The Dolphin Tree

End of an experiment

2010-01-10T09:41:00.003+01:00

I've decided to end this little blogging experiment — officially, at least. Several months after starting this blog, I started another one for expressing the more esoteric side of myself. But this constant splitting of myself into more parts just doesn't work, so I've decided to focus more on the other blog — which is also rather neglected.

Maybe now and then I'll come back now and then to add a tidbit. Who knows? Anyway... life moves on.

The other blog is here.

Cricket musings

2009-07-22T02:30:00.000+02:00

The crickets are out tonight. That means a peaceful night.

So what's so special about crickets? Durned if I know, but I sure do love the sound they make.

The surf is lively too. Crickets and surf together. Who could ask for more?

The age of self-deception

2009-07-08T13:58:00.002+02:00

In the U.S.
Sarah Palin thinks she's qualified to be president of the U.S. and has seemingly decided to go for it.

Is it possible the Republican party agrees on this? Or some other party — that may not exist yet?

In Spain.
The president of the autonomous region of Valencia, fiefdom of the the conservative Partido Popular (People's Party), is on the verge of being indicted for his role in a massive financial scandal that apparently involves a few more of the party's higher-ups. Reaction of the PP? Closing ranks around him as an "honest man" and silence from the party's leader (for now...).

Makes one wonder what they're trying to hide.

Michael se ha ido

2009-07-08T13:56:00.000+02:00

Ayer el mundo se despidió (oficialmente) de Michael Jackson. Michael fue el símbolo de una época en la vida de la raza humana, que ahora llega a su fin. Su fin y su final.

50 años. Medio siglo. Período en el que se fraguó una nueva forma de ser y de pensar de los seres humanos. Todo en la persona de Michael, quien ahora ha dejado su forma humana para liberar esa energía.

Hasta pronto, Michael. Disfruta del espectáculo de ver lo que hacemos con lo que nos has dejado.

Reflexión del día

2009-07-04T01:26:00.001+02:00

La felicidad es una trayectoria, no un destino.

Happiness is a path, not a destination.

Le bonheur est une trajectoire et non pas une destination.

Cosas del fútbol

2009-06-24T22:55:00.004+02:00

Hoy el fútbol me ha partido en dos. Selección nacional de Estados Unidos contra SN de España. Semifinales. Después de una tarde de té con amigos, llego a casa y pongo la tele. ¡1 a 0 a favor de EE.UU.! Minuto 60. No puede ser. Con la mala fama que tiene el equipo estadounidense aquí.

Y los gringos todavía van y meten otro gol. Bueno ... ya no había mucho que hacer, y los españoles quedaron fuera, a luchar por el tercer o cuarto puesto.

En fin. Cosa inesperada. Y el primer partido perdido después de una racha de 13 o 14 partidos ganados. Hay que ver cómo es este deporte.

The webring adventure

2009-05-10T22:08:00.001+02:00

Life has strange ways of doing things. But I suppose that's because we don't get the message otherwise.

I've had my website registered at Webring.com for many years, but more or less neglected the place until now and then something happened that required my attention. Lately they've made some drastic changes that required a lot of my attention. Like most people, I had a mix of the original coding (html, for those readers who understand that) and the new navbars they came out with a few years ago and I was never able to get my head around. More than once I'd thought of dropping the whole webring thing altogether but never did it.

Now they've decided to standardize everything (translation: they got hit by the globalization wave) and want to get rid of all the html and have us display all our rings on a single navbar. They also want us to put that navbar on a content page instead of a special webring page, which most people had been doing. They say it's more logical to send people directly to your home page, or whatever page you want to feature in a ring. Now that I think about it, it does make more sense.

I spent a couple of frustrating days trying to figure out how to move everything to my home page and got nothing but chaos. I finally got fed up and decided to dump the whole thing. The only way out is to drop out of your rings, one by one, and then you can close your account. So I started dropping rings (fortunately, there weren't many) but there was one I couldn't bear to part with.

I couldn't figure out how to move it to the home page, so I resorted to the FAQ and help pages, where I got confusing and often wrong explanations of what I had to do. Typical of so many websites that keep tweaking and changing things but never think of updating the help pages. I finally contacted the support people, who gave me an explanation I could understand. So I got my lone ring to appear on my home page, wrote a little blurb about the whole thing and considered it done.

However...

The next day I woke up still wondering what it was that attracted me to that ring. I finally realized it was because I no longer felt like I belonged in most of the others. I'd moved on. So I did some searching and came up with a list of rings I felt more at home with and started joining them; I also decided to return to two of the old ones.

