Olive Trees

12/24/2007

Los Arcos – Logrono, Spain

Today I passed fields full of olive trees, in between few abandoned houses. Kilometers and Kilometers of olives trees. They are full of beautiful ripe olives, ready to be picked. Finally it is sunny after two days of rain, and birds are everywhere, hiding between the branches or flying and playing, all singing so happy. Peace is around me, no urban noises, no cars, no airplanes, no people talking, no tic tac of watches or clocks, only the sound of the wind, and the birds, sometimes I can hear a dog barking far away, and I can hear the sound of my steps. I feel I am part of a beautiful orchestra.

Olive trees. They are the symbol of peace. And here I can feel Peace.

                 Following Saint Francis's Footprints, 2009 - Olive Trees in Trevi

Once in a while I can hear hunters shooting far away, the peace is broken, this beautiful harmony get destabilized for a while, the birds get scared, but then… it all comes back.

Here I start to think that peace is a gift that we, humans, have lost. We are the ones that disturb it, destroy it, and break it. We are the one that cannot live with the harmony that surrounds us.

How can humans claim peace back?

I start to think at A Bridge of Roses, even if it is a project founded to help educational projects, it is also a project for peace a project to bring peace, to claim peace.

                       Camino di Santiago, 2007 - Olive Trees in Los Arcos

And the peace that I feel here, in this moment, between the olive trees it is the reward for having claimed my peace back.

This is it, each of us has to stand up and claim peace back. We should stop delegating others to work for it, but be part of the process instead. Peace can be restored, and yes it all starts with us. In us!

Simbi

I teach to children and I am always intrigued by how children act and think. I love to observe them and trying to understand their world.

We all seeing children dragging around their teddy bears, some of them have left only a single button eye, or they have dog-chewed ears, some have stuffing spilling out.

These teddies are the children’s friendly companions. Children entrust their pals with their secrets, their dreams and their pains. These pals would never betray or disappoint the children. They are the only ones that really get them.

Each child has one. We all had one. I still have mine: Simbi.

                             Simbi on the Camino of Santiago, Spain 2007

I am sure that every child deep inside knows very well that Little Teddy is not alive, but no child will admit it. And if you dare to put in question its ability to be alive they will look at you with that expression: “Are you crazy?!?!…

I learned fast in my early days of teaching to never question their ability to be alive, because if you do children will look at you thinking and telling you, sometime screaming at you, that you are just crazy

I always allow a child to bring in class their inseparable friend when they show up for class holding them in their arms. Actually I learned to treat them as part of my flock: I talk to them, I hold them, and I ask questions to the children about them.

Children love the fact I have one of my own. They know everything about my little friend: Simbi. They refer to him as one of us. And I truly believe that Simbi has helped me in many occasions. A child will more likely think that I am part of his tribe, because of Simbi. Simbi has become on many occasion my ambassador to them. He is definitive my lucky charm.

                             and he has is own shadow - Madagascar 2008

I found very funny that many adults think I am crazy, some adult think that I show a vulnerable side of myself by admitting that I have a little lion sleeping on the side of my bed and that I carry him everywhere I go. I found it funny because if you think well what are all those items? Lucky charms, lucky bracelets, favorite sweaters, crosses, pictures of this or that, images of Saints or Mary that we all carry around? Aren’t they a reflect, a habit, a ‘left-over’ of our forgotten teddy bears?

So yes, I have a little lion walking along me.

And the funny thing is that when I walk and carry him in the side pocket of the backpack with his head sticking out watching where we go, if I meet anybody they often ask me about Simbi and more than once have asked me to take a picture… no not with me with… him!

And often I am thinking am I his… sherpa?

Dr. Jung would analyze this story by saying: Simbi is the little child left in yourself… And I am fine with it. Actually not… I am happy with it. Really!

                  Simbi and Orsetto - Fallowing Saint Francis's Footprints, 2009

The Awakening

If you ask one hundred people who go on a Pilgrimage why they have decided to undertake such adventure you will get one hundred different answers.

Pamplona, 2007

Most of the time the idea to go on a Pilgrimage is like a flower, it blooms in one’s heart and most of the time one cannot say when and where the seed was planted: it just happened to have been flourished. For some the seed has been planted long ago, but it needed time to bloom. For others the desire is impulsive and they are able to leave everything behind and follow the instinct. 

It is true that people go on a Pilgrimage in search of an answer. And many times the question at the answer is so deep, so intimate that words cannot explain what the heart knows already.

But conscious or unconscious that the process can be, one knows that in order to find those answers he has to be alone. One has to take the time and to go away from the crowds and the noise. One needs to do what a peasant does: he ploughs the field to let the soil breathe, he weeds it and finally he harvests his fruits.

