Archetype.
18 February 2011, Pontremoli, Italy
The pediatrician’s office was fascinatingly archaic. No front desk. Nor computer. Not even a clipboard with a sign-in sheet. No scary pamphlets or drug advertisements, but handwritten announcements in colored pen adorned the walls. A few mothers sat with children in modern chairs along a corridor for about ten minutes per child, identical little green 1970s vaccination books in hand. Remembering the little green book to record vaccinations is a small price to pay for healthcare.
Other than styles of dress, it could have been any day in any era, and I assume that in twenty-five years, other than styles of dress, one will experience a carbon copy of today’s scene. The mothers in the waiting room bore slight variations on a basic uniform: severe haircuts with hip, thick, blunt bangs in either a single-deposit slightly-aubergine-tinged black tone or an orange-cast blonde with platinum highlights, either blown dry to sculpted perfection or scrunched into a windproof tumbleweed. There wasn’t a dry or colorless lip in the lot, and those unfortunate to need corrective eyewear do so with authority. Chunky plastic Sofia Loren frames hover closely over a chunky kohl version of Sofia Loren makeup, necklines mostly bundled with something fuzzy around the face in the winter chill. Form-fitting puffer coats, in varied finishes from flat to reflective, vaccu-sealing them down to the knees where boots take over to continue the job. This is rural Italy’s late Generation X and early Generation Y, more worldly than their predecessors, but home to roost in a nest of tradition.
An elderly woman sat waiting for her daughter and grandchild, possibly the great-grandchild, her head wrapped in a black and white head covering reminiscent of a nun’s habit. Her face was etched like the palm of a hand, a multitude of lifelines passing through hers and behind dark eyes was a workworn shell, her parched skin threadbare from tireless service. I believe she was Romanian, of the people who find their way to Italy to become laborers of gypsies. She was void of all emotion, the villager spark absent in her eyes, clearly not Italian.
Birth is exceptionally momentous here, an entire village often frozen in place at the sight of an approaching mother and buggy. It was just yesterday when we stopped at the mechanic shop and three smudged men came out from beneath car hoods to coo at a wiggling Elio in the rear of the Conti car. By now it is no surprise to me when a shriek or cartoon-like mouth expansion aimed at amusing the baby causes multiple delays on the day’s errands, for which there is painfully limited time to begin with. When there is a new baby, one must factor in being stopped by each and every passer-by when creating an agenda, and plan [realistically] accordingly. My peaceful time with Elio is when he is sleeping in the car and I have time to make notes about the day while Cornelia “pops into the post” or has to “run in to pay the fruit and veg guy.” Beside the sweet-smelling silky-skinned breather, I sketch and scratch my thoughts into the notebook I bought in London, the one I scrambled to find when I was moved to compose a piece earlier in this blog (art awakens.) The notebook itself is developmental, my scratches getting shorter with integration and the words coming alive of their own choosing.
Deliberately noticing everything is my oxygen, and where it takes me is nirvana. Immersion into an Old World traditional lifestyle is blending my edges gently, hardened parts and petulance fading with expanding borders. And beside me Elio sleeps, a new addition to this wheel of life, joining me as an unsung archetype, The Guided. Every One is. But not all will look and listen and dream. Some will just be, and others will just do. And all of them are perfect.
Twilight.
Wednesday, 16 February 2011, Lunigiana, Italy
There is a sweet, gentle, short-sleeved linen smell to well-groomed elderly European men, particularly in a village where age is honorably earned, and in no way a social affliction punishable by isolation. So much of Italian culture is its seniors, the storytellers that keep Italy alive with folklore and a bubbling ideology simmering in an iron cauldron beneath a weatherworn mantle. They are active in their lives, and the lives of all other villagers, a lifetime of engaged bodies living in every way possible, undetectable decline that is the twilight of years occurring gently, naturally, and peacefully.
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Toil is in the blood, each day one of not- necessarily systematic doingness, the very doingness that embraces beingness, keeping glints of youth’s hope alive and well. Never in my life have I seen a society of body and soul in unison. Never does one exist exclusive of the other. Engaged are the facial muscles, each one linked to a particularly passionate trigger. In essence, without the musculo-facial system, there would be stories failing to carry on, loves never expressed, and warnings falling on deaf ears. For an Italian, in every way possible, there is so much more to life than words can ever suggest. Life is lived with every pore, expressed in every digit, squeezed through the eyes and lips, and given back to the Earth after a long and complete life. Perhaps not worthy of a Bestseller, but certainly fullness, richness to the end of your days. You don’t grow old miserably here, nor do you do so quickly or without grace. You are never alone, nor ashamed of no longer being what you once had been. In fact, you are still that one, underneath lines and sun spots, dignified as ever, as you groom, maintain, chop wood, carry water, make, do, go, see, love, bitch… until you perish into the collective history of a well-preserved library of European lives well-lived.
I am sitting in a bar on Wednesday morning with a less than satisfying caffe latte, but only because I meant to order a latte macchiato, but forgot to mention the macchiato part. At the five-week mark, I am beyond the coffee honeymoon stage and am therefore able to distinguish between qualities of bar coffee. What would happen in The Slow Life, were espresso to become contraband? How slow would slow become? Perhaps the childhood fable about the tortoise and the hare is more prophetic than the average children’s folk tale, perhaps slow and steady does indeed win the race. For a person in his seventies in Italy is barely considered a senior, his lifestyle a continuum of the turning wheel, a fully engaged body and soul, and a face that is manifest destiny. It is not so rare for one outlive a century, and I theorize that long life is attainable with a life of purpose, no matter how grand or sweet, for without purpose, without meaning, we are all simply waiting to die. A peasant’s country’s legacy is the dignity of self-sustaining independence. Everyone is a part of the wheel, each one significant in the chain of survival. Paolo, the cheese man, has a life paved with primordial knowledge of cheese as the art, the craft, and the staple. A piece of history is each and every bite in this country, as is each citizen at any age. Slow life is not sedentary life, but is steady life, and it wins the race. Isn’t it a big win that each of your days count for something, and that you are loved and respected and embraced at any age?