So there I am back again, but on a new path.

Internet censorship, and how to win that war

2009-02-20T18:32:00.004+01:00

A must-watch video (with subtitles in Spanish). 1984 (if you remember George Orwell's novel of maaaany years ago) arrived a bit later than he predicted, but it's here now and has been for a while.

But we'll win. Big — very big — changes are underway on Planet Earth and stuff like this is really the death throes of the soon-to-be-former powers that be.

Is Alex Jones exaggerating? Maybe, but he's a counterbalance to the people who feel the need to control us (and I have no doubt that such people exist, in high places), and the truth is somewhere in between. Maybe someday we'll create a society where Alex Jones and other alarm-sounders like him won't be needed anymore.

So, listen to him with your heart, not with your intellectual judgment, and don't get paranoid. In other words, don't play the game.

Here are the links to the websites Alex Jones mentions in the video:
http://www.infowars.com/
http://www.prisonplanet.com/
http://www.jonesreport.com/

Big storm

2008-11-02T19:57:00.001+01:00

Last night there was a storm, a BIG storm. Plenty of rain, added to the rest that had fallen throughout the day, and lots of wind blowing the contents of our rooftop terrace around. BIG surf too. It sounded like a train.

Sometime, well into the night, I heard a big roar approaching. Couldn't help gritting my teeth and holding my breath until it hit the house. POW! Shortly after that I fell asleep and don't know how long it all lasted.

I found out this afternoon that the big roar was what the weather folks described as "something like a tornado" that hit hardest in a town about 20 km from me at about 120 km/hour. We were on the edge, so didn't get hit quite so hard.

This evening, after a day and a half shut up indoors, I decided to get out and take a walk. I found the surf coming up onto the long beach all the way across the sand at one end and nearly all the way along the rest. Looking down from the bridge across the highway, of course. It wasn't exactly a day for beach walking.

Then down to the little cove (Els Capellans), still getting surf halfway up but full of trash and other stuff dragged in from out at sea, so last night it had obviously flooded the entire beach. I climbed up the rocks a bit to watch the waves crashing, but not too far because every now and then one sent spray all the way up. Quite a show.

There was a new moon in the sky, a few days old, on its way down.

¿Crisis? ¿Qué crisis?

2008-10-26T12:07:00.010+01:00

La verdadera historia y origen de nuestra crisis du jour, explicado con palabras que los seres que la padecen podemos entender. Patrocinado por...Buenafuente. (¿Quién más podría ser?)

Y por si quieres instruirte un poco más ampliamente en la Teoría de la Crisis Ninja...
Sin más comentarios.

El circo anual de los presupuestos del estado

2008-09-30T17:27:00.012+02:00

Entre la recta final de la liga de fútbol y el punto álgido del teatro de la economía que es la presentación de los presupuestos anuales del estado, no sé cuál causa más furor y hace correo más ríos de tinta.

Bueno, en el caso de los presupuestos, ya no son ríos de tinta sino chorros de megabytes. Un punto más para la economía en el marcador de lo de ser respetuoso con el medio ambiente.

Hoy se ha producido el gran acontecimiento de la entrega de los presupuestos en el Congreso. Para conmemorar los avances tecnológicos del Gobierno (que acaso no los financieros), un para de imágenes de cómo han adelgazado los presupuestos en los últimos años — desde la época de la descarga de no-sé-cuántos libros bajo la atenta mirada de los leónes hasta un lapicito de memoria.

Véanse.

Antes:
Pedro Solbes, Ministro de la Economía, y Manuel Marín, Presidente del Congreso de los Diputados, frente a una pequeña porción de los antiguos libros de los presupuestos, hace unos añitos.

Quería poner una foto de la descarga de los libros de la furgoneta del Ministerio de Hacienda, pero no encontré ninguna. Como esto ya es historia, no interesa.

Foto de El País

Después:
El susodicho Solbes, ahora con el actual Presidente del Congreso de los Diputados, José Bono. (Marín no sobrevivió. Así es la vida.)

¡Qué caras de felicidad con el invento!

Foto de La Vanguardia

La foto de la luna

2008-09-24T18:08:00.005+02:00

Bueno, por fin he conseguido hacer una foto más o menos satisfactoria de mi luna llena, con unos cuantos retoques. No es tan espectacular como la escena vista en la vida real, pero ahí está, para recordarla.

