TOLKIEN HAD FAITH

On January 3, 1892, J. R. R. Tolkien was born. His fantasy works, imbued with a very deep spiritual meaning, reveal the great faith that has accompanied this man throughout his life. He himself defined The Lord of the Rings, his masterpiece, as a religious and Catholic work. Very devoted to Our Lady and a lover of traditions, he gave his son Christopher, who was at war, a precious advice: to place all his hopes in the Blessed Sacrament. His Catholic faith cost Tolkien’s family not a little in Anglican England: his mother, who was widowed and converted to Catholicism as an adult, was abandoned by her family. She was forced to work hard to support her children, to whom she knew how to transmit her faith with words and above all by example. Also due to the conditions of poverty and hardship in which he found himself, he died very young, when Tolkien was only ten years old. But the testimony of faith of this strong and courageous mother did not fail even with death: in fact she had asked a priest to raise her children, because she feared that if they went to live with her relatives, they would be forced to abandon Catholicism and become Protestants. Tolkien never forgot his mother’s very strong and consistent faith, and he himself was often the object of prejudice and discrimination in the world of work because of his being a Catholic. No persecution, however, could distract him from the true treasure. To the point that Tolkien’s testimony of faith played a very important role in the conversion of another great writer who was his friend: C.S. Lewis, author of The Chronicles of Narnia.

LET’S SIT TOGETHER

I don’t understand those people who when they turn one more year get demoralized because they feel older and older or who say they don’t give a damn. Instead of focusing on the fewer years they have left to live, they should be happy that they lived up to that point. Each additional year of life is a wonderful milestone to celebrate, as every day of life should be. Just for the fact of opening your eyes and having another day to live in front of you, you should smile and try to feed that smile all day. When you are young, you take everything for granted, including your health, and you don’t fully realize the extraordinary power you have right now. We often focus on a happiness that will only be achievable in the near future, but the future is only our imagination. Today it is reality. The air we are breathing, the beating of our heart and the sweat of our hands, these sensations of the present are what we take for granted as if they were eternal but they are not. Our vital senses take on their true value only when we are about to lose them. Do not allow this to happen, whatever you are doing stop for a moment and completely forget about it, breathe deeply closing your eyes, listening to your beat, touching your hands but above all enjoying being alive with a sublime smile.

I look at your graceful figure and no fantasy is needed for me to follow the return to the origins, your morning toilet is of fine oyster cloth and you are an invitation to a mud bath, your blue eye stares at me through a milky keratome, with the stiff forefinger you push aside the yellow twigs of the weeping willow and you know well that you can expect all the worst things from me. Emotional flashes and a hundred and eight gold in the finish open the way to the sewer, to the sad weekend that I am now starting to live, the dress of which I dream is woven in the rice color of Siberian cellulose, the green hands of eight hundred girls are the foundation of a sweet confession, the isoipse of the rice solidify you with a courtesy mask and the ratchets of your porcelain ears are perfectly hidden in the listening bush of your oxide macerated hair. The spheres of things and events triggered, against the course of the clock hands, run at zero time, however a single day spent with the beloved girl on a Norwegian glacier is the love bag of all worthy people.

Splinters of smashed dolls hurt my soul, the caterpillar crawling right next to my eye is bigger than the express train that passes in the distance. I don’t know which mountain farmer when he couldn’t find work years ago he started talking to a sheep. I see how my life is sucked into my mother’s life, I see how I am wound back from the umbilical cord to the womb of the progenitor Eve. I see how the stained underpants are the imprint of infinity and the intestines stirred by noble horror lead to a higher vision, I see my semen as against the current being sucked backwards to the first pollution like a mountain trout, I see how from the organ sexual intercourse of all my ancestors are sucked back into the spermatic canal of the progenitor Adam. I live tactfully the resection of the rib that I still miss today.

And in the meantime this is your little waist and this is your pleated skirt from the belt to the delicate crepe and this is your toilet of the silky ivory color and it is an empire model and this is the confirmation dress kept as a souvenir and this is your back dappled by beer coasters and these are your loose hair and staves of music flow from your head. I see how naked you are now sailing under the dark beams, I see your rhythmic hands illuminated by the violent spray of the yellow chandelier, I see how from your little beating legs gush springs, beads that rise from all the pores of your body, you are immersed in a bathroom phosphorescent and vibrating ankles whistling rapids of seltzer, sparkling wines, sparkling fins, mineral feathers, flying fish wings, the flys that the beautiful and young Greek god Mercury wears on his ankles. The full moon shines with the footprint of Armstrong’s sole, but I was most moved by the news of the evening newspaper, a 68-year-old medical herb picker dozed off on a flowering meadow and was sucked into a lawn mower and her corpse escaped from the car along with the medicinal herbs and hay beyond recognition.

Along the belt of the streets I return to the origin of going, the revealing splendor of animal experiences wishes pools full of children to thirsty cities. Your myosotide eye broken by a sliver of Modra majolica now understands my cold gaze, rightly follow how the knife of my imagination pushes back to the sources of things. The last stream is sucked into the small river with the last drop, the last river is sucked into the ocean sea with the last clear cloud evaporating in the blue skies. I see how you follow this ascending fall with me, I see that not a single phase of this striptease has escaped you. Apparently I follow the memory of your white silk dress embroidered with gold, on the wrist the sleeve was decorated with slits for my desire, two hollow folds of cream yellow cashmere, but I follow all the more quickly as the pure source and the divine Needle they go towards spring and you smile at me when you see how I take handfuls full of creative clay in my hands and smelling the earth I smell you too. Meanwhile I feel only in my brain the screeching of your sweet limbs, the skin you have adorned with tender cracks, you are transported by the coordinates of cigarette smoke, Climb high like the bubbles of seltzer, the trees and flowers describe circumferences, an apple falls from the melo, already with the apples in the seed, the last ruins of the evening slip silently into the soft dust, but in the meantime I like the excesses and extravagances of the songs with poetry in the newspapers.

Graceful comes in the wave of the evening a lonely throb of a star. Gradually a light cloud the pupil closes them smiling; and as she passes with veils and feathers, in the great blue tremulous sparks they are born in swarms, they are born in garlands, are born in a hundred, are born in a thousand: but I don’t see you anymore, my star. Liable illusion How many anxieties you neglect. I woke up. Beyond the intoxicating essence of your insidious substance Vast expanses of multicolored black poppies They linger mischievous Willing to stem severely every unwary dream. Cleverly designed they will refute the insolent lie to which you are prone Allocating your vain shy escape to an inevitable departure. We cannot evade An intimate truth. Along the way we meet as graceful souls. Sensitive fairies. You covet butterflies and you love days sitting together.

MY PROFESSIONAL LIFE WITH CHILDREN

As a young girl I imagined a different future and being an artist (I don’t get high or smoke or drink, I’m an atypical artist I know) I thought that my skills, both artistic and intellectual (I always had excellent grades in school) would have me taken far, in every sense. I have always dreamed of a life off the cursed island, Sicily, because as soon as I grew up a little and became old enough to understand certain social dynamics, I felt suffocated in my aspirations. My parents wanted me to finish school, find a rich husband and get married and churn out grandchildren for them. Instead I didn’t do any of this. I have not followed any rules of social life that tradition imposed. Immediately after high school I went abroad to pursue my artistic dream but I was forced to return because my mother was sick and I took on my responsibilities as a daughter and still do it today and in return I do not receive than criticisms and always negative judgments. In part you are right, I have not been able to get even the minimum of what I aspired to in my artistic life but on the other hand I have a situation that everyone envies me. