THE BADGER The Badger is a fierce animal, very much respected and honored both in Northern American Native traditions and in European Celtic ones. A badger will not let go and will continue tenaciously to look for another way to tackle his/her goal, just like a good healer will not let go his/her search until the best solution is found for the person in need. Badgers have their homes underground, so that they can go to the roots of things, the good healer does the same and keeps looking until she/he can find the most profound reason for a dis-ease or a psychological issue. We use the term healer in the very broad sense of somebody who takes care of a another person, be it a MD, a nurse, a psychotherapist, a physiotherapist, a masseuse, a spiritual healer. Whenever there is a person in need and somebody who takes care of her/him, that is a healer. Sometimes the need is subtler and more profound than a simple medical intervention, the human touch is needed and it really is the Panacea that cures all diseases. We believe all artistic expressions in their beauty, science for everyday life, spirituality, philosophy, food and the healing arts are beneficial to restoring that balance, health and sense of worth that each and every human being deserves. We offer you THE BADGER, the persistent healer, all the articles come from experts in different fields, each person has his/her own idea of what a balanced life is, they are here to pass on information, give inspiration, receive your comments, suggestions, contributions. Each human being holds in his/her hands at least one of the keys, let's continue our quest!
THE BADGER
Year 3 Volume 4
October 2017 After the fiery summer, the days now shorten in earnest and we look at the quiet, yet laborious time of autumn. The leaves may be falling, but our hearts fill with the the renewed joy of sharing experiences and stories. That's why is so fitting to have new voices join us from this volume, hopefully they will be with us for a long time to come. With this issue we complete 3 years of THE BADGER, I want to thank all our readers and supporters, our authors past and present, without you there would not have been any volumes. I wish you a good reading, a source of wonder and reflection Happy autumn season
Antonella Vicini Director THE BADGER Quarterly LTD Cover photo and graphic lay out Antonella Vicini
You can find all past volumes, videos and our blog in our website: http://www.thebadgerquartelyltd.com/ and links on our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/THEBADGERQuarterlyMagazine/
CONTENTS Singing Trees Into the Matter Life Poetry Voices from the Stars
Antonella Vicini Andrea Exo Fredric Lehrman Francesco Petrarca Laura Bottagisio
Magic!
Adrian Rooke
Becoming Medicine
David Kopacz
Human
Tanya Tewell
Taming Waves
Paolo Benda
CONTENTS Aromatherapy Food is our Ally Mother Earth speaks Apothecary Travelling Travelling South Quilting Away Lathe Biosas Angels
Renato Tittarelli Claudia Enrico Claudia Enrico Jo Dunbar Judy Hayes Raffaella Vicini Lida Perry Roberta La Monica Rosana Liera
CONTENTS Story Telling
Bianca Veronica
Dermoreflexology
S. Fumagalli e F. Gandini
The Nature of Druidry
Philip Carr Gomm
Entertaining Interlude
Cesira Borromei
The Authors
short bios and photos
Thanks
and links to previous volumes
Adverts
products and services we believe in
Keep in touch with us on our website
http://www.thebadgerquartelyltd.com/ and our facebook page https://www.facebook.com/THEBADGERQuarterlyMagazine/
SINGING TREES Antonella Vicini
Looking up towards the sky, I see a green canopy of wonder, intricate branches, like aerial lace, crisscross in never ending patterns. My eyes get lost in amazement at the variety and details of what I can see. A soft breeze starts to blow, I can feel it on my skin. Together with the physical sensation there is a sound. I look up again, this time I keep my eyes closed, so that I can be all ears. The trees are singing their summer melody of plenty. Each tree emits a different sound, like wind harps, let free to express themselves. A symphony surrounds me, I am completly immersed in it. The sound is both inside and outside. I keep experimenting with my auditory sense: the gentle waves of the lake lapping the shore in a continuous and reassuring movement, the cicadas accompany the singing trees in the hottest hours of the day. Expanding my perception into my memories, I can hear: the wind blowing in my ears with the ancients songs of the sea, repeated by the shells on the beach. The thunderous crashing of waves in the mighty oceans. The wonderful songs coming out of the drum, its sacred spirit sharing many secrets to our listening ears...
Do we ever? Do we actually listen? Re-discovering our sense of hearing through intentional and immersive listening adds depth to our experiences and gives us more clues to understanding. When we really listen, we do not close off the other senses, rather we heighten their sensitivity, their overall awareness. Listening without filters adds dimensions to our lives and makes us more complete human beings. A good listener is like a musician who appreciates the pauses, the nuances of meaning in every sound, in every word. In order to compose a melodious chant to honor life, we first listen, this silence can last a long time so that, when we do emit our sound, it will be meaningful and heard in the distance by whomever resonates with it. My teacher Joseph Rael, Beautiful Painted Arrow, always invited us to chant our names, in order to hear our first sound reverberating in the air around. In that way we could learn and know more about our lives and reasons for being alive. With the shortening days and the lenghtening nights comes the time for story telling, again a chance to listen and learn from our elders. Let's expand into the vibrations of hearing.
Antonella Vicini https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vj002E-co9I A short video dedicate to listening
INTO THE MATTER Chronicles Year 2250 CE Andrea Exo At that time Bioengeneering reached its glorious peak. Both the virtual and actual market shop windows were filled with accessories. You could buy anything you wanted: a nose, a mouth, a limb, 100% customized eyes. It took years to solve all the problems connected to cloning, then rejection and integration, but eventually the techonology was ready, therefore the previous, frequent sacrifices were not needed any longer, since the public opinion didn't tolerate them anymore. It is important to remind ourselves that, just 130 years earlier, after a war and with a poverty level never known before in history, the most beautiful women and the most handsome men were placed in shop windows and litterally taken apart to please the richest clients. For example, the rich heiress with horrible feet could buy new ones for a very small sum of money (yet that price was enough to feed a family for years), little did it matter that the “donor� would need to sit on a wheel chair for the rest of her life. On the illegal market, the requests lead even to the death of the donor, when mutilations went far beyond the most cruel of imaginations. Yet vanity was worth more than a life, this attitude has not changed accross centuries. The length of life, if you had the right amount of money, could be interrupted only by serious genetic complications, accidents, or attacks. Organs were re generated, or substituted; people were born with one face that could change hundreds of time, in the most extreme cases, only the brain remained untouched.
Sports found new vigor with these strengthenings. During the previous centuries there had been no new records in speed, or jumps or swimming due to “reached physical limits�. Now there were no paramters left. At the beginning the strengthenings were mechanical, so that military and aeronautical industries became more powerful. However, the prosthetic parts could give serious problems over time and the pathologies created dissuaded people from using them, unless obliged by the different regimes.
When space exploration became heavily conditioned by the physical limitation of the astronauts, at the same time on the first colonies on Mars new diseases came about, it became clear that the DNA engeneering was the only way to allow for human survival on many planets including ours. There were different attempts, the cut and paste solution was possible at the aesthetic level, but it could not prevent the effects of different gravity on human bones. Eventually, a mixture of intelligence and perversion opened the last frontier before the new Graal. At the beginning of 2200 the first mutants were created. The DNA map was complete, therefore the engineers could design any organ, limb, nose or eye with the features they wanted.
Compilers transcribed the project creating the code to be integrated into it, sophisticated viruses entered the cells and did their work of cut and paste, according to the new code. The first guinea pigs were people with grave diseases, with mutilations or entirely paralized. Great was the glory when the diseases were deafeated, the limbs grew back, the blind could see, the deaf could hear. The era of Man Christ and his/her miracles had begun. And so the body, that is the “temple of God�, became a program, mouldable, malleable, customizable.
Nevertheless, the mystery of consciousness was not defiled. A dwarf could become a giant, a man could become a woman, a western person look asian, a fat person become thin in a few days. Life could, in theory, last for centuries, but on a practical level the limitations of the brain had not been overcome yet.
So in the 2250, the market opened to the public for full customization. This is not the right place to tell how the technicians' imagination, supported by politics and the darkest minds, found the way to inflict more tortures, suffering and deprivation on people. It is enough to imagine the attempts at hybridation between men and birds in order to have wings. The era of angels was still far in the future. The length of life was still dependant on money, a constant along the centuries. Hunger was just a memory, as well as unemployement and all the main problems in the previous decades, but much work was done to lenghten life and to satisfy ones' perversions.
Nevertheless the forbidden dream had not yet been satisfied. The Holy Grail is not a static concept after all: when people died of disease it was a miraculous cure, when people died of hunger it was a way to have unlimited food, if you were rich it was a way to become richer. Eternal life was the forbidden dream of the richest, a constant trend of the ages. In this short chapter we can recapitulate the year when research, with its new resources, moved from the periphery to the centre of being, in its attempt to eradicate from nature its bloodiest law: that all things need to die. Man was one step away from becoming God...
Andrea Exo Edited and Translated by Antonella Vicini
LIFE IN A DISRUPTIVE TIME Fredric Lehrman I am packing up my entire house, aiming to get to the end of it before the last day of this month. Still no resolution on where I will then be going. It seems as if this dynamic of change is being experienced metaphorically by many people, so I suspect that while individual situations are diverse, the same underlying pattern is affecting everyone. Imagine a large, long lake that has an old stream that feeds it at one end. That stream seems strong, but it is beginning to dry up very gradually. At the other end of the lake there is a high plateau that few have ever visited, and set far back from the steep cliff that raises the plateau above the lake there is a very big mountain. New streams are beginning to trickle down from the summit, and they are flowing slowly across the plateau and just beginning to drip over the edge of the cliff. This new stream becomes a mist as it falls, and makes no sound as it settles onto the surface of the lake. As the streams advance towards one another, the old stream creates a visible current that until now has dominated the surface of the entire body of water. But recently the tiny stream from the other end has begun sending almost imperceptible waves in the opposite direction. For a long time the old wave was the only thing, but now the two sets of waves are beginning to meet and influence each other’s forces and effects. We are near the point where the two wave fronts become equal, and for a time they will seem to cancel each other out. That is what we are beginning to see now. There is a pattern of holding on to the old values that maintained the old reactive strategies; now a new set of waves glide over the old wavewalls and relax into a calmness that replaces the defensiveness that was driving the old flow. This is just beginning, and feels very strange on both sides of the meeting point.
So nothing is certain any more for those who equate certainty with control. That is like imagining that we stand still while time continues to move. But soon we will know that we can trust a new kind of certainty. That new security is more like skydiving. Every young eagle looks “eaglely” forward to the day when their wings are ready for that leap. When there is a solar eclipse, the sky darkens and the stars appear in the daytime. They are always there, even when you can’t see them. When you think you are alone, they’re still all around you.
Fredric Lehrman
POETRY Francesco Petrarca Chiare, fresche e dolci acque, ove le belle membra pose colei che sola a me par donna; gentil ramo ove piacque (con sospir' mi rimembra) a lei di fare al bel fianco colonna; erba e fior' che la gonna leggiadra ricoverse co l'angelico seno; aere sacro, sereno, ove Amor co' begli occhi il cor m'aperse: date udïenza insieme a le dolenti mie parole estreme. S'egli è pur mio destino e 'l cielo in ciò s'adopra, ch'Amor quest'occhi lagrimando chiuda, qualche gratia il meschino corpo fra voi ricopra, e torni l'alma al proprio albergo ignuda. La morte fia men cruda se questa spene porto a quel dubbioso passo: ché lo spirito lasso non poria mai in piú riposato porto né in piú tranquilla fossa fuggir la carne travagliata e l'ossa.
