November is a month of transition, we are going to sink into the slowness of winter but there is still the summer of San Martino to bring with it the Sirocco of Africa.
At least that's how it is in Sicily.
On warm sunny days we went to collect walnuts in the hills, in a place where time seems to have stopped and from which the view of the Sicilian countryside and the bright green of the irrigated fields that unroll pleasantly down to the sea, raises the heart to that condition that only the romantic poets of the 19th century, perhaps, in their bucolic contemplations, must have fully experienced.
It says that with the green husk of walnuts, in ancient times creams were made for the skin, to intensify its golden tan and protect it from the scorching sun in the fields; and then pigmenting molds to give brown-amber reflections to the hair of the women who had lava blood inside; and that the Persians used a husk dye to color fabrics and carpets that would later also reach our island.
Gold is collected in the fields and precious apples from the trees. We learn from our ancestors, we listen to the echo of their stories echoing between sky, land and sea, in the labyrinths of our veins.
But what happened then? All the wisdom of men, who understood the voice of Mother Nature and who listened to it with devotion, respect and care, where has it gone?
Where and when did she get lost?
I would like to teach my son the ability to listen, the art of silence and the understanding of another voice, which is neither a machine nor a motor, but which resides within each of us, because we are connected to it since the birth of the first woman. .
I would like to teach my son to cast the nets on the Earth with kindness and to reap the fruits that it will want to give him. Sometimes they will be plentiful, others miserable, but this too will make sense in the balance of the Earth, where there is a year of abundance and a year of lack, so that man understands the value of what Nature gives him.
So let's continue to thank for this generous November that smells of woods and dew, and that brings water to the island, even if this water is now destructive and cursed, in an imbalance in which the power and will of man they succumb to the force of Nature that screams its disease.
We harvest myrtle to celebrate the waiting and put pain and loss behind us.
Traditionally a good omen, since the time of man and the gods, myrtle gives strength to warriors, fertility to spouses and good luck to those who cultivate or harvest it.
May it be a good omen for this uncertain time that we are given to live.
Now we must heal the wounds that our naive and unsuspecting fathers inflicted on our beloved Island.
Let it be an autumn of awareness.