Identity in Thomas De Quincy's Confessions of an English Opium-Eater

 

Throughout the novel Confessions of an English Opium- Eater, by Thomas De Quincy, the speaker tries to “essentialize” (Lowe 1040) his identity by using negative relations of difference to what a “proper” Englishman should be and also to what an Englishman is not. Proper Englishmen are not opium eaters, and he tries to justify himself as a proper Englishman through his confessions. His attempts are problematic on many levels as the articles by Ian Lopez, Lisa Lowe, and Shelley Fishkin make clear that identity in terms of race and social class is constantly fluctuating and can never be fixed. Primarily, the fact that he is an English opium eater shows that he is a hybrid or heterogeneous Englishman (Lowe 1035). Thus, the speaker is inherently not a proper Englishman. Even though he tries to prove how his opium use is better than the Malay’s he is inherently a fragmented Englishman who practices an improper act of opium consumption. Secondly, his attempts to “essentialize” his identity fails because he has a fluctuating and fluid identity based on negative relations of difference with proper Englishness, Ann and the Malay. These negative relations of difference show that his identity is changing in relation to each new signifier he is associated with, the Malay or Ann or proper Englishmen. Crucially, these negative relations of difference change in themselves as well because they are all based on “socially constructed” fluid identities: social class and race (Lopez 968). Even while attempting to show how he is a better Englishman because he helps Ann, the prostitute, and how his use of opium is better than the Malay’s he is still different and heterogeneous from other proper Englishman. Finally, while redefining his identity through his own relations with Ann and the Malay and English society he shows that his ideal identity of a proper Englishness is a socially constructed and fabricated identity. He was after all a proper Englishman who has now added and subtracted many things to this identity to create a new proper Englishness. The text exemplifies how identity can never be fixed in the Lacanian symbolic order, where signifiers change in relation to other signifiers and also shows the dialectic between Englishness, what is not Englishness, and the speaker as a subject that incorporates non Englishness to create new Englishness.  He never becomes the “proper Englishness” he idealized because it does not exist and it is fiction (Fishkin 981) and he instead becomes a new hybrid Englishman.

            The speaker’s attempt to “essentialize” his identity is one of the single most important problems in his confessional showing that he has no fixed identity at all, and that no one else does either. “Essentialize” is a key term here from Lisa Lowe’s article: “Heterogeneity, Hybridity, Multiplicity: Marking Asian American Differences.” In the article, Lowe discusses how there is a “struggle between the desire to essentialize ethnic identity and the fundamental condition of heterogeneous difference against which such a desire is spoken” (Lowe 1040). There is a struggle between a fixed ethnic, or class/gender identity and the real conditions of varieties which actually exist. In the speaker’s struggle to make an identity for himself as a proper Englishman he actually shows how he is that exact “heterogeneous difference” which he is fighting against in order to “essentialize” himself. In addition, to essentialize oneself or another fixes an exact and unchangeable identity on the subject which is not the case for the speaker. At the beginning of the novel, the speaker describes himself as an intelligent and well educated young man. He could converse in Greek fluently and without embarrassment and also says that he has not met anyone with his superior talent for Greek (De Quincy 56). His gift was so great that one of his masters said that he “could harangue an Athenian mob better than you or I could address an English one” (De Quincy 56). He adds this description of his earlier days to establish his superiority of Greek as well as to fix him as a superior Western Englishman, which we as the reader should remember when reading about his opium habits and remember that he was “proper” at one point. However, he knew Greek so well that he had to escape the school and his masters because he knew it better than they did (De Quincy 57). Thus, even here while establishing himself as an extremely cultured Greek speaking Englishman, he is a hybrid, or a “heterogeneous difference.” He is a “hybrid” here because as an Englishman he knows Greek just as well as English, if not better, and thus this difference within him, which is concealed under his ethnic identity, is what makes him a “hybrid” Englishman from the outset (Lowe 1045). He sees that he does not belong in the school and is wasting his time being taught by his inadequate masters.

And so begins the speaker’s adventures outside the school as a transient living on the streets of London. This transient lifestyle is also not in accord with a proper Englishman.  Those who do not live on the street are what “is normal and proper,” yet this status is also a construct because it needs a negative relation of difference to people who do live in the street, like the speaker now does. Therefore, again here he becomes an “other” type of Englishman which in itself shows that there are a limitless amount of possibilities to what an Englishman can be, which is what Ian F. Haney Lopez addresses in his article: “Social Construction of Race.” His main argument is that race is plastic, inconstant and also to some degree volitional and that race definitions change through time (Lopez 967). This describes the speaker’s identity at this point in the novel as he makes a choice to become a transient rather than stay in school under his masters and shows how the identity of an Englishman is not fixed and constant but changeable. It is also shows that identity is definitely not “essential” because here it changes drastically as he becomes an Englishman of lower economic class, a drastic change from before.               

By living on the streets, the speaker also “deconstructs and rearticulates whiteness” which is what Shelley Fishkin addresses in her article “Interrogating Whiteness.” Here, “whiteness” would correlate to the ideal proper Englishman that the speaker tries to live up to, as “whiteness” is used in her article as the identity from which otherness is fabricated for non whites in America. As a transient, he becomes the “other” and is not a “proper Englishman” anymore. However, that is not what the speaker thinks. Regardless of his social standing, he still believes he is a “proper Englishman” and tries all along to prove that he is this ideal image. Primarily, when he stays at a high class lady’s home connected to the Bishop, he is stunned and offended when there are rumors that he is a “swindler” (De Quincy 63). The speaker, although not a swindler, is living on the streets on the hospitality of good men and yet wants to prove his Englishness by wishing to show off his knowledge of Greek to the Bishop and to show the Bishop that at least he is “a far better Grecian” (De Quincy 64). This scene is significant because it shows on many levels how no identity in the symbolic order can be fixed and how power may be passed back and forth. He is not as proper as the Bishop, yet he is superior in some way as a different kind of Englishman. The speaker here “disrupts the hegemonic relationships” (Lowe 1035) between what a proper and improper Englishman is while also “rearticulating” what Englishness is and deconstructing the hierarchy between the ideal proper Englishness and his Englishness which the speaker feels is still superior in some way.

He further “rearticulates” Englishness in his relationship with Ann. He admits that while living on the streets he met many women who were not proper and that he had no “shame” in liking them (De Quincy 70). One woman he grows to love is Ann, and he says that he is “also a street walker” like her so he is not afraid of having a relationship with her (De Quincy 71). He rearticulates while at the same time constructs an identity for Ann, in order to show that he is a proper Englishman; that he does in fact measure up. First, he explains that ever since his childhood he talked with everybody no matter what shape or station they had in life (De Quincy 70). Thus, his good nature strikes a blow to what proper Englishness would not allow, in the interaction between people of higher class and lower class, especially with prostitutes like Ann. Secondly, he constructs Ann herself to be more than just a lowly prostitute. He likes Ann so much that he says: “let me not class thee, oh noble minded Ann” (De Quincy 71) showing that even among the lowest class, there is a hybridity in identity. Ann is so noble that she even saves the speaker’s life as he becomes ill from malnourishment (De Quincy 72). And she does so without wanting anything in return. Thus, the speaker paints a varying picture of what proper Englishness actually is, where benevolence can be found even in the lowest of social classes. He also describes London as a whole as a “cruel, harsh and repulsive” society that lets the poverty stricken like Ann, and now him, die in the street (De Quincy 71). This description serves to both question how proper those in high society can be if they accept and do nothing to stop the poverty around them while also reminding the readers how the speaker is proper because he is helping Ann and not taking advantage of her. To further show that the speaker is part of a higher society we can also consider the letters he kept which show his acquaintance with Earls, Lords, and the Marquis (De Quincy 75). He is in fact “confidential” friends with the Earl and even friends with the Marquis who “retained an affection for classical studies, and for youthful scholars” like the speaker (De Quincy, 76).Thus, he rearticulates what a proper Englishman is because he himself is of a higher class than Ann but now finds himself equal to her. The speaker is also “re-centering the ‘others’ upon whose existence the notion of whiteness depends,” “whiteness” here meaning proper Englishness (Fishkin 982). While trying to justify how he is a proper Englishman, he instead shows how he is not a typical proper Englishman, but a hybrid, and thus changes Ann’s position as well. If proper Englishness is a fabrication that the speaker shows can change, then Ann as a “noble minded” and “benevolent” prostitute can also be a proper Englishwoman who saved his life. The differences begin to fall apart in this negative relation of difference when it becomes clear that race, as well as gender and class relations, is socially fabricated (Lopez 969) and there is no stable and fixed proper Englishness.

Race, other than Englishness (“whiteness”), also comes into focus with the introduction of the Asian man, the Malay. Here, the distinction of his opium use is also made clear, besides when explained earlier in the novel that he used it to exalt his experience at the Opera, to intensify his discussions with the poor, and also to combat his stomach pains. In this section the speaker is older and long graduated from university and living in the mountains, eating opium. So it is interesting that as an older English man who lives in the mountains and eats opium he still distinguishes himself as better than the Malay and still holds himself up to the ideal of a proper Englishman even though by this point that ideal is shown to be entirely unstable, inconstant, and fabricated. Nonetheless, he gives the Malay a large portion of opium because he believes that as a Malay, from the Orient, he should be used to such large quantities and he says: “I became convinced that he was used to opium” (De Quincy108). The speaker here is again constructing an identity and showing how it is supposedly normal for the Malay’s culture to consume large portions of opium. At the same time, he uses the negative relation of difference to this Malay to show how his opium use is more proper because he does not take such large quantities. However, he is fighting against a fabrication that assumes an authority by which otherness is based yet he already showed that there is no such thing as proper Englishness except as a social construction.

Furthermore, he grows anxious over the Malay “but as [he] never heard of any Malay being found dead” (De Quincy 108) he relaxes. However, this anxiety never went away as the speaker sees frightful images of the Malay and multiplications of many Malays in his dreams (De Quincy 109). These images in his dreams are based off of what the speaker says is the “anxiety” that the speaker connected with the image of the Malay for days (De Quincy 109). His dreams also show Malays “running a-muck” and creating frantic scenes of excess and havoc because they have taken opium. These descriptions are significant because the speaker creates huge dichotomies between himself, an Englishman, and the Malay. He contrasts his opium use against the crazy opium use of the Malay, which is how Lopez says that ethnic identity is created: it is “constructed against one another rather than in isolation” (Lopez 969). The speaker uses the Malay to construct his opium use as more proper and to justify himself as an “English opium eater” rather than just an opium eater. However, it was also the speaker’s own volition to give the Malay opium out of “compassion for his solitary life” (De Quincy 108). It is significant that the speaker feels compassion for the Malay’s solitary life. “Compassion” in the OED denotes a feeling of profound understanding usually produced from knowing the suffering of another, or participation within that same suffering. Therefore, how dichotomous are the speaker and the Malay when he gives him the opium out of compassion. It was the speaker’s initial compassion, similar to his initial compassion with Ann, which rearticulates proper Englishness and Englishness versus otherness. Understanding the Malay’s “solitary life”, because he too was a transient on the road, the speaker shows that there are qualities of otherness within Englishness and therefore there are limitless amounts of hybrid identities which exist under labels of race or ethnicity. Culture here is worked out between the Malay and the speaker, showing how identity is actively constructed and always fluctuating.

The speaker himself, perhaps without knowing, hits upon the error of fixing and essentializing identity early in his youth when he says: “So thick a curtain of manners is drawn over the features and expressions of men’s natures, that to the ordinary observer, the two extremities, and the infinite field of varieties which lie between them, are all confounded-the vast and multitudinous compass of their several harmonies reduced to meager outline of differences expressed in the gamut or alphabet of elementary sounds” (De Quincy 78). The speaker explains the exact hybridity and multiplicity of identity which actually exists in people, in this case Englishmen, and the constructs of class (race) and “manner” which hide those infinite varieties. Without knowing it he is also talking about himself. And although he struggles throughout the novel to prove that he is a proper Englishmen, the speaker shows how it is impossible to fix an identity within a symbolic order like society which tries to pin people down by race and class. Race and class are ultimately fluid signifiers and constructed fabrications which claim to be “proper” yet need otherness to define them. The speaker further deconstructs this otherness by himself becoming an “other” Englishman which shows that there is more than a binary of proper English and not English. He can be an “English Opium Eater” which is a hybrid of both Englishness and opium eaters.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

WORKS CITED

 

            De Quincy, Thomas. Confessions of An English Opium Eater. Ed. Faflak, Joel. Canada:                            Broadview Editions, 2009. 50-131. Print.

Fishkin, Shelley Fisher. “Interrogating Whiteness.” Literary Theory: An Anthology. Ed.                             Rivkin, Julie and Michael Ryan. United Kingdom: Blackwell Publishing, 2004.                              975-987. Print.

Lacan, Jacques. “The Instance of the Letter in the Unconscious or Reason since Freud.”

Literary Theory: An Anthology. Ed. Rivkin, Julie and Michael Ryan. United Kingdom: Blackwell Publishing, 2004. 447-461. Print.

Lopez, Ian F. Haney. “The Social Construction of Race.” Literary Theory: An Anthology.              Ed. Rivkin, Julie and Michael Ryan. United Kingdom: Blackwell Publishing,    2004. 964-975. Print.

Lowe, Lisa. “Heterogeneity, Hybridity, Multiplicity: Marking Asian American       Differences.” Literary Theory: An Anthology. Ed. Rivkin, Julie and Michael                       Ryan. United Kingdom: Blackwell Publishing, 2004. 1031-1051. Print.





Alicia G: The Poet-Philosopher of the New Millennium

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Poet-Philosopher

of the

New Millennium

 

 

Volume II

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 “ALICIA G:

The Poet-Philosopher of the New Millennium”

Volume II

by ROBERT DANIELAK

 

Proof reading: See Lo

Cover design: Melissa Cassara

Cover art concept and photography:

 Lara J. Vanian

Photography on the inside: Brandon Showers

 

© 2008. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the copyright owner.

 

LIBRARY OF THE CONGRESS CATALOGING

IN PUBLICATION

I.S.B.N.: 1-881415-25-2

 

First Edition: 2010

YEREVAN STATE UNIVERSITY PRESS

and  “A New Age” Publications

P.O. Box 11243, Glendale, CA 91226-7243, USA

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

To all the thinkers and creators

who open an ascending path

and make a difference

in the world

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Alicia Ghiragossián, 2010

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Poet-Philosopher

of the

New Millennium

 

 

Volume II

 

Essay

 

 

 

 

ROBERT DANIELAK

 

 

Yerevan State University

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

INDEX

 

INTRODUCTION................................... 9

LOVE ........................................................

Interview With God .........................

ABSENCE.................................................

TIME .........................................................

MYSTERY and TRUTH ...........................

TERRORISM and WAR ..........................

GENOCIDE ..............................................

HOPE and FORGIVENESS ....................

WORDS ....................................................

DREAMS...................................................

DIALOGUED STORY POEMS ..............

Love in Buenos Aires .......................

Offices for God ................................

LAST CHAPTER.......................................

CONCLUSION ........................................

Style ..................................................            

Groundbreaking Theories..................

Subjects..............................................

BIOGRAPHY OF THE POET..................

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

LOVE

 

As we said in our first volume, love is the most important theme in Alicia Ghiragossián’s poetry, because it is from Love that all the subjects she writes about takes form and substance: Motherhood, Peace, Roots, Forgiveness, and the subject of subjects: God.

Love is also the reason why Ghiragossián writes. She wants to share with the world her belief that Love conquers all, and defines it as the genius of existence; a luminous metaphysical perception which she connects with eternity. Her words are a direct link to the essence of Love.

Ghiragossián is part of that great culture of writers, Neruda, Gibran, Rumi, Shakespeare, Blake and others, who meditate on Love and speak directly from the soul.

Her Love poems can be found in the volumes Beyond the Word Love, as well as in Interview With God, volume III. Since we studied Beyond Words in Volume I of “Alicia G, The Poet Philosopher of the New Millennium” we will concentrate here on Interview With God.

Consistent with her work, her verses are framed by a treasure trove of meta-dimensional style and the reader is transported to unknown dimensions.

 

INTERVIEW WITH GOD

 

The Love collection in the book Interview With God, volume III is different in the terms the author exposes Love. In this section a third party, God, is invited into the discussion and the poet becomes the eternal questioner and seeker for Truth and the truths of Love. She may even be drawing a direct bond between God and Love and exposing how, in fact, they come from the same essence.

God is the first word of the first poem of the collection and one cannot help but see the connection in a Love poem. God is not just the first word, but it is the only word in the line. It is an introduction that at once includes God into the discussion and also appeals to Him for answers of Love.

In the collection Beyond the Word Love, Love was the ultimate essence. Here, God may play a role in that essence.

The poem begins with the poet theorizing on the origins of Love, directing herself to God, who knows the answers. The subject of discussion is also not stated but suggested. She says: It must have been / a declaration / prior to language / a fantasy / prior to flight.

 No doubt she is talking about Love and raising the philosophical dilemma of where Love comes from. And she continues: It must have been / a passion / prior to life. / Everything starts with You. She answers her own questions in the hope that God will admit it, confronted with the “fait accompli” of the poet’s perception of His secret.

In this collection, we detect a different universe created by Love: that of the mystic, the philosopher, the searcher of Truth, as if the poet is imagining a relationship with God built upon Love, its positive essence, and its sublime energy.

Love here is literally out of this world. The essence of Love in these poems is also part of Kahlil Gibran’s dialogue about Love. While Ghiragossián tackles the relationship between Love and God in her seeker way, the love of Gibran is not only “God is in my heart,” but rather, “I am in the heart of God,” which make us all extensions of God’s Love. Now, whether we are in His heart or He is in our heart, the equation is equivalent: our hearts are of the same essence.

Once Love “finds us worthy,” as Gibran says, “love directs your course.” In this way, by writing about the seeker/answerer relationship Ghiragossián highlights the direction to which that Love takes us: to seek about its mysterious origins.

Romantic feelings are an internal impulse for the poet instilled by the seed of Love. Therefore, she suggests that Love magnetizes our awareness and engenders life. So, Love, like God, is the genius that creates existence; that infuses life into everything; that is definitely linked with Divinity.

Through the impressions she receives from God, the poet is able to detect that she must dive into the astral wave of promises / and remember the future / because it is there / where the time of love hides. God, the embodiment of Hope and light, invites the poet to believe in a future time filled with Love.

This statement is similar to the other seen in the Beyond collection where she distinguishes a future time reserved for Love. Therefore, the reader is left to question why Love is always hidden within the future along with other secrets. The future becomes a symbolic place where Truth and happiness can be revealed, whenever that may be: the next second or the next century.

I find identification between Love and God when she states that the need for God is the same need for Love. It is a similarity that enhances the definition of Love. The presence of Love brings with it the presence of God: both are divine.

The poem continues and the poet taps into the recurrent theme that with Love she is able to touch eternity; an eternity able to resurrect buried passions. It is by releasing these passions that the poet can “break the rhythm of her monologues and smile again. It is that resurrecting that creates a new reality and stops the lonely monologues of the past.

The poet continues to question the essence of Love, to find its origin, and stumbles upon a doubt: I don’t know if love / is the falling or the rising / to madness. / Perhaps both / in ordered symbiosis.

She recognizes a paradox that is at the core of the essence of Love. It is falling or rising, but it is drowsiness, madness. Love is a voice / talking with my longing, it is the entire territory / of the heart and it is the rose / that a man /gave me / to capture my energy / and take me / to those roots / that need sharing. These metaphors and analogies are intense enough to capture the many aspects of Love, both transcendent and maddening.

Clearly Love, is an interior voice that speaks of longing, which maddens and frustrates the poet. However, Love also transcends the madness and covers the entire territory of the heart. The poet elaborates on this idea further when she redefines Love as the alchemy / of a miracle / where souls fuse / in the encounter. This is an exceptionally beautiful expression conveying the belief that Love is magical enough to provoke a fusion, an alchemic transformation.

Love, she says, is a you and an I / beyond a plural / touching a time / without boundaries.

The fusion of the souls surpasses language and Time, the boundaries of life, and a new universe is created out of a huge us. Love is so transcendent and grows the souls together in such a manner that it creates a huge us.     

Love is also what allows you to live in a state of eternity. Love and eternity have a symbiotic relationship, so eternity would be empty without Love. The poet says: In order for eternity / to have meaning / love must breathe beside me. Love is personified and it becomes a living soul in this stanza, which the poet must possess in order for life to have meaning. Love is a living entity, not a mirage.     

 

Do not detach from me. / The loves that vanish / are not true loves / but mirages. / The love that is / never stops being. / I am your first love / and the last / and the ones in between. / I am all the women / whenever you loved / and every time you will. / I am / love itself.

 

The poet makes it clear that pure Love is the only way; that the love that is / never stops being, that it is an eternal, and is transforming her to all the women who were ever loved, because she is love itself. This is truly the transcendental nature of Love which instills within all of us the empowerment to be complete; to be love itself. This is the kind of Love that embraces the universe; that is total Love.

Furthermore, the poet resumes her impression of falling: let ourselves fall / in the nebulous universe / where melodies of love / are bewitching. It is a free fall, as in soaring, and a reawakening to a new universe. The simile here is profound in that Love enters a nebulous universe / where melodies of love / are bewitching. We are hypnotized; we are under the spell of Love. 

“Bewitching” is an intriguing term to use here because it captures the mystery, fascination, charm, and desirability of Love. It is this very magical, spellbound, bewitching aspect of Love that can be maddening when it comes to missing each other.

And this concept takes a reversal from conventional norms when the poet states: He missed me. / I lost my illusion of identity / and I slid / through the orbit of love. This is again the sense of being lost when we surrender totally, the Hegelian sense of resigning to our identity, placing ourselves in the hands of the lover and, at the same time, entering the orbit of love with our own identity. At this point in the poem, the poet seems to have grasped the answers to her questions.

In Ghiragossián’s world, silence is a relevant entity. It allows her to enter other dimensions; to pierce into the unknown and see if she can discover something; to communicate with God, not only the external creator of the cosmic spheres, but the God that lives inside of us.

 

In those silences / of the unknown / I go over the stations / of my mind. / An endless voyage / of internal geography / where the total and the partial / and the order of the disorder / have a place / where dreams / and their antichambers / are stored / as well as those things done / and yet to be done / the intentions / oblique to the word / and the circular whirlpool /  of passions. / I travel like in an airplane / that inspects / a variety landscape / until I stop / at the exact point / of existence. / A point that takes me / to the integration of time. / An essence / which is the origin / of other essences. / An absolute called love.

 

In company of powerful similes and metaphors she allows us to travel through her internal geography / where the total and the partial / and the order of the disorder / have a place. It is clear here that one of the answers she has found for the essence of Love is the fact that it is a paradox, parallel to the Hegelian concept of being simultaneously out of and in identity. It is a totality, and it is one aspect of the being. It creates order, but appears first as disorder, as confusion.

And she continues saying: I travel like an airplane / that inspects / a variety landscape / until I stop / at the exact point / of existence. / A point that takes me / to the integration of time.

The internal geography of her soul takes her to the original point where an essence is the origin of other essences.

This is an internal journey that the poet has gone through. She entered the micro-cosmos to find infinity: essences behind essences, going on indefinitely. She has found the essence of Love deep within herself in an infinite tunnel that takes her to an absolute called love.

The poet is now ready, in the last sections of the chapter, to declare what true Love is.

 

True love / does not allow / interruptions. / How can welded souls / be separated / when they have lost / their own shape / in the fusion?  / There are questions / that do not need / direct answers / perhaps no answer at all / when words are invaded / by the essence of being.

 

This is an expression of ultra-romantic dimensions, above the Love consciousness of the Romantics. She claims that true Love is final and continuous, and is beyond interruptions. When souls are welded the welding cannot be undone to return to the original state. The soul, touched by Love, will be transformed forever and will carry with it a new identity.

Further down, a vital message of Truth is revealed: that questions are not needed when the existence of Love is validated. Ghiragossián is talking about a Love that is absolute; that is true; that is above calculations.

 

A heart in love / conceals / strange arithmetic/ Two / never means two / but a perfect one. / And half / never means half / but a perfect two / like a tear drop / cut exactly / in the middle. / You and I / inseparable one. / You and I / the universe.

 

Love does not follow reason, at least not a rational one. It has its own emotional reasons and does not need conventional answers to its questions. In Love, two / never means two / but a perfect one. / And a half / never means half / but a perfect two. Love is beyond math and logic; beyond numbers and structures.

The separation in Love is portrayed as a tear drop / cut exactly / in the middle. This simile has captured Truth. The couple is one entity, but when we cut that entity in half we get two separate entities.

The last section of the chapter declares the significance and magnitude of Love.

