Montreal walking tour!

Today, I felt like a traveller again...

I joined a small group of couchsurfers, for a casual -and free- historical tour of the city.
I had found the event posted on couchsurfing.com: ''L'histoire de Montréal par ses immigrants''.
''Perfect!'' I thought.  ''This is exactly what I'm hoping to delve into here!''

I wondered how many people would be brave enough to show up for a stroll in the winter cold.  I didn't know what to expect.  I thought it was a nice day out though.  So I just went, hoping I'd be warm enough, and that my foot would hold off okay.
(I have been diagnosed with a plantar fasciitis.  Darn it.  Other story...)

We met our guide Philippe in front of the  Grande Bibliothèque de l'UQAM, and we follow him inside for a look at the map and an introduction to the cultural history of the metropolis.  There was a guy from Lyon, another Peruvian born but raised here, in Laval.  There was a girl from Malaga, in Andalucia!  Another joined us at the beginning of our walk; she is from Guadeloupe (and is white).

I've been to Montréal countless times before.  I came here as a child, on summer vacations with my family. And in the past several years I've spent lots of short stays with my friends who have now settled here.  But I really don't know much about the history of this place.  I'm disturbed because I hear so much English spoken on the streets.  It's irrational; I know it's been a dual occupancy since the beginning.
So I was curious and impatient to learn about that whole cultural process...

Copper apparently changes color with time.
This roof used to be shiny and... well... copper-colored!
(It's just like an oxidized penny!)

I learned that the Natives never had settlements on the island (yes, Montreal is an island), but instead came sporadically, to trade furs and other goods.
I was brought back - in my imagination - to the time where the first French explorers came and created trading posts along the river - rather than ''colonies'' per se.  They were here for commerce, strictly.  Along the St-Laurent - in Québec, Trois-Rivière, and Tadoussac - they were but a small 300 surviving, and trading with the Natives.
They also wanted to convert them to Christianity, of course.  (At that time, France is experiencing a strong boost of Catholic fervor, in reaction to the Protestant Revolution.)

1641.  Eight dreamers set out to build their great project: the ''Société de Notre-Dame de Montréal pour la Conversion des Sauvages  de la Nouvelle-France''.  They have a clear goal: they want to build a walled city, a colony, where they will educate the settlers and the Natives into the glory of their fervent Catholicism.
Paul de Chomedey de Maisonneuve is one of these enthusiastic christians.  Today he is considered the founder of Montréal.  But according to our guide Philippe, we should give the most credit to Jeanne Mance (a nurse), since she was the one who persisted the longest, and stayed long after all the initial utopists had died or returned to France.
Ville-Marie, as it was originally called, was far off into the wilderness back then.  There were Natives roaming around.  There were the rapids of St.Louis (Lachine), which couldn't be navigated but had to be portaged instead.  There were the seasons.
On the island, the population stagnated at 42 people during all of the first decade.  Some left, others died from malnutrition and harsh conditions, a few were killed by local Iroquois fighters.

It's a harsh place to try and settle.

By the late 1650s, there's about a hundred people living in Ville-Marie.  Maisonneuve has returned to the mother land, Jeanne Mance is still here.  The Roi-Soleil, Louis XIV, takes over the French monarchy and decides to centralize his North American assets.  This is the end of the religious utopian project for the Société Notre-Dame.  Ville-Marie is but another piece in the colonial, commercial, battle.

There will be more than forty wars between the Nouvelle-France and the New-England over the following hundred years.  From the start, the Canadiens (I learned that the word originally referred to French settlers, before it turned into French Canadiens and British Canadians.  Only in the 1960s did the identity of Québécois really take shape in the collective psyche.) are outnumbered by a ratio of 20:1.  There are English settlers everywhere.  And in 1760 it's the infamous battle on the Plains of Abraham, and the rest is history.  Nouvelle-France is no more.  Canada becomes a British belonging.
But the first waves of English speaking Montrealers are mostly Irish and Scottish.  They come to take over the fur trade, since there is now a law prohibiting French Canadians to do business.

Our poet: Émile Nelligan,
son of an Irish man and a French Canadian woman.

