Summer

Yes, it was finally summer again. The Sun would whisper at him for hours, gently warming up his skin. And he would smile. He wouldn’t mind the sweat, nor the - sometimes unbearable - heat. No, when the sun was out and it was summer time, there would be nothing - absolutely nothing - keeping him away from filling fulfilled.

The view from the top of Mauna Kea

Mauna Kea is an amazing place. During the day, it will give you 360º breathtaking views over the clouds, Maui, Mauna Loa, Hilo, or even let you see the Big Island getting bigger in real time, as the lava hits the Pacific towards the South-East. Of course, with great views sunsets and sunrises comes great tourism potential - and as soon as people realized that, they started making quite a lot of money taking tourists up to the Mountain to watch the sunset. Which, I guess, is great for the tourists, but not quite as nice for the sunset spectacle - as having dozens to hundreds of excited people with their cameras and their flashes all over the place takes a little bit of the magic.

However, once the darkness comes - or, rather, once the sun goes away - Mauna Kea regains its magic and silence. That's when the telescopes open their eyes to the sky and start starring, and starring, and starring. And when you walk among them, beneath the dark sky and let your path be illuminated by thousands and thousands of stars overhead, there really is no doubt about how special this place is.

Inevitable

There is no such thing as destiny (?). No such thing as what we are meant to do. There is definitely not an activity or profession that fits us. Seriously, just look up, from where we actually came from: do you really think they had any plan for what we would turn out to be?

Because we really are all made of stars

You can try to deny it - and tell yourself that astronomers are not that smart and that, ultimately, they are wrong (or just not completely right) about a lot of things in our Universe - but there's no escaping from the fact that we are all made of star's trash :P

Palavras

Há quanto tempo não escrevia ele uma palavra a sério? Meses? Anos? Há muito, pensou João, quando finalmente pegou numa caneta esquecida e voltou a tocar no papel. Há mesmo muito tempo que não escrevia. Há tanto tempo que parecia que nunca o tinha feito. João tocou no papel e tentou escrever, mas não saiu nada. Pensou, por isso, que a escrita talvez fosse como um motor - saudável quando exercitada e cuidada; mas que, quando deixada ao abandono durante demasiado tempo teima em pegar. E as palavras custavam a sair naquela tarde de Verão. Mas, ainda assim, João sentia (ou pelo menos tinha a esperança de) que, ainda que adormecidas, poeirentas e enguiçadas, as palavras não estivessem, de todo, mortas. Como se nunca tivessem partido dos seus dedos, dos seus braços, da sua mente. Afinal, as palavras eram tudo o que ele sempre fora, tudo aquilo que o definia, a si e ao seu mundo. Sem as palavras, sem a escrita, sem as ideias na sua mente, e sem as personagens que outrora criara, o mundo não teria mais sentido. E, por isso, mesmo sem escrever há anos, mesmo sem se lembrar de como era sentir as suas mãos sobre o papel e a tinta a beijar o branco de infinito de possibilidades do papel, João sabia que, enquanto estivesse vivo, as palavras nunca partiriam definitivamente.

Mauna Kea, the tourism, the "W" word and the "economic crisis"

Mauna Kea is not just the highest point in the Pacific, found within the most isolated group of islands in the World. It's not just the best astronomical site on Earth, home of some of the best and larger telescopes in the World, allowing us to probe the distant, young Universe and at least hope we can understand a bit more of our origins. However, closer to the stars, above the clouds and most of the atmosphere, Mauna Kea is much above any of the "highest" or "biggest" journalistic description. And yet, within the context of the "economic crisis", instead of being seen like one of the most valuable, impressive and sacred sites in the world, Mauna Kea seems to be starting to be seen as a burden, something that governments and research agencies seem to be willing to get out from just to save a few piles of green paper.

Every day, more than a hundred of people drive all the way up from sea level to Mauna Kea with very different motivations. On the one hand, bus drivers take the excited tourists, eager to see the sunset above the clouds at more than 4 km height (eager enough to pay hundreds of dollars per person for a simple afternoon or morning visit). On the other hand, professional astronomers, telescope operators and students make their way up to provide the quality observational data that we need to understand how the Universe, their galaxies, stars and planets formed and evolved. The differences between the two "groups" are actually quite striking: it's not just the clothes, which clearly help to distinguish both, or the fact that most tourists either come on 4 wheel-drive buses or on (very unsafe) two-wheel drive cars (and dressing like they were ready to go surfing at sea level...). The greatest, most striking difference actually comes from the current "economic climate": while the tourist business is on an unprecedented high, and keeps growing - despite the inflated high prices per person - the astronomy "business" seems to be breathing a much more rarefied air and the most important word, here, seems to be "withdraw". Now the paradox is even clearer when one realizes that actually, at least a large part of the money that tourist companies are making comes directly from the telescopes. Mauna Kea is an impressive site, but the largest, most sophisticated telescopes in the World siting on the top of it make Mauna Kea more than a nice place to visit; it makes the mountain unique and worth paying the 200$/person. So why do these two worlds (of tourists and astronomers) keep living their lives as if they had nothing in common and how long will it take for them to realize that only together will they be able to survive and get the best of both worlds?

