The Russian soul...is it like any others? Can we say those of us who have a anhelo - a longing to be connected to the nostalgic sounds of the Zamba...be really the same soul as that of a Russian...The songs of a such proud nations are filled with melodies of love, passion, faith...perseverance...and of course 'soul'...can we say they are the same?........

I had a chance to experience the sweet sounds of Argentina...not so long ago...these classic folk songs made me feel connected to the 'soul' of Argentina.  Where these treasure began...well only time can say...as the people of the land...the original care takers of the soil...the peasants...have fed their souls with the sounds of music.  Blanco y azul a classic, romatic zamba...filled with love not only for the hand of a young woman...but for the marriage of one with their nation...yet we hear this longing in the classic Russian folk song katyusha.   On the countryside...la pampa is filled with the fading populations of the 'Indians' and 'Gauchos'... where one's honor and pride shine over the endless plains.  "There's no wrong note" ...a wise soul once said...and thus..."there are situations in which tranquility cannot result from reflection; it must come from the soul." The Gaucho...the country's vagabond...rebel...a soul full of heart, conscience, convictions....passion...can this be the same soul we find in Russia?

There are "two cultures in the world...one on beat...one off beat"...where do you come from? Can we be from both?  Hudson once said "To survive I have to be near the grass." Is he longing to be once again apart of the 'on beat' culture...the culture of the land...of mother earth?  The experience of the country side, and a man-made medium...the gate is the metaphysical image of the heart....
"the heart is a gate that's not closed well."
...and why?...well it is said best: "Por que con tanto rigor has castigado mi amor?" 


When one is so intertwined in their nation, their land, their song...one may feel strongly connected as one soul and heart......"My heart suffers and cries when I dance the tango."  When the cerrazon...the fog creeps in and puts the country to sleep...and all over the world their are hearts weeping...can we say our soul is just as yours....on or off beat..we are all one soul...longing to be connected back to our earth? 

Childhood memories fill our heart with joys, laughter, cries and sorrows. Yet although emotions are stirred, moments of contentment arise. Looking back into the past is a blurred, spiraling,  journey that brings us to a alternate universe, where time is replaced with glimpses of significant moments.  In our memory, our senses are stirred, graphical images may appear, smells seep out. Sounds...music can bring us to our living past, and touch...may awake certain recollections. The most important sense is the illusive entity we keep inside...the  sense of the heart. The heart carries our emotions...and when stirred we can feel them jumping inside. The reading My Childhood brought me to revisit my childhood... in parallel to his...we both feel strongly tied to water. I felt connected to the way he describes his favorite place...the island in the river. As I grew up in Lake Tahoe...I was always at the shore, playing in the sand dunes...dipping my toes in the ice cold water.  Water was constantly surrounding me and has shaped my hearts desires. I know I must be near water...otherwise I am not in my element, and my heart weeps tears...

Tango -- to touch.

The main inspiration was from the Tango videos found on 'Youtube'...my favorite being the one called

"Javier Rodriguez y Geraldine Rojas - El Ultimo Bandoneon"

This video is a classic... it describes human emotion with the Tango dance, the gestures, the facial reactions, all which I can understand...even when I cannot speak the language. The Tango...a dance filled with love...lust... loyalty... betrayal...my favorite quote from the short clip is from the elderly Argentinean women....she says:
 "I always say the women has no style...the women follows the dancer, and I adapt to every dancer."

The song "El Pajarillo," Yaraví, has allowed me to reflect my emotions in my work in such a dramatic visual setting. The deep heart penetrating words "Por que con tanto rigor has castigado mi amor?" ..."Oh why have you punished me, With such sternness, my love?" Listening to these words, the song, brought up emotions that I tend to keep locked away from the world. I am only still discovering the powerful journey of love, to be "in-love"...to love one so much, that their emotions leave one in a bind, a twisted push and pull of emotional exchange. This battle does make me feel like "my shadow will go missing, when the heat of the sun brings you fatigue." Love is a powerful, blissful exchange of energy, but this love can so easily turn into hate, pain, sorrow...something so sweet can turn sour...why do our hearts allow this bio-polarity to occur?...without this duality...would 'Love' need to be redefined? Could love only be ecstatic...only full of positive vibrations?....but without the negativity that occurs with love...where one feels like their heart is being ripped out..or their pulling on the others...creating pain in one's life...when our actions affect the emotions of another so intensely....that it burns......what is love then? This emotional roller-coaster called 'love'... why would anyone want to board this train?...For the thrills, laughs, cries? There may never be a explanation of why we go through all the struggles of being 'in-love' with someone...but I know even though my heart may feel punished, I am at bliss simultaneously...because how precious it is to be 'in-love'...a feeling that is priceless...words only can hint at what this intangible entity is...but we are lucky to have songs like "El Pajarillo" that come close to expressing 'LOVE'