During the first forty years of the nineteenth century, there are 70% anglos in Montreal.
The Industrial Revolution is shaking things up here too.  The city (which, by the way, is still only a fraction of the island) becomes a port of confluence for trade and shipping.
French peasants go to the United States looking for work.  They go to Vermont, Maine, Massachusetts.  Some will come to Montreal in the 1850s, and the city will expand a bit, east of the Main street: Saint-Laurent.

I learned then, that this is the street that divides the island between East and West.  It's something anyone living here finds out quickly.  I'm glad I didn't have to get terribly lost before learning that fact.

Our guide actually took us for a walk up Rue St-Laurent.  He explained that it shows pretty well the different strata of immigrations that constitute the metropolis.

La ''Main'' is history.

Irish, Scottish... then Germans and Jews (''Germans'' also including Eastern Europeans who then lived under German occupation), as well as Italians, and Greeks... and then Chinese people immigrated.  And Vietnamese people also came, and Haitians (two waves; the first were intellectuals fleeing the dictatorship of Duvalier Père, the second generation, under Duvalier Fils), and Moroccans and Lebanese people, then more Maghrebians, and some West Africans too.  And Chileans (leaving their homeland under Pinochet), and Argentinians, etc.  Portuguese immigrants apparently came from the Azores island (when?), and I know for sure there is also a big Brazilian population here.

You get the idea.  Montreal was always a metropolis!  I think this is both fantastic and disturbing.  And I'm very inspired to seek out more information on the subject, to read historical books and novels, and to talk to everybody about where their ancestors come from...

And to go back to all these old restaurants we walked by, and try it all..

Schwartz's smoked meat sandwiches are apparently an institutions.
Is it kosher?

Chinatown

Also on St-Laurent...

More info on the history of Montreal...

Un merveilleux site web sur l'histoire de Montréal:  ici

Se puede hacer lo

It's my last night in Europa and there's a free Cabaret at a wonderful community circus space, called La Nave Espacial.  I discovered the place thanks to David, who I had met and exchanged contacts with back in Berlin.  He's a juggler, and he's Mexican, and I've never met anybody which such original and protuberant piercings and scarifications on their face.  Yes, David looks like a member of the new tribal culture, some kind of "postmodern shamanistic" type.  He's colorful, but quiet.  He's a nomad too, and well... he knows where it's at.

He landed in Barcelona about a week ago and immediately found the Nave.  Meeting on our favorite social network the next day, he invited me to come check the place out.

"Should I bring my juggling clubs?" I asked.

"No. We have everything here."

... Yes they do!!

We're talking about a gigantic industrial hangar kind of space.  In front, a few caravans are parked alongside the curb.  Upon walking into the vast entrance lounge, one might greet a few hippies, some acrobats (with that kind of unmistakable body), or some b-boys.  Children, sexagenarian, locals and wanderers.  All meet here. 

"Como funciona todo?" I asked some circusy folks smoking cigarettes in the /communal kitchen.

"Pues. Puedes ir por allá, esta el gym.  Todo bien, si quieres practicar.''

"Y... es gratis o .. ?"  

"si, todo gratis..."

"Vale!"

No entrance fee!? Free access to all of this?

I notice a chalkboard with a weekly schedule on it: those are all the free classes offered: spray paint, flamenco, breakdancing, body awareness, etc.

Una Nave muy especial!

I go to the gym to find David and... wow: the place is fully equipped!  The full array of circus apparels - trapezes, fabrics, mats, ropes, rings, etc. - the heavenly sight of which spiced up by some good sound system blasting in the breakdancing area.  Jugglers, acrobats, b-boys share the space.  There are even some  weight-lifting machines on the side!

There it is: from babies crawling around to young teenagers, folks in their prime and old activists, whites and blacks, latinos and spanish, etc.   All here practicing their passion, their trade, on a wednesday afternoon.

"La Nave"  also counts a computer lounge, a sewing room, two dance studios, a laundry room, a ping pong table, plus a theater area, and, I assume, some cubbies or rooms for those who live and sleep there.

How can all of this be open to free use?  Well because the place was abandoned and is now "occupied", of course!  The project was made possible by a few leaders - who somehow came up with the equipment -  many of which are originally from Latin America.  The place has been running for about three years now.

How freakin'' inspiring!

''Eso es... cómo... Utopia!'' I suggest to an older Argentinian man I'm chatting with.

''No es utopia,'' he corrects me, '' se puede hacer.''

Please, let there be a place like this in Montreal!

