Se ha estrenado la película Perfect Days (2023) de Wim Wenders en mi querido Cine Magaly, en San José. La he visto dos veces: la primera, en Angelika Film Center, en el barrio de SoHo, Manhattan, y la segunda en Brooklyn Academy of Music, en Fort Greene. Estas tres salas de cine son importantes para … Continue reading Wim Wenders: Perfect Days
I am thankful when I find time to read to nurture my inner life. This semester, for sundry reasons, I have been engulfed in academic, political, and intellectual matters. It has been difficult to find time to read for nourishing the heart and cultivating the inner life that sustains all other vital affairs. I have … Continue reading Wagamese: Fortitude, Love and Longing
Esta mañana regresé al Parque Nacional Carara en busca de una maravilla y un misterio: el cafecillo (Erythrochiton gymnanthus) en flor. Esta planta es endémica del Pacífico Central costarricense; yo solamente la he visto en el sotobosque del bosque tropical de transición (húmedo-seco) de Carara. El arbusto en sí ya es una rareza improbabilísima de … Continue reading Maravilla y misterio: Cafecillo en flor
We welcomed the New Year on the shores of the Bosphorus. The fireworks' explosion of color and sound startled the flocks of seagulls that flew overhead. The late night fog swept in from the water into the land, enveloping the people's happiness, and ours, as if in a veil of mystic rapture. That was one … Continue reading Rumi: A Stringed Instrument
You walk among the spirits of flying dervishes and the whispers of their mystical joy on the anniversary of Rumi's death. How many lives have been loved, how many loves have been lived, how many flying hearts have turned and danced in his land since 17 December 1273? How many dances have been danced, how … Continue reading Rumi: Rubaiyat at Random
I have been biking to the piers at Sunset Park to read Siddhartha while facing the upper bay of the Hudson River's estuary. I knew that Siddhartha's encounter with the river would be the tale's most moving chapter for me. I wanted to prepare for it by contemplating, as I read, the ebb and flow … Continue reading Siddhartha by the River
Mi alma es un cardenal-- llama bermeja flameando en el viento; canto dulce en crescendo amoroso; espíritu peregrino explorando territorios; sangre alada; corazón que pulsa en el bosque. Cardenal en Brooklyn, inicios de la primavera (Foto: Dimitriy Fomenko). [Portada: Cardenal en Saint Marks, Brooklyn (Foto: Canopic).]
The poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke has been enlightening my mornings, as spring turns into summer. I wake, brew a cup of black coffee, sit by my front window under the shade of the sycamore tree, and let the poet's verses awaken me to the spiritual and sentimental possibilities of the day. On a bright, … Continue reading Rilke: Gazing at Gardens
Esta semana viajé a Irán. Fue sorpresivo, inesperado, a pesar de ser un viaje que he anhelado desde que vi el filme de Abbas Kiarostami, El viento nos llevará (Bad ma ra khahad bord, 1999), y conocí la poesía de Forough Farrojzad. La idea de hacerlo surgió en la estación del metro de Prospect Park, … Continue reading Viaje a Irán
Musa morada en la enredadera oculta: ¡Sal! ¡Ven!