 

The words of the songs Zamba del Grillo...the Zamba of the Cricket, and Tierra Querida...Beloved Land, took me to a place of  reflection...turning inward to that space, that "Void" that we all long to fill. Whatever fills that void, whether it may be a place, person, or material things... one then gains some sort of satisfaction...pleasure...completeness.  This longing for fulfillment of our internal voids...or the opposite to fill a void with one's self...I believe is a primal human characteristic. However this fulfillment isn't meant to be satisfied completely, otherwise we wouldn't be yearning.  The first verse of Zamba del Grillo speaks of this found feeling of a void being filled...again yet only temporally.

"Into the hills of Tucumán
my paths have carried me
and they have brought me back
feelings that will never be forgotten"


How beautiful the words that express this love...at the end of his poem:

"and I, with a shadow in my soul
made my way, thinking of the absence, of good things lost..." 


These words sang to my hands as I created the first part of my work...the Positive.."the one that yearns to fill a void" of the clay piece..it is expressed as the vertical element.



In Tierra Querida, the words again touched the aspect of void, longing to be filled: 

"I will make my way over hills,
through forests and plains, all through my life,
bringing songs close to you
for your hope, beloved land."

...to the last verses:

"searching out the soul of your horizons       

in order to sing to you, beloved land."

This directly translated in the bulbous clay work with the void pouring out...through it...longing to be filled...but this may only last for a brief moment in life...for the love of longing will always be present. My work displays the dance of the yin and yang...the positive and negative...always so close...yet so far...as when then touch, for even just a moment...contentment, bliss, peace is found.

After reading Atahualpa Yupanqui's El Mito del Viento...The Myth of the Wind, I felt the urge to visit a loved one who has passed away this last summer...just like the wind...as his life blew by I was lucky just to be a wrinkle in his time...My grandpa, was a man whom I've always looked up too, a man of honor and respect....whom I only became close to in his last years on this planet...Although I know his love was always infinitely there. As I payed my respects...I saw a image of a horse on a tomb stone near by his...this image instantly spoke to me...I could resist taking a picture...which then lead me to see the reflection of the grass mirrored on the black stone. This translated into a surreal meaning to me...that my grandpa's spirit...the horse...is always with me here on earth...the grass. I decided to paint this reflection...and later that evening I had an paranormal experience. I believe my grandpa came to visit me...as I went to bed I felt a presence near...as if someone was there in the corner of my eye...and about a hour later, while I was sleeping I get woken up by my Pandora music player comes one...with the song "Miracle" by OceanLab. I was in shock...a bit scared and weird-ed out..but also I new I wasn't in harms way. I am very grateful for that visit from my grandpa, since that song and in that moment of my life all seemed to make sense...a feeling of being content, at peace, no fear, no worries, to just be in the moment...just like the wind.

W.H. Hudson's book The Naturalist in La Plata, Chapter 11 Humble Bees and other Matters was a very interesting read which spoke to me as one of the key messages from the universe. I felt that reading touched on the cycle of life, the natural web...the survival of the fittest....natural selection. We are all connected! ...from the humble bumble bee in the Pampas to the powerful glaciers in the Patagonia. These wonders of nature seem to be vanishing?...evolving one could say? Their is never a static state in life...our dynamic world will never be as it was...and it is exciting to find out what it will be. But most importantly we need to nurture the very present moment...of our very own beings being fully aware of each second that we are blessed to be embraced in...only then will we be able to shine together.