Pliny sat at the edge of the creek and listened to the reeds carefully. They leaned and curled and whispered and Pliny listened. He was there to listen. Sometimes the reeds sang. Pliny looked at the birds and wondered. Why do the reeds sing?
One day, Pliny decided to speak with the Talking Reeds. He asked them gently to let him take them away with him. "We do not want to live in a small jar," they replied in unison.
"You shall not live in a jar," Pliny reassured them. "You will be travelers along this stream, through all the streams, until you reach the sea. After you have circled the World, you will return and I’m sure you will have many stories to tell and sing "explained Pliny.
"Very well, then! But we do not want to go alone. We want a compass or a star to guide us, "they said.
"I understand. I’m not a compass or a star, but I will go with you and return. "
Pliny reaped a thousand reeds, and there were still many thousands. He entwined them in a mysterious way, not knowing what was guiding his fingers more agile than ever, forming new patterns that moved. They danced like reeds used to dance in the water. He didn’t know why but the patterns also spoke and sang. Though they were uprooted from the brook bed, the reeds were still alive, he thought.
After he finished the task, he looked and felt happy with his work. Now the reeds were a boat. He entered in it and left with the reeds. They walked and sailed everywhere, by streams, rivers and seas, by valleys, mountains and skies. And as they slid, Pliny saw the reeds covering themselves with new patterns that were renewed every moment.
Not knowing what to call them, he decided to call them "letters." It was just a word that a cloud had whispered to him and he had heard echoed over and over in the birds' voice.
Without knowing how, the letters entered his soul and began to order themselves spontaneously. And all around the boat spoke and sang. The cloud passed by again and told him that now he could remember everything and create everything he wanted.
Pliny asked the cloud how he could do it. The cloud descended close to the boat and said, "Now that you know how to give a body to words, you can write in me everything you see inside you. Then I'll go everywhere and I’ll rain all over. I'll feed the creek and the Talking Reeds again. And everything around will understand every drop of me because everyone will speak the same language, even if words and chants are all different. "
Pliny understood and covered the cloud with millions of words that continue to rain all around.
São Ludovino, 5/12/2018
****************************
Originally written in Portuguese as it follows.
PLÍNIO E OS JUNCOS
(A invenção da escrita)
Plínio sentava-se à beira do riacho e ouvia os juncos com atenção. Eles inclinavam-se e ondulavam e sussurravam e Plínio ouvia. Estava ali para ouvir. Às vezes os juncos cantavam. Plínio olhava as aves e interrogava-se. Porque cantam os juncos?
Certo dia, Plínio decidiu falar com os Juncos Falantes. Pediu-lhes delicadamente que o deixassem levá-los consigo. “Não queremos viver numa pequena jarra” responderam em uníssono.
“Não vivereis numa jarra” tranquilizou-os Plínio. “Sereis viajantes ao longo deste riacho, por todos os riachos, até que chegareis ao mar. Depois de circundardes o Mundo, voltareis e estou certo de que tereis muitas histórias para contar e cantar” explicou Plínio.
“Muito bem! Mas não queremos ir sós. Queremos uma bússola ou uma estrela para nos guiar” disseram.
“Compreendo. Não sou uma bússola ou uma estrela, mas irei convosco e voltarei”.
Plínio colheu mil juncos e ainda ficaram muitos milhares. Entrançou-os de uma forma misteriosa, sem entender ao certo o que movia os seus dedos mais ágeis do que nunca, formando padrões novos que se moviam. Dançavam como os juncos costumavam dançar na água. Não sabia porquê mas os padrões também falavam e cantavam. Embora arrancados do leito do riacho os juncos continuavam vivos, pensou.
Acabado o trabalho, olhou e sentiu-se feliz com a sua obra. Agora os juncos eram um barco. Entrou nele e partiu com os juncos. Andaram por todo o lado, por riachos, rios e mares, por vales, montanhas e céus. E enquanto deslizavam, Plínio via os juncos cobrirem-se de novos padrões que se renovavam a cada instante.
Sem saber como chamar-lhes, decidiu chamar-lhes “letras”. Era apenas uma palavra que uma nuvem lhe tinha sussurrado e tinha ouvido ecoar vezes sem conta na voz das aves.
Sem saber como, as letras entraram dentro da sua alma e começaram a ordenar-se de forma espontânea. E em redor todo o barco falava e cantava. A nuvem passou de novo e disse-lhe que agora podia lembrar tudo e criar tudo o que quisesse.