Last night in Europe then.  I haven't seen half of the common attractions of Barcelona but I don't feel like getting myself lost in the meanders of yet another city.  I'm satisfied with what I have experienced: the fantastic modernist designs of Gaudi and his contemporaries, the museum of Catalunya (which by the way I didn't get to visit in its entirety, even though I was there for three hours!), the Barceloneta beach, and the old city.  That alone is enough to feel overwhelmed.  Too much would be hard to digest.  I like to keep it delightful and inspiring.

I really wanted to write about my visit to the Park Güell as well.  That's a park on a hill, where some rich industrialist named Güell had Gaudi and his architect buddies design modernist village of "modest" habitations.  

 

It was 1900 to 1914.  It was the industrial boom, and Güell was inspired by the English Garden City Movement (super interesting wikipedia discovery!).  The area is surreal and superbly gorgeous!  I wish urban design could still find such inspiration instead of giving us those sad, uniform, unicolored, developments.  Aargh, it makes me nauseous just to think of it.

But I digress! I tangent! I parenthesize! Pardon me (and quantum phenomena) for this.  As I was saying...

Last night in Europe.

Free Cabaret.

I have seven Euros left for the rest of my time on this side of the pond.  I must be intelligent.  I must plan.  I decide to find a grocery store in order to buy myself some lunch/dinner as well as something for the airport.  (I'm flying out at 6am, so I'm going to have to sleep at the airport.)  I could have saved so much money had I done more home cooking, but then I wouldn't have had tasted all these local delicacies!

Way up to the Park:
outdoor escalator!

I arrive there and sit outside to eat some bread and cheese.  I don't know anybody and I feel awkward.  I'm not feeling very extraverted.  I think that my Spanish might actually have regressed a bit recently, because I'm tired. So I just sit there for a while, reading my Kerouac and enjoying some sun despite the cold air.  In 24 hours, I'll be in winter land.  

I eventually go inside to find a bunch of people busying themselves in the kitchen.  Turns out they are serving dinners for one Euro tonight!  Ah!  This is just incredible.  I wonder how much of the food have been "recycled" as they say here.  How much of it was dumpstered...  I hang around the space, offering myself to help with whatever needs to be done.  I'm assigned to the setting up of tables and chairs, which I accomplish quickly so that I'm left again to read my novel.

A quote from The Lonesome Traveller:

"À force de penser aux étoiles toutes les nuits, je commence à comprendre: 'ces étoiles sont des mots' et tous ces mondes innombrables de la Voie Lactée sont des mots, et notre monde en est un lui aussi.  Et je m'aperçois d'une chose:quel que soit l'endroit oü je me trouve, dans une petite chambre pleine de mes pensées ou dans cet univers infini d'étoiles et de montagnes, tout est en moi.  Il n'y a aucun besoin de solitude.  Il faut donc aimer la vie pour ce qu'elle est et ne se faire aucune idée préconçue.'' (p.203)

At 7h30 the lounge is full of people waiting to grab a seat in the theater.  It is really cold and I'm hoping things will get a bit warmer once we're all siting side by side.  There are some hundred and fifty people here.  And what a beautiful crowd!  I got a spot on the bleachers, but most people are sitting on pillows on the concrete ground.  Not sure they're warmer.

The actors begin the show while people are still finding their spot and chatting.  They don't have microphones.  On first impression I think: ''wWait! There are still people talking and moving around..'' But then my impression changes; it feels like a public square or a parochial gathering.. it feels amazingly intimate this way!

Little by little the attention focusses on our masters of ceremony.  The first act is a clown woman... She is GOOD!  The little physical habits, the mimics, the candor, her absurd relationship with the objects of her world... she is wonderfully lovable!  Wow... This is the approach I want so bad to take... this innocence... this childlike joy ... this lightness.

I'm inspired.

The second act is an aerial straps duo.  I have never seen anything like this.  The mise en scène is wonderful, the technique is sharp, the moves are original.  The images of two hobos flying and spinning in the air is tender and poetic.

Applauses to warm the artists and ourselves.  I'm experiencing a small revolution:

This is it.  That relationship between audience and artists, this is the real circus.  Our MCs remind us: ''Esta frío, no?''  They are not ignoring this reality we are all experiencing together, they are naming it.  And that's magical.

