Magic in Their Hearts

"It seemed that the more I knew about people the more I knew about the strange magic hidden in their hearts" (Rudolfo Anaya. Bless Me, Ultima. pg. 109).

In Bless Me, Ultima, Narciso is known as the town drunk. One night Cico brings Antonio to the garden of Narciso- a garden with every kind of fruit and vegetable, with soft ground, and with sweet fragrance. Antonio eats a carrot and says he has "never eaten anything sweeter or juicier"(109). Cico tells Antonio that Narciso dances and sings as he plants by moonlight, and that the garden is drunk like Narciso. Antonio realized that people don't simply fit the labels assigned to them by others.

In high school, I became involved with genealogy, using censuses and other records to piece together more of our family tree.

Part of my family tree on my dad's side

For a while, it felt like I was just looking for names. Then I came across a thin book with the story of my ancestors who had come from Denmark to the United States. I read their story and realized that each of those names had been a real person. The more I learned about them, the more I recognized there was so much I didn't know about their lives. Instead of just wondering about names, I wondered who they were as people.

Similarly, as Antonio learns more about the world and the people around him, he has more and more questions. He wonders why evil goes unpunished, why good people suffer, and why people are the way they are. In Narciso's garden, he learns that people should not be categorized. He sees magic in the heart of Narciso that the rest of the town could not see through the label of drunk they had placed on him.

Antonio sees magic in many places growing up: in Ultima's ability to heal, in the evil practices of the Trementina sisters, and in the stories told by the adults and children. He comes to see this magic within other people, but he also sees the magic in that people are unique and complex. The more we learn about others, whether our ancestors or the people around us, the more we realize there will always be more to learn about who they are as human beings.

Beginnings

"Let me begin at the beginning. I do not mean the beginning that was in my dreams and the stories they whispered to me about my birth, and the people of my father and mother, and my three brothers--but the beginning that came with Ultima" (Rudolfo Anaya. Bless Me, Ultima. pg. 1).

In this novel, Ultima is a curandera, "one who cures with herbs and magic." She delivered Antonio into the world, and is a close friend to his mother. Antonio's six-year-old life changes when Ultima comes to live with their family. This is where he begins his story.

We often try to establish "beginnings" and "ends" to things. Some things seem to have definite beginnings and ends. Take for example running a race. All the racers stand at the starting line, and the gun or horn signifies the "beginning."

Starting line at the Top of Utah Marathon

Whenever I cross the finish line in a race, there seems to be a definite "end".

Me crossing the finish line of the St. George Marathon

But if someone were to ask me where the "beginning" was for me, it would be last June, when my husband and I started following a regular training schedule. In fact, I could even say that my "beginning" was in 6th grade when I discovered a love for running.

In our Humanities class, we have discussed the topic of "origins." What are the origins of Latin America? Are they in European conquest and colonialism? Are they in the indigenous peoples? Are they in a certain war or event in history? What about the origins of an individual? Are they in the time they moved to a new city? Are they in the day they were born? Each of these points represents a major change in a life or a society. When I started training for a marathon, I changed by growing stronger and I developing more endurance. After a war, especially a civil war, a country is changed and will often never be the same.

There is a famous quote saying, "The only constant is change." In our lives, there will always be change as a result of our choices and the choices of those around us. Whether we call them changes, origins, beginnings, or ends, they continually define who we are and shape the course of our lives.

Building From Others

Alcione Dias Nazareth, Não Deixe o Samba Morrer

This song is a classic example of Latin American Samba. Samba music originated in Brazil, but much of its roots are in African rhythms and drum beats and European influences. Like much of Latin American music, it is a fusion of traditions from different cultures. Great creativity and innovation can come from building off of others' ideas and creations.

One invention that had a huge influence on modern music was the development of Musical Instrument Digital Interface (MIDI) in the 1980's. MIDI devices, including electronic keyboards, speak a common language, with messages describing what notes are to be played and for how long, the tempo, which instruments are to be played, and at what volumes. The invention of MIDI allowed for the development of notation software. With notation software, music may be entered into a music score on the computer, played back via MIDI instructions, and revised extensively before being printed. This was a totally new kind of work space for composers, and it led to a burst of creativity in music composition.

Finale Music Notation Software- user workspace

Just as notation software provides a new kind of work space and a new way to think about music, the fusion of cultures that has taken place in the history of Latin America has provided a multitude of new ideas and ways of thinking about music. When African and European people came together, each had their own instruments and their own musical traditions. Bringing these ideas together gave all the people new ideas to work with. The fusion allowed for the creation of something new: the music of samba.

The music of Latin America continues to evolve as composers are influenced by interactions with others and by inventions such as electronic music. Whether new instruments, new software, or new musical ideas, the creations and inventions of others can provide us inspiration to help us think outside our bubble and create something unique and beautiful.

Bifurcations in Time

"In all fiction, when a man is faced with alternatives he chooses one at the expense of the others. In the almost unfathomable Ts'ui Pen, he chooses—simultaneously—all of them. He thus creates various futures, various times which start others that will in their turn branch out and bifurcate in other times." (Jorge Luis Borges, The Garden of Forking Paths).

In this short story, Yu Tsun's ancestor wrote a maze-like novel. Rather than events having one outcome, various outcomes would occur simultaneously, leading to various futures. Theoretically, Ts'ui Pen considered all possibilities for the future and for the past as having occurred.  This philosophy of time can be better understood in comparison to Bifurcation diagrams in biological modeling.

Take for example an equation to model population size with respect to time, the discrete logistic equation: 

x_n+1 = rx_n(1-x_n)

x_n is the population size at time n. So the equation compares the population size at time n+1 to the size at time n. In the equation, "r" is a constant that describes the growth rate of the population. Depending on this parameter "r", the population will exhibit different growth patterns. A bifurcation diagram compares the value of the parameter "r" with the long-term behavior of the population size.

When "r" is small (less than about 3), the population will converge to a certain size. When r is greater than 3 but less than 3.5, the population will cycle between 2 population values. This is the "split" we see in the diagram (called a bifurcation point). When "r" is larger than this value, we begin to see more chaotic and less predictable behavior in the population size.

Ts'ui Pen novel could be seen as a sort of bifurcation diagram. He considers many possibilities of what could occur at each point in time. The "bifurcation points" in his novel are the events that change the course of things. The greater number of changes that Ts'ui Pen considered, the greater number of future possibilities he could see. The events that occur each moment determine the directions things will go. 

Just as a tsunami could throw off our model for population size, life will have many unexpected turns. Ts'ui Pen tried to demonstrate these different possibilities in his novel, but even then he did not cover all the possibilities. The future truly does hold an infinite number of possibilities.