16 de Abril, 2024/April 16th, 2024
For English scroll down
Este ano a Primavera chegou de rompante. Talvez o excesso de calor fora de época, alternado com chuvas ou outro acontecimento qualquer que não me apercebi, porque em tempo de crise climática há sempre algo novo a surpreender-nos… a verdade é que em duas semanas (as duas últimas de Março) todas as plantas floresceram em simultâneo e a Primavera instalou-se em toda a sua plenitude. Se nos últimos anos tenho reparado que as flores nascem cada vez mais cedo, este ano os ritmos da sua chegada não existiram. Antes, as cores chegavam a seu tempo - primeiro os brancos, depois os amarelos, de seguida os rosas e os violetas, também azuis que estão na mesma tonalidade e por fim os vermelhos com a florescência das papoilas. Este ano, o que antes demorava um mês inteiro às vezes dois, aconteceu em duas semanas e em simultâneo, as cores chegaram todas de uma só vez!
Quando procuro os nomes de plantas nos meus livros de Botânica – que são todos antigos, provavelmente os mais recentes serão dos anos 70 e 80 (falo do séc. XX, claro!) – reparo que muitas das plantas que vejo florescer em Abril aqui no vale, têm a indicação nos livros de florescência para Maio e Junho. Mas este ano não foi apenas a antecipação, a que já me habituei, mas o facto de tudo florir em simultâneo. Observo que não só destruímos os nossos ritmos nesta sociedade capitalista, alucinada e doente em que vivemos como vamos destruindo os ritmos dos outros seres com quem devíamos viver em comunhão.
“PERSEPHONE was the goddess queen of the underworld, wife of the god Haides (Hades). She was also the goddess of spring growth, who was worshipped alongside her mother Demeter in the Eleusinian Mysteries. This agricultural-based cult promised its initiates passage to a blessed afterlife.
Persephone was titled Kore (Core) (the Maiden) as the goddess of spring's bounty. Once upon a time when she was playing in a flowery meadow with her Nymph companions, Kore was seized by Haides and carried off to the underworld as his bride. Her mother Demeter despaired at her dissappearance and searched for her the throughout the world accompanied by the goddess Hekate (Hecate) bearing torches. When she learned that Zeus had conspired in her daughter's abduction she was furious, and refused to let the earth fruit until Persephone was returned. Zeus consented, but because the girl had tasted of the food of Haides--a handful of pomegranate seeds--she was forced to forever spend a part of the year with her husband in the underworld. Her annual return to the earth in spring was marked by the flowering of the meadows and the sudden growth of the new grain. Her return to the underworld in winter, conversely, saw the dying down of plants and the halting of growth.”
Theoi project
Com o retorno de Perséfone que nos acompanhará até à chegada do Inverno, regressam também as andorinhas. Este ano vi a primeira aqui no vale a meio de Março, num dia soalheiro quando regressava a casa. E agora é com prazer que levantamos a cabeça para ver o céu a ser cruzado por estes seres delicados que voam rápidos em todas as direções. Na varanda, o fim da manhã e o fim da tarde são passados a ver as andorinhas ziguezaguearem de um lado para o outro. Os gatos, que também apreciam muito esta actividade, ficam atentos aos voos enquanto procuram o melhor lugar ao sol para uma sesta sempre esperada. A chegada das andorinhas renova-me a esperança, todos os anos o sinto, e este ano acho que estava ainda mais necessitada do que em anos anteriores. Se elas voltarem é possível, digo para mim própria. E elas voltaram!
No vale desfruto com atenção da renovação, tudo está a florir, as plantas parecem maiores este ano. Vejo os pássaros atarefados com os ninhos, ouço os zumbidos dos polinizadores no seu labor, as borboletas esvoaçam ao nosso redor. As árvores caducas cobrem-se de folhas, os botões nos ramos começam a brotar em folhas e flores, estamos perto da época da fecundação, a vida despertou da sua dormência e prepara-se para gerar mais vida. Apercebi-me, este ano, que as folhas dos lódãos, dos choupos e as das tílias foram as últimas a chegar. A terra cheira a sol e o ar a pólen. Perséfone caminha sob a terra e o que estava adormecido renasce. Agradecida, caminho também.
Vejo curiosa as novas formas a nascerem, reconheço-as, dou-lhes as boas-vindas, de ano para ano a nossa conversa é mais fluida e ampla. E de repente encontro novos seres que não conhecia, este ano fui apresentada à orelha-de-lebre, Cynoglossum creticum, à carrapiço, Medicago polymorpha, e aos jacinto-das-searas, Muscari comosum e partilho-as aqui convosco.
