CHAP IV. THE DISCIPLINE OF THE DESERT. To Be Loved, To Be Obeyed

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The plum tree in my cabin

Inevitably

It blossomed.

Kobayashi Issa

What is more pitiable than a wretch

who has no pity for himself?

Saint Augustine of Hippo

The paradox of renunciation permeates the path I choose as I search for what truly nourishes my core. Is the oasis of my soul an illusion, or is the illusion of a 'normal' life the true desert? Without a clear answer, I move forward like someone who has chosen a fixed point on the horizon and persists despite their anxieties. A hermit and a pilgrim in a foreign land, I cling to my deep, intimate rituals: a wild, yet lucid, practice of letting go of what no longer belongs to me in a process that demands lightness.

I wonder what other actions these times of war require. The answer emerges in silence, tenderness and self-care, in sustained attention, while my temporal life dissolves into a suspended weave, I refine my arrow’s path, allowing body and soul to move, at last, hand in hand.

Dream I: I'm with Marina Abramović. Excited, I tell her I love her work. I ask her age, she replies: 62. I think she's lying because -and this is a true fact- at the end of her Balkan Erotic Epic, I move to the front row of the Liceu, directly beneath the stage, to observe her. While the audience applauded, I, remained absorbed, unable to look away. I woke up and looked up for the meaning of 62. I think, naively, that perhaps it's an abstraction of the year 2026. I search: Abramović's work at age 62. I find: The Kitchen. Homage to Saint Therese . My heart races because that very day was Saint Therese's birthday.

Dream II: I await N.'s arrival at an elegant hotel. Through my bedroom window, I see a solitary green mountain. N. is a day late. I wonder if I should pay for the extra night or if I can charge it to his account. I opt for the latter. N. arrives dressed in white and sits on a reddish Persian rug in the center of my room. Before sitting with him, I sweep my recently cut hair from around the rug. I'm a little embarrassed, but N. doesn't seem to mind. It was a vivid dream.

Dream III: I visit a woman who has recently given birth in the hospital. She is in a room with a larger-than-usual bed; everything is inmaculate and tidy. She is lying down, half-dozing, in the middle of the bed. In the waiting room, a seven-year-old girl is holding her newborn sister. With a single glance, I let the mother know that I will hold the baby. I take her carefully, making sure her to support her head. Concentration and calm. It was a summer day. I wake up feeling a faint sense of desolation.

On January 1st of this year, I discovered Candelabro 's album Deseo, Carne y Voluntad. It arrived from across the Atlantic on a feverish night, as I tossed and turned in bed. Without a doubt, it became the breath of fresh air I needed at the dawn of a new chapter. It has rekindled within me a joy that takes root and expands in the center of my chest. Its lyrics have reminded me that hope is a daily choice, while the melody connects me to a weightless, luminous dimension of physical space. I am once again embracing my secret conviction of perceiving matter as a divine sensory experience.

Por encima de quien soy

Trepa encima de mi carne

Está siempre alrededor

Trepa encima de mis huesos

Not long ago, I had my first Shibari experience, shared with someone I trust and whom I guided myself. Tied, I felt a primordial calm, as if held in the arms of a mother who is no longer here. It was the first time I consciously requested submission, an idea that until then seemed unfathomable, yet proved essential to fully comprehending my work. There was no spectacle in it, seated on my knees in a rudimentary Mantis tie, I felt something within me soften and align. In that space of restraint, I encountered an honest form of freedom. I wept silently and lay on my side, while my companion watched from a distance and a kitten approached, curious. The notion that my vulnerability is the root of my potentia settles in without fanfare. I prepare my body as a channel and open windows for the expression of my unconscious, I leave behind the days when I was transformed through passivity. Today, I learn from the defeat of the herd and embrace the insurgency that gives my existence meaning. I allow myself to be seduced by principles that tension my days: to be loved in order to be obeyed, or to be obeyed in order to the loved? Meanwhile, like Issa’s plum tree, I inevitably blossom in coordination with the universe.