Hay caminatas que son interiores, hacia la intimidad de nuestro ser, vivir y sentipensar. El Diario de un ermitaño de Thomas Merton es un registro de una caminata de esa naturaleza; una incursión intelectual, afectiva y espiritual que, para este monje trapista del siglo XX, es también una caminata hacia Dios. Leer esas memorias, ese … Continue reading Merton: El camino interior
Tengo un nuevo amigo: Thomas Merton. Desde hace años he querido leer los diarios de este monje trapista, amigo personal y mentor del nicaragüense Ernesto Cardenal, pero hasta ahora nunca había priorizado ese deseo de lectura, no le había dado espacio y tiempo. Suponía que sus diarios entrarían dentro del género de literatura sapiencial, al … Continue reading Thomas Merton: Libertad
Odysseus has become a pseudo-Christian, white, Anglophone man, anxious about the crumbling of the United Statesian Empire (which he equates to Civilization), in Christopher Nolan's recently released film The Odyssey. The transformation of Odysseus from a pagan adventurer, schemer, and lover into a brooding, moralizing prude, anxious about the fall of his own civilization, thoroughly … Continue reading A Pseudo-Christian Odysseus for a Late Empire
一Nadar en aguas frías del Atlántico: placer invernal. Aguas calmas para el nadador 二Salir al muelle, admirar la Cruz del Sur: ser solitario. Vista nocturna Mapa estelar 三Lento caminar sobre la blanca arena: sentir quietud. Vista diurna 四 Márchase Helios. Selene embellece la mar carioca. Selene sobre Ilha Grande 五Venus seduce a su amante León … Continue reading Breves suspiros cariocas
As history unfolds, William Faulkner's Light in August (1932) is proving itself to be an enduring classic. It remains relevant both to the universal quest to understand the human psyche and the human heart across historical times and places, and to the more situated and particular task of understanding the social dynamics of racism in … Continue reading Faulkner: Light in August
Emily Grosholz (1950-2026) was a poet of reasonability and sensibility, of portentous breadth and depth in the subjects of her poetry --mathematics, cosmology, nature, family, travel, love, art works, friendship, loss, quotidian joy, and more--, and of tremendous richness of poetic resources. Above all, her poetry harmonized truth, goodness, and beauty under the guidance of … Continue reading Emily Grosholz: A Walk in the Wilderness
Every day has its beauty. One of my journaling practices, when I don't have much time and energy to write, is to jot down the most marvelous detail I noticed that day (since I generally write at night, just before going to bed). The observed details are often minimal but significant. Today has been a … Continue reading Red Flash over White Winter Landscape
The vital spontaneity of life brought William Wordsworth's "Ode on Intimations of Immortality" to my heart-mind on Saturday, as my family and I visited the Cementerio General in San José, to honor and remember my father R.C.M., my grandmother D.M.A., my grandfather E.C.J., and other ancestors, up to my great-great grandmother or tatarabuela, who rest … Continue reading Taking Cues from Wordsworth: Ode on Intimations of Immortality
Ha renacido el lirio caminante-- flor de estío.
Sol decembrino--de rosas, pasifloras es fuente de vida, amparo luminoso en mi jardín tropical. Passiflora alata Rosa magenta [Foto de portada: Passiflora vitifolia]