I think about Cirque du Soleil and how far it is from accomplishing this.  That's spectacle, that's corporate, mass production, it's form above all, it's professional perFORMance.  No room for presence, for spontaneity, for community.

And I'm thinking that it's a shame in fact, because Cirque du Soleil is such a global phenomenon.  There would be such an opportunity for them to let their clowns take on that sacred function: to name the realities we are experiencing together, globally.

I'll have to write an editorial about this one.

More acts, some incredibly original and mind-blowing, others much less.  After half-time (you'll never fully take the athlete out of me!), a few dance numbers.  I shed a few warm tears when I see that group of teenagers take on the stage.  There they are among a crowd of adults, courageous enough to share their passion and skills with us.  Good stage presence, impressive saltos, nice choreography.  The crowd is loving it.  How heart-warming.  

And the last act: woman-man acrobatic duo, with yet another superb story line, unseen moves, and strong technique. I've never seen such muscles on a woman before.  I've never seen a man stand with both feet on a woman's head!  Dang!

Little revolutions surrounding age and gender relations... That's what I'm talking about.

Flying hoboes...

And in my mind a torrent of ideas... I'm so full of them, these big visions so vivid yet so complex.  And if I can't perform all of them, I'm thinking, I could have other people make it happen.

My last couch surfing host studied arts management... that's sort of what he does.

Parc Güell (wish I could provide the soundtrack too).

Clown Estado

I am now three hours from Barcelona, on my last bus trip before returning to Québec.  

I think I've grown better at saying goodbye and letting go.  During the first two months of this journey, I often left whatever place I had come to experience with a sentiment of not-enough-time-!.  I felt that bitter sweet longing, not to be passing through only, but yearning, to go to the depths of a people, a language, a place...

But yesterday, as I walked in the neighborhood of Realejo, and then up to the periphery of the Palace - but did not enter - , I felt something different.  I was well aware of all the things I wouldn't get to experience in Granada.  There is the Alhambra, that famous red palace, known by all locals and visitors as a real moorish architectural jewel.

La Alhambra

Vista Santo-Nicholas,
looking out at the Alhambra,
and the snow-covered Sierra

There's the Apujarra region, just on the other side of the Sierra Nevada, where indigenous (now mixed with many ex-pats from England and else where) pueblos allegedly live a most pristine communal life within the mountains.  There's Serromonte too, which is a neighborhood of Granada where people live within the mountain, in caves!  And they play a lot of Flamenco there, and it's the real thing.  It's not something you schedule as part of a touristic tour.  Real Flamenco happens spontaneously, when the spirit moves them.  And what about the reggae scene?  With such a high rate of dreadlocks per capita, Granada must have a nice scene!  

Oh well. 

Calle Silencio

I walked slowly, simply, enjoying the tiny narrow curvy paved streets, the murals of Realejo, the omnipresence of moorish architectural details, and later the sound of water running down the gutters of the Alhambra gardens.  I was relaxed, satisfied.  I didn't need more of anything.

Perhaps it had to do with having those three days of ''Clown, con Danza y Energia'' workshop.  I had come especially for that experience, and even though I could just dwell in that space permanently (it's kind of my goal in life), I mainly just left the course feeling energized and inspired.

I feels good to be reconnected with the work.

My couchsurfing mama and I,
having tubos and tapas after the workshop,
talking of a revolution that's happening.

"Clown no es un personaje, y no es tampoco 'tu mismo'... Para mi, clown es un estado." explained our teacher.

A mi me gusta eso.

How can we deny the wisdom in this?  Clown isn't a character, and it's not quite your own self either; clown is a state of mind.  It's saying "Yes!" despite everything.  (Indeed, it's super Nietzschean to me.) It's opening one's self totally, as in 360 degrees of ears and eyes and skin, connecting with the totality of the environment, ready to make new connections at any moment.  That's how the clown helps life to open up and renew herself.

In the workshop, we did an exercise aimed at exploring how we each tend to react when thrown off-balance.  Disequilibrium is where the clown lives and thrives.

One person would start walking around the room, and a partner's role was to get in the way, pushing and pulling on the first person's body and clothes, thus creating unpredicted and unwanted  disruptions and obstacles.

Everyone had their own set of reactions.  Some resisted more, some were annoyed, some were more fluid and accepting of the new directions brought upon them.