Lunizada

2008-09-15T21:59:00.001+02:00

Creo que acabo de inventar una palabra. O quizá sería mejor decir "lunatizada". Da lo mismo.

Esta noche, volviendo a casa, allí estaba ella, esperándome, colgada cual bola anaranjada, bien subida en su camino pero todavía cerca del horizonte, para que la viéramos bien, en todo su esplendor.

Y cuando me acerqué más al mar, su estela plateada, hoy con tonos de naranja, que siempre me invita. ¡Ay, cómo me gusta la luna llena! Y más en una noche como ésta, después de un par de días de un resfriado de campeonato. Seguro que mañana estaré curada.

Quise parar en el puente para contemplarla con su camino de plata, pero llevaba una hilera de coches detrás. De repente me acordé que podría ver todo bien desde mi azotea, así que subí nada más llegar a casa. Hasta saqué unas fotos. Había jurado que dejaría de hacer fotos de la luna porque nunca me salen bien, pero no pude resistir. Mañana veremos cómo están éstas.

Querido blog,

2008-09-13T22:03:00.004+02:00

Hoy es sábado pero me parece domingo. Todo el día mirando el calendario porque no me lo acababa de creer, con tanta paz y tranquilidad. Se han marchado los veraneantes, ha dejado de hacer calor + humedad y hay un vientecito que está agitando el oleaje.

Anoche se me presentó un buen resfriado, para celebrar esta repentina entrada en otoño, y hoy no he sido capaz de hacer nada...productivo, se entiende. Todo el día haciendo lo que me daba la gana, y sin necesidad de buscar un pretexto. Sólo que no me siento muy animada. Bueno, todo pasará... Un poco de quietud de vez en cuando nos va bien. Por eso nos resfriamos, supongo.

Te regalo una imagen para celebrar el otoño.

Hasta otro día.

Thought for the day

2008-08-29T23:39:00.001+02:00

Today I read something that provoked the following thought:

When we're faced with making a change in our lives — changing jobs, going into a new business venture, moving to a new place, entering into a new personal relationship, whatever — we usually ask, "what's in it for me?"

Maybe we should consider asking, "what can I offer?"

Men, women and power

2008-08-28T10:05:00.005+02:00

This morning when I woke up I rolled over and switched on the radio to hear the news that Barack Obama was nominated as the US Democratic presidential candidate by acclamation — orchestrated by Hillary Clinton, in connivance with Obama, as a way to resolve the dilemma of her recalcitrant delegates who were refusing to release their votes even after she asked them to.

Most clever lady! A lesson in how to relinquish a position of power and become even more powerful in the bargain. The world is agape at this woman who is now one of the most powerful political figures in the world.

And then there's Bill. Bill & Hillary. Hillary & Bill. A public personal relationship that's had tongues wagging and heads heating up for years. And now comes Michelle Obama, who will most certainly not be a traditional president's wife. What? Another presidential duo?

It's well known that US presidents' wives have traditionally played an important role in their husbands' presidential lives — and probably had more influence on domestic and international politics than most people care to admit. Laura Bush, in her quiet, apparently-shrinking-violet way, has undoubtedly kept her erratic, unstable husband from inflicting even more damage on the world.

So what's new? There's a famous saying that behind every great man there's a great woman. Well, that's OK, as long as it's done in private and the little woman keeps her proper place. But that's changing now. The women in these duos are no longer afraid to exercise their power in public and the men don't feel threatened by it. Human beings are such a weird lot. Everybody knows what's going on and talks about it in whispers, but goes berserk when it becomes public.

So what is this? Well, it's just masculine and feminine energy in balance, working in tandem, maybe the beginning of the end of polarization on the 3D stage...

Sunday musing

2008-08-24T13:21:00.001+02:00

Don't ask "why?" and don't ask "who is to blame?" Such questions lead nowhere, except in circles.

Thought for the day

2008-08-23T12:40:00.002+02:00

Last night I started transferring stuff from an old outdated notebook application into a new one that runs much better in the current incarnation of my OS. The old one was my favorite for years but the developer seems to have been swept away with the sands of time. Pity.

While at it, I found an interesting thought I'd jotted down one day and leave with you.

Nature is inherently disorderly. The Western world has spent many hundreds of years trying to control Nature and is perhaps coming to understand that it's not possible.

Gone too long

2008-08-05T03:09:00.004+02:00

I just added a post to this blog and then took a look at the page.

Good grief! The last post is from nearly a year ago! I knew I'd been away a long time but I had no idea how long.