Tempo verrà ancor forse ch'a l'usato soggiorno torni la fera bella e mansüeta, e là 'v'ella mi scorse nel benedetto giorno, volga la vista disïosa e lieta, cercandomi; e, o pietà!, già terra in fra le pietre vedendo, Amor l'inspiri in guisa che sospiri sí dolcemente che mercé m'impetre, e faccia forza al cielo, asciugandosi gli occhi col bel velo. Da' be' rami scendea (dolce ne la memoria) una pioggia di fior' sovra 'l suo grembo; ed ella si sedea umile in tanta gloria, coverta già de l'amoroso nembo. Qual fior cadea sul lembo, qual su le treccie bionde, ch'oro forbito e perle eran quel dí a vederle; qual si posava in terra, e qual su l'onde; qual con un vago errore girando parea dir: - Qui regna Amore. Quante volte diss'io allor pien di spavento: Costei per fermo nacque in paradiso. Cosí carco d'oblio il divin portamento e 'l volto e le parole e 'l dolce riso m'aveano, e sí diviso da l'imagine vera, ch'i' dicea sospirando: Qui come venn'io, o quando?; credendo d'esser in ciel, non là dov'era.
Da indi in qua mi piace quest'erba sĂ, ch'altrove non ò pace. Se tu avessi ornamenti quant'Ă i voglia, poresti arditamente uscir del bosco, et gir in fra la gente.
Francesco Petrarca
1374
Clear, sweet fresh water where she, the only one who seemed woman to me, rested her beautiful limbs: gentle branch where it pleased her (with sighs, I remember it) to make a pillar for her lovely flank: grass and flowers which her dress lightly covered, as it did the angelic breast: serene, and sacred air, where Love pierced my heart with eyes of beauty: listen together to my last sad words. If it is my destiny and heaven works towards this, that Love should close these weeping eyes, let some grace bury my poor body amongst you, and the soul return naked to its place. Death would be less cruel if I could bear this hope to the uncertain crossing: since the weary spirit could never in a more gentle harbour, or in a quieter grave, leave behind its troubled flesh and bone. Perhaps another time will come, when the beautiful, wild, and gentle one will return to this accustomed place, and here where she glanced at me on that blessed day may turn her face yearning and joyful, to find me: and, oh pity!, seeing me already earth among the stones, Love will inspire her in a manner such that she will sigh so sweetly she will obtain mercy for me, and have power in heaven, drying her eyes with her lovely veil.
A rain of flowers descended (sweet in the memory) from the beautiful branches into her lap, and she sat there humble amongst such glory, covered now by the loving shower. A flower fell on her hem, one in her braided blonde hair, that was seen on that day to be like chased gold and pearl: one rested on the ground, and one in the water, and one, in wandering vagary, twirling, seemed to say: 'Here Love rules'. Then, full of apprehension, how often I said: 'For certain she was born in Paradise.' Her divine bearing and her face, her speech, her sweet smile captured me, and so separated me, from true thought that I would say, sighing: 'How did I come here, and when?' believing I was in heaven, not there where I was. Since then this grass has so pleased me, nowhere else do I find peace. Song, if you had as much beauty as you wished, you could boldly leave this wood, and go among people.
Francesco Petrarca
VOICES FROM THE STARS New Moons and Jupiter Planet of Peace Laura Bottagisio According to the incessant planetary movements, we count our days, months and years which mark the passing of time following the sun and moon cycles, since they beat the rythm of life on earth. Like a precise clock the two hands of hours and minutes measure the time span of one day, in the same way Sun and Moon give rythm to the seasons of a year: new moons, full moons, and quarters mirror exactly the movement of hours, half hours and quarter hours. Therefore, at each new moon, the two hands of Sun and Moon beat in unison the beginning of a lunation that lasts between 28 and 30 days. The Zodiac Wheel, divided in 12 signs, is structured exactly like a clock, we can measure the passing of time on it, from daily to millenary time. This measurement is conventionally based on the count of “12”. Among the planets in our solar system, there is one that has a cycle on base “12”, it circles around the Sun in 12 years, each year it travels through one zodiac sign. Astronomy, which gives names to the celestial bodies, has called it Jupiter, astrologically it is the most benevolent and reassuring of planets. At each new moon there is a new seasonal phase, Jupiter is the planet supporting the Archetype that facilitates growth and evolution. Therefore, it is interesting to observe how the last new moons of 2017 interact with Jupiter, now almost at the end of its transit in Lybra and ready to go into Scorpio.
August 21 NEW MOON in Leo The new Moon of August has produced a total eclypse of the Sun. The configuration in the sky is a triangle among the fire signs, its meaning is highly stimulating and supportive, it will open the purification of all our subtle bodies, thus establishing the alignement of their different frequencies. This process will foster the blooming of our Soul Heart, just above our heart chakra. From that door our Essence will manage to find an opening and come to the light in order to fully manifest itself in the world of matter, now completly transformed and healed, starting with our physical body. “The stage of the moon when an intuition or a sensation comes from the unconscious and is almost ready to take on a form as a conscious thought. It is a stage of awareness still partially enveloped in the ever moving and elusive ocean of the unconscious, nevertheless it is already half expressed by the conscious mind� Dane Rudhyar on the new moon (29o of Leo). At this point Jupiter is still in that part of the sky that is astrologically called Lybra. The main aspect of this sign is the research of beauty through a process of harmonization with all the parts at play. The context created by the joined support of Jupiter and the new moon in Leo helps to experiment what is new in full harmony between what we are now and what we want to become.
September 20 NEW MOON in Virgo The spectacular and resonant trine among the fire signs remains, but is less intense, thus leaving space to the need for re establishing boundaries to the form, such action will supply the practical aspects that will make the new projects feasible. The new moon in september is important from this point of view. Besides joined Sun and Moon, Mercury Mars and Venus are also present in Virgo, these three planets determine the boundaries of individual personality and situations. Among the earth signs, Virgo has the task to secure the structure through which the invisible energey evolves into matter. Jupiter is still at the end of Lybra and, thanks to an aspect of half sextile, supports this process with his positive help that give courage in action and faith in the decisions made. The degree of the new moon (Virgo 28o) tells us just this: “Facing the urgent need of decisions and transformation. Life is change. No form is static, however beautiful and inspired, it can remain intact and undefeated for too long. Every thing strains towards will�
October 10 NEW MOON in Lybra The new moon in October is at the last degree of Lybra, Sun and Moon are closely joined to Jupiter, just passed into Scorpio, a few degree apart there is also Mercury. This planetary alignement: Sun, Moon, Jupiter, Mercury describes the importance of giving depth and attention to the new, yet unripe, projects that need to be helped with constant dedication. The great fire trine still remains in the sky to supply us with “fuel”, the necessary vitality to remain with our intent. Here is the meaning of the degree of the new moon (Lybra 27o) “ A consciousness that can transcend conflicts and personal life tensions. Using the mind with the cooperation of other human beings, each person can find a new perspective on human issues and reach freedom and peace in a supernal life kingdom”
November 18 NEW MOON in Scorpio Jupiter is now travelling in the transformative energy of Scorpio that regenerates at cellular and soul levels in the continuous movement of life death and rebirth. The mew moon in Scorpio enphasizes this process and leads us into the most unknown aspects of our being, in order to help us reach our centre, vibrate and work with its creative power. The degree of this new moon tells us so: (Scorpio 27o) “Our western civilization, so aggressive and set to dominate, is really the opposite of our natural spontaneity and the instinctive adapting to nature that was typical in tribal societies�.
December 18 NEW MOON in Sagittarius Finally we have reached the time of the new birth! We have changed “skin”, we have tuned in with our most magical part, connected to I AM, at last, our Ego gives its scepter to this part and kneels down. Jupiter is now well positioned in the centre of Scorpio, it invites us to let go of any attachment still keeping us chained to the past. Now it is time to be born again in the Light of the soul. The new moon in Sagittarius indicates this (Sagittarius 27o) “It is the power to project our vision onto the matter and give it a form. Here the person expresses creatively his/her individual personality. He/she takes the “materials” available in the surrounding environment and shapes them in such a way to reveal something about his/her life and personal intents”. A few days later, at the winter solstice, Saturn appears in Capricorn and looks for the first time at which new projects will give form and value. Let's be ready!
WHAT IS HAPPENING The socio political and economic conditions show our decay on a global level. Very few people hold in their hands the destinies of many. The only goal of laws in every country is profit above all else, so much so that entire populations have become just exchange goods. In such a scenario, it seems impossible that something might change this authoritarian approach. However, there is something that the powerful men and women of the Earth cannot command nor harness: the Awakening of Consciousness directed and wanted by Light itself. Light has incarnated as a principle in each one of us together with our first breath, each human being is a carrier of Light, even if an unconscious one. Let's recognize our divine flame and follow it as our guide. Let's believe in it, after all perhaps we were born just for this!
Laura Bottagisio Edited and Translated by Antonella Vicini
MAGIC A Prayer of Gratitude Adrian Rooke
And so, the harvest has finally been gathered in the beautiful land of Albion (England). The corn is cut and John Barleycorn has been slain as a willing sacrifice for the good of the people. The fields, where the corn once stood proud, now look barren and sad with the stubble left in the fields reminding us that we are slowly but surely heading into the dark half of the year. That said, there is still much in these lands to marvel upon. The hedgerows, full of juicy blackberries. The Blackthorn gifting us the sour blue-black sloes which are so good in jam and of course in our sloe-gins. Hazel trees, branches heavy with the protein and mineral rich nuts and its leaves already turning towards their autumn splendour. The mighty Rowan, full of blood red berries, so important for the birds and very good in preserves. Acorns upon the Oak trees, Druids in the fields and vales. As we have celebrated the festival of Lughnassad, the Sun God; or Lammas (the first bread) to the wiccans, pagan folk have taken to the fields and woods in their thousands to offer thanks and celebrate the bounty of the Green Goddess, Mother Earth.
I, myself have been blessed beyond measure to have celebrated with assorted pagan folk in Holland at the Green Spirit Gathering. in the recently reclaimed from the sea, land of Zeewolde.
Then back to attend the Oak Dragon gathering in the glorious fields of Wiltshire, not far from Avebury. Amongst many beautiful events that week, we visited a spring which is the source of one of the tributaries of the river Avon. It is made up of nine bubbling water sprites coming up from deep within the belly of the earth, and a place where our ancestors have visited to drink and feed their animals for thousands of years. This site is surrounded by ancient monuments and burial mounds testimony to the importance it held for our ancestors. We were all given an apple from a tree that grew over the spring, fresh and delicious though slightly tart.
The last vestiges of summer tantalise us yet. As the sun still shines in the sky, though not so warmly as his power is slowly waning, Speckled Wood butterflies still dance around the edges of the woodland, the Red Admiral takes nectar from the buddleia and the ice plants, and the birds still sing in the trees. Thank you, Goddess, for all of your myriad of blessings as we move towards the equinox, when the wheel surrenders to increasing darkness. Blessed Be
Adrian Rooke
BECOMING MEDICINE Walking Through the Doorway David Kopacz One night, I woke up at 3:30 AM and did some reading and meditation. I had started re-reading Ruzbihan Baqli’s The Unveiling of Secrets: Diary of a Sufi Master. I love the visual imagery and poetics of this book and it is filled with Ruzbihan’s visions that started when he was a child and continued on throughout his life. For instance, on this night I read the passage, “On the Carpet of Oneness without a Veil,” an excerpt of which follows: What we have shown and alluded to is a kind of knowledge that comes from the science of passion and love. The Truth appeared here in beauty and majesty, and he bequeathed to them some of that love, passion, and knowledge. This is because there are seas of unknowing in the reality of divine oneness, from which all the prophets, messengers, angels and saints flee. In the station of divine oneness is the burning of greatness, which consumes thoughts, understandings, and comprehensions…I entered into ecstasy and cried out repeatedly, annihilated in his majesty…I saw him unveiled, and he said, ‘Ruzbihan! Do not shed tears at the shifting flow of the shapes of the actions, and do not doubt what you have seen: “I am I” [Qur’an 28:30], your lord, the one, the single. You do not deserve that I should distress you in the oceans of unknowing. I am yours throughout my creation, so do not worry over anything. I shall convey you to the station of ‘the vision of vision’ and I shall seat you on the carpet of my nearness forever, without a veil’ (Baqli, 24-26).