Why astronomers can (but shouldn't) do finance!

Tic-tac

Tic-tac, tic-tac. The world never stops. Even when we stop, or when we try to stop. The all-might time is always there, reminding those that can listen to its whispers about the inevitability of the future, and, most cruelly, of the end. Thus, faced with reality, we can't help but thinking that life, whilst being an inspiring torch on the world of impossible-things-made-real, is nothing but a precious thing we have somehow managed to borrow; indeed something so special and valuable that sooner or later we will somehow fail and have it taken away from us all-together. And yet, even if life itself has no meaning at all, and even if it will always be taken away in the most cruel, sudden ways, we can always look up, way past ourselves and into the light and heat that populate the night sky which we call stars - for those are the reminders that no matter the distance, or whether they are already gone, we know that because they mattered so much, they will always be a part of us, for they are the reasons we are who we are. Life is a tic-tac in a clock and then it's gone, and yet its memory and influence lives forever, as long as there are stars, as long as there is live, as long as there is hope.

Random thoughts

Build your inner-self like you would build a bridge: strong enough to sustain the weight of the world, but flexible enough not to break. You don't want to be a tacoma narrows bridge person.


Dark matter haloes are souls, galaxies are their bodies.

Letters from the creators II.2.56XSD

There's nothing left for us to do. Or think. Or live. It's all been done, written, thought, lived, experienced. Billions of years of light and darkness, colour and sound, emotions and dreams will only result in the same crude, overwhelmingly unbearable result. And yet, they did seem to enjoy every moment of the way. At least as long as they were feeling that their destination was getting closer and closer; while running and driving and climbing every single part of the way felt like the warmest sunlight on their skin, warming their souls.

I really don't know if they will ever realize what they are, and why we created the Universe again, but maybe they will. Maybe it is inevitable: life will always grow towards a higher-scale complexity and that path will always unveil the truth about life itself, and about the world where it was born. However, once they realize it, I don't think they will necessarily decide the way we did. Maybe they will embrace the emptiness in a completely different way. We embraced it, accepted it, but we also denied it in a complicated way, by assuming that the emptiness caused by unveiling the truth about everything could be solved by re-starting the clock. By taking it all away, and giving our children a world without knowledge, a world without answers, and without the truth. A world where dreams could be dreams for a life-time, where goals and hopes and ideas could move entire worlds.

Of course we know that life has no meaning. Just like we understand now that the end is really the end. And that no matter what we do, or think or dream; no matter how we live our lives, the end is always the same. Remorse, guilt; those do not exist once you learn to control your own mind. But just because we can not dream or imagine, or picture a world full of hope and possibilities, doesn't mean that it has to be like that.

Life is the most incredible outcome of the big bang. Surely the combination of physical phenomena can be truly spectacular, but life is so much more than a physical phenomena. Life is the dream of overcoming the physical reality itself; the will to create, to dream, to build.

Lives

It's like we can't even help it. Life. Living.It happens. It just does. One moment we are here, smiling, running, playing. The world is this huge place where adults keep on doing the craziest, strangest things - which we don't care anyway. And yet, the moment after, and less than in a blink of an eye, there we are, no longer children, no longer smiling and playing and running for fun.

So what is life all about?

Life

The meaning of life is to understand that it has meaning anyway. No matter what we do. No matter what our motives are. Whatever we do.

The purpose of life is to have a purpose; that is what distinguishes life from a fairly normal set of organic molecules that can come together.

There is no good or evil, no crime or heroism. No matter what we do, when we do it, or why we do it, we are just playing our own part on the big universal game of life.

