La Mano Oculta

Sitting in Economics...

Walking in the direction of the endless hall of the second floor of the campus feels worthless. The bright incandescent light, the white parallel walls that don’t say anything, the coldness in the building…it is all organized, manipulated, stated; I don’t belong here. The class begins. The teacher starts talking about how the Fed has cut interest rates in order to impose an expansionary fiscal policy that would create money, put money into the economic system, which in cause will slow down or stop the recession that we are going through. He said it was pointless though, because apparently he is an expert. But now my pencil falls, in the middle of the class, in the middle of nowhere, where we are. The reaction hits, I put all my vigor in the thought, I compete against my own will, go down, and seize the pen, which was waiting for the right occasion to escape. My head then falls against one of those miserable walls. The wall rejects me, the pencil too. My eyes start to impose, they don’t like hearing all of this nonsense talking, they dislike the feeling of being tough unimportant things, lies, and they don’t like to be undermined.
So I wait for the right occasion to liberate my mind, to fly somewhere else where the walls aren’t white and parallel and straight and tall. I go to that part of my mind where there’s no reason, where things don’t necessarily make sense. And here I stay, I see the person that’s sitting behind me here, she seems to be in the same state of mine, I am relieved. She pulls out a notebook and starts writing, she vigorously writes, so intensively. The power in her hand takes over her; she struggles, but keeps writing. The blond hair on her face now blows against her black-painted eyes, cupid eyes. She looks at me, and smiles. I return the smile, and believe her. I believe her passion, the power of these true things, these true feelings. And she believes me too, she also believes how inconsiderate and repugnant supply and demand could be, how the consumer surplus is a total waste of people’s energy and time, how the allocation of resources is so unfair since not everyone really gets the same amount of anything, even though we’re all living in the same planet, under the same natural resources. And she blushes, she reddens because the feeling is mutual, because we both think that the ideals of economics go against our own, and we cover it with intelligence, knowledge and some self-control. Now my pen falls again, only that this time I don’t care. I let it be.
The teacher talks. He forcefully says: “It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, of the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from the regard to their own interest” –Adam Smith. He says how the so-called “father of economics” put all of these words together, but how everyone could’ve done that. And I believe him too. He wants change and I can tell. But the change starts from within, and he is unhappy, he lies to himself because of all of these nonsense views about the world, the false perspective that economics is a social science that carries morals, because I truly believe it does not.
After navigating minds, I come back to my sit, where everything was just as I left them. I look around, my pencil on the floor, the impacted faces of everyone that eats the lecture, the presentation that just ended. I look back, the girl glances at me, she is back too. I get up, grab my pencil, and head to the door.
Life isn’t always fair…suck it up! – L-C

"This is the time to rejoice and praise the earth, because today we have planted our freedom".

Intrigued by all of the possibilities, I see myself restlessly waiting for this day. The day in which I dedicate my severe will to the earth, the day in which I will come together with everyone else and understand that fifth sacred thing that I seek for. The work was hard, the planting was unique, the coming together with these kids, the Phillis Wheatley students was a never ending experience. All that the kids wanted was to contribute to the cause in some way or another. I remember the sweat on all of our faces; I remember the looks that we gave each other accompanied by a genuine smile of hope, a lungful of air, a smile that stood for optimism. And Lala would ask me every now and then: “Am I doing a good job?” and I would respond to that: “ Lala, you are only doing what I am doing, being one”. And she smiled at this, not really understanding what I was saying, but trying to act as if she did, and she just kept working right beside me. I felt so connected with the earth, I enjoyed the sun right on my face, the drops of sweat that only said “passion”, the water that was given to the plants, the love that emerged from the planting, the process of being so united, so closed together in every aspect. I felt the power in my hands, they could do anything at that moment, and they could reach the sky. The laughing, the pictures, the talking, the sharing, the jumping…all of these things were the center of the day. Our hands spoke for who we are, our hands had all the power in the world, our hands planted, constructed, felt, touched and contributed to a tremendous day of human equality, freedom, and good will.