Next, I read “Seeking the Vision of the Essence,” with the line, “And the Truth (who is transcendent) revealed himself in an atom of the light of his pre-eternal essence (he is mighty and supreme), and my spirit nearly vanished” (Baqli, 29). Then I closed the book, turned off the light, sat in the dark and began to meditate, thinking about “the science of passion and love,” “the vision of vision,” and “seeking the vision of essence…in an atom of the light.” I felt in my heart a deep longing to have such visions as Ruzbihan, and I thought of what Joseph Rael calls, “crying for a vision.”
I love this phrase because it brings to mind two concepts of crying: crying out, like strongly stating a wish or intention of openness and receptivity to be filled; and crying as in sadness or longing. Joseph describes the number “two” as weh-seh. Two is the place of separation from unity into duality and this brings about a longing for lost unity. Joseph describes the word “two” in Tiwa:
At step two we have duality, we have two sides, and at this point we have the capacity to cry. We can cry in longing. We can cry in praise… Listen to it: weh-mu is one. Weh-seh is two. Weh is to slip. Seh is to cry. Weh-mu is to slip and see. We can now perceive… Weh-seh is crying for a vision. And it is in number two that God has the plan for us that we are contemplators. We can think now, we can see, and we can reflect” (Joseph Rael, The Way of Inspiration, 50-51). One of the beauties of Sufism is the movement back and forth from unity to duality and back to duality. Whether it is the longing of Rumi for his teacher Shams, or the heart-pourings of Ruzbihan as he moves from the ecstasy of divine union to the heart-wrenching longing of separation. Carl Ernst, who has translated Ruzbihan’s writing into English, describes two attributes of God: majesty and beauty. “The Attributes of God can be divided into two types: Attributes of majesty that mediate the power and wrath of God, and Attributes of beauty that convey the grace and mercy of God” (Ernst, Ruzbihan Baqli: Mysticism and the Rhetoric of Sainthood in Persian Sufism, 30). Two, then, represents the separation, exile, and longing (the Attribute of majesty). Yet, it also represents the approach of divine union (the Attribute of beauty). Separation contains within it the memory of Unity and the promise of future Re-unity. In the longing of separation, Rumi eventually finds union with Shams and writes poems and signs Shams’ name to them.
As in Kashmiri Shaivism, all things are Śiva ― this is beyond masculine and feminine. Then separation into two occurs into masculine Śiva and feminine Śakti as a manifestation of the essence of Supreme Unity. Separation is the perception in Ordinary Reality and Unity is the perception in Non-ordinary Reality. So with all this swirling in my head as a sense of divine longing arises in my heart, I think of Joseph “crying for a vision,” and I say out loud, “Help me God!”
And I hear in the voice of my imagination, “It is not I who come to you, but you who come to me.” And I see in the eye of my imagination A Ray of Divine Light from a bright Source. I start to move toward the Light along this ray. I contemplate what Ruzbihan calls the “stations,” all the positions, 70,000 maybe—I think he mentions that number—and I contemplate the spectrum of the Station of Nearness next to the Light and the Station of Farness as far away from the Light as can be imagined. I contemplate the Stations of Light from a faint, dim flicker to a blinding flash of lightning that is so bright it seems to annihilate my very being. I contemplate the Stations of Darkness, from a dim light to an utter void that is so dark that it annihilates my very being. I approach the Light and observe I become brighter the closer I get to it. I touch the Light and feel it warming me. I reach into the Light, I walk into the Light. At first I am so bright that I start to become indistinct, and eventually it is so bright that I cannot perceive a difference between myself and the Light; I have become the Light.
Then I am back to having a self and a body, but my heart is an open heart shape, like a big cookie cutter was pressed through me. I peer out forward through my heart and it is brilliant Light. I peer backward through my heart and it is luminous Darkness. I think, “This is why we move forward; we are constantly running from the Darkness or we are chasing the Light, but really we have both, we are both, we are made of both Light and Dark. Maybe this is why Ruzbihan says the “prophets, messengers, angels and saints flee” the “seas of unknowing in the reality of the divine oneness.” One and Two. One and the Other. There is a world where all is One, that is the Non-ordinary Reality that Joseph speaks of. There is a world where there is not unity, but duality and diversity. One and the Other. This world, the Ordinary Reality, is a dark reflection of the Other world, the One World, and we are the dim Two World. Then I hear something and become scared. I look at the door and I think, “Who is going to come through that door?” I remember Rumi’s statement, “Submit to love without thinking.” I realize that it is me who is going to go out through that door, I am going to pass through a doorway. Rather than someone coming in, I am going to go out through that door. I walk through into a World of Light so bright that the world begins to dissolve into Union with the Light. I begin to dissolve and become less substance and more Light, until I am nothing but Light. I remember Ruzbihan’s phrase, “the Truth (which is transcendent).” I realize I am only experiencing one sense, vision—what about scent? There are saints who smell God as well as saints who see God. With the nose of my imagination I smell the sweet scent of jasmine. It is separation that allows me to smell that as something other than myself and I gradually lose myself in this scent and I become this brilliant Light, so bright that nothing exists but light and I am this scent, so sweet that nothing exists but this scent.
I contemplate Ruzbihan’s descriptions of various oceans and deserts. The fullness of oceans and the absent barren-ness of deserts. I contemplate Oneness as a Vast Ocean with no boundaries, of Being as nothing but Ocean. I contemplate separation as a Vast Desert with no boundaries, Separation as nothing but empty Desert. Sometimes Ruzbihan even drinks the Oceans in his visions. “Why not?� I ask myself as I drain the Brilliant Ocean of Eternity, which is nothing but Light, nothing but Jasmine, nothing but Sweetness, nothing but everything. It is only in the most superficial way that we are separate beings, that we are disconnected, unrelated, and that our boundaries keep us apart more than link us together.
The ancient Greeks sought the “atom” the smallest indivisible bit of matter. Modern scientists have discovered it and found that it does not exist—the smaller the particle, the less “particle-like,” the less “matter” it turns out to be. At our most basic reality, we are energy in flux and interconnection with the world around us. We are a manifestation of what the universe is and there is no separation between mind and body, between you and I, between one people and another people, between the ego and the universe. This is the Hindu concept of Purusha, the Self, of the physical reality we see being a glimmer of light on the Vast Ocean of consciousness. In the end we are all Siva. Even the masculine Śiva and the feminine Śakti merge into One, a divine being called Ardhanarishvara, who is half male and half female. Joseph speaks of a similar concept, that when we age we become MotherFather beings. After age 55, a person becomes a “Mother-Father” person by integrating the receptivity of the feminine with the activity of the masculine. This combines into the “Mother-Father-God principle,” Keyaah-ta-meh-nay (Rael, Ceremonies of the Living Spirit, 150). Our physical hearts are divided into four chambers, and yet all hearts work as one. We can say that we have one heart even though it has different aspects and functions, different chambers some of which hold deoxygenated blood and some of which hold oxygenated blood. It is in this unity of the heart that we can meet the unity of humanity and the unity of all being.
David Kopacz This is an excerpt from the forthcoming book by David R. Kopacz and Joseph Rael (Beautiful Painted Arrow) called Becoming Medicine, due out in 2018.
HUMAN Tanya Tewell As a women artist, my commitment and focus will always be on portraying the female face and form because I feel an obligation to paint the complexities and diversities of women in a respectful way. Hopefully, one day, it will not be necessary to differentiate gender in regard to artistic production but, as a second wave feminist, I feel that it is still necessary. The current context of the work is inspired by ancient Etruscan and Roman imagery but the issues of honoring women are of course, still relevant. My affinity for portraying strong women comes from the fact that I was raised in a household dominated by strong, individualistic women especially, my grandmother. She was a true matriarch in an amazingly diverse and crowded household. Her kindness and generosity was legendary in our rough working- class town in the rustbelt of the U.S. She regularly took in children, elders, and even whole families, if there was a need. As a woman who worked independently from the time she was in her early 30s to the year of her death at aged 77, who bought a house as a single woman, who gave homes to countless mixed- race children, and who had friends from many races and cultures, she broke with the conventions of the time again and again. She also paid the price for it. When the labor unions were struggling to gain power, she encouraged her husband to fight for coal miner’s rights. He was shot and threatened regularly and died in a mysterious, “freak” mining accident when he decided to lead the miners on a strike. My grandmother was left a widow in her 3o’s with two young children and an elderly mother to support.
I think that those traumatic events shaped her into an amazingly courageous and determined women. Her support for the black community, the poor, the down- and- out won her much admiration and much contempt. I remember as a child two molatov cocktails being hurled through our front windows. We regularly received threats and were told to move out of the neighborhood. On the other hand, my grandmother received great support from some very prominent politicians, civic benefactors, and the Catholic church. She also earned the undying loyalty of countless people that she helped over the decades. When she died, the line of mourners extended around the block for hours. The flowers that people sent spilled out onto the sidewalks and had to be taken to hospitals and nursing homes. The waves of positive influence emanating from her countless acts of kindness is difficult to measure. Decades after my grandmother died, I remember a story that one of my fellow foster siblings named Robert passed on to me and it really moved me. He had moved thousands of miles away to Los Angeles to take a job in the emerging high tech industry and sat next to a stranger in a bar. They began talking and the stranger asked where Robert came from (a frequent question in L.A.) and when Robert told him the town, it was quickly revealed that the stranger knew the town. In fact, he remembered the town very well and ,in particular, an unexpected act of kindness. He recounted that when he was ten years old, he and his mother escaped an abusive situation and were destitute. They were sitting in the bus station, trying to keep their spirits up but not sure how they would get the rest of the fare that they would need to go to California. One of the bus station workers told them about my grandmother. They came to our house and were fed, given money and a ticket to start a new life. Robert was stunned at their connection but not really surprised. That is not the only such story about how random acts of kindness by one woman connected random people in places and times that were very far apart.
I think this is one of the factors that has always made me feel that time and people are not on a linear spectrum but somehow overlapping in profound connection. As a teacher, I also know that the kindness that I show my students is passed along to others many times over. This is the essence of my job as a teacher and the content of my classes are simply the vehicle for heightened awareness, thoughtfulness, and connection with the world through art. This also relates to the images in my paintings which embody layers of time—the past revealing itself in the present through pentimento or a kind of ghost underpainting surfacing in the predominant image. The painting I am including in this issue is one that I think my grandmother would have appreciated.
Tanya Tewell
TAMING WAVES Paolo Benda We live in times of fast and big changes, this is already evident to many, it certainly is clear to the people who support change in their lives and work to support others as well. It is a change on many levels: our mind changes, our relationships change, our perception of who we are and what surrounds us changes as well. Our reality is made of vibrations, everything vibrates from subatomc particles to entire galaxies. Vibration is the essential key of mass (inappropriately called matter), without vibration the mass would not be subject to the laws of space and time, it would become out of time and would occupy an infinite yet infinitesimal space at the same time, thus becoming matter (not mass). Therefore, matter becomes mass only after starting to vibrate, then it can be defined in terms of space and time. The background vibration of every known thing is the same one that has given origin to everything, it is coherent, harmonious, essential and vital. The vibrations that are emitted by our thoughts, words or gestures, if they don't contrast with the natural ones, resonate with it thus amplifying their effect, when they meet something (living being or not) they call for an analogous “sound�. The negative ones, since they are not natural, because they contrast with the creative, cooperative and evolutionary principles, do not live for long.
The recent developments in physics, especially in quantum mechanics keep changing our vision and the position of human beings in the cosmos. While Einstein's relativity theory demonstrated that matter is energy, quantum mechanics has shown that level of energy has a wave nature.