  

Clowns y tapas!

Personally, I discovered that I wanted to trick my partner.  I felt open to her input and eager to discover new directions in space and in my body; but most undeniably, I just wanted to joke around and engage in play.  I wanted to be unpredictable myself, make quick changes in direction,so she wouldn't catch up with me.  And simply, because I could!  

How informative!  And of course saying "yes" and staying light and open is easier to do within the boundaries of this exercise than it is in life.  In this game, I knew who and where my partner was.  I had a sense of direction that was limited by the stage and didn't involve anything more than walking around.  

Still, I guess I discovered that I do live my life in quite a similar way.  Perhaps it's easier to play hide and seek, to come up with my own changes in direction, to walk a bit of an erratic path rather than a straight one, to try to escape rather than commit to a specific goal, for fear of getting thrown off.

But it's not only fear.  It's not necessarily "resisting."  It's also dancing with the essence of existence, which is change.  I dare saying that I think there's some wisdom in that.

One more thing.  The exercise was very informative indeed, but I personally thought that something was missing in the set up.  Some-bodies were so open to external influences; they let themselves be so fluid, that it didn't seem authentic enough to me.  In life - as in clown - there's got to be a minimum (or maybe a lot) of self-will (does this phrase exist?). Otherwise there's just no life, no drama, no tension.  One remains waiting for external forces to push and pull and guide without ever bringing energy of their own.

Would these forces not empty themselves, after a while of giving, without meeting any "resistance"?  Wouldn't libido not exhaust and drain itself?  Wouldn't it get bored?

I tired to raise that point to the class, but in a broken spanish I'm not sure the teacher understood my statement.  I just thought he should mention that "accepting" change/ disequilibrium/ obstacles doesn't mean completely subjecting to it (as some people seemed to be doing in the exercise) but rather, perhaps, that it means being open to see/ hear and integrate new information at any given time, so that one's sense of will and inner guidance remains fluid.

the sound it makes...

Am I making sense?

What do you think?

It's like water...

''Zero Impact'' EcoCafé-Bar Manila...
with an exposition on Québec and its ressources!!

Recommitting myself not to eat meat.

Committing myself to keep drinking with friends :)

Cadiz to Albolote, always now

I just went for a short walk through the sleepy streets of Albolote, a small town of 15000 inhabitants, resting at about seven kilometers from Granada.  I slept here last night, in my own quarters.  I found a guitar, which was already tuned, and played a little bit.  (The area is actually famous for its guitar makers, which makes sense when you make the connection: this is Flamenco land!)
But more on this later.  First, I would like to back track to twenty-four hours ago, as I spent the preceding night in yet another historical location: Cadiz...



I had spoken with my mom the day before, while still in Sevilla, and she had asked: "Prends tu un peu le temps de relaxer, de juste... rien faire, genre t'installer sur la plage avec un livre?'' (''Do you take time to just hang out and do nothing, like, sit down on the beach with a book?")
"Well I haven't really been around beaches much, except in Nice... and even there I just took a twenty minute stop to skinny dip in the Mediterrean, before catching the train to Ventimiglia."

I have taken time to stop.  I have been meditating, actually, and I've sat in many a bus doing about nothing.  But it's also true that I've walked quite a lot over the past two and a half months.  Faithful to myself - for better and for worst - I've been curious and I've made a point to take in as much as possible about everything I get to see while being on the old continent.  However, my mother's words sounded timely and significant when I sat down with the map of Cadiz (and a cerveza fria) from the office of tourism.  My hosts lived on the other side of town (though it is a small one, on a peninsula) so there were a few "historical points of interest" on the way; but I decided I had seen enough churches already (and honestly, I just didn't feel like rolling my noisy suitcase around those paved streets), so I chose to pass on the architectural tour of "the oldest city in Europe" (Cadiz is 3000 years old!) and go for a walk along the Atlantic Ocean instead.  Only one day in Cadiz?   So be it!

This is where Christopher Colombus set sail from.
And this is where he came back to, with loads of exotic products
from "the Indias": potatoes, tomatoes, corn, etc.
  

The day was gorgeous.  "December 7th ?"  I laughed inside: "Como me gusta el sol!  Como me gusta esa luz!"

