WITHOUT A GUARDIAN ANGEL LIFE CAN BE TROUBLESOME

Although I was born a Catholic, I don’t believe in institutionalized religion. I agree with Krishnamurti when he says that “Truth is a pathless land. Man cannot come to it through any organization, through any creed, through any dogma, priest or ritual, nor through any philosophical knowledge or psychological technique.” In other words, each one of us has to create his/her own view of the world and transcendence. A gigantic task, no doubt about it; but as luck would have it, life gives us a hand in this endeavor. In my case I realized that, without the assistance of a guardian angel, some of my life events would have ended very differently.

It was the year 1976. My parents had gone to spend the summer at a house they had built on the Argentine coast. I was in Buenos Aires and had not planned to go anywhere because I had just started a new job. Suddenly, for no reason, I felt the need to go visit my parents; on Friday afternoon I asked my boyfriend to be my copilot. On Saturday morning we left and, after a five hour drive, we arrived to my parent’s house. That evening my father suffered a cardiovascular syncope and the doctor urged us to take him to see his cardiologist in Buenos Aires. So we did, but during his medical consultation my father had another attack and died at the hospital without regaining consciousness. If my guardian angel had not incited me to travel, I would not have seen my father for the last time.

This was in 1976. In 1977 I emigrated to the United States, which I would not have done if my father was still alive. It was in the United States that I built myself the life I had always wanted to have. What transpires from these events and many other events in my life is that when we watch closely beyond the surface, we can uncover an order that goes beyond coincidence and luck.  

 

DEPRESSION PSYCHOTHERAPY GROUPS FOR CLINICIANS

 

This book includes eight sessions with information and activirties. It is a fantastic tool for clinicians who run groups for severely depressed patients. 

LIFE WITHOUT MUSIC WOULD BE A MISTAKE. FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE

  Friedrich Nietzsche once stated that without music life would be a mistake. I have   

to admit that it took me a while to understand the real meaning of his quote. Until one day by pure chance I listened to the music of a Mexican composer, Ernesto Cortazar. Although I have always been a fan of classical music, especially Mozart, alone in my house during the COVID outbreak for some reason Mozart was not what I longed to listen to. Perhaps the life stage I am going through needed something different, more in tune with who I had been and who I was. Being divorced and alone due to social distancing, I needed to reconnect to the beginnings of my journey; to that time of my life before all the tests and the trials. The first day I listened to Cortazar I felt like he had composed his music just for me: it spoke to me of the country I had left behind when I was still young, it reminded me of my youth, of my family of origin and of what my life had been before the challenges that came later. Listening to those notes transported me to that place in our heart where we are never alone because we are connected to our starting point. It was then that I understood what Nietzsche meant when he spoke about music making us feel valuable, loved and deserving a meaningful journey. Needless to say, Cortazar has become my daily companion, when I write, when I walk the dog, when I sit in my apartment balcony with a glass of wine. His music helps me understand how my life has traveled the perfect road despite sometimes feeling lost and hopeless. In a few words, music always reminds me of who I am. Definitely, music is a window to transcendence.