Retorno e Paz

Naquela manhã de Outono em que Joaquim voltou ao mundo que fora o seu Mundo durante quase 20 anos, era como se nada tivesse mudado. Havia ainda o sol a brilhar, o céu azul, o ar limpo e verde a soprar por entre os montes e planícies que se estendiam até ao infinito abraçado pelo seu olhar. Memórias e momentos passados; estava tudo ali, quase parado no tempo, na paz e tranquilidade da brisa que lhe tocava o rosto e lhe afagava os cabelos. Mas Joaquim não era o mesmo rapaz que por ali havia crescido, corrido, caído, sonhado e partido. A vida levara-o a correr o mundo, a chegar mais longe, a descobrir locais com os quais nunca havia sonhado. Os seus sonhos levaram-no para tão longe que, durante anos, foi como se tudo aquilo que Joaquim via, ouvia, sentia e cheirava de novo não fossem mais do que uma memória distante, ou um sonho de uma vida que nunca viveu. E tudo isso rebentava agora em ondas irregulares num oceano agitado de memórias, ora felizes ora de lágrimas. Até porque se os caminhos baldios que atravessavam a serra o lembravam dos risos e brincadeiras que o haviam entretido - a ele e aos seus primeiros amigos -, a porta da casa onde crescera sabia-lhe ainda à dor que havia carregado desde o dia em que vira os seus pais pela última vez, acenando-lhes um adeus que lhe soube como um até já, mas que acabou por ser um adeus para sempre. Isto porque quatro meses depois dessa despedida, a estrada que os havia conduzido até à cidade que visitavam pelo menos uma vez por semana durante décadas levou-os para um novo destino do qual nunca mais voltaram. Joaquim ficou de tal forma perturbado com a notícia que não mais voltara à casa que, desde esse dia, passara a ser sua. Afinal, como podia ele aceitar a morte dos seus pais que tinham ainda tanto para viver? Como podia ele voltar e não ouvir os passos da mãe pela casa, sempre atarefada; tornar a pisar os caminhos que percorrera com os seus pais e não os ouvir a dizer para caminhar mais devagar; ou cheirar as flores e as plantas e não ouvir as explicações e lições do seu pai:? Não, Joaquim não tinha como enfrentar essa realidade que se abatera sobre a sua vida: o peso era demasiado, a dor profunda demais, cortante.
A verdade é que foram precisos 11 anos para Joaquim voltar ao mundo que o fez crescer e sorrir, ao Universo a que, no mais genuíno do seu ser, ele chamava casa. E, ainda assim, Joaquim sabia que a sua casa já não existia - ou pelo menos a casa do rapaz que os campos viram partir havia 11 anos - essa ruíra no dia em que se tornou órfão. E, ainda assim, havia algo de seu ali. Algo que o fazia sentir o calor do sol de Outubro como um toque do destino, substância invisível que lhe sussurrar as palavras doces que uma mãe canta ao seu filho para o adormecer seguro e confiante. O mundo havia-lhe mostrado visões, sensações, locais e pessoas absolutamente fantásticos e inesquecíveis - e, ainda assim, nada nem ninguém lhe podia tocar tanto quanto este local. Talvez porque cada detalhe, ainda que envelhecido, deteriorado ou desenvolvido, tinha o toque do seu pai e da sua mãe, e dos seus pais antes deles; mais do que isso, cada pedaço do que agora o rodeara cheirava aos seus sonhos de miúdo, a tudo aquilo que o fizera sorrir só de pensar. Cada árvore de fruto, cada flor, cada caminho por entre as ervas que agora cresciam como nunca - em cada detalhe havia uma memória, uma palavra, um gesto. Sim, o mundo lá fora deu a Joaquim as folhas de uma árvore adulta, e a oportunidade de criar um tronco forte o suficiente para finalmente conseguir enfrentar tudo aquilo que a vida lhe tirou; mas era ali, naquele pedaço de terra em que pouco mais se ouvia para além de um silêncio profundo, que Joaquim tinha as suas raízes, o seu solo, a sua água.


David Sobral

A noite ilumina

O vento não agita
as águas do mar que recua;
E a luz que ainda resta do dia
já não nos toca
num profundo abraço de calor.

A noite está aí:
passos no céu
pegadas de estrelas;
um rosto negro que esconde uma luz infinita.
A noite vem, vestida de silêncios,
A sorrir memórias e a cantar o pôr-do-sol
À espera de algo que só chegará pela manhã.

Só a escuridão ilumina verdadeiramente o nosso mundo.

David Sobral

The Road to the end - an entry in the Universe's diary

It didn't use to be like this before. Time was just a toy, an enjoyable river that allowed me to change, to evolve, to create the most outstanding phenomena. Not anymore though. Now I can feel it in a different way. As if the river was no longer infinite. I can see the end; it's coming.

I never used to think of the end - my life always seemed to be endless; as if every single bit of me would last forever. Thus, for every new star that was born within me, ultravioleting me with dreams and hopes and infinite possibilities, I could only feel thrilled, excited, renewed. Because of me, of my existence, they were able to form, to become, to exist, to shine and to give life to so much more. Other stars, smaller but richer, and then planets, an smaller and smaller bodies. Even sub-life, and sub-sub-life. Life within life within life.