Convenience is a wolf in sheep’s clothing, its very nature to assist us in creating our own death. Fast food. An electric can opener. Escalators. Saving time and energy means wasting life, where a task could have otherwise engaged one. What quality of life is all this providing, and it is all worth it when we grow old with nowhere to put our hands, or our passions, if we have any left. The elderly in Italy are both the watchmen and the ambassadors for the village, preservers of history, and tellers of tales. They are in bars, at the open air markets, grocery shopping, gossiping on street corners, playing cards, sweeping stoops, giving the eye to a passer-by, working in fields, hanging laundry, shelling chestnuts, and drying porcini mushrooms. Daily life keeps them vital. Having survived such a rich and treacherous history and passing stories along keeps the eye glint ignited. I have yet to encounter a mobility scooter, walker, excessive weight, nor a clothes dryer. On every balcony are clothes drying racks and out every window hang last night’s bed linens. Age-old wisdom extols the virtues of fresh air for the laundry and for the little quandaries of daily life that the breeze never fails to carry away.
Indelible.
09 February 2011, Podere Conti, Lunigiana, Italy
Magic sparks of humanity on every stoop. The flamenco on a third-floor terrace or a waltz in the olive grove are the colors of laundry in daily life. It is everywhere. Every day. Daily life, that is. And the faces living it. And the measures they take to secure it and pass it along, the integrity of Lunigiana protected by legacy. I fear that if I do not note on paper every moment I am dizzy with contentment, their potency could eventually fade into the neutrality that is the norm. Is it possible? Can I ever journey the entire world until the very last ember of passion pops off, leaving me with only a broken soap dish and an espresso dispenser to remember them by? Does a gypsy ever land face to face with apathy?
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Today marks a month’s stay thus far, and it has passed in a flash, April’s date of expiry creeping toward me like the shadow of the tax man. A self-imposed departure competing with an open-ended invitation to stay, stay, stay… my mind is playing with pin-pricked emotions. Come 10 April, I simply will not have seen enough, felt enough, and absorbed enough, a shameful proposition to just let it all fall flat, filed into an album of “nice travel memories.” So now I face my own will to plan and sort, challenging it to recall Lama Chodrak’s instruction to “be in this moment.”
It is the Italian village people who are most moving me at present. One can never over-act the role of an Italian, because many of them are stereotypes by their own nature, the caricature of an Italian easily portrayed by over-the-top dramatists and comedians alike. They basically live in the moment completely, unless, of course, they are worried about the future. Italians are passionate, suspicious, and obstinate people who are most often more happy to see you than your own Labrador could possibly rehearse, a characteristic well known worldwide of the Italians. But take heed, for other stereotypes persist in the reality of this beautifully complex people, for that of the Italian with the agenda is also quite universal, a culture of peasantry’s struggle for survival ever-present in the faces and tactics of the townspeople. Yes, the beautiful contrasts are most intriguing, between the simplicity of a slow village lifestyle formed on the traditions developed only within a few kilometers’ radius to the global recognition of products born simply of what Earth offered in the region. What is gourmet in parts of the world grows in another man’s backyard. Perhaps he even considers them as weeds, shaking his fist at dawn’s first dewy glimpse of a bumper crop he has no use for.
On Sunday, an English friend, Laura, drove me to Bergamo for a lunch with her sisters with our two dogs, who became fast friends, strapped in the rear seat of her English right-hand-drive VW Polo, in respect of Italian law. After a long hilly ride along a winding Autostada, in and out of tunnels, falling behind trains, and blazing past mind-jarring medieval village after crumbling stone mansion, we were suddenly dropped onto the surface of industrial flatland, the Detroit of Italy that is outer Milan. A layer of smog tickled at the heels of the car in front of us, gaseous vapors discreetly shimmying upward from the pavement. From an ancient community of sustainability to another of global mass production it was jarring indeed, and obviously added to Laura’s irritability with the bossy English GPS woman’s voice scolding us.
“At the roundabout, take the third exit. At the roundabout, take the third exit. At the roundabout…”
An exasperated Laura rounded the rosie a little too quickly and accidentally terrorized a jaywalking family dressed for Sunday lunch. Of course, jaywalking is an American concept, so I suppose the only real offense the family had committed is not punishable, other than the obvious risk to their lives. In Italy, apparently, it is perfectly acceptable to grab your entire extended family and run across the road, in spite of the oncoming car spinning with centrifugal force out of a roundabout only 15 meters away. For it was with such authority that the father stood in front of our car, glared in at an apologetic Laura to my right, and slung the most insulting comment he could muster while shaking a fist:
“Inglaterra!” (“England!”)
It is these quirky little character moments that have me smiling in awe and writing feverishly in my little leather journal on trips into town or while waiting for boys in judo class, wanting indelible documents to make these moments last forever for me. I want to hold them all, every chip from the roughest of diamonds, somewhere that I can always find them, in the event that I forget them on darker days. And there will be those dark ones, because our challenge is to evolve, and evolution is a painful process full of twisted perception, eyes used to seeing through one type of lens when the scenery changes without warning. It is these journals that will be my medicine on those days of question. Through my own words I will once again see the village so untainted, a nineteen-year-old shepherd boy who waved me over to join him with his flock with my camera, but has no computer or email for me to send him the photos. His invitation was not for himself. It was simply a person doing his dharma. And oh, the image of the ankles of an elderly village woman… suffocating inside a nylon sheath while being met with sensible, very forgettable shoes. The women who own such ankles, hose, and shoes are members of a secret society that can full-body scan without moving an eye muscle, suspicious and unthrilled about who and what could be a threat to the Village’s status quo. And they are everywhere. And they are adorable. And they are Italy.