"Remember this story, remember that one act can change the world".- Starhawk

"Only our bare hands, eager to build something new"

The eye of knowledge, the eye that leads me to the imagination, to the deepest part of me, to the soul, to my spirit. We all have that third eye.

The Radha-Krishna amour is a legend of all times. The relationship of Radha and Krishna is the embodiment of love, passion and devotion. Radha's passion for Krishna symbolizes the soul's intense longing and willingness for the ultimate unification with God. Krishna is the soul of Radha, and Radha is definetely the soul of Krishna. She is the undivided form of Krishna. She will remain a mystery, unless one can know inexpressible divine elements.

The Reason for Being Who I Am

Hay que ponerle caramelo al Eleguá pa’ que se esté contento. The invisibility of her words has been bouncing in my head and all I capture are futile words, full of air, carrying no weight, confining no essence. I remember the trembling of my hands, the sophistication in her voice, her big round eyes full of brown. She was passionate about the little solid statue, the little “Niño” (how she used to call it), que le abría los caminos y traía prosperidad. This is the story of my mother, a story that later came to be mine. She adored this creature. This piece of rock, with down sloped caracoled eyes that stared at our lives; a rock that could only stare at us with nothing to say, nothing at all, because it was just a religious symbol, the orisha that my mom would protect more than anything in the world, it was part of her, her obligation, her faith. The icon was real (at least for her). It still is. It was the center of the room, where every Saturday afternoon she would light up candles, set up her mystic corner, and pray. Pray until the orisha listened, pray and pray until it recognized her words. This was her excuse for spending so much time with her ritual: “esperemos que se despierte mijita” as she used to say. Food, and liquor, and water and shelter were given to the Eleguá on a regular basis, with only a purpose: it had to light up our lives, open our paths, liberate us from malice and hatred and many other good things that my mom would usually make up with the purpose of making herself believe that all of these were true, even though the Eleguá would only sit quietly and watch her mind run for itself. My mom really wanted all of these things. She was going through a lot of pain. At this point in our lives, sometimes she wouldn’t have enough resources to cook us dinner, sometimes we didn’t have water, or electricity, or any other basic things that were necessary. My mom wanted freedom, even if she didn’t know it. I wanted it too. She was forced to rely on this orisha, and on many other orishas only because she needed a sense of hope and understanding, because she thought that she could not do it by herself. Like my mom, many other people who I grew up with were attached to something else that was not their own spirit in order to progress in any way. This spiritual reliance is the cause to many of the beliefs that I was tough as a child and that were naturally incorporated into my behavior and into my life in general.
And here is when the story of my birth became an anecdote that neither my mom nor grandma could avoid telling visitors and everyone else whenever the chance emerged. “A esa niña la salvó La Virgencita de La Caridad”. They couldn’t give reasons or explain in any other way the fact that I was saved, cured from illness, resuscitated from death. This usually happens when medical and scientific explanations aren’t enough, when faith becomes too strong and penetrates into your spirit, soul and will. “Sagrado Corazón”, the hospital where I was born was the throne to religious conviction, to rays of faith, and moans of praying. This was the place where dehydrated, I stayed for a month, interned in the hospital with no hope of living, embraced by the arms of a deadly disease, Amebiasis, a parasitic infection that was introduced to my body because a mistake made by the nurse assisting me .She collocated one of the aerosol tubes incorrectly, she put the wrong medicine in it, causing this disease. My lungs full of liquid; my tiny, newborn corpse carried neither strength nor spirit. This is how this medical place, the hospital, became to be the place where my grandma constructed her religious display. It was also, according to my grandma, the place where I was born twice. My grandma loved me too much to let me die, but even more she loved her faith, her pure spirituality, and her mysticism. As soon as she had the chance, she brought all of her statues and icons which of course included La Virgen de la Caridad, which later became my second mother, and to whom, according to my grandma, I owe my salvation. Tears run through the already wrinkled face. My grandma was so focused on her ideals and so integrated into her religion that there couldn’t possibly be any other reasons for my well being. “Te salvé mi princesita”. That’s what I am to my grandma “una princesita”, and this makes me the happiest human being on earth. And to this I owe my life, I say. To her wanting good for me, to doing everything that she could so that I could be well. At this point, I separated love and affection, from everything else that made my salvation possible. And I did this because I believe that it was her unconditional love that saved me, aside from any medical or spiritual curing that went on during my illness. This was the division of what I call religion and faith: the separation of corruption, dishonesty, and fraud with holiness, mysticism, and pure faith. At this point I realized what I was getting into. I realized that I was saved because I had made my decision, that crucial decision that I had be intrigued by for so long. What should I choose? What have I been brought up to and what was born with my character? And this is the difference between a fraudulent soul, and a liberated one. I am free, free because of these teachings that were incorporated into my way of thinking, this tradition and wisdom that is carried out in my country and therefore in my family. From here I chose who to be, what to follow, and who to believe. Que dios te bendiga y la virgen te acompañe. For God’s Sake how I love this phrase! This is a blessing; it’s the spirituality, the faith, the conviction that saves my essence, my existence and my spirit. This is what I chose, not the corruption and distortion of an unfulfilled religion, but the clarity and peace of a sacred devotion; the divine belief in a supreme entity, in a superior being, free of bribery and malice.
Today I am the essence of what I chose to be. I am the symbol of a breakage in tradition in the history of my family, I am that one girl that is not like the others, that responds to you when something is wrong, that thinks critically, that goes against restrictions and false convictions. And I am sure that my grandma is glad for this, I am sure that even though she does not realize it, she is glad that I have found my path. For everything else I am satisfied. I am pleased to be able to use my mind and my heart in their pure state, uninvolved with religious issues, with hatred, with falsity, and corruption.

