Happy new year to the beautiful community traveling with this heron!
May it bring plenty of what you love and makes you happy, and why not? discoveries of new such things for you to enjoy 🙂
This roman suburb was sunny and warm today, and I celebrated the new start having a chilled breakfast with human and furred family, chatting and watching the bird community of the countryside enjoying the feeders in the garden.
Then some music and baking! Kneading in the dough well wishes for the year to come, the love, the hopes… and some dance moves 🙂 The cookies will go around to extended family and friends between today and tomorrow (and some will stay home for the family): a tradition of shared hand made goodies I learnt from a closest friend, who usually bakes around Christmas time. Another beautiful festive baking tradition is the one of Terri Wildling -her blog Myth and Moor has been an inspiration for this nest in the net since the very start. You can read about her festive baking here.
I ended the past year celebrating self care and slow pace -something that was missing a bit in 2022! Hopefully 2023 will be a good time to find a better balance towards sustainable ways life, juggling the intense fast pace with open spaces for good free wondering 🙂
I had an incredible year though, full of things I really love -the traveling, explorations, playing, writing, recording, meeting communities across borders and sharing beautiful stories and moments… so many different feelings of belonging. I went home to places I had never been before, just like the migratory birds I love so much.
I met new friends and new parts of me on the road, and of others I had to let go… And while the time for these transformations to settle has not come yet, I feel them fluttering in me and in a way or another, shape my steps forward.
To all the people who supported me through my journey Heron’s Tales in 2022 -and the inner journeys inside it- and still are doing so, I send my deepest gratitude. You made something possible that changed my life and lead where I am now.
Below you’ll find a short log from my latest road trip to the south of Italy, where one of my communities welcomed me back after 3 years this December. They are Associazione Coppula Tisa and their general quarters is the magic Celacanto, which keeps inspiring me and is one of the places this heron calls home. Hope you’ll enjoy!
With love to you all, may you spread your metaphorical wings in this 2023 and journey towards all beautiful things that call to your heart 🙂
Happy trails e a presto!
21 December 22, Celacanto
Marina Serra di Tricase
The quiet of a small coastal town wraps me with the darkness of an early evening. It has been a day of water, salt, trekking, coffee, talk and catch up. Here in the Celacanto Center, a calm night is approaching and in the beauty of this space, I finally get back to writing!
I have been here, in Marina Serra di Tricase for a few days now: a long road trip brought be this south soon after arriving in Rome by plane. Despite being tired and fatigued by the past months, hitting the road was exhilarating and beautiful -I missed that feel of freedom of a solo trip, and I couldn’t wait to reach my destination. This place is a magic one, on of my personal sanctuaries where I feel beauty, ideas and change slowly grow like trees.
The Celacanto center is the general quarters of Associazione Coppula Tisa, stewards of this stretch of coastline in the south east of Apulia, and its community of growers, farmers, fishers, artists, students and artisans… what they do is to me a form of community care and nourishment, observing and supporting connections between people, their ties to the wider community, and to the surrounding, stunning natural environment. They are at the frontline of participatory action, where all processes are co-created out of the ideas of different people, through dialogue, sharing, and open exchange. Their motto is Piano Piano Viene il Bello!
Today it was my personal reunion with the coastal deities of this coast: grottos of bright green reflexes, beautiful sea, rocks and shapes, the wind, the smell of salt and wonderful feeling of swimming, again in these waters after years.
I had never been in Salento in winter and I’m loving the warmer, nuanced light that flows sideways on the different textures, landscapes as under veils of pink and orange, the ambiguity of softer shadows, the evening fogs and the many stars later at night. This silence in itself is so precious and magical: I can almost hear my thoughts go around, as if I could pick them like berries from a bush.
The evening slowly slides northwards and I realize what a gift this is, to be here, taking care of friendships and dreams, and waiving together new exciting ideas for the future year to come… continuing the journey.
Thank you Celacanto, Geri and Carla for your friendship and for having me here these days, thank you beautiful coast and sea for welcoming me and my cello again, and thank you to my family to supporting me in this new little adventure -even though it took me away from home during the festivities… I’ll be back for Christmas, full of new hopes, stories, salt and south winter sun!
