northern italy

I had a healer tell me:

"we hold onto

s e v e n

generations of nervous system feedback"

Sometimes, there is a doe that scatters and bolts over fallen trees in my chest cavity. Sometimes, she bolts in a loop behind the trees of broken synapses.

Sometimes, she sleeps parallel to my spinal cord, resting. The message: you're safe.

Always, I have wood & mountain blood. A femma of the forest. My Nonna walked in these woods, Percorso, in Preghena, Italy. She was one of four daughters; I am one of three. She loved birds and cats, both of which I saw in the village.

I returned to this sacred land to help with the harvest of apples in September and October of 2017. This experience lives in me, sprouting up like chanterelle mushrooms under fallen leaves. The waking up at 7:30 am to a rooster. The smell of hot espresso in a little cup. How I felt rude to say no to zucchero (sugar), so I sipped sweet coffee every morning. The jeans and flannel- the two pairs of boots I ripped through while working, hunching, crawling, climbing up and around the orchard. The sugar-coffee pulsing through my nervous system like the doe running, and me pushing it out of my head with that same mantra: 'you're safe'.

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It was October, my birth month. I wished I could make a perfume of what I smelled on the mountain. The air stretching out like it was chasing after the next village, trying to sun itself in autumn rays and golden apples. I turned away from a traditional route, a job and healthcare and a season in New England which I deem my favorite: fall. I cried at the airport when I hugged my parents.

I missed my family unit of 5. My sisters. My mom. My dad.

I pictured my eldest sister's smile and hair a lot when I plucked apples. That's when the doe would unload a foraged feast of emotions to her babies. I'd duck under one of the apple trees to choke out a sob.

Seven generations of separation. No matter how long.

Seven generations of love. Through time.

When you don't speak the language that you hear around you, you start to make stories and conversations up-- What you'd tell a room full of 14 year olds of what you wish you had known then. You apologize to people from many moon's prior. You make sense of a situation that's been toiling with you. You recognize that you do the best you can. And then do it. Going to this land was something I said I'd do. Something that was the dreamiest of dreams. So I did it. Because I opened myself into it-- and sure, yes, there were times when I felt like a baby doe. Especially when you're a girl in a village where some of the men have never left and know you're an outsider. But the key for me was to hold onto a mantra, or values.

connection to land | offering my heart to it, wholly

And with that, I kept climbing the mountains; finding beauty that arranged itself for someone who was open and ready for it. Everything I had journaled and collaged and envisioned was there in its pine-studded, open-fielded glory. I would get down in the dirt and make an offering of found twigs twisted in hearts. Of wildflowers blessed with seven generations of beauty.

There was a moment of being on the trail alone and thinking "Is this safe...?" and then, an angel carved out of wood was on my path. I offered a prayer of thanks to Nonna and her sisters. To the women that came before me, and their stories and worries and dreams. They wove them with pine needles and tall grass. They wove them with strength and passion. And now, it is woven with my own experiences. And it's in my system for 6 more generations after me to call from.

landscape photography northern italy

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verona skyline at sunset