Cynoglossum creticum
Medicago polymorpha
Muscari comosum
J’ai reçu mon invitation pour le festival
de ce monde, et ainsi ma vie a été bénie.
Mes yeux ont vu et mes oreilles ont entendu.
C’était ma part à cette fête, de jouer de
mon instrument, et j’ai fait tout ce que
j’ai pu.
Maintenant, je le demande, le temps est-il
venu enfin, où je puisse entrer, voir la face
et t’offrir ma salutation silencieuse?
“L’Offrande Lyrique” de Rabindranath Tagore, Gallimard 1947
Tenho passado o mês a desenhar flores para a fanzine Ver - Primavera 2024. É um dos projectos que quero desenvolver aqui no vale, fazer todos os anos uma fanzine de uma estação e quando voltar ao início, seguir o ritmo e recomeçar. Este ano foi a Primavera e espero, para o ano, fazer o Verão.
A fanzine está disponível para venda na loja e o pvp é de 5 euros mais portes. Deixo aqui algumas imagens para a poderem espreitar.
Enquanto desenhava a fanzine da Primavera fiquei com vontade de desenhar algo para o 25 de Abril e festejar os 50 anos da revolução. Entusiasmada com a ideia, achei que ia imprimir várias fanzines para distribuir na avenida mas rapidamente me apercebi que as minhas parcas finanças estão muito longe de acompanhar os meus sonhos e entusiasmos e que não iria ser possível imprimir tantos exemplares. Assim, a fanzine 25 Abril será enviada gratuitamente para quem adquirir a fanzine da Primavera e colocarei um pdf disponível para impressão com as instruções de montagem aqui, para quem quiser imprimir.
Estava quase a fazer dois anos quando foi o 25 de Abril e o que me recordo dos anos que se seguiram foi a alegria, na família, nos vizinhos, na televisão. Dos murais na rua, para quem sempre gostou de desenhar fazer desenhos em paredes parecia-me algo maravilhoso. De decorar as siglas dos vários partidos e os seus significados enquanto aprendia as letras. Talento que a minha avó gostava de exibir aos vizinhos com quem nos cruzávamos na rua durante os afazeres da manhã e a que eu prontamente respondia, decifrando as siglas partidárias que me eram propostas. A memória das alegrias e das festas que estavam presentes nos nossos dias e que mais tarde, quando cresci, me entristeciam pois não percebia porque tinham desaparecido. Fui percebendo com o tempo e, talvez por isso, nunca deixei de lutar para que voltassem. Lembro-me de pedir à minha avó para me pegar ao colo para ficar perto da reprodução do quadro de Bruegel que ela tinha na sala de estar, aquelas pessoas pintadas dançavam com alegria e quando as via mais de perto, gritava animada: “O povo unido, jamais será vencido!”
Não imaginava que hoje, 50 anos depois, no ano em que o meu filho faz 20 anos estaríamos a viver num país onde o fascismo voltou à Assembleia da República, a extrema-direita alastra-se por toda a Europa, as guerras e os genocídios na Palestina e Sudão, a crise climática, o racismo … Mas, aqui estamos.
Respiro fundo, continua a estar atenta e a ser testemunha.
Respiro fundo e relembro-me que a revolução foi na Primavera e assim, como com o regresso das andorinhas, também nos festejos do 25 de Abril, quando desço a avenida com família e amigos, a minha esperança é renovada. Volto a falar comigo mesma - se estamos aqui juntos, é possível! E lembro-me do único poema que sei dizer de cor:
Esta é a madrugada que eu esperava
O dia inicial inteiro e limpo
Onde emergimos da noite e do silêncio
E livres habitamos a substância do tempo
Sophia de Mello Breyner Andresen, “O Nome das Coisas”
Despeço-me com a emoção de ter avistado dois habitantes novos no vale! Quando passeávamos à sombra das azinheiras, o reino dos gaios, vimos um gaio, Garralus glandarius, pousar no chão com um companheiro que não estava visível. Ficámos quietos a ver, quando, para minha alegria, percebi que era uma poupa, Upupa epops. O gaio levantou voo e a poupa avançou um pouco mais para a frente e, nesse momento, vemos pousar outra ao lado dela e caminharem juntas. Eram ambas jovens e ficámos na companhia delas muito tempo, abriram a poupa e as asas, que são muito bonitas. São muito sociáveis, desde de que caminhássemos devagar estavam bastante à vontade na nossa companhia. Nunca antes as tinha visto aqui e agora sei que nas azinheiras os gaios têm novos vizinhos, as poupas. Sejam bem-vindas!