As long as we limit our observation to the molecular dimension, matters seems to have a certain density, but when we reach the subatomic level we realize that the so called particles are fluctuations of energy fields carrying information.
Our consciousness emerges and expresses this fundamental field in nature: the structures of our brain and mind can amplify and transmit the primordial impulses that come from the source. They in turn influence morphogenetically the morphogenetic and emotional expression of each human being. From this perspective, individual consciousness expresses this fundamental level of physics which is self referential, this aspect is the capacity to establish a rapport with inner disruptions, thus giving birth to primordial consciousness. The Olobenda tablets act as a bridge between the highest and lowest realms of reality. They are interdimensional doors that connect human consciousness with the archetypes and the infinite. The mandalas on the tablets evoke the connections of form, movement, space and time. They offer a path to establish a contact with harmony and balance in nature, they bring back into our consciousness the principles of nature. For thousands of years, the images on mandalas have served as a mean to expand the mind. The images transcend language and rational thinking, they lead to the wisdom of universal knowledge and to a deeper understanding of human consciousness. My latest researches have allowed me to classify the vibrations, so I could determine their frequencies and memorize them on different instruments with vibrational circuits. In this way I have managed to produce vibrational products, that is I can charge various objects with harmonious vibrations, thus creating a field with these memorized frequencies. Such a radionic device emits the pure originally created energy that facilitates evolution, through it the auric field can be transformed into purely magnetic and circulate in all directions.
The tablet re harmonizes all the subtle frequencies with the environment, thus allowing the best psychophysical re balancing. The device can be programmed with thought forms, for this reason it is suggested to follow the 31 day path in the virtual rooms of our website.
Paolo Benda Edited and Translated by Antonella Vicini www.olobenda.guru
PSYCHO AROMATHERAPY an Introduction part 1
Renato Tittarelli Psycho aromatherapy has very ancient origins, it uses essential oils in a psychic and creative way in order to support growth in people on the personal, relational and evolutionary levels. The person is invited to re discover his/her talents and skills, to realize with joy and experiment with the pleasure of sharing. Choosing the essential oils to be used takes into account all the above aspects, with special attention to the esoteric and alchemical tradition of the Traditional Mediterranea Medicine (TMM).
Robert Tisserand, born in London 1948, he named Psycho Aromatherapy in the XX century.
Each essential oil activates the limbic system (emotional, relational, ancestral), it can improve the immune system and harmonize the endocrine system as well. Using essential oils for healing, just as it happened in ancient Egypt and in the alchemical tradition, is connected with myths and archetypes since these are the foundation of universal consciousness, as well as arts, sciences and religions. The interaction between essential oils and vibrational instruments and methodologies (colors, shapes, numbers, geometric shapes, music) is encouraged. Oftentimes this interaction is also connected with artistic, playful and social forms in order to improve the relationship with oneself and others.
Giovanni Stradano, The Alchimist's Lab, Florence, XVI century
10 aspects of Psycho Aromatherapy According to the methodology I have created there are 10 steps to walk in order to be in a healthy rapport with oneself using the essential oils: 1 Making Sacred Whatever happens in the body, mind, emotion and spirit needs to be considered from the point of view of the soul. Our soul needs a honorable space, it awakens our sleeping sensitivity and our sense of responsability towards life, even if it has to create a disease in order to be heard.
Uroburos
2 Unifying A sense of unease, suffering, some evident symptoms have to be considered as an expression of body, soul and spirit, therefore they need to be treated in their totality. Whatever kind of therapy needs to remember and respect the fundamental unity of the person, thus choosing the energetic, vibrational, artistic aspects that can best serve the person, even in cooperation with other operators. 3 Giving Voice Disease and pain in any form are ways to express a need for help, oftentimes not heard or not acknowledged, at the same time they are a call for solutions. A healthy and happy person is such through an educational, social, familial and relational process. If we want to help the being that is in us, we need to give it voice so that it can communicate and express clearly its individual, social and spiritual mission.
4 Ritualizing
Androginus o Rebis: union of masculine and feminine principles.
Any manifestation of the most sacred and deepest part of human beings obeys harmoniousand well defined universal laws, supported by primordial forms such as numbers and archetypes. In order to re establish balance we need to know where the imbalance started. We can contact this sacred space with simple rituals that help the harmonization of the person, his/her family, physical, social space.
Renato Tittarelli Copyright Š 2016 Edited and Translated by Antonella Vicini
FOOD IS OUR ALLY and OUR PLEASURE Claudia Enrico FRESH PUMPKIN RISOTTO This very tasty and easy to prepare recipe is well suited for the beginning of Fall season. Pumpkins of different species are grown all over the World. In Italy we have different varieties according to the different regions. Choose the ones that are very orange, because they will be delicious and tasty. The color Orange helps the second Chakra to find balance and harmony. Rice is a gluten-free cereal. Nutritional yeast is a good substitute for Parmesan cheese for people who are lactose intolerant or Vegan. Chia seeds provide good support in Omega 3 fatty-acids, very important for cholesterol and pressure balance. The passage from a very hot Summer to a wet Fall implies a change in our diet. This recipe combines very healthy ingredients according to the new season it is yummy!
Ingredients: ( 4 servings ) 1 ½ cup Carnaroli rice 2 cups fresh diced pumpkin 1 onion sliced 2 cloves garlic, crushed 3-4 cups hot vegetable stock 1 fresh rosemary twig Chia seeds 1-2 tsp Himalayan salt Freshly groung black pepper Nutritional yeast EVO oil
Directions Pour some olive oil in a large saucepan. Add onion, garlic, rosemary leaves and gently sautè. Add rice and stir for a few minutes till the rice is well coated in oil. Add the pumpkin and mix all the ingredients. Add 1 cup of hot stock. On medium heat, cook stirring until the liquid is almost absorbed. Count from this moment at least 20-25 minutes to cook the rice. Continue stirring and adding stock, one cup at a time, until the stock is all absorbed and the rice is tender. Add salt. When your rice is ready add black pepper and dust it with nutritional yeast. Serve immediately adding 1 tsp of Chia seeds. Enjoy!
Claudia Enrico
MOTHER EARTH SPEAKS Sister Water Claudia Enrico It has been a very hot and dry Summer this year, 2017, here in Italy and in Europe. I’ve seen some signs at the beginning of May when the weather suddenly turned from cold wet to dry, windy and unusually warm. But water was still abundantly flowing in the stream close to my house and I and my neighbours were unworried. Then the season shifted from Spring to Summer and I saw that trees and vegetables in my garden and orchard were sprouting, blossoming, growing and getting ripe too fast. July felt like September and most of the trees had their leaves burned by the Sun, many parasites were attacking them because they were weak. I’ve had extra-work in order to water everything daily. I had moments of such discouragement that they turned into a huge discomfort also for my physical body. Too much hot, far too dry. So much work to do! I’ve been constantly looking at the Sky, trying to see a sign in the clouds…. Nothing! When there were attempts of rain showing from clouds, they were always rejected by chemtrails spraying. It’s a real fact. I started to send distant Reiki to call for clouds and rain. And I started to pray too. I asked some friends and sensitive people to join me in a chain of support.
I talked to the Holy Mary to come with Her blue cloak to cover with rain my place and Italy. And one night I had a very powerful dream. It was raining and someone, may be an Angel, was saying to me: “Did you see? At last your prayers have had an effect. They have been listened!” This dream was so real…. and the day after few drops came down from the Sky. Not enough….. but an answer. So I entered into a deeper space of listening and meditation. What was all that trying to tell me? Why was this season so tough with Nature? What healing process was occurring to Mother Earth too?
About me There are many lessons to learn in this period. I will share with you few of them. About worry Mikao Usui (the Founder of the Usui System for Natural Healing – Reiki) created the Principles of Reiki, the first one is: “Just for today do not worry” What does this mean? I personally have experienced many steps of this “lesson”, but there still is a unique final closing point that always says “All is well!”. Even in the most critical moments and passages… “All is well!”. But how can I trust that…. always? About Trust What is Trust? From the dictionary: “The belief that somebody or something is good, sincere, honest and will not try to harm or deceive you”. About Faith The dictionary says: “Trust in someone's ability or knowledge. Trust that person will do what has been promised.” Well … I think that I have enough elements to say that in my personal process I’ve been called again to respond to the simple question: “Do I trust and have faith in God/Goddess?” Does this question sound familiar to you too? About Nature Nature means for me all the Living Beings on this Planet. I’ve seen Nature for years from my little vantage point, and I’ve learned a lot. Nature is able to give and to take back in ways that are not always understandable for us Human Beings. Nature is rich, abundant, prosperous, strong, wild, beautiful….. I’ve always felt that Nature is the physical way in which God/Goddess has chosen to manifest Itself into this Earth. And God/Goddess is very Creative!
Nature has no feelings, and we Human Being have some difficulties to understand, accept that. The realm of feelings is part of the world of Men & Women. Animals and Plants have no feelings, since they live on a different vibrational dimension. They enter in touch with us they are part of us. But we aren't always able to contact them. So this is still an open process for us Human Beings to heal our idea to be superior to Nature, trying to tame It. Instead, we need to become part of It, to integrate, to embody our place/role on this Planet. Nature did it a long time ago…. We are late….! About Mother Earth She is the “Big Womb” from where we all come from. Gaia is the name we gave Her. We have all been born from a mother, and we have a father too. There are different planes of energy and awareness on this Earth and our Mother is holding them all in Her womb. Holding allows the process of transformation, transmutation, change, healing and so on. The female energy is supposed to do this work. But I’ve the feeling that Mother Earth is missing something. I feel we Human Beings have being able to create some beauty, yet we still continue to do some very bad things. We do not honor our place on this Earth as we used to do long ago. We have started to take advantage of Her gifts not giving anything in return. We have started to wound our Mother…. And to go far from our Father… the Sky.
Native American Indians, and other ancient People of this Planet knew the balance in giving and receiving. And there was more Harmony. Mother Earth is having some reactions, to protect Herself and Life. Life! Life is Her child! She is very powerful and that’s why she’s reacting in violent ways to protect Nature and Life.
About Sister Water Our Planet is mostly made of water. Like our body. Interesting connection… isn’t it? Being born and raised in Liguria, a thin sliver of land compressed by the steep hills behind and the sea in front, I’ve learned about the presence and the scarcity of water along the seasons. I’ve seen how Mother Earth is able to hold in hiding and in some sacred places small reservoirs of water for the “difficult times”. There are some Elements on this Planet that are really Spiritual Entities governing Life: Water, Fire, Air and Earth, four Elements on the Wheel of Medicine as the four Directions. Four in Sacred Geometry means “Creativity”. Water is strictly connected to the deep feminine. I daily pray and bless my Sister Water. I’ve developed along my path the awareness that She is the fundamental link to allow us to be connected both with Mother Earth and with our Ancestors. Water has an eternal memory…. Water is able to transfer, share, communicate emotions. Water lives on the Earth in different forms (rivers, lakes, streams, sea, springs, ponds….) but She comes from the Sky. So why “drought”? About the Healing Process Saint Francis of Assisi wrote: “Praised be You, my Lord, through Sister Water, which is very useful and humble and precious and chaste.” Mother Earth has Her ways to “save” water for Her vital necessities. She never runs out! And I believe that when she goes away for some period of time is just because She wants to remind us Human Beings to find again our connection with Father Sky. Rain will come again. May be in strong ways. Just to be sure to be “heard”. Our prayers will be beneficial to call Her…. our Sister Water.
So I invite you to become “wild” or “natural” and go outdoors to talk to Father Sky and to perform some irrational but sacred rituals to say to God/Goddess: “I’m here, I’ve understood that I cannot live without Water/Spirit. I ask you Father to come back to the Mother and be again One in the Spirit of Life governing this Planet. Thank you for listening to my heart. I’m honest and sincere. Bless you Sister Water to come, to stay and to be. And so it is. Amen!” Conclusion I want to thank you all for reading my articles. I hope you have enjoyed them and that they have been a source of inspiration. I wish you the best, as well as Love, Peace and Prosperity in your Life. Namaste!
Claudia Enrico © 2017 Edited by Antonella Vicini
APOTHECARY Nature Remedies Jo Dunbar In some ways, Autumn can be seen as the richest time of the year. The fruits are like the golden product of the richness of the soil, the warmth of the summer sun and the endeavours of the pollinating insects, which merge into juicy berries, nuts, and fattened roots. One of my favourite trees is the Elder tree. This is a wonderful tree which bears beautiful frothy flowers with antiinflammatory actions on the mucous membranes at exactly the time of year when so many are plagued with hay-fever. Now in the autumn, it bears rich blue-black berries which are potently anti-viral and packed with vitamin C – again, at exactly the time of year when we need to boost our immune system against the bacteria and viruses which swarm can make the winter months miserable. It is said that the Goddess Helder Mother lives in the Elder. She has been thought of as quite a vengeful Goddess and in times gone by -even today - country folk have been very reluctant to cut the Elder without at least asking her permission. I always ask, with great care and reverence, which berries and flowers I might pick. There have been times when I was lazy and didn’t ask, and I struggled to pull the berries off. However, when I ask properly, I am guided as to which she will donate to my cause, and the berries seem to willingly jump off the twigs into my hands.
Another common hedgerow plant is horseradish, which, with its fiery root, is very helpful at loosening deep phlegm in the lungs and expelling it. The rich sulphur within the root helps to disinfect chest infections and cleanse the blood. This is a herb that I love to use for those who feel that the cold and damp has crept into their lungs (and joints), and they cough for months at a time.
Our wonderful thyme is such a delicious kitchen herb, that most of us have some growing in our garden or even in a pot on the kitchen window sill. Thyme is a powerful anti-bacterial herb with an affinity for the lungs and the bladder. If you suffer from chest or bladder infections, this is the first herb to go for – simply add ½ teaspoon of the dried herb, or 1 teaspoon of the fresh herb to a cup of boiling water, cover and leave for 15 minutes, then drink. Do this 4 times a day, and you should feel quickly relieved of your ailment.
Together these three herbs make a fabulous winter immune cordial. Make your own Fiery Cough and Cold Tonic: You will need: • Fresh Elderberries (or dried if you can’t find any) • Fresh Horseradish root (available at a supermarket) • Fresh ginger • Dried or fresh Thyme • Dark brown sugar Collect a small basket of black elderberries and rinse them under the tap. Now with a fork remove them from the twigs until you have about 2 cups of berries. Place in a saucepan and just cover with boiling water. Simmer for about 15 minutes and then switch off and leave to cool. With a potato masher, crush the berries into the water to release their juices, and then strain, keeping the liquid. Gently start to re-heat the strained red liquid. (The crushed berries can go into your compost bin.) Now, instead of calculating 70% sugar to the quantity of liquid that you have, I simply add enough sugar to the re-heated liquid, until the sugar will no longer dissolve, so that you have a super saturated solution. At this stage, add 2 teaspoons of freshly grated horseradish root, one teaspoon of chopped ginger, 3 teaspoons of dried thyme, or 6 teaspoons of freshly chopped thyme. Replace the lid and allow the herbs to extract as the liquid cools. Once cooled, strain through a muslin-lined sieve into a sterilised glass bottle. This cordial is delicious as an immune boosting hot toddy where you add a splash to a glass of hot water. Even if you do get a cold or chest infection, you will find that you recover from it much more quickly than everybody else, and if someone already has a chest infection, then you can share your cordial with them at a dose of 1 teaspoon 4 times a day in hot water.
Jo Dunbar
TRAVELLING Madeira and the Monte Palace Tropical Garden Judy Hayes While escaping the harsh Chicago winter, I discovered a jewel of an island in the Atlantic, Madeira. Maderia is an island of intriguing contrasts, most notably between the dry, rocky landscape of the island’s volcanic peaks and the extravagant lushness of its fertile and abundant gardens. One of the most extraordinary gardens, Monte Palace Tropical Gardens, takes it name from the mountainous district of the island where it is located (Monte). Besides its riot of greenery and exotic flowers, this garden introduces the visitor to both the history and culture of Portugal in a visual way, and that of Madeira, in particular. Accessible by bus or car, the most evocative way to reach the Garden is by cable car. As the car climbs from the old city along the coast to the dizzying heights of Monte, the car sails above public spaces and private homes densely situated on the slopes. Throughout the climb the dazzlingly blue Atlantic provides the backdrop. Photo 1 In many ways the district of Monte and its Tropical Gardens seem like a world away from the bustling city of Funchal below. Upon entering its main gate it is possible to experience the sense of losing oneself on a remote island within a remote island.
The initial section of the path that descends into the garden is lined with 40 tile panels depicting a broad timeline of Portugese history. These tiles are a colorful and artistic way to be introduced to the history of the country. They are just the first of the stunning visual effects that meet the eye at every step along the path. Photo 2 Next the path leads through a forest dedicated to plants that are indigenous to Madeira. This laurisilva (forest of laurel wood) is a microcosm of the primeval woodland that covers much of Madeira’s mountainous interior. This type of forest is so rare today that significant portions of Madeira’s laurisilva have been designated as a UNESCO World Heritage site. Photo 3 When the path finally levels out, a terrace appears at the southwestern corner of the garden. From here one catches a breathtaking glimpse of the many dimensions of Madeira: its lush greenery in the foreground, the compact urban landscape in the middle and the seemingly endless blue ocean in the background. Photo 4 After crossing one of the few level tracts of the garden, a small lake comes into view with fountains, fern-filled grottoes and swans. A cool breeze wafts across its waters, a welcome reprieve on a warm day. As one climbs out of the garden, there are more delights: first a 16 th century carved limestone nativity scene by the Renaissance artist, Jean de Rouen, and then a whole series of 17th and 18th century tiles salvaged from convents and chapels around Portugal. They are a beautiful example of the exquisite ceramic work for which Portugal is famous. Photo 5 The next discovery en route back to the “real” world is a Japanese garden that combines the human constructs of a pagoda, bridges, archways and a koi pond with an indescribable lushness of vegetation.
Photo 6 The final stretch of walkway climbs steadily up to the exit of this remarkable tropical paradise. After exiting, one immediately encounters another of Madeira’s many interesting traditions, the toboggan run. Here carreiros (toboggan drivers) steer a two-person toboggan, actually a wicker sled with wooden runners, down the steep hill from Monte to the Funchal suburb of Livramento—certainly a fitting climax to an exploration of Monte! Photos 7 and 8 I highly recommend a visit to Madeira and the Monte Tropical Botanical Garden. It certainly has the power to refresh the spirit while deepening one’s appreciation of Madeira’s extraordinary natural beauty.
Judy Hayes
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Photos 7 and 8
TRAVELLING SOUTH Raffaella Vicini This year, after many business travels in Asia, I have had a chance to enjoy my country, especially in Puglia, the so called heel of Italy. This is a beautiful land, surrounded by more than 800 Kms of coast line with a very clear and clean sea. Horizons stretching into infinity, olive groves, almond trees, vineyards, thick plants of prickly pears, then karst rocks, quarries, caves, drywalls dividing the fields. Above the sea and on the hills small villages and towns alike stand out in their blinding white, a view of great beauty and charm: Ostuni, Otranto, Gallipoli, Cisternino and many more. The peninsula of Salento has an ancient name: Messapia which means "between two seas" the Ionian and the Adriatic. Both seas can be seen from Santa Maria di Leuca, the farthest point of the "heel", where they meet. The centre of Salento is Lecce, with its rich baroque palaces, it touches the heart as well as the eyes. Apulia, its Latin name, is a very ancient land, it has been inhabited since the time of Neanderthal men, later more tribes lived there: The Messapians (Greek: Μεσσαπιοί, Latin: Messapii) were an Iapygian tribe which inhabited southern Apulia in classical antiquity. Two other Iapygian tribes, the Peucetians and the Daunians, inhabited central and northern Apulia respectively. All three tribes spoke the Messapian language, but had developed separate archaeological cultures by the seventh century BC.
The Greeks made it a very important centre of Magna Graecia (Latin meaning "Great Greece", Greek: Μεγάλη Ἑλλάς) with Taranto as its centre. The Romans built the Via Appia that lead troops and goods, as well as travellers all the way from Rome to Brindisi. Such an adventurous and leisure journey, with the good company of friends, was told in very light and entertaing verses by Horace in 1 CE. Later on the Hohenstaufen, called in Italian Svevi (Swabian) who ruled over all southern Italy, elected Apulia as their land under the emperor Frederick II. As you can imagine, this region is charming and full of mysteries, ancient ruins of still unknown origin and the incredible beauty of unique places, such as Alberobello. Alberobello ("beautiful tree") is a small town near Bari. Its ancient name was Arbore Bello, due to a thick forest nearby. It is set in a valley at 403 meters above sea level. It is famous for its unique trullo buildings. The trulli of Alberobello have been designated as a UNESCO World Heritage site since 1996. The trulli are limestone conical structures, they are examples of dry stacked construction, using corbelling that is a pre-historic technique. The first trulli showed up in the prehistoric age; they had already been present in the settlement in the Itria Valley. The oldest trulli date back to the 14th Century: it was during this period that what seemed an uninhabited land was assigned to the ownership of the first Count of Conversano by Robert d’Anjou, Prince of Taranto and then King of Naples from 1309 to 1343. According to some research, however, rural settlements had already risen up around the year 1000, on both sides of a river that now runs underground. The habitations gradually grew into villages. The trullo’s dry-wall construction, without mortar, was imposed on new settlers so that they could dismantle their shelters in a hurry. However, most historians agree that this building technique came about due to the area’s geographical conditions, abundant with the limestone we now see in these constructions.
The width of the trulli varies from 0,80 to 2.70 mtrs, the height can go from 1.60 to 2 mtrs, they have no windows, but only the door and an opening in the roof. Below each trullo there is a watern cistern. Due to their shape and materials used for its construction, the trullo is cool in the summer and warm in winter. On the roofs there are symbols of unknown origin, some are christian, others are unknown, this uncertainty makes them even more interesting. Whatever the history and the architectural details of their construction, Alberobello is an enchanted place, where time seems to have stopped; we could almost see magicians and gnomes, elves and fairies coming out of the trulli, so that the tale could become our everyday life. The roofs of the trulli with their pinnacles stand out against the intense blue sky, leaving those colors imprinted on our irises. Light is intense and abundant in Alberobello, as in all of Puglia, especially at sunset time, when the houses and palaces of karst stones shine ablaze with the color of the sky turning first yellow then intense red. A sound travels accross this entire beautiful southern land: it is the crashing of the waves from the two seas that softly touches the coasts and mingles with the breath of the centennial olive trees, their interwoven trunks seem to embrace us and smile our way, reminding us of the importance of Mother Earth.
Raffaella Vicini Edited and Translated by Antonella Vicini
QUILTING AWAY IT’S TIME TO LET GO… Lida Perry It is time to leave Italy and let go of my life here. I have decided to go back to the United States. I have been here in Italy for 33 years and the decision has come after some thought, many considerations and deep reflections not only about my life here but also about my future. I see this decision holding many level of meaning. I am approaching the time in which I am obliged to take notice that I am getting old and some cycles are coming to an end, such as my working activity. I have been engaged in a work that have highly sustained and satisfied me, but in the recent past I have felt a decrease of energy, motivation and curiosity in what I was doing daily. Characteristics that have been present all of these years. All of this has been changing, shifting, inside of me. New thoughts, new ideas, a different sense about what I am doing, a slow shifting of values. What was essential, important in a recent past no longer had the same energy and drive. It seemed that some very basic convictions were shaken at the very base of my character. At the same time I had become aware that what I considered one of my strength, my self–sufficiency, now was not so helpful, so fulfilling, I am missing my family, (all living in the US) I now need around me someone that can support me emotionally, and be a witness to this phase of my existence.