Only very recently have I started to realize that time would not run forever within me, although I don't completely understand the reason why I couldn't see the signs before. After all, they were always so clear, ever since the first instants. Sure it felt like there were always new things arising and being born in me, but what happened to them as time went on? Couldn't I see how they aged and lost the strength of the past? Whilst it was absolutely clear that death was always the beginning of new lives, the truth is these were always significantly different. It was never really a cycle; what is dead is dead, and the life that would come out of it, whilst being absolutely new and full of possibilities, would never be more than an attempt to delay the inevitable.

I'm not only aging. I am beginning to die. I can feel it in my bones, my muscles and my inner thoughts. My cells are getting more and more spherical and elliptical, and I now have to wait so much to see the birth of a new star; while a long time ago there would be hundreds, thousands of them being born in absolutely amazing explosions of light in the same time; how young and strong it felt at that time! I'm slowly getting redder and darker, larger and colder; and if there was somebody else out there that would have been noticed straight away.

I don't know how much time I have left. After all, I'm still alive and well; the end is not waiting for me tomorrow - but it is already looking at me, in the horizon. Time, once the most enjoyable of the things within my body, is turning out to be my worst enemy - one that can not be beaten or defeated. And yet, I do not fear the end. I do not fear death. For thus it is not a product of sadness and misery, but a consequence of joy and life and light. If the end that I can now see ahead of me is the result of all the extraordinary things that I allowed to happen within me; if my death is a consequence of all the growth and evolution and change within me, than I will not only be fearless when facing it - I will embrace it with all that will be left of me by then. Because no matter how short my life will turn out to be, time is meaningless once you've experienced the creation of life within you - the birth of cells, of stars, of gigantic clouds of gas and planets and comets.

Yes, my end is near, but when it comes I will look at it with what's left of me and smile, because I lived my life to the fullest.

Human

Sometimes we want the night to last forever
smoke it, drink it, have it
darkness by darkness
until there’s nothing
absolutely nothing (left)
apart from the ashes of ashes themselves.
That’s when thoughts merge to become waves;
when happiness and reality fade away in a single whisper.
We are human;
alone in our crowded metropoles,
pieces of darkness among the million lights that fight the night
hopelessly;
awake and isolated in a world
which we can see and smell and touch
but which we cannot really
feel (or understand).

Sometimes the pain cuts so deep
that it almost becomes desirable
wanted
almost appreciated;
because it is real and it is an answer
- and an answer is always so much more than a never-ending question -
so we embrace it
breathe it fully
believe it
and we almost feel that there’s something
besides the unbearable weight of the entire world
pressing against our deepest wounds.

Sometimes. Sometimes we suffer. Sometimes there’s pain.
And most of the time we don’t just feel lost;
we are lost.

(now open your eyes.)

D.S. 2009

A book called life

Life is too precious to be questioned, too valuable to be disregarded, too wonderful not to be lived. Even if death is the way to a much better place - paradise with all its supposed glory and light - life will always be a unique experience. And whilst there is no single way to live it fully, you should never, ever waste this amazing opportunity. You see, life can be as much of a river as it can be an ocean, or anything else, really. Just like a book, your life is permanently waiting to be written; with as many stories, lives, smiles and tears a you can possibly live. The only difference is that there is no turning back, not hitting backspace, no eraser; life is a book you write at every single second, whether you want it or not. So what's it going to be? An amazing and inspiring novel, or just an ordinary soap opera? The choice is yours. Make it count.

D.S. 09

Mundos, Momentos

Há momentos que inventam novos mundos
e universos;
instantes que nos caem sobre os ombros
gigantes mas sem avisar
bater de asas
pó de estrelas primordiais
que acabam escritos nas linhas de um poema.
Intervalos sem dimensão
trazem vida e morte, viagem e partida
na ponta dos dedos que não têm.
A escolha. Dois mundos. Um Universo. Vida. Morte.
E o tempo nunca pára.
(Quantos mundos já criámos?)

D.S. 09

Tales of Stars and You

Everyone of us has a unique story. A past that reaches out far before our birth and that will last beyond our death. Even if you don’t realize it, you are more than 10 billion years old. You have lived a thousand lives and yet you are still a teenager - learning from every new form that you take and becoming fascinated by how all the things around you change and grow - forever evolving.
The day when you were born was not the day when were born. The day you were born did not happen just a few years ago. It happened a long, long time ago, when the entire world saw light - a tremendously bright light - finally illuminating the entire Universe. There are stories about those days, when the dark ages were finally over, when life was truly created, and, most of all, when you and me and all of us were born. Some say it was as if everything happened in a single moment in time. Throughout space, the first stars ever to shine were born, and, surrounded by what seemed like an eternal darkness at the time, they broke all the rules and sacrificed their lives to create everything around us.
Life was not created on Earth; it was made in light and heat, in blue and music, in art and happiness, right at the core of the brightest, largest and most magnificent stars that the universe has and will ever see. We are not only made of star’s dust; we are star’s children.