The other day I ran across a blog that consisted mostly of very short but to-the-point entries. Hmmmmm, I thought. Here I am knocking myself out trying to come up with really meaningful, earth-shaking, thought-provoking posts, and if I can't produce them, I do nothing. Making the whole venture more complicated than it needs to be.

So we change the chip and make things easier and more fun. Blogging is an adventure and should be fun, not just another chore.

After all, it's August and exciting things always happen to me in August.

Cricket nights

2008-08-05T03:05:00.001+02:00

Another cricket night. We've had a lot this summer. In spite of the heat over the past few days, it manages to cool down enough at night to get the crickets out.

I love the sound of crickets. It gives me a feeling of peace, like everything is all right. I suppose it's associated with some long-buried memory and all that's left is the feeling.

Changes

2007-09-06T11:42:00.000+02:00

Last Friday, 31 August, I spent the afternoon roaming around Tarragona. There was a photo exhibition I wanted to see & it was the last day, so no more procrastinating. Secret Traces, by Francesco Jodice. Highly recommended.

It was in one of those spiffed-up sheds in the port, 8-10 huge digital screens, visible from both sides. Each one was a projection of a series of still photos following a person, or a car in a couple of them, going about their business around a different city on each screen. It was fun, especially trying to figure out what city you were looking at.

Then I went out to do the same thing, the day's errands. It was one of those magical days when everything comes out just right. A "round" day, as the Spanish say. The last day of August too, a month that's been very special for me for many years, when things happen inside. On my way home I had that feeling of absolute peace that comes over me now and then. Also the feeling that something had changed, like I'd turned a corner. I used to think that meant some big change on the planet, but now I realize it's a change in me. Most of the time I don't know what's changed. I just feel different.

A view of depression

2007-08-16T00:52:00.000+02:00

Depression is a way of shutting down feelings in the face of something we feel unable to cope with.

Or an upsurge of unfamiliar feelings or submerged experiences coming to the surface of our consciousness in a way that overwhelms or frightens us.

Mild depression also occurs when we are undergoing inner change. Maybe it's the body's way of slowing us down, taking our focus away from external affairs to aid the change process.

Just a thought.

What a storm!

2007-08-13T14:12:00.000+02:00

Two muggy, sticky days. The kind when you step outside and the air comes down on you like a ton of lead. Even if you don't have air conditioning. Then last night all hell broke loose.

Not that I've never been in heavy storms before, but I've never seen anything like this one in this part of Spain. Mostly the wind. A struggle to get the windows shut. I don't know how long it lasted, maybe half an hour or so. About 2 a.m. I went up on the terrace, wrapped in a blanket, and enjoyed the peacefulness.

Last night was supposed to be the height of the annual Perseid meteor shower, but I wasn't into meteor hunting (in other years I've never seen many), and it was still pretty cloudy. So I just listened to the surf, watched airplane lights moving along and thought about all those meteors zipping across the atmosphere up there, oblivious of what's going on down here.

I wonder how many ETs were observing me.

The purpose of life

2007-08-09T11:49:00.000+02:00

What is the purpose of life? One of modern man's favorite questions.

But why do we need a purpose in life? Maybe it's because we're incapable of living in the present, so we constantly look back to the past or ahead to the future. Regretting all the mistakes we made in the past or wishing we could be back there because things were so much better then. Hoping things will be better in the future or fearing what awaits us there.

Is this the best we can do with our fantastic brains?

At this point thoughts start coming out in a jumble. Can't write, type or even talk that fast. I feel as if great ideas are taking shape, but then all becomes confusion. Or is it just housecleaning in my mind? Or maybe some spirit, entity, ET, whatever, trying to get through. Channeling, they call it. Oh boy! I'm channeling some grand thoughts from out there somewhere. So isn't everybody doing that these days? It's become a fad.

Bookstores, the Internet, are full of channeled material, mostly from angels lately. (Angels are in at the moment. That should make the Vatican happy.) Or some other entity with a weird name, because there seems to be a compulsion to identify all these outrageous thoughts with somebody/something else. To proclaim our own innocence, maybe. I don't want to be crucified or burned at the stake for speaking truths that nobody wants to hear. That's not me! I'm not responsible for this stuff!

Well, maybe. Or maybe not. If we're all plugged in to some universal One, All That Is, God, or whatever you want to call it, it's all me anyway. There are no boundaries.