To notice and to question, to laugh and to be inspired… all of these will keep me young inside. Preserving moments, documenting fragments in time, the ones too precious to risk slipping through, noting each place inside I have become attuned to and listening for its instructive resonance. Noticing means warding off jadedness, the inquisitive mind resourcing the patterns stored in younger cell memory from a time when intrigue was the giver of life. And it is by noticing that I am learning how many ways there are to live a life, examples dancing in slow motion across fields or on rooftops, in desert luxury or in mountainside yurts. When we notice, question, and embrace, we become the sum of all our own hand-picked parts, a whole person built of a collection of bits brought home from the whole of our Earth.
Instinct.
Saturday, 05 February 2011, Macerie di Filatteria/Pontremoli, Italy
Nothing ushers out a winter cold like the first day of Spring. Little Tibo had it in his step as well, and we bundled up at the first sign of golden sun to help Papa prune the trees. Of course, “pruning” is a relative term. A proud man with a powerful chain saw sees no contest in facing nature’s survival of the fittest, and the area around the vegetable garden-to-be transformed from rustic to classic Tuscany in a few buzzing strokes. Summer will certainly paint in the foliage and bring the postcard to life. The farmer down the road, the man with the dairy cows, has claimed that, although only early February, Spring is here to stay, with no further threat of snow or wind storms. This further warmed me, for a farmer in these hills knows intimately each and every sign.
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The children’s incentive to collect sticks and add them to the pile was a bonfire with all the trimmings, save for the ones that will become chippati for the earth-friendly furnace that burns wood clean, and whose ashes are a perfect addition to compost. Twenty-four minutes of twelve helping hands became a full day of only four, all others either feeding a bottomless baby or careening through the fields on bicycles… then with a soccer ball… then with plastic could-have-been-guns-cold have-been-light-sticks… then running off and disappearing down tiered terraces, one level at a time, fire engine red cardigan splashing color into a barren and grey scene. But it won’t be long before green. Tiny buds on branches were already pushing their points upward, and a single yellow wildflower, then a pink one, basked in the early days of sunshine. The stillness of Spring into Summer is definitely in the air, and longer shadows are beginning to form, liquid strokes across the lawn in the latter part of the day. Yes, the quickening of summer’s approach can be felt, and four energetic boys played roughly all afternoon, tumbling down hillsides of aromatic herbs bordered by juniper and wild strains of kale that will be balled into Maria’s gnocchi dough and served with butter and our garden sage.
The dogs, too, could feel the change in the air. Farm dogs that live outside are seldom inspired by wooden sticks, I imagine, given the bevy of grounded segments present on any given day. But today a simple lichen-sheathed branch was grounds for a dogfight, perhaps fueled by Spring’s gift of rebirth. Is it not in the Spring of life’s seasons, the formative years, that we begin to practice possessiveness and greed? Anyone raising a toddler is no stranger to “MINE!” I witness daily each of four children who will trick the three others into believing there is nothing left of the apple nectar, while having a secret stash to himself in the cupboard. I have seen tears from the others over how much pasta one boy has taken, regardless of the heaping remainder in the master pot at the center of the table. And I have seen adults in this world plot viciously over possessions, both in the home, and in societal domination. In fact, it is this animal nature that Earth is instructing us to overcome, so that we can find in our minds the most powerful of all domination, complete independence from the ball and chain of havingness.
Is insatiableness a learned behaviour, or merely an involuntary reflex formed deeply within the helix of our anthropological makeup? I tend to believe the latter, our human tendencies only a few postures beyond animalism. The unfortunate truth is: that which differentiates us from the entirety of the animal kingdom, a great gift and curse of complexity, is the mind. Beautiful mind, so expansive, endless supply of energy that is creation, one that allows us to move beyond the mere instincts of survival. We can never understand its potential, its powerful ability to manipulate our own perceptions for convenience, while we shape our world with second-rate brainwaves formed by the mass dismissal of conscious evolution. We are doing it daily, without knowing it. With our animal instincts of greed and gluttony, consuming and hoarding, clinging to ideals created by an earlier evolution of man and guided by abbreviated truths, we are unwittingly counteracting the creation of a paradise so grand, we are too immobilized to conceive of it, much less get out of our own way to create it and claim it for own. Perhaps it is that inability to perceive our own potential, to exercise and grow the mind, to learn and study and to entertain the “what if’s” that keeps us rooted in animal and not quite ready for the power bestowed on creator, the mind. If only there were an owner’s manual. If only we could forgo school of training for school of thought. It is the responsibility of the owner of a mind to create evolution beyond the prowess of land-bound instinct.
Long shadows instructed us to laugh and play in the remainder of the daylight, bonfire ablaze on the hill somewhere, early afternoon’s forgotten offering. The dogs and children were possessed by Spring energy, tirelessly running in fields against the backdrop of hillside villages and steeples in the brush. Rough and tumble micro-battles continued throughout the day until a small evolution happened right on the lawn. Little Tibo, who did not have a partner in the game and was all day in tears, was offered Lincoln, my dachshund, as a partner, since the game revolved around Lincoln’s fetching a tennis ball from the kids’ new American acquisition, the “Chuckit” Tennis Ball Launcher. Lincoln was winning nearly every round against the other children, and Tibo, the youngest, lacked strength. The other boys elected Lincoln and his low-ground advantage to team with Tibo’s size disadvantage. And it worked. And everyone was offered what he needed, and all were satisfied and productive. Yes, there were winners. But there were no longer losers.
Fascism.
02 February 2011, Podere Conti, Lunigiana, Italia
In Italy, food is the nucleus of all things good. In fact, I can’t cite a situation in the world where food isn’t, than a land of famine, or maybe a clinical rehab for eating disorders. Even there, however, the focus is food and how to maintain the integrity of its purpose, rather than to continue an abuse pattern inflicted on one’s self. Yes, food glorious food is a double-edged sword, both precious sustenance and addictive evil, depending on the relationship. But isn’t that true of all good things? How does it go so terribly awry? I believe the relationship is formed in youth.
I am sitting in the main house, happy baby wiggling his arms and legs about, and a young Tibo home from school with a fever. I myself am not quite well today, perhaps the chill of the wind having gotten into my bones, or maybe a body cleanse carrying out yesterday’s toxin in today’s new dawn, depending on school of thought. In any case, I am feeling rotten from head to toe, and the early signs of Spring are taunting me from outside the window. What to eat this morning is a challenge, since nothing seems appetizing whatsoever, even after staring into a full refrigerator of delicious quality foods. I just closed the refrigerator door for the fourth time and noticed one of the many schedules attached, clip magnets working overtime for a seven-person household. On closer examination, I have discovered the lunch menu for the children’s school, and took it down for a thorough gander at what Tibo is missing today.
Herb ravioli in Tuscan oil, chicken breast with lemon, grated carrots and fresh seasonal fruits. That is today’s menu at the school in Filattiera, Italy. Determined to unearth something dreadfully unhealthy, I investigated further into yesterday’s, only to discover it was Minestrone with barley, local cheese from the Lunigiana region, seasonal vegetables, and yogurt with fresh fruit for dessert. Public school. And if Tibo will be well enough for school tomorrow, he will be having an herb torte, turkey scaloppini, and fresh fruits. In my recollection, canned peas of a brownish hue were a staple on our sectioned trays in grade school, and “sloppy joes” were a food group of their own, canned “Manwich” sauce in great abundance in public schools, even in privileged areas. Red fruit punch stained our lips nearly daily, a single fruit inside impossible to identify beneath the heaping cup of added sugar per ounce of water. And of course there was the syrup-soaked cling peaches, reeking of metal from a lifetime of canned imprisonment. How long had it been since the peach had seen the light of day? And that was thirty-two years ago, when Nixon’s agricultural legacy had only just begun to wage war on the American population, trust in government’s involvement in nutrition sealed in earlier incarnations of 1992’s Food Pyramid.
It was just this morning that I decided to surf the American news, to dip a toe into the [sic] “real world.” I have vowed to read U.S. news only once in a great while, and I believe three weeks is ample time for a check-in. The fist article I found, outside of reports on the Egypt crisis of which we are well abreast here, was that the FDA had rejected yet another drug to combat obesity. Really? Could it be a coincidence that the FDA and its appointed political affiliates are the ones who created obesity to begin with? Is there no money in a healthy America? It was particularly interesting to read related news, defenders of fast-food super-sizing and readers speaking out about removing people’s rights by reversing the epidemic of obesity through regulation of fast food chains. One woman claimed that she “likes to eat super-sized meals,” and that if they removed them from fast food menus, she would “eat three or four regular meals instead,” and that it was her “human right to eat as much as [she] wanted to eat.” Well, in theory, it is a basic human right to make one’s own choices. But clearly it isn’t working, for so many people are destroying themselves and the very narrow world around them with the lack of common sense they are exhibiting. What’s worse is that the marketing of “healthy convenience” is right there on-site to drive the last nail in the proverbial coffin. Hence, death to common sense and the assault on the human body.
We read of government tyranny elsewhere and think we are the Land of the Free. Political parties scream and yell and twist the constitution’s mandates to suit their individual agendas. We cling to a document that was created at a different time in the Earth’s evolution, a time when Government without religion was a novelty, yet with lingering religious leftovers masked by the text of freedom. What have we done with these alleged choices, when the same government “giving” the choices is creating dependency for its own profit? At the end of it all, there are no choices. We have just been made to believe we are free. But how free is a society whose food system is tainted by big business?
Adult children populate society, completely manipulated by words and imagery. Even worse, taste bud manipulation is stealth warfare on the senses, sugars, fats and starches inserted into nearly everything on the shelves that will last longer than one day, “For Your Busy Lifestyle.” Children’s cereals are “fortified with essential vitamins” while the sugars jolt their little systems, cartoon characters befriending them on the television like a wolf in sheep’s clothing. And, of course, my personal favorite, the candy bar advertised as something good to curb your hunger and fuel your day, when in all reality it will spike you and crash you, creating the need for more, more, more to follow.
When left to our own devices, we self-destruct. One could argue that it is our right to self-destruct, and to regulate those rights is fascism. But isn’t pumping food with chemicals and genetically-modified scientific sugars behind closed doors a fascist approach to controlling the public? Is lobbying FOR High Fructose Corn Syrup on national television during prime time “Real Housewives” not a bold-masked-as-subtle suggestion that eating blindly what is on shelves is perfectly okay?
Sadly, the message is that health is no longer a birthright. In the United Sates, normal food (by other countries’ standards) is considered gourmet and is priced accordingly, leaving chemically-produced products to the masses. It is cheap to pack in 1200 calories in a sitting at McDonald’s, and you get to help the corn industry while you save money feeding your entire family. Of course the health care you require when your pre-existing diabetic condition overtakes you is not available, and the long-term cost of that extra-value meal far surpasses the economical meal planning that was marketed as a complete balance of food groups at a bargain price. It begins in schools, where canned, mass-produced and sweetened “savories” are trained into us, and we have a palate now that expects these toxic tastes. A conventional jar of spaghetti sauce is case in point.