I got lost once - faithful to myself - but eventually arrived in la calle Angel.  I crossed my fingers and rang the doorbell.  I knew my host wouldn't get home until 8pm, but she'd said her roommate Clement would be there.  I don't have credits in my "handy" anymore, and it's very much starting to look like I'm not going to recharge it before I leave, in less than two weeks, so I couldn't call to notify of my arrival!  But someone did answer the door.  "Eres Clement?" I asked.  "Si."
"Eres frances?"
"Oui.  Et toi.. canadienne?"
"Ouais."

I think that every single French person I've met so far calls us Canadians instead of Québécois.  You'd think they'd be more precise, you'd think they sympathize.  But no.  They don't even say "Canadiens français"... just.. ''Canadiens'', who speak.... canadien!.   They don't make the difference, they don't necessarily know or care about our dear crise d'identité.  It seems that for them we are already different, since we live on that far away continent called America.
Clement offered me a cup of tea and a plate of noodles he had made for lunch.   We chatted a little bit, and I found out I had landed in one of those Erasmus flats, just like in that movie ''L'Auberge Espagnole''.  There lived five exchange students: from Lithuania, Poland, France, and who-knows-where-else, and they all came to Cadiz to study, learn Spanish, have a cultural experience... and to fiesta, of course.
"And you often host couchsurfers?" I asked.
"All the time!" he said, "We once slept eleven people in here!  There were three girls on the kitchen floor, and three more sharing my roomate's room. Plus all of us."

I noticed a French novel on a shelf and asked if he'd perhaps be interested in trading it for the one I had just finished.  It was Jack Kerouac's "Le vagabond Solitaire" (The lonesome traveller).  Que bueno!
Then he went on to study some more, and I took the book, as well as my juggling clubs, and went for a walk.  Screw all these landmarks; Cadiz is a maritime city, and I decided I'd just hang on the coast some more.  I walked and walked and smiled and sat for a cup of cafe con leche, until the sun began to set.

I don't know what goes on in the streets of Cadiz, but my sense is that the beach is where it's at.  People tranquilo.  People playing guitarra on the boardwalk, singing Flamenco.  Couples strolling.  Quite a romantic setting indeed.  A group of teenagers setting up for a most clever and impressive game: an exercise ball buried in the sand, and they used it as a trampoline, to practice saltos and other acrobatics!

After sundown I walked some more, guiding myself according to the changing qualities of light on buildings, and following the sounds that suddenly came out of small neighborhood bars, here and there, where locals - and their children- gathered for happy hour and a bit of soulful Flamenco. 

Back to the apartment I had a chat with M., attempting to explain, once more, what I studied in San Francisco.  She was especially eager: "Tell me what you learned."

So I tried once more; first in espagnol but eventually switching to English.  "Well, I've learned that everything we see is a projection of our psyche - it's all one - so that our sanity is directly connected to the health of our environment."  

3000 year old Magnolia?

"Everything is deeply and intrinsically interconnected: psyche, nature, one another..."  

"I learned that everything is already perfect, but that it doesn't mean we should do our best to change the world for better.  It's called paradox, and it pervades everything."

"And finally, I found that changing one's self - or ones relationship with one's self - is the hardest.  I'm still working on that, big time!"

"Tell me more," she said.  "Do you meditate?  I think we're all so addicted to thinking."

Right on hermana. "I do'' I answered. ''I try."

"I have a really hard time meditating." she said defeatedly.

"That's all there is," I said to validate her experience.  "But I read somewhere, and I always like to remember... that meditation simply is such a great opportunity to practice self-love, as in, forgiving one's self.  Because we always fail at it, and we can choose to judge, or to forgive."

"Tell me more."

"What if we just sat together, right now?"

So we did.

And afterwards, she went to sleep and I went out with the others.  It was already midnight and they were just getting ready!  

We went to a bar called Woodstock.  We met a friend of theirs, who also had a couchsurfer with her.  Around the table, there were now five different nationalities: Spanish, Russian (Lithuanian), French, Quebecoise (Canadian), German.  We spoke Spanish, French, German.  We drank tinto de verano and cervezas.  We sang Bob Marley: One Love.

L'Auberge Espagnole!

This morning I got up before all of them, made myself some tea to go, and went to catch the bus in direction of Granada... well... via Sevilla.
And here I am.  I'm staying in a family home and it is gorgeous.  Cold at night, but gorgeous.  And tomorrow I have plans to help out in the garden.  I could go to the city and visit the Alhambra  (''not to be missed!'', they all say), but I'd much rather learn how to prune the lemon tree!!