What? That makes me part of Saddam Hussein? Vladimir Putin? Muhammar Gaddafi? George W. Bush? No, thanks. But then it also makes me part of Mahatma Ghandi, Mother Teresa, Marilyn Monroe, Bono, George Clooney, Rigoberta Menchu... Curiously, I seem to be getting more names on the positive side. That's encouraging.

And as I sink into an amorphous blob, having realized I have no identity of my own, I decide it's time to get back to work. Do something concrete. Or plop in front of the TV and watch some reality show to reassure myself that I'm not the only one living in a perpetual dilemma.

So, enough for now. Cut!

Profesiones invisbles

2007-07-14T14:23:00.000+02:00

Esta mañana me quedé intrigada con la imagen de la portada de un libro que estoy leyendo y quise saber más. Si era una reproducción de algún cuadro o si había sido especialmente diseñada para el libro. Quién era el artista. Etc.

Pues nada. Info sobre el autor del libro, la editorial, la imprenta y demás. Pero del diseño de la cubierta... ni palabra. Le encargaron el trabajo, le pagaron y adios, muy buenas. (Bueno, es de suponer que le pagaron. Ya saben. Unos de los riesgos que corremos los profesionales libres es no cobrar.)

Triste, pero al menos me siento menos sola en mi vida de profesional libre invisible. En mi faceta de intérprete de conferencias, no somos invisibles. (Bueno, habitualmente. A veces nos esconden en otra habitación porque las cabinas afean la puesta en escena del evento.) Y de vez en cuando hasta se acuerdan de nosotros en la parrafada de agradecimientos que marca el final de un congreso.

Pero en mi faceta de traductora, para los lectores de mis trabajos, no existo. En España y América Latina la traducción siempre ha sido un oficio importante, sobre todo para libros. Pero no ha sido hasta hace pocos años que los nombres de los traductores han empezado a aparecer en los libros -- y no siempre. Y en las revistas científicas, virtuales o en papel, que recorro a diario en busca de información para traducciones técnicas, jamás he visto mención del traductor de un artículo que obviamente es una traducción. (El ojo del traductor es como el oído del músico.)

Debo decir que tengo clientes muy fieles y de lo más agradecidos, y algunos incluso me han incluido en el apartado de agradecimientos. Pero nunca se les ocurre que, al igual que un escritor es autor de su obra, el traductor es el autor de la versión en otro idioma.

Curioso, ¿no? Que, como se suele exclamar con asombro, a estas alturas de la histora siga existiendo esta discriminación contra tantos oficios del todo imprescindibles. Como la mujer que siempre hay detrás de todo gran hombre.

Gems from the blogosphere

2007-07-14T13:32:00.000+02:00

The blogosphere is soooo cool! Check out this one from a New York taxi driver's great blog. He's got another blog with photos of scenes from a NY cab window. Neat.

Facts or beliefs?

2007-07-08T13:32:00.000+02:00

Recently I read somewhere (quoted as I recall it): "Facts are not important. What matters is what people believe."

Think about it.

We all have our own beliefs, and they can be very different. People seem to accept that notion.

But everybody has their own facts also. Just ask any police investigator. Six people saw the same suspect, and the investigator gets six different descriptions.

A scientist does a piece of experimental research and describes what he/she observed. The facts, in other words. Another scientist repeats the experiment and comes up with different facts. Each one launches a campaign to prove his/her facts are right. Who's going to come out on top? The one who can convince the most people to believe him/her. (I'm not being facetious. That's how it is.)

So how is that any different from events in politics, business......or anybody's everyday life?

Think about it.

Suburban frogs

2007-07-07T23:18:00.000+02:00

This summer I've been hearing frogs at night like never before. And wondering where there was enough water to support so many frogs in this neighborhood.

Tonight I walked down to the beach to watch a fireworks display -- and solved the frog mystery.

There's a house a few doors down the street that's empty most of the time. It used to be inhabited for a month or two in summer and sometimes on long weekends in spring and fall. But for the past 2 or 3 years the only activity has been now and then when somebody comes by to make sure it's still standing, I suppose.

Apparently, they don't empty the swimming pool (yech!) and the frog population has exploded.

Suburban frog heaven.

El verano y el estado de la nación

2007-07-05T18:40:00.000+02:00

Forges en El País esta mañana, robado descaradamente porque no no he podido resistirme.

Teniendo en cuenta la temperatura que está alcanzando el debate del Estado de la Nación que vamos soportando desde hace unos días, y los delirios de don Mariano de ayer, me pregunto cómo andaría la cabeza del Sr. Forges.

