A Garden in Italy
My garden in Sangemini for years has been my kingdom and my playground. The big olive tree that I planted small many years back has now grown so much that it gives bushels of ripe olives picked to make the precious olive oil.
The gingko that I planted some 40 years ago was just a slender sapling at the time. It is now a majestic giant that thrills me with its beauty, in the spring when its tiny uniquely shaped leaves start opening to the sun, and in the fall when its bright leaves are like a shining golden flame against the blue sky, and when as the leaves fall, the crisp brilliant golden cloak that cover a large portion of the lawn underneath is its ultimate gift of beauty and joy.
This morning a visitor came unexpectedly moving its small feet close to the trunk of the gingko: a hoopoe!
Queen of the birds, my most favorite bird of all both when alive in flight and when at the head of a journey of seekers in a mystical poem.*
Her striped feathers like the coat of a queen, she moved around the tree picking at the grass as if she knew the place, in fact as if she owned it - while I was standing so near but invisible to her, not daring to move, in total admiration.
~ Valeria
My realization is, “Through our distant friendships, we may enjoy being there through descriptions that invite our seeing, our hearing... and especially our pleasure, as if we are actually there.”
*“The laughing ‘Hoopoe bird’ will make the whole garden shine in laughter. She will speak the spoken words of the beloved.
Do not give your heart to anyone but the one coming from the circle of lovers. Put only the love of the pure hearted ones in your soul.” Rumi.*
*Rumi, third-century poet, Hanafi faqih, Maturidi theologian, and Sufi mystic, has been described as the “most popular poet” … very popular in Turkey, Azerbaijan, and South Asia. He has become the most loved poet in the United States.