 

Without love / I conclude my eternity. / I become a yesterday / like the lifeless leaf / that isolates autumn. / Without love / the colors of the cosmos / return worn out / to talk about the maybes / which outline promises. / I remain stolen by the hours / that know how to fade away. / I am a simple past / a calendar without colors / and dates / a cyclone tired of escaping. / Without love / I am a simple waiting / on the road of faith / a wave standing / at the center of the jump. / An incoherent flight. / A monument to desolation.

 

Ghiragossián reiterates the validation of Love as life, existence, and eternity. Without Love, she confesses she will become a yesterday / like a lifeless leaf / that isolates autumn. Lack of Love is cold and stagnant and isolates us from eternity.

The poet becomes like a brittle autumn leaf devoid of life. Without Love, she says that the colors of the cosmos / return worn out / to talk about the maybes / which outline promises. The certainty and vibrancy for life, totally disappear. Eternity becomes a colorless maybe.

Furthermore, without Love, a frozen Time takes control of the soul. The poet remains stolen by the hours / that know how to fade away. The empowerment of the soul is lost and life within Time loses its transcendence, its warmth. The hours which used to be infused with eternity, fade away.

This is a landscape of desolation, of existential anguish, of a life that hurts.

The next simile shows the influence of Time versus the influence of Love. I am a simple past / a calendar without colors / and dates / a cyclone tired of escaping. She is so trapped by the past that it becomes a cyclone, a cycle of disruption that sends her to a dimension without colors and dates. This place is called “depression.” This simile highlights the common belief that lack of Love leads to the land opposed to life, opposed to existence. 

Finally, without Love she is a simple waiting / on the road of faith / a wave standing / at the center of the jump. /An incoherent flight. / A monument to desolation. She does not only feel these things, but becomes them.         

Parallel to the way Love creates a new identity of freedom and empowerment, so does the lack of Love cause her to become a monument to desolation. She feels abandoned, an incoherent flight without direction. Her life and herself lose meaning.

It is interesting to visualize the picture created with a wave standing at the center of a jump, since a wave cannot stop its motion. Only a snap shot or painting can capture the scene. We are watching and feeling the static moment of life without Love. Life stops its flow. Lack of Love creates the absurdity of a life without life; without its own essence. Again, Love is the essence of existence.

This section, packed with original visualizations and multi-dimensional metaphors, shows the faces of the same coin. She unveils the meaning of lack of Love to get closer to the meaning of Love, to its effects of positive transformations, letting her enter the substantial dimension of existence.

And the chapter ends with a profoundly positive and motivational message.

 

Tonight / I could love forever. / I could cross the universe / mounted on the frequency / of the wildest dreams. / Tonight / I could unlock my chains / create a soul mate / with the endless energy / of those who pray / and I could travel / through matter / bless the earth / and build a new crown / for magic. / Tonight / I have challenged death.

 

The moment that the poet frees herself of her questions and constant quest, she allows herself to go with the flow and enter the rhythms of the Love she talked about through the entire chapter. She enters in the quiet of the night and feels she could love forever. Again, the sense of endlessness, the sense of eternity.  By saying she could love forever she is saying she could live forever. The poet is empowered with existence and can enter the current that leads to eternity.  She could cross the universe / mounted on the frequency / of the wildest dreams.

In those dreams she will exercise her freedom. She is ready to unlock her own chains and create a soul mate / with the endless energy / of those who pray. These descriptions highlight the powers of freeing herself and allowing the essence of Love to permeate like oxygen into her.

Our poet uncovered a Truth in modern poetry paralleled by Rumi centuries ago: “Let the lover be disgraceful, crazy, absentminded… Let the lover be.” Ghiragossián has joined this consciousness of the poet and expressed a profound Truth: that to be in love is to surrender to it. In this way, she is able to be energized and vibrate on the same frequencies of the wildest dreams.

We detect here a familiar presence: that special energy / of those who pray; an energy full of purification that appears when Love is present, which we observe, as well, in the sacred moments of Motherhood or the encounters with God.

With Love, she can also build a new reality where she can rule as queen with a new crown for magic. This crown is not the same expressed by Gibran in his meditation about Love. Our poet’s crown for magic is an absolute that challenges death with the eternal power of Love.

While Love is restoring, resurrecting, and transcending in Ghiragossián’s poem, Gibran believes that Love’s crown works in a different way. He says: “For even as love crowns so shall he crucify you. Even as he is for your growth so is he for your pruning. Even as he ascends to your height and caresses your most tender branches that quiver in the sun, so shall he descend to your roots and shake them in their clinging to earth.” So, this crown is not the same as the one of our poet. But both poets describe Love and its absence, with passion, exposing the two sides of the coin of Love.  

The constant presence of Love, existence, eternity and the purity of prayers, make the poet’s belief consistent about what is truly relevant in life. And we can add to those elements the powers of Magic, Mystery, Roots and Essence, so tangible in our poet’s land.

Ghiragossián’s Love collection in Interview With God becomes a testament to the positive powers of Love. To be in love is to be in a state hand-in-hand with God.

Surpassing her doubts, channeling into the rhythms of Love, and creating a new world, have allowed her to challenge death. Literally, she has challenged death by her poems, infusing eternity, which allows her and the readers to travel on the waves of immortality.

She has challenged death and immortalized herself in her poetry, by opening the doors to eternity and showing readers her discovered Truth: that there is something more powerful than death: Love. After all, Love is the genius / of existence. / The opposite of love / is not just dis-love / but death itself.  Therefore, Love is able to challenge and overpower death because it is a genius with the ability to conquer, transcend, and create eternity.

Besides, Ghiragossián believes in life after death, where true lovers reconnect and continue their Love in the sphere of the spirits.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

ABSENCE

 

Within the volume Beyond the Word Love we find a chapter on the Absence of Love. It is a must to discuss these poems because by understanding them we can enhance our understanding of Ghiragossián’s Love poems.

These verses channel the energy of the twilight Love, which is either gone for the moment or gone forever. It is absent, and creates a loneliness that takes something away from the soul, as opposed to Love which adds true existence to the soul.

The first poem of the series describes the effects of Absence upon the poet and addresses a figure that does not exist.

 

My loneliness breathes / behind thick walls / where the oxygen / is a distilled nothingness / and the future / is just a promise / thrown to the wind. / Precise. / Secure. / The moment / multiplies its nostalgia / and reaches your eyes / to erase a tear / the one that is waiting / for me / without knowing it. / If we could only / undress time / fast forward it / and discover / that although / we have not met / we are waiting / for each other.

 

Loneliness becomes a living entity that possesses the body and weighs it down. It breathes / behind thick walls / where the oxygen / is a distilled nothingness and drives the poet to create gothic imagery where a chamber traps loneliness, and perhaps her heart. It is a suffocating chamber with stagnant air, chocking her. The future does not promise anything either to quench this loneliness and it is thrown to the wind, so that to follow the roads marked by destiny. It seems as though all hope is lost. The incredible weight of loneliness is enhanced by the poet’s suffocating imagery.

The next verses are intriguing because they seem as though a very vivid memory is recalled. They read: Precise. / Secure. / The moment / multiplies its nostalgia, and point to the fact that loneliness is a trap that feeds on itself. The lonelier the poet is, the more powerful her nostalgia for Love will be. Perhaps she envisions a lover coming to rescue her as her nostalgia reaches his eyes and they tear waiting for her without knowing it.

I repeat loneliness is a trap that creates a romantic fantasy, a phantom lover waiting for her somewhere, and shedding tears for her. It is as if their souls meet in an unconscious plane. However, this also means that Hope is not dead, that as long as we are part of life on earth, Hope is alive. And it is that same Hope which keeps the soul alive in the chamber of loneliness and yearning for a fast forward in time when she will be liberated and meet the man to save her. 

Hope incites her to believe that although / we have not met / we are waiting / for each other. Hope becomes a medicine for loneliness and no matter how painful and suffocating the absence of the lover can be, Hope designs a new reality where both can meet in a glorious future. After all, imagination has a vivid existence in the mind of the poet. Or perhaps it’s a strong intuition.

The imagery of this poem works wonders for the readers, as we truly gain a sense of Absence and its victim, the lover who yearns. She is likened to the princess locked in a torture chamber waiting for her prince to save her. However, she does not know for certain if she will ever be saved, but she must believe, for Hope is still alive.

The next Absence poem is based more on a distance from her Love, perhaps caused by doubts which occur in any relationship.

 

I wish I could be / inside you / without reaching you / completely / and forge a distance / or remain without roads / arriving at your door / but not knocking at it. / My mind is a labyrinth / where kisses and words / are the equation of a glance.

 

The wish is a very unusual one and is paradoxical in nature. It starts out as any wish for Love: I wish I could be / inside you, and then takes a strange turn when she says: Without reaching you / completely. This is an extremely genuine statement that shows trepidations about Love, which may cause a self-imposed absence. The verse continues: And forge a distance / or remain without roads, / arriving at your door / but not knocking at it. It is as if the poet wants some space as a protection from a full surrender or totally committed Love. Perhaps this concern shows the insecurities of the poet regarding her feelings, and also reveals how space and distance may not always be painful things, and can become a shelter.

She does not give herself over completely to the lover mentioned in the poem. Her Love is of a different nature. She says: My mind is a labyrinth / where kisses and words / are the equation of a glance. Therefore, her mind is the central point of Love in this relationship; a mind transformed into a labyrinth. The kisses and words trapped in that labyrinth do not seem to be the memory of a real moment but the equation of a glance. This is a confession that the entire relationship with this lover is simply a glance. The rest is a fantasy. And her Love is strong enough to create that fantasy. Then we understand why the heart was not involved.

The concept that Love can create a reality is fleshed out in the next poem. The cosmic presence of the lover is created inside the embrace of two lovers and essentially Love captures eternity. However, this eternity is disrupted by distance and ultimately the poem is a statement that lingers in the mysteries of absence.

 

We didn’t need / to travel galaxies. / We built eternity / in our embrace / and we interrupted it / with a simple good bye. / I will wait for you / in the promises / of the unknown.

 

This poem is very specific in terms of distance creating a contrast between Love and its absence. While the two lovers built eternity / in their embrace, just saying a simple good bye interrupts it. Therefore, while Love creates eternity, by lifting the soul to new levels, a destiny imposed innocent farewell wounds this bond and sends the soul back down to earth. This is an important dichotomy to highlight, because they are both powerful entities in the universe. Absence disrupts our possibilities to enter the rhythms of eternity and Love allows us to dwell in it. While lovers restore eternity, separation creates stagnation, disruption or entrapment; it erodes the sense of eternity.

The discourse is eventful because it gives us another flavor and understanding of Absence, when interlaced with Love. It is not the Absence of Love, but that of the lover, more precisely, the feeling of missing the lover.

The presence of Absence can also cause a trance-like state of fantasy for the poet, which differs from the chamber of suffocation discussed earlier. Again, we have the view of a room in a gothic and even romantic setting:

 

Everything looked / like a stage setting. / The view of the rain / through the window / the book of poems / the soft music / and I lying down / on my large / and empty bed. / So large and empty / that I felt the rain / was falling / on my bed.

 

Ghiragossián is able to unfold herself and look from afar at herself with irony. Her room has become a stage set for Absence, which has become the main actor, the leading role. Absence leads the way in a romantic setting with rain, windows, poems, soft music and a bed with a woman lying on it. The imagery here is so seductive, that totally captures the time and place, to be deeply set in the heart of memory. And while this room may seem appealing and soft, it is filled with absence and pain.

She feels her large and empty bed as an extension of her identity, because she feels empty. Here the word empty takes sudden relevance.

The poet enters a new dimension with the emptiness that dominates her and her bed. And she feels the rain falling on her bed, as if the emptiness would expand beyond the window. A perfectly surrealistic oil painting to capture the feeling of loneliness and vulnerability. A beautiful landscape to describe the frequency of a lonely soul projected to the surrounding.

The large and empty bed and the heavy rain are symbols framing solitude. Both the rain and her loneliness are unavoidable; both beyond her control. In any case, this poem is full of Daliesque suggestions about the abstract subject matter of absence and solitude.

Intriguingly, the next poem is the first one to name Absence directly. It also shows its deep effects on the poet and the erasure of Love it can cause.

 

You have been so absent / that I no longer / miss your love. / I have remembered you / for so long / that I have forgotten / your presence / and I have forged / a face / a smile / a glance / to the image and resemblance / of the faces / the smiles / the glances. / And I have replaced you / with one of my solitudes. / The very one / that excludes your absence.

 

The poem uncovers what happens when absence lingers for too long. Ghiragossián states that her lover has been so absent / that I no longer / miss your love. This definitely describes the destructive effects of absence and the fact that it can cause Love to fade away. Anything that destroys Love or hinders its potential is a terrible thing for the poet. She feels that the universe loses its balance.

She then sets up a rhetoric that may even sound like an oxymoron and paradoxical situation: remembrance provokes forgetfulness. It is the act of remembering for so long that exhausts remembrance. Again, absence is depicted as a destroyer, and the poet’s reaction to this is also original. Instead of giving up and forgetting, she forges a new person trying to hold on to what once was. She forged / a face / a smile / a glance / to the image and resemblance /of the faces / the smiles / the glances of the loved one.

Her reaction is to recreate a new reality from the drawing board of Memory. Therefore, the person she created from solitude is another solitude and she declares: I have replaced you / with one of my solitudes. / The very one / that excludes your absence, that is, from the Absence of the lover, she created in herself another kind of solitude that excludes the Absence of the lover.

An extremely singular solution, in a puzzle where essences move around until the picture is completed.

Absence created a memory, which eventually erased the object of Love. This is pure poetic genius loaded with philosophy.

The paradox that the poet exposes in this absence poem shows her to be part of that great dialogue of Love between the greatest poets of our time. Specifically, we are reminded of William Blake and the importance of paradox throughout his poetry, and even one of his most famous Love poems: “The Clod and the Pebble.” This short and deliberate poem also hinges on a paradox: Love builds a “heaven in hells despair.” Love, the unifier, in the end only “seeks itself to please” in order to “bind another in its delight.” In this way it attaches itself to something, is at the mercy of its whim, and builds a “Hell in heaven’s despite.” Therefore, just as it makes a heaven out of a hell, it also makes a hell out of a heaven. Just like Ghiragossián’s two sides of the Love coin.  The poet captures the essence of this paradox with a more sophisticated philosophy which elaborates a new, unexpected situation created by the Absence of Love: a solitude consciously selected, without the painful memories of the lover.

The last poem for discussion has also a unique character because it links absence directly with death. Yet it is not a statement of fact, but rather a dilemma for the poet in search of Truth:

 

I don’t know / if love is dead / because our love / is dead. / I know / time will reschedule / the future / in a new stream of light.

 

Love, as an eternal essence, cannot die. The death of Love is circumstantial: only between the poet and her lover. The breakage of a relationship feels like the inexistence of Love, like death itself.

This is an impressive simile that she uses in a short, deliberate poem which leaves a hallmark of suggestion.

She knows that time will reschedule / the future / in a new stream of light. Time will come to rescue her. As we see, the concept of Time makes a short but profound appearance in this Absence collection. It becomes the force that will free the poet, carry her to her destiny, and will ultimately prevail against Absence. She knows that there is a future Time, a dimension that awaits her with a new stream of light. This is a metaphor born from Hope and Love. So while absence may bring the death of Love in the present, it is merely a temporary state. She rests her confidence in destiny, and in the freeing powers of Time which will lead her to Love. At one point in time, there will be a luminous mark on the blue print of destiny, a new awareness will be born to open the doors to Love. And the light will enter, to eliminate darkness, and give her warmth.

The Absence poems are all significant to allow the reader to delve deeper into the aspects of Love. They focus on heavy emptiness, silence, a disruption of eternity, goodbyes, suffocating loneness as well as an auto-transformation of solitude. All of these somber facets of Absence enhance the positive powers of Love.

As Shakespeare said “parting is such sweet sorrow.” It is sweet when it fills up our memory with the vapors of the sweet moments.

In the unique perceptions created by her meta-dimensional mind, Alicia Ghiragossián’s Absence poems solidify the creative power of her work.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

TIME

 

The subject of Time in Ghiragossián’s poetry takes on a completely different meaning than readers may be used to. These poems showcase her unique conceptualization of Time, which is a struggle between the essential self of a human being connected with a horizontal Time, and the individual routinely controlled by the illusory values of the vertical, measured Time, represented by the clock. It is also a struggle between life, death and deadlines to accomplish a destiny.

The dichotomy between the two identities of Time in our poet’s approach, elevates Time to a level of its own.

The eternal, horizontal Time is noticed when the poet zooms out to observe the phenomenon from a cosmic angle. The measured, illusory Time is discerned when the poet zooms in, to lay eyes on the watch, as an earth controller.

No other poet before Ghiragossián has brought so intelligently into the field of poetry a subject so particular to philosophy. No one has captured the essence of the conflict with as much Truth as Ghiragossián. Every verse she writes exposes the concerns of her mind and soul, the palpitations of her heart.

One of the first poems of the collection, titled “Naked,” is a beautiful and heart wrenching example of the poet’s gift to capture the Truth of the fleeting nature of Time with the power of a Shakespearean philosophical approach.

 

Naked / full of screams / as we began at birth / we walked through time. / Then we returned / to our present / to accomplish / our destiny. / Life / is the true home / of a designed death.

 

There are many striking features in this poem that initially jump out at the reader. First, the initial word of the poem is naked, and it stands alone in the first verse, emphasizing the state of birth. It prepares our mind to imagine that vulnerable and primal state of the first instant in life. Then, more commotion is added to the description, as the Naked entity is full of screams / as we began at birth.

While it is true that we are physically naked, the image carries with it significant symbolism for Ghiragossián. Naked means we don’t have anything to cover us. We are uncovered, representing the authentic, without masks, typifying Truth. Candidly, without knowing it, we bring with us a signed agreement, called destiny. Whether we accomplish our mission or not, rests on the use of our free will.

Therefore, we have a choice in life, activated by this dual identity as both our physical state, with all the complications of our routine, and our divine potential to be in touch with the rules of Truth and ethics. This is a different dimension of consciousness which allows us to understand the values we encounter in life and perform our choices accordingly.

The birth in our poem, in its figurative connotation, highlights the element of innocence, confirmed by the next verses. The poet writes: As we began at birth / we walked through time. Written with metaphysical strength, she is reporting that we walk trough Time carrying the screams of pain. And she is reporting, as well, that we are naked; that nothing truly belongs to us; that all the material things we accumulate are temporarily loaned to us as a compensation for our efforts. 

In the expression we walked through time, she is talking about a horizontal Time of permanent awareness in our lives; an awareness from which we can see the past, the present and the future. This means Time on a horizontal line, where we can freely travel and experience each life. For instance, if we go through regressive hypnosis, we have the possibility to visit any of the lives we have lived, with our different clothes, according to our roles. But that is just the appearance, because underneath that cloth, we are naked, carrying the truth of our real essence.

Reading the autobiography of Alicia Ghiragossián, a manuscript at present, we encounter passages in which the poet experiences regressive hypnosis. She discovers some of her past lives and mistakes, and understands the ethical need to correct them. Hence the script of her destiny, which she can freely design, is rewritten in a way to allow her accomplish her purpose and mission in her present life.

Not everybody has that experience, or a religious experience, or any other that helps us grow and, for that reason, she feels the need to share them with all. She tries to build a more solid foundation of life through self-awareness, so promoted by Socrates, who took the “know thyself” from the inscription of the Temple of Delphos.

Time, as marked by the clock, is merely an illusion which traps us in the ticking away of hours, as opposed to awareness, designed to let us see in continuity, beyond divisions. Therefore, the poet walked through time and then returned / to our present / to accomplish our destiny. The poet deliberately uses the word walk to take the reader through the trajectory of Time. The verb walk describes a continuity that is present and the ease in which the poet can travel between the past and the future.

 It is in the present when the poet states: To accomplish my destiny. It is in the present when we are in charge of a specific segment of destiny and when we can be trapped by structures and obligations of that Time. For our poet, the concept of destiny is related to karmic debts. While we enter our destiny, we enter into a new set of confining rules, as it always happens in a material world.

Destiny also designs for us some free will, and lends us some rights similar to freedom and power, yet Time is carefully measured. We have a deadline on the physical realm to fulfill our purpose.

The last verses of the poem further describe that deadline, however cryptic the message may appear. She writes: Life / is the true home / of a designed death. The poet is aware of life to be aware of death, but this is a physical death. The true self, the soul goes on existing. So, we shouldn’t confuse life with existence. Life is measured on earth, we have the clock to remind us, and existence is limitless, it belongs to another dimension, where no clocks exist.

We can see both life and existence, and witness the Truth that wrap them: one is merely the home of the other, because death always sends you back home and then back to life on earth.

Death does not exist. It is only a transition to another kind of existence. But life on earth at the present time always has an end. And the cycle goes on.

In that context, the terms life and death fit into her concept of transitory. And they are not opposing forces, they are both active parts of the same plan, called destiny. Life and death are attached; they are both sides of the same coin.

Death is not a coincidental happening; it is casual but causal, designed in that agreement or contract called destiny. In other words, life is a designed death, which is the poet’s true message in underestimating the illusory roles we play within a Time, which is nothing but a deadline culminating in death.

In this deep message, Ghiragossián is sharing with us an amazing truth: by blending life and death their confrontation fades away.

In another of her poems she writes:

 

We live a time / that being / dies / and staying /  passes / to become eternal.

 

Essentially, this poem is a pure philosophical statement, because it captures the essence of the message in Ghiragossián’s short and deliberate syntax. The existence of Time is doubtful, and the reader is able to step into a new dimension of the mind.

The fact that we live a time / that being / dies describes the ephemeral character of Time. Ghiragossián emphasizes the parallel that living is, in fact, closely linked to dying. As we stated, dying is not permanent either. When writing: staying passes she is also describing how life is also transitory, a state of passing.

This message is not to be taken as a negative one. The outcome of a Time that is dying, every second of its life, and passes to become eternal, conceives an eternity that is the absorber of Time. In a way, we are admitting that Time is no different than eternity itself. Therefore, the seeming sad connection between life and death is instead a radical movement forward into eternity.

No one before Ghiragossián has captured the essence of this message with the Truth and simplicity so characteristic to her writing, which makes her a deep thinker.

The poet’s observation, which is revealed here is that within the measure of Time there is no present; there is just past and future, since we cannot stop Time even for a split second, in order to name it present. It is totally ungraspable, that is, immeasurable. We can measure the present of a day, or a period in broader terms, but never the present of Time.

Within another one of her Time poems, Ghiragossián points to another particularity not seen in previous poems. It is the issue of responsibility, which is closely linked to destiny:

 

It is not enough / smiling at time / without knowing / its power. / That is why / we grow old / as we watch time / getting lost / in silence.

 

In a profound statement, the poet reveals her beliefs surrounding the relationship between Time and destiny. Time is the limiting box of destiny, the deadline. We have to accomplish our missions within that deadline. Hence the sense of responsibility. Ghiragossián states that it is not enough / smiling at time / without knowing / its power.

The term smiling here comes to describe the casual awareness of Time, that is, the ignorance of Time as the ticking background of our life purpose, which could remain unaccomplished, if we are not aware of our responsibilities. For that reason Ghiragossián emphasizes how this is not enough. Time and awareness go parallel, to accomplish our destinies.

Her message is emphasized in the next stanza where she writes: we grow old / as we watch time / getting lost / in silence. Therefore, as liberating as it can be to break free from Time and to surpass its illusory values, one must first recognize the measured Time as the frame of our obligations; as the power to limit our destinies.

If we don’t take advantage of Time, we will simply grow old, and silently, which is worse than the normal understanding of death. To grow old in silence is a terrible thing that Ghiragossián cautions her readers about, because she feels so strongly about having a voice, a purpose, a reason, a mission in life, so our voice can be heard or our actions can become a teaching. It is a message of taking responsibility of Time and ultimately a reminder of our task on earth, not to end our life in silence, without a legacy, regardless of its size.

This responsibility is not easy and it is not a given. The beauty in Ghiragossián’s “Time” poetry rests in the fact that it is extremely raw and human. But, above all, it is extremely idealistic. Great souls are always aware of their mission. She understands the demands of life, yet through her poetry she reminds readers of a greater Truth that lies beyond. We have to find it on our own, and be aware of our destiny within the limits of the time we are assigned.

In her poem “Dream and Non-dream”, Ghiragossián exposes the demands of life to follow our destiny, and she shows that all is not merely given. Sacrifice is paramount.

 

Dream and non-dream / incubating in the doubt. / It is hard / to break the clocks / and adjust the vibrations. / We know / that waiting plus palpitations / equals life / although distance plus time / equals loneliness. / We survive / just to fulfill / our destinies.

Initially she introduces the struggle between our dreams and their doubts, so closely linked to the non-dream, that is, reality. Interestingly, she writes that both dream and non-dream incubate in the doubt. This is a profound statement and once again Ghiragossián hits upon a Truth that is beyond words.

The essence of a dream goes against the streams of life. It’s a different kind of life. A dream is opposed to the cries and needs of reality, and although embraces a message, a sign, closely linked with Truth, it is incubated in a doubt, because a sign is always subject to interpretations.

The Dream, even before it is born has doubt as its mortal enemy; doubts which inhabit the unconscious mind, from where dreams are born.

Therefore, to link the Dream to incubating in the doubt is a real concept written in her Aliciesque, innovative style. With these words she creates a new dimension that opens an entire new window of consciousness.

As a paradox, non-dream or reality, being opposite to dream, is incubated in a doubt as well. A true statement, considering that our conscious mind is full of insecurities, mistakes of choices, and conflicts. This is a subject with a psychological and philosophical content, folded in a few words, which unfolded could become a psychological volume.

She also states that it is hard / to break the clocks / when we know / that distance plus time / equals loneliness.

Yes. It is hard to be detached from the measure of Time and break the clocks, permanent reminders of our obligations. But in a way, waiting provokes palpitations and anxiety. And there is a deep loneliness when your dreams are distant and you have to wait. Distance plus time could be psychologically depressive.

But in fact, if we could have our dreams at the tip of our fingers, there would not be effort, and struggle, and sacrifice, which are the schools for the soul.

Ghiragossián describes an extraordinary determination in need of extraordinary action and courage. Therefore, breaking the clocks may free us, but this is not the end result. The end result has a fifty-fifty chance to succeed.

In the last verses of the poem Ghiragossián channels the loneliness and the fight we have to undergo to reach our dreams. In another “Truth beyond words” statement, she declares: We survive / just to fulfill / our destinies.

Survival, as a human being, is a permanent struggle, but all we can do is follow our destinies. Therefore, the poet ends on a profoundly philosophical message that to be “human” is to be our destiny, to deliver our purpose; to accomplish our mission.

Furthermore, the poem “When time stops” is a testament to her concept of surpassing Time and validating eternity. Perhaps more than any other poem it is a superimposed picture of infinity within Time and Space.

 

When time stops / dreams turn around / in volutes / to reabsorb / the past centuries / and to initiate / destiny. / Eternity is the beginning / of a beyond / somehow accomplished already.

 

This poem is a statement of pure meta-dimensional truth, where we enter the totally unknown. It even settles the consciousness of the unknown: when time stops. Is that something imaginable? Can Time stop? Even if life stops, how can Time stop?

Here the poet seems to enter the realm of the impossible and cross the rational perception, but she does not. She is talking about stopping the Time of our clock, in a subjective manner, to enter into the horizontal line of Time, into eternity. For that reason she describes what comes later: dreams turn around / in volutes / to reabsorb / the past centuries.

Zooming out our lenses we see Ghiragossián’s imagination dancing up in volutes with the power to reabsorb Time itself. Only by disregarding the clock or stopping it we can enter eternity and absorb the centuries as if they were sucked by a hole in the cosmos, and now we bring those centuries back. This is a powerful image almost impossible to imagine. But the poet’s imagination seems to be boundless.

We, as readers, can actually detect the power and force of a dream to provoke changes that seem impossible. The word volute is particularly suggestive and descriptive, because it conveys a circular movement and velocity within a space, as if wrapping and encircling the centuries.

We can see here how the thoughts, feelings, and dreams of the poet can expand without limits. And by sharing that expansion our awareness grows. As any expansion, it is the great testimonial of freedom, released when time stops in the clocks.

The metaphor for the stopping of the clocks, or ignoring Time, in order to gain the kind of freedom to reabsorb our past lives, is a quest for soul identity. That identity is needed to cleanse the past, to initiate a new destiny. That destiny will allow us to touch eternity, the beginning of a beyond / somehow accomplished already, because we have accepted the terms of the agreement that frames our lives, even before we were born. The future is supposed to be determined in the contract of destiny.

And perhaps that destiny is already accomplished in a parallel universe. Then Time needs to stop and cleanse its past in order to make us aware of the new, untouched, fresh start, witnessing life from a parallel dimension, and fulfilling our destinies with the conviction that they are already elaborated, in order to guide our intentions.

So, we always need dreams to wipe out the past, be reborn and redesign our destiny.

Like a phoenix that is raised from the ashes to become a more beautiful, faster, and freer bird, so too dreams are created and reborn.

If are able to perceive eternity only when Time stops, we are living a paradox, which places us in a metaphysical awareness of existence.

This imagery of Ghiragossián is so powerful that we are amazed at the sparks of her mind: a purely meta-dimensional state that lends to the beauty, power, and hypnotic clarity of the poem, which invites us to say “aha!” 

The poet places us face to face with eternity, in her subtle and suggestive style. She even gives us the definition of eternity which helps us understand this and other poems better: Eternity is the beginning / of a beyond / somehow accomplished already. It is like researching the transcriptions of the Akashic records, where everything in the universe is registered.

It is also significant to notice the inclusion of the word somehow. It speaks to that Mystery that is beyond words, which exists beyond Time and encompasses the beyondness of all mysteries, since it is accomplished in other dimensions.

Somehow accomplished already suggests, as well, that as much as there is a force that organizes the universe, that resembles the concept of God, there is also the concept of free will, and we have choices.

In Ghiragossián’s poetry, this beyond is commonly paralleled to Mystery, which is explained more in the next chapter. However, it is significant that it surfaces in this poem as well, and shows how the poet’s concepts of Eternity, Beyond, Mystery and God are more than closely related. They are branches of the same tree, always growing, always expanding.

Her poem “We unveil time” describes the illusory value of Time in more detail.

 

We unveil time / and the first word comes / hand in hand with God. / The encounter / opens a passage / to infinity.

 

The poem insists that Time is an illusion because it is possible to unveil it. And when it is unveiled, the first word, which here is a synonym of original Truth, comes hand in hand with God.

This means that we become closer to God in the instant we surpass the illusion of Time, and this closeness is so powerful that it opens a passage to the infinite.

Following a philosophical syllogism, the conclusion is that Truth takes us to infinity. It is as if the awareness of Truth can allow us to see forever and become prophets.

All this opens the dialogue we can have with God. In essence, we can be transformed and absorb the other fundamental concepts of Ghiragossián’s poetry connected with Truth: Love, Forgiveness and Peace, which are also the concepts that go hand in hand with God. Therefore, when Time is unveiled, virtues that have been chained by Time are also unveiled and we are free to love, to forgive, and live in harmony. It makes sense to point out how the poet brings into the poem the subject of God. Perhaps there is no beyond without God, and being in touch with Him we can enter Truth and all the virtues connected with it. For that, we need to be hand in hand with God or the Mystery of the infinite.

Ghiragossián illustrates that there is a connection between surpassing the illusion of Time and opening a passage to the infinite. An infinite that suggests eternity.

Unveiling Time and stopping its illusory effects, are the means by which anyone, especially her readers, become aware of the illusory nature of Time. They can have a glimpse and taste of eternity to enter the kingdom of absolute values.

What makes these poems even more universal is that it is not solely Ghiragossián who is taking part in this quest for Truth beyond Time. She usually speaks in plural. Her we is in fact an invitation for the readers to share her journey; an invitation to register the experience in their unconscious minds and settle at a sub-atomic level.            

Above all, by transforming the concept of Time from something that limits to a force that allows us to design our destiny and freedom, Ghiragossián has definitely awakened our need to focus on Truth, discover the actual inexistence of Time, and approach a keyhole from where we can glimpse eternity.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

MYSTERY and TRUTH

 

Throughout Alicia Ghiragossián’s poetry there is an element of Mystery which cannot be defined. It is that strange presence that is part of her reality and thus is infused in her poetry. It is the “why” of so many things: of existence, of thoughts and feelings, of art, and the why of poetry.

And what is truly intriguing, is the power of creation, that embodiment of the dynamic energy of the mind, through metaphors and paradoxes, and the meta-dimensional projection. The impulse of creation comes from inspiration, vision, imagination, idealism and dreams.

How poetry, as any art, comes to life, as much as life itself, is a Mystery for the poet. And her interpretation, as sensed throughout her poetry is that it cannot help but exist. Particularly in the case of poetry it must exist to elevate the self to a meaningful awareness, to have a glimpse of Mystery, or to generate Peace, Justice, Beauty, and Love. The power of the right words in the right combination transforms our Soul DNA.

Specifically in Interview With God , volume II, there is a chapter devoted to Mystery which offers the poet’s perceptions of the afterlife and reincarnation, which are the ultimate mysteries in her poetry.

 

Open – God / the gates of mystery / and take in / Your chosen ones. / I know that to discover / the supreme truth / we must search for it / because being close / to everything / we are the furthest / and without the mystery / of Your presence /
plenitude is incomplete. / I know that to think / about the universe / I have to enlarge myself. / But no one understands / that souls belong / to another dimension. / They climb / through the spiral / of the mind / to reach mystery / dilate the light of revelations / and fill up the questions / with the voice of heritage.

 

The concept of Mystery is closely linked to the existence of a God and a force that are beyond our knowledge. The poem opens with the words Open-God / the gates of mystery / and take in / Your chosen ones. Mystery, is definitely linked with God and therefore is a sense of great power.

It is also a description given to the gates that she wishes God to open. The gates of mystery is a metaphor to insinuate that secrets are always behind doors which do not open for everyone, only for those chosen ones. And who are they? The ones who knock on those doors; the ones who want to know and take action to achieve that knowledge.

The next stanza also offers another concrete definition of Mystery. The poet, still speaking to God says: I know that to discover / the supreme truth / we must search for it … and without the mystery / of Your presence / plenitude is incomplete. From these lines we can gather that Mystery is indeed part of God’s presence. This presence can be the existence of unknown phenomena in those dimensions that the poet has not physically visited, but has been connected with.

Ghiragossián says that souls belong / to another dimension and that they climb / through the spiral / of the mind / to reach mystery. Therefore, one aspect of Mystery is its connection with the soul, and since the soul needs to climb through the mind to reach Mystery, it is an experience that resembles rising and soaring. Again, we see the spiral, the circular movement to encompass a total existence all around. It seems that the connecting line to Mystery is not direct, it embraces a multiplicity of experiences to complete the picture.

Other aspects of Mystery, deal with issues regarding death and reincarnation. The poet asks God the question:

 

Are we going to exist / when questions are finished? / What does it truly mean / to be here now / when the answers / are roaming by the thousands / and being tangled / at the crossroads of destiny / without reaching us?

 

First of all, this statement says that the questioning of life is part of our existence. When these questions stop, she fears that life will stop, because our main purpose is to learn. When we know everything we become gods.

The role of the poet is illuminated as a questioner of life and the mysteries surrounding it. Then, the issue of reincarnation is introduced.

The poet questions what it really means to be here now which implies that there is a multiplicity of beings living in us, who are not from here and now. They are not part of the present life. They belong to the past, yet we are the end result of them; we have inherited those lives through our Soul DNA, in which are registered thousands of answers from old experiences. They are there without reaching us, because we are not aware of them; we don’t have the memory of them. And yet, they are part of the self.

Ghiragossián creates a new awareness when making answers tangible things, tangled at the crossroads of destiny. They cannot travel to us. We have to tap into them, search, detect, find them, and learn about them through new experiences. We need to assume a new consciousness to open the possibility for reaching those answers.

Mystery is also concretely defined in the stanza that concludes this section of the poem, in which the poet addresses God:

 

Send me Your voice /- renewing lights - / and send me also / every day / the invincible power / to detect the messages / and give meaning / to existence.

 

The voice of God is not a sound or a word, it is a coded sign, a metaphor, a message to be detected by our subconscious mind: a symbolic dream, a religious experience, or a strong intuition through meditation.

Any means is acceptable when our feelings are strong enough to validate the sign, which will be a renewing light, that will illuminate us and create in us a new consciousness.

The poet asks God to send her everyday that invincible power to detect the messages because the load of obligations in our lives can alter that divine energy of receiving a transcendental message. And it is the energy of that message that gives meaning to existence.

To achieve the answers of Mystery is a process.

 

Life is a permanent rehearsal / for other lives where we learn to be / friends and enemies / relatives and strangers / lovers and loved ones.

 

We are always in opposite roles, so we can learn a lesson from all the angles, from the different circumstances of life. Therefore, some secrets are carried through us from past lives where perhaps we have learned how to be fully in tune with our inner self, and how to attain wisdom. It is by acknowledging our past existences, as well as being aware of our present, that makes us complete and allows us to fuse with Mystery.

Another lesson of Mystery is that of Truth, which is a path that can lead us to the fountain of Mystery.

 

Truth begins / by discovering / what is wrong. / And the beginning / is only the shadow / of the total truth.

 

By being fully aware and conscious of our present, we can question norms we know to be wrong.

 

Only those who fly / can contemplate / and understand / other souls in flight. / If we do not fly / we are slaves. …  Help us God /
to mature the choice / although in the depth / of the unconscious / it is already resolved / totally or partially.

 

Those who search for this Mystery and make it a life plan are on a different wavelength: a wavelength closer to Truth. The poet says that only those who fly / can contemplate / and understand / other souls in flight. / If we do not fly / we are slaves. Therefore, we need the wisdom of experience to understand the different roles of life.

She is asking for help, knowing that in the depth / of the unconscious the choice is already resolved through the astral charts of destiny.  And she adds totally or partially, to leave some room for free will. She points out how pivotal this connection with God is, and concludes this section with words that speak for all humankind:

 

I am tired / of common places / of stereotypes / where the ideology / of the nonsense / is in permanent growth. / I am vehemently against / becoming a thing /
because it interrupts / the internal rhythm / of the universe.

 

The poet wants to break free from labels, stereotypes, and nonsense. It allows us to enter the internal rhythm / of the universe, which is sustained by Truth and ethics. That is the way to be closer to that which empowers us and frees us.

Reading Ghiragossián’s autobiography we are informed of her past life experiences through regressive hypnosis. Those experiences have answered her own questions about life and reincarnation. Her transcendental episode of traveling through Time brought her closer to her identity. Part of it was that of Queen Semiramis, who had harmed the Armenian people. Perhaps that is the reason why she is so attached to her role in soothing their pain and to claim justice for the victims of genocide.

So, our poet proclaims:

 

Like Queen Semiramis / I am in debt to my people. / I have to confess / my defeat by the kings.... Karma-guilt-rebirth / karma-guilt-existence / and death and destiny / and rebirth again. / This is a passion / condensed for centuries / and my conscience grows / to become a judge / to impose repentance / to claim indemnity / and love…

I have been / mortally wounded / candled and melted / paying for my mistakes / finally understanding / that no belonging /  is truly ours / that thrones / do not enrich / that the aims of a people / cannot be stolen / that power / can grow to kill / that glory can be / drunkenness and deception / a vain illusion / armed against you…/ My crown is burning me. The time has come / to return my kingdom / and return with it / its greatness gone / so my true existence / can finally be mine.

 

There is no doubt she feels guilty. The issue of karma, guilt, and rebirth is expressly used here. She knows who she is and what her mission is. For that reason, she channels the energies of Forgiveness.

Ghiragossián has learned valuable lessons from her past self. They are lessons that have traveled the waves of Time. Several identities, including that of Queen Semiramis, fuse with her present identity and she becomes more aware and more complete, careful not to make the same mistakes. She understands the laws of karma.  Her consciousness has grown, and her poem becomes a passionate message that provokes growth of consciousness.

Because of this identity, she is in debt to her people. After all, the actions of Semiramis were influenced by her position of power. At present, the poet has come to share the destiny of her people and to baptize with prayers / a justice delayed. She is making right the wrongs of Semiramis and channels all positive energies to reverse her actions. Now we understand why Ghiragossián is so obsessed with her messages of Peace, Forgiveness, Love and Hope. She feels the need to broadcast them into the cosmos, for humanity to have the opportunity to create a new reality. She is a witness of the chances offered to us by a divine architecture to change and restore the damages we cause.

The doors of another dimension open, and the poet can tap into her past self.

And there is no other way out. The crown, a symbol of power of her past, is burning her. She needs to dethrone herself to recover her true essence. And she does. At the point where she has already discovered Truth and absorbed the lessons she says: Today / truth has brought / a new sun / into being.

In another poem the poet again offers the reader an elaborate metaphor to bring us closer to the essence of Mystery. As she is looking at a candle flame, she says:

 

When there is / an absence of suns / I light a candle / and I observe it / under the full moon. / I tune into its flame / and I enter / its secret channels of power. / All the forces join / in the burning wick / and I can always / forget fear / shrink pain / shape a wish / or cast a spell. / And each tear of wax / that drops / designs a step / closer to hope.

*

Candlelight / is the closest mate / to dialogue with ourselves / and enter the meaning / of silence.

 

Our poet has channeled into an energy that is beyond words and she feels the power received. A magical moment when our strength is triggered by a beyond connection, when we are in tune with the higher forces of goodness. And that is Mystery in action: when we are a step closer to Truth.

She confesses in those verses that the candlelight is the closest mate / to dialogue with yourself / and enter the meaning / of silence. Therefore, it is clear that the candle that burns has the strength to trigger our energy.

But why the presence of silence? Because silence is the true conduit to God, to Mystery, to the Unknown. We communicate with the beyond without the interference of words. Just Silence, the language of the soul, the language of meditation and communication with Divinity.

We can find Mystery sprinkled throughout this chapter: It is a special sun / shining / when thoughts become alive / and grow. With this feeling the poet can touch / a pure essence / and delve into its mysteries / of supreme knowledge. Mystery is also a rising light / in the vault of the soul / when feelings go deeper in order to discover all the love / surrounding the world from where goodness leaks.

The powers of Mystery are abundant if one is able to channel into them, as abundant as the water of the ocean. And it is motivational for the reader to recognize how accessible Mystery can be when we intend to find it at midnight / when you open / the dialogues stored / in your heart / and place wings to them.

The poet describes her trip through the infinitesimal particles of her brain, and the energy of her mind, to go deeper and deeper in search of true light, which allows us to acknowledge our mistakes. All the treasures of this Mystery are hidden / in the dimensions / of truth. Therefore, Mystery is light, sun, dreams, growth, and a vault which leaks goodness. It is also something deep within our Soul DNA, which allows us to inherit the codification of our past selves, our TEIWAS Energy Factor (thoughts, emotions, images, words, actions and sounds) registered in our soul with its most subtle vibrations.

We are the sum of all the ones we have been. Can we ask anything more mysterious than that?

Mystery is the center of our existence and the force that purifies us; the motivational energy that affects us.

Ghiragossián, in a prophetic moment announces:

 

Everything will change. /… / A new dawn will announce / the dethroned / and the reign of truth / will inaugurate / the always.

 

Thus, darkness and impotence will disappear so we can reach a new time aligned with the light of a permanent Truth.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

TERRORISM and WAR

 

Within Interview With God, volume II, Ghiragossián has embedded a chapter titled “Injustice.” The first section is a vigorous cry out to God for answers concerning injustice. It is her acknowledging the presence of something beyond earth.

 

I know / You will not reveal to us / the origin of injustice – God / because You would not like us / to conquer your secrets. / But perhaps / through my deeper self / You will help me learn / how to understand and forgive / treason / inhumanity / and how to assimilate / an arbitrary law. / Justice arrives / thousands of years late. / Do not keep silent – God. / You cannot be an accomplice / to the cataclysms of the world. / You cannot abandon us. / You should not.

 

The poet believes that the spirit of wisdom of the universe, God, knows more about the origin of injustice yet will not share the answers with us. Injustice, as the introduction states, is a secret of God. She thinks that maybe there are superior reasons to provoke injustice, than meets the eye. Perhaps there is a reason, a karmic condition that we are not supposed to know about. The learning process is necessary for us to grow. This is the secret that is hidden in the destiny of every individual, every nation.

Ghiragossián adds: perhaps / through my deeper self / You will help me learn / how to understand and forgive / treason / inhumanity / and how to assimilate / an arbitrary law. It is significant to understand the poet’s use of the words my deeper self. This deeper self is the soul. It is the entity that can be closest to God here on earth, and perhaps is even part of Him. It is through this soul that the secrets of God can very well be conquered. It can be through revelation, intuition, sign or vision. Perhaps forgiving ourselves and others, and touching God.

But Justice arrives / thousands of years late. No other phrase has been uttered so truly in history. Whenever Justice does appear, it is so late that it cannot save the millions of lives lost over thousands of years of injustice. And she continues to speak directly to God and takes on a courageous identity as she demands: Do not keep silent - God. / You cannot be an accomplice / to the cataclysms of the world. / You cannot abandon us.

This passionate and even desperate demand of God shows that injustice touches her deeply and closely, and she has no other choice but to plead with God. Do not keep silent / …You should not.

The Gibranesque rebelliousness of Ghiragossián, and her determination to try and change the “status quo” of the world are transparent. But God knows better, and the poet is waiting.

This introduction to the Injustice chapter is so deep, intense and raw that it stands out. The questions pointed to God create an entirely new awareness for readers on the subject of injustice. It also opens a new awareness regarding God and His role as a Supreme Judge.

Within this context, the poet could not be indifferent toward the terrorist attack suffered by the United States.

 

On September 11 / in the year 2001/ in Your name - God / they opened wide apart / the gates of hell. / In Your name / they laughed at You / and shot with hatred / the sky of New York. / It was total destruction. / They were not just buildings. / They were dreams collapsing / in a mass of black clouds / in the most Dantesque rain / of destruction / created by terror. / It was not just rubble. / It was a living dust / of beating cells / and loving humanity / buried under the tears / of a wounded freedom. / And the entire world / - praying and trembling - / asking: Why? / Why was there / so much hatred / eclipsing the sun? / Losses. / A cemetery of losses / under the torch / of Liberty. / Losses of trust / of innocence / of harmony / of sacred lives. / A mountain of destinies / cut-off from Earth / erecting / the saddest monument / of ashes and injustice. / But they were not / just silent and bleeding ashes / lying on the streets of New York / or the grounds of Washington. / They were - as well – / the seeds of resurrection / the highest bravery and courage / of an unbeatable / power of faith / to eradicate evil / and restore / the icons of pride. / Those ashes created / a unique passion / to re-conquer / the radiance of the self / still breathing / under the dust. / Those ashes helped to rise / the American flag / waving with the promise / to build-up a new sky. / Those who laughed at You - / will be crushed / by their own laughter. / They will be drowned / by the tears of the innocent / and cursed / by the force of truth / traveling from land to land / to uncover / their ultimate shame. / No one laughs at You / without paying a high price / without being burned / by the candles / lit with prayers / of all faiths. / I can hear the voices / of all those ashes / of all those prayers / reaching up to You / and I can feel / Your thunder / for a higher calling / mobilizing the lost hearts / to become a legion of flags / a legion of bells / ringing in the ears / of the universe / and spreading the waves / of new chants: / chants of victory / chants of peace / chants of the supreme laws / that govern the essence / of all that is. / Light is destined / to conquer darkness. / Hope is destined / to conquer death. / Love is destined / to conquer all. / Forever. / Forever.

The poem begins with the date of the World Trade Center buildings attacks, as if registering the tragedy in American history. On September 11 / in the year 2001 / in Your name - God / they opened wide apart / the gates of hell. This is another raw statement filled with power, daring to reawake the presence of God. It is brought up because of the fact that the September 11^th attacks were done in His name, as claimed by the terrorists.

What is God if this is done in His name? This is an extremely philosophical question that cannot be answered at this stage of the poem. She continues to question the role of God: In Your name – God / they laughed at You / and shot with hatred / the sky of New York. Perhaps the God of the terrorists is backwards, because they and their brand of justice are backwards. They even destroy the image of their own God when they claim that they shot the sky of New York in His name. The poet believes that no God would allow something so terrible to be done in His name.

The fallen towers were not just rubble. / It was a living dust / of beating cells / and loving humanity / buried under the tears / of a freedom that now is wounded. Ghiragossián takes us to a closer level of the destruction to be able to find Truth. The victims were beating cells and loving humanity. They were the innocents who paid the price of a wounded freedom with their lives. The poet then includes the entire world in the dialogue with God. It is not just her, who questions God, but the world at large is seeking answers: Why? / Why was there / so much hatred / eclipsing the sun?

Bravely, the poet zooms in to focus on all that was lost: Losses of Trust / of innocence / of harmony / of sacred lives. / A mountain of destinies / cut-off from Earth. She is very sensitive to this idea of untimely deaths. Her family has gone through it.

The rubble becomes the saddest monument / of ashes and injustice. And the innocent victims became the seeds of resurrection / the highest / bravery and courage / of an unbeatable / power of faith / to eradicate evil. This statement is the poet’s description of the American people. Freedom makes them brave, courageous and empowered. Perhaps this is what the terrorists were fighting against.

However, those who lost their lives did not completely die and the towers did not just fall as ash and dust. The poet includes her perceptions of re-creation and rebirth, within this poem as well, when she says: Those ashes created / a unique passion / to re-conquer / the radiance of the self / still breathing / under the dust. It is the spirit of America which was reborn from the ashes. Those ashes helped to raise / the American flag / waving with the promise / to build-up a new sky.

The sky of New York was attacked but the Hope that rises from the ashes, along with the unique passion / to re-conquer, creates a new America that mirrors its radiance of self. Perhaps more than anything, those who laughed at God and used him as a scapegoat for acts of evil will be crushed / by their own laughter. / They will be drowned / by the tears of the innocent / and cursed / by the force of truth. Truth did not die, and will haunt the evil doers.

The poet includes a line that seems to re-establish her faith in a just God when she says: No one laughs at You / without paying a high price / without being burned / by the candles / lit with prayers / of all faiths. Therefore, it is clear that the concept of God is purely a just one and He is on the side of those who harbor Peace.

T hose who died in that tragedy, will be mobilized in spirit by a just God, and become a legion of flags / a legion of bells / ringing in the ears / of the universe / and spreading the waves / of new chants / chants of truth / chants of hope / chants of love. Those alive on earth will be the force to walk hand in hand with God, to prove that there is a force greater than evil. They will recreate the lost human values, and the supreme laws / that govern the essence / of all that is.

A new world will be fashioned out of the just and right. After all, truth is destined / to conquer darkness / hope is destined / to conquer death / and love is destined / to conquer all. / Forever.

The theme of injustice goes on in another poem. Again, the poet directly questions God and his motives.

 

But I ask you / with this questionnaire / of mortals / in which astral travel / are You engaged / when people are massacred? / In which alley of the universe / are You stuck / when the marks of impotence / are imprinted / on an entire race?

 

This complaint is an outburst from the pain of the poet. She is in a difficult predicament, an eternal dilemma. Why would God allow people who He created in His own image to be segregated / or die of starvation? These are valid questions that the poet needs answered. God becomes the essence of Mystery here. His reasons are hidden.

Although Ghiragossián is humanizing God and becoming the voice of a prosecutor, she knows about the hidden reasons of karma; she knows that the injustices that span through history cannot have a logical reason. The logic on Earth is different from the cosmic logic, and she knows of those higher reasons. And her voice becomes harsh as an expression of impotence.

Her poem then takes an even more active position as she   passionately gathers the people of the world and addresses God:

 

 Today we come / to knock at Your door / to add dreams / to Your projects. Those who died have an announcement / of dialogue and peace / that needs Your hand / so that the mistakes / are acknowledged.

 

This is a meta-dimensional metaphor of action. No longer will people wait for God; now they will go directly to His door and become the executors of the dream of peace. Humankind must right the wrong. People can recreate and rule over their own earth. Prayers and peaceful action are powerful means to accomplish that dream.

Ghiragossián has created a new awareness and a new global consciousness: the power of rewriting destiny. Humankind, by knocking on God’s door, takes life into its own hands and fashions its own destiny. They surpass Time and their archetypal roles. God is always ready for a spiritual cleansing. Dilute from our shoulders / the weight of pain. Sometimes, pain is too big to bear and some strong power is needed to take the brunt of the pain. Perhaps that is the ultimate role of God.

Our poet continues to plead with Him and says:

 

Your robe is luminous- Lord. / Cover those sufferers with it / so their tears deviate / from their course / and misery forgets its seal.

 

Again, pain is a teaching force that the poet acknowledges is very difficult to bear. Agony and injustice are of incredibly heavy weight for mortals to carry; God is needed to lessen and mitigate them. It is a spiritual and magical lessening of pain that is just as soothing and real as a tangible balm.

In her gifted and deliberate way, our poet then includes a stanza that speaks directly and effortlessly to the Truth of truths. She begs God to Join those causes / that belong to You / as much as the sorrow / of the universe. Essentially, the poet appeals to God to shed his power and volition into Peace and Hope. After all if massacres can happen, so can harmony, which is eternal.

Alicia Ghiragossián joins forces, here, with philosopher Kierkegaard, for whom the premise of God’s existence, brings us to the conclusion that everything is possible. We reach to the same result if we decide to apply Aristotle’s deductive reasoning to the poem. A syllogism is created here. If we consider the major premise to be the existence of God, and the minor premise to be that God is Omnipotent, we come to the conclusion that everything is possible.

The poem concludes reinforcing the fact that above all else, God is needed as a spiritual savior in the face of pointless injustice. After all, it is through Him that we can glimpse the possibility of paradise and eternity. Therefore, the poet feels deep gratitude:

 

Thank you / for letting us feel / the intimacy of true light / and showing us / the path of eternity. 

 

Even if God is silent, Ghiragossián hits upon a profound Truth: the power of God exists inside each of us. It is inside our souls that we can glimpse into the meanings of God and channel Peace, to bring it out onto earth. God does work, but he works through us. It is our job to channel His messages. That is the secret.

A new consciousness is originated on the discourse of injustice and although first rebelling, she arrives at this profound and inspirational conclusion. The moment when the human being realizes that God is inside each of us, and discovers the divine spark, the origins of injustice will be fought. It will be the moment when injustice will fade away. It will be a reawakening and a rebirth of consciousness that the poet describes as a fissure of time / when essences / salute each other and when justice / will pay its debts. It will be the release of paradise on earth, a paradise which sleeps in every one’s heart.

All philosophers agree: war is unethical and against the natural laws of the universe. For philosopher Hegel, it is “absolute evil” which finds its “raison d’être” in the passions of the powerful. He condemns the “wickedness” and “irrationality” of war.    

Alicia Ghiragossián is not afraid to speak the Truth to the powerful. Her poetry book titled “War and Truth” is an accusation of the unnecessary use of force by all governments. Specifically it is a skeptical and shocked reaction to the abuse of power and motivations leading to the war in Iraq.

In the beginning of the book, Ghiragossián makes a remark about the atrocities inflicted on American soil on Sept. 11^th. She admits there were gray days and desperation. However, the invasion of Iraq was not the answer to the problem, which cost the unnecessary loss of lives. And even more destructive, the war created a new animosity within the Iraqi people toward Americans and continued the cycle of deaths and destruction started by the Sept.11^th attacks.

 

My child did not go to war. / I have not lost anyone. / But haven’t I truly / when my country has lost / so many / and so much…? / Haven’t I lost / when humankind / lost perhaps / the one to discover / a new vaccine? / Or a new Neruda / to deepen our souls? / Or a new Chopin / to serenade us? / Or the powerful brush / for a new Guernica? / Or another Einstein / willing to explain / the relativity / of profits? / Don’t we all lose / a little of something / when human beings vanish / before fulfilling / their dreams? / Aren’t we / part of the universe? / Aren’t we / affected by the whole?

 

Just as much as these words speak Truth to the incalculable loss of the Iraq war, they come from somewhere close to Ghiragossián: to avoid wrongdoing and spread Peace on the world.

Any tragedy matters because we are all connected and all part of this universe. We all lose a part of something and a part of humankind.

Ghiragossián offers diplomacy as a solution, and attacks the pointless war and the motives behind those in power. In the powerful way that only she can produce, the poet points out how the war is a lie, disguised as a fight for American idealism and patriotism; a notion hard to swallow with lies upon lies, building a mountain of deceit. There were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. It was so easy / to be idealistic / sacrificing the lives of others.

This idealism also becomes hard to believe when its only outcome is more bloodshed and death. The ideal of the Bush administration was uncovered to be “I-deal” where the only thing they deal with is their own agenda. And the War on Terror became a War of Terror, and America suffered as much as Iraq.

And the poet asks: how can the president sleep at night knowing that the blood of countless innocents is splashing on his hands?

Alicia Ghiragossián believes that war is not the answer to restore power and dignity but only a path to restore nothingness / and destroy all. After all, blood cannot be washed out / with blood. She speaks on behalf of the mothers and fathers who lost their sons and daughters in that shameless invasion. She speaks on behalf of Americans who were deceived by their government, through speeches. She speaks on behalf of humankind who loses a lot in wars no matter how directly or indirectly we are touched by it. We all lose something when people die.

As much as Einstein, the poet is a pacifist we see in her words: “There is no redemption in war. Wars and military systems are primitive; they are based on material profit and corruption. Instead of weapons of mass destruction, we should look for means of mass creation. A human mind in freedom and peace has infinite possibilities.”

The message of the oneness of the universe is amazingly awakening and touching. A true chant of brotherhood.

Above all, “War and Truth” is a prayer, a request to God for Forgiveness, for those in the George W. Bush administration who destroyed everybody’s chances and purposes in life.

 

 

 

PEACE

 

There is no Peace without Forgiveness. Both are indispensable for the Supreme Justice of the Universe to restore our wounds and create the happiness we deserve, states Alicia Ghiragossián in her book “Peace Quantum.” This volume is like no other, since in her introduction, the poet exposes some of her main groundbreaking theories and the phenomenological role the energy of words plays in her meta-dimensional poetry.

Several Peace leaders of the world and Nobel Peace laureates expressed their support for that book, such as His Holiness, the 14^th Dalai Lama, Dr. Oscar Arias Sanchez and John Hume. They commented that those poems were soaring and timeless ones and that they were a contribution towards the spread of Peace in the world.

Because of their relevance we consider imperative a discussion of our poet’s meditations on Peace. These poems solidify her as “the poet of Peace” and usher in a new era of Peace awareness. The poems are as unique, fresh and inspiring as the essence of Peace itself and they are a testament to the skill of the poet and the wonder she is able to fuse within her poetry.

The concept of Peace is found everywhere in her poetry and is a major theme throughout her work, almost as much as Love. In this work, three major poems dedicated to Peace will be discussed. They are: “The Broken Wings of the Dove,” “We have to Spell the Word p.e.a.c.e.,” and “Say Hello to Peace.”

In this first poem Ghiragossián offers the reader a profoundly imagistic poem dedicated to inspiring action against hatred. A protest described in verbs, which parallel her statement for the revival of Peace. The poem reads:

 

The broken wings / of the dove / must be healed / with the voice / of our hearts. / We have to unthink violence / and mispronounce crime. / We have to bury the bombs / and tie the demons / until the hatred / of sub-men / is dissolved. / Let’s revive those broken wings. / Let’s heal our wounds.

 

The broken wings / of the dove / must be healed is totally different poetically from the figure of Peace discussed in other chapters. When mentioned Peace / has lost / its own peace, Peace had lost its essence of being; a philosophical perspective which perceived Peace ontologically and described the loss of its essence. The statement was true, yet a passive description.

Here, the dove, as the common symbol of Peace, has broken wings. It is flightless and, therefore, Peace is left flightless. It is not dead yet, and has the potential to heal.

We can see in her mature years that the passive protest of the poet grew into an active reconciliatory spirit, encouraging the healing process of the world. She insists that the dove must be healed / with the voice / of our hearts. Another personification is used here that shows a relationship between Peace and our hearts.

The heart has a powerful voice that has the ability to “heal.” This personification enters a meta-dimensional category, in that it creates a new ladscape for the reader. The power of the heart is transferred through its voice.

The next verses of the poem continue with the poet’s urgency to act for Peace. She induces us to metamorphosis when she says that we must unthink violence and mispronounce crime.

While reading these impressively visual-virtual metaphors we can see the movements of violence and crime going backwards as in a slowly rewinding motion picture scene. The poet points to the fundamental essence of Peace here, and invites readers to ignore violence, and pulverize it fiber by fiber.

The poet’s wisdom glows through when she suggests that hate, including violence and crime, begin with a wrong thought or feeling. By unthinking the thought of violence, violence will not exist. It cannot exist if it is denied by the mind.

Furthermore, if the mind is unable to think of violence it will also affect language as well, and crime will be mispronounced. These words operate on a spiritual level, creating a phenomenological, vigorous link between the poet and the readers.

The next verses transcend the readers and extend to the world itself, including governments. Ghiragossián pleads: We must bury the bombs / and tie the demons / until the hatred of sub-men / is dissolved. The reference to bombs is an implicit call to world governments to bury the potential for future catastrophes, because war begets war, and hatred creates more hatred.

The poet is urging to abstain from acts of violence against our enemies, and she trusts that hatred will be dissolved, because it dehumanizes men, they become sub-men.

At the same time that this can clearly be in reference to governments which use war to fight enemies, it transforms into a message on the individual level as well. We can all learn to abstain from our demons, “tie them down” and resort to a peaceful resolution. It must be pointed out how intriguing it is that the poet gives body and physical form to these thoughts.

The seed of violence which begins as a thought will later grow into a demon. Yet, she is very clear that this can be controlled by our own will. This is the same principle of the dynamics in the TEIWAS Energy Factor, which are impacting at a Quantum level and ending up changing our soul DNA. The poet insists that negative thoughts can ultimately fade away when we control our feelings of anger. Again, it is her wisdom that channels this poem to a different dimension and allows us to become one with the voice of our hearts.

Her final call to revive those broken wings and to heal our wounds and start again is Ghiragossián’s plan for Peace. It is possible and it is real. There is a limitless potential for change in the universe. We just have to be jointly determined: to make a pact.

Her next poem is a momentous work which harbors the essence of renewal on earth and a call to action.  The poet is more direct here than in many of her other poems regarding how Peace can be obtained.

 

We have to spell / the word p.e.a.c.e. / together / so it can become / more than just a word: / a power to turn on the sun / and travel on its beams / to every darkness / every tear / every hungry child. / It has to become / an injection of harmony / into the worn out feelings / to plant prayers
in every soul / and to unlearn the wrong.

 

An interesting proposal: Peace is something we have to spell… together. Each letter of Peace is a link for our togetherness. Each letter has a different sound and a different intensity and it is part of the whole, in diversity, as the diversity of peoples and nations.

The poet’s profound wisdom illuminates a Truth: that we have to bring together the different pieces to actually build Peace on the planet.

Peace starts within us, and if we don’t spell it together, no Peace can exist in our relationships. The introduction of the poem agrees with the transcendentalist and existential writers of our time, like Emerson and Thoreau, declaring that if Peace does not exist within us it does not exist anywhere. The same principle is supported by His Holiness the Dalai Lama.

Ghiragossián tackles the question, and deliberately separates the letters to show that it can only become a whole word when those letters join. She declares that to transform peace into a living entity we must spell it together so it can become / more than just a word. In fact, the power to unite ourselves for Peace is compared, in a powerful simile, to the power to turn on the sun. The secret is to join hands with the same purpose.

The energy of Peace equates itself to that source of energy, growth producing, and ultimate mother, generator of life: the sun. 

In addition, the poet expresses her wish of healing the suffering of the earth and absorbing them through the light and warmth of the sun. This idea is close to the sentiments of the Romantics, who emphasized that the greatest of joys and Peace on earth cannot be met without accepting and curing darkness and sadness.

 Our poet suggests that we must travel on the beams of the sun / to every darkness / every tear / every hungry child. In other words, Peace does not exist in a bubble. It must be transformed into action and be propelled by giving a hand to darkness, pain and hunger.

Thus, she also shares with the reader an image of the world as it is: a divided planet with areas of shadows and tears. And she makes a call to action to spell the word p.e.a.c.e. together.

According to the poet, Peace can become an overpowering imperative, able to enter the zero Time of a dimension of renewal and starting anew, where wrongs transform into right and cease to exist. This is a testament to the power of renewal and rebirth. But is it possible to attain?

“And why not?” responds Ghiragossián when asked. “Our trillions of cells constantly regenerate and we have a complete new set of them every few years. We can cleanse our system and erase the wrong, provided we invest our ‘intention’ in that change, and we make it an ‘imperative.’ If we don’t, habit will take over and our cells will recreate themselves repeating their old pattern. In our meditations we can talk to our cells. They are sensitive enough to feel the energy of our message. It’s a mind over matter principle.”

In a prophetic vision, the poet declares that Peace must become an injection of harmony / into the worn out feelings. Again, the idea of Peace must become something more than just an idea in order to be useful. And here it becomes a visible action: the injection of a substance. Ghiragossián contributes with an element of meta-dimensionality here when she says it has to become an injection of harmony. Perhaps this is the closest anyone can come to attain the objective. An injection implies it is full of energy, it courses through our veins, and the substance injected is harmony, promising life, like blood.

It is this new injection of prayers and harmony which takes over our blood and replaces our worn out feelings / to plant prayers / in every soul / and to unlearn the wrong. The verb “to plant” suggests the idea of life and growth, and the poet is saying that harmony will stimulate new prayers to grow. This is an outline to her Quantum Seed theory. The poet is projecting here a positive growth, which is limitless.

The reversal of reality in unlearning the wrong is a profound conclusion to the poem. It brings the Hope of erasing the “wrong.” This idea fits in with Ghiragossián’s concept of zero Time.

The next poem is a masterpiece chant dedicated to the universe altering potential of Peace. The poem ushers readers into a new dimension where Peace is a simile for angels who lead us on a trip throughout the world restoring Peace and our self-identity in the process.

 

Say hello to peace / and the angels will travel / with a new melody / from note to note / leaving their resonance / in every cell / projecting sounds / as a soothing veil / to cover all the wounds /  all the pain / to erase the roots / of holocausts / and massacres / of senseless deaths / and restore forever / the crushed reservoirs / of hope on earth. / …And vibe upon vibe / go beyond this galaxy / to gather every being / around a master wish / and sing. / Sing the loudest song / of life / and build up a universe / as the playground / of love.

 

The beginning is an accessible premise for the reader. There is every possibility, in the poet’s view, that we can in fact say hello to peace. While this statement definitely works on a personification level where Peace becomes an angel and we can say hello to it, it suggests accepting Peace into our lives. We accept Peace by embracing it with a hello, and set off a very positive and powerful chain reaction. When we say hello to peace we are able to voyage to a new world where angels will travel with a new melody.

The word new is the key, as it signifies the era of an awakening and a new awareness born in embracing Peace.

Ghiragossián is having a vision. She is sensing the angels going from note to note in the new melody. How do you travel within a melody and why? The poet is ready to answer. “How? By tapping into your essence and joining the essence of sound. Why? Because the mission of certain angels is to bless every note and charge them with analgesic energy so they can be projected over suffering people.”

Saying hello to peace becomes such a melody that the angels can travel with it to leave their resonance in every cell / projecting sounds of peace / as a soothing veil. This intense diction indicates the moment Peace enters our lives. The words melody, note, resonance, cell, projecting, soothing, veil, and cover, are all like missiles of Peace. Hello becomes a mantra for accepting Peace, and mobilizes supernatural powers to finally cover all the wounds and all the pain.

Beyond expressing the pivotal moment when Peace enters our soul with a song that resonates in every one of our cells, these verses also become a melody, a song, a chant.  Each word is a unique and inspirational note of a song dedicated to Peace. We, the readers, get hypnotized as we hear this beautiful melody through the poet’s words and perfect syntax, and we enter the travels of the angels.

This song is so powerful it reverses reality and has the ability to change reality, erase holocausts, massacres and senseless deaths. By saying hello to peace we hear the song of angels, which renews our soul and weakens negative feeling. This song of the angels allows us to restore forever / the crushed reservoirs / of hope on earth. Therefore, in addition to renewing our lives, Peace restores the Hope that is shriveling on earth. This point expresses the hierarchy the poet assigns to Peace and Hope.

Hope, next to Peace, is also a powerful and restorative element. However, here we are able to see here another phenomenon: Peace is able to restore Hope itself and therefore is closer to the Roots and Essence of a world without hatred and pain. We could say that both Peace and Hope share a magical role in the restoration of the planet.

Moreover, when propelling angels to fly, Peace flies with them continually throughout the universe. And we all hear the new melody that resonates within our cells. The notes and the new melody are further described as being so powerful that they go beyond this galaxy. They also enter a new dimension that exists in every one of us with limitless possibilities.

Saying hello to peace invites Peace to come to us, and also gathers every being / around a master wish / to sing. Therefore, Peace brings to life the unity of people who  aim for Peace, and they are able to sing the loudest song of life. 

This is an epic and spiritual poem that redefines existence and reaffirms Ghiragossián’s belief of how the universe is irreversibly one. To think we are separate entities is a delusion that engenders pain.

The song that unites us is based on the balancing of the rhythms, movements, and vibrations of life itself. In fact, this song of peace creates a new universe as the playground of love. It cannot be overstated how profound and groundbreaking this statement is. Next to Love is the genius of existence the line build up a universe / as a playground / of love is a signature genius statement of Alicia Ghiragossián. The declaration is so unmatched that at the conclusion of the poem we remain with a new sense of life.

Peace brings us closer to a galaxy that is beyond any we know, a galaxy where the loudest song of life is Peace. And we can join a choir of angels singing the anthem of a new universe that is a playground of love. No more struggles, no more injustice. Surely, we all want to be part of this world.

With her masterful chanting, Alicia Ghiragossián has written a seductive anthem for the new world of Peace, and she invites us to join, in order to create that world here, in our planet.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

HOPE and FORGIVENESS

 

Hope and Forgiveness are major themes that are discussed and fleshed out throughout our poet’s entire poetic collection, perhaps subdued by meta-dimensional suggestions.

However, there are a few specific poems tackling the identity of Hope and Forgiveness that will be considered in this chapter. These poems give us a more concrete sense regarding the definitions of the poet.

These Hope poems can be analyzed together in order to enhance and encapsulate their condensed message.

 

Hope. / Warmth and possession of the soul / to inspire action /
renewed and renewed constantly / even at the border of the last tear / and further to the last minute / when all tears stop / and heavens are ready to welcome / our unused breath. / Savior / healer / redeemer / the road that puts in Your hands / God / the beauty of all verdicts / and the final answers of life.

*
I want to seduce the future / mesmerize it / reach the cherished cloud / and share the miracles. / I am craving the reassurance / of a new time / to destroy the crumpled pages / of the past / and add magic / to the wisdom of love / with the sweetest melodies / of harps / to recruit angels / so I can fly with them. / And fly / and fly...

 

Both poems offer a reflectively insightful definition and discussion of Hope. The first poem answers the questions about what Hope is and what it inspires. 

In the same measure, it is equated to warmth, a physical, temporal perception; a humanizing feeling. The poet is introducing the definition of Hope in the simplest way, which turns out to be multidimensional. Warmth comes and goes, so does Hope. Yet when it stays, it is able to reinvigorate.

Reinvigoration and inspiration is exactly what the poet claims Hope to be in the next lines when she says: A possession of the soul to inspire action. Here, Hope is a possession, yet not a material one, but that of the soul and, magically, inspire action.

In the second poem, that inspiration to act becomes concrete to seduce the future, and change it to add magic to the wisdom of love. The poet is determined to mobilize the powerful influences of Love to reach the cherished cloud / and share the miracles. Perhaps the cherished cloud refers to a state akin to heaven or paradise where miracles of Hope can be shared.

It would not be out of line to assume such allusion, taking into account the role that heavens and God play in the poetry of Ghiragossián. She trusts and believes her Hope, since the first poem contains a promise: that Hope is renewed and renewed constantly / even at the border of the last tear / and further- / to the last minute / when all the tears stop.

This is an illumination about the renewable essence of Hope. There is no doubt in the poet’s mind that Hope has the power to continue up to the last tear, that is, till death, when heaven is ready to welcome our unused breath.

We cannot ask for a higher poetical expression, a more sublime beauty to describe the passage to the afterlife.

The action that Hope inspires allows the holder to enter a new dimension that is the border between life and the afterlife. Meanwhile, it brings us the reassurance of a new time since it has the power to constantly renew. And that Time is so new, that it crumples the pages of the past. We enter the territories of magic and love with the sweetest melodies / of harps / to recruit angels so the poet can fly with them. / And fly / And fly…

Alicia Ghiragossián, adding magic to the magic of Love describes the most enchanting and celestial scene, unveiling for us a new consciousness. The emotions captured in her words allow the reader to travel on the images of the flight she creates. Flight is perhaps the closest description of feeling Hope, with its connotations of freedom, joy, and limitless wonder.

The repetition and fly with them. / And fly / And fly… is the essence of the renewable energies of Hope to be endless. This is the constant, keynote theme in the poetizing of Ghiragossián: to enter a state that transcends physical limitations. Therefore, Hope attracts angels, which she expects to recruit for her journey. Then she detaches from a suffocating earth and opens her wings to engage in a flight of endless freedom.