No filme vêm a poupa a caminhar, e ouvem o piar de uma andorinha que passou naquele momento.
Regresso no início de Maio com o calendário, fiquem bem!
Saudações do 5A com vista para o vale! Até para semana,
Débora Figueiredo
P.S.
Guardo o Post Scriptum para partilhar convosco o que gostei de ver, ouvir e ler.
“La prima neve” de Elham Asadi e Sylvie Bello, editado por Topipittori - um livro que gosto muito de reler, onde também mora uma menina que acredita em “possíveis” e a Primavera.
Para ouvir: Robin Wall Kimmerer sobre “Ancient Green: Moss, Climate and Deep Time” no Emergence Magazine.
Os desenhos de Graça Morais para “Um Reino Maravilhoso” de Miguel Torga.
A ver, Moominland Tales: The life of Tove Jansson.
E este livro que comecei a ler sobre as florestas no Ocidente.
This year Spring arrived suddenly. Perhaps the excess of unseasonal heat, alternating with rain or some other event that I didn't notice, because in times of climate crisis there's always something new to surprise us... the truth is that within two weeks (the last two of March) all the plants bloomed simultaneously and Spring settled in all its fullness. If in recent years I've noticed that flowers bloom earlier and earlier, this year the rhythms of their arrival didn't exist. Previously, the colours arrived in their own time - first the whites, then the yellows, followed by pinks and purples, also blues in the same tone, and finally the reds with the poppies blooming. This year, what used to take a whole month sometimes two, happened in two weeks and simultaneously, all the colours arrived at once!
When I look up the names of plants in my Botany books - which are all old, probably the newest ones are from the 70s and 80s (I'm talking about the 20th century, of course!) - I notice that many of the plants I see blooming in April here in the valley are indicated to flower in May and June in the books. But this year it wasn't just the anticipation, which I've already grown accustomed to, but the fact that everything bloomed simultaneously. I observe that not only have we disrupted our own rhythms in this capitalist, insane, and sick society in which we live, but we are also disrupting the rhythms of other beings with whom we should live in communion.
“PERSEPHONE was the goddess queen of the underworld, wife of the god Haides (Hades). She was also the goddess of spring growth, who was worshipped alongside her mother Demeter in the Eleusinian Mysteries. This agricultural-based cult promised its initiates passage to a blessed afterlife.
Persephone was titled Kore (Core) (the Maiden) as the goddess of spring's bounty. Once upon a time when she was playing in a flowery meadow with her Nymph companions, Kore was seized by Haides and carried off to the underworld as his bride. Her mother Demeter despaired at her dissappearance and searched for her the throughout the world accompanied by the goddess Hekate (Hecate) bearing torches. When she learned that Zeus had conspired in her daughter's abduction she was furious, and refused to let the earth fruit until Persephone was returned. Zeus consented, but because the girl had tasted of the food of Haides--a handful of pomegranate seeds--she was forced to forever spend a part of the year with her husband in the underworld. Her annual return to the earth in spring was marked by the flowering of the meadows and the sudden growth of the new grain. Her return to the underworld in winter, conversely, saw the dying down of plants and the halting of growth.”
With the return of Persephone, who will accompany us until the arrival of Winter, the swallows also return. This year I saw the first one here in the valley in mid-March, on a sunny day as I was returning home. And now it is with pleasure that we lift our heads to see the sky being crossed by these delicate beings that fly swiftly in all directions. On the balcony, late morning and late afternoon are spent watching the swallows zigzagging from side to side. The cats, who also greatly appreciate this activity, remain attentive to the flights as they seek the best spot in the sun for an always anticipated nap. The arrival of the swallows renews my hope, I feel it every year, and this year I think I needed it even more than in previous years. If they return it's possible, I tell myself. And they returned!
In the valley, I enjoy the renewal attentively, everything is blooming, the plants seem larger this year. I see the birds busy with their nests, I hear the buzzing of pollinators in their work, butterflies flutter around us. Deciduous trees are covered in leaves, buds on branches start to sprout into leaves and flowers, we are nearing the time of fertilisation, life has awakened from its dormancy and is preparing to generate more life. I noticed, this year, that the leaves of the elders, poplars, and linden trees were the last to arrive. The earth smells of sun and the air of pollen. Persephone walks beneath the earth and what was asleep is reborn. Grateful, I walk as well.