Uno de los leones del Congreso también opinó al respecto.

Y pensar que apenas hemos estrenado el verano.

Ramblin'

2007-06-17T23:21:00.000+02:00

Dear blog,

I've thought about you a lot lately but never found the time to pay you a visit. A few times I've felt inspired and composed something in my head -- then forgot all about it. It seems like once I put my thoughts in order -- usually in my head with the intention of writing them down here or in my journal -- whatever it was I was pondering is resolved and that's as far as it goes. Case closed.

Changes are underway, everywhere. But it's a slow process, takes a lot of patience. Sometimes I wonder if I'm going the wrong way, but then I get information that tells me I'm not. At bottom I already know it, but sometimes it's hard to trust to trust your own judgment when it seems to go against everything they shoved down your throat when you were too small to resist. Amazing how those things stay with us and are so hard to get rid of!

The moon again

2007-03-07T00:11:00.000+01:00

I've definitely rediscovered the moon.

Last night, driving back from town, the moon was right in front of me most of the way, still big and round a couple of days after full moon. And when the road went down close to the beach, I caught a glimpse of moonlight on the sea, like a road going out to the horizon, getting wider the farther out it went. Naturally, I had to stop a minute to look.

And when I got home and went into the house, I turned around and there she was, right in front of my door again.

Again that feeling of peacefulness.

Sighhhhhh......

Lunar eclipse

2007-03-04T17:06:00.000+01:00

Last night I watched the lunar eclipse. It's the first time in years I've seen a total eclipse. This one was billed as especially interesting because the moon was red when the eclipse was total. As I watched the shadow creeping over it, it just seemed to get darker and darker, and the red didn't appear until it was almost total. It stayed red for about 3/4 of an hour, and it was gorgeous. I'd never seen anything like it. It was so luminous! Then the red started getting lighter as the moon started coming out of the shadow, more and more luminous, and finally the red was gone.

This was the night of a full moon, so it was even more spectacular. I could see the whole thing right from my front door. It's amazing to be able to open the door and step outside, and there's the moon, the whole time, and I watched it as it went across the sky. It was a very special experience.

I later heard that the red color is caused by atmospheric pollution. "Dust," somebody unromantically called it. But it was still beautiful.

Here's a scaled-down photo when the eclipse was at max. Click on the photo to see it full-size. The original is on the website of a Madrid university observatory (Universidad Complutense).

And the whole series is here. It occupies several screens. Look for the Siguiente lote (next batch) link at the top left and click on through.

It reminded me of when I lived in the mountains of Granada and spent a lot of time watching the moon. The moon is right there, so close, and there's no light pollution so you can see the sky getting brighter each night as the moon gets bigger and bigger, moving toward full moon.

On one occasion, there was something particularly turbulent going on. I don't remember if it a worldwide event or something smaller, but it was a very tense situation. I remember watching the moon one night when there where clouds moving across it. It seemed as if the moon was just up there, paying no attention to all the commotion down here on Earth. She just went along her way, gliding across the sky, unconcerned about us and all our stuff. I had the same sensation last night. It's not like when you just look up and see the moon. It's when there's something going on -- some kind of movement, like the eclipse last night. The moon goes about doing her thing, regardless of what might be happening down here on Earth.

It gives me a very peaceful feeling.

¿Algo ha cambiado?

2007-01-01T21:38:00.000+01:00

Fiesta de fin de año anoche. Tranquila. Alguno de los presentes dijo que quizás aburrida pero yo no lo creo así. Después de las uvas los músicos del grupito montaron el equipo y se pusieron a tocar. Un amplificador que hacía el tonto. Poca inspiración. Quizá. No sé cómo describir la escena, aparte de tranquila. Y sobre las 3, todo el mundo a casa.

¿Es que la gente cree que la tranquilidad equivale a aburrimiento? Aparentemente, sí. Pero terminé la noche con una sensación de haberlo pasado bien, aunque fuera sin desmadre.

Esta mañana pensaba en el cúmulo de sensaciones extrañas que habían estado flotando en el aire anoche. Puse la radio un rato y se comentaba que, en general, había sido un anoche vieja bastante tranquila en todo el país. Pocos accidentes de tráfico (al menos no más que el año pasado) y pocos incidentes de importancia.