D.S. 09

The Blank-Page Boy

People called him John, Victor, Gonçalo, Mohammed, Andreas, and even Matheus and whist each person was absolutely sure that his name was just one of those (or any other in the long, long list of names), there was no-one in the entire world that really knew that. He had no name, no true identity, no real life or tastes. He did not have a home, a family, not even a past. Or so he believed. No matter the reasons that led him there, he learned how to turn himself into a blank page, seeking for a new life, a new beginning, a new chance almost every month, week, or day.

Mas qual crise!?

Há dias em que apetece escrever. Em que a voz do mundo nos chega de uma forma tão impossivelmente ridícula, suja, corrupta e sem nexo que nos força a optar. Entre seguir a corrente ou opormo-nos a ela. Entre aceitar uma visão ridícula do mundo, ou ter a coragem e o discernimento de o olhar a sério, de todos os ângulos, com todas as cores. É de facto incompreensível constatar que, num mundo da suposta informação, numa sociedade que se supõe do conhecimento, e, sobretudo, num planeta com uma população humana tão elevada, são tantos, mas tantos!, aqueles que não fazem a menor ideia do que estão a fazer, do que são, do que são os “problemas” e o que podem vir a ser soluções.

Escrevam-me o poema do mundo actual e qualquer um saberá que o difícil será poetizar toda a temática da crise financeira, dos mercados financeiros, da banca, dos bancos, dos bancos a falir, do dinheiro, do dinheiro que não chega, dos biliões que já só são 40 biliões quando ontem eram 80 biliões, ainda que nem interesse a moeda ou a nota, porque no fim de contas eram só contas e projecções, as mesmas feitas pelos investidores e outros ladrões. Há que não esquecer petróleo e tudo o que daí vem ou devém, mas, claro, mesmo aí, há o lucro, essa tão fundamental lei da física que diz que o preço de consumo é sempre superior ao de produção pelo menos por um factor suficiente para com ele se comprar mil e uma coisas que não precisamos e que por isso são tão dispendiosas. Escrevam o poema do mundo actual e temos fartura de tiros e bombas, de atentados e mortes, de desgraças e catástrofes. Fartura de imprensa social, claro (pois oh meu deus, o mundo sem imprensa social é o maior pesadelo de qualquer terrorista e político mal intencionado - manda todos esses para o desemprego sem qualquer hipótese de sobrevivência no ramo!), mas, oh, como viveríamos nós sem o jovem de 14 anos que foi ontem baleado pelo filho de 3 a ser notícia de abertura e primeira página de todos os jornais? E sem o político lambido que garante que não existe outra opção para isto ou aquilo, que a crise é grave - ou, até, para ouvir os nossos maiores líderes referirem-se ao actual estado do país como de uma profunda desgraça, como se o tempo em que vivemos não fosse o melhor de sempre!

E é exactamente aí que o poema acabaria. No que a maioria interpretaria como ironia e crítica social, estaria a verdade: é a crise, é a crise, mas nunca estivemos melhor do que isto! Mas claro, quem pensa assim? Afinal, “no meu tempo é que era”, e isso, juntamente com o encher de peito que são os descobrimentos e a pseudo-grandeza de império passado, fazem sempre (quase) pensar que Portugal foi em tempos um país fantástico, sem fome, sem pobres, justo, onde tudo funciona fantasticamente: um exemplo para o mundo, até para a galáxia inteiro, o Universo!

O que dava mesmo mesmo jeito era saber fazer contas, perceber que quem manda no mundo e no seu destino somos nós - cada um de nós. E quem quiser queixar-se disto ou daquilo e depois passar os dias a ver televisão, beber cerveja, ou fumar todo o tabaco do mundo, sem sequer um esforço sincero que o faça - mas que pelo menos não fira os outros que se esforçam, que trabalham, que alcançam, que não desistem. Porque se ferem esses, então, meus amigos, aí é que temos a crise, mas nem importa a crise financeira ou económica, aí temos a crise real, a que importa - a crise que transforma a humanidade na raça mais estúpida do mundo.

O Rio que Corre no Teu Jardim

O rio que corre no teu jardim
não tem lugar algum
no mundo dos teus sonhos
que é a tua casa.
É por isso que não sabes nunca quem tu és
ou que memórias nele correm.
O rio que corre no teu jardim
é um espelho da minha face distante
dos meus sorrisos que nunca foram
dos nossos suspiros de criança.
Como um desejo secreto
um portal escondido
um tesouro perdido;
o rio que corre no teu jardim
tem o meu nome
e por isso está sempre ali
tão perto e disponível
o som da água por entre as pedras
o cristal fresco feito de pedaços de azul
e o mundo inteiro para atravessar,
à espera que um dia
o teu olhar desperte e tu descubras
que há um rio que corre no teu jardim
só para ti.

