Authors From Mexico

"He carries islands of peace in his hands; she, a burning river-bed of windmills and storms."

"His foot wounded, once again, on the sole, right where he was beginning to step with joy"

"The afternoon bubbles, and flows stealthily towards the lap of night. A lukewarm sky envelops the city, like a caress on a check, a pleasure of solitude that relieves eyes and ears."

"To follow one's own path means the rejection of those chosen by others, he knows it, and will remain alone, against wind and tide, tremulous warrior who brandishes his sword in the air to test its weight and mettle."

""Better to have scars than incurable wounds," Grandfather would say"

"She was always a child who anticipated things, believed in words yet to be spoken, in days that open to a recent now, in fairy tales. Sometimes she awoke with woodsy breezes in her hair and the amazement of finding herself a stranger to this time and world. What early banishment snatched the taste of immensity from her mouth? In her he recognized a perfume, a tenacious expectancy, perhaps the name of an unexpressed desire. In him she recognized a dream, a search, a brightness that awaits a powerful and inextinguishable irradiation."

"To the brink of what edges does a kiss lead?"

"To speak of Judaism in such global terms as the "Jewish tradition" as belonging solely to the Ashkenazic or the Sephardic is absurd. That which is Jewish does not rest on blood or race, nor does it rest on uniformity of origin, nor even less on rigidity of thought and action. If we speak of philosophy, then the Sephardic tradition is the weightier; if we speak of a certain mysticism or of the resurgence of literary themes, then the Ashkenazi tradition is closer to our own times. But where fidelity to Torah or the oral tradition is concerned, both visions, and within both these visions, the multiplicity of their views, form the continuous circle that has maintained living Judaism to this day. Neither Ashkenazim nor Sephardim have the exclusive privilege of having preserved Judaism. It is the good fortune of Judaism that opposition and contradiction are its germinative elements. Ought we then to continue to foment in our children an antagonism which is not only anachronistic but-considering the narrow dwelling-ground-effectively disperses our communal identity for others as well as for Jews themselves, with respect to our continuing desire to be a source of living waters."

"… In a way, the author is a writer's public persona. The writer, however, is a private person. Anyone who expresses life's experiences--their own or someone else's--in writing is a creative writer, and for him or her, the most important concern, the passion, is the writing itself…"

"… I tend to over-research, but I don't mind. It is amazing how little we remember even about events and experiences of personal importance. The larger and deeper the well of knowledge, the easier it is for me to feel safe and secure in it, to be sure that I am as accurate and factual as possible, and to develop believable characters, who react in their own unique ways or betray what they're capable of as they deal with extraordinary situations or unusual experiences. But it isn't until I do the actual writing that I discover all of these aspects, including how much of the research is integral to the plot…"

"…I engage with poetry musically. I think I hear the music of the poem before I put words to it. The poem comes to me as it were a song more than a string of words or images. If I can’t transport that musical quality to the poem, then the poem doesn’t exist for me…”"

"…My house is my laboratory, set apart from the rest of the world, and when my son was small I spent most of my time there. I often wrote poems while doing housework. I always had pencils and paper throughout the house: in the laundry, in the dining room, in the kitchen…"

"When I began to write poetry, I knew I had found something so akin to music. Music and poetry are the oldest of human expressions-probably first music, then poetry. They complement each other and blend with each other to form a song. A song is powerful. It has the range of emotion music provides, and the power of ideas, images, memory associations, and speech governed by human intellect. Richard Wagner said something I found extraordinary. He said that the "reason for being of music is poetry." I wholeheartedly subscribe to that notion. At times, somewhere in my mind I hear the music of a poem long before the words come together."

"I was born in a small tropical town in the state of Veracruz, Mexico. There, people fostered both the creation and the performance of poetry and music, together with the art of storytelling. I was also fortunate to be a daughter of parents who believed in educating the two girls in the family equally well as their six sons. My father used to tell my sister and me that "When you educate a man, you educate an individual. But when you educate a woman, you educate the whole family."…"

"To be aware is to see what is truth, to see everything the way it is, not the way we want it to be to justify what we already believe. The mastery of awareness is the first mastery of the Toltec, and we can also call it the mastery of truth. First you need to be aware that the voice in your head is always telling you a story. You are dreaming all the time. It is true that you perceive, but the way the storyteller justifies, explains, and makes assumptions about what you perceive is not the truth; it's just a story. Next, you need to have the awareness that the voice of the storyteller in your head is not necessarily your voice. Finally, you need to practice awareness until you master awareness. When you master awareness as a habit, you always see life the way it is, not the way you want to see it."

"Doing your best is about trusting in yourself and trusting in creation, the force of life. You set a goal and go for it 100 percent without any attachment to attaining it. I encourage you to take responsibility for every decision you make in life. If you practice doing your best, very soon it becomes a habit. When doing your best becomes a habit, everything is a set up for you to always be happy."

