Jesus Arias with Joe Strummer during the latter’s ‘disappearance’ in the 1980s when he removed to Granada
It was Tymon’s birthday yesterday and would it have also been the birthday of dear friend and astrological brother, Jesús Arias.
When we were in Granada last month we went with Jesus’s brother to Visnar where the family had decided to inter Jesus’s ashes. This is the dreadful spot where thousands of victims of the fascists were shot dead and disposed off during the Spanish civil war (including the great poet Federico Garcia Lorca) and afterwards until Franco finally died (of natural causes) in 1975.
How beautiful it was, despite the chill of that gloomy cold soil, to see that from the very spot where the brothers Arias had dug down Jesus’s ashes, a strong green plant growing.
And how amazing that that plant was a hawthorn.
Hawthorn is believed to have been the very plant from which Jesus of Nazareth’s ‘crown of thorns’ was made.
Was this an affirmation from beyond the grave – from Jesus – that all does not end with our last breath… or was it a mere coincidence?
RIP Jesus. See you soon!
Tymon Dogg 