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inspiration

The act of breathing life into something, according to some definitions.

Ever wonder how much a few words can inspire? Well, the words "se hace camino al andar" (make the road by walking) originally inscribed by Spanish Poet Antonio Machado have inspired quite a number of things.

There's a community action center in New York, "Make the Road New York/Se hace Camino New York", which in turn inspired a group of musicians called "The Menahan Street Band" to dub their latest musical offering after the center which is located nearby the place where their music was created. (Jay-Z fans should thank MSB for their composition, "Make the road by Walking" which served as the basis for the hit "Roc Boys (and the winner is")

Machado's words also inspired the title of perhaps one of the most lauded books on social and educational change. Written by educators Myles Horton and Paulo Freire, "We Make the Road by Walking" is a work that focuses on the dialogue between these educators from different cardinal points about pedagogy, social criticism and collective struggle. I intend to pick it up sometime soon.

But what is somewhat ironic about all of this inspiration is that the context of those life-giving words is quite the opposite from what most would expect.

The inspiring words are contained within two verses from "Proverbios y cantares XXIX" in Campos de Castilla

Caminante, son tus huellas

el camino y nada más;

Caminante, no hay camino,

se hace camino al andar.

Al andar se hace el camino,

y al volver la vista atrás

se ve la senda que nunca

se ha de volver a pisar.

Caminante no hay camino

sino estelas en la mar

I first heard these words in a song by Joan Manuel Serrat, my mother owned a few of his LPs, and quite honestly, I though it was a somewhat depressing song. The song's lyrics were more focused on the nostalgic effect of traveling and told of how a poet died away from his patria. Here's the song performed by Serrat.

I could put a refran in here on how everythiing one writes can influence the future, but it would be an overstatement. I will say this, you never know when someone will take something you said and turn it into something different. For the worse-hopefully not-or for the better. 

Posted by Maurel Merette at 11:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)