Vittorio Volpi

Mixing two excellent readings from my student days: Gorilla in the Mist and The Naked Ape.

I am not a polar bear, nor do I dive into the Neva on New Year’s Eve. It is a knowledge to feel the moisture in the air, the cold of winter, on your skin. Despite the climate, I do not think Nature is hostile. On the contrary, perhaps we should rest a little more, waiting like hibernating bears the coming of spring.

What is the light that makes me transparent
that illuminates everything
I know that it goes through even the stone
and makes it precious alabaster.

Light also goes inside us; it
flows along with the atoms, lighting up the photons.
Light doesn’t weigh. I don’t know how much its quantum is.
It scrutinizes our souls.

It rests on everything; it permeates everything
it almost seems not to touch; it is like a gaze.
It almost seems like a sound
that we hear when it reaches our ears.
We see nothing, but, indeed, it is there.
It seems almost like a breath, which we do not see,
but the lungs know well what it is.

Is life like this when it gives soul to a body?
An arrow that touches our heart and begins to pulsate,
that hits our mind and begins to think,
that vibrates in our chest, and we begin to love?

I am in awe of such beauty, and it all holds,
I am admired by so much beauty, and everything is held.
And I am in the present, as I have been and certainly will be.
Words cannot say everything,
but they point the finger to their sense, to their truth.

I contemplate a leaf gilded by the autumn sun,
And it looks even more beautiful now that it is about to fall,
as we, too, who drop a milk tooth
when already underneath another tooth pushes it.
A smile opens our lips for the great joy.
A great enthusiasm tightens our chest.

There is great magic in the world…and it feels like life.

Nature rewards me: it’s true, it’s just a little play of mine, things that come to me. I can’t read Nature’s thoughts, that is, if she has prepared this red carpet because she was waiting for me. I am sure that Nature does not have the same categories as I do, and I am pushing Nature into the funnel of my thinking. When I think about this, I see that Nature thinks bigger, has a bigger picture than I can imagine. For now, I thank her even for these childish thoughts: we are not immediately made men!

I liked the framing, the arrangement of the shapes, the colours. I could never have suspected an action on the part of the oak. Later I saw the shot on the monitor, and something attracted me, something very vague. I the picture, again and again. Until I saw myself dressed by shadow: the oak had dressed me in its refreshing shadow: nothing intrusive, I felt inclusive in another type of life. I love this new un-dress. I let myself be drawn to look until this thought was born to me. The oak did nothing, nor did I put myself there on purpose. The result is there to see. I am naked, and not; I’m dressed only by accidentally shadow: it seems to me that it “hangs well”.

To morning at 6:30 a.m., nature is already awake: the sun has woken her up: every single being is spoon-fed! And the day begins to turn, to grind away the time, the hours, one thing after another. The light has already dazzled me: it has only taken a few minutes. I know that there is power in the light, in the air, in the summer. And I’m glad I have blinders on to the present. When I’m naked, I strip away all commitments, appointments, things to do: I see the world from another facet, clear, transparent, alive (even if it’s still the same crystal). Other thoughts come to mind, who knows where I go fishing them out, in the depths of the sea inside me. In a few days, the mower will pass, and then the threshing, the mill, the baker and finally a nice warm bread for my breakfast. There is also this. But the light, the magnet that attracts me to the light, to the real, is just as strong. It feeds me with another sort of food.

In 40 days, the acanthus plants bloomed. Following the flowering of a plant is a spectacle that amazes and enchants. Attention is drawn to this beauty (it has been the same for thousands of years: it does not follow fashions, it does not follow canons. Yet it is a strong call, just like any sunset: that draws our attention even if only for a moment)

Light is a stream of energy that allow knowledge.
Through the eyes, it goes to the brain and brings messages to my consciousness.
Every living being benefits from light for growing and living.
Plants don’t have eyes. They don’t move; they don’t need to know their place: but light is vital.
Water needs light for all the creature living in.
Water reflects light: when sky and mountains are mirrored and in the brightness of the whitest snow.
Light is comprehension / passive information about the world.
Light says how much the colour of my skin is so different from the blue of the sky and the green of the leaves and so similar to the colour of the sun.
Light allows me to understand the world and my presence there.
I breathe air. I see the light: I perceive light around me: both are streams of vital energy.
Light take out the dark veil of the night.
I can see the naked beauty where we live.

Reflection is a word with multiple meanings. And just the reflection of the trees and me on the path flooded by the last rains led me to some reflections.
1) when we put a foot in the water, circles are generated one after the other that enlarge and move away: the circle is a geometric figure that gives the sense of completeness and harmony: it seems to want to close within itself something that it accepts; the water appears to expand, to breathe
2) the reflection presupposes presence: and with presence comes a (silent) dialogue between all the elements. Photography too has analogies; photography also speaks of a double presence: the place and me: the place is as if awakened by the sun’s rays. I, too, am undoubtedly animated; something awakens, my eyes open, new thoughts come to my attention: thoughts that come from tangible things, from nature… which seems indifferent to my presence. But why then does it greet me and include me in its perfect circles?

Going out for a walk this morning, I was struck by these two acanthus bushes, almost sentinels to a Cluniac chapel whose apse is visible. What am I doing there, naked? It is an experience, a knowledge, and awareness. Naked means that you let what has impressed you become part of you; it means that you are open, without prejudicial defences, without your knowledge to act as a filter. The two bushes were beautiful and placed in the right place, even before I knew they were acanthus.