What We Seek

The other night I took “The Power of Myth” off our bookshelf. I haven’t read the book in years – don’t know why it called to me, but it did. It is a record of Bill Moyers’ interviews of Joseph Campbell. It doesn’t take long to get very interesting!

Here are two quotes from the first few pages.

• People say that what we’re all seeking is a meaning for life. I don’t think that’s what we’re really seeking. I think that what we’re seeking is an experience of being alive, . . .
• We’re so engaged in doing things to achieve purposes of outer value that we forget that the inner value, the rapture that is associated with being alive, is what it’s all about.

I think feeling alive is why Italy resonates with so many people. There are a variety of ways it accomplishes this. In Italy your senses are engaged – all of them. The fact that it is different means you need all your senses to be able to understand those differences. It is also due to the fact that there is so much to engage your senses. Life is art in Italy and so much is given an artful touch, even the simplest thing. A pizza is beautiful, just as their

Beauty in Pizza and Piazza

piazzas are. Italian cities, at least the older sections are built on a human scale, and this engages your senses.

So your senses are alive in Italy. And when that happens we are in touch with our deeper selves. The seemingly important work to achieve purposes fades as we explore that inner part of us we rarely look at when we are doing. The exploration of the inner is a gift Italy gives us. The thing I love about our art trips is that the art serves as a conduit for these deeper experiences. It provides the medium by which we see with all our senses and truly are alive. It really is wonderful!

Seeing When Blind and Facebook

Blind French author Jacques Lusseyran said about learning to get around when he became blind, ” . . . this means an end of living in front of things and a beginning of living with them.” Having just posted about Facebook, his words struck me as an apt description of the Facebook experience versus life. With Facebook you live in front of the computer. In life you live with the things and people in life.

I’m not here to beat up on Facebook, but reading this today brought it to mind. Also today I read  that a Utah Valley University study found that Facebook is making people sad. Why? Because all the images are of happy people and the Facebook reader  deduces that everyone elses’s live is happier than theirs.

And no Theresa, no Twitter either! Ok enough about Facebook! Cheers.

The Social Media Conundrum

I read today that Facebook is about to release 100 apps for use with their program. It got me thinking about Facebook and social media. Few will agree with me, but I just am not a fan. It is so not what we do in Italy, which is to pay attention to where you are and what your are doing. Italy, and I hope life, is about living the life that surrounds you, aware of what is taking place in front of you.

Facebook is so much the opposite. I’m sure I will be taken to task for not appreciating and understanding what it offers. But it seems to me that Facebook lets people live life at arms length from everyone. Yes you follow what everyone is doing so you stay current. But while you follow everyone else, you do nothing. And you aren’t involved in the lives of the people you follow, you are simply observing from afar. It is so much more fulfilling and alive to talk with the people who travel with us in Italy than to sit before the glow of a computer screen and see what people all over the world are doing.

She could be uploading to Facebook

Who has time to put the often irrelevant details of your life on Facebook. I’m sure it is a thrill to have lots of followers, although putting your life in front of everyone to see seems a bit bizarre. And if you spend all this time uploading to Facebook, you really aren’t present where ever you are. You aren’t truly living. It is more like putting yourself in a zoo for others to watch you.

We have a Facebook account and page for Adventures in Italy because we are told you have to do so in today’s world. Social media is where it’s at. We have one, but I rarely go there, I rarely put anything on it. Essentially then, it is worthless from a business standpoint. Frankly, I am not going to spend my time thinking of ways for people to follow what we do on Facebook, because for me it is a waste, has no value I can discern.

This blog I do for the business. But it is tied to our passion for Italy. It is a place to express what I’m feeling (such as in this post) as opposed to letting people know what I’m eating, or drinking. I don’t write here that often either, but when I do I at least care about what I am writing. Somehow, for me, there is a big divide between sharing something of importance versus something meaningless.

Perhaps I show my age. Yet I take some solace that I am not just being a Luddite when my son doesn’t have a Facebook account, and my daughter uses it sparingly. I apologize to all the Facebook fans, but I find more in life by being with others face-to-face.

10 Years and 20,000 people!

Orvieto's lively streets

Somewhat unbelievably we are entering our 10th year of leading trips to Orvieto. It kind of snuck up on us. It has been so much fun, so rewarding on many different levels with new friends and wonderful experiences. Little did I know when I did my first trip for city planners it would grow and morph to become what it is today.

That first year I ever visited Orvieto back in 2003 was just days before my group arrived. I had to get the lay of the land to guide them through the learning exercises. Since that time we have developed amazing relationships with the city, the international Slow Cities headquarter staff based in Orvieto, and many individuals, restaurant, cafe and business owners. Just such an unbelievable treat to return twice a year to renew our friendships, make new friends, welcome our guests, and watch the amazing art they produce. Simply fabulous.

Food is a big part of our trips!