A connection between Hope and God is created when the poet chooses the words savior, healer, redeemer. The nature of Hope. She declared is suggestive and profoundly intuitive. The poet is saying that we have the power to channel Hope and become saviors and healers of ourselves and others. This suggestion is in concomitance with her expressions: Hope is the road / that puts in Your hands / God / the beauty of all verdicts / and the final answers of life.

So, above all, Hope is a road connecting us to a positive, renewing and empowering existence born from placing in God’s hands the big verdicts of life. In short, Hope is another way to approach God, to trust Him, to leave in His hands that which we cannot solve. And the beauty is that we can channel God within ourselves.

Both poems offer incredible, language transforming definitions of Hope, which we can find in the intangible vibrations of the soul. Therefore, Alicia Ghiragossián is actually drawing a road map to reach Hope, and to transform it from something abstract into an entity that lives and grows inside each and every one of us.

The desire and dream for Hope is enough to solidify it as a life altering force; as the savior that lives and breathes as long as there is life.

The next poems regarding Forgiveness are important to analyze, because their messages enhance those of Peace and Hope. Essentially, Forgiveness becomes another road to ultimately reach The Divine.

 

You be the judge and jury / Lord. / Undo the wrong. / Pulverize / all the resentments / of the world / and connect us / with Your energy / to wipe our tears.

 

*

You are right./ Vindictiveness destroys / the purity of our cells. / Restrain us / from reacting to offenses. / Let us understand / Your transcendental purpose / in the / existence of pain / and give us the strength / to exercise / the divinity of forgiveness. / Help us / to become whole again / and open our channels / to receive the absolution / the universe is ready to send.

 

*

Forgiveness and absolution. / We are declaring amnesty / for the prisons of the soul. / We need to forgive ourselves / to forgive them all. / We have to understand / that the desire to be right / is born in the deepest ego.

 

*

Uproot those weeds / in the path of peace / Lord / to reach our real home / where understanding / compassion / and forgiveness / are waiting to share / the power of life / to enjoy the happiness / we deserve. / Let us look straight / into Your essence / to be cleansed / and enlightened / with Your supreme beam / of truth / and declare out loud: / We are free! / We are free!

 

These poems are both a perfect example of the message Ghiragossián wishes to spread to the world as well as a way to reach that end. While the poems are mainly a declaration to the Lord, one cannot help but notice the chant-like quality and lyrical buoyancy of the declaration, produced, in part, by the internal rhythm of the poems.

As we see, they begin by introducing a figure parallel to the voice of the poet: that of the Lord. Power is given over to Him in order to transform and reverse reality. The poet asks the Lord to undo the wrong and pulverize / all the resentments / of the world. It is like a high voltage prayer for humankind at large.

The poet also introduces the fact, which will be elaborated on throughout the poems, that our biggest enemy exists within us in the form of resentment. Furthermore, the poet admits to the Lord: You are right. / Vindictiveness destroys / the purity of our cells. Many intriguing subjects are raised by these lines. The poet herself is leading by example and declaring that the Lord is right, thus “humanizing God.” Secondly, she incorporates her concept of the Quantum Seed.

She is creating a physical manifestation of the influences of vindictiveness, when she says that it destroys the purity of our cells. At a sub atomic level, vindictiveness not only affects others but more importantly it changes our very core. She is convinced that we create a negative energy that transforms our innate purity and virtue, making us react in a wrong way. Our Soul DNA will never be the same again, unless we forgive. When forgiving, we enter the realm of “The Divine.” We cleanse ourselves.

Then, she wants to understand God’s transcendental purpose / in the existence of pain. Much like Romantic poets, she believes that pain, as an esoteric teacher, is not an end in itself but the road to reach answers about our life and happiness. The true essence of pain, in fact, has a transcendental purpose beyond its face value: to learn and grow.

That was the way the Romantics pursued happiness.  But the poet recognizes that Forgiveness requires strength to exercise its divinity and therefore she pleads the Lord’s help, to link his divinity to our actions, to become whole again / and open our channels / to receive the absolution / the universe is ready to send. Therefore, while forgiving we unlock a new dimension in ourselves and a new identity with an enhanced self. Above all, Forgiveness frees the forgiver to enjoy the absolution of the universe.

So, Forgiveness and Absolution become the heroes to free our souls. And she adds: We need to forgive ourselves / to forgive them all. / We have to understand / that the desire to be right / is born in the deepest ego. Therefore, in order to partake in this liberating experience we cannot just ask for God’s help, but we must start with forgiving ourselves.

The poet is very clear that forgiving ourselves will unlock that channel that connects us to the ways of God. In addition, at this point in the poem the poet introduces a specific physical geography of the soul. The ego that bars us from experiencing Forgiveness generates weeds which suffocate the path to Peace that exists in all of us. She asks God to help uproot those weeds because perhaps it is only with His help that the thick weeds can be removed. 

The chart of the soul continues and readers are able to see that the path of peace in the soul leads to our real home / where understanding / compassion / and forgiveness / are waiting to share / the power of life / to enjoy the happiness / we deserve.

It is clear that, first of all, Ghiragossián believes that the road to Forgiveness exists within us, and that it is shrouded by the struggles on earth.

She channels her Love for humanity and is certain that we deserve to enjoy the happiness brought by Forgiveness. There is no question that Forgiveness is a unique power to create Hope and Peace within us and on our planet.

She channels, as well, her own strength and courage to be able to forgive, and again addresses directly to God to be allowed to look straight / into Your essence / to be cleansed and enlightened / with Your supreme beam / of truth.

Therefore, Forgiveness needs a direct connection to The Divine to have the enlightening experience that creates a new consciousness.

Looking straight into the essence of God we can declare We are free. / We are free. Ultimately, this is the apex, the cusp of Ghiragossián’s message: that the power to forgive frees and liberates, and creates a new era for humankind to live in peace.

Therefore, Forgiveness is the seed of a liberating power, the soul transforming process that connects us to the highest system of purification known, and the path by which a compassionate humankind will be created.

 “The Light is Radiant” poem is a transcendental one that houses her genius phrase Love is the genius of existence, and frames the other poems of Forgiveness in terms of message, theme, and voice.

The poem utilizes distinct spiritual imagery and extended metaphors in order to describe the precise moment when Forgiveness takes over the body and evil is shed. Through penetrating and emotional words, Ghiragossián shares her unique brand of wisdom in a moment that is pure, reviving, and so fleeting: the exact moment of Forgiveness.

It begins with an intriguing declaration that seems to be like a religious experience, and places the reader in a hypnotic Alpha wave of transformation.

 

The light is radiant / and the music is transforming. / The angels of forgiveness / and absolution / are descending. / And we understand the truth.

 

The statement that the light is radiant is discernible to readers who understand the subtle and suggestive modes and methods of the poet. Here, she is talking about the light that announces and surrounds Forgiveness. Perhaps Forgiveness has the same energy as light. It is an instant of illumination and intense radiance. Therefore, the poem begins with a masterful declaration that is both minimalist and all encompassing.

It is an example of how the poet creates a new dimension where we can become aware of the essence of Forgiveness. In addition to the radiant light, the poet also declares the presence of a music that is transforming.  This foreshadows the actual transforming experience fleshed out later in the poem.

The spiritual imagery is also introduced as the descending of angels, baptized as angels of forgiveness and absolution.

This subtle personification is another proof of the masterful transformation of consciousness that the poet creates. Forgiveness and absolution become players on this stage full of beauty, a stage with radiant light and transforming music.

At this point the introduction propels our interest to read further: it has captivated us to enter the scene ourselves. The poet has captured the Truth and includes the readers in her inspirational Epiphany of understanding the truth. The moment of understanding is as instant as the beam of light, and it allows us to become part of a transcendental experience.

 

The angels are bringing / the antidote for our injuries / the gift of peace from heaven. / We recognize the message / and grow.

 

The angels that descend also bring with them the antidote for our injuries and the gift of peace from heaven. This is another intriguing statement and enhances the healing role the angels play. They become direct connections between us and the peace from heaven. They are also perceived as having an intimate knowledge of humanity. They know the exact injuries we suffer from, and the exact antidote they should bring from heaven.

Peace is our solution, and it is described as a gift from heaven. The moment we accept that gift we get healed and enter the path that leads to heaven. The crucial message here is to accept Forgiveness and Absolution because it has the power to liberate ourselves. 

Furthermore, the message that the angels bring with them allows us to grow. The concept of growth is vital in the poetry of Ghiragossián. It is the spiritual growth mentioned in other chapters, which allows us to uproot our weeds of bitterness and make room for Peace to grow. 

The poet says that we recognize the message and grow from the descent of the angels and therefore this poem utilizes the sense of liberation, and the energizing expansion of the soul theme, found in other poems. In fact, this is the supreme message of the poet: Forgiveness cleanses, brings Peace, absolves, elevates and transforms our lives.

The next section of the poem, when mentioning our garments and fabric, begins with the extended metaphor and allusion to Jesus’ bandages that were shed when he resurrected. The poet describes with mastery the moment we forgive:

 

We rip apart our old garments / of deception / bitterness / and anger / because we know that hatred / is the prince of death / and love is the genius / of existence. / The fabric of rancor / darkening our emotions / is vanishing / from our heart. / We are letting go / and our wounds are healing. / We are deleting the poison / from our system / and resentment / does not control us / anymore.

 

Above all other descriptions, these lines are affirmations that launch us to transcend the earth and travel to the paradise of Forgiveness. Our old garments are cast off and as we do so, deception, bitterness, and anger are also cast off. This is information that the poet is sharing with us about the secrets of human nature, connected with the powers of the universe.

Deception, bitterness, and anger are only pieces of fabric that are darkening our emotions. There is no doubt that Peace, Forgiveness, and Absolution exist underneath this fabric of rancor as our divine gifts.

The verses inspire us to shed the past, and cast off our old garments, forgiving others and ourselves, as well as asking for forgiveness.

Entering the dialogue with the angels makes our choice easy, because we know that hatred / is the prince of death / and love / is the genius of existence. The sheer genius of the poet is expressed exceptionally well through a deliberate diction that impacts our emotions. Hatred does not only affect others, it is equivalent to death. It kills our souls.

Death in this case describes the lack of Hope, the lack of faith and the controlling presence of darkness that imprisons the soul and obstructs its freedom and growth.

And hatred is death, because it allows for enslavement of the soul, subject to a lower purpose.

Again, Love confirms its status of being the genius of existence. Love, ushered in by the Angels of Forgiveness, can create a new blueprint of dreams, hopes and existence. So, when we are able to recognize that Love and we let go of the dark emotions, our wounds heal and a new reality unfolds in us.

Love has the power to delete the poison from our system and generate a new energy that propels our spirits to fly. It is the moment when all the evils pass away and resentment does not control us anymore. The poet’s voice is clear, and reflects the transformation that may be happening inside us. She says:

 

Our power is restored. / The universe has renewed / our balance. / We become liberated. / We feel blessed. / Now there is room / for miracles. / We hold hands / with the angels / and our entire self / becomes / the light of peace.

 

There is no doubt in Ghiragossián that these transformations do happen, because she is channeling the experiences of a higher reality. We read with an open soul, we let her experience filter through us, and we end up believing in the reestablishing of our self.

We can see that the poet believes Forgiveness to be an innate “power” and needs only to be awakened and practiced. This is a power that is in tune with the universe, which can renew our balance.

This is the picture of an innately good humankind, that has the purpose to love and restore this precious balance. The moment that happens, we become liberated and that we feel blessed. This is the moment that Love and Forgiveness create a new dimension of limitless opportunities for the growth of the soul; the moment we come hand-in hand with God and we hold hands with the angels.

We enter here into a relationship with the divine, similar to the one found in the encounter with God. In that instance it was God, and here are the angels who materialize, take our hand and make us feel their powers.

The poet infuses us with a positive and powerful assertion that leaves no room for doubt. After reading this glorious poem our entire self / becomes the light of peace. At the end of this transformation, we are the radiant light, we are Peace, and the living examples of Forgiveness.

The power of this poem rests on the message that Forgiveness and Hope are direct roads that lead us to Love, and vice-versa. This poem enhances the essence of the other poems, and is a perfect example of the poet’s fusion of imagery, spiritual themes, suggestive and minimalist diction and, ultimately, life renewing messages that make her a master of modern meta-dimensionality.

All the poems carry within them the messages of liberation, such as We are Free! Or we become liberated; or of growing: we recognize the message and grow… We also see the theme of the renewal of the soul, the dialogue with angels and the way we can enter their vibrations to travel with them, that is, to be flooded with their kindness. It is the way to crumple the past and shed off our old clothes. And we see, above all, that the words Love, Hope, Forgiveness and Peace can ultimately become more than words, they can be the avenues to transform our lives and charge them with power; the magical wand to create a new Time devoid of bitterness and replete with the restorative and reviving essence of Love.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

WORDS

 

We find this collection in “Interview With God,” volume III. There is an entire chapter dedicated to words, perhaps because the importance of words is paramount to create new consciousness. They are charged with such energy, that they register in our being. They can give us life or take life from us. Added to action, they can change the destiny of individuals and, eventually, the world. Ghiragossián’s poetry shows how words, which are symbols, can be transformed into realities.

However, before beginning to analyze her unique philosophy of words, we must place her style in context of theory, in order to further show her genius as a Magical Realist writer.

Primarily, Heidegger’s claim that “language is the home of the being” brings to mind the role that language plays in our lives as human beings.

No other creature on earth is defined by their language as much as humans, because it is language which creates a passage way between us and our outside world and even to the beyond. This passage to the beyond is what our poet’s words excel in, and thus showcases her as the premier Magical Realist, in the genre of Salman Rushdie, Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Jorge Luis Borges, of our century.

It must also be said that Ghiragossián’s words, functioning in the dual literal and metaphorical roles of Magical Realism, also produce meta-dimension, a reality where the metaphor becomes the true representation of reality.

It was the philosopher Nietzsche who wrote about the metaphorical expression as being the only way to express anything and give identity to anything. Nietzsche believed that we posses nothing but metaphors for things and that these metaphors, in no way, relate to the original thing, but instead create a higher reality which is the true reality. Our poet’s words carry with them the power of the metaphor, which transforms life.

In addition to being a passage way to our higher realities and experiences, language is also a carrier of our culture. Ngugi wa Thiong’o, in his essay regarding The Language of African Literature discusses many relevant issues regarding language and the power of words in our lives. His analysis is significant because it dissects the significance of language as a unique human experience that carries with it our history, culture and identity. And it goes beyond the discourse of just African language, to include the significance of language in the lives of human beings everywhere. He says that “language is not a mere string of words” and carries with it a “view of our world,” that later becomes the nucleus to build our identity.

Central to his argument is that language has a “dual character: it is both a means of communication and a carrier of culture.”

The issue, when reading Ghiragossián’s words, becomes what kind of culture does her poetry carry, and what specific human experience does she communicate? Communication, as Thiong’o also indicates, is the basis of human evolution. I believe with conviction, that while communicating to readers a culture of the universal human experience, her Armenian upbringing and her life in Buenos Aires, she is also creating a new culture: the culture of Love and that of oneness of the universe.

This is where her works stands premier in the face of contemporary poetry. Her words construct the culture of love and universal oneness. And we as readers are able to evolve into this higher culture as we enter a dialogue and communication with her words.  

Besides the theories I write about including Nietzsche’s “truth in metaphor” and Ngugi wa Thiong’o’s discussion of language as a carrier of culture, Ralph Waldo Emerson summarized the power of language as intrinsic to our harmonious relation with the world. The actions and goals of a better world rely on our use of language, which then carries itself in our actions towards one another:

 

“To laugh often and love much; to win the respect of intelligent people, and the affection of children; to earn the approbation of honest critics;
and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty; to find the best in others; to give of one’s self; to leave the world a little better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition; to have played and laughed with enthusiasm and sung with exultation; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived . . this is to have succeeded.”

 

    Giving us a list of the ideal possible outcomes and goals for each social situation we may find ourselves in, Emerson points to the power of words and speech to persuade, to compel, and to even convert to positive change. Emerson’s theories on the power of words  is the same power found in Alicia’s poetry and puts her in great company with master wordsmiths who respect the power and positive potential of words to succeed and leave a change for mankind.           

 

We wanted to fill up / the lack of essence / with empty words / my Lord / and our echoes diverged / and truth was fractured / like a kaleidoscope / in black and white. / I know that sometimes / not even words with projection / reach destiny / because often / those who do not understand / without words / might not understand / with words either.

 

While it is central to Ghiragossián’s philosophy that words, in powerful metaphors, carry both the inspiring strength to create a revolution and a new culture of love, her philosophy is not ignorant to the fact that words, as symbols, are also ambiguous and intangible as the excerpt above shows.

The power of words may even become impotent when they are misunderstood, or lack the necessary “projection” to “reach their destiny.” In this excerpt, she showcases her genius by playing with Plato’s philosophy on rhetoric. Plato believed that speech, monologue, and discussion were the only ways to reach truth. For him, writing held with it the danger of manipulation and the distancing from truth.

However, Ghiragossián brilliantly points out that “truth” may in fact be “fractured” with empty words.

One distances themselves from the “Lord” and the “truth” with empty words. Therefore, the issue of truth becomes ambiguous as well. She raises the profound question regarding the origins and the ultimate essence of truth. Does truth lie in the “rhetoric philosophy” of Plato where truth can always be reached through dialogue and words of mouth? Is truth really at the mercy of words? If truth does rely on words, then truth is constantly changing, may become empty and even futile due to the fact that those speaking may be lacking in “projection” or may be espousing lies.

The inclusion of the issue of “truth” here is incredibly important because it comes from the personal perspective of Ghiragossián. She is a modern revolutionary figure who has seen the battle of words for justice first hand and also the unfortunate futility of words to change anything in the end. 

If words always carried with them the essence of truth, we would live in a very different world. This is her ultimate frustration within this excerpt that “those who do not understand without words may not understand with words either.” There is no possibility of communication if words fall on deaf ears, just because they might carry an opposition to their interests. Therefore, central to her philosophy and her frustration is the potential impotence of words, a scary thing as it distances one from God, and from her new construction of a culture of Love.

 

Sometimes I am bothered / by those words / I do not pronounce / because after a long wait / they die / and I remain / full of dead words.

 

Furthermore, Ghiragossián explores the role of the poet/writer as a transmitter of words. The authority that rests with her in the excerpt above, creates a significant personification to give life to her words. As the building blocks of her culture of Love, they have a life of their own. In this excerpt of her personal frustration, we see the incredible power that words have over a poet who is communicating a new culture in order to bring to the earth a revolution and an evolution in consciousness. Her words, if not expressed, can fade away, be forgotten and “die.” She then becomes a tomb and an enclosure for dead words: “I remain full of dead words.” This personification of words as living entities is genius because they bring to discussion many intriguing points.

Primarily, as a writer, our poet becomes an enclosed body and devoted to the revolutionary power and craft of her words. We can see how she becomes a modern version of the “enclosed body” as Christopher Cannon discusses in his essay titled “Enclosure.” The enclosed body is a profound metaphor for devotion. Specifically describing medieval monks and nuns who became ascetics and completely devoted to God through mind, body and soul, they closed themselves off into small chambers to read, write and pray. Therefore, even in modern times the “enclosed body” becomes a metaphor for a profound devotion. In this sense, and as Ghiragossián points out, she herself becomes an enclosed body for her words, while being a revolutionary figure who challenges the injustices of society. This is evident when she says “I remain full of dead words” bringing to mind the image of a keeper, a tomb, and ultimately and significantly an enclosed space. Therefore, words which are living entities live and die within her.

The deaths of words, words being her devotion, remain within her as a memory of failed attempts to change something. She, in her genius way, bridges the role of the modern writer with a powerful metaphor that spans time and goes back to Medieval Literature. She reminds the reader about the incredible authority, and even burden, of the writer to produce something with their words. The fact that words can produce something and change reality points to their living essence.

Ghiragossián’s philosophy creates a new discourse regarding the power of words. It can fill pages and pages in volumes of analysis, yet this serves as only an introduction to the infinite poems within her body of work which showcase a new culture of Love and the discourse of words as living things that live and die as tools of revolution. Below is an additional excerpt which highlights both the physical and tangible realities that words, which are living things, create. The excerpt above is a direct reflection of the new discourse that she creates with her poetry: the discourse that defies convention and expresses in detail the living power and tangible reality that words create to build or demolish.

 

I have seen / that words have a soul / and they travel straight / to another soul. / Words can intoxicate / they can make you / lose everything / find everything / they can turn the world / upside down / or create eternity. / But they can also hurt / like a sharp knife / become bacteria / and poison / or with crucial precision / they can kill at once. / Yes. Words have a soul. / They can inject dark clouds / in a clear day / or bring you life / peace / freedom / or love. / But I still do not understand. / Why is it that everything born / is condemned to die / and when words come to life / they remain forever / as permanent guests / in the depths of your heart?

 

This passage is also an example of Ghiragossián’s genre: powerful magical realism. There is no doubt that she creates new realities with her poetry. This new reality is based on the fact that words are living things, since they have energy. There is no doubt, no uncertainty of this within her poetry. Her only uncertainty lies in the impotence that words may have, their ultimate death, when they are not spoken or when they fall on deaf or ignorant ears. To her, this is an ultimate death, which penetrates the soul.

Magical Realism takes the credible, acceptable, and plausible representations of reality that we all know about, and manipulates it to the point where our beliefs of “what is real” is challenged by the superbly fantastical personification of her words .

Her adamant conviction and devotion to the word as a living entity, and how words travel straight to another soul, intoxicate, how they make you lose and find everything, how they can hurt like a sharp knife and kill at once, how they become bacteria and poison, all points to the living personification of words. They are alive.

As the narrator of her poems, she becomes an authority for the reader, who believes her as they read the poems and enter into communication with her.

At the micro-level of the soul, Ghiragossián becomes a premier poet of Magical Realism that challenges our notions of words and languages and brings to the surface the fact the soul is the home of words.

I will briefly include this excerpt below, also from Interview with God III, to show that a crucial part of our poet’s Magical Realism is her dialogue with God, which she shows is something real:

 

God. I only have the poem / as a shelter / for my anxiety / and You have taught me / that we have to pierce the word / slide through its tunnel / and begin a spatial journey / toward no return. / I know there is a place / where the secrets of sound / are projected beyond words / where everything vibrates / with the silence of a message. / You have guided me / through dialogues with myself. / Dialogues inlaid / on the waves of their echo. / At times I climb up / the syllables / of each word. / Some others I let myself / be caught in its abyss. / Perhaps it is not enough / to scrutinize the roots / of the word / and surprise the enigmas / of its meaning. / We must feel one with it / in the unsheltered infinities / that surround it. / Enter into the unconscious / to fabricate the vision of light / and navigate through its rays / to grasp the future / and build a new memory / detached from time.

 

Poetry becomes the stage where she is able to find a passageway to God, through words. Therefore, as living things words are also the passageway to communicate with god, and poetry becomes the profound dialogue between the poet and a higher consciousness, which Ghiragossián personifies as God. This passageway sets our poet’s philosophy apart from others. What begins as a silent meditation to be one with God, a higher consciousness, becomes a polemic and discussion of how words shape our inner reality.

She says “I know there is a place where the secrets of sound are projected beyond words where everything vibrates with the silence of a message.” This is the conventional knowledge of becoming one with God: through silence we travel beyond form and beyond words to a place of unity with that higher consciousness.

However, inevitably, God helps her through dialogues with herself, dialogues where words are portrayals of pain and hopes, of desperations and dreams as she says: “At times I climb up the syllables of each word. Some others I let myself be caught in its abyss,” traveling on the upper and lower waves of feelings. And she says: “It is not enough to scrutinize the roots of the word…We must feel one with it in the unsheltered infinities that surround it,”  giving the word a characterization of infinite.

While this discussion brings forth the ultimate ambiguity of words, Ghiragossián is inflexible in her belief that words do pierce the known and, in essence, can create new realities detached from “memory” and “time.”  Words are the symbols which help us enter into new realms of being.

This is an important excerpt that fleshes out her concept of words being a reality beyond the known. And guided by God or a higher consciousness, will allow us to enter the unknown. Her words fashion a new reality for us, because they carry with them meanings of the beyond. And, ultimately, our poet’s words carry with them the transcendental wings of her culture of Love.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

DREAMS

 

The specific collection on Dreams is also found in “Interview With God,” volume III.

Dreams and imagination are both, the essential composition of the psyche of creators and, at the same time, their essential nourishments. Dreams could be the opposite of reality, yet on a conscious level they are the aim of human beings, the force that creates the objectives and the motion to reach them and see them accomplished.

Dreams mean everything to our poet, who defies concepts of realities and shows that dreams are in fact our true reality. Why not? If dreams are part of our waking memory they are linked to us on a physical and tangible reality.

