Freedom Lives Within

"She looked out the window her whole life, the way so many women sit their sadness on an elbow. I wonder if she made the best with what she got or was she sorry because she couldn’t be all the things she wanted to be."  (House on Mango Street, Pg. 11)

Salvador Dali, "Woman at the Window"

"Esperanza. I have inherited her name, but I don’t want to inherit her place by the window."

What does the name Esperanza mean? She says:

"In English my name means hope. In Spanish it means too many letters. It means sadness, it means waiting." (House on Mango Street, Pg. 10)

 I feel like this picture is the epitome of the name she describes. ESPERANZA. Hope, sadness, waiting, regret, wishing, desire, longing, yearning. 

I really think this painting depicts Esperanza's thoughts very well. She gazes out over the sea and sees a ship sailing. I think sailing is very symbolic of freedom for many people. 

for instance: this looks pretty free huh? I think so.

 

 But, on the other hand, sailing can be more like this:

 

Throwing up seasick, and confined to a small space, kind of trapped. Not so free...

My point is that freedom often times is something we see as being what we dont have, we see freedom as being outside of our selves and our little space we live in. But TRUE FREEDOM lives within a person.  I feel that we truly become free when we learn to be free inside ourselves instead of looking for other things outside of ourselves to set us free, like a fast car, or sail boat, or a million dollars. 

Martin Luther King Jr. was confined in Birmingham jail, but he was never not free inside, despite his conditions on the outside. From that jail he wrote the Birmingham Letter, which stated:

"Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed."
- Martin Luther King, Jr., "Letter from Birmingham Jail"

Love Life, Despite Despair

"I bless you in the name of all that is good and strong and beautiful, Antonio. Always have the strength to live. Love life, and if despair enters your heart, look for me in the evenings when the wind is gentle and the owls sing in the hills. I shall be with you."—  Pg. 261


I really like the line "Love life, and if despair enters your heart, look for me...I shall be with you."  I feel like the world today could really use that promise. There is a lot of despair around us.

People become depressed or feel despair for different reasons, maybe this man lost everything, maybe he feels alone, maybe he doesn't know his purpose in life.  Have you ever felt like this?

Despair does just come to the men in America who lost everything. Many children throughout the world have lost everything before their one year old birthday.
These children make me think of the line above, "Always have the strength to live."

I feel like the world around us sends so many messages that can be extremely discouraging.

With this kind of attitude around us it makes me wonder what people said when the goal was established to do this:

 


But I believe in what John F. Kennedy said, "We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard."


I think we need this kind of encouragement, that someone will always be with us, that we are not alone. I think it is extremely important for us to love life regardless of what is going on, because it will give us the will to live. We need a reason to wake up in the morning. In Japan there is a saying, "Ikigai" it means, "the reason to get up in the morning". I feel like waking up with an Ikigai mindset is the kind of mindset that helps a nation rebuild after destruction and despair.

This is a picture of Hiroshima right after it was hit with the atomic bomb. There was nothing left. It was completely destroyed. Below is a picture of the same building in Hiroshima today. It took some love of life and strength to live, but the people of Hiroshima were able to rebuild their home after it was left in despair.

Fear of what we don't understand

"I had been afraid of the awful presence of the river, which was the soul of the river, but through her [Ultima] I learned that my spirit shared in the spirit of all things" (p.15).

I feel like we are afraid of what we don't understand. Especially things that are powerful, especially water, as exemplified above. We fear water for quite a few reasons.

For instance: we don't know what is in the water.










 We also don't know where the water will take us.

 
We know that water is extremely powerful and we don't want to be caught in it's way at the wrong time.





















This fear can be really good when it can protect us from dangerous situations, but it can also rob us of opportunities to harness an incredible power.
 

I feel like water is not the only power that we do not understand, equally so it is not the only power we fear. What are some other forces that we fear? I believe that people fear the wind, the sun, LOVE, the power to create life. What other powers can you think of?
It is important to respect these powers but I feel that fear of them can be detrimental. I think that Ultima is trying to teach us this. She wants us to realize that we too are powerful and that we should not fear the water, neither should we fear ourselves. We must learn control, or learn to harness this power correctly.

I feel like a huge part of harnessing this power is to live in the moment, to operate in the present.




Gerry Lopez, a famous surfer said "Well, I think one of the big lessons you learn about surfing is how to operate in the present, that's really what the foundation of the entire surfing experience is."

This concept is also the foundation of being a panda, and doing kung fu.
If we do not learn to operate in the present what will happen to us on the waves of life? Will we harness their power?

Or will we be let ourselves be swept under and into the razors of the reef and devoured by the sharks of life?