Enchanting and Surprising

“True love cannot be found where it does not exist, nor can it be denied where it does.” Torquato Tasso

Today has been spent surprised by visitations from family; and, research into my past, that resurrected itself, without warning.

So I guess it was a great day. Always interesting when the past resurrects a topic or person who influenced your mind, and changed your life, as Michel Foucault did mine when I met him at Berkeley in 1980, in the main library, one afternoon. For the next few years, had the pleasure of getting to know him, talking about our travels, and how views and ideology can change, just being in a new location on the planet.

I also sat in on a few of his philosophy seminars in the Fall of  1983. He loved Berkeley, lived in SF, and probably would have spent more years at Berkeley, than in Paris, for a time,  had he not died from AIDS in 1984.

I remember when he lectured in Zellerback Hall and thousands crammed in, while police blocked off paths, pushed people off steps and away from walkways, until people started yelling and screaming to get to Wheeler Hall, where video screens transmitted the lecture, for another 1000 admirers and critics, of one of the world's greatest living, postmodernism philosophers.

Yes, it was a very good day, since I also had the pleasure of taking my brother and niece to one of my favorite Mexican Restaurants, where I enjoyed the Mexican Pizza, which is one of the great gifts brought to America, by the zany Ixtapa owners .

I also learned how to fill a kerosene heater with a bulb pump, removed a shattered light bulb from a rusted socket, in my antiquarian bathroom, and found out that you can store a 5 gallon kerosene can, safely, without blowing up the house. I also learned that possums do not like coleslaw. So all in all, a satisfying day. I also need to buy long-nosed pliers.

Working on my manuscript, I read Francois Lauruelle's article, The Truth According to Hermes: Theorems on the Secret and Communication, which led me back to Torquato Tasso, who was one of the greatest Renaissance poets, and almost became the king of poets, of Italy, had he not died a few months before the Pope was going to honor him.

I think the hardest thing about writing a book is the research, and not because the research is difficult. It is because, like today, while researching I meandered in many different directions, across the Internet, as I tried to work through another chapter on this book I am writing about men, which includes insights on ethics, relationships and mythology. So, the Internet playground seduced me away,propelled me into the past, and I ended back where I started, with a lot more packages of info to unload from my mind, then finally arrived, staring at the last period, of the last sentence in the manuscript, and wrote a few more pages.

Taking in all this information today will propel me into something new tomorrow or maybe next week, when I am at Berkeley again. Strolling around campus, which should be quiet, over the Thanksgiving break, memories will arise, and maybe the Bears Lair will be open, and I can sit and have glass of something, while I remember the first time I saw the Talking Heads (remember them?) playing in the square, while the old, blond, naked lady danced while the Japanese Tour Bus occupants watched and photographed her, and David Bryne and Chris Franz went crazy, taking us to the river and burning down the house.

I want to be somewhere warm tonight. Somewhere in a jungle, listening to the sounds of the crickets, yowls of large cats, and monkey yelps. Smelling the air that holds the scents of jungle flowers and soft, damp earth. Something erotic about the jungle at night. It felt that way sometimes, when I was in Kauai last January, lying on the grass, looking at the stars from atop a mountain above Kapaa.

I love the Amazon jungle outside of Quito, Ecuador and Iguaçu Falls, Argentine side. I remember the red dirt at Iguaçu and the dense, heaviness of the air, during the days. The mind slows and the senses sharpen when you are in a jungle. You are aware you are an animal, and there are more dangerous ones around you, watching you, that you never see.

You become aware of limitations, as a human, watching animals jump from vines to trees, and aware of snakes slithering around palm trunks,  50 feet in the air, and incredibly large insects, sitting on leaves which you don't notice until you are upon them, or they jump on the back of your shirt.

I would return to the friends' home, or hotel, in these places, and enjoy the outdoor, sun-warmed shower, sit on the patio, sipping large glasses of cool drinks, as my adrenaline normalized from being on alert walking through pristine, primordial splendor.

One day I would like to go with a man into the jungle and walk with him, like Eve did with Adam. Lay with him on a bed, white sheets, windows open, listening to those sounds which connect you to the earth and its powers. Your brain slows in the jungle, and your think differently, a cadence arises which pulses through your body unlike other places on earth. A slow, evanescent cadence which culminates in soft, sweet slumber.

I can taste the fresh guava juice and the papaya pieces, nibbled, on a porch ,in the Ecuadorian jungle, while a woman hummed to the sky, and remember watching a man and woman walk slowly toward me, past me, into the house, and the door closing to their bedroom. What mysteries did that night hold for them? Sweetness and love and passion, I hope. They were in their 80's and married a few weeks before we met in the jungle paradise. I think of the quote by Gibran, below, and realize how wonderfully the universe provides astonishing surprises and love for us all.

“It is wrong to think that love comes from long companionship and persevering courtship. Love is the offspring of spiritual affinity and unless that affinity is created in a moment, it will not be created for years or even generations”

I had a good today, filled with memories, teachings and wonderful food and conversations. I was creative, energized, kind and thoughtful to those who spent time with me. San Francisco, next week, will be unlike any trip I have taken there before. I do not know why I feel that, this morning, at 3am. Something is arising in my orbit about this trip, and like a walk through the jungle, I am aware it is hovering around me, cannot see it, yet know it is there.

Like Tasso's quote below, a piece of my soul that I never knew was missing, will be given to me and I can not tell you how. There are two things about life that I love. It is enchanting and surprising.

“Love is when he gives you a piece of your soul, that you never knew was missing.”Torquato Tasso quote