It seemed that a process of redefining my life and letting go of what I have known until now had began…and also there is a part of me that wants to hold on… The process of our aging, is a journey all of us undertake at a certain time of our lives, and one of the phases as James Hillman suggests, (Force of Cnaracter-1999) is the one he calls very adeptly “Holding and Letting go”. The transition between holding on and letting go modifies radically our basic attitude and is of great significance for far reaching changes. It is mainly psychological. What we are letting go is a series of attitudes, attachments, interpretations, and also things as objects, that have given us a sense of security and familiarity, they have a vitality that has been consoling in our daily life. This attachment to old things as well as ideas, behaviors, is the part that we want to hang on, therefore difficult to let go. This point of view has given some context to the development and unfolding of my aging process and another interesting metaphorical perspective to my move to the USA .
As I think about these past months I realize that after I made the decision of moving to the US, what started was a journey into my past thirty years, into my now and into my near future. It forces me to recall what was the original drive that pushed me to come to Italy in the first place. Underneath all of the rational reasons, what lay within was the longing to come back to my country. Every time I came back here on vacation I felt my soul sing, free to express, to create, to enjoy. Intuitively I felt that to nurture my soul and to grow personally, professionally and spiritually I had to be here. I was young then and in the phase of my life that was focused on achievement. So it happened. As I clean out my bookcase and my desk, leafing through the papers, notebooks, and folders, I realize for the first time how much material, articles courses/seminars I have written and created. Interesting! I was so involved in the pleasure and enthusiasm in doing what I was doing with the goal and hope to contribute in some way to their growth, that I never really paid attention to my achievements.. I leaf through all of the material and I begin to dispose it. Hanging on and letting go. I find it is a psychological and emotional transition, Sometimes freeing and sometimes difficult and complexed. What I am letting go is not only information written on many papers and note-books, but what I am letting go is a series of attitudes, attachments, interpretations and also things and objects, that have given me a sense of security and familiarity. They have a vitality that has been consoling in my daily life. In this process of pruning, of selecting, I am discriminating what is still useful in its essence and what is absolete in its usefulness. Every book every objects that goes is a part of me that is going with it. Metaphorically and symbolically what I have described seems to be connected and mirrors the process of aging. We hold on to life to keep death at bay, we release pieces of ourselves so we can, in the space that we create, appreciate what we have achieved, where we are, who we have become.
Everything becomes essential simple, the details are no longer important, emotions are deep and ripe to be felt.
The logistics and organization of the move are all in place, Not much more to do, and so what I began to feel was an enormous amount of sadness, and above all a strong feeling of longing that, to my astonishment was connected to my leaving Italy. In the effort to describe it more appropriately what comes to mind is a beautiful word in Portuguese “ Saudadeâ€? a mix of longing, nostalgia sadness, melancholy‌ After 33 years living here as an adult I understood the qualities of this country of mine. A country that we, Italians insult, love, criticize and never really appreciate.
For me what sets Italy apart from all the other countries in the world is its energy, atmosphere, the richness of its beauty and culture, all these elements create a rich, precious and unique fabric that envelops everything, from the medieval village to the suburbs of the big cities, from the crowded beaches to the majestic and marvelous mountains. I will miss Italy, letting it go is making me love it and value it more as I am looking toward my future and a new life where I am bringing within myself the essential qualities of my experience here. Hanging on and letting go aspects of the process of aging‌
Lida Perry Milano, Italy, 2017
λάθε βιώσας Roberta La Monica Antonella Vicini The soft watercolors follow the tender strokes depicting the sea, the clouds and the sun. Like childlike impressions, Roberta's paintings entice and invite us to look at life with the fresh eyes of the children, the only ones who still own the wisdom of antiquity. Bubbling with life and smiles, Roberta La Monica, painter, set and costume designer, teacher and mentor, invites me to discover the scope of her work in her studio. We are in the centre of Tuscia, amidst olive groves and vineyards, sheep, ancient looking cows and wild horses, this is the Maremma Laziale, where Italian butteri (like their collegues in the far west) tended the cattle, riding the countryside freely. The land is beautiful and invites to stop, meditate and concentrate, the light is clear and soft, no wonder so many artists have chosen this area for their studios. Roberta started to paint as a child, she continued as an adolescent, amidst criticism and disbelief from her family. Her main reason for starting her artistic path was the lack of communication she noticed around her, Roberta realized art would help her to go beyond the incomprehension due to languages.
When she was in her late teens she made herself a promise, or was it her dedication to her chosen path? “I want to learn the secrets of the arts, so that I can communicate beyond the language barriers” Like so many things we do when we are so young, Roberta may have not realized that her request would be granted and would have lead her all along her life. After studying architecture, she briefly worked in the field, until one day by chance a colleague at work saw her paintings and suggested that she showed them to some galleries. Eventually Roberta found the courage to approach an art gallery in Via Margutta in Rome, possibly the most famous street in Italy for the arts, her work was immediately appreciated and chosen for a collective show. Thus she started to be acknowledged, her art work was assessed and sold for the first time. Her soft water colors were inspired by Monet, who was actually the beginning of her path. “I liked the idea of this big man with a huge palette painting such delicate canvases.” Here, in her own words, is Roberta's way of portraying reality: “ I work with creative accumulations, I understand the term may be obscure, but it represents how I feel about my work. I need to store many experiences, visions, sights, feelings, then I let it work inside, as if it were simmering, when it is ready I can start expressing it on canvases. Sometimes, both with painting and with poetry, I feel I am not really doing anything, but the art work comes out by itself ready to be seen or heard. Water colors do not forgive any mistakes, the lines need to be clear, even before they are visible, that's why I cannot paint every day, but only when the accumulation of experiences requires it.
In my poetry work it is the same, I write as if I was channelling the material, so much so that there are no mistakes and need for corrections.” Roberta does also public performances, usually accompanied by music, the most recent in August 2017 with Celtic harps in a very suggestive Etruscan site. “ I have never liked to be the centre of the attention, so much so that I spent years working as stage and costume designer, that is behind the scenes. But I think that, sometimes, it can be interesting for people to see the creation of art in progress, since I believe we can all be artists. I believe that the artist's mission is to bring light, peace and serenity in people's lives and homes. The performances have the same goal. For this reason, I also work as art therapist and energy healer, teacher of creativity for children and adults.” I leave Roberta's studio with my eyes full of light and warmth, richer than when I arrived and clearer on what an artist of life can do for her fellow human beings.
Antonella Vicini Photos by permission of the author who owns the copyright of all the images shown. λάθε βιώσας (living in hiding) Epicurus considered friendship the highest good, both materially and spiritually. However friendship can only be cultivated in a small circle, away from the storms of life. The motto: Live in hiding (away from the crowd) is especially appropriate for art that often hides from the glitter of the media market, in order to achieve peace of mind and greatness of spirit. IN 2015 I started this journey introducing you to a secluded piece of land where several artists have chosen to live and work, following the ancient motto of Epicurus in their own ways.
http://robertalamonica.com/index.html
ANGELS Rosana Liera part 1 of two
Life and death cycles When we talk about angels we refer to an energy that permeates the entire universe in all its parts. It holds us in its warm embrace since our birth, it offers us unconditioned light and innate wisdom. Archangels are the highest expression of love and they are with us all the time, even if we are often unaware of them. They guide us during the most important moments of our lives, including the time when we choose to incarnate along our cycles of lives. In order to understand how essential their role is in our lives, we first need to clarify the knowledge of substance and function of our evolutionary soul path. Our journey does not end with one life, but continues in a long cycle of births and deaths, like a string of pearls, that constitute our eternal existance. This evolutionary path helps us to understand and re discover our sublime nature of souls eternally united with God. Every soul is looking for this truth, sometimes we need to walk infinite roads in order to finally understand it. Our human challenge is in the disarming semplicity of this affirmation, even if becoming aware of it is not easy at all. Leaning forward in order to find certainties in the illusory mazes of our minds, we often forget our real mission. Life then becomes a sad repetion of a plan that has now became a slve to our ambition and vane desires.
In our technocratic and consumerist society, where arrogance reigns, where everything seems due to us, there is little space for these truths. Perhaps, in order to remember who we really are, we could just recuperate our innocence e look at the creation with new eyes, filled with wonder and gratitude for its beauty.
However naive this idea may seem, the angels assure us that only through the purity of our hearts we can really manifest in reality the Self and our destiny. The cycles of birth and death, as explained by the Archangels, are the weft, the threads our soul needs to weave with the warp of our destiny in order to complete the divine design. Our destiny is the same of all the other souls in the universe. We are all looking for a path towards Divine Light. However far away we may stray, the Archangels will always find a way to lead us back to the right road, if we ask them to. The process of soul evolution can reveal infinite variations, because of the different cycles of reincarnation. Our soul has an innate knowledge of its destiny, but even if this is clearly so, we often live our life in complete amnesia. Until one day something happens: we realize we are mortal. In the compulsory confrontation with the unknown, in that border land abandoned in a corner of our existance, there we have a chance to rediscover the dimensions of infinite and eternal. Death makes us aware of life and life of death. In this incessant carousel our soul returns to incarnate once more and again, with the same dizziness and amused bewilderment that an excited child feels when he/she is about to start a new cycle on the merry go round, diving unaware into the vortex of successive lives, until he/she can reach the peak of his/her existance in the mystical divine embrace. This process could be completed in one moment, if oblivion didn't envelope from the first instants of our human experience. The rest is the story of the soul in its endevours to peentrate obscurity with its own light. A heroic challenge, made of victories and deafeats, conscious or deviated paths. Whatever is the direction of our walking, the angels will never judge us because we are all divine sparkles in their eyes.
In the path we are called to complete, the first step is exactly lke the last. Each one of them is necessary in equal measure to comprehend the spiritual significance of our life and to approach the Divine Source spontanously. Looking for loopholes in this logic, or chasing memories of past lives is completly useless, since our karma is balanced by the Archangels and by the purfying action of death at the time of leaving this life. What we are looking for is already in us, forever linked to our present, it only waits to be revelead.
Rosana Liera Edited and Translated by Antonella Vicini (This article is an excerpt from the book : L'Arcangelo Gabriel, Purificazione e Rinascita - I poteri di Gabriel per scoprire il destino e l’evoluzione spirituale della tua anima).
STORY TELLING The Red Cloack Part 1 of 4
Bianca Veronica Preamble Closing the circle Evoking the past, there is a clear moment in our memory when an action or a precise circumstance is the beginning of an event. We don't know how it will end, the conclusion is always connected to a sense of relief, it will eventually bring completeness and peace. Only then we will feel that passage is over and solved. The circles is closed, balance has returned. Are we the same people we were before? Not anymore, something has changed.
An unexpected visit. What makes a day special? A winter morning I had an unexpected chance, I asked myself “Shall I get on this train, or shall I let it leave the station?� I jumped on the train, I had no idea this would be the beginning of a story that found its end many years later.
When the priest entered my jewelry shop, he looked uneasy, almost shy, I imagined he might feel out of place in a place like this. After a few moments of indecision, he seemed to find some courage and hesitantly he announced His Holiness the Pope Giovanni Paolo the second would be visiting his church soon. Perhaps he noticed my surprised smile, because he went further and told me he wanted to offer a gift to the Pope. I looked at him questioningly, did he want a contribution or did he want to buy an object? In order to avoid any embarassment I asked him “How can I help you?” He answered me with a question: “Would you like to meet His Holiness after the service?” His question caught me unprepared, I stopped for a moment, just a few seconds to listen to myself and I immediately decided: “ Yes, I would like that!”. “Do you have an object to offer to His Holiness as a memento of this visit?” He asked me politely. I immediately thought of a sculture to be placed on a table, so I showed him an object similar to the one I could make for such an occasion, I also explained the symbology of it. His face lit up: “ Yes, very suitable. Can you please add a small plaque with the dedication to His Holiness and the date of the event?” The priest left happy and I was happy too for the chance I would never have looked for, nor imagined it could happen to me.