Am I a fascist to believe that people cannot be left to their own choices? No, because the illusion of “choice” is where the problem lies. When people are left to their own choices within a limited set of choices, the real fascism is what is hidden in how those choices are controlled and dispensed to a public of little exposure. Unless doing one’s own personal research is an interest, face value is the basis of choice, starting where it counts: in the wallet.
Being nestled into a foothill and listening to the tinkle, tinkle from the bells of local goats being fed whatever occurs here naturally brings tonight’s cheese home for me, literally. And if I am truly blessed, I will meet the vendor on a typical errand, and find him charming, as I have with the ricotta man. And then I will further understand that my food is truly a life force on its own, and a sin to waste, as the ancients preached. My wish is for every American to have a passport, and for them to use it to explore other lifestyles, more intimately than the tour bus will allow for, and make decisions for themselves based on the virtues of experience. It is unquantifiable richness, for it is deep satisfaction. And it heals. Education, travel, and exposure. It can save a mind, feed a soul, and offer a rich life.
Sottoterra.
31 January 2011, Giorno di San Geminiano, Pontremoli, Italy
Monday felt like Sunday. Of course, three-day weekends are always disorienting, a disruption in the rhythm of the daily grind we have grown accustomed to. Patterns are the most addictive of habitual practices and an extra day of weekend has illuminated the topic. In just under three weeks I have fallen into the groove of the farm’s ebb and flow, the tides primarily adherent to the children’s daily routines. They were home all day again, and after a proper Sunday of dancing in the disco and playing instruments to accompany M.C. Yogi, Monday was full of possibility and promise, a full day to invent new games and amusements.
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Apparently San Geminiano, the Patron Saint of Pontremoli, had plans for the children so traditional that they awoke ready for action, and to show me how the village’s Saint’s Day unfolds every year. After dinner, that is. Until then, it was a typical day at the farm. You know, picking and cleaning thyme, making fresh herb frittata, sanding walls, painting doorways, changing fuses, running hundreds of euros’ worth of porcini mushrooms from the broken freezer to the frying pan in an effort to save them from the tragic defrost, manning the caldaia (furnace room) with firewood every hour… all the things we take for granted in urban life where grocery stores and canneries have completely extracted the mystique of the land. The slow life does wear thin at times, the draw to consumerism and need for excitement rearing its ugly head from time to time… a challenge to the discipline I have committed to, in the interest of bettering the lives of myself and others.
I am convinced, however, that there is more to the land here in the borga di Macerie and Pontremoli than meets the eye. I am certain there is magic in these hills. How can I be so sure? Because each day the wisdom of the ages is availing itself to me, however pleasant or uncomfortable I may receive it, and it is perhaps the greatest challenge of my life to keep focused on my work and learning to balance the needs and waves of others on a path toward inner balance. Perhaps the image of the magician, the wizardess in the hills, is one I can ponder, to adopt into my psyche the one who juggles all and still maintains the neutral gaze. But truth be told, I fall more than shy of the mark, my desire for order and control popping in around every corner and causing me the sort of subliminal suffering that one can only examine when there is space to do so. Travel is that environment, for a traveler confronts his own prejudices and unforeseen challenges abroad, a perfect way to truly know himself.
Porcini dinner and a sneaker explosion, the usual hustle and bustle. Three anxious boys waiting to see fire in the center of the medieval village, a father delighted to do something fun with them, and a traveler in search of today’s theme… leaving one small boy with his mother for a few restful hours, free from competition. In downtown Pontremoli there was also much excitement, stone bridges across the river crammed with spectators chanting “San Geminiano… San Geminiano…” in anticipation for the annual spectacle of an eight-meter high fireball set ablaze by a group of responsible townspeople in honor of the Saint. We perched on a stone wall garnished with Mother Nature’s greenery, with a clear view of the floorshow. Medieval masonry more than had its place as a backdrop, for what we were about to see was so deeply rooted in lost customs of secret societies. The scene riveted me.
Uber-Catholic imagery entered the dirt arena, drums pounding with the authority of proper church-going teenagers, in a marching sequence banded by flags of flame-patterned fabric tossed by similar youth. The headpieces were like nothing I’ve ever seen. Cotton sheeting in pointy patterns, shades of societies of centuries past, the ones theorized to still meet in underground hovels and/or mainstream disguise, unearthed only on this sacred of days in full regalia. Colorful clansmen, esoteric clergy, the legacy of Masonic elders… my imagination wild with wonder, I was hypnotized by “what if…”
The teenaged-Masonic-Uber-Catholic-Clanlike uniformed band filed out of the arena and the drumming ceased. Nearly to the final single beat, a modest, un-choreographed fireworks display erupted and a line of adults with fire on a stick filed in to circle the 24ish-foot Christmas-tree-shaped effigy. In unison they inserted their sticks to the straw base, and the bonfire shot up to throw flames high into the air instantly. The outpouring of villagers having tumbled out of well-lit riverside apartments were dwarfed by the ravaging flame shooting into the air over their heads while orange ashes cascaded upward, dipped, and gracefully floated to the ground below, dimming at touchdown. Elaborate planning for a deliberate blaze amused me and I began to drift into centuries past again. I imagined a ruler and an argument, the modern fire emulating the ferocity of a survivalist’s intensity in days when each event could be the difference between life and death. And I got lost in time travel… until the festival was deemed finished by the sudden thumping of the familiar “I Will Survive” by Gloria Gaynor. Returning from Pontremoli in the earliest recorded date of it’s life (1000 B.C.) to Pontremoli tonight (2011) was not a direct route, for I was transported for a split second into a nightclub in L.A. where I used to go dancing with my Italian friends Alessandro and Franco, then plopped back to the bridge with Corrado and three children.