Existence

Às vezes não há mais nada para além do silêncio. E da escuridão. É talvez aí que nos encontramos e nos perdemos ao mesmo tempo. Num lugar sem espaço, num momento para além do tempo. Às vezes olho em redor e não vejo mais do que a solidão que nos rodeia a todos. A inevitabilidade que desesperadamente - ainda que sem o admitirmos ou nos apercebermos - tentamos combater. Numa ou em muitas outras pessoas, num objectivo material, numa experiência espiritual, numa realidade monetária ou sexual. Lutamos, e por vezes fazêmo-lo com tal ímpeto que quase chegamos a acreditar que há um sentido, um rumo, um caminho. E a vida sabe bem.
E, ainda assim, por mais clara e simples que seja a estrada que percorremos, assim que olhamos para algo para além do exacto local que estamos a pisar, algo de desconcertante sucede. Como uma visão do passado e do futuro numa mistura heterogénea mas ainda assim única, ao mesmo tempo que a vista em nosso redor nos mostra pedaços de todos os caminhos alternativos - da vida que nunca poderemos viver mas que, ainda assim, parece estar ali tão perto.
Sós e incapazes de nos conhecermos ou saber para onde vamos, isolados numa realidade material que não nos deixa compreender sequer o que somos, e que, no fim de contas, separa-nos, mais do que nos aproxima, de tudo e de todos.

The Book

Can you still remember the sweet gentle surface of the book we used to read? We swore we would never finish reading it. Each word as the most precious gift, each sentence as the most valuable jewel: we would read each piece of it like it was the last thing we would have ever read. And that's how we imagined it: you, me and our book, together, page by page, year by year, we would face eternity and live forever. Until one day we read the last page. It was yellow. And old. Most of all: we did not notice it - how could we ever suspect that we were actually getting to the end of it, that our eyes would soon rest in the words "the end" just to realize that nothing really lasts forever - not even the book we once started reading together. And so it was. You, me, and the last page of that old book that told us so many stories about the world and life and the universe. Stories of men and women, of lives and dreams and cultures. But in that moment, when our eyes met and our voices said it, "the end.", it was like those words were more powerful than anything else - like they could, by themselves, wipe out all that we had read.
The truth is those words didn't erase anything at all. All the moments, smiles and comments, all our attention towards each single word and punctuation and all the times our voices were one when sailing through the mystery of that book - they are all still alive in the world of memories. That's what "the end" truly means: the beginning of forever.

Dust to Dust - a proto-song

from gas to light
from light to life
we have traveled through time
in bodies and shells
so much older
than ourselves.

from life to love
from love to hope
we were strangers
with nothing to say
until our paths crossed
and in each other's eyes
we found the way.

from hope to distance
from distance to strangers
we flew so high
among the stars
but then we fell
and grew apart.
We ran away
without even knowing
we were throwing
away...
all we had.


from strangers to lovers
from lovers to one
and then there was only silence
endless nights
burning spears
and unspoken tears.

from strangers to lovers
from lovers to one
we lived it all
shining as stars
but soon all we shared
were memories and scars.

...

And though the light we shared
has now been lost
and though our ways
will never cross
Deep inside I know
that one day...
you will shine

again...

The flying man

He had always considered himself a flying man, though he had never had the pleasure to be one. Sure he had travelled by plane across continents and oceans. He had even piloted a couple of them. However, for Guilmar, flying was much more than just being on the air, supported by some sort of structure. Flying was the ultimate freedom that one could only experience by himself.
Thus, since Guilmar made that inner discovery, he had worked towards accomplishing it. Sure he knew it was impossible, but since when is that a reason for giving up? However, aware of how crazy his aims were, he kept every single detail to himself. His dreams, his hopes, his thoughts. And though that meant he would never have a friendly voice, whispering him that he could do it, encouraging - or simply helping him facing the real world - he knew it was the only way. The road to heaven had to be walked alone.
Every night, when all were asleep, Guilmar would go out, silently, and head on to the shore. He didn’t know why, but he was convinced that the answer to his dream was there, in the freshness of the sea breeze. It was as if he could hear the voices of his own dreams whispering to him, pointing him towards the sea. The seagulls seemed to agree with it, specially when the sun started to rise and their wings started opening to the fresh morning air in grace. It was a vision that had always left him speechless.
However, even after years and years of meditation and searches, Guilmar wasn’t able to find the answer. Flying was still as impossible as it had always been. Only beings such as seagulls would ever be able to fly free on their own...
Thus, on one particular night, when Guilmar reached the shore, he knew that would be the last time. He would never come back there seeking for an answer that did not exist at all. Not there, not anywhere. That’s why he opened his arms, just at the limit of the cliff, feeling the fresh drops of ocean being thrown at him by the strong wind, and said no more. No more would he do that. Reality was upon him, and it was too strong to resist.
And yet, when he was about to turn his back on the world he had always searched for, something happened. All of a sudden, he felt... Free. As if the stronger and stronger wind, blowing from west, was enough to guide him to the clouds and beyond. So he faced the sea, once again, and he knew. The answer had always been there for him to listen. But he was deft, he had always been deft, because he was trying too hard.
On that night, Guilmar knew. He felt it with his entire mind, flowing through his body. Flying. It was possible after all. He just had to let it go. Leave it all behind. Just like the seagulls. And he did. At the sunrise, with the lives that had became his own brothers and sisters, Guilmar opened his wings and jumped alongside with them. He flew, and while reaching the clouds, he knew. He finally knew, and it was worthy. Even if it was the end.

