Zambrano

Today I've been reading a couple of essays by philosopher María Zambrano, who was from Malaga. She uses the metaphor of a clearing in a forest-this is what we must search for. Now there's a metaphor I can appreciate. The forest is uncertain, mutable. We need to come out into a clearing now and then. Another metaphor she uses in one of her essays is quite interesting, and perhaps unsurprising for someone who grew up in Malaga. She is talking about history. Here's a spontaneous translation: "If time, which conditions human life, were to flow without projecting its own shadow back on itself, if it were not curved, as it seems that all is on this earth, history would be a transparent mirror, like those calm bends in rivers that reflect earth and sky, and some cities, where such a privilege can be enjoyed" Certainly no rivers in Malaga! And so we must suffer an existence in time. And a little further on: "And so, more than onto an embracing and sustaining earth, man seems to have been deposited into waters from which he can barely emerge, like a nascent sun, even though he thinks he has a complete face, his face." But Zambrano is actually a fairly optimistic thinker. And a beautiful writer. More on her soon...

A post datum: this past weekend I noticed something rather curious regarding this blog. I've observed that the blog seems to get about 10-12 hits a day. 8, 12, 16, are typical numbers. I think one day there were twenty something hits. So I was quite surprised to see on Friday or Saturday, 87. What happened? I was curious so I looked again the following day: 54. I imagined maybe someone somewhere had created a link. But now it's back to the typical numbers: 10, 12... Quite odd.