Readers of her work must understand why dreams are so integral to her. The poet’s emphasis and revival of dreams throughout her poetry is what makes her a premier and unique modern poet who mixes genres. We now know that she works in the Magical Realism genre.

The details and significance of her dream visions sets her up as a Dream Vision author, in the lineage of ancient prophets and oracles as well as women dream vision writers of authority including Marie de France, the mystic Julianne of Norwich and her Revelations of Divine Love, the English Mystic Margery Kempe, as well as the Sufi mystic poets Rumi, Tagore, Hafiz, Sri Chinmoy, Sri Aurobindo, English Romantic William Blake, and a whole lineage of others. Indeed, Ghiragossián’s work is so encompassing that it transcends just one genre and is also a part of the Dream Vision literary heritage.

Alicia Ghiragossian’s philosophy of dreams is pure, spiritual, and powerful. Discussing her as a modern writer, it is necessary to emphasize how her use of the dream and her discussion of dreams are related to modern theory. Carl Jung’s theories on dreams rest on the belief and power of the unconscious. Alicia’s dream poems in their genius truth and raw passion reveal the power of her dreams at this unconscious level. And it is also an unconscious power that transcends physical reality. Jung’s theories of dreams, for example, transcend Freud’s reliance of animalistic, sexual and instinctual urges and enter the realm of a pure essence. The following dream poems are an example of the existence of this pure realm of essence, where Alicia is our guide and mentor. On this tour with Alicia, we are able to unify with our deepest soul and deepest nature. This purity, according to Jung, is also the true nature of dreams as “windows to your unconscious.” Alicia’s poems are these windows into her unconscious, and reading them we are transported to our own. We are transported past our illusory egos and connect with aspects of ourselves long forgotten, but found again in the dream state. Alicia Ghiragossian, translating her visions for us, at once becomes a philosopher of dreams hand in hand with Jung.

She gives the reader a significant question to ponder when reading her works involving dreams:

 

We have to discover / if dreams are born / from the reverse of reality / or they are a sign / of a higher truth.

 

Here she also creates an initial dichotomy between two answers. Are dreams the “reverse of reality” she asks or “are they a sign of a higher truth.” These distinctions are incredibly important. What is the reverse of reality? Death may be the reverse of life, but the reverse of reality is exactly the Magical Realism that her work expresses. It is a higher reality, a higher consciousness where we are united with something beyond the known and explainable.

Dreams are a gateway to this world, and Ghiragossián, as a visionary writer, shows through her poetry that dreams are this higher truth.  She creates a new meta-fiction where dreams tell the story of reality and in so doing show how the higher truth is in fact the reality we are living in or striving to live in.

 

And when dreams / are not remembered / or they vanish / is it I who has lost / the power to retain them? / Could forgetfulness wipe out / their silent existence? / We dream awake. / We dream in our sleep. / We give the name of dreams / to our expectations…. / Life is a long dream / full of monologues / repeated in death.

 

I have included this excerpt above due to the vital importance it has in representing the theme of the Dream Vision in Ghiragossián’s work. The key word is “monologues.”  Who is she talking to here? Is she talking to herself? A monologue is part of a drama or a play that represents life. Monologues are induced by life and play with life by being a comment on it. A monologue is a stop in time where we take life and freely express our comments to ourselves, God, or whomever.

The monologue is our power of defiance and of critique over life’s situations. It is also a rhetorical mode which Aristotle discussed heavily in his work regarding rhetoric. The monologue, Aristotle argued, is usually a persuasive mode of expression. But who would Ghiragossián be persuading here? Perhaps she is talking to life itself and persuading it that dreams, full of meaning, are far superior over the boring, waiting, and drawn out life which most of the time becomes meaningless and endangered by the injustice and ignorance of people.

Dreams bring life to the monologues of life, which are “repeated again in death,” which describe an endless cycle of meaninglessness, when dreams are not purpose oriented. And since the only way to convey a dream is through words, the monologue in which one conveys a dream, becomes a powerful rhetorical device.

Ghiragossián’s dreams do in fact mean more than simple images during REM (rapid eye movement) periods, which indicate dreaming. Her monologues show that they are the “reverse of reality” and in fact become the true higher reality that hides behind illusion, as well as a sign, a message.

As a dream vision poet she also makes clear, in the crucial excerpt above, the role of the poet and the duty of the poet to reveal the dreams. This issue is incredibly intriguing because it gives her and her work an authority that differs from other poets. Quite like the dream vision poets of the Medieval Ages who were visited by the images of God, Ghiragossián must also come to terms with a double authority and a double agency as a poet of revolution and as a poet seer, who channels a higher consciousness.

She is clear of this responsibility when she says: “And when dreams are not remembered or they vanish is it I who has lost the power to retain them? Could forgetfulness wipe out their silent existence?” Therefore dreams, because they are an integral element and essence of her Dream Vision poetry, are fragile tools that she must keep polished, in memory, in order to create her poetry that brings to us her philosophy of another true dimension of reality.

If we were to encapsulate our poet’s highest dream for this earth, it would be in this significant excerpt found in Interview with God III. Here, we see both Ghiragossián’s dream of a world based on justice, as well as her prayers to create a mission and keep it alive.

 

I have countless dreams / my Lord / but the most important / is a dream / for the human race. / In my dream... / the perpetrators of genocide / are reaching into their hearts / pleading for forgiveness / and restoring / the damage caused. / In my dream... / the pain is fading / the wounds are healing / and the tears of the victims / are evaporating into sunlight. / In my dream... / love is conquering hatred / throughout the entire world / and the universe is smiling. / Let that be / a tangible reality. / Let my dream / create a mission. / And let me keep / my mission alive / till the end.

 

Out of the many dreams that Ghiragossián has, the most important is an ultimate dream for the human race to live in love. It is a desire to see a culture of Love that she wished to construct with her poetry and its projection onto readers. This ultimate dream of hers spreads throughout all of her poetry and literature as the epitome that our reality can become.

The excerpt also showcases the issue closest to her heart regarding the Armenian Genocide and the wish for her people to be recognized as victims of genocide and thus to put to sleep the many headed monster of misery, injustice, and damage that ignorance and denial causes for her and her people. She cries out for her dream to “become a tangible reality” and this shows how the subconscious plays a crucial role throughout her philosophy and her work. Her words are all symbols that are inspired by dreams in order to create a new tangible reality. It is her ultimate wish to transform the culture of profit that grips our earth into a culture that profits the soul. And she is so generously giving us her plan to do this. Her words are guide posts that signal a way to her construction of a tangible world, vibrant in the culture of Love. This personal poem is crucial to understanding Ghiragossián’s life cause, mission and ultimate Dream Vision for our world and our reality.

It must be said that as our poet constructs all those new realities, she enters into the heritage of many revolutionary women who relied on a dream to construct new reality through words. One of those women was Christine de Pizan, a Medieval writer and poet who was a completely revolutionary women writer at a time when women were not taught reading or writing.

I am including her here as a reference to highlight the importance of Ghiragossián’s Dream Vision within her work and that she enters a larger discourse when she writes about her dreams to construct realities of justice and virtue. Christine de Pizan’s Book of the City of Ladies was a revolutionary work that went against the rampant misogyny of the Medieval Ages. Her book describes three angels coming to Christine in order to help her construct a new city where powerful women would rule and live in their God intended rights to freedom from male control in a male dominated society. Her work was so unique and revolutionary at the time that it inspired a great amount of discussion, controversy and criticism. Although Christine was undeterred by her critics, she continued writing her book, which rested on an integral Dream Vision of a world where women were given their proper power and right to live a free life devoid of being controlled by men. Her book influenced many writers in later feminist theory which discussed the freedom of women in society.

My parallel was intended to highlight the same revolutionary essence of Ghiragossián’s work as something that we have not come across before in modern literature, which carries with it the same power to turn the world on its head just like Christine de Pizan’s work hundreds of years ago and it is also written by a women revolutionary writer: Alicia Ghiragossian.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

DIALOGUED STORY-POEMS

 

These Dialogued Story-Poems, are presented in the volume “Beyond the Stage for Heaven” (from the Spanish “Pedro Amor”). It is a singular work, considered a new genre in poetry.

The dialogue itself, philosophical in nature, reminds us the Platonic style to present the process of thinking and reaching truth. However, Ghiragossián blends it with the Magical Realism tradition in order to erase the limits between reality and the fantastical.

Her dialogued-story poems search for a truth that exists in the “beyond,” and that is prevalent throughout her philosophy and body of work. In this book we have two dialogued story poems: Love in Buenos Aires and Offices for God.

Alicia’s genius and avant-garde Dialogue-Story Poems go back in time and revive the ancient aesthetic of the Greek Chorus. In modern film making and dialogue plays, the chorus was replaced by drama and action in order to fuse the characters with the plot in more exciting ways. Before its decline in 5BCE the Greek Chorus was a main component of plays and acting. The chorus was usually sung and performed in unison. The function of the Greek Chorus was to explain the play as it progressed and were part of the cast of usually three actors on stage. The chorus used echo, synchronization and ripple in order to make use of its voice in the giant Greek Theatres. This effect also gave the chorus a god-like effect transforming their lines to an all powerful voice. The Greek Chorus also served as the opening and closing of the play. The Greek choruses’ characterization as “the voice of truth” came from their role as “commentators” on the themes and actions of the actors and also showed how an ideal audience should react to the action on stage. They also represented the general population as opposed to gods or heroes. Also, they were the voice of truth in that the chorus often expressed to the audience what the actors could not say, such as hidden fears or secrets and provided insight to other characters. Alicia’s reliance on a chorus to act as a third party to the two actors in each of her Dialogue Story Poems fits exactly into this Greek Chorus structure. The Chorus also provides insights and commentary unavailable to the actors, which at the same time highlight themes and truths for the audience.

The chorus in Offices for God is a representation of truth. As a third character, it is also the voice of truth, a deliberate strategy of Alicia to highlight the importance of truth and the search for this truth of the main characters. The voice also comes from a different dimension and universe and represents a chorus that is at once distant and at once connected to the characters, a genius representation of how the search for truth relates to us on earth: it is within all of us yet distant. In addition, quite like Sophocles in 5 BC Alicia brings to the fore front of her Dialogues an emphasis of this third chorus and an even richer development of the dialogue necessary to fleshing out the human character in tragedy.

 

LOVE IN BUENOS AIRES

 

Love in Buenos Aires is a masterpiece and a revolutionary work for its time. Published in 1969, it won the prestigious “Payro Theatre” award of Buenos Aires, Argentina. It was staged at the same theatre for an entire month along with the music of tango icon Astor Piazzolla, danced and choreographed by the cast of the prestigious Municipal Theater. The work also garnered great admiration from the President of the Argentine Society of writers Ulyses Petit de Murat who said among glowing praise: “Alicia Ghiragossian, with a rare confidence that comes from the depth of what she says with skillful measure, is installed in the back-rooms of God, Love and the Universe.” He gives her work the power to touch people for eternity.

This is the story of two souls, in the realm of heaven. It is about a man and a woman in deep love. Peter and Ali have been together for centuries. But she feels the need to fulfill a mission on earth in order to release an old karma, and wishes to go back to earth. He lets her go, knowing that it would mean pure sacrifice for her. She accomplishes the mission on earth but her personal life was immolated. She couldn’t find her true love on earth and she felt terribly lonely. So, his love calls her back to the world of spirits. She describes, with total beauty, the way she transcends matter and reaches heaven to finally join her love.

I will transcribe the entire dialogue and highlight some of the most important passages.

 

In the city of Buenos Aires / in the month of September / nineteen hundred etcetera / late in the evening / almost midnight / I solemnly declare. Colon. / I had a love in Buenos Aires. / It could have been / in Paris / Moscow / or Yerevan / but it was in Buenos Aires. / Love had you. / I was someone else then. / Launched into dreams / like a newly awakened / field of tulips. / We are always / someone else. / Names change / yet the soul is the same. / Your dreams were clear / from the first day / in your crib. / And how do you know that? / I am the punctuation / of life. / Always around / insuring balance / and protecting you. / But you are Peter. / I am time. / You are Peter. / I am love. / Aren’t you Peter? / I am peace – as well. / Were you also peace / when you fought / with that bearded man / at Los Inmortales / because / he was flirting with me? / Remember. / We ended up running away / and the tiles / of Corrientes Avenue / were shrinking / under our feet. / Then I was Peter. / What about now? / Now I’m your love ghost. / Your guardian angel. / And where am I? / Where you always / wanted to be. / A place without pollution / without skyscrapers / without exhaustion. / True. / Without hurries and stress. / Without miseries. / In a world / where love is one. / Isn’t love always one? / Here you can submerge / in pure essence. / Look around you. / What do you see? / Nothing. / Look again. / Well. I can see you. / And what do I represent? / Everything I want to have. / Time - love - peace. / Then / there is time / love and peace. / All added up to nothing. / The rest is only / an illusion. / But I miss / life on earth. / What would you like / to do now / if you were there? / Besides loving you? / Loving me. / I really want to walk / through Santa Fe Avenue / or by the Riverside. / Here / there are no avenues / or rivers. / Can’t we eat little fishes in Boca / or listen to a tango in Caminito? / This is something else. / Another world. / A world / without the world? / A world with only love. / Pure love. / I want pure love / but with a city. / It will contaminate / everything. / Perhaps / it is possible to beautify / that which is pure. / You didn’t think like that / a thousand years ago. / Perhaps because you had / another image / another skin. / But the city / looks so pretty now. / I like to escape / sometimes / to rest / but then  I need to be back / and plunge myself / into the lights / and the colors. / Being Ali? / Names are not important. / But I want to be with you / Peter. / But I’m not Peter any more. / You forgot I’m dead / - I mean - / for the material world. / Then why do I see you? / Because you look inside / my love. / If you open your eyes / you might not see me. / I might simply be a memory. / And your hand grabbing mine? / And your voice smiling at me? / And the bouquet of tulips / transformed into a poem? / All that is an illusion? / No. All that is real / because it lives in you. / I feel the call of a mission / and need to return to the city. / Will you come with me? / I’ll stay here. / I’ll need you with me. / I’ll stay here. / Come to me / when you wish. / Then... / I’m leaving. / Good-bye. / when you wish. / Then... / I’m leaving. / Good-bye.

 

Ali must again plunge herself back into the movement of life on earth, into the lights and colors of the city. She is seduced by them. We have a similar image of the return in literature which stems from the Biblical return of Adam and Eve to the Garden of Eden. Peter and Ali can both be compared to Adam and Eve, and here Ali, the Eve figure, must answer her karmic debt and return to earth. It is she that for a limited amount of time disrupts their paradise.

What is also emphasized is Alicia’s idea regarding the distinction between the material and the spiritual world. Peter is dead for the material world but Ali is able to see him because she looks inside herself to the love that exists for Peter. Therefore, the bridge between the spiritual and material world is found through love, a love which makes Peter live through Ali. And Alicia is emphatic that this living love is not an illusion. It is real because it lives in you.

Furthermore, Ghiragossián also includes her philosophy regarding our destiny on earth. She reveals this philosophy through Ali’s monologue. Before being born, Ali holds a monologue, in the womb of her mother. She is telling the story of her birth as if had already happened. This is a transposition of time. She is speaking from the future about a future event:

 

We never know / why we are born / when we are born. / Later on - sometime - / when we are running / on a forgotten road / and we suddenly stop / to hologram / our restless images / in the air / we are surprised / by the enigmas / and we begin to understand / the supreme balance / of the universe. / Later on - always later on - / we discover / we are an instrument / for goals which at last / become means.

                                   

What is intriguing about this monologue and about our poet’s philosophy is that the lack of knowledge is actually a positive aspect of our destiny which helps us go back to our original essence. It is the actual lack of knowledge that places you in the “zero time” of the beginning, without preconceptions and interests, which creates purity and detachment within your intentions and actions. This entering into the “zero time” is how we can reclaim our karma.

The line: “We are instruments for goals which at last become means” is also a focal point in this passage that must be discussed.  Although we think that a goal is an ultimate one, when we reach the top of our mountain, a new landscape unfolds in front of us, and we can have a selection of roads to choose from, as a new goal. So, nothing is final. Every dream, every aim, is a stepping stone for new dreams and goals. The chain is endless, because, according to our poet, it goes on after death, to be fulfilled in other realms.

Ali continues her monologue and describes her material descent back to earth. She also reveals profound philosophical truths for the audience on her way:

 

Nevertheless / while we feel chosen / we can be confident. / It was a night / with the Moon / Mercury / and Venus / according to the astrologers / a month of July / a day thirteen / when I decided / to come back to earth again. / I had kept / special memories / from the terrestrials. / I had left important work / and countless storms. / I was called / for a singular redemption / chained to a people / that in other ages / had enjoyed / magnificence / and prestige. / A task of much love. / Besides I trusted / my cosmic maturity / which had allowed me / to endure great pains / and avoid two suicides / promising me / an intensely / vertical rise. / I didn’t choose a country / rather the belly / of an Armenian mother / and I installed myself / stubbornly / because no method / no technique / no effort / to get rid of me / succeeded. / Everything / that cannot be overcome / has a superior destiny.

 

The most significant issues in the passage above include the idea of redemption and destiny.  The line: “I was called for a singular redemption chained to a people” is a direct reference to her Armenian ancestors who suffered the tragedy of genocide. She is “chained to a people” because of this tragedy.

It is because she is chained to the Armenian destiny that she feels the need to return to earth and redeem herself and her people through revolutionary work of justice. The “singular redemption” is also a reference to all human behavior that needs redemption, due to the karmic laws which state that we affect the lives of everyone whether we know it or not.

The other issue of destiny is seen in the profound line which I am in awe of reading: “everything that cannot be overcome has a superior destiny.” This concept is very complex and one of our poet’s premier philosophical truths. It describes the idea of fatalism, which to Ghiragossián is a predesigned script of life which carries with it the power to destroy any obstacle in order to reach a higher purpose. Anything that is destined for greatness will have by the law of karma more destructive forces working against it. Yet these forces that work against the greatness actually propel the greatness to reach higher destinies.

It is a genius irony. For example, crucifying Jesus Christ did not destroy him, on the contrary it gave him eternal life in the minds and hearts of those who admired his philosophy. It is karma, and nothing can fight against it. Here, Alicia Ghiragossián, who was born to an Armenian mother, was forever chained to the destiny of Armenia, which instead of genocide and injustice weighing heavily upon her, propelled her to unimaginable heights where she can proclaim the philosophies of truth and justice for the whole world to hear.

Ali finishes her monologue at that moment and proclaims that she is about to be born. What a genius, post-modern idea. This is one of the multiple births into a new character on earth; a link in the long chain of life. Although the concept of reincarnation is an old one, Alicia Ghiragossián is surely brave enough to renew it. She gives Ali a new birth, thus artistically expanding the definitions of existence.

Here, the physical reality of being born from an Armenian mother is run parallel to Ali’s descent from heaven to be born again onto earth. Perhaps that is the place where life begins before we are born, in heaven, and we are only waiting here on earth for our return back to heaven and back to our original pure selves. Genius, and we get a great understanding of our poet’s philosophy:

 

Ali. / Just a moment. / I’m about to be born. / Don’t. / Don’t be born. / It’s better this way. / Let’s love each other / like this. / Who are you? / Love. / Peter? / Yes and no. Just love. / Do you have a city for me? / Something like Buenos Aires. / I have the universe / for you. / A universe with a city? / Peter! …/ Answer me!

 

Now Peter enters into his own monologue and, again, he is narrating the story of Ali’s life as if it had already happened. The same transposition of time happens here. Peter also personifies the essence of love here. He is speaking from the future in past tense:

 

And Ali was born / to be alone in her city. / She passed by / so close to me / but the crowd / didn’t let her see me. / I called to her / but the noise / of the city / stifled my voice. / She says / she didn’t choose / a country / but it’s not true. / She lives its atoms / its magnetism / from the center / to the frontiers. / I left her alone / so she could enjoy / the illusory madness / of her city / her big bulk of cement / her showcase of dreams. / And let her accomplish / her mission. / Someday / she’ll understand / that missions / can be accomplished / from anywhere / the moment / she acknowledges / the losses. / The moment / laceration decides / to uncover her vision. / She will cancel her city / with an equal impulse / while pronouncing / the word love.

 

There are many interesting and important issues in the passage above, and I will discuss the most important ones. Fundamentally, Peter, who personifies love, “passed by so close” to Ali, “but the crowd didn’t let her see” him.

Love called to her, but it was the noise of earthly matters and the work for her mission that deafened her. The profound devotion to her work, while important, made Ali deaf to the calls of love. It is a tragic and personal reference to Ghiragossiáns’s own life, so devoted to the cause of her ancestors that love missed her many times.

This led to an immersion into loneliness. However, in reality, she never regrets her devotion to the fight for justice. Loneliness became a price she had to pay for her destiny to greatness. The line: Missions can be accomplished from anywhere shows Peter’s superior wisdom and how he wishes to admonish Ali that she does not have to go back to earth in order to accomplish her mission, but that she can do it in the spirit world.

Thus again, Ghiragossián blurs the lines between the tangible world and that of the spirits, creating a geography of metaphysical space where anything is possible to an infinite amount.

Peter, with a love for Ali calls out to her, and she responds with the truth of a cold and solemn earthly life:

 

Ali. / Where are you? / I don’t know. / But I’m lonely / lonely lonely lonely lonely. / I’m lost in a cold city.….. / You tried to dive / into the light / and your mission / destroyed / the best of your life.….. / Abandon your body / and everything / will start again / but different / as a new skin.…../ I learned to cry / but was emptied of tears / in the permanent wave / of incomprehension. / Here. In the city. / Where later on / they learned my name / and even my shadows.….. / Give me your hand / love. / I can lift you up. / I don’t know what to do. / Give me your hand / love.….. / Bring your city / with you. / My own city? / Yes. / Your Buenos Aires. / Right now? / Yes. Right now. / I don’t know if I’m ready. / You are. Trust me. / Then I’m coming. / Do it slowly / and tell me / what you see. / It’s a vibration / that interferes / with the fields. / A colorful ether projected / onto the transparent / bricks. / I’m going / through matter / I’m being freed / and dissolved / behind the signs. / I’m leaving the past / inhabited / by small dimensions / and the sun / chained to others. / But there is a fear / of being lost. / You won’t get lost / love. / I’ll come to your rescue. / Come up. / Every step / has a singular shape. / I feel the space / as perforated sound / and I can hear the melody / traveling on a new road. / I’m afraid / to ask for God / as language is silent. / It’s easy. / Don’t be afraid. / I’m here. / Peter… / No Peter. / Nor Ali. / Being the same ones / we are just essences. / We are many / being one. / Everything is space / and the world / I’m leaving behind / is shrinking. / Values are turning vertical. / Wonderful. / You’re doing great. / I don’t know / how to soar / in the new ether. / Colors are essence / and thoughts / are images. / And the word? / Where is the word? / Look for the radiance. / Do you see the light? / Yes. / Perhaps the word / is hidden there. / It is like a kaleidoscope / that keeps opening itself. / Lean on it / and start walking. / I can’t. / It’s only a transparency / without beginnings / or ends. / Yes. You can. / Come up. / They look like symbols. / Cross them. / I’m waiting for you. / One… / two… / three… / I made it. / You made it / love. / You are already here / with me. / Again the flatness. / Again the whiteness. / But it’s more brilliant / magnetic / warm. / With a halo of permanence. / With the maturity / of an ancient race. / Like a new race. / That’s the maturity / of your mission accomplished. / And what is yours? / Love. / Mine? / Yours.  / My love in Buenos Aires. / Your love in Buenos Aires / from any atom / of the universe / sailing / on a Quantum of light. / Do you realize / you are dead on earth? / Dead? / But I feel as alive as ever. / Even more intense. / Dead? / With you at my side? / No. I think I just left / the soiled objects / the absurd people / that old incomprehension. / At last together.  At last – my love. / Our love. / Our true love. / From all the times. / And in the universe. / Yes. / With the entire universe / inside us.

 

There are several significant points which I will discuss regarding the passage above. Primarily there is the first emphatic line by Ali: “I’m lonely, lonely, lonely. I’m lost in a cold city.” The repetition of “lonely” adds to the heaviness of Ali’s response to where she is. Her response is a graphic loneliness of the human condition, when there is a lack of love, the ego does not allow the energy of love to fuse the souls. When there is no love, the environment becomes cold, materialistic and objective. It can be argued that Ali now personifies the city, cold, material, and lost in a meaningless routine, divided from love: Peter.

Furthermore, we gain a sense of Ali’s visionary powers as she sees into the future. “Later on they learned my name and even my shadows.” This quote is based on the principle of late recognition, also an element of karma, which occurs usually after death to artists and people of profound devotion whose greatness is seldom acknowledged during their lives.