Plínio perguntou à nuvem como podia fazê-lo. A nuvem baixou rente ao barco e disse: “Agora que sabes dar corpo às palavras, podes escrever em mim tudo o que vês dentro de ti. Depois, eu hei-de ir por aí e hei-de chover por toda a parte. Voltarei a alimentar o riacho e os Juncos Falantes. E tudo em redor entenderá cada gota de mim porque todos falarão a mesma linguagem, mesmo que as palavras e os cantos sejam todos diferentes.”
Plínio entendeu e cobriu a nuvem de milhões de palavras que continuam a chover por aí.
Greta Thunberg is just a sixteen year old girl from Sweden but she has the conscience of millions of years. She’s one of those old souls who wake up from the silence to wake up other consciences. She isn’t revealing anything new; the facts are old and threatening. What’s new is the authenticity and the courage. Instead of thinking about the usual consumerism, as many youth and old do, she thinks and talks about what’s really precious and vital to all: Mother Earth, our Common Home, the only home we have. And she doesn’t do what she does just to call the attention on herself. She’s the opposite of a vain person; she’s meaningful in every word and action. And even if we had many other homes across the Universe where we could move to right now, what right do we have to destroy what existed much before human life existed?
I believe she’s touching and awakening some consciences. Let’s see how many will act accordingly. Beautiful speeches and good intentions we had a lot before. The time is not of hope, it is the time of action, as se very well states.
I wrote the following poem-story some months before I discovered Greta Thunberg and her epic battle for Mother Earth. But the idea within the words is the same. In a world where a fanatical destructive religion shows despise for life in the name of some kind of monstrous god, a world were materialistic values despise the spirit that inhabits every natural creation, we really need to meet again and again with that “missing god” that inhabits in all the things in the Universe, beginning by Nature itself. Millions and millions of years before humans invented all religions and all gods at their own image, millions and millions of years before money and power conquered the human world, there was the Universe, Mother Earth and Nature. This should be the great common battle of all human beings. Find or re-find the “Missing God”, acting, being respectful and meaningful in each day. This is a point of no return. Total resurrection is already impossible. So play your part in this peaceful battle for Earth and help to save what can still be saved.
My poem-story is a poem of hope, much more hopeful than reality itself. Yet to act in a determined way, without surrender, we need some kind of hope.
The silent voice of Earth is sounding everywhere like thunder, storms, floods, drought and fire… but it seems unheard. For how long?
TO A MISSING GOD
Throughout the mountains the valley stretches
Walks illuminating the slopes
With a very slight veil of transparency.
Those who have always lived in that valley
Know him since always.
And he was already there long before the first one was born.
He was always present
And no one ever found his form or limits.
He used to walk around everywhere, complete and colossal
And that was enough for the highest mountain
The deepest lake, the smallest plant
To follow its course throughout time.
The days were always beautiful and endless
In the valley of soft transparency.
The sun always woke up and fell asleep
Being the same sparkling sphere embracing the world.
Upon the head of all the inhabitants poured
The light and warmness of the whole universe.
Everything was unfinished in its eternal growth
And it was perfect in its cyclical finitude.
From other parts came other inhabitants
In search of nectar and rest
In search of precious metals
In search of thrones and scepters
In search of what they imagined to be in the valley of transparency.
But the valley was another,
Quite unlike anything they sought,
And, day after day, they wanted to make it just like themselves.
The light steps began to slow down
Became heavy and sad as lead
The veil became a shadow
And the body matter opaque and sick.
Here and there appeared black rips
That started spreading all over the valley.
The mountains that until then had lived in serene contemplation
First, they buckled under the blackness
Then they grew huge
Maddened by the growing darkness.
By the streams, the children were looking for fishes
That they could no longer see
The older ones were groping the paths in search of the tigers
That could no longer roar
The seeders embraced the earth
To give her their last heat and light
The musicians called the birds with their faint chants
But the sky was empty and the thin rain
Was cracking the earth even more instead of satiating her.
Everyone was looking for ways to find back the valley
Where they had been born, where everything had been born.
Seeing that, alone, each one by itself, they couldn’t get anything
They united and recreated the first old tribe again.
All hands were one
All hearts beating in harmony
All desires in one yearning
All eyes looking for the initial transparency.
And so they saw, all along the valley
And beyond the distance
What was missing more than what was there.
The old torn veil was bleeding from every fissure.
They thought to sew it, to cover with their bare hands
Every hole, every interstice, every wound.
They did it with all the dedication
Days and nights unceasingly
Any way they could imagine.
At the end of each day, the hands were heavier
The legs more unsteady
The eyes tired of waiting
And not recognizing the beings of yore.