Love it!

Soul talks in Carcassonne

''Ça cogne dans les neuronnes comme un boulet dans les murs de Carcassonne''
-Loco Locass

I've spent the last two nights in the small city of Carcassonne, not too far from Toulouse where I am heading in a few hours.  I came here because I remembered how my brother had been impressed when he came through, many years ago.  Carcassonne is famous for its impressive Medieval Cité.  It was founded around the fifth century, changed hands several times throughout history, and was restored in the mid-19th century so that it still stands seemingly whole, entirely fortified, castle and all.  Today, it is inscribed on the list of the UNESCO's World Heritage Sites.

There is not much than that here, however.  And I have visited enough castles by now that I've sort of become a bit immune to the feelings of awe that initially ran through me as I held these historical monuments in contemplation.

So I found out that I didn't come to Carcassonne to witness its famous Cité.  It turns out, that I came here to meet and exchange with a man that would validate and enrich my experience of life on Earth.

Y. picked me up from the train station on Monday afternoon, after he finished his day of teaching electronics at the Lycée.  On his couchsurfing profile, he'd listed 'meditation' as one of his interests, so I had asked if he'd host me, and ''perhaps we could have a little sangha going on'' while I'd be there.  He is sixty-something and lives by himself in a little apartment at the outskirt of town, surrounded by vineyards stretching far into the horizon.  I was pleased he'd accepted to host me, for I thought I'd be a good transition back from Torri.



Upon walking into his place I noticed a certificate of 'master in alternative medicine' hanged on the wall.  I put my bags down in a corner, accepted the cup of tea he offered; quickly and directly, I then asked, ''Do you do a combo of acupuncture and herbs and everything, or what is this?''
''Non,'' he said, ''it's meditation''.  I looked a him with a inquisitive smile, and he added: ''You know about the chakra system?''

(A really good book about the chakra system and developmental psychology is: Eastern Body Western Mind, by Anodea Judith, Ph.D.)

Morning walk along "Le canal du midi"

Within five minutes, Y. and I were talking about consciousness and subtle energies, and about the habits and dangers of so-called logic (i.e. our so-called democracy is based on a perpetuation of the belief that we are reasonable/rational creatures, even though it has been demonstrated, with the advent of psychology - thanks Sigmund - that it's the unconscious that generally drives human beings.)

We talked about the difference between reflecting and thinking... (Note: the conversation was in French, so the words and nuances were actually somewhat different.)
''Thoughts just come in, and our job is to stay open to seeing them without grasping.''
''Oh,'' I said, ''do you mean like when I feel that the words write me, or come through me, instead of me writing them sometimes.''
''Oui, it's kind of like that,'' he acquiesced.
''And reflections are the type that bounce back and forth in your head without leading anywhere, right?''
''That's it.''

And so we chatted, energetically, about energy and the challenges of integrating the lower animal parts of us with the higher spiritual ones.  "Our job is to help the lower energy centers (first three chakras), and to get help from the three upper ones."

I asked about the method he uses to meditate.  He explained that focussing on the third eye (or rather, the place where the pineal and the pituitary glands ''connect'') brings a level of concentration that can be used to synthesize with others.  As long as one remains centered into one's self and one's own energetic field, such a transfer of energy has the potential to help others find their own center as well.  It brings harmonization... and healing.
(I am paraphrasing a longer and more complex conversation, but I think it's fairly accurate.)

''But what about the heart?'' I said.  ''I thought that integration, and thus healing, happened at the heart center?''
He paused to think a bit.
''Yes, the heart is the center.  But perhaps most of us are not evolved enough to reside in that place yet.''
We both fell silent for a moment.  It was good.

I spent two days at his house, sharing meals and conversations.  We talked more, about travels and languages.  About the relationship between etymologies and metaphysics, between metaphysics and political systems, about work, the human condition, and the dual nature of evolution-devolution.  We talked about the [needed interplay] of globalization and decentralization, and about the hidden reality of a very few individuals actually holding the strings, behind our governments, behind the media, behind mainstream culture.

I remembered I want to create a play inspired by Plato's allegory of the cave.

How I love this Life!  Bless!

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