be,

If I be not by her fair influence

Foster'd, illumined, cherish'd, kept alive.

I fly not death, to fly his deadly doom:

Tarry I here, I but attend on death:

But, fly I hence, I fly away from life."

And the third one is a simple gift, a gift of a thistle...

Ic eom anhaga...

I find myself in front of a digital empty canvas after many hours of thinking what I'd be saying here. I even find myself listening to Depeche Mode by some weird device of fate, maybe even simply by chance...

It's been fucking amazing, the metal festival I've been to! I had some of my closest, and oldest friends with me... and the turning wheel of time granted me beautiful moments with them all, in which we were all reminded of our beginnings, of the self-destruction we have undergone among ourselves for several years. And, then, out of the blue, music poured in, and our hearts gladdened, our smiles widened, and we enjoyed each and every last beat, every bar, every note, every stir in the air, there was only music, we were not people, we were part of music. Arkona, Arch Enemy, Sabaton, Blind Guardian, the real Sepultura, Månegarm, Hammerfall, and Amon Amarth among others... Even a song by a Spanish band I had not heard in a long time was played acoustically for our enjoyment... and the lyrics still poured out of me under the blazing sun... Xana

We were all our younger selves again, stupid, naive kids for whom the world was still a place full of excitement, a place were consequences were insignificant. We joined the mosh pits, enjoyed our well begotten wounds, we feasted in the drinking grounds, we rolled in the grass, we showed many how real men fight, we drank to our health, to our friendship, to ourselves, and to the music that bound us long ago.

But of course, we also got shit faced and played the fool every single day... peaches, peaches, peaches in molds...
Those were the best of times, those were the worst of times. ...And it was beautiful, a single crew of the same single ship, sailing against all odds...

I got to see bands I had not seen before, I even went alone at some point just to hear a given band. And yet again music took hold of me, shook me up to my very soul and stirred within. Goosebumps were me. I smiled, my lips trembled, my face tightened, shivers went up and down my spine, everything around vanished, my eyes filled with water... and then I just let go, and I cried. I cried out of joy, I cried out of pain, I cried out of longing, I cried out of beauty and love, I cried out of rage. I cried, and smiled, and felt and let myself go.
I could go on and on, but that feeling is something one must have, it should not be read...

And out of all of this turmoil, another me thought on third, and smiles appeared again. I had forgotten how even the tiniest words can shake the foundations of mountains... and then I stared at the stars and saw fleeting travelers in the sky... and I smiled, alone, and still smiled again...




So many emotions in one single post, a single song won't do, so I leave these last thoughts and then I leave you all, for tonight...

Memorable quote:
"That's when you know you've found somebody really special. When you can just shut the fuck up for a minute and comfortably share silence" Q.Tarantino

Tracklist
Arch Enemy "My Apocalypse"
Blind Guardian "The Bard's Song (In the Forest)"
Amon Amarth's "The Way of Vikings"
Arkona "Pokrovy Nebesnogo Startsa"
R.E.M. "Losing My Religion"
Månegarm "Vredens Tid"
Vreid "Helvete"
Avalanch "Xana"
Hammerfall "Dreams Come  True"

Oh night... if, again

Oh night, my ever faithful friend, thou commest with thy bewitchery and thine promises to me and thou expectest nothing save for my memories and longings. Yet 'tis a fair trade...

Waxing moon, silence, darkwave synth sounding, imagining, warm yet not scorching, on my own, yet not really alone, pondering...
Lately there seems to be more input that sort of pushes me toward reprising my earlier endeavors, such as writing, and playing an instrument. Although much has been lost these years since the great change, hope still remains strong.
And hope is something I've been thinking about for a long time now: what is hope? Not so long ago I defined hope as "strange word that is trying to sell me a non-existing future". But what if.... ah yes... me and my "ifs"... What if hope is something that is multilayered, with hundreds of faces, hundreds of corners,... what if hope isn't something fixed but what we ourselves create in order to help us overcome the worst kinds of fears and maybe start walking?
What if hope is an ever wavering state of mind in which we cling to the idea of a given type of success, even though this might be against all odds?

Well, following this stream of thought, I realized something... The types of hope I have had throughout my life so far, and how these have changed over time.
I used to have hopeless hope, the typical "everything will be alright, it will be dreamlike" kind, then went to the "I was wrong the first time, this time it's the real deal" kind, then to the "if I do this, this will definitely work" kind... by the way, don't look for any particular areas in which to apply these positions, I had used for those types of hope in all wakes of life.
What then, when crashing one time, and then another, and then another, like an endless succession of waves crashing against the sand before returning back to mother sea for more water-on-sand violence? Was I supposed to loose all hope? Am I then to give up and accept the dull grey "pass-through-the-world-do-not-alter-it" kind of existence?
Well, at this point there are, I guess, two ways of trying to interpret reality: either you go with the "this world is shit, there is no hope" position, or, my current favorite, "what the hell? let's live through this to the fullest, as if no bad things had ever happened".
"Why?" you might ask... "why not?" I reply.

We are always so afraid of things going the wrong way, of how many bad turns there are to take, of how many betrayals we might encounter along the way, of how many people might disappoint us, of how may issues will remain unresolved, of how many grudges will spawn...
And then I say, what if against all odds this is it (if there is such a thing as an it), what if there are no bad turns but merely a few rough jerks to the steering wheel; what if there are no betrayals because or own actions and thoughts make them impossible for other people to do; what if all new issues are resolved on the spot, what if no grudges spawn at all because we dare embrace life to the fullest, even though we know we all have an expiration date... what if we just dare to fear Fear itself, as it is the bravest thing one can do.
What if we try to look at life once more through the eyes of the child we, at some point, held under lock and key because our society ordered us to; what if we step aside from the grey being we are expected to be and to become, and we dare to risk each and every last of our breaths to enjoying even the tiniest bit of life itself until our unwanted doom... and what if we then dare to call this hope.

This I gift you with.

"We don't read and write poetry because it's cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race, and the human race is filled with passion. Medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for."

Robin Williams Dead Poets Society