I have not been as regular on this blog as I should be. But my blog host sent me a report saying 20,000 people read the blog in 2011. That was a surprise to me.

So it has been fun. We have great trips lined up for our tenth year, and we have trips scheduled for 2013 as well. We are looking forward to many more trips to Orvieto. Thanks to all who have traveled with us, all who follow this blog, and to our many friends developed as a result of our Adventures in Italy.

The Gift of Orvieto

Kristi and I were in The Grind the other day. The Grind is one of our local coffee shops. It was warm, cozy, bustling, friendly. We had a good talk with Roberta, the Sicilian barista, who, incredibly, lives here in Morganton. We left feeling so content, so much a part of this place, and loving we can hear a bit of Italian in rural NC. We have Orvieto to thank for, what amounts to, a huge gift.

We’ve been leading trips to Orvieto for 9 years, about to enter our 10th. Each season we become more attached to the city, more enamored of its people, form deeper friendships. It is a very rich experience. In May of 2008 we returned from Orvieto morose over the suburban life to which we were returning. After the fullness of 3-4 weeks in Orvieto, the prospect of an automobile dominated life was unthinkable! We are lucky because our work in Italy allows us to live anywhere. So, we got in the car and began a search.

We love the mountains. We set off on a 5 day trip, list of towns we felt had possibilities in hand, up one side of the Appalachians in NC and VA and back down the other side into TN.

We stopped in Morganton the first night. We sat outside having a beer and watched a busy parade of pedestrians. It wasn’t a passeggiata exactly, but it wasn’t far off. We kept returning over the following 6 months, and finally decided it was the place for us. We got here in February of 2010 – we’re closing in on two years.

Morganton River Walk

And we love it. That morning at The Grind is one of many, many human-centered experiences we have every week in this town. We walk to downtown and the Grind. We walk to the gym. We’ve made friends easily. Without knowing it, we were small town people and here we are!

And we have Orvieto to thank. Had we not had the incredibly fulfilling relationships we had there we would still be in Columbia, living unexceptionally in suburbia, likely with a certain level of discontent we would not be able to put our fingers on. Yes, we are very lucky

I have written before about the gifts we receive from Orvietoand Italy. I guess

Merry Christmas from Morganton!

it is a regular theme because, well because it is true it gives us so much. I write about it today inspired by the Italy Blogging Roundtable. There are lots and lots of wonderful blogs about and from Italy. The Roundtable is a group of five who monthly write about the same topic. This month they are opening it to others. So I thought I’d participate.

The Roundtable is made up of ArtTrav, At Home in Tuscany,  Italylogue, Italofile, and Brigolante. Thanks to the Roundtable for the inspiration!

 

Living is the orginal art

“Living is the original art,” Mark Nepo says. I love that. While many of our trips to Italy are art based, every one of our trips is based on the idea that life is, or at least certainly can be, art. In fact at one time we considered doing an “Artful Living” trip. Ultimately, we just decided to make every trip a life-is-art experience by its very nature and character.

Of course, Italy and Orvieto epitomize artful living. It is what attracts us to them. We tend to forget life is art as we go about our busy lives. Any vacation can return us to this understanding. But one to Italy, when you go slow enough to enjoy the place rather than trying to see it all, immerses you in life as art. You see it in the way people dress. You enjoy it when you eat on tables with linens – most restaurants use linens. You appreciate it with the care that the coffee is made and presented.You recognize it in the ancient monuments so beautifully built and decorated. It infuses everything.

One little example. When you step up to the bar for a cappuccino at

Our barista Stefano Scarponni

Scarponni’s  in Orvieto, Stefano always spins the cup on the plate so the handle is to the right. He puts the spoon on the plate so the handle faces you on the right of the cup. Always. Then he pours in the frothed milk in front of you. It is this kind of simple gesture happening around you all the time that you begin to absorb.

Living is the original art. Italy helps remind of us that!

Giving Thanks

For some reason I have been reading a book that had such great meaning and impact for me some years ago. It is one of two extraordinary books by David Whyte. This one is Crossing the Unknown Sea. The other, the one I read first on my sister’s recommendation is The Heart Aroused. Both are about work, and the typical work that most of us are engaged in. Typical in that, while there may have been a time where there was passion in what we spent the vast majority of our time doing (work), for most the passion is gone.

Local artisan, Alberto, at work in Orvieto

I first read these two books when I was in a “normal” job, working for a nonprofit, doing what was, in fact, good work. But like most of us, it had reached a point where it lacked real meaning for me. There are any number of reasons why this happens. But it does, and it does increasingly so as we get into our late 40′s and on into our 50′s and 60′s. Whyte’s books provide insights, comfort and inspiration for those in work who are mostly biding time until they can quit.