Recordé un comentario de un amigo a mediados de los años 90, vaticinando los fuertes cambios que iban a tener lugar en el planeta durante los próximos años. Decía que nos esperaban unos años duros con un incremento de violencia por la resistencia de muchas personas a estos cambios, hasta que empezaban a despejarse las cosas más o menos en el 2006 o 2007. Luego pensé en las muchas cosas fuertes que han ocurrido en los últimos mesas -- o incluso semanas. Como la muerte de Pinochet y Sadam. Se quejan algunos chilenos de la injusticia de que Pinochet se hubiera escabullido de la justicia, pero es cierto que se ha quitado una espina en el país que estorbaba la reconciliación. ¿Se podría decir lo mismo de Sadam? Aparte de que la pena de muerte coloca a los verdugos en el mismo saco que el justiciado y porque en este caso huele a prisas del gobierno de EE.UU. por hacerle desaparecer antes de que los tribunales pudieran meterse en cuestiones embarazosas para ese país. Pero también se ha eliminado un elemento de discordia.

Y la bomba puesta por ETA en el parking del aeropuerto de Madrid el día antes de fin de año, después de una tregua de nueve meses y el inicio de un "proceso de paz" que parecía tener visos de llegar a algo positivo, algún día. Según dicen, hubo algo raro en el modo de proceder de ETA en esta ocasión. ¿Estertores de muerte de las facciones más radicales de ETA? Todos sabemos que hay disensión en la banda, pero pocos conocen la situación real. Sea como fuere, nos dejó a muchos con una sensación de profunda tristeza.

Y luego la creciente debacle en Iraq y la férrea resistencia de Bush a aceptar las soluciones más racionales que se están proponiendo últimamente. ...y más cosas pero, ¿para qué continuar?

Como decía ese amigo hace cerca de diez años, los últimos actos de desespero, y por eso tan violentos, de las personas más resistentes a aceptar el nuevo camino que nos marca la Tierra. Pero lo que me parece entrever en todo esto es una nueva firmeza por parte de los que no estamos de acuerdo con la marcha de las cosas hasta ahora y que poco a poco vamos perdiendo el miedo a expresarnos.

¿De ahí acaso esa sensación de tranquilidad en el aire?

On emptiness

2006-12-23T14:30:00.000+01:00

I spent Monday & Tuesday of this week working at a UNESCO conference on religions & cultural diversity, focusing specifically on mediation in urban areas.

One of the speakers in a session on conflict prevention and mediation talked about how the police in Barcelona use religious leaders in mediation. She said they always included Buddhist representatives in the teams because the practice of emptiness is an integral part of their lives and their presence helps create space between the parties in conflict. Their approach is very different from that of other religious reps, who usually fall into a kind of preaching mode.

(My thought at this point: Buddhists don't evangelize like other religious groups. They're not always on the lookout for potential converts and trying to make sure the current members of their flock don't stray. Ergo, the Buddhists have no need to control anybody else. I wonder if that's one of the consequences of "the practice of emptiness," as they call it.)

Anyway, her remark really hit home with me and I've been turning it over in my mind these past few days (one of those rare occasions when I manage to retain some of the substance of a conference when I'm doing the interpretation). It also occurred to me that I'm not very clear on what they mean by emptiness, in spite of my time spent practicing Buddhism some years back. What I mean is, I haven't grasped it very well on a gut level; it's still mostly intellectual for me. So this morning I picked up a book I haven't looked at for years (Meditation on Emptiness, by Jeffrey Hopkins -- one of the Dalai Lama's official interpreters).

So what is it? I quote:

"Phenomena are empty of a certain mode of being called 'inherent existence', 'objective existence', or 'natural existence'. This 'inherent existence' is not a concept superimposed by philosophical systems but refers to our ordinary sense of the way that things exist -- as if they concretely exist in and of themselves, covering their parts."

Yikes! Pretty dense way of saying it, I thought, but it rings a bell and I begin to remember. To summarize: Phenomena (i.e., objects, actions, events, etc.) have no meaning/significance in themselves, only what we put into them, which is a mirror of our own thoughts, feelings, beliefs... Basically, whatever is going on inside ourselves.

And that's where I am right now. Next step, make it something more than just an intellectual concept.

Back again

2006-12-23T14:17:00.001+01:00

Dear blog,

This blog is going the way of my attempts to keep a diary when I was a teenager. Which I figured would happen when I started it. Now that I've come to the end of the pre-Christmas run-up (or run-down, depending on how you look at it), my mind seems to be clicking back into writing mode. And thinking about things other than work. This year's pre-Christmas ride seemed the worst ever -- or maybe I'm just out of practice after all those years living in a quiet village on the side of a mountain.

