marzo 2010 - Anno 2 Numero 1 - Regione Autonoma Friuli Venezia ...

Vania DI NARDA
Places of the Soul
We should all have a place we can go to...
We should all have a place we
can go to when we experience
a moment of crisis or change.
Many of us already have it: it can
be a house, it can be a village,
it can be a place in the woods
or in nature in general. It can
also be a person, a dear relative,
a friend, a group of people, a
meaningful other that receives
us within the arms of love and
compassion and creates a realm
of peace and comfort for us.
We usually go back to this place
when life gets tough and we
need some time out. The place
can also be a place inside the
mind, in fact even if it is a physical
place, its real essence lie in
what it makes us feel beyond its
materiality. More than a place,
it is a mental disposition. As a
matter of fact, it doesn’t even
need to be a place at all. This
place of the soul can take the
form of a bike ride in the countryside,
it can be a special food
that can comfort us, it can be
doing something or not doing
something. What is important is
that in that place we feel ourselves
more than anywhere else,
and through it we can go inside
ourselves and outside ourselves
at the same time.
...a hill in Battaglia
Caterina has found her special
place on the cemetery hill in
Battaglia, near Fagagna. In this
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case the place of the soul is a
physical place. There she finds
her true self in the graceful
sequence of plains and hills, in
the fields of corn and in the lines
of vines. Here it is easier for her
to reach the part of her essence
that is still and quiet, that is
unreachable to most people, and
original to her natural state of
being. Nobody can come into
this mysterious place, only she,
because it’s not the place in itself
but what that setting inspires.
Her emotions are stirred up by
the valley that she sees in front
of her from her favorite hill in
Battaglia, and by its colors and
sounds. From here on a clear
day she can see the distant line ☛