Where were the leafy trees
The clear limpid voices of the animals
The source that used to feed all rivers
The birds that used to bring the seasons
The deep blue that used to offer them eternity every day?
Just a while ago they were there
All in the same veil of transparency
The one who had always walked through the valley
Through all the valleys and mountains of the world.
Someone had taken them
One by one they had disappeared
And the valley was empty of life.
The new inhabitants were still happy
Their claws stuck in the rags of the light that remained.
They threw golden coins into the air
And they swallowed them voraciously.
Tired of fear and anger
The mountains lowered the slopes
Until they stayed close to the valley
They allowed the sun that remained
To illuminate all wounds clearly
And the memory of the beginning to bring revelation.
There was nothing to add;
Only the beginning had to be reborn.
Reborn from the beginning
And redo all transparency.
Without words, everyone understood.
Each one got to work and did everything they could and knew.
Some left to very far
Some stirred the earth
Some gathered all the pieces of the veil they found
And others wove lines of light to bind each piece together.
Long and arduous task that does not admit surrender.
Long and devout labor that the sun and the moon saw reverently
Extensive memory that little by little
Returned to each being the existence
And its place in the World.
And at the end of many days of dedication
Knowing that they had done all they could do
They fell asleep at last under a sky
That started to flicker again.
No one knows for sure
How long did last this long regenerative sleep.
What is certain is that one day
Dawn came back just like itself.
The sun rose shining like never before
The brooks rejoiced down the hillside.
Birds brought new songs
That everyone recognized without ever hearing them
The tigers roared and walked with their old companions.
And the days were endless and beautiful again.
But where were the new inhabitants now,
Those who had torn the veil that protected the valley?
They had disappeared
Not even the shadow remained.
Or maybe they've just left the mountains
In search of other fertile valleys.
"Take care of your valleys
And the transparency that protects them," said the elders
"For the beasts are not the tigers, nor the birds, nor the trees.
Nor the high mountains that cut the horizon.
Keep the most ancient roots
Accept in your bosom only those who love and honor life.
Each valley will be as much transparent
As each and every being that dwells therein."
And the tigers and the birds and the trees and the waters
And the mountains and the children understood
And transparency returned.
São Ludovino, 21/5/2018
*************************************************
This poem was originally written in Portuguese as it follows.
A UM DEUS DESAPARECIDO
Por entre as montanhas o vale estende-se
Caminha iluminando as encostas
Com um levíssimo véu de transparência.
Quem viveu sempre naquele vale
Conhece-o desde sempre
E ele já lá estava muito antes de o primeiro nascer.
Esteve sempre presente
E nunca lhe encontraram a forma ou os limites.
Andava por ali, inteiro e colossal
E isso bastava para que a mais alta montanha
O mais profundo lago, a mais pequena planta
Seguisse o seu rumo ao longo dos tempos.
Os dias foram sempre belos e infindáveis
No vale da suave transparência.
O sol acordou e adormeceu sempre
Sendo a mesma esfera cintilante abarcando o mundo.
Sobre a cabeça de todos os habitantes derramou
A luz e o calor de todo o universo.
Tudo estava inacabado no seu eterno crescer
E era perfeito na sua cíclica finitude.
De outras partes vieram outros habitantes
Em busca de néctar e repouso
Em busca de metais preciosos
Em busca de tronos e ceptros
Em busca do que imaginavam haver no vale da transparência.
Mas o vale era outro,
Bem diferente de tudo quanto procuravam,
E, dia após dia, quiseram fazê-lo igual a si mesmos.
Os passos leves foram abrandando
Tornaram-se pesados e tristes como chumbo
O véu tornou-se sombra
E o corpo, matéria opaca e doente.
Aqui e além apareceram rasgões negros
Que foram alastrando por todo o vale.
As montanhas que, até então, viviam em serena contemplação
Primeiro, vergaram sob o negrume
Depois, cresceram descomunais
Enlouquecidas pela escuridão crescente.
Junto aos riachos, as crianças procuravam os peixes
Que já não podiam ver
Os mais velhos tacteavam as veredas em busca dos tigres
Que já não podiam rugir
Os semeadores abraçavam a terra
Para lhe dar o seu último calor e luz
Os músicos chamavam as aves com os seus ténues cânticos
Mas o céu estava vazio e a exígua chuva
Gretava ainda mais a terra em vez de a saciar.
Todos procuravam meios de reencontrar o vale
Onde tinham nascido, onde tudo tinha nascido.
Vendo que, sozinhos, cada um por si, nada conseguiam
Uniram-se e formaram de novo a primeira velha tribo.
