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Selena and her friends

The cat in the picture is Magro, he lives near the Sentiero di Gandria and he is a friend of Selena.

Every now and then, even before dawn, I go jogging on that path and meet Selena, a woman in her seventies who leaves from Cassarate and goes all the way to visit her friends. Selena looks like a good ghost: her face is covered with too much white cream that highlights her olivy skin, her hands are stuck inside light white gloves, maybe because she uses two trekking sticks, and often she also wears a white jersey. And she carries a backpack full of pet food. There are chocolates for Magro (actually they are fish sticks), pralines for Motorina and Mango (chicken croquettes), candies for Nero (seeds) and bread crumbs for Cip and Ciop (they really are break crumbs).

"One day, at the Migros checkout, two of my neighbors in line behind me marveled at all this pet food I buy. As I have no animals, they asked me if my husband and I would eat it" told me Selena one morning, as the air began to fill with light. “But I don’t care what people think” she laughed.

When it hasn't rained for a long time, she brings a water bottle to fill at one of the fountains along the way to wet the thirsty flowers that sprout in the walls or between the rocks; if she stumbles in the rubbish thrown by others, she collects it and puts it in her backpack. I often stop to chat with her, so she keeps me informed about how the chicken that appeared on her balcony is, about the orchids that she found at the ecocentre, about the brood of ducks next to the Lanchetta and about the neighbors' dog that scratches at her door after dinner. Sometimes also about how her husband is .

But this morning Selena is not here. And it is the first time that I really notice her, or rather: that I notice the preciousness of her gestures that someone misses. Waiting for her, in fact, there are Mango, a pink cat with a malformation on one leg, then Magro, a very thin cat, Cip and Ciop, a couple of ducks, Nero, a blackbird and Motorina, a kitten who purrs as soon as you look at her. Everyone seems to be a bit perplexed and worried because not a day goes by without seeing her. My heart drowns in tenderness and all of a sudden I realize that Selena told me about a medical visit she was going to have early, one of those mornings. She certainly warned her friends as well, but obviously they also forgot.

Selena does all this in the dark. Apart from me and some other joggers there is no one who sees her, no newspaper writes about her, no photographer gets a picture of her to post it on Instagram. She doesn't need it. She is there to take care of a very small part of the world in her own way. She is there to be kind to nature and show her gratitude. To give love and attention without asking for anything in return.

As she already said about her neighbors, she doesn't care what people think.

But I decided to write about her, even though her gestures seem small. But we know that even small things can make a big difference in the world, even "small" attitudes can be a source of inspiration for others, even the little one has a great repercussion, like a stone thrown into the water that creates larger and larger concentric waves that get contagious.

Thank you, Selena, for setting this good exemple!

This morning, while I was doing a translation, I heard the petals of the peonies fall, one by one, slowly, with a soft sound, in slow motion. It was a caresse for the ears, and also for the eyes: the sound became visible, made of wind, white, like a falling star or a falling veil, revealing the essence, the truth, the death. In a silent sky the petal-sailing ship descends slowly, like in a game of snowflakes. The petals die caressing the naked air. I respect their time. They look like boats with no sail, with no destination. They are an amen, a let it be, a surrender, invisible and visible at the same time, determined in their last wandering. They are beautiful. They are unlimited flowers. An introverted fleet. A farewell. There is tenderness in those petals. I will leave them liying down on the floor for a while, so they can take all the time to bend over themselves.

Dancing with the night in my arms
and collecting the spring

Don’t leave me alone, restless restlessness, disguised as night. Stay always with me. Dance with me. Please. Send me a message, get me safe, open that door in the sky above us. With you, my dear restless restlessness, I find myself in a state of depressing beauty, like an animal at sunset that has neither rain nor thirst nor earth. He does poems with his eyes. He makes an invisible wind. I get cold. Put a fur of darkness and stars on my shoulders. Make me invisible, dear restless restlessness, so that no one can see me in this non-sensory universe. We enter a field of peace and you, please, continue to dance with me, hold me in your arms, stay with me.

Suddenly the light.

Gems and flowers appear at the knees, at the elbows, in all my recesses. I take a break and harvest the spring around me. I put it in my pocket, behind my ears, in my hair, in my sleeves, in my shoes. I don't want to lose it anymore. I don't lose it anymore. Beautiful spring.
And I feel alive.
With wings.

There are those who say that if everyone listened to Bach's music, there would be peace within each of us and consequently throughout the world. I believe that reading and perhaps even writing poems highlights the beautiful side of the world. Reading a poem opens our hearts, awakens sleepy emotions, rinses away the superfluous and distractions, plunges us into the here and now, the only moment that really exists, and we seem to just have fallen in love. And you know, falling in love turns on the light in our eyes and makes us beautiful like we were wearing a sparkling evening dress. It also pushes us beyond judgment, beyond good and bad, towards beauty. Let's see the beauty: the world is full of it.