"I change my story by changing what I believe about myself. When I clean up the lies I believe about myself, the lies I believe about other people change. Every time I change myself, my whole story changes to adapt to the new main character."

"Respect is one of the greatest expressions of love. If other people try to write your story, it means they don't respect you. They consider that you're not a good artist who can write your own story, even though you were born to write your own story."

"Be Skeptical, but Learn to Listen."

"Be Impeccable with Your Word. Speak with integrity. Say only what you mean. Avoid using the word to speak against yourself or to gossip about others. Use the power of your word in the direction of truth and love."

"Don't Take Anything Personally. Nothing others do is because of you. What others say and do is a projection of their own reality, their own dream. When you are immune to the opinions and actions of others, you won’t be the victim of needless suffering."

"Don't Make Assumptions. Find the courage to ask questions and to express what you really want. Communicate with others as clearly as you can to avoid misunderstandings, sadness and drama. With just this one agreement, you can completely transform your life."

"Always Do Your Best. Your best is going to change from moment to moment; it will be different when you are healthy as opposed to sick. Under any circumstance, simply do your best, and you will avoid self-judgment, self-abuse and regret."

"You have the power to create. Your power is so strong that whatever you believe comes true. You create yourself, whatever you believe you are. You are the way you are because that is what you believe about yourself. Your whole reality, everything you believe, is your creation. You have the same power as any other human in the world. The main difference between you and someone else is how you apply your power, what you create with your power."

"In every relationship there are two halves of that relationship. One half is you, and the other half is your son, your daughter, your father, your mother, your friend, your partner. Of those halves, you are only responsible for your half; you are not responsible for the other half."

"Love is not about concepts; love is about action. The only way to master love is to practice love. You don't need to justify your love, you don't need to explain your love; you just need to practice your love."

"Relationship is an art. To keep the two of you happy, you have to keep your half perfect. You are responsible for your half, and your half has a certain amount of garbage. Your garbage is your garbage. The one who has to deal with that garbage is you, not your partner. And it's the same with your partner's half. Your partner has a certain amount of garbage. Knowing your partner has garbage, you allow her to deal with her own garbage. You are going to love her and accept her with all of her garbage. You are going to respect her garbage. You are not in a relationship to clean your partner's garbage; she is going to clean her own. Even if your partner asks for your help, you have the choice to say no. Saying no doesn't mean you don't love or accept your partner; it means you are not able or you don't want to play that game."

"There are people who say, "I want to change, I really want to change. There is no reason for me to be so poor. I am intelligent. I deserve to live a good life, to earn much more money than I earn." They know this, but that is what their mind is telling them. What do these people do? They go and turn the television on and spend hours and hours watching it. Then how strong is their will? Once we have awareness, we have a choice. If we could have that awareness all the time, we could change our routines, change our reactions, and change our entire life. Once we have the awareness, we recover free will. Becoming aware is about being responsible for your own life. You are not responsible for what is happening in the world. You are responsible for yourself."

"If I see a tree, I don't just see the tree; I qualify the tree, I describe the tree, I have an opinion about the tree. I like the tree or I don't like the tree. I may feel that the tree is beautiful or not, but my point of view, my opinion about the tree, is a story of my own creation. Once I interpret, qualify, or judge what I perceive, it is no longer real; it is a virtual world. This is what the Toltec call dreaming. The Toltec believe that humans are living in a dream. You are dreaming your life in this moment. You live in the story that you create, and I live in the story that I create. Your story is your reality — a virtual reality that is only true for you, the one who creates it. Long ago, somebody said, "Every head is a world," and it's true. You live in your own world, and that world is so private. Nobody knows what you have in your world. Only you know, and sometimes even you don't know."

"If one hundred people perceive the same event, you hear one hundred different stories, and everybody claims that his or her story is the true story. Of course, it's only true for that person, and your story is only true for you. What we share with one another is just our perception; it is just our point of view. And it's completely normal because the only thing we have is our point of view. You know, the way we create our stories is very interesting. We have a tendency to distort everything we perceive to make it agree with what we already believe; we "fix it" to make it agree with our lies. It is amazing how we do this. With awareness, we recover the control of our story. That is the good news. If we don't like our story, we are the authors; we can change it."

"You don't need internal dialogue; you can know without thinking. The value of cultivating a silent mind has been known for thousands of years. In India, people use meditation and the chanting of mantras to stop the internal dialogue. To have peace in your head is incredible. The moment the noise stops, you notice the silence and feel the relief, "Ahhh..." When the voice in your head finally stops talking, it feels something like that. I call it inner peace."

"Common sense is wisdom, and wisdom is different from knowledge. You are wise when you no longer act against yourself. You are wise when you live in harmony with yourself, with your own kind, with all of creation."