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The butterfly has tried to make itself invisible. Its colours are the same as those of the tree it clings to: brown with dark lines. Its body is flat, its back slightly arched and it is this that betrays it.
The child ignores the butterfly. His mind is focused on something else, something that seems to be alive, but not alive like any living thing I have seen before. He is sitting on the ground, legs spread, his tiny hands moving like a T’ai Chi Master. Consciously. Slowly. Almost silent. His knuckles are woolly as if he has worked with his hands for decades. He wears a short, knitted overcoat. All sorts of browns blend together, tricking the eyes into believing of being just one colour. His corduroy pants are tied at the waist with rope. His trouser bottoms rolled up. His hair is dark and still thin; his eyes big and black; his nose tiny. You can never judge from its size how a child’s nose will develop.
The child stares at me, all the while his hands still moving, creating a space for a sharp-clawed insect (or is it an animal?) to move. The creature tries to attack the child, but the child is too silent to get hit, to get hurt. He raises his hand. The creature rises with him as if connected by little strings. It’s using its wings, but that doesn’t distract it – its sharp claws continue to attack the child. The creature is blue. Black.
“What is it – that thing?” I ask my guide.
“It is his imagination. Given to him by holy man.”
“Why doesn’t it fly away?” The guide’s answer to my first question hasn’t yet registered with me.
“There is no fun in your imagination flying away from you, is there?”
Some time later we are standing before a door. We have been walking for at least seven hours to reach this place in the mountains. A beautiful walk through small Berber villages and plains of solitude. The last few hundred meters involved attaching crampons to our shoes and leaving tracks in the fresh snow.
We met several people along the way; with mules; with guides; with complete families – all coming to visit the holy man. Our holy man is someone different: he is still alive and everyone can come to visit him.
The guide pulls a red cigarette packet from his pocket. His right hand is red, too. The cold hits him on the right side. When he inhales he closes his eyes, releasing the smoke casually from his mouth. He lives around here, so he told me, but he dresses like a big-city boy: baseball cap, jeans and a leather jacket.
I hear the sound of a radio coming from the other side of the door. I think it’s REM, but I am sure I must be wrong.
The door is green; made from different kinds of wood but painted to create the impression that it’s all one.
“Does he know we are coming? Do we have to knock or ring?”
The guide doesn’t answer.
Now someone is knocking from inside. My guide throws away his half-smoked cigarette, his third while we have been waiting. It disappears in the snow.
No filter. + more
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 Photo: Annemarieke van Drimmelen
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There are four of us, maybe six. It feels completely dark. The only light comes from the sky: thousands of stars and a sliver of moon reaching to the earth. Yet even though the sky above me is clear, the heavens still don’t provide enough light for me to see my immediate surroundings. Although we have walked this path along this amazing coastline at least a dozen times over the last five days, most of us carry flashlights. The near abyss is magnetic.
I am having a lazy time in the place that gave birth to the Human Potential Movement, back in the early Sixties. Actually, the Sixties never stopped. There are people gardening naked; the food comes from little gardens within the compound; girls are painting flowers on the walls of buildings; in the evening we gather around a fire outside and those people with guitars play Fleetwood Mac, Crosby, Stills and Nash and Bob Dylan.
I went hiking through the wilderness the other day. The sky changed second by second. I walked through rain, in the sun, through storm and even snow, all in no more than half an hour. I felt like Hugh Grant near the end of Notting Hill, with a bit of Indiana Jones thrown in. I tried to find my way through the tall trees and wild bushes. There was no path. Then, the moment the wilderness opened up a bit, my eyes met those of three huge, powerful birds. They stared and shifted their long, thin necks in my direction. They spread their wings – at least six feet wide, I guess – not to take off but to impress on me how big they were. At first, fear stiffened my body. I tried to relax and backed off a bit, still looking into the eyes of these creatures.
Condors.
I had read in a guide that they used to live here, but had not been seen since the end of the Sixties. Had they been hiding since then, or had they returned? Watching these Condors, I felt a strange otherness I had never encountered before. I felt so alive.
Sometimes it takes otherness to remind us what we are made off.
tagged: fire fear life heart Eagle Condor light darkness Esalen sky understanding spaciousness reality
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 Photo: Annemarieke van Drimmelen
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It is long since dark but still early in the evening. There is no wind or rain: outside is nothing. I’m sitting round a table with a few other men and our host, an old man who has been kind enough to give us shelter.
The old man has boiled some water to make tea. Just as he’s about to pour it, the electricity goes off. It is dark, completely dark – nothing to see. The electricity can be shut down at any time of day. Someone told me the other day that the former communist regime used to shut off the electricity as a punishment: many people didn’t pay their bills, and since under communism everybody was to be treated equally, everybody was punished for those who didn’t pay.
I hear the sound of something being placed on the table; I hear someone walking away from me; I hear the sound of a door; I hear someone opening a drawer; I hear the sound of objects being moved around by a hand that is searching for something. Seconds later a candle splutters into life and I can see that it was the old man who was their source.
Silence again, and a bit of light.
He must have lived here for a long time. The old man is barely able to walk anymore, though he managed to avoid hitting any of his many bits of furniture during his search for a candle.
Although there is no wind outside, I see the wind inside playing with the candle’s flame. It makes the flame longer, stretches it. And it makes the flame go out. Darkness. I hear the sound of a man stand up and a door being closed.
A moment later the candle gives us light again.
The old man starts to talk: he cuts-up his story carefully, so the translator can do his job properly. “If you listen to the wind carefully and follow it precisely you will be led to what gives you warmth, to what is most dear to you.”
You can see he enjoys talking. He uses his hands, slowly, to craft his words, as if his hands are shaping the sounds more precisely before they reach our ears.
“When you find what is most dear to you, a fire will be lit inside of you. It is a strong fire. It is the only fire you need. It will keep you warm in the darkest hours, in the coldest nights. ” + more
tagged: understanding fire wind flame heart dialogue body punishment
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Video: André Platteel
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