A good friend of mine wrote a very nice entry on her blog. I loved it so much that I wanted to add some reflections to it.
- On the the sidewalk of a walk there was a beautiful rose bush, she (Angela) was enjoying watch it blooming. Everyday she was going to the spot where the rose bush was growing with her camera in her hands, waiting for the perfect moment to take a picture. She loved that rose, she was talking and smiling at this plant and felt the plant was smiling back. It was a true relationship. Yes, we can have relationships with a rose bush… (my neighbor Dani, who has an amazing garden, talks about her plants with the same fervor parents talk about their children, she knows the latin name of each flower who grows in her garden and even the latin name of each weed). But one day the bush rose was gone… some tourist who passed by had cut it down to make a bouquet to bring to the refuge where Angela was working at… Furious and hurt Angela told to the tourist that she had just killed something that belonged to everybody. The discussion escalated where the tourist’s attitude was kind of “How do you dare? You servant, to tell me that I killed something…?
I think this story is very touching and deserves to reflect on.
First I hate people who go around picking up flowers, wild flowers especially, to make bouquets… Why????? For God sake, if you want a centerpiece for your table go to Kabloom and buy it!!!!!! Wild flowers whom can last for days in the field, once one cuts them they will die in a couple of hours. What a waste of life is that?????
Madagascar, 2008
But beside this point the real point is much deeper. It is how people behave in front of life, life that is not a human being. When we were children our pre-school teachers thought us that a flower has life, feelings, that a worm or a spider deserves to live as much as we do… We all listened to them and deeply believed in them. Try to kill a bug in front of a child and you will see the reaction… So what goes wrong when we grow up?
Unfortunately human being never grow out of the “this is mine” phase. We think that only children, toddler in particular, are ego-centrist… But isn’t true, actually the older we grow the more we feel the need of possession. So if I see a flower on the side of the path… well it is mine! If I see a bug crawling crossing my path I turn into the Imperator Cesar and play the old game of giving permission of life or sentence death to him. A tree is just there to give me fruits or some kind of shade, and if I do not need any shade… Well I cut it down, not big deal!
Celle Macra, Italy 2008
But it is also, in a bigger picture, how people behave in front of beauty. Beauty also is mine… I consider that rose nice: I let it grow, or I will posses her, bring it home for my own pleasure. I consider that bug creepy I kill it.
Ten years ago in Montreal, Tom and I took a walk on the isle (Iles de Bouchervill) … Where we saw a mother with two young children chopping a cherry tree to make bouquets that, of course, did not last 2 minutes in the hands of her 3 years sons, I could not resisted I stopped and started to argue with the woman telling her that the tree was everybody’s property, that what she was doing was a shamed and it was a terrible example for a mother to show… She trying to play the game: “I don’t understand you… I speak only French” basically answering me “Qua? Qua? Qua?…”. And so she got me! I truly gave her a piece of my mind (in French!) starting with -Do NOT dare to give me your silly “Qua? Qua? Qua?”
I was teenager and I was in Paris to study ballet. Poor as a student can be. My mother, who at that time did not see my going into ballet so happily, had given me a round trip train ticket, a phone card and some money saying “ This is it! When the money is over do NOT call me for more. You will come back home. And do NOT dare to do any stupid things, I will NOT bail you out!” I went to Paris, find a friend where to stay for free, ate bread and butter, I was quite talented in ballet so I got a scholarship to a beautiful and good dance school, But I want to take some very expensive master classes with a Russian teacher and I needed money to keep going so I decided to dance in the street. Every afternoons, after class, with a friend of mine I went in front of the Beaubourg (Centre Pompidou) turned on a boom-box and danced while my friend was walking thru the crowd with a hat asking for donations. We did very well, actually so well that not only we were able to spend a full Summer in Paris taking classes with the expensive Russian teacher, but also were able to improve our regime from bread and butter to French patisseries! We loved to go to eat our lunch in front of Notre Dame Cathedral. It is such a lovely spot. One day my friend Virginia eating her croissant and starring, as usual, to the beautiful façade out of the blue said: “Oh my God look Luciano, look how beautiful is this façade. I could spend hours watching it and I am never tired to do it, I always find something new to watch, some new little details that I missed to watch yesterday. It is so beautiful that if it would be possible I would love to run into it and turn into one of the stone that form this merveille!” – I know that my translation doesn’t do any justice to her words, neither to the expression in her eyes. She was sincerely in love and touched by the beauty of the moment. But I got it! I totally understood what she meant with that: “I would love to run into it and turn into one of the stone that form this merveille!”.
And that is how we should all see beauty. We should all try to harmonically be part of it. And I repeat harmonically, because that is the key word of what I want to say here.
Madagascar, 2008
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