The key

Kitagawa Utamaro :: Lovers in an upstairs room :: 1788

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

February 27th
Just as I imagined. My wife keeps a diary. To this day I took the precaution of not writing it in this notebook, but actually my attention was vaguely grabbed a few days ago.
… I am not so vile as to read the diary of my own wife without her permission. However, driven by bad feelings, I tried to cunningly remove the tape that sealed it so as to leave no marks. I wanted to show my wife that a tape alone would be useless.

 

 

March 7th
Then I found the key lying in the same place. I thought there must be some reason, and then I opened the drawer and pulled out my husband’s diary. To my surprise, it was sealed with a tape in the same way as I had done. Would my husband want to tell me “Try opening it”?
… I was tempted to try to pull the tape without leaving marks. And so I did it, simply out of curiosity”

 

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Our immoral soul

Clarice Niskier :: The immoral soul

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“There’s a look that knows how to tell right from wrong and wrong from right. There is a look that sees when obedience means disrespect and when disobedience means respect. There is a look that recognizes the short long paths and the long short paths. There’s a look that sees through, that does not hesitate to point out that there are wicked fidelities and betrayals of great loyalty. This is the soul’s look.”

 

‘Our immoral soul’ is one of the most beautiful and striking theater plays I have seen in recent years – a theatrical adaptation elaborated and interpreted (elegantly and sensitively) by Clarice Niskier, from the homonymous book by Rabbi Nilton Bonder. Based on the concept that the human soul is transgressive in its very essence, the text confuses, deconstructs and reconstructs ancient views on the concepts of body and soul, right and wrong, obedience and disobedience, betrayer and betrayed.

 

Bonder establishes the awareness of human beings on their own existence as the origin of the moral body, which then becomes the guardian of customs, conformity and adaptation – the keeper of past traditions, who works through them for the reproduction of the species. The soul – which carries the rebellion and the capacity of mutation – is one that allows thoughts and behaviors that break the established moral, thereby contributing to the evolution of this species. He says it is the tension generated by these two conflicting and interdependent natures, and the dialogue between these forces – the conservative and the transgressive – that allow human beings to transcend themselves.

 

“There is no tradition without betrayal. And there is no betrayal without tradition.” Just look at the history of mankind only to find, in various forms of human expression, the beauty and truth of this statement: from Michelangelo to Picasso, from Beethoven to Stockhausen, from Isadora Duncan to Pina Bausch, from Brunelleschi to Frank Gehry, from Shakespeare to Guimaraes Rosa … human evolution depends mainly on acts that, through the eyes of customs and tradition, are deemed as betrayals. But betrayal would be not to give voice to our transgressive souls, for they are the ones who provide us with pleasure and evolution in our existence.

 

About the play ::  www.almaimoral.com
‘Our Immoral soul’, Rabbi Nilton Bonder, 2001, Shambhala.

Shoeless

 

 

 

 

 

 

One of the images that represent ​​freedom the most is the image of someone barefoot. In addition to conveying a certain form of irreverence and non-adherence to established standards, walking without shoes is indeed an act capable of providing very pleasurable sensations of physical well-being, comfort and relaxation. The explanations are countless, ranging from mystical to scientific ones.

 

Our feet are complex structures, full of nerve endings that connect through ramifications to the various organs of the body, to the spine, to the head, and to the upper and lower limbs. The practice of caring for the body by touching and stimulating these endings is called reflexology and has been used in Eastern cultures for thousands of years. Walking barefoot, especially on uneven surfaces (sand, small rocks, grass), massages different points of the foot and stimulates different parts of the body, promoting the proper functioning of the body and stimulating our ability to concentrate, our motor skills and balance.

 

Others say that, by walking barefoot on moist soil, we unload on the ground the excess of static electricity accumulated in our bodies, thereby obtaining a sense of relaxation. The most mystic ones say that walking barefoot increases the flow of our vital energy (or our Chi, Qi, Prana, Baraka or Orenda, among other synonyms), through the direct contact with the Earth, one of its natural sources – and the pleasure we feel would be provided by the reestablishment of this connection with the natural universe where we belong.

 

Discussing and investigating the sources of our pleasures often represents solely the identification of such sources so we can expand the space they occupy in our lives. Their origins or the decoding of their processes do not always matter… but it is important to be aware of its manifestations, ensuring that they remain alive and present in our everyday life. (I personally like to make sure I walk barefoot for a few minutes of my day – thus giving myself, in a very simple way, moments of great pleasure.)

The candles burn all the way

Sándor Márai :: illustration by Ignácio Schiefelbein

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“A person ages slowly: first, our taste for life and people gets old, and then everything becomes so real, we get to know the meaning of things, everything is repeated so terrible and fastidiously. This is also old age. When you know that a body is not more than a body. And a man, poor man, is nothing more than a man, a mortal being, no matter what he does…

 

Then your body gets old; but not the whole body at the same time – first the eyes, or the legs; the stomach, or the heart. This is how a person ages, little by little. Then, suddenly, the soul begins to age: because no matter how weak and decrepit the body is, the soul is still filled with desires and memories, seeks and delights itself, wishes pleasure. And when this desire for pleasure ends, nothing remains but memories, or vanity; and this is when you get old for real, fatal and ultimately.

 

One day you wake up and rub your eyes: you no longer know why you woke up. You know exactly what the day brings you: spring or winter, the usual scenarios, the time, the order of life. Nothing unexpected can happen: not even that which is unexpected surprises you, nor the unusual or awful, because you know the odds, you have it all figured out, you no longer expect anything, neither good nor evil… and that’s just old age.”

 

I find this small excerpt from the book “The candles burn all the way” by Sandor Márai (Ed. Dom Quixote, Portugal, 2001) very touching for the sensitivity when describing the loss of the soul’s pleasures to aging and death. A Hungarian man, Márai self-exiled in 1948, unhappy with the communist regime in his country, and lived in Switzerland, Italy and France before settling in San Diego (where, at the age of 89, committed suicide). His writings often depict the decay of the bourgeoisie in his country, always with an eye turned to man’s major emotional issues: love, passion, life, pain, decay and death.

 

You will find pleasure in reading ‘De verdade’ (For real), ‘As Brasas’ (The Hot Coals), ‘Divórcio em Buda’ (Divorce in Buddha) and ‘Libertação’ (Freedom), all published in Brazil by Editora Companhia das Letras.