The Past

It never goes away. Even when we are too busy to remember it. To feel the memories. Who we are, who we were. Where we came from. The past haunts us every second of our existence, from the moment we are born up until the end - whatever that is.
And still, life is tasty, it's wonderful. Hope all around, with or without the sun, the light or the gentle breeze.

Time traveling

He had discovered a way to travel through time. Back to the past, without any machinery. The low-cost time-machine, one could call it. And though no-one had ever done it, he knew it was possible. Actually it just happened to him. All of a sudden.
Music, memories, happiness, transcendence. All or any of those have kept the key for time traveling for a long, long time. The secret is the emotion, and we humans need something to invoke it, to stimulate it. However, once that happens, the resemblance between emotions and moments gets us so rapidly, that we don't even feel the change, the time-traveling distance.

A Cell Called Earth

Does anyone know what is the purpose of all this? Why do we struggle for survival whenever something threatens us? Does any living creature understands the nature of its own life and death, or of life itself? The answer, as far as we can tell, remains unknown.
From the moment we are born, in a biological point of view, something changes. The Universe changes. As if there was some sort of physical process that can literally give a life of its own to a set of non-living components. And though we are not born with a conscience, neither in a biological, nor in a more conventional point of view, the truth is, human life does not depend on it. Consciousness, many say, is one of the deepest mysteries of the human nature, something that - as far as we can tell - clearly separates us from most of "the others". Some - or maybe the majority - of the most preeminent minds would even say without a blink that, in fact, we are intelligent beings. Free-willing, creative, innovative. Nevertheless, is it really true? Do we really control our lives, our options? And are we really creative and free-willing as we often believe, or are we just well treated slaves, who will do all the work without even knowing (do our cells know what they are?)?
Despite all the claims, and the enormous excitement in the XX century in explaining the origin of life, the truth is that, at the moment, we have absolutely no idea of how to create it, what it really is, if anything, or why it happened. We can only tell that it should be quite easy to begin - to get. Mainly due to the fact that it started really early in our own planet - almost as soon as it cooled down enough. Many still believe in a progressive and continuous path from complex molecules to life, but the evidence, despite the claims, is far from convincing, and, in most cases, purely speculative.
While it does seem reasonable to sustain that there was a certain logical path, the incapacity to recreate it in the lab should at least make us reconsider. Maybe we got it wrong. Completely wrong, or maybe just part of it. It is a fact that complex molecules could have formed in the primitive Earth. In fact, they are almost everywhere in the galaxy, mainly in the interstellar medium (which we don't really understand why). But life, well, that's really something else.
If the subject was something else, scientists would have already moved on. Trying different approaches and alternatives is a must when one is determined in knowing the answer to some particular question or questions, though the sensitivity of the subject seems to be pushing everyone back. But what if there is an answer?
We do know particular things about life: it can resist even in the most bizarre conditions - the extremely hot or cold, or even in the most "toxic" environments. Thus, if we want to explain the origin of life, and if we do believe that we need i) enough energy ii) a lot of carbon and other atoms to make molecules, then what IF life is, in fact, created in stars? Maybe it can only be created as a side-effect of a supernovae explosion. Or maybe it can only happen in some sort of strange conditions and space, and it is then spread.
Furthermore, why does life points in a direction which doesn't look random at all? It is not a novelty that, at the moment, just like it happened in the past, life is auto-regulating the entire planet. And it has done so for a long, long time in the past. Without life, Earth would definitely be different from what it is now. No oxygen, no water, probably as dry and hot or as dry and cold as any other random planet orbiting its star.
However, for some reason, life seems to have a point, a purpose. It does take its time, and, sure, when we look at the individual efforts, at the individual lives, it almost seems like there is no pattern, no sign of design, of inherent intelligence behind it. All that changes when we start looking carefully, and doing so in larger and larger time-scales - and in larger space-scales as well. as far as we know, life on Earth began with the simplest cells, similar to bacteria. For a long, long time, they lived on their own. Until something else happened, besides starting to be able to get most of their energy from the sun: complexity. If life is random, and has no purpose, why would it tend to a higher and more complex organization? It is not "natural" to achieve a greater complexity than the one that sustains the minimum energy possible. So why would bacteria, or simpler cells like it, start building a society big enough to male it a living being on its own: an eucharyotic cell? Was that what happened in the first place when the first bacteria were "created"? Random molecules tending to such a complexity that they became ONE?
However, that would be just two lucky events, right? Yes, life has to be random, how could we explain it otherwise? So why did cells, which were made of cells, started becoming cells of something larger, ultimately building new beings, like us?
Slowly, like a virus or a tremendous infection, life has conquered the planet, and made a slave of it. Controlling it. Regulating it. And today, if we would dare to look at the mirror, or from space, maybe - just maybe - we would be able to see that life is not stopping. Life won't stop in its quest for complexity. For growth. For expansion. Actually it is getting more effective. Faster and faster. Greedy, one might say.
Thus, while we are too busy living our free-will lives, the truth is we have failed to see that we are no longer the living beings which some sort of cells give life to: we are already the cells of a much larger living being. Something that is already bigger than our own planet.
Will it ever stop?

