Day 3 - San Gemini

After breakfast on this Saturday morning, our coach arrived and we headed off to San Gemini, a small little hilltop town just a few miles from Terni.

One of the things Richard often did on our little excursions was read a poem to us on the bus before we drove off. I'm sure I'll never remember what one's he read on what days, but I think (from my notes) that he read this poem from David Whyte before we drove off. I think it may have been one of the first moments that some of the painters wished they were here as poets as well. It's one of my very favorite poems of the 10 days, but then, I'm a huge David Whyte fan:

What to Remember When Waking

In that first hardly noticed moment in which you wake,
coming back to this life from the other
more secret, moveable and frighteningly honest world
where everything began,
there is a small opening into the new day
which closes the moment you begin your plans.

What you can plan is too small for you to live.
What you can live wholeheartedly will make plans enough
for the vitality hidden in your sleep.

To be human is to become visible
while carrying what is hidden as a gift to others.
To remember the other world in this world
is to live in your true inheritance.

You are not a troubled guest on this earth,
you are not an accident amidst other accidents
you were invited from another and greater night
than the one from which you have just emerged.

Now, looking through the slanting light of the morning window
toward the mountain presence of everything that can be
what urgency calls you to your one love?
What shape waits in the seed of you
to grow and spread its branches
against a future sky?

Is it waiting in the fertile sea?
In the trees beyond the house?
In the life you can imagine for yourself?
In the open and lovely white page on the writing desk?

The lines that touched me most were that the life I can PLAN is too small for me, and I'm not an accident amidst other accidents. In both of those lines, I felt a huge "yes" to what lies ahead - not only in San Gemini, not just in Italy, but even here at home in Brazosport. I know those feelings will fade. Perhaps I need to tattoo those lines on my forehead or perhaps my hands so that I will remember...

One of the gifts of being on Richard's "first ever experimental poetry retreat in Italy" is that we had to scout out places to sit and write together. Just like the painters who painted "plein air", we wrote plein air. So the first thing we did when we went to San Gemini was look for a small church that Edmund had suggested - a non-active church that would be empty.

From the parking area into

 the little hamlet of San Gemini

The town plaza

Richard and Tonya, "Is it here?"

From right to left starting closest to you,

Sarah, Donna, Jodie, Somae, Tony, Nancy,

 and far ahead, Richard

Hmmm...this way???

Richard, Donna, Tonya

At last, we found it - wish I knew the name of that small little church. We sat in the pews, near the door, and began to share with one another, but something was off. We kept getting interrupted (and poets need to be private!), so we got up and went off looking for another place to write. We wound up back at the first church, but instead of sitting in the pews at the back, we sat in some chairs in a circle near the altar. People could come in and stay for a while or look around, but no one was "in our space", and we didn't keep people out. It felt a lot better.

I think this may be the door?

If it's not, it's a neat door!

The simple altar. 

The church was full of old frescos.

I have a great love for Mary. 

I love her most represented as the Black Madonna, 

but I love her in any form. 

She is "the feminine". 

I don't think she gets nearly enough "limelight" in Christianity. 

Frankly, I think most of Christianity fears her.

The first thing we did was share our packing poems. I've already shared this poem on my blog before I left, but this is the final form:

Feel – for God’ Sake, Feel

by Sheila Conner

Take your sturdy shoes

And poles for balance

Streets are cobbled

Steps, uneven.

Take your flipflops,

The red ones,

For nightly bathroom treks

And simple freedom.

Take your bare feet

Tender though they may be

Earth walking is good for the soul

And toes must dip into the sea.

Take your cat’s reminder:

The sense of presence enough

To know when to go on the prowl

For this moment’s current happening

And when to lie in the grass

With your belly flat to the ground -

And purr-fectly “be”.

As we all shared our poems, I really had to work to remember that my being there, in Italy, with that group, wasn't an accident. Everyone who went is a wonderful writer - deep, thoughtful. Their vocabularies are huge, and they think with a different part of the brain that I do. My voice counts...I had to remember that all week. But I did ok.

Richard's assignment for San Gemini (if I'm correct - and I'll have to take poetic license. After all, Richard reminded us that we are fiction writers, so perhaps this whole blog thing is fiction?) was to write a poem on "loss or gain?"

Loss? Or Gain
by Sheila Conner

Open your tightly held cramped fist.
Receive now,
then give.

Lose the box.
Its edges collapse
wide open
Space now, free to explore.

Gone the wide paved roads and determined direction.
Defer instead to winding paths, hidden trails
Better still, a way not yet imagined.

Unmet expectations of yourself, God, and family
Benvenuti nella vostra nuova e accoglunte dimora!
New language and culture of your own making.

The unfulfilled dream not lived
Makes place for new Reality
experienced

After our writing excursion, we were left on our own to explore the little town. I keep reminding myself, I'm Italy!

Another fresco in the little church.

A portal. Don't you love the light!

Another larger church. I love churches. 

I know God is everywhere. 

I meet Love in nature as much as in buildings, 

but I love spaces that have been marked off 

as holy, sacred, divine. 

Places whose intention is to "meet God".

It was interesting though, that on this trip, I went into

a couple of churches that didn't move me, and into one 

that literally made me sick...was a really ucky feeling.

Strange. Haven't had that happen before.