There was not much time, so I started working immediately. In a few days I made a sculpture in silver and plexiglass, it was a bas relief representing the church as the centre of the world. It was a beautiful object and I was proud of it. However, there was in me an undefined unease slowly working inside: I had never really gone to church regularly, I had no idea how to speak to the Pope, how to greet him, what to say. “Should I bow down in front of him...Or kiss his hand or the ring. It just doesn't make sense�. In the meantime anxiety and insecurity kept growing, I was waiting for the meeting with both detachment and embarassement. My imagination worked overtime, I thought of television images, the Pope was an immense figure, I had trouble deciding what to wear on such an occasion. What would I wear in such a situation? What would I say to the Pope? These were my questions, they kept churning inside my head, continuosly repeating themselves, sending my brain in a spin. In the meantime I was busy brushing up my look, trying to look my best, so that I would achieve greater visibility.
Bianca Veronica Edited and Translated by Antonella Vicini
DERMOREFLEXOLOGY and
Reality Samantha Fumagalli and Flavio Gandini Recently, many researchers have noticed and denounced the possible invalidating effects of virtual porno addiction. Some pratictioners of dermoreflexology have raised to the challenge and are working on a specific method to address this issue. In this article we want to evaluate the influence of virtual worlds on human beings from a wider perspective. We will not just limit ourselves to the concept of addiction, but we will also examine the conflict between virtual and physical worlds that can develop in people's psyche. In our previous article (THE BADGER Year 3 Volume 3), we defined as a primary objective of human life the pursuit of Self Awareness: Self Awareness = knowing oneself in feelings, emotions, attitudes, propensities. Now we would like to add a further consideration: knowing ourselves, without acknowledging the environment we live in, is almost useless. Therefore, if we think that human life is dynamic since it changes continuosly according to life experiences and the features of the planet are also continuosly changing, it is essential for us human beings to recognize both the inner changes as well as the external ones in order to maintain a healthy contact with reality.
When we talk about addiction from virtual pornography these are some of the consequences: – ADHD, Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder, it is a disorder of the nervous system. Such disorder shows with lack of attention, hyperactivity, difficulty in social integration for children, adolescents and adults. – Social anxiety, it is a rather common disorder. According to some studies the percentage of people suffering from it is between 3%and 13%, it is more common among women than men. The main feature is the fear of acting in an embarassing way in front of others thus receiving negative feedback. People suffering from it may refrain from participating in most social situations to avoid these consequences. – Depression it is both a pathology and a mood disorder. It shows with a series of symptoms that alter the vital functions of the person, ruining also his/her social life. According to a manual on mental disorders depression can show all or some of the following symptoms: • lack of interest in life • lack or excessive appetite • loss of energy • sleep disorder • feeling overexcited or too slow • feeling guilty or unworthy • difficolty in thinking clearly • memory loss • in the most serious cases even suicidal thoughts – Performance anxiety, when the person is scared of finding obstacles to the desired success in any field. – OCD (obsessive-compulsive disorder) is a psychiatric disorder that has many different aspects, but it is mainly recognized by obsessions often accompanied by compulsive behaviours.
If we look at the world of virtual addiction, we realize that the symptoms are very similar, even if some manifestations maybe different: performance anxiety will be focussed on work, compulsive actions will be purchases online, etc. As we have already stated: Dermoreflexology observes and rebalances the energy lines that can be identified on the skin, its main goal is making the rapport of cooperation and interaction between the various levels of being (from the denser physical body to the subtler causal body or Self) more homogenous and efficient. While doing our work we have realised that we connect directly to the astral body (where our soul resides). The astral body, or the soul (psyche, ψυχή) can access and re organize the conscious, subconscious, unconscious and super conscious memories, that is the entire world of information of each person. This information, whatever their content, allow us to react to situations, to act with our will, to make choices that honor our free will. In order to do this, our soul uses three functions: perception (sentient soul), the cognitive (reasoning soul) and the most refined decision making (conscious soul). They work in the order written above.
Let's make a simple example of how these functions work: a man is walking to work without paying much attention, after parking his car at the usual time. He needs to cross the street, he looks at the traffic light, it is green. But a car is arriving and it is about to pass on a red light. There is no need for our man to visually realize the danger, since the sentient function elaborates the anomalous noise (the car approaching) and, based on the previously memorized data both consciously and unconsciously, it stops the body or makes the head turn toward the danger, thus interrupting the movement. Immediately afterwards the reasoning function will determine the understanding of the event about to happen, later the consequences will become conscious learning: it is always better to cross a street just based on the green light! Why should the first reaction happen automatically? Because the reactive process is the fastest and immediate. The man walking will stop even before knowing why, thus saving himself. What happens in our autonomic nervous system to make all this happen? The sympathetic nervous system started to be alarmed by the perception of danger, it sent the necessary impulses so that the walking movement could stop.
After the danger has been avoided, the parasympathetic nervous system leads the body back to normality. All of this happens thanks to the sentient soul.
However, the sentient soul does not recognize a real signal from a virtual one. Moreover, it tends to regulate its functions based on the majority of impulses that the senses receive. Whether the danger is real or realistic it does not make a difference. This is an example: a thriller movie, if well made, produces in the sentient soul the same reactions of a virtual reality. Tracing the activity of the nervous sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems, we find them to correspond to a really lived situation. If a person had “trained” in living extremely dangerous situations, he/she would have stored so many memories that he/she coudl create “soul antibodies” in order to lower the emotional effects of dangerous situations.
The sophistication of virtual media is well beyond a movie, the number of hours people spend immersed in virtual worlds far exceeds the time spent in the real one. And the speed of transmission of virtual emotional impulses is far greater than ordinary reality. Clearly we are talking here about virtual addict people, but even those not addicted, still they spend many hours in close contact with technology! In the long run, the sentient function will send mostly virtual data to the reasoning one which will consider them real, thus diminishing the importance of the data coming from actual “slow and boring� real life. We believe that only the conscious function of the soul can heal these disfunctions. Even if it is not easy. It is much more gratifying for a Homer Simpson to believe his life is like Braveheart, than the other way round.
Samantha Fumagalli and Flavio Gandini Edited and Translated by Antonella Vicini
THE NATURE OF DRUIDRY DO STORIES EVER END? CHARLOTTESVILLE AND THE LESSONS OF HISTORY Philip Carr Gomm
I live in a peaceful historic town in rolling downland in southern England – a far cry from the misery of Mosul or Freetown, or now Charlottesville in the USA. But a news item, just reported today, of Trump’s personal lawyer forwarding an email listing the similarities between General Lee and Washington, in a ham-fisted attempt to defend his toxic client, reminds me of the way in which, if we don’t learn from them, the ghosts of the past continue to haunt us. A few miles away from our town there are two villages, Firle and Glynde, separated by the A27 road that runs from east to west, but lying less than two miles apart. Up until the 1950’s the children in both villages would apparently never dare play in the playground or fields beside the other village. Why? Because in the Civil War (1642–1651) one village supported the king, the other the Roundheads. I’m not sure what changed by the 50’s, but you see where I’m going with this…google civil war and I get only the US Civil War now, with the media asking “Why is the US still fighting the Civil War?”. The English Civil War was over 300 years ago in the 1950’s and yet the echoes of its misery persisted, and now in the US, this strange, unbelievably crass buffoon of a man Trump has stirred up the ghosts of America’s past like some evil wizard conjuring the spirits of the departed to return to Earth to be avenged.
When I was writing a novel about Brittany in the Second World War, I found myself writing the closing words of the book: “Stories shift and change, are forgotten. But they give birth to other stories, or reappear unexpectedly out of the darkness of time. They never seem to finish.” I spent a long time thinking about that last sentence. It seemed so gloomy, so pessimistic. Surely we can put paid, once and for all, to racism, hate and bigotry? But while I think it is possible, one individual at a time, through a long journey which is essentially spiritual – of confrontation and reconciliation – how much harder it seems to do this at a collective level. The European Initiative was one attempt to heal old wounds which seemed to be working, despite many setbacks, which is why Brexit seems such a regressive step to many of us.
...And across the pond, a deeply strange story is being played out in America, with leading characters who would be laughed out of court if they were not in such positions of power. The Washington Post put it simply yesterday (August 16 2017): Some of us have long been urging people to see that the Trump presidency was “not normal.� But we are past such discussions now. There is only one conclusion that any American patriot of either party can draw. Trump must go.
Philip Carr Gomm
ENTERTAINING INTERLUDE From this volume onwards THE BADGER is proud to introduce you to an entertaining set of pages, an interlude among our articles, since amusement is also a key for a balanced life. Following the honored tradition of the feuilleton, THE BADGER offers you a serial story:
HORI OSHY Death of a Japanese Tattoo Artist Cesira Borromei 1 The storm started suddenly, Emma had just got out of the small movie theater where she had seen Lost Horizon in the original version. She had decided to walk, in spite of the cold temperature. She hurried, brushing the walls, but the rain didn't seem to abate, her raincoat was soaked and could not protect her any longer from water, her numb feet kept skidding in the fine and inadequate shoes. She didn't know that area of Milan, she only knew she was not far from Porta Ticinese, the place of her appointment. But at that time of night and in that kind of weather the streets were empty, barely lit up by dim lights, the taxis speeded by without stopping and lifting walls of water. Eventually, round a corner, she could read the name of the street she was looking for. Well ahead of her, somebody crossed the street in a hurry and entered through a door with a lit up sign above it. When Emma arrived there, she looked up, the fiery red writing “ The cave of the tattoo devil� promised diabolical things.
She looked for a a doorbell and she found it: it was the nipple of the mermaid painted on the door; while she pushed it, smiling she thought that the kitsch taste displayed by tattoo artists always managed to surprise her. The door opened with a click, Emma went in; she expected a place full of dust with old furniture, old drawings on the walls, classical tattoo patterns for an alternative humanity, but she was wrong. The room in front of her was beautiful: the ceiling was very high, a ladder lead to the upper gallery, where hundreds of drawings were displayed like in an art gallery. From up there people could follow the work of the tattoo artist in the lower part of the room, that area was furnished in a very utilitarian way with swivel and reclinable chairs. The waiting area was separated by a long stainless steel desk, one part was used for work and one part for the sterile containers, the colors and the tattoo makers. During the day, the light entered freely from the furthest wall where a small greenhouse looked out on the courtyard of the old house. A man's voice spoke from behind a screen: “ Please Emma, do take a seat. I was waiting for you, I will be with you in a minue” . “Good evening” , she answered advancing in the hall, while she noticed on her right a sunken Japanese sitting room, discreetly lit up by an old lamp. Emma shook off the water from her hair and body, her movement made her look like a ruffled up cat, and at her feet a dark stain spread on the carpet. Her gaze was captured by a small screen where she could see images of women with extraordinary tattooes, while the notes of “Casta Diva” played as a soundtrack to that fascinating display. “Here I am” a voice said behind her, “Hi” she answered, turning and smiling at the same time in her most captivating way towards that ghost in the darkness. The man moved into the light and Emma could see his plesant features: his dark eyes full of curiosity, his greying hair showed a mature age, in spite of his young body, as if he had been an adolescent grown far too fast.