The Observer

Destined to watch and observe. Knowing every single detail of the earth and the heavens, but always forbidden to intervene. Only watch he could. Passively, hidden. And, once in a while, full of the deepest fury.

Into pieces

I break myself into a million of pieces
Rolling along the waves
Flying across the skies,
And whenever I try to put myself together
I realize
There’s no-one here.

Stars

For eternity we’ve dreamed
Stared.
Seeking light.
Purity.
Stars as Gods.

And an eternity it took
To realize
Purity, god, light and wonder
Are no more
Than the Hellest Hell.
Stars.

Looking without our eyes

There is so much out there that we cannot see. Wonders. Phenomena that we can only imagine. And it's all because we have always lived here, surrounded by the light of our sun, struggling to adapt and survive on this planet. Nevertheless, nothing can stop us from imagining how it would be if life was something that was happening in a much broader region of space, instead of being limited by a planet. What if life was struggling to survive on an entire solar system - or even in a galaxy (or in a large portion of the universe? Sure we could come up with a huge amount of arguments that would clearly show that this hypothetic scenario is, at least, non-sense. However, if by some way, life could evolve and become a solar-system, galactic or a universal phenomena, then it would have to adapt "its creatures" to the extremely "weird" environment. Beings which could only see visible light would definitely be eliminated rapidly (unless they somehow could come up with a smart "external" solution, like human beings). Thus, multi-wavelength vision would be highly important, not only to search for points of interest, but also to probe some of the biggest dangerous along the galaxy. What other changes would have to take place? Will they ever happen?

The beginning

And so there was energy and matter in a gracious dance. Turning into one another. However, nothing lasts forever, and the excitement and joy ended up increasing distances, cooling the environment. And energy and matter were no longer connected as they were in the beginning. Nevertheless, there was a different dance now. Nuclei, and then, all of a sudden, electrons started pairing up with them. And there was a flash, when all the photons became free. And so they flew in all directions, in a loudly joy, singing songs of the very beginning - something that nothing could remember clearly now.
And then it was like time was running faster and faster, while the mysterious dark matter was shaping the distribution of matter that would eventually ended up forming the first galaxies. Those, getting bigger and bigger, formed the first stars, huge amounts of gas, giving up an unimaginable quantity of energy, specially in the ultraviolet domain. Nevertheless, such intensity can not last for long - and they died almost a moment after they were born. But they did not left without leaving their mark. Forever. With their enormous explosions, they created the first metals, and triggered star formation in all the nearby regions. Soon, a new generation of stars would be born, in a much richer environment. Some would even form planets. Us. Living beings.
Is it over already? Or was it just the beginning?

Hard times

It's hard to overcome all the problems and difficulties that life loves to offer us all the time. However, when we are determined enough, there will always be a way. A solution. A hope. No matter how impossible the task might seem, or how tuff it looks for the people around you. The secret for life is the secret for your own success: learning to defy the deepest and most fundamental laws of physics, by using them against them.

Sometimes

And it all comes down to the moment when you look at the sky and figure out that somehow you last track of your own life. Your past. And how can you paint the future with your hands when you don't even know where you came from? How to set the route when you have no idea of your birthplace?

Star dust

And so it began. It was created. Just like all the other things that we are familiar with in this planet we call home: Earth. And no matter if it is a human emotion, art, poetry, music, technology, life, or dreams. Because they all come from the same Mothers: stars and their violent, energetic and amazing explosions as supernovas. We are more than just souls stuck in bodies made of star dust: we are stars' suns and daughters.