Quietly seeking to meet Trust wherever Life leads, I understand service as key to gratitude and balance. Freshwater woodlands evoke the most serenity in me wherever they're found. I've shared space & time on terrain of my Ligurian and Oscan ancestors, feeling their souls guiding me, especially in silent contemplation. Today, after over thirty years of engagement in programs for children, secondary, university and adult learning, the gifts life brings on Long Island's Matinecock-Algonquin earth, I try to give & receive with grace.
Since the shift in reality exacting by the turn of the decade,
After opportunists collude to sabotage systems with malfunctions and hollow promises,
After 20 years of unexpected tragedy raise healing spaces between lingering clouds of memory,
Today, at this precise time of noon, I stop my walk to probe the skies, to feel echoes of a past that hold all dear and earn the resonance–the moment of unity–in the blossoms of the crocus that welcome my gaze.
2/11/23
A glance at the kitchen ‘Frate Indovino’ Italian calendar and my realization dawns that we are in the midst of Carnevale 2023. A portion of the past rises inside my thoughts, still becoming part of this lifetime lived to understand. One of the marvels of where anyone spends time is the similarities with slight differences and the lessons to be gained. A simple dough of flour, scant sugar, an egg, melted butter, a splash of wine or rum becomes a pre-Lenten treat, ‘made essentially the same’ with variations depending on its region yet, named differently. In Milan, they are chiacchiere; in Tuscany, cenci; in Rome, frappe; in Veneto, crostoli; in Piemonte & Liguria, bugie. In some American /Italian-American circles, they are bow-ties. Through stories of varieties in cultures and those simple lessons, we are all capable of sitting together, with a cup of tea, coffee or glass of Vin Santo and share stories, life. What has become a distant possibility, in a purposeful reality is ‘essentially’ simple.
Round 1 of Dolci di Carnevale – in Piedmont (Piemonte) called “bugie” or lies.
Ferrovia: The “Great Iron Way” – carrying “merchandise” of all sorts to destinations for a variety of purposes. As we begin 2023, many of us, with boundaries beyond the immediate that surround us now, reflect on loved ones, from other places, other times. We belong to them, as they to us – regardless of whatever becomes the current trend in education, books, theory, politics or practice. We have been gifted with a sense to discern, to seek understanding through wisdom. And this gift arrives only through silence, observation, reflection…much that is voided or dismissed today.
What makes someone concretely refuse, resist, stand for an abstract concept – singularly and collectively? My daily four-hour travels to Manhattan from Upstate NY in the late 90s promised a daily departure and return, even through feelings of abandonment. This, in contrast to 600,000+ troops whose abandonment solidified their decision to resist and refuse. Worth the thought and consideration, then speaking to “now”…
The Frate Indovino Italian calendar/almanac, now my annual tradition, brings me back to a warm, welcoming kitchen of an elder who genuinely felt, cared and tried to express those sentiments with as candid a look and word as he was able to summon at the time. Often, these emotive depths are transmittable to those who have experienced them, often regardless of age. But with time, it is the Love, compassion desire to discover, understand and share in the lives of others that brings Light. Try more silence, introspection, listening to thought in tune with heartstrings, and allow the rise of consequential actions however small they may seem.
Today’s “paisana” reflection on the Frate Indovino Italian calendar/ almanac feels as though it may be a deep dive of reflection for those in Davos, DC or on TV…(photo credit: https://it.freepik.com/foto-gratuito)
Loosely translated, “Chatter, blather, flim-flam, gossip don’t make flour.”