To make sure that the poetry reaches many many people, we can write them on recycled paper and hang them on trees, put them in the flap of the bus automats, we put them under the windscreen wipers of the cars, we print them on a shirt that we then wear, we hang them on balloons full of helium, we hang them on the notice boards of the house where we live, we hide them between the pages of a book taken from the library or under the pasta box at Coop, in the pants sold in department stores, or write it on a paper boat put in a puddle after a rainy day.

Let's spread poems. Let's sow it around us like seeds flying towards a fertile ground.

A year end ritual

A promise
in the winter darkness:
the calycanthus

The end of the year is always a special time in wich we are full of expectations. A desire of light, fragrance and novelty arises. Usually at this time I prepare a very ambitious (mental) list of good intentions, but perhaps also a bit away from my real feeling, which I then lose as if it was a simple shopping list. Actually, I believe that the most lasting changes are those that happen spontaneously, from the heart. The head has nothing to do with it. It’s like the scent of the calycanthus in the middle of the winter. Let's look for this fragrance, a promise of spring. At first it seems out of place, but it's actually there to be picked up as a signal. 
Today in the afternoon I sat down for a moment on my own in front of the window and I reflected on what was positive about 2018. It's been a year of challenges, but maybe every year it is. Going back over the days, weeks and months, there was a common thread and it was that of poetry, especially haikus: I read and wrote a lot of them. I published several of them on my Instgram page, others I kept for myself, bringing them with me during the most intense working days in the bookstore, especially those crazy pre-Christmas days. Those in which the connection with my creative and dreamy part has become thin and slender until I almost forgot it. Poetry has saved me more than once, it has kept me afloat, it has brought me closer to my authentic part, to my unconscious. During the year I also discovered another part of myself, the part that feels the need for rituals. And this day seemed to me to be a good time to prepare one. I built a small boat with light, a bit of nature and a sheet of paper where I wrote what I want to welcome in 2019. Then I took it to the lake and let it go, confidently. There were two swans waiting: they looked like two angels who took care of my desires, escorting them until the realization. 
Once back I wrote on a postcard my good purpose, which at the same time is a desire of the heart: to have more confidence, to move in life with less fear and more presence. It's not little, I realize, but it's in my hands. It's a choice, after all. Every time I feel fear for something, I can connect to trust and to present time. I hung the postcard on the wall in front of my desk, where I can look at it every time I want. 
Now I return to the calycanthus, to the promise of spring that I feel in its frangrance, to the spring that can exist even in the darkness of winter, to the trust that can arise from fear, and I set off peacefully in the new year.

I start from here, from a seed.

A seed that also contains for centuries, if necessary, all its potential waiting for the right time, the ideal conditions for sprouting.

This new blog is made to help us create inside of us a warm welcome, smoothness and comfort in order to create the ideal conditions to sprout. To rediscover our authentic part. To rediscover the connection with the energy of the Source. To align mind, heart, soul and body. To grow up. Thrive. Cuddle the Mother Earth. Get pampered by Mother Earth. All this with poetry and poetic gestures, in a light, pleasant, engaging, exciting, respectful, airy, introspective, easy, slow, in line with the Whole way.

It's a since a few days that my knee is hurting, so this morning I did not go jogging, but simply I went for walk in the woods near my house. It is one of the first cold days of this autumn, after three weeks of rain. Gloves and a cap would have kept me warm, walking, but I was taken by surprise by the low temperatures. Even the lake, which showed itself in the distance, vibrated with cold tones. The dried, curled leaves of chestnut trees, maples, and ash trees rustled beneath my feet. I felt like a queen with a long dress of multi-layered ones to rumble around my ankles. Like when I dreamt of being a princess when I was a child, and all her kingship occupied my slim body. It is of this kingship that I want to take care of myself. As well as of the rustling leaves. Of the seeds I found on the sides of the wooded paths. And of simplicity. Of the connection with the Earth. And with Heaven. Of trust in something much bigger than us. Of time, here and now. And much more.

But I start from here, from a seed.

I will learn from the small seeds that already have within them the nourishment to get by during the first days of life, the confidence to express what they are, to take root, to always find nourishment and to rely on the waves of the seasons. I will learn the patience it takes to change. To express myself. To become a tree starting from a seed. I will be grateful for every little progress and I will celebrate it, as well as I will honour every step forward, but also those backwards, which are part of an evolution. I will wait, together with the small seeds, the good moment to open, to open my heart, so my evolution will begin, and I will discover more every day my authentic part, my light, the whispers of my soul, the voices of my intuition. To hear what my soul aspires to. What is good for my heart. Introspection, creativity, spirituality. It's a lot, I realize. But I have time.

We have time.

Long time to create the ideal conditions to  sprout, time to take root, to grow. One thing will converge in the other and if we can find ourselves and stay faithful, everything will be very simple, like dancing with life at the beat of the earth. Simple as breathing. Spontaneous and intuitive. And when it will be difficult, when we forget to simply let ourselves be carried away by the flow of life, then we will be supported by the life vests that we will build along this path.

Seek your seed, let us take each other's hand and tread this journey together.