On his blue jeans he wore a short silk kimono, his suntanned arms showed out the wide sleeves and were entirely covered in tattoes. Emma realized he was staring at him in a very embarassing way, in order to break the tension she could feel growing inside her, she joked: “ A poor social scientist asks the emperor of Japan for his hospitality and permission to interview him for her research: Tattoed people, possible criminals, sadomasochistics, potential impotents or simply narcists?” He bursted into laughter and shook her hand: “Mrs. Massaro I am Andrea Barbieri, I welcome you in the forbidden city. I will help you take off your wet coat, before the dripping ruins my precious Soumak rug”. While he was hanging the raincoat, right next to another soaked one, Andrea explained he had just returned a few minutes before. “ Considering the terrible weather, I am sorry I gave you this appointment at this late hour, but I need to tell you that I am a nocturnal animal, I live and work preferably after sunset. I was boiling some water for tea, please take a seat and relax, I will return shortly”. Emma smiled gratefully and saw him disappear behind the rice paper screen that kept hidden the lower part of the house. When he came back he was holding a tray that he placed on the low small table among the silk cushion where Emma had decided to sit. Looking at her, Andrea exclaimed “ But you are shaking! Just wait here, I will find something dry for you to wear”. He went to the back of the room and went through a sliding door. Emma was relaxing with her hands over the hot teapot. Time went by, over a quarter of an hour had elapsed when he returned. He was walking slowly, his expression was indecipherable. When he was near her, he gave her a warm woolen jumper, then he poured some tea and with a serious voice said “ It has gone cold, I am going to drink this cup, I will add some hot water”. Emma took advantage of his absence to take off her soaked shirt and wear the irish wool jumper, it was a little rough on her skin, but certainly very comfortable.
Andrea returned, sitting cross legged near her, he immediately filled her cup with the warm and aromatic tea. “ Take this, hold it between your teeth while you sip your tea� and he gave her a sugar cube. Emma followed his advice and smiled approvingly when the warm pleasant drink started to heat her body. His eyes looked at her above the rim of her cup. The music filled the silence, Emma surrendered to the music and closed her eyes. How much time had gone by? She was laying strapped on a bed at her ankles and wrists, completly naked, in her ears she could perceive a continuous buzzing sound. A man, whose face she could not see, was drawing tattoes on her with flowers and hunting scenes. She tried to scream, but no sound came out of her mouth. So she tried to wriggle in a furious and silent struggle, until something broke and she was free. (to be continued)
Cesira Borromei Š 1995 Edited and Translated by Antonella Vicini
AUTHORS
Antonella Vicini http://badgermedicinespirit.wix.com/tirthayatra Writer and editor of THE BADGER, author of Talking with Gods, Sages, Fairies.... (a novel published in 2014). Steeped in classical and indological studies, I have spent all my life learning from people as well as from the ancient texts that keep revealing their immortal, thus contemporary teachings. I am happy when I can share new visions and face new challenges. I am a professional rebirther and trainer (since 1987), Reiki master since 1991, stress management and leadership trainer, writer and visionary. I also lead workshops on shamanic journeying and soul healing. I am deeply grateful to all my teachers and elders. Badger Medicine Spirit
Adrian Rooke I am a person centered therapist specializing in addiction and the consequences to family, I counsel the bereaved, and supervise other counselors. I am also a massage therapist and Reiki practitioner. I am a member of the spiritual companions and practice as a celebrant conducting Handfastings and funerals. I have been a member of the Order of Bards Ovates and Druids for over 20 years, where I have served as the press officer for 12 years and a Tutor for many years. I have an interest in Wicca.
Composer, pianist, Italian teacher. Andrea "EXO" Garella began studying piano at 9 years old under the guidance of Walter Ferrato who shared with him the art of improvisation and composition. Between 16 and 20 he reaped the fruits of his studies with long concert tours. In everyday life he works in education and training in the field of safety. He is also a licensed designer for mechanical and thermotechnical projects. He has always been interested in occultism and esoterism. He is about to publish a book where he will delve into these studies connecting such Masters as H.P. Blavatsky, Wolfgang Pauli, C.G. Jung, A. Einstein, Jeremy Narby, C. Castaneda,Rick Strassman, Jean Dubuis and more. Here you can find one of his musical pieces: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3FmaMRyjF6o
Bianca Veronica Born in Sicily, Palermo, now living in Rome. The main themes of my life are the reasearch of the meaning of life, love for the arts, desire to help other people. For these reasons I have devoted my life to natural therapies, art therapy, painter, Reiki Master since 1995. I have started to write for an ancient memory that keeps calling me.
Claudia Enrico www.joyfullrecipes.com has been a Reiki Master Usui Shiki Ryoho since 1995. She practices and teaches Reiki classes. She has been Managing Director of the Reiki Magazine Italia™. She wrote a recipe book “Le ricette per la gioia” (Verdechiaro Edizioni) and she has participated in conferences and meetings sharing her experience and message of health and well-being. She is now an Energetic Nutrition Consultant. She lives and creates in Sanremo-Italy and she’s a free Spirit.
David R. Kopacz, MD The focus of my work is bringing creativity, spirituality, and healing to my work with clients as well as to the larger challenges that face health care and society. I work at Puget Sound Veterans Affairs Health Care System in Seattle in Primary Care Mental Health Integration and have an appointment as an Acting Assistant Professor at the University of Washington. I am board certified through the American Board of Psychiatry & Neurology, the American Board of Integrative & Holistic Medicine and the American Board of Integrative Medicine. I have worked in a number of practice settings over the years. Prior to moving to Seattle I spent three and a half years in New Zealand where I worked in Assertive Community Outreach at Manaaki House Community Health Center and also served as Clinical Director at Buchanan Rehabilitation Centre.
Fredric Lehrman http://www.nomaduniversity.com/ is one of the original “Wealth Psychologists” who looked deeply into the subconscious habit patterns that may either support or thwart personal financial success. He began teaching these insights in the early 1970’s, and his seminars, articles, and coaching have been the launch point for many of today’s best known experts and authors ever since. Fredric’s personal career has included intensive study with master teachers in many disciplines, and professional success in music, psychology, martial arts, photography, and global entrepreneurship, networking and innovation. He founded Nomad University in 1974 as a way to expand the concept of education as a life-long individual path of self-directed learning. The ideas he articulated then are now starting to appear in new schools all around the internet-connected world of the 21st century.
Judith Hayes has both her undergraduate and Master’s degrees in Latin and has taught for her entire career at the secondary level, and briefly at university, in the United States. She also has taught Latin for two years in Viterbo, Italy as faculty of the School Year Abroad program. She made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land in 2013 and last summer joined an archaeological excavation in the Galilee region of Israel.
Laura Bottagisio www.laurabottagisio.com is an astrologer and seeker. She started studying astrology at the beginnings of the 80's with Lisa Morpurgo, she later worked with the Cosmos Institute of Milan, where she learnt about the theory and practice of Vibrational Waters. She has attended seminars with gerard Athias and Jp Brebion on new medicine and bio analogy. She shares her discoveries in her blog. She also creates tableaux with recycled materials, in this way she creates images out of emotions and inner worlds.
Lida Lodi Perry https://www.facebook.com/lidaperry?ref=profile Lida was born in the North East of Italy (Vicenza) after graduating from a teacher Institute she came to the USA, where she continued her education at the University of Massachusetts with a degree in Psychology and later a Master in Social Work. She worked for many years at a drug clinic in the local hospital. In 1984 she went back to Italy to work with abused children as a director of a residential facility. She moved on to work as a supervisor and Psychologist at Milan Cancer Institute where she is still consulting, while having a successful private practice as psychotherapist. She was also cofounder of the Rebirthing Institute with Antonella Vicini, she became a Reiki Master in 1992, she is still active with the local and international Reiki community.
Philip Carr Gomm http://www.philipcarr-gomm.com/ Philip lives in the wide open landscape of the South Downs in Sussex, England, with his wife Stephanie. In his teens, he began studying Druidry as a spiritual path with Ross Nichols, the founder of The Order of Bards Ovates and Druids. Later he took a degree in psychology from University College London, and trained in psychotherapy for adults at The Institute of Psychosynthesis, and in play therapy for children with Dr Rachel Pinney. He also trained in Montessori education with the London Montessori Centre, and founded the Lewes Montessori School. In 1988 Philip was asked to lead The Order of Bards Ovates and Druids, and he combines this role in the Order with writing and giving talks and workshops.
Raffaella Vicini Born a double Scorpio, she has a degree in Law and has been working as lawyer for about 20 years. Her rational side has lead her to the law, while the deep, profound and mysterious side of her soul has guided her towards a path of personal growth (Rebirthing, Reiki, Yoga and other techniques). She loves to travel and learn about different cultures, she has met people of all colours, creeds, languages, learning and sharing their experiences.
Renato Tittarelli www.risoessenza.it www.renatotittarelli.it is a spiritual seeker and holistic practitioner. He has been teaching and sharing about non conventional medicines for the last 30 years: integral yoga, shiatsu, meditation, spiritual healing, numerology, alchemy, naturopathy, aromatherapy and massage. From 2000 has started to divulge more of his work in Italy and abroad working on the scientific as well as alchemical and hermetical aspects. He is the founder of SOAM (School of Holistic Aromatherapy and Massage), Didactic director or the Professional School of Aromatherapy in Livorno.
Samantha Fumagalli and Flavio Gandini http://www.vega2000.it/ http://www.dermoriflessologia.it have been researching for over 20 years in the field of psyco-alchemy. They are the creators of DermoReflexology and DermoAlchemy. In 2000 they founded the Association Vega for the study and publication of the new discoveries. Their professional course in DermoReflexology has been acknowledged by ASI/CON since 2012 as part of the natural and holistic arts.
Rosana Liera www.rosanaliera.com is an internationally acclaimed award-winning artist, author and psychic. She has become member of the "International committee of artists for peace". Her work as a therapist combines her innate psychic and healing gifts with 15 years of practicing several holistic disciplines. In 2009, after a near-death experience, Rosana started communicating with the angelic realm. Since then, she offers everybody the chance of meeting their angels through her books, conferences, seminars and concerts all around the world. She is author of several books, dvd and courses on this topic.
Tanya Tewell is a Professor of Art at a Middle Tennessee State University in Tennessee. She has taught at the college level for almost thirty years in painting, drawing, and artistic anatomy. Her teaching experience has also included working with gang members in South Phoenix, artists on the Navajo reservation, and prisoners on Death Row in Nashville, Tennessee. She has been included in numerous national and international exhibitions and ten solo shows. She has also initiated, directed, and participated in painting murals in South Phoenix, Punta Allen, Mexico, Muro Leccese and a very large mural for the former art building at Middle Tennessee State University.
Cesira Borromei My childhood was spent among the fog of the milanese province. I studied languages at the Catholic University there, but I dropped out of school when I moved to Rome, over 50 years ago. I write to avoid boredom and pain, so I can use all my self irony. I have travelled most of my life for work and leisure, with my partner, then alone. At the moment I “do not live� in Tuscania.
Jo Dunbar www.botanicamedica.co.uk Medical Herbalist for over 18 years , hypnotherapist for over 10 years. She founded Botanica Medica herbal apothecary. She has reached Druid level (member of OBOD). Author of Spirit of the Hedgerow, winner of the 2016 Local Legend spiritual writing competition, finalist in the Wishing Shelf book awards, author of Stress, Burnout and Fatigue (Self-published), and How to Cope Successfully with Candida (Wellhouse Publishing). Leader of many workshops in herbal medicine over the years. Currently running Magical Forest retreats with Adrian Rooke
Paolo Benda www.laradionica.it www.paolobenda.it Born in Perugia in 1953, he has experiences in electronics, home automation, informatics, he is webmaster, web designer, researcher, writer and publicist. He is an independent researcher with specific interests and specialization in radionics, biology, biotechnology. He is the inventor and builder of machinery for radionics applied to non conventional medicine.
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