So as I was reading him last night, remembering the days when his books resonated so, recalling the melancholy of being engaged in work that no longer called, enjoying the beauty with which he writes And, I was filled with gratitude that I now work at something I love. Add this to the long list of things this Thanksgiving season for which I am thankful.

Whyte said, “What is remembered in all our work is what is still alive in the hearts and minds of others.” What is so completely rewarding about doing our art trips to Italy is that we provide the opportunity for people to follow their passion, and, in so doing, create the things and memories that will keep them alive in the hearts and minds of others. We are nothing more than the vehicle, but what a treat.

And so I give thanks this Thanksgiving for all the guides in my life  like David Whyte, who have led me to do something that is helping others follow their love.

One of our groups with their creations

Breaking Out of Our Shells

The Polynesians believe that Taaora, their God, created the earth and moon and stars in successive periods of breaking out of the shell in which he had been growing. After breaking out, Taaora grows again in comfort for a period of time. Then he begins to find himself feeling confined again. So, he stretches and breaks out of his shell to create something marvelous. I think for so many of those who travel with us, it is not a dissimilar experience.

Last month I wrote about the brave women who travel with us in Italy. I wonder if the thing prompting these ladies to join us isn’t that they too have been growing, are confined by their shell, and the busting out is the braveness that leads them to join us. We all, at certain points in our lives need to grow, get out of our comfort zone, expand and bloom. It is an incredible and

Enjoying Life in Italy

uplifting human trait. How lucky Kristi and I are to see this amazing blossoming take place in so many people who travel with us, and to see it happen in front of our eyes. Despite all the bad news out there, being able to witness the grand spirit that is the human condition is reaffirmation for what an amazing creature we are!

You Know Too Much

We do our trips to Italy for many reasons, but there is an almost indecipherable reason that I was made aware of from a simple reading. “You Know Too Much” was the title of what I read, written by Mark Nepo. Here is part of what he wrote:

Knowing everyone’s birthday is not the same as feeling the wonder of birth. Understanding the principles of aerodynamics has nothing to do with the experience of flying. Information is not wisdom. The mind, while a great and irreplaceable tool, can store instead of feel, can sort instead of understand. If you cannot speak when your mouth is stuffed with unchewed food, how can you think clearly if your mind is stuffed with undigested information.

One of the great, subtle yet deep outcomes of staying in one place for a week, as we do on our trips to Italy, is that your stuffed mind starts to jettison all you have put in it as you begin to embrace the wonderful new things that surround you. Italy, that wonderful, full senses place, has much to do with this. These are

The eye is engaged

sensory trips in which the mind takes a back seat as all your senses are engaged. You experience and enjoy. The eye is entertained with incredible detail everywhere you turn. You feel the cobbles under your feet, touch the volcanic stone of the buildings. You hear the melodic Italian language. You hear so many things because the car isn’t there competing with the life all around you. You smell the fabulous food being cooked, and the flowers that sometimes fill the air. And of course you taste some of the world’s best food.

Simple, delicious food

It is wonderful. The mind begins to empty. The thinking slows. Life is embraced. All that information dissipates as you experience the wonder that is life. It is a very rich and fulfilling way to be!

Brave Women

We have a friend who joined us on one of our trips to Orvieto. She traveled on her own – her first trip to Europe alone. As we talked before leaving, we realized what an amazingly brave trip this was for her. There were fears of travel, fears about the language, fears about the art workshop she took with us, worries about being alone and traveling alone.

Yet she was determined to do it, knowing it would be a life changing trip. How incredibly brave to face one’s fears like this. And the thing is, there are many, many people who travel with us exhibiting such bravery. It is humbling, for I don’t know that I have ever so resolutely faced my fears.

We have many for whom the trip with us is their first to Europe, first out of the country, even first time out of their region. We had one woman join us who had never used an ATM – even at home. Yet these brave people do it. Moved by something greater than fear, they rise up and overcome their worries. It is completely inspiring. They do travel alone, they do find their way, and they do have incredible trips. Their fears are overcome and their rewards are immense. It’s fantastic!

The non ATM user? Toward the end of her week with us, she marched into a local bank speaking no Italian, got the manager to come outside with her and help her use her ATM card for the first time ever, right there in Orvieto. And then she went on for another week in Italy by herself. Makes me smile! And stand in awe.

Brava - The Goddess of Bravery

And now we have a figure for these brave folks! This fall Jill Berry led a workshop. (Jill is returning for an encore workshop in May of 2013.) She had her group out in the streets of Orvieto looking for a cast of 13 characters drawn from mythology. For some reason that I don’t think I know, she decided to create her own figure, which she called Brava, the Goddess of Bravery. Here is a first draft – she is working on a final image now. The image is full of Orvieto with the city on its rock on top, the caves underneath the city seen as the vessels in her hair. Thanks to Jill for this Goddess for our travelers! I’ll post the finished version here, replete with full explanation, when it is complete.