The pupils of life detangle themselves,
The accordion plays a sad song,
The teachers teach, no one knows why,
The illness penetrates, it harms;
Happiness responds,
The aspiration emerges,
The will sustains,
The hope remains,
The sun reflects.

The Ambiguous Storyline

I am afraid; afraid of letting go, afraid of taking in, afraid of maintaining. That is the anxious vivacity that consolidates my life, the years in it, the months, the days in the months, the nuclear hours in the boundless days, minutes and immeasurable secondsI am afraid of loosing because I have already lost. Fear and passion altogether, the collision of these two brings torment, anguish and the unpredictable agony in which my life is based on. Every now and then we realize how fantastic, unpredictable and unique our minds could be. Inside our fist-sized brains, neurons and brain cells are directing us to do things that we might no want to do, to have thoughts that we are not supposed to have, to behave not exactly as we “are” and many other particular things. From this idea this quote came to mind, “This is who I want to be today, that is who I have been for the past ten years”. Could we really do this? Could we consciously or unconsciously predestine who to “be” or decide how to cope with life? We all have our own personal mystic or realistic ideas about our character, our beliefs, our destiny and our past/future. Now, what about our present? Can we deliberately control our perspective, our inner self, and our soul? We spend a vast amount of time fixing, managing, and coordinating our lives because we can change them. Our lives are flexible; they are there to be directed by us, to be handled by us. That is how the idea of our ambiguous storylines comes to place. Storylines are those aspects of life that tell the person that you are. A storyline can get so attached to me that it actually becomes me, or sometimes not. Sometimes a storyline does not represent who I am, and this is when I detach myself from it. Sometimes I am even aware that I am playing something that I do not want to play, but I am so compromised with it and with everyone around it, that it is hard to detach, and this could bring problems. In my past love relationship I was displaying many of these storylines that I talk about. I was embraced in many of this, only because of conviction, and at the end I realized that this was not who I really wanted to be, it was just a compromise that I did not want to break. I was the helper, trying to help this other person obtain legalization in the United States. I was also the wife, the women that had to report every move, the starter of the matrimonial relationship. At the same time, I was a student, only trying to do her best, trying to keep up with all that involves a student life. All of these storylines and many more were involved in this relationship, that at the end, did not even resemble the person who I truly wanted to be, it did not reflect my personality neither did it identify myself. It was extremely hard to detach myself from it, because once I was in it, it was even hard to realize that I was. But at the end, I came to mind; I thought of my life as a whole, I thought about this attachment and of how damaging it had been to my life. Then I felt extremely free, free of all of those things that tied my life to an unworthy entity, and now it is just me and the wanted storyline. The truth is, we are here to make our own destinies, our own selves, and we could mystically or ideologically detach ourselves from this identity that comes to manipulate our souls. That identity is probably far from being who we really are.