I am aching to go exploring on my own, to roam the catacombs and cellars running wild like a child suspended in an endless summer fantasy play, the sort that only ends when the sun disappears into the late night, after splashing the walls and tress with ghosts of ages past. I long to listen to Pontremoli, to feel her story in my bones and to seal my fascination with intuitive sentiments, to breathe in the life force behind the masonry.
Swirling.
Saturday 29 September 2011 Podere Conti, Pontremoli/Dobbiana/Lunigiana…Italy
Saturday night and wind is picking up again as it did last week, only this time the gusts are benign. The monks left this morning in two shifts, one at five and the other just before noon. On this silent evening I can hear their chants in the breeze, the colors of the Tibetan flags they have tied in the trees pollinating the land with their blessed infusion, and if I close my eyes, I can see the wisp of deep red fabric sailing against a sea of cobblestone, the indelible image of two worlds joining hands in prayer.
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I am soulful for my new friends, global voyagers who have moved on to bring their wisdom to another set of lives, lands, and loves, while ours are forever changed in their swirling wake. Last night was the final feast, a celebration and an embrace. Unfortunately, I was finally able to be “in the moment” completely, to apply the new principles I have learned from dear Chodrak and the others, and stir my whole self into the puree that is humankind. And today I stand slightly empty, for the moment I became fully present, it was time for them to be on their way. Perhaps this is where the lessons lie, in the aftereffects of such an event, or in any event, as the wisdom this week was: “Be in the moment and intellectualize later.” And here I am intellectualizing, and having regrets for not having let go sooner, not having assimilated, or integrated until the very end when the culmination of the week’s adventure was under way. My disconnection is one of habit, the sidelines hosting part of my spirit while my body and desire are present. One thing I know is that the regret I am feeling is a part of the greater Wisdom as well, for it is instructive and supportive of the week’s guidance for me.
There has been, and will continue to be, a generous helping of mindfulness opportunity. My mind has become a play land to explore my own thoughts and emotions, and just be with them without assessment. It has been recommended that I drink a cup of hot water first thing in the morning, to support the organs attached to the meridians in areas I have suffered chronic pain: neck, shoulders, back. For a morning coffee addict, this is torture. The flavorless, caffeine-absent cup of nothing was sure to become a dreaded event, like many natural remedies compared to the tasty trappings of a good latte and delicious cream-filled coronetto. But I have the practice of looking at my thoughts now, and making the choice on how, or if, to react. Or to just be in the moment with the steaming cup of medicine for my beloved organs that want so badly to do good for me. Hence, the cup is transformed from one of nothing into a cup of vital nectar, an offering to my body, and the very least I can do before another day of asking it to support me on all my endeavors. This is how Mindfulness works. It allows for the pause between thoughts, the ones we have shaping our life while we bumble about, on auto-pilot, bumping into arguments, taking offense, not liking what would be good for us, and numbing ourselves from the pain with the use of food, substances, or just wiping our negativity onto someone else. If only these principles could be taught to the masses, the ones plagued with diseases of the mind, the diet, or the blindly-led followers full of fury for the way things SEEM (not ARE.) In each situation lies an opportunity to end suffering from inside the mind and free the soul. And “in very small ways” is where to begin.
Thursday was a big invitation when I awakened with what appeared to be a morning of karmic integration with the animals on the farm, stepping first in a shit lolly left by Lula on my bedroom rug in the night, and encountering a pee pee puddle on the bathroom tile left by Lucky. Before retrieving the antibacterial spray from the main house and having a fastidious go at the two spots, I decided to breathe in some of the morning air on my veranda. It was at that time that a mark on the terra cotta tile outside caught my attention. Without my eyeglasses and squinting in dawn’s frugal shard of light, I reached for my headlamp and knelt down for a closer look. There on my doorstep was a pulverized mouse, without a head, innards unraveled like a spool of discarded wool, and feet chewed to a near-paste. A stream of blood ran outward toward the railing, punctuating the appalling sight with body secretion that made the whole thing quite traumatic with my nose a mere six inches from the gory crime scene.
According to Mindfulness practice, I had three choices. React adversely. React joyfully. Or watch the scene as though I were watching a film and not actually being inside the film. A natural student, I took Option Three, and approached the most violently shredded piece of one-living flesh as an observer without opinion, trying to focus on my thoughts as I did in the lessons given by Lama Chodrak this week. Before I realized what had happened, the carcass and explosion of guts were gone and the area disinfected. Without Mindfulness, I might have attached to the perceived reality of just how disgusting my morning task was, and assumed a manipulative state in an attempt to hand the job off to someone else! In fact, I can safely say I have been operating in that space for ages, and now lessons have opened a door to detachment, and therefore, forward movement. Without decisions made based on emotional perceptions, so much more can be seen clearly and therefore addressed and accomplished.
Earlier today I was faced with a challenge-choice, when I was reading Facebook and saw that my ex-husband bought a new car. Just the sight of his posting brought up an automated twinge of anxiety-jealousy-not-really-sure-what-it-is. But in looking at my emotions that are caused by my thoughts, I was able to be in the moment, the present, and actually laugh at myself for such petty nonsense. If only we could all laugh at our pettiness and thus usher it away with compassion. Silly trappings of the mind have caused deep and subtle suffering, and needlessly so.
Although the monks have moved on to their next mission, they have left the farm swirling in gusts of possibility. Last night I played table soccer with the boys and then moved on to the Wii game where I received an avatar of my likeness with which to become a regular player. I wanted so badly to be in my solitude, to write and think about “grown-up things,” but the children gave me a chance to be “in the moment” with them, for that is where children exist always. And so I played. I even heard myself scream at one point. And so I have begun a quest into being. After all, I asked for it earlier on this journey, and the Buddhists’ visit has opened it all up for me.