In a Pilgrimage the heart and the mind open up. It takes days, but it always happens. At the beginning the mind is still busy but after some days it surrenders to the silence. That is the point in which one finds the balance between the heart and the mind. And there is where heart and mind start a dialogue long due.

Following Saint Francis's Footprints, 2009

One of the most common comment people makes when you say: “I will walk alone for days” is “Oh my God, all alone? That must be so hard not to have anybody to talk to, so solitary”. Yes, of course it is hard and solitary but… that is exactly what every pilgrim wants and needs. Still on a pilgrimage you are never alone. In that privileged status of a deep contact with yourself your ears start to open up to a forgotten voice: the voice of your soul. Its voice resonates to you like an old song, it brings along old dreams, and old pleasures, and you turn into the child you were when you first discovered the world.

In every pilgrimage there is always the “turning point”: the awakening. It can happen on a early morning when you see the sunrise, or one late evening in front of a breathtaking sunset, or when a storm of birds sing at your passage, or when you meet someone that helps you or asks for your help, or when you finally see the sight of your destination after hours spent under the cold rain or the hot sun. The awakening hits you like a lightning, and you feel it with your entire whole. And most of the time your reaction to it will be just a simple smile. -“How simple was that!” those are the words that your mind will come up with in that moment. From that point on everything starts having a different flavor, and you start looking at things and feeling them for what they really are.

Sunset in Mahajanga, Madagascar 2008

I was in Spain on The Camino de Santiago, it was the day after Christmas. I have been walking for days, meeting very few people, sleeping in Albergues almost always alone, at that point my mind had already shut down, I had already started looking at things with different eyes, and hearing and smelling the life around me. I thought I had already hit the turning point, I thought I had already reached the mountain and start seeing the horizon in the other side when two days before I found myself talking to the birds… But not… I hadn’t, my awaking moment had yet to come.

- It was a beautiful morning I had been walking for hours, passing sleepy fields and not meeting anybody. Three hours earlier I had left behind the last small village and ahead I still had three more hours of walking before to call the day. Suddenly I saw a man sitting at the side of the Camino, he looked old, and he looked very tired. I stopped and asked him if he was OK? But he was German and I don’t speak German. Talking with signs I understands he doesn’t have water or food and that he is walking opposite direction. Wowww!!!!! He will have to walk three more hours before to find a resting point. I asked if he needed help, and without thinking I offered him all what I had: half bottle of water and some figs, when I walk I don’t carry much food or water with me, I tend not to need it and I don’t want to carry extra weight, now I was left without water. He accepted and then he signed me to go. He smiled and I smiled back wishing each other “Buen Camino!”. When I started walking again tears came down from my eyes, a sweet cry from the deep of my soul.

“…For I was an hungered, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in: Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me…”

How simple is that!

The Shadows

The most common picture taken by pilgrims is their own shadow.

There are a lot of reasons why they do it, probably the simpler one is that the shadow, for who walks alone, it is the only companion. 

                                                  Los Arcos, Spain 2007

So me too I have several pictures of my own shadow walking along with me in my different travels. The funny thing is that once back in Boston... I forget about her, and I don’t look for her when I walk in the city. Why this?

In our culture the shadow is charged with so many symbolisms: so often is the heavy baggage and it represents our fears, the ones we carry along all our life. So many times we are unable to confront these fears and so we keep carry them around, trying to forget that they are on our shoulders.

                                          Cathedral of Burgos, Spain - 2007

Many people comment: “he/she went on a 800 Km walk to run away from something…” And probably this is true: many pilgrims walk as response to a need to get away, for a while at least, from the ordinary life. They put themselves in a situation so extreme that it will give them time and space to think or… not to think.

But Pilgrimage is not about thinking, it is instead about feeling.

Here, in this extreme situation, one has the time and the space to confront the fears and to revaluate the baggage. And funny enough the shadow becomes a friend, a companion. Pilgrimage is a journey, not an escape, it is a dialogue with yourself long due.

Not every pilgrim has shadows to confront… some have dreams. And some just feel that this is a privileged way to reconnect with their soul.

I was in one of my walk when I started to consider why I love so much to do these kind of journey. Why do I prefer to spend my Christmas vacation all alone and far away from home? Why instead of resting in front of the fireplace do I prefer to walk six or eight hours each day in the cold, and many times under the rain? Me... that I do not like the cold weather?!?! Why don't I spend my vacation in a Caribbean island instead?

Do I run away from something? What are the fears and the baggage that I carry along with me? And why do I love to walk alone?

The true is that I’ve never felt alone on a Pilgrimage. When I walk along these paths I feel part of a community. People have walked the same path before me, they left marks and signs behind themselves. I follow them.. and I feel reconnected with my traditions and culture. I feel that I pay respect to who I am and to whom I belong to. Here... I follow the footprints of my roots, my soul and... my people.