The Mace, the power of knowledge. It dazzles and intoxicates, the stupefier-of-the-mind.

'The beauteous sight', the discus, represents the limitless power which invents and destroys all the spheres and forms of the universe.

The lotus symbolizes the universe, the flower that unfolds in all its glory from the formless endless of the casual waters. Purity.

The conch is the symbol of the origin of existance. When blown, it produces a sound associated with the primeral sound from which creation developed.

A genuine smile turned my world all around

Contracted in the four pale walls of this unknown place, I find myself anxiously waiting to be someone, to be part of someone, and to believe in someone. It feels pointless, and even if everyone says that it is worthy, including the teacher, I still think that all that they have is the will, perhaps I do too, but there is something else missing. But I sit and wait; I wait for the kids, for their happy faces, full of hunger and desperation. Perhaps I feel the same way; even if I felt different (because I did) I am the same, the lack of true happiness behind my eyes, the fake, bogus smile packed of unsaid things, full of mystery and uncertainty. And this is the beginning of the journey, the journey that ended but that continues altogether. The notebook was the first step to our infiltration into their world; the object that resembles one’s identity, the obstacle to hiding your true feelings, the life behind the life. This was a good step, I thought, it doesn’t look that unworthy, this way the kids are going to be able to have something that is theirs, that no one, not even misery will ever detach from them. By the third week, their notebooks were packed of reflections, full of courage and potency. These kids were able to bring life into the paper; they displayed their sentiments and brought out their thoughts. This was genius. It was not so much about the notebook, but about how these kids are subject to freedom, how they seek freedom and go after it whenever they get the chance.And this is what we offered to the kids. The freedom that they lack at the school where teachers are diagnosing their performance at all times, where they’re tested on their intelligence and knowledge based on a three-hour test where they’re tortured until they realize that the material in the test is too complicated for them. This is not how it works with us. As soon as the kids enter the room, they realize that it’s different. They don’t understand what is different perhaps, but they do know that it is. Here, they are able to write about an entry on their notebooks, they could do as they wish with the entry, they’re not timed, graded or any other insane way of torturing kids. Then we may draw, paint, we do insightful things such as paintings that represent our feelings about other things etc… The kids are not used to exercises like this, where they can really speak for themselves and actually say things as they feel it, but they realized that this was the place to do this. At this point in my life, the development of my mind is at its highest point. The reflection on every subject brings true meaning to my actions, the analysis of these kids enhance my analytical thinking and I become an expert on educating these children on how to be free, on how to let their thoughts flow and be present at all times. This new world that I entered has ended, but not at all and this is because that stage of my life has ended in time, but my spirit is still attached to it, like the storyline that becomes one’s self. This storyline is that one that is not present but only because of other things, but it still remains as a lecture, the lecture that has changed my mind in many ways.The knowledge that I acquired from this experience is indescribable. I understand about the crucial segregation that still exists in today’s schools and how this racial segregation affects these kids on a regular basis. Not only the school, but the neighborhood as a whole is also subject to this segregation. This brings scarcity, poor advancement and deterioration of mind and spirit in all cases. This “black school” in this neighborhood has potential in regards to the students. Most of these kids are brilliant, they are smart and their only problem is the problem that the system creates itself. There is insecurity in them, there’s low self-esteem and this is only because those ridiculous standardized tests say so, only because the grades based on a spelling insurrection says so and this is not fair. The true knowledge and appreciation of things comes from the soul, from the will and hope and exists in one’s body. Without these, these kids are just wondering around, waiting to be mandated by teachers, subject to slavery and maltreating. My class was life heaven. My peers were exceptionally devoted to the class, as I was. This brought the potential of all of us together, our will united, and all of our good intentions to make the class feel like the best possible environment. This experience is now part of me, it is a new endeavor that I accomplished and that became part of me, it was one of many storylines that I play, and that even though it is physically over, the spiritual side of it is still a storyline that represents me.