'Nuf said about that. Let's move on to what I really wanted to talk about.

Pronunciamientos papales

2006-09-18T22:27:00.000+02:00

Dicen que a la tercera va la vencida. Bueno, más o menos. Llevo 3 días intentando escribir algo sobre el revuelo provocado por el discurso del Papa del día 12, con interrupciones continuas. Ya saben......las obligaciones mundanas.

A estas alturas, me rindo. Está claro que la musa no quiere saber del tema.

Por si a alguien le interesa, después de buscar mucho, encontré el texto completo del discurso a través de un enlace en la web de la BBC, enterrado a unos cuantos niveles por debajo de la página principal. En inglés. No he podido encontrarlo en español.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/bsp/hi/pdfs/15_09_06_pope.pdf

Que cada uno juzgue.

Me asombra cada más la ceguera de los gobernantes y demás "líderes" de este mundo: políticos, religiosos, empresariales, etc. En resumidas cuentas, las personas que ostentan el poder, que llevan las riendas (supuestamente). Es como si se dirigieran hacia un precipicio que, para más inri, está claramente señalizado, a toda velocidad, incapaces de ver que lo que hay delante no es la gloria/poder/riqueza o quién-sabe-qué, que ellos creen.

Y los medios de masas van detrás como si se tratara de un circo, de lo que hay que mostrar al público es lo más espectacular.

Algunos afirman que detrás de los personajes que identificamos como nuestos "líderes" se esconden otros personajes e interes mucho más oscuros, y que son los que realmente manejan los hilos de las marionetas que ponen a la vista del público (y aquí incluyo a los medios). La primera vez que oí decir esto me pareció un disparate. Pero empiezo a pensar que, tal vez, quizá............

Y si no, ¿cuál es la alternativa? Que los "líderes" del mundo son una pandilla de medio cegatos, que obran según sus propios intereses más inmediatos, y nada más. Y que ni ellos mismos son capaces de comprender lo que tal vez, quizá, pudieran ser las consecuencias de semejante actitud.

Vamos, que ninguna de las alternativas es muy alentadora.

Estoy pensando seriamente hacer mutis por el foro.

El efímero Internet

2006-09-04T12:33:00.000+02:00

El Internet contrarresta (puede ser un antídoto a) la tendencia de la gente a atesorar cosas: sus pertenencias, sus recuerdos, sus pensamientos. ¿Qué pasa si una empresa virtual donde alojas tu web o blog desaparece y no has guardado todo su contenido en tu ordenador? ¡Se ha perdido!, dices. Para siempre.

Pero no es así. Todo lo que pusiste en esa web o blog desaparecido fue lanzado al éter. Lo han visto y aprovechado las personas que debían recibirlo. Ellos lo harán parte de su ser y lo lanzarán al espacio con otra forma. Así comienza un nuevo ciclo.

¿Y tú? Creador de esas ideas/pensamientos -- que a su vez te llegaron de otro que te precedió. También habrás iniciado otro ciclo y seguirás tu camino.

Musing late at night

2006-09-04T00:43:00.000+02:00

I finally made some sense of all my scribblings of last week and intended to post something here this weekend. Ha! Yesterday went by and nothing happened. I vowed I'd do it today and..... Too many other exciting things to do.

I'm too tired to do anything serious right now, but I thought it might help to write something -- anything -- to try and kick-start the muse. She's very diffuse of late.

I also went around in circles for a few days about how to manage my Yankee/Hispanic split personality in here. Mix it all up and write in whatever language happens to come? That would leave some people out. Oh, dear. Juggle 2 blogs, one in Spanish and one in English? I can't even think about starting another new project right now.

So, fuggedaboutit and just let it come.

On birthing a blog

2006-09-01T20:38:00.000+02:00

For many years August has been a quiet time for me. Not much work, everybody away on vacation.... A time to drift. You never know where you'll end up.

This year August was special. Many years ago I realized my life moves in 7-year cycles, coinciding more or less with my chronological age. Which I'm told happens to most people. Then I discovered I also have a 9-year cycle, and was told that one started in August. This year the two cycles coincided -- the 9-year cycle starting again at year one and the other in the year when important things happen.

So what happened this year in August? This blog (among other things). I'd been thinking about it for a long time but kept putting it off thinking I'd start off all enthusiastic and then run out of steam.

But it happened. One day, hardly thinking about it, I found myself here doing it. So it's off and running and we'll see where it goes.