Assimilation.
26 January 2011, Podere Conti, Dobbiano/Macerie/Pontremoli…Italy
The Universe is sly.
The monks’ arrival has brought in a fresh bellow of fire to peaceful Podere Conti, an awakening flame to usher out past lives and lingering karma, to sanctify the farm. Three women and a man from all parts of the world, robed in shades of reds and yellows, are a visual accompaniment to the burnishing atmosphere.
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The introduction phase is never shy of wonderful, the unfolding of oneness seen in faces from all points of the planet. Lama Chodrak offered his hand and was pleased to know I am an American, his fondness for the country cultivated in biannual trips to healing retreats on the East Coast. Naturally, I asked him specifically where he retreats, to which he responded: “A tiny town near Woodstock, called Fleishmanns.” I was nearly flattened in awe. Here, nestled in the mountains of Lunigiana, Italy, a Lama of Tibetan Buddhism is speaking with the sincerest of love for a tiny downtrodden town of perhaps 1,000 citizens, where I happen to have lived for a spell on one of my many adventures. In fact, I was there visiting this past Thanksgiving weekend, only two months ago! Yes, the Universe is sly.
Later in the evening, Chodrak generously offered his healing work to my chronically ailing neck and shoulders, applying pressure at points and reading the body’s instructive messages. The session was profound indeed, his interpretation of where I am in this life astounding. The most brilliant part of the reading, however, was that his words did not resonate with me initially, a theme that would reveal itself over the course of the next 36 hours.
“You are sitting with a heaping plate in front of you, unsure of where to begin eating. You must assimilate and integrate. Assimilate. Integrate.”
These words made little sense to me, as I had been certain that I was walking clearly forward, my goals and path set in motion, partly by fate, partly by intention, and a great deal by my [sic] intellectual seniority. Of course, these are the assumptions we settle into, only to have them shaken into pieces the moment we get too sedentary in our ways.
“You are intellectualizing and not being in the moment. You must begin to assimilate and integrate. Be in the moment completely, and then do the analyzing afterwards.”
He advised that after such a healing, I was likely to feel a bit tired or sore in the day or two to follow, a concept I’ve known all too well in my life of spiritual journeying, with practitioners and colleagues in Reiki and other means. Physical manifestation of worldly blocks, body aches that serve as the town crier, body weight balancing emotional burden: par for the course, old hat if you will. But bewildered, I began to ponder his words, wondering how and where I could begin to chew on small bites on my plate, then take it from there. But I had always been one who really takes a big bite out of life, so I’d thought. But in the hours to follow I realized, not so much.
I woke up the next morning as if I’d woken from death. Not like birth, a newborn with wide eyes and a hunger to take in every new thing, to touch and to taste, but literally, from the deepest and most suffocating sleep of a lifetime, the sort that causes lungs lined with cotton pads that irritate the throat on the in breath and dense hanging steam beads to cluster on the out breath. Additionally, every muscle ached, and my head had a concrete-like density to it, as did my thoughts. In short, I felt dreadful. Every inch of my pried-open temple ached with cobwebs and antiquities, awakening to yet more change, and on a subtle yet powerful level. I passed on breakfast, body grounded like a gull in an oil slick, but slinked into exercise and meditation instruction with Chodrak with about as much energy as last week’s tagliatelle in today’s fridge.
Meditation was different than any other I’ve tried, the practice of mindfulness less restrictive of the monkey mind’s trappings. Allowing the monkey to do his thing without judging it somehow demystified its desires and steadied its wandering nature. Going back to a simple point, a stone on the table, eyes open, was a simpler discipline than that of the third eye and breath I’d struggled to master in the past. Of course, mastery is a fool’s game in and of itself. Mastery has been where my ego has taken over, my competitive and superior nature yearning so much to be on top, to be miles ahead, and to identify with greatness that comes from comparison, the very act that roots one deeply into mediocrity.
By late afternoon the body aches had overtaken me, worsened, in fact, by a long nap that resulted in even more throat discomfort and feet that would only throb. Part of me wanted to thrust myself at Chodrak and beg him to reverse the “spell,” but I trusted in the moment, a new practice I was determined to try out before filing it in the drawer marked “great for someone else.” I loaded the car with three little boys bound for judo class at the sport club and let gravity carry us down the mountain. About all I could manage was auto-pilot, and thankfully there was plenty of it in the three steep kilometers before asphalt would meet us below.
Cornelia was no longer with me to speak on my behalf, or to order things now on my list of to-do. I was on my own to integrate, assimilate, and it was after I settled into my seat alongside the judo mat that I noticed all the pain in my body had moved into my feet, freeing my body from bondage. I closed my eyes and repeated the words: assimilation and integration. Integration. Assimilation. It seemed my body was assimilating before I could intellectualize it, on par with Chodrak’s advice that I be in the moment and analyze it afterwards, for suddenly I was finding myself no longer an outsider looking in, but rather an integral part of a family’s life on this fine afternoon in a town in Italy not generally regarded as a tourist attraction.