Todas as mãos eram uma
Todos os corações batendo em uníssono
Todos os desejos num único anseio
Todos os olhos procurando a transparência inicial.
E, assim, viram, ao longo de todo o vale
E para lá de toda a distância
O que faltava mais do que o que havia.
O velho véu rasgado sangrava por cada fissura.
Pensaram cosê-lo, cobrir com as próprias mãos
Cada buraco, cada interstício, cada ferida.
Fizeram-no com toda a dedicação
Dias e noites a fio
De todos os modos que conseguiram imaginar.
Ao fim de cada dia, as mãos estavam mais pesadas
As pernas mais trôpegas
Os olhos cansados de esperar
E não reconhecer os seres de outrora.
Onde estavam as árvores frondosas
As vozes límpidas dos animais
A nascente que alimentava todos os rios
As aves que traziam as estações
O azul profundo que lhes oferecia a eternidade em cada dia?
Ainda há pouco estavam ali
Todos sob o mesmo véu de transparência
Que sempre caminhara pelo vale
Por todos os vales e montanhas do Mundo.
Alguém os tinha levado
Um a um tinham desaparecido
E o vale ficara vazio de vida.
Os novos habitantes continuavam felizes
De garras cravadas nos farrapos de luz que restavam.
Lançavam ao ar moedas douradas
E engoliam-nas vorazmente.
Cansadas do medo e da raiva
As montanhas baixaram as encostas
Até ficarem rentes ao vale
Deixaram que o sol que restava
Iluminasse claramente todas as feridas
E a memória do princípio trouxesse a revelação.
Nada havia a acrescentar
Só era preciso fazer renascer o princípio
Renascer desde o princípio
E refazer toda a transparência.
Sem palavras, todos compreenderam.
Cada um meteu mãos à obra e fez tudo o que podia e sabia
Alguns partiram para muito longe
Alguns revolveram a terra
Alguns reuniram todos os pedaços do véu que encontraram
E outros teceram linhas de luz para unir cada pedaço.
Longa e árdua tarefa que não admite a rendição.
Longo e devoto labor que o sol e a lua viram reverentes
Extensíssima memória que pouco a pouco
Devolveu a cada ser a existência
E o seu lugar no Mundo.
E no final de muitos dias de entrega
Sabendo que tinham feito tudo o que podiam fazer
Adormeceram enfim sob um céu
Que principiava de novo a cintilar.
Ninguém sabe ao certo
Quanto durou esse longo sono regenerador.
O que é certo, é que, um certo dia
O amanhecer voltou igual a si mesmo.
O sol raiou brilhando como nunca brilhara
Os riachos rejubilavam descendo as encostam
As aves traziam novas canções
Que todos reconheceram sem jamais as terem ouvido
Os tigres rugiram e caminharam com os velhos companheiros
E os dias voltaram a ser infindáveis e belos.
Mas onde estavam agora os novos habitantes
Que tinham rasgado o véu que protegia o vale?
Tinham desaparecido
Nem sequer a sombra restou.
Ou talvez tenham partido para lá das montanhas
Em busca de outros vales férteis.
“Cuidai dos vossos vales
E da transparência que os protege” diziam os anciãos
“Que as feras não são os tigres, nem as aves, nem as árvores
Nem as altas montanhas que recortam o horizonte.
Conservai o mais antigo
Acolhei no vosso seio apenas o que ama e honra a vida.
Cada vale será tão transparente
Quanto o for cada um e todos os que nele habitarem.”
Eternal Bird, drawing by São Ludovino.
Joining the souls, drawing by São Ludovino.
Guardian, drawing by São Ludovino.
Mingling Light, drawing by São Ludovino.
The Spirit of Matter - Being the Light, drawing by São Ludovino.
The Spirit of Matter - Water of Life, drawing by São Ludovino.
The Spirit of Matter - Natural Soul, drawing by São Ludovino.
The Spirit of Matter - Flora and the Wind, drawing by São Ludovino.
The Path of Light, drawing by São Ludovino.
Fishbird II, drawing by São Ludovino.
Rebirth, drawing by São Ludovino.
Moontree, drawing by São Ludovino.
Ocean links, drawing by São Ludovino.
The Spirit of Matter - Fusion, drawing by São Ludovino.
Ocean Eyes, drawing by São Ludovino.
Sad Rainbowflower, drawing by São Ludovino.
Sad Rainbowflower - detail, drawing by São Ludovino.
Natural biochemistry II, drawing by São Ludovino.
Tiny Whole, drawing by São Ludovino.
The Spirit of Matter - Carrying the Elements, drawing by São Ludovino.