Ali and Peter’s dialogue further reveals beautiful and soaring language that is a hallmark of Ghiragossián’s style. Ali, describing her love for Peter says: You are the structure of all evocation. No one since time immemorial has ever written these words. She is the premier poet of our century because of her incredible, unique and unconventional metaphorical expressions. She again creates a new and realistic reality. You are the structure of all evocation is Ali’s powerful call of love for everything in our lives, like the back bone of our actions, the solid structures that keep us alive. She attributes this profound concept to Peter, her love. This quote also linked with give me your hand, as Peter helps Ali back up into the spirit world, is a testimonial that love is the ultimate rescuer, and that which brings salvation.

The audience is also able to gain a glimpse and feeling of Alicia’s metaphysical magic when Ali says: A colorful ether projected onto the transparent bricks. Here, Ali is returning to Peter through the ether of that passage between earth and heaven.

She needs words to describe this experience and these words carry with them nothing but the feeling of beauty when crossing the material world. Everything becomes transparent and we can travel through it, even bricks.

Ghiragossián further includes her philosophies of meta-dimension in the quotes: “I’m leaving the past…the sun chained to others” and “Do you see the light? Perhaps the word is hidden there?” These are both poetic quotes, full of beauty. The first one describes the ultimate goal on earth to leave a past behind and connect to vertical values, the ones in touch with heaven. The second quote hides the essence of Ghiragossiáns’s idea of the beyond. The word is equivalent of light and truth in the realm of essences, as opposed to the world of matter, where words could be deceiving.

In other dimensions, words, as a representation of thoughts and feelings, are perceived telepathically, clairaudient, or with signs, symbols and metaphors. These are the means through which God communicates.

The last quote to discuss encapsulates Ghiragossián’s philosophy and forms a great conclusion to the discussion of Love in Buenos Aires. The quote “Our love…With the entire universe within us” is genius. This quote is the powerful testimonial that love is the ultimate essence, the genius of existence, and through it, the entire universe and even eternity itself can inhabit our being.

                    

OFFICES FOR GOD

 

Alicia Ghiragossián’s Offices for God is another masterpiece of the dialogued story-poem genre. It is a work of post-modern profundity which challenges the concept of where God actually exists. Does he live in the erected Churches of gold and material richness? Or is God truly only found within the depths of our hearts. It is a work of supreme genius that must be discussed, even if only briefly. It again is an example of Ghiragossiáns’s unique insight into the human condition and the power of her metaphoric language to make a difference on human conscience. I include an expertly written abridgement of this genius dialogue:

Overwhelmed by the physical and moral routine of the world, symbolized by an office, Pedro and Ali rehearse a plan to evade or distort that routine. They try to register themselves in a Time, that is, to find themselves, in the measure of the beauty that exists in all human beings, but attached to an earthly calendar, so to be able to start again. They intend to break all the soiled schemes, and to create their new spirits, toward a transcendent projection. They know they are living in an apparent world, attracted by the illusion of shapes and colors, of false meanings and values, and decide the change.

Besides their male and female voices, a third voice is born that joins theirs. It is the voice of truth and wisdom that illuminates them, and transforms them at a sub-molecular, sub-atomic level.

They understand that their salvation is in being reborn in order to enjoy a life without contaminations, and they decide to bury their past, install the nothingness, that is, the zero time of existence, and start from that untouched moment, toward a better world.

Their souls find the registration they were looking for. The date is September 11. That is the day their old offices disappear, and they are born with the knowledge of the soul, of the spark of God within them, and they forge the line, that is, infinity within them. The power of will was their master key, and love was their guide.

And God, the Almighty power of existence, to administer His gigantic enterprise of beings, installs His offices. Not in churches, not in temples, but in souls, regardless if they are from heaven or from earth, but in those souls newly born from spirit and love.

In order for readers to grasp the power of this work I include the entire dialogue here for discussion:

 

Some things happen / anywhere. / Some parts happen / without a whole. / And there is always / a hope / a tomorrow. / How can we wait for tomorrow / in this labyrinth of files / machines / telephones / papers? / Where security / is your peace. / Where commands / are evasions. / Whose? / The commander’s. / You are upset. / Perhaps. / I just want a calendar / without offices / and find my registration / in the Akasic records. / And who do you think / registered you? / My friend God. / And you have lost / your registration? / We always lose things / that we don’t have. / I’m not so sure of that. / We are so often / the owners of things / we don’t have. / Peter. / Do you know / what you would be / if you weren’t / a co-worker? / What? / A philosopher. / Instead you are / a representative of God. / What about these offices? / They are / offices for God. / I might as well / write this letter. / What’s the date / today? / There is none. / Today / there is no date. / I want a date / to know I exist. / To distort / your pure nothingness? / Pure nothingness here. / When the routine / isn’t broken. / Outside of these walls / I am myself. / Wherever you are / your projection is infinite. / You are yourself / everywhere / as God is present / in every atom / without boundaries. / God is absolute. / It’s more than absolute. / I am a part of His pain. / You are a part of / His plan. / Difficulties perfect the soul.  / Today no one asks / about the soul. / No one looks / for the vertical path / for the power to discern / truth and deceit / beauty and ugliness / good and evil. / And you? / I foresee my mission. / Do you see? / Then your projection / is transcendental. / Peter. / We’ll be fired. / Why? / Because we’re not working. / But the astral plane / is in harmonious vibration. / And the working plane / is in conflict.

…………………………………………………..

 

Buenos Aires. / No date. / Dear Sirs. / I’m addressing you... / Addressing humanity. / I’m addressing you... / Addressing God. / How can I address God? / With the secret language / of your soul. / The way God / speaks to you. / You give me strength. / I’m glad

because strength / is determination / intensity. / And enriches those / who give it. / I feel it / as a shower / of inheritance / that becomes / thought. / Then everything shrinks. / My body. / The world. / All that is tangible. / I don’t know how God / can be in this office. / What office? / This one. / This is the mere appearance / of an office / with color and sound. / They’re going to fire us. / I’m going to work. / You don’t have to. / I need my job. / You think you need it.

…………………………………………………

 

EVERY DEATH BEGINS / WITH SMALL DESTRUCTIONS / TO BRING ON / THE GREAT NOTHINGS. / ONLY FROM THEM / IS THE AUTHENTIC GENESIS / BORN. / ONLY WITH THEM / CAN YOU PERCEIVE / THE TRUTH. / SO MANY TIMES / TO ACHIEVE DREAMS / YOU MUST BREAK / OTHER DREAMS. / SO MANY TIMES / TO HAVE A SOUL / YOU MUST BREAK / OLD SOULS. / YOU MUST FLY. / YOU MUST FLY. / TRUTH IS TRUTH

WHEN IT IS OUT / OF STRUCTURES. / BEAUTY IS BEAUTY / WHEN IT IS OUT / OF RULES. / PEACE IS PEACE / WHEN IT IS OUT / OF PATTERNS. / MORALITY IS MORALITY / WHEN IT IS OUT / OF ROUTINE / THE ONLY / LEGITIMATE WAY / OF THE SPIRIT / IS FAITHFULNESS / TO ESSENCE / TO ONESELF. / DOES IT SEEM OBSCURE? / IT WAS SAID. / LIGHT IS ONLY / FOR THOSE / WHO WISH TO SEE. / YOU MUST FLY / BECAUSE / SOME CONTENTS GIVE FORM. / SOME FORMS GIVE CONTENT. / IT IS A SENTENCE / YOU MUST FLY. / SEARCH FOR A SOURCE / TOWARD A PURE BIRTH. / GOD NEEDS PROMOTERS. / TAKE CARE OF HIS OFFICES.

………………………………………….

 

General offices. / Who? / I’m sorry. / Nobody named Ali / works here. / Burial? / No. I don’t know.

………………………………………….

 

General offices. / No. Nobody named Peter / works here. / What? / I really don’t know.

………………………………………….

 

We have to start / from the beginning. / From the death / of old matters. / Excepting dreams. / From true life. / I engage / my whole knowledge. / Do you discern? / Yes. / Do you reason? / Yes. / That is not good. / Why? / You must be reborn / with the flow/ of emotions. / The logic of the heart / is different. / So what are we searching for? / To be reborn. / If we are really searching for it / then we have it. / But it has to be real. / It is real. / Maybe we can’t see it. / Millions of light years / existed / before being measured. / I’m scared. / Of what? / That we could be mistaken. / Don’t forget / that we’ve just begun. / We are newly born. / Does God make mistakes / sometimes? / If there were anything / out of God / He wouldn’t be absolute. / God is all. / Then let’s start. / Let’s start.

………………………………………….

 

IN THE BEGINNING / GOD CREATED / THE HEAVENS / AND THE EARTH. / THE EARTH WAS / WITHOUT FORM / AND EMPTY. / DARKNESS WAS / EVERYWHERE / AND IN THE DARKNESS / THE SPIRIT OF GOD /  MOVED UPON /  THE FACE OF THE DEEP. / GOD SAID: / LET THERE BE LIGHT / AND THEN THERE WAS LIGHT. / GOD SAW THAT IT WAS GOOD. / AND LIGHT WAS SEPARATED / FROM DARKNESS.

………………………………………….

 

SO HUMANS WERE CREATED / IN GOD’S OWN IMAGE / GOD CREATED MAN / AND WOMAN.

………………………………………….

 

GOD CREATED / HEAVENS AND EARTH / FOR HUMANS. / AND EVERYTHING WAS / FOR GOD. / AND TO ADMINISTRATE / THIS HUGE ENTERPRISE / OFFICES WERE INSTALLED. / Churches? / Temples? / ONLY / ONLY / ONLY THE NEW SOULS.

………………………………………….

 

Buenos Aires. / September eleven / nineteen sixty eight. / Period. / Dear Sir. Colon.

Hey! I already have the date. Now you know you exist. / This letter is the first one / in your new life. / Your first / your very first / experience. / How do you feel? / As if I’ve known everything / since always. / Now you can address / anybody. / Even God. / Even God. / This morning I was asked / if God wasn’t worn out. / God is always the newest. / Never ending. / Constant. / Perpetual. / Non transferable. / Through God / I found my registration. / God is the first / and the last stage / of all truth. / Life of all death. / I think / you have discovered / something. / The vertical path. / The one that takes me / directly to God. / Do you know why? / After knocking at doors / for so long / they have been opened. / And behind them / lies the wonder. / A wonder / that was waiting / for us. / We were searching for the truth / for a total realization. / The simplest of secrets. / The most complicated / of encounters. / Love itself. / Do you want to hear / another secret? / Go ahead. / Now / no one can fire us. / How is that? / Things get done / when we are aware. / Where are we now? / A little above the ground. / Ali. / Do you know / what you would be / if you were not / a co-worker? / What? / A philosopher. / Instead you are / a representative of God. / And these offices? / Offices for God. / I might as well / write this letter. / What’s the date today? / There is none. / Today there is no date. / Didn’t you say

September eleventh? / You remembered / and you’re asking it? / I had doubts. / It’s difficult to understand / the exact location / of the body / in a time / in a place / for the soul / to become conscious. / Now you can say / your soul is new.

………………………………………….

 

AND TO ADMINISTER / THE HUGE ENTERPRISE / GOD INSTALLED OFFICES. / Churches? Temples? / SOULS. / From heaven or from earth? / NEWLY BORN. / Where from? / FROM SPIRIT. / FROM LOVE. / GOD INSTALLED OFFICES / IN THE SOULS. / NEWLY BORN / FROM SPIRIT. /  NEWLY BORN / FROM LOVE.

 

I will now discuss the quotations that were most striking to me and that clearly reflect the philosophy of Ghiragossián.

 The beautiful quote: “Some things happen anywhere…And there is always… a tomorrow” reflects the existence of an endlessly optimistic space and time. Anywhere and always involve the concepts of infinity and eternity, yet Ghiragossián gives it her unique flavoring of the optimism that love creates. One can feel the love between the two office workers as they flirt with the ideas of eternity and release from earthly monotony. This earthly monotony can be read in the lines: In this labyrinth of files, machines, telephones, papers. This line gives the readers a clue into the world that our poet is critiquing. It is the world of the heavy burden of obligations, of routine and survival which throw us into a labyrinth, since surrounded by them we cannot see the light at the end of the tunnel. We live in existential anguish. The idea of the labyrinth is also a profound post-modern idea that can remind readers of Jorge Luis Borges’ labyrinth concept, and it is powerful that Alicia Ghiragossián equates it here to the meaningless routines of work and offices which traps us in a labyrinth of lower consciousness. The “office” actually becomes the labyrinth that confuses our higher consciousness.

Ali, talking to Pedro, also gives voice to the essence of a protest: I just want a calendar without offices, and find my registration in the Akasic records. Her desires here indicate that two deep aspirations guide the human being: liberation from our little jails and the need to discover our true existence. Taken from the previous quote, our lives of monotonous routine keep us lost in a labyrinth, apart from our true identities. Our existence is registered in the Akasic hall of records of the universe, where everything is exposed in details. The poet explores, here, the deep human desire to find out who we really are, past office buildings, past names and positions.

Furthermore, both Ali and Pedro are aware of where they are and what they are doing. The quote: Pure nothingness here. When the routine isn’t broken reveals the meaningless of actions without a purpose, just for inertia, and just for works sake. And that is the price of survival. Ghiragossián reveals the elemental human dilemma: either work at secure jobs to survive in a world where objects and money matter, or to sacrifice oneself to a higher cause and lose the stability of an office job. This is also a personal insight that our poet shares with the reader about her own life’s choice to be a revolutionary poet.

The fact that these two office workers are trapped in an office can also be a trick of destiny. They needed to be where they are in order to find the path that takes them to truth: You are a part of His plan. Difficulties perfect the soul. Again, there is a plan, a destiny that throws us to suffering, as the supreme school to learn the secrets of existence, and allow the soul to grow. This destiny that placed them in the offices also created a moment of new beginning for Pedro and Ali: EVERY DEATH BEGINS WITH SMALL DESTRUCTIONS…ONLY FROM THEM IS THE AUTHENTIC GENESIS BORN. For Ghiragossián this is true in all planes: whether the material or the spiritual, the intellectual or the emotional. We reach to ashes. Then it’s our choice to remain there or provoke a rebirth. The power of will can change everything. There is always the possibility of new beginnings when you decide to leave your load of deaths and move on. The choice of Pedro and Ali to question their roles within the office is the beginning of their quest to a higher plane of reality: to move on from death. The voice of wisdom announces: SO MANY TIMES, TO ACHIEVE DREAMS, YOU MUST BREAK OTHER DREAMS. Our poet is clear when writing this dialogue that there is a sense of choice, of priorities, of sacrifice, since not all dreams blend in one. Being aware of it can bring us the peace we need to achieve happiness through our accomplished dreams.

Ghiragossián’s genius dialogue continues and she includes a simple yet powerful truth that is singular and emphatic to existence: YOU MUST FLY. This is the freedom of the spirit. You are attached to earth through your physical body, but there is the emotional and spiritual self that needs a different kind of nourishment, found only when you detach and fly, through your dreams and all the means that help you dream: art, music, poetry, and philosophy, to name a few, and all that shows us the non-material road.

Furthermore the quote If we are searching for it, then we have it shows the beginning of the quest that Pedro and Ali are on. Their choices and need for truth means they will be attracted to truth and ultimately become truth. In Ghiragossiáns’s philosophy to be on the road of truth, or the road of anything, for that matter, it means to have attained the road, which is all that exists: the road, because the ultimate truth or the ultimate goal is unreachable. It is a means to discover other truths and goals, since the landscape of life keeps permanently opening and refracting, like a kaleidoscope. It is a no-end road. Ali and Pedro are on that never ending road.

Through this dialogue, we are reminded that Love is a sign that you are on that never ending road to higher meaning: The simple of secrets…Love itself. Love is the simple secret to attain everything and reach everywhere, but so difficult to experience and keep. The effort gives us the possibility to develop our will power, next to our wisdom to surrender in order to conquer. When Ali and Pedro discover this higher truth they disappear toward where they belong: the realm of the soul. Why? Because that is the place where they can harbor God. AND TO ADMINISTER / THE HUGE ENTERPRISE / GOD INSTALLED OFFICES. / Churches? Temples? / SOULS. / From heaven or from earth? / NEWLY BORN. / Where from? / FROM SPIRIT. / FROM LOVE. / GOD INSTALLED OFFICES / IN THE SOULS. / NEWLY BORN / FROM SPIRIT. / NEWLY BORN / FROM LOVE.

In her revolutionary, genius and superbly mind altering way, Ghiragossián shows that the only real offices of God are within us. Our souls are the true offices for God. Pedro and Ali realize this when they come to the conclusion of their dialogue. And at the moment when they discover love, they discover God, and they discover the truth within themselves. Ghiragossián connects all of these elements together, to metaphysically show how they are all one. One discovery leads to the other on this path for a meaningful existence. In addition to a profound epiphany, the offices disappear, since reality is changed. The couple has found truth within their souls. Alicia Ghiragossián is emphatically obvious in showing us the healthier choice to live a life of meaning. The question lies in our courage to live those lives as she has done herself and has become the revolutionary poet of our century.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE LAST CHAPTER

 

Watching the Fellini movie “And the Ship Sales,” Ghiragossián was seduced by the scene where the ashes of a dead person were thrown to the sea. She suddenly felt identified with those ashes. She felt dead, reduced to ashes, and her soul liberated, looking back to her life and assessing the important issues in it. Within that inspiration, these verses were born. We are transcribing the entire collection called “The Last Chaper,” included in the Volume IV of “Interview with God,” for the reader to grasp the entire mood and temperament. We are commenting only some of them, since a thorough analysis could take an entire volume.

Alicia Ghiragossian’s Last Chapter solidifies her as a genius modern poet. In her essential “good-bye” to the world she reminds readers of the early Christian discussion of the visio Dei, found in the Gospel of Thomas. The scheme of visio Dei discussed that the ascent to heaven after death is a necessary part of the mystic’s transformation to their original self and allows them entrance into God’s Kingdom. Alicia, in her genius way, keeps herself as the mystic and visionary subject of the Last Chapter and chronicles her rise to heaven, union with God, and ultimately her unity with her original self. Her Last Chapter becomes a good bye to the world and her own visio Dei. Her connection with modern writers even compares to Mitch Albom’s best-selling novel The Five People You Meet in Heaven with its post mortem discussion on the meaning of death and the spillage of our lives into our death. Mitch Albom’s book shows how the main character realizes that Heaven may be wherever and whenever we learn what our life is about. Therefore death becomes a necessary tool for the search for meaning, also found in Alicia’s Last Chapter where death is a part of life, a necessary tool to reach your true self. Throughout the book Albom shows this “place” as being a death state where the protagonist contemplates his life and the meanings he can gather from it. Therefore, the ideas of meanings of life, life after death, and the essential “why” of everything is alive in modern books and thus Alicia Ghiragossian becomes part of modern literature’s post mortem discussion. The additional element of her mysticism gives her work a philosophical stature that reminds readers of the visio Dei and thus Alicia rises to the challenge of mixing modern and ancient forms superbly.

 

 

At my last minute / split my tear in half / and weigh from within / the footsteps of fatigue / and the load of pain. / I reject the pink words / of numb obituaries / and the made-up praises / used over and over. / Bring me / the image of a dream / the essence of a protest / the message of a fist. / Do not let / my last bell toll / fade away / by sweet words. / I need fire / so my memories / can be sculpted / with a new flame / and my last faith / can remain lit.

 

At the most profound moment when Alicia Ghiragossián contemplated death and the last of ashes being spread into the sea, she was inspired to write her ultimate wish.

Shakespeare wrote endlessly in his sonnets about the issue of the poet/writer who transcends death through words. For him, words are the essence of the soul, which continues after the death of the body.

The metaphors that Ghiragossián uses add to the power of protest that the excerpt unleashes. Metaphors become the tool of her final wishes.  She is not interested in pink words of numb obituaries. She wants her tear to be split in half and to weigh from within the footsteps of fatigue and the load of pain.

The phrase split my tear in half is extremely intriguing because she invites people to enter the molecular level of the tear to discover her pain. She wishes to be weighed from within.

Consistent with her beliefs, it is the soul that matters at this final moment, her soul which she says is filled with footsteps of fatigue and the load of pain. She does not want to be remembered with made-up praises and pink words. She wants her last image to be that of a revolutionary fist, her dream, and her faith, sculpted with a new flame, to create the new realities of a just world and of change.

Her spirit of revolution, while facing death, strengthens the spirit of her words, the essence of her internal fire, as if sculpting them for posterity.

 

Let me hear the echo / of sincere words. / Let me hug / the addicts of truth / so we can tie infinity / to our hands / and we can pull it / down to earth / to provoke the surprise / of the non-believers.

 

Again, she takes on the role of the hero, so important to her protest poetry, as she admonishes us to unite in truth. Even entering another dimension, she communicates to us that she wishes to hear the echo of sincere words. An echo is a powerful image here because it is a reverberation of sound, vibrating over and over again into silence. This adds the element of strength to the words she wishes to hear. Whispers do not echo. She wants to hear the projected sounds of sincere words firm and clear, and see them expand into the universe.

In addition, she wishes to hug the addicts of truth. This highlights her humanity, warmth, and benevolence of spirit that even in times of protest she does not lose. As a powerful revolutionary energy, she intensifies the wish for a bond among equals. She also reminds us that infinity needs to be pulled down into our daily life, as a reminder of the essential and fuse with it, to provoke the surprise of the skeptics.

This is a profound moment in the poem which again highlights the duality of the author. Her printed words, will keep her soul alive. However, to bring this to achievement, her words must begin to live within people; people who will go on through time with the memory of her flame. Therefore, the author would be immortalized.

 

Vanishing / is not a barrier / for the spirits / to bequeath wishes / and spread them / along the universe. / Just remember. / Do not bury me / under the known cliché. / At the threshold / of my sunset / bring me the new colors / of the substance. / I need to sew / doors of future / on the cracks / of my prison / to imprint a new project / upon the folds of the mind / in the roots of hope.

 

My last second / which is the first / in a new calendar / I know - will belong / to my people. / Bring me the news / of virgin bell tolls / so we can perform / the opening / of a new bell tower / and sound... / Sound with the force / of rights / through the whole race / so we can change / everything. / Even the wrinkled map / of this dark world.

Let’s analyze these verses. Why? Because they characterize the poet in her aversion to common places, to the words senselessly used in general, although particularly in this case, used for her funeral.

She aims for the unique truth in each one of us to be released at the same moment that she is physically released from this world. It is a powerful metaphorical expression. It is unique to Magical Realism where the lines between reality and the supremely spiritual are woven together.

She also creates a metaphorical image of the body, reminding us of Christ who was crucified and became a symbol of surrender and redemption. The release of the poet’s body becomes the metaphor for a complete change in consciousness: the surrender of her matter and the deliverance of her mission to build a new reality full of substance and truth. That will be her new bell tower, to sound with the force / of rights to change / everything. / Even the wrinkled map / of this dark world.

 

The time is coming / my Lord. / The time has come. / The ceremony / of cremation / is over. Our interview / will continue / in another dimension. / Now I am just / a handful of ashes. / The face / I used to recognize / every morning /  in the mirror / the hands / that used to caress / and write / the heart / that used to jump / to remind me / I was alive / all my breathing / my movements / the projection / of my dreams / the tears / still unborn. / All the anger / rests / in these ashes. / Every expectation. / This is the final chapter / of my matter. / I am ready to discover / the meaning of everything / the reverses / of love and nothingness / the repercussions / of solitude and pain / the evil of men / the power of words / the sense of life / the mysteries / within mysteries.

 

She is saying good bye to her body, her dreams, and saying hello to Mystery, to the world of the unknown, to the new dreams in the realm of the spirits. Here we acquire a sense of her philosophy of death.

The soul, which housed all her dreams, tears, all the anger, experiences and wisdom, is there in the final chapter in order to help her discover the meaning of everything.

The image Mysteries within mysteries, intends to portray the impossibility to reach total knowledge, because when we discover one mystery, a hundred others unfold. Only God has the key of total knowledge. This statement is consistent along the entire work. And it is a goodbye testimony to the beauty that she experienced on earth through the power of language to channel the energies of God, love, peace, and truth. She says:

 

I am taking no object with me / just what I gave to others / in the form of feelings. / Memories shared. / Kisses scattered / among the ones / I still love. / Spiritual bonds / that will remain / to be reinforced / in coming reincarnations. / Poems tattooed / on somebody’s heart. / And even if everything dies / I know that the energy / that gave them life / will rejoin and enlarge / the waves of goodness / in the universe.

 

This is her realization of parting from the physical world, a profound moment in her body of work. Yet, although she is parting she will forever be connected with those readers whom she continues to touch, inspire, and transform. These are spiritual bonds that will remain with family, friends and all those she loved.