I cannot really express why I like to do it. But it is a need, a deep pleasure. I wait, I train and I prepare for months for these moments.

In these situation your life get simpler, everything is about to walk, putting the right foot in front of the left one, and keep walking… day after day. In these kind of situations we lose all the frou-frous of the ordinary life. We feel the nature around; we feel our body (oh yeah!!!! you definitive feel the body). We connect with our past and our future, but we are so very much concentrate on the present: on putting that right foot in front of the left one. And so, maybe, that’s why our body grow a thickness that doesn’t have in the ordinary life. And maybe this is why here is where we notice that we have a shadow; here our body has a presence that ordinarily it doesn’t have it. And this is why our shadow becomes a friend: because it is not anymore the symbol of fears or baggage, but instead it is the real picture of who we are.

                                                      Spoleto, Italy - 2009

A Meditative Life vs An Active Life

Recently while reading a very nice book on Saint Francis’s life (Brother Francis of Assisi) I was reflecting about two different ways to dedicate our lives: the active one versus a meditative one. I was inspired by the differences between Saint Francis and Saint Clare of Assisi. Saint Francis went off walking all his life from town to town predicating about the Lord, advocating and teaching peace in the more pure way, while Saint Clara spent all her life in prayer and adoration of God in one small monastery. 

                                                         Saint Francis and Saint Clare of Assisi

My mother loves to use an Italian expression when she talks about me: “Every day a new train leaves the station called Luciano”, meaning that every day I have a new idea or a new project. And this is very true, but although I cannot deny that I cannot envision myself to retire on the top of a mountain in a hermitage with the only company of cats and goats spending my days praying and singing to God and eating vegetables grown in my own garden, at the same time I am fascinated and I have a lot of respect for people that make these kind of life choice and are able to detach themselves from the need of “to do” and to dedicate their lives to contemplation. 

Years ago I met in Belgium a beautiful old lady: Suzanne. She was the mother of 5 sons and daughters and I was dating the youngest of her sons. After have spent a life being a mother and a wife, running and working all day long, she just stopped everything and retired in her own little house in the suburbs of Antwerp. Everyday she got up at 5am and spent the day in prayer and meditation. In her prayer room she has few little papers with names of people written on, those were the ones who had a special place in her heart (I was lucky enough to be one of them), she had a couple of pictures of her spiritual Masters (Jesus and Muktananda), a bowl with fresh water and lilies, candles, incense and pillows, and a bowl with sand coming from an Indian temple site that I have brought to her as present from one of my trips. That was one of the most calm and warm places I had ever set in. 

What always struck me was that she referred to her praying as her “work”. So one day I asked her why she was saying that, she replied with simplicity and humility: “This is what God wants from me”. That answer felt so true, so genuine; with a smile I replied to her: “And this is what the world needs from you, thank you!”

So I started to come to the conclusion that this is my call: to walk, to keep going, to feel busy, to start every day a new project… to ride everyday a new train that leaves the station called Luciano.

I had several experiences of retreats, where silence and stillness are the only task that one has to perform and to search for. The most amazing was the 33 days Saint Ignatius’s Spiritual Exercises. But most of these retreats were a weekend long, almost all following the Christian tradition but also followed some more Eastern influences. Each time that I am in a retreat I feel so at home, so connected with the world, so open, so energized, so… empowered.

Most recently, in preparation of my Mount Everest walk I started a daily meditation, I sit for 10 minutes (the book advises 30 minutes, but I am not there yet…), I gently close my eyes and begin to recite a prayer-word, silently, interiorly throughout the time of my meditation: "Ma-ra-na-tha."

“Maranatha” is an Aramaic word (which is the language that Jesus spoke) and it means, "Come, Lord." It is found in the Scriptures and is one of the earliest prayers in the Christian tradition.

If you ask: “Why a meditation exercise to train to climb a mountain?” My answer would be: “Because climbing, as well as walking a pilgrimage, is a lot about determination, about training your body to endure difficulties, tiredness, adversities, but also training your mind to stay focused in one task: to put one foot in front of another and keep going.”

So maybe this is it, to walk for me is the balance between the need of “to go”, the need of “to feel to do something” and the gravitation toward the need to find the courage to stop and just allow ourselves to live the present and just to be.

                                          Mount Subasio, Italy 2009 - Following Saint Francis's Footprints

It is also a lot about faith: to believe that someone out there is looking after you, and to believe that you will with His help overcome your fears, your difficulties, your tiredness. It is about letting it go and believe in the greatness of the Providence. Allow yourself to believe in the Providence. Just like the solitary monk on the top of the mountain put his life into His hands, you, for the time of your Pilgrimage, allow Him to take care of you. You still have to do the walk, you are still the one that has to put one foot in front of the other, but He helps you in finding the way to your destination. 

Maranatha.

                                                 Camino de Santiago, Spain 2007