There at judo, I began to ponder 41 years as a separatist, an observer with more interest in studying humanity than in actually joining it. Documenting events and learning about the human psyche has been my path, ever the observer with the keen eye, my own role in society defined within said parameters. From birth I have set myself aside from humanity, finding safety in intellectualizing, which is editorial judgment, rather than jumping in. More than one lover has chastised me for opting to hide behind a lens in a social situation, and the threat of opening myself to judgment even cost me the love of my former in-laws, the very judgment I’d resisted. The conflict of the soul’s yearning for belonging while sitting at the sidelines in observation, waiting for a safe environment to delve into has shifted in my body through healing hands. And now my head was pounding to the judo instructor’s “Uno, due, tre…”
Perhaps it is a gypsy’s challenge to actually assimilate, having chosen or adopted a freewheeling spirit to compensate for detachment. How to become integral, regardless of length of stay, to move from a “safe distance” to the safety of implementing a “way of life” safely would mean joining the scheme rather than merely recording it, reporting it, and repeating it. The yearning has been identified and now it is my task to satisfy it. But what a brilliant environment to do such work in! With the added challenge of language to boot! Yes, I’ve taken on an entire heaping plate indeed, and now even more has been piled on. I think I’ll need a bigger fork, thank you.
“Be in the moment. There is no past or future. Then analyze and intellectualize afterwards.” I mulled over Chodrak’s words and likened them to every process, particularly my writing. Closing my eyes, I felt them, remembering how I have struggled with letting go of agenda and simply diving in, a struggle I have written about in sheer anxiety as recently as a week ago. Yes, the Universe is sly. It answers the heart’s yearnings at the most subtle of levels, yet, much like a healer, leaves one to create the shifts for himself. When I opened my eyes, judo was ending and three hungry sweaty boys were at my side and anxious to go home. It was at that moment that I noticed the last bit of pain had left my feet and gone back into the Earth to ignite someone else’s process.
As I am finishing this essay, Luca, the eldest boy, has appeared at my door, two dogs and a cat in tow, looking to play with me, and my dachshund. This also includes asking to play with my new Macbook Pro and ask questions about the keyboard features. Of course, my separatist tendency is challenged so soon, mild irritation bubbling up in defense of my solitude. The struggle to integrate and assimilate is hitting me at the most fundamental level and I can see now that there is no way out of this one. Sly Universe, you.
Consecration.
25 January 2011, Podere Conti, Dobbiana/Pontremoli/Lunigiana/Toscana…Italy
The bells were chiming an actual song yesterday. It was Sunday again. Leftover breeze carried the gentle murmur of a minister right to my door. I stepped outside to have a better listen and placed my mug on the antique table outside my door. The chic weather beaten tabletop was stamped with the name of the man who’d made it, a stamp with the precision only rubber could render. I began thinking of the volume of trinkets and lolly passing through so many sets of hands for so many decades, particularly handmade ones by artisans, artisans without a face or name who have produced timeless artifacts for us to either love or use, or both.
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We spent the morning preparing for the Tibetan Lama and four accompanying monks, creating a sacred space for their pujas and ceremonies. I have been looking forward to their arrival, feeling particularly bereft of spiritual ceremony, and imagining the deep peace invoked by the mere image of deep red robes and burning oil. If I’ve learned one thing on this nomadic mission of mine, it is to expect nothing, for out of this nothing comes great treasure, the unexpected splendor of bright colors against a white void. There is no disappointment in the void of expectation, only surprise and wonder.
The olive oil competition began at three o’clock un-sharp in the nearby hamlet of Caprio. This was Sunday, a gorgeous one, and the entire village crammed into the tiny comune (community center) at the center of the medieval mountain nook. Inside the meeting hall were tables with minimal olive oil displays and slices of bread for tasting. Above them on the white and peach wall, added to the vintage photos of citizens past, handwritten signs boasting the virtues of olive oil consecrated the event. In the far room, a bar stood packed with Sunday card players and local aficionados. Oil schmoil. This was Sunday, the day of cards. Intimate time in the villages of Italy have me marveling at DNA’s victory in survival, the trait of charisma woven into its helix. The elderly men of Italy’s rural areas are none less than stereotypes in a scenic painting, hands dancing in dramatic expression while shadowed faces retreat beneath hats of classic shape and fiber.
In true Italian form, the judges hadn’t yet tasted Podere Conti’s oil, and were now deep into a lecture on olive oil tasting and properties, crammed into a hall with local producers and tasters. Shy on time with the arrival of the monks only an hour or so away, we stayed as long as we could before excusing ourselves. We would receive notes on Podere Conti’s harvest somewhere outside of real time.
Others of like mind: AFAR, Where Travel Can Take You.
Post-War.
Saturday, 22 January 2011, Podere Conti, Lunigiana/Pontremoli/Filattiera, Italy
It is a post-war morning. The destruction from last night’s violent wind is more than just a mess, lain against a backdrop so rich in experience. Memories of war must have seeped up through the soil, for suspended in the air is a blanket of sadness, gusts of wind as intermittent reminders that the war has moved to the next village. Fence poles lie motionless in the fields like downed soldiers while the great-grandads of farm tools are spread across the lawn in war’s aftermath.
Most people aren’t living, but rather in a perpetual state of coping until a much-feared end. What if the end could be a celebration of all things leading up to it, of a life well lived as opposed to spent? I am sitting in the kitchen of the main house, facing a window to the hundreds-year-old stone house with a collapsed roof. Potential has a way of enlivening the soul, with so many ideas spinning round and round. The restoration will be immense, yet meticulous, with reverence to preserve the integrity of a grand relic. Will it become a spa? A villa? Or something else circulating above? In the meantime, clusters of wall-growing greenery infuse it with life while the plan simmers gently in the ether.
To live one’s life based on abbreviated truths, second-hand and doctored images, and quick-fix acquisitions results in a life of slavery to a finite stable of dense matter. “Things” are proposed to give us freedom, or speed, or comfort, or beauty, but in due time they fade into the collective stalwart of matter. Dusting objects, insuring them, paperwork, storage, maintenance, protection… no wonder a life’s mission can seldom be unearthed from beneath the rubble of things’ ongoing to-do.
Within the ruins across the property are tiny rooms where families would huddle around a stove together day after day in the winter months, solid construction of lives gone by still linger in a heap of possibility.