I curiously watch the new forms emerging, I recognise them, I welcome them, from year to year our conversation is more fluid and expansive. And suddenly I encounter new beings that I didn't know, this year I was introduced to hare's ear, Cynoglossum creticum, to burclover, Medicago polymorpha, and to grape hyacinth, Muscari comosum, and I share them here with you.
J’ai reçu mon invitation pour le festival
de ce monde, et ainsi ma vie a été bénie.
Mes yeux ont vu et mes oreilles ont entendu.
C’était ma part à cette fête, de jouer de
mon instrument, et j’ai fait tout ce que
j’ai pu.
Maintenant, je le demande, le temps est-il
venu enfin, où je puisse entrer, voir la face
et t’offrir ma salutation silencieuse?
“L’Offrande Lyrique” de Rabindranath Tagore, Gallimard 1947
I've spent the month drawing flowers for the zine View - Spring 2024. It's one of the projects I want to develop here in the valley, to make a zine for each season every year and when I reach the beginning again, to follow the rhythm and start over. This year it was Spring, and I hope to do Summer next year.
The zine is available for sale in the shop and the price is 5 euros plus shipping. Here are some images for you to peek at.
While drawing the Spring zine, I felt like drawing something for April 25th and celebrating the 50 years of the revolution. Excited about the idea, I thought I would print several zines to distribute on the avenue, but quickly realized that my meager finances are far from keeping up with my dreams and enthusiasms and that it would not be possible to print so many copies. So, the April 25th zine will be sent for free to those who purchase the Spring zine, and I will make a PDF available for printing with assembly instructions here, for those who want to print it.
It was almost two years when it was April 25th, and what I remember from the following years was the joy, in the family, in the neighbors, on television. Of the murals in the street, for someone who always liked to draw, drawing on walls seemed wonderful to me. Of memorizing the acronyms of the various parties and their meanings while learning the alphabet. Talent that my grandmother liked to show off to the neighbors we met on the street during the morning chores and to which I promptly responded, deciphering the party acronyms proposed to me. The memory of the joys and parties that were present in our days and that later, when I grew up, saddened me because I didn't understand why they had disappeared. I gradually understood over time and, perhaps because of that, I never stopped fighting for them to return. I remember asking my grandmother to pick me up to be close to the reproduction of Bruegel's painting she had in the living room; those painted people danced with joy and when I saw them up close, I shouted excitedly: "The people united will never be defeated!"
I didn't imagine that today, 50 years later, in the year my son turns 20, we would be living in a country where fascism has returned to the Assembly of the Republic, the far-right is spreading throughout Europe, wars and genocides in Palestine and Sudan, the climate crisis, racism... But here we are.
I take a deep breath, continue to be attentive and bear witness.
I take a deep breath and remember that the revolution was in Spring and so, as with the return of the swallows, also in the celebrations of April 25th, when I walk down the avenue with family and friends, my hope is renewed. I talk to myself again - if we are here together, it's possible! And I remember the only poem I can recite by heart:
This is the dawn I awaited The initial day whole and clean Where we emerge from night and silence And freely inhabit the substance of time Sophia de Mello Breyner Andresen, "The Name of Things"
I bid farewell with the emotion of having spotted two new inhabitants in the valley! While we were strolling in the shade of the holm oaks, the realm of jays, we saw a jay, Garrulus glandarius, land on the ground with a companion that wasn't visible. We stayed still, watching, and to my delight, I realized it was a hoopoe, Upupa epops. The jay took flight, and the hoopoe moved a bit forward, and at that moment, we saw another one land beside her and walk together. They were both young, and we stayed in their company for a long time; they opened their crests and wings, which are very beautiful. They are very sociable; as long as we walked slowly, they were quite comfortable in our company. I had never seen them here before, and now I know that in the holm oaks, the jays have new neighbors, the hoopoes. Welcome!
I'll be back in early May with the calendar, take care!
Greetings 5A with a view to the valley! See you next tuesday,
Débora Figueiredo
P. S.
I saved the Post Scriptum to share with you what I've enjoyed seeing, hearing, and reading.
"La prima neve" by Elham Asadi and Sylvie Bello, edited by Topipittori - a book I love to reread, where also lives a girl who believes in "possibilities" and in Spring.
To listen to: Robin Wall Kimmerer on "Ancient Green: Moss, Climate and Deep Time" in Emergence Magazine.
The drawings by Graça Morais for Miguel Torga's "A Wonderful Kingdom."
To watch, Moominland Tales: The life of Tove Jansson.
And this book I've started reading about forests in the West.