Adonis Diaries

Paulo Cuelho’s “Brida” is a novel of an Irish young girl of 21 on a quest to discovering her way in life.  She is learning and practicing witchcraft at the hands of two masters:  Wicca is the woman witch teaching the “Tradition of the moon”, the wisdom from past witches who died burned alive; and a master magician is teaching Brida the “Tradition of the sun” for recognizing the wisdom of being present in the universe…

Brida was 5-year old and her father asked her to feel the temperature of the ocean.  Brida dipped her feet and said: “The water is cold”.  Her father immersed Brida in the water and let her swim towards him and asked her: “How the  water?”  Brida said: “It is good”.  The father said: “Well then, if you badly want to know anything, you’ll have to take the plunge.”

Selecting a route, all the way, and practicing all the required details and rituals (mostly irrelevant rituals) in the teaching of magic, is the hardest decision in life.  What if the road proved to be a bunk?  How many ways have we missed by not checking them first in our life?  Have we taken risks of discovering unbeaten roads?

If we choose a way for the sake of convincing ourselves that this way is the wrong one, why the bother? Is it our preset judgement, before attempting a discovery, that robs us from the pleasure of curiosity, experiencing the scenery along the way, and the many mysteries poping up in front of us?  No benediction enters our heart before first breaking the glass of fear to pieces.

For example, you have samples of prayers. “God, give me the humility to asking you to fructify my desires.  Let me accept my desires as emanating from your source.”  Problem is:  Do I know what I desire in order to pray for particular desires? Can’t I just ask to enjoy the moment without preconceived wishes?

I like the other prayer: “God, make me accept that whatever good reaches me I deserve it.  Let me comprehend that my quest, desires, and weaknesses are the same experienced by saints, martyrs, wise people… Make me humble to accept that I am no different than the better people”

How about those lucubrations: “It is not our explanations of events, especially mysterious events, that advance our search for truth; it is our will to go on and push forward in the search.”  I am thinking of those who created the atomic bomb and went on to invent the hydrogen bomb. Instead of pushing forward, shouldn’t these scientists take a deep breath on the consequences?

“Nothing is completely wrong in life:  Even a busted clock gives the correct answer twice a day”.  What if the watch is not analogue?

Paulo Cuelho does it again:  He thinks that by heaping on us simple analogies that falsehood turns right.  Paulo thinks that our simplistic mind is going to nod approval on the concept that mankind was divided into two genders to achieving jobs effectively according to gender innate specialization and temperament.

For example, man was allocated the job of discovering and retaining knowledge while the woman was dedicated for transforming that knowledge; like man plows and woman saws; man is the fertile land and woman the seeds… Things like that.

As if facts didn’t demonstrate that only one gender was assigned the entire process in one production until modern age.  For example, either man or woman were in charge of agriculture from plowing, sawing, gathering, harvesting, reserving and saving products for harsher weather, and selling the products to market.  While the other gender was assigned a different job production or non-productive jobs such as huddling together for planning wars, devising laws for organizing the community, hunting, traveling, trading far from homebase…

What we see in the cosmos is not the real picture or replica of the universe:  Dead stars are still sending light and looking as if alive, while the light of new stars have not reached us yet and do not exist to our eyes.  Well, this logical theory is valid if we can prove that light is never transformed by million of light-year traveling, deviated, that light never acquires more energy or diminishes in intensity… I doubt very much the premise of a steady light that does not endergo change and transformation after traveling for so many light-years amid powerful charged particles.

What of the quotes.  For example “If you can formulate a clear question you should be sure that an answer exists” (William Blake). I like this sentence but what use of it if I have not the passion to search for the answer?  Why did I formulate the question in the first place if I do not intend to know?

“It is your town that extends to you a universal power” (Leon Tolstoi).  Wonderful sentence; how many of us can claim that they feel belonging to a town?  Is that notion still applicable in our modern age?  How about universal power is acquired from a stretch of ten-block main street, the way it is in most new towns? I don’t feel that I belong to a town:  So where may I generate universal power?

Things like that.