Serpentine dance

with guest contributor Luisa Brando Laserna

Luisa is originally from Colombia, now living in Madrid, Spain. She participated in Living Waters 1, and then joined the ongoing Sentient Rivers inquiry group. Over the past three years she has developed a close relationship with the Manzanares River, in both his urban and rural modes. Luisa is dedicated to art and architecture projects sensitive to landscape and heritage conservation; her narratives from River visits are full of images from her sketchbook. This post is a verbal and visual account of her recent interaction with Manzanares

I am not sure where to begin. 

It is such a gift to see them fly, 
to see them dance. 
Straight arrows that float,
that draw serpentines in the sky. 

They dance, and I smile. 
I am reminded once again that river had asked me to dance. 
Captivated with such beauty, with such a gift,
with a knot in my throat I try to follow them imagining the lines they draw. 

I wish I knew what birds they are, if they are “agiluchos” or vultures. 

Does it matter?

Serpentine Geometry. Image Luisa Brando Laserna

Last night I dreamt with a snake. 
Her skin shined, and so did her colors. 
Red, black, yellow and white. 
They created a sort of pattern, 
a geometry that I was attracted to.
I thought about what dreaming of a snake meant while coming to river.
I was reminded again of her because of the bird's captivating serpentine dance.

Those dances, 
those serpentines. 
I want to draw them.
I want to give back the gift. 

Today ki’s waters were a gate since the beginning of our encounter.  

The gate was not a vertical door. It was horizontal. Like Carlos Scarpa’s door in Venice. A gateway to another dimension, to other sensorial perceptions, other rhythms, different codes of language. An access or an opportunity to enter another world… the real world. 

Ancient door placed horizontally by Carlos Scarpa in Venice Architecture Faculty courtyard. Photo: Luisa Brando Laserna

I had left a gift at home, a rock I wanted to give to river. I had chosen a rock that reminded me of a message that August's full moon shared with me. As I was looking intensely at her, she became the eye of an animal (ki´s shape was not defined, but the shape was the one of a mammal). And ki’s eye shone bright, asking me to focus. To bring my creative energy towards a point.

This was the drawing of the moon being an eye of a mammal like animal. In my box of stones, I found one that looked similar. 

I wanted to give it to river. But I left it at home when changing my bags.

I decide to draw over ki´s waters and tell Manzanares about the gift that I had forgotten at home. I drew the animal shape and the eye. And in a playful manner, next to my drawing, a succession of circles emerged. As if a drop had fallen. I smile. 

Then I look up to the sky  to see if the birds are still dancing, and there she is. The moon…

She was always there.

There was this beautiful Monet-like feeling on river. The reflection seemed to picture nature as this blurry subject. But these grasses in particular that where pulsating in front of me seemed to reflect something else. An almost nervous movement. A hint of river being stressed. Of nature being stressed.

I felt how river absorbs all of the tensions and pressures in ki´s waters, and then reflects, releases. Water as a solvent of the negative forces that are all around. So much pressure. 

This reflection somehow seemed to me like an electrocardiogram, as a way of measuring the tension. Agitated, wavy lines.