And perhaps she will be remembered through her words, tattooed on somebody’s heart. These are the ultimate aims of her poetry and herself: to becomes so alive that her words become an essential difference in the lives of her readers.

She also expresses her profound philosophy of forgiveness, which is spread throughout her body of work. She accepts her new destiny and is at peace with the new world she is going to encounter:

 

Now I can soar / have a date with angels / and plan my new missions. / I depart with no grudges / in peace / forgiving those who injured me / who put me through agony / and asking forgiveness / from those I injured. / This is the time / to rise above conflict / forget struggle / and all injustice / hostility / hypocrisy / corruption / jealousy / and hatred / splashed in my face / like caustic acid. / I can feel the disintegration / of my vanity / and the transformation / of my ego. / I might finally meet / the Great Equalizer / and probably learn / who or what / gave me the strength / to accept the puzzle / of destiny / and make a difference.

 

This poem while expressing her essential philosophy of forgiveness at the moment whn she leaves for her new destiny also expresses the excitement she has to meet the Great Equalizer. She is thrilled to meet God and to learn about the puzzles of destiny.

She is not at all sad to leave this world, and revolutionizes the meaning of death in this poem. It is a return to home and, at the same time a, progression towards a higher and more complete reality where answers will appear. It is not an end of any kind.

Again, Ghiragossián emphasizes the immortality that her soul will achieve when she makes a difference in someone’s life. The feeling of inspiration will be the moment where you know she has entered your heart and continues to live.

It is that very essence of inspiration, at the micro-molecular and spiritual level that will reveal the power of her spirit to continue toward creating a progression and an evolution to higher consciousness here on earth. She also wishes to change the perspectives people have concerning love, truth, and peace and, in this way, live on in their hearts. This is how she will continue to make a difference:

 

I am leaving behind / my temporary cover / but not my substance. / I will still be alive / in those who keep me / in their thoughts / in their feelings. / I might still inspire those / who remember my words.

 

In addition, she leaves us with a very personal evocation regarding her satisfaction of the life she chose. It was a hard life, with an amount of struggle against evil, against corruption, against unfair governments. Yet she leaves with the satisfaction of being loyal to her dreams:       

 

You know I chose poetry / as a hideaway / from the polluted world / as a candid road / for liberty. / Loyalty to illusion / was a way to search / for truth / a way to be authentic / to be myself. / And I always believed / I was qualified / for those dreams / no matter how big they were. / I needed them to balance / the outer poison / and I feel / I will need them forever.

 

She leaves being satisfied with the balance of good and bad in her life and her ultimate choice to be a poet, to stay true to poetry and to reveal truth through her words and language. It was a huge sacrifice that brought her closer to the essence of truth here on earth, and for this she is eternally grateful. Her dedication and devotion to poetry also made her a better person.

 

I confess that love was always / the supreme response / for me. / It is the only true path. / The force /  that answers the questions /  that makes you fully alive / makes you feel immortal. / Love is the only supreme stage / without conditions / without boundaries.

 

Ghiragossián is reaffirming the magnitude of her true essence: Love. That was for her the answer for all her questions and struggles, her dreams bonds. There were no conditions involved to impel her to the supreme stage of love, be it in the plane of the lover, ancestry, motherhood, creation or God.

These values are transformed under the lenses of her thoughts and feelings, bringing us new ways of understanding them, opening thus, paths to new dimensions.

 

Now I can be trusted. / I do not change like people. / Now I can have / all the courage I need / no cowardice / no masked feelings / no amputated thoughts / to survive in a world / where life / is an imitation / of true existence. / My new journey has started. / I am penetrating a dimension / where everything is essence / and reality is the evidence. / Perhaps now / I can understand / the unexplainable / and become / a particle of light / to reflect truth.

 

As she enters death she becomes complete, full of truth, the essence of truth. In this embodiment of truth she sees through the illusion of life and reveals to the reader that life on earth is an imitation for the true existence awaiting us. Life is merely a dress rehearsal for the real existence we will lead after death.

She also leaves this world thanking God for allowing her to channel him while here on earth. She is profoundly grateful for a higher consciousness, for the visions she was able channel, access, and translate them through the power of language. She is thankful for having the language as a path to eternity:

 

Thank You God / for letting me perceive / that at the end / at the very end of the road / we always find love / and touch the ultimate truth / to finally possess / the language / the rhythm / the color / and the secret of eternity. / I am trying to say good-bye / but this is not a farewell. / I am detached from my body / and yet exist / close to those / who open their arms for me. / I am saying good-bye / and creating a togetherness / that transcends time. / I am saying good-bye / and hello... / forever.

 

Ghiragossián is right. She is staying with us, with her open arms, and we feel like hugging her and, at the same time, embracing all the essence, love, wisdom and truth she projected.

We feel blessed of having absorbed all the richness at an essential level, impacting us and transforming our future generations.

CONCLUSION

 

The poetry of Alicia Ghiragossián clearly shows it is full of feelings, intuitions, thoughts, and metaphysical presence. It is flooded, as well, with meta-dimensions, new realities and conscience, extraordinary metaphors and images seen with a sequence of angled mirrors, refracted like the rays of the sun and collected in our souls.

Therefore, to summarize a gigantic work, such as the poetry of Dr. Ghiragossián, requires a fine scalpel to separate the main components of her creation and use a good set of spotlights to highlight, what is relevant and unique: her style, blended with the depth of the subjects and her groundbreaking theories.

Although we have expanded about them in the first volume, we find it proper to add them here in a very abridged manner.

 

STYLE

1.-  There is not a single photograph of a beautiful landscape in nature, be them skies, sunsets, rivers or mountains; Nothing bucolic or pastoral. Her landscapes are those of the soul created by the paintings of her imagination, by the philosophy of her mind, by the depth of her essential being, her emotions, beliefs and dreams.

2.- She masters the expression with extraordinary concision and synthesis. She eliminates explanations and dehydrates the additional wording to condense the expression and widen her vision, thus creating a suggestion or a fascinating metaphor that invite us to think or feel more profoundly. She not only says more with much less, but she opens an entirely new outlook, which gives stature to her work.

3.- Her talent for metaphors is amazing. We are surprised by the most simple and beautiful combination of words to convey a captivating thought. With magnetic attraction those metaphors invite us to enter into them, into the secret combination of tangible and intangible elements. Observing with magnifying lenses, we can discover that those elements are opposed. She never chooses two abstract or two concrete elements, rather one abstract and one concrete one. This balance is parallel to the universe and, for that reason, the expression becomes cosmic. An entirely different and magical world opens in front of us. No doubt, her metaphors are literary gems.

4.- With direct diction and elimination of obvious adjectives, she brings new definitions to understand better the oldest of concepts. She puts them together with such an art that a new viewpoint, a new dimension and new consciousness is created.

5.- She addresses our conscious mind, yet her meta-dimensional style lets her messages reach subliminal levels, to become part of our subconscious mind. The savvy thinker finds countless sub-messages, subtly hidden in the folds of the words, behind the expressions or in the blanks of the spaces. Automatically, a new consciousness is created.

6.- Most thoughts, instead of being laid out, are suggested with a phenomenological effect. This means that they avoid being carbon dated and insure their permanence in Time. Her work is destined to endure. Suggestion grants to the text the flexibility needed to be adapted to changes in different periods, and be interpreted according to the rhythm and understanding that might dominate in the future. Her work is destined to last.

7.- There are no anecdotes in her poetic discourses. There are no stories. The only exceptions are the epic poems of historic character, or the case of the dialogued story-poems. And even then, it is poetry of essences.

8.- Her expression is occasionally colloquial, particularly in the presence of greatness and divinity. But we find no commonplaces to flatten the expressions.

9.- There is no use of rhymes, but a harmonious and seductive internal rhythm. Rhyme does not make the essence of a poem. It is an external, superficial character. Besides, it breaks the element of surprise, so needed in all creative works.

10.- She has a built-in Aladdin’s lamp in her verses to create a mood or a temperament, to convey a graceful feeling, to infect with thoughts and build transparency, or to become the magician of words and seduce us.

 

GROUNDBREAKING THEORIES

 

We enter into the world of Alicia Ghiragossián, like entering into a sacred temple, where we need to have a sensitive soul in order to join unknown powers.

The new theories she presents force us to think, and we end up building a puzzle of newness. But that is the way to go deeper. True messages are never captured at the surface. We must delve indefinitely, layer after layer, into countless dimensions of perception to find out a meta-dimensional consciousness. But at least we have the advantage of escaping from a world that the poet considers mostly full of dying values.

The length of the journey depends on the awareness of the reader, receptor or analyzer. But, is there an ultimate stage of perception? Difficult to say, yet possible, as much as being able to “know” the subconscious mind; as much as we can grasp notions of infinity and eternity, always limited by the boundaries of our mind.

We enter the world of essences with a microscope, to discover and be impacted by new worlds: that of Meta-dimension, beyond the known dimensions; that of the Quantum Seed to provoke a change of consciousness at a sub-molecular level; that of our Soul DNA, which keeps the coded imprint of our essential being, and that of the TEIWAS Energy Factor, synthesizer of thoughts, emotions, images, words, actions and sounds.

All her work is full of her signature, her seal of surprising expressions and her inspirational energy, which makes her work a testament to the power of expansion of words.

Meta-dimension is a new seal and generation of poetry that opens up new consciousness within readers. It does not only mean beyond words, but beyond the known dimensions, as well. It creates infinity, with as many dimensions as the imagination of the readers can forge. Ghiragossián has definitely found the formula of a creation that gives a timeless and spaceless stamp to the expression.

Her Quantum Seed theory defines how the sheer essence of poetry has the phenomenological power to penetrate the reader on a sub-atomic level, impacting the body DNA as well as the Soul DNA. The difference between them is that the soul, as a subtle substance has a higher frequency and belongs to a different dimension.

The TEIWAS Energy Factor, connecting us all with its energy network, makes us introspect and realize the surprising fact of how united we all are in this universe. We are together. We are one. We impact each other with our thoughts, emotions, images, words, actions and sounds, provoking a constant expansion.

 

SUBJECTS

 

Alicia Ghiragossián tackles all the themes that philosophers are concerned with, such as Time, God, Love, Eternity and Infinity. Although she speaks about almost everything: solitude, nothingness, pain, injustice, mysteries, dreams, peace, hope, forgiveness, war, genocide, roots, motherhood, her prophesies, and all that concern a human being. But her work is, fundamentally, a poetry of Love, in concentric circles, tackling in them all the subjects.

Without a doubt, we can broadcast that Ghiragossián is the poet of Love, and that all the subjects are intertwined with metaphysical or meta-dimensional concepts and approached through deep lenses.

Interestingly, any of her themes has the power to transform our energy and, as a result, to change lives to some degree. Her spirit gets glittered through a breathtaking light, unseen or unimagined. Perhaps because the poet’s cosmic lens lets her see issues from all angles, in a very wide view, and her depth lets her go through endless layers.

Throughout her complete works we could build a monument of creation with her groundbreaking statements and metaphors.

When it comes to Love, she has redefined the feeling in such a way that it has forever changed, in some way, the consciousness of her readers: Love is the genius of existence, or Love is the alchemy of a miracle / where souls fuse / in the encounter. She has shown us how Love is the creator of all things on earth; how it makes us feel restored and blessed and how it teaches us the powers of life.

Her Motherhood poems open a new horizon of perceptions when she pronounces her magical words: People think / I give you life / but we both know / we give life to each other / I / the child / you / the mother.

Ghiragossián discovers that the same way a mother gives birth to her child, the child gives birth to the mother. Although an unheard concept, once we hear it, it makes such sense that we are amazed at why we didn’t think about it before.

Her sharp observations become paradoxes which act like flashlights and make us see deeper: Time is the zero hour of existence; or Every time I abandon / the illusory value of the clock / I am tuning / into a genuine existence; or Peace has lost its own peace; or The only immortal / is the time to die; or When silence goes /  beyond sound; or I can feel that the poem is composing me. She also gives to Silence a force equivalent to communication that goes beyond words, toward different realms of existence: Nothing is unanswered. / There is an echo / for everything. / For a word / and for silence; or The surprise / will surprise itself. Her paradoxes are the sources of thoughts.

Within her philosophy, her perceptions of life, death and reality could not be absent: And what is life / if not an endless monologue / walking toward death? /...And what is death / if not an equally / endless monologue / imitating life? Or And what is reality / if not a shapeless cloud / building an entire world / from within? Or And where do those gods go? / How far does the growth / of the unlimited reach…?

Within her psychological structure, Hope and faith have a main presence in her verses. She defines Hope as: Warmth and possession of the soul; or A grain of hope / doesn’t know about death. And Faith follows as the ultimate medicine / to ignore this emotional quicksand / of our present…

But as the supreme secret to heal the past, cleanse it and experience a rebirth, we find the esoteric power of Forgiveness: The angels of forgiveness and absolution / are descending. / And we understand the truth…We recognize the message / and grow.

And we can feel the poet’s passion, through her uninhibited language when it comes to the Armenian genocide, giving voice to an issue that is ignored; to a pain that is invalidating and wounds the essence of identity. It thrills us when she says: I swallow the silence / and I become its echo. Or And you can hear / the pounding / of dried blood / jolting the earth. Those are expressions of unmatched power.

She has no equal in describing pain and injustice in the most refined manner and making us feel how unavoidable they are: Open arms / are the sign of freedom / but they are also the design / of a hurting Christ, meaning that there is a purpose in every pain; or My child did not go to war. / I have not lost anyone. / But haven’t I truly / when my country has lost / so many and so much…?

We enter her world full of mysticism as if entering a sanctuary, where we can sense the energy of the most ancient prayers. And we can hear her voice when she talks with God, whom she defines as The Soul of the Universe, or when she suddenly humanizes Him with just a question: Whom do You pray / God? Or when she becomes His relative: …And God / entered my bedroom / without slippers / engraving the message / with divine footprints.

Her prophesies are not less relevant. They come from a clear vision, as the blue print of an oracle when she announces: You will be able / to unfold your lungs / when the Ararat / will breathe freedom / and you will finally learn / the miracle / of acknowledging yourself. Or Just there / where reasoning and faith / touch /…there we shall be / where everything / becomes a center / without boundaries / where all the souls fuse. Or I am with flesh and bones / within a dream / that comes from the future / and announces to me / Your voice - my Lord / of final verdicts. Or when she makes irresistible proposals: To invent the hologram / of that which will come.

Her deep introspection makes her see what others don’t, provoking a metaphysical experience: Each word / comes back to me / to be engraved / in some sub-atomic station / of my being.

Ghiragossián advocates for Peace, concerned with the welfare of humankind: The broken wings / of the dove / must be healed / with the voice / of our hearts. Or We have to spell / the word p.e.a.c.e. together / so it can become / more than just a word: / a power to turn on the sun / and travel on its beams / to every darkness / every tear / every hungry child. Or Say hello to Peace /… and buildup a universe / as the playground / of love.

The connection of Alicia Ghiragossián with the collective unconscious of creation is undeniable. When reading hundreds of pages full of pearls, we find a greatness that infects us with the sense of a paranormal world that is normal, something real that is surreal, and a meta-dimension that is at hand. And that happens because her scope is wide, her mind is open and her heart detects the countless hues of Truth. Ultimately, her range goes from micro to macro-cosmos, and beyond, to master the creation of new realities.

With all that richness, Ghiragossián’s philosophical conceptions develop into a dazzling esoteric tapestry that envelopes us with real and tangible energy because it is embroidered with human tears and passion, hopes and Love. Those feelings bring us a new brand of existence and consciousness, a new path to introspection and depth.

 

Conclusion

 

We cannot help but be amazed by this new world, which takes us beyond the mere pleasure of reading, to being etherized and transported on the wings of a romantic creation. That “beyond” is the same one inhabited by great poets, thinkers, philosophers, scientists and saints, who have changed our perceptions, thus changing our consciousness and the world, through time.

I have visited that beyond. She has blessed me with a lifetime of hope, change, peace and love. She is the epitome of a soul who stands adamant and complete in the face of all adversity, history, tragedy, and the laws of karma.

Staying true to herself, she is a reminder and an example of what it means to be devoted to a cause and to sacrifice one’s life to fulfill the ends of that devotion: devotion to her Armenian ancestry, devotion to her poetry, and devotion to the power of words to try and change the world. She stands as a model for the force of dreams to become reality and to propel us to lives only possible in our highest imaginations.

Her unique voice is a link to those souls yearning to be nourished and connected with truth, in order to enter new dimensions, expand their consciousness and acquire wisdom.

If we characterize the poetry of Dr. Alicia Ghiragossián as deep, powerful and influential, we are somehow describing just a few facets of a multifaceted diamond. She enters our soul, a phenomenon that belongs to timeless and spaceless dimensions, convincing us that it is time for a spiritual change.

We read in the Holy Bible the illuminating Sermon on the Mount pronounced by Jesus Christ, regarding those blessed souls who shall see God. I would like to expand his list, including those creators and artists who connect with divine energies, receive their messages from the cleanest sources of creation, and share them to enrich humankind; those who help our imagination fly and nourish our soul energy; those who can open the doors to new and purifying realities, and those who help shape and reset our lives for a better destiny.

Ghiragossián’s body of work is a total validation of that statement. Her language is the ultimate means to let us enter the currents of growth, feel the vibrations of unseen existences and access the pathways to eternity.

I have come to the conclusion that she is the alchemist of the spirit, and her true message, is the secret to unlock all the other secrets of existence, and enter into new realities.

These new realities whirl around our heads and we lose our earthly selves, never to go back, and to be changed by love, for eternity.

 

 

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BIOGRAPHY OF THE POET

 

Alicia Ghiragossián was born in Argentina, where her parents found refuge escaping from genocide.

She graduated as a Juris Doctor from the National University of Buenos Aires, and in 1971 she established her residence in Los Angeles, USA, where she married and had a daughter, Lara. At present she is divorced and resides in Glendale, California.

This author of 61 volumes, most of them poetry, is the only poet who writes in three languages: English, Spanish and Armenian, and the only living poet whose work has been illustrated by the legendary Pablo Picasso. Perhaps in his eyes she had the uncommon ability to dissect the soul through words the same way the great artist severed his images on the canvas.

She started writing in Spanish when she was fourteen years old, and her first poem was published at the age of sixteen. Her meteoric rise to fame occurred in 1967, when she won a prize in Europe with her second book, which had been translated into Italian. The book was published in Italy with illustrations of Picasso, Fontana, Petorutti, Presta and Le Parc.

Immediately after, a selection of her poems, translated into Armenian, appeared in the literature vault of Soviet Armenia. The book, published in Yerevan, capital of Armenia, was an instant best seller and she became an overnight legend.

For the first time in that country, and perhaps in universal history, a black market for her poetry was created. Newspapers that published a new poem of hers would sell for twenty times its original price. 

There was a whirlwind in the field of poetry at all levels, from factory workers to academicians, and a legion of admirers and followers of her work was born. Her poems were read and sung all over the country.

Inspired by her poetry, dozens of artists sculpted her bust and painted her portrait. The news media echoed her creations and announced the birth of a star. They called her work a monumental cross stone, miracle poetry and a phenomenon. The volumes published in Armenian, after the second one, didn’t need translation. They were written in Armenian, directly by her.

Her merit is not only in her talent to express her most subtle ideas, feelings and perceptions. One of her missions is to resurrect the love for poetry by adding sound to it, through her readings.

Some medical doctors in Armenia have stated that her recorded voice, reading her poems, has a soothing and mesmerizing effect in their patients, provoking a change in them at a cellular level. They are convinced that her voice and poetry have healing powers.

Her impact in Armenia has been indelible and historical. Since her first book, Armenian poetry has been divided into before and after Ghiragossián, as she influenced and inspired writers with her wording, style and amazing imagery.

Her work has been admired by innumerable legendary poets of Armenia: Shiraz, Sevak, Emin and Kaputikian, among others… In many ways, Ghiragossián is considered the last bastion of the Armenian Renaissance in poetry.

Since 1992, her manuscripts and bronze bust are kept at the National Museum of Art and Literature of Armenia. And since 2008, Alicia Ghiragossián, is an Honorary Doctor of the National Academy of Sciences of Armenia.

In South America, some composers, such as internationally acclaimed Argentine tango icon Astor Piazzolla, have composed music inspired by her poetry.

Argentine renowned writers have expressed their amazement toward her work: Jorge Luis Borges, Ulises Petit de Murat, Cesar Tiempo, Bernardo Koremblit and many others, as well as Argentine great painters who illustrated her work: Urruchúa, Bruzzone, Policastro and Grandi.

In the United States of America Dr. Ghiragossián has conducted a workshop in Modern Poetry at UCLA, given lectures at universities in different states, and participated in national congresses of literature.

A significant number of articles and reviews appeared highlighting her extraordinary creative talent, including the Los Angeles Journal and the Book Wire Review. And President Barack Obama has wished her success.

Her work has been published in Italian, Persian, Greek and French and has also been translated into Portuguese, Russian and Swedish.

At the University of San Pablo, Brazil, her work was the subject of a thesis for a Ph.D. in Literature.

The poet has traveled through several countries in Europe and South America, with poetry recitals and lectures, and has participated in world congresses of poetry (Spain, Morocco, Greece).

Although attached to her Armenian roots, her voice is not local, it has a universal range. Her vision of the world and her connection with other dimensions make us think she channels the spirits of the great poets and philosophers in history. That makes her multifaceted, transcendental, and meta-dimensional work resonate in the hearts of her admirers.

Ghiragossián has earned hundreds of testimonials. She has conquered the respect and endorsement of several world icons and Nobel Peace Laureates, such as His Holiness the 14^th Dalai Lama, Dr. Oscar Arias Sanchez, president of Costa Rica, and John Hume, member of the British Parliament.

Likewise, giants of international stature, such as Jaques Prevert, Juana de Ibarbourou and William Saroyan have praised the truth and beauty of her verses.

There is an ever present quest for Love in the folds of her verses; a Love that outspreads to Peace, her Roots, Motherhood, Truth and spiritual beauty.

Reading her lines we are convinced that Love possesses the magical influence to purify, transport, elevate and recreate the being; that it is the key to open the roads to an elevated state of being. She understands that the lack of Love in the world opens the roads to pain, isolation, fear, injustice, genocide and wars.

She is convinced that poetical expressions are formidably mighty, they transcend language, and their energy is directly detected by the soul, which grows in refinement under the influence of poetry that elevates.

She is, without any doubt, profoundly idealistic. She rebels against the corruption in society, the vanities, shallowness, the game of interests, the corrosion of envy and other human weaknesses, and brings a new scope through her perceptions. Basically, her objective is to provoke a shift of consciousness in humankind toward spiritual values.

The creation of Dr. Alicia Ghiragossián is a valuable contribution to the world. for the evolution of mind and soul. Her poetry inspires introspection and growth toward a Culture of Ethics, and a Culture of Divinity and Love.

 

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I wish you all the best in your future endeavors.

BARACK OBAMA, President of the United States of America, 2008

 

Profound and lovely poetry.

BILL RICHARDSON, Governor of New Mexico, 2008

 

 

 

Books like this [Peace Quantum] contribute towards the spread of peace in the world, and I would like to add my support…

THE DALAI LAMA, Nobel Peace Laureate, 2005

 

Soaring and timeless poetry.

DR. OSCAR ARIAS SANCHEZ, Nobel Peace Laureate, President of Costa Rica, 2005

 

A wonderful collection of poems, both inspiring and moving.

EDUARD MORTIMER, Communications Director of United Nations, 2005

 

Her work is that of a mystic, with a soaring quality that evokes cathedrals.

LOS ANGELES JOURNAL, 2005

 

Tapping into the frequencies that…can change the universe.

INTERNET COLUMN, 2005

 

One can sense you are not lying, you are writing the truth.
JORGE LUIS BORGES, Argentine candidate for the Nobel Prize in Literature, 1984.

The poetry of Ghiragossián is deep, very deep.
HOVANNES SHIRAZ, one of the greatest Armenian poets of the XXth century, 1980.

About Alicia, God has expressed His opinion. He has given her in huge amounts.

KEVORK EMIN, Armenian poet laureate, 1980.

 

Great admiration for Alicia Ghiragossian. Beautiful, beautiful poetry.

WILLIAM SAROYAN, Pulitzer Prize Laureate, 1979

 

 

 

Poems which do not have their pair in our rich and secular Armenian chants.

SILVA GABOUDIKIAN, Armenian poet laureate, 1976.

 [A] salute full of admiration and affection.
JUANA DE IBARBOUROU, Uruguayan poet of international fame, 1970.

Without any doubt, Alicia is a great talent.
BARUYR SEVAG, the greatest Armenian poet of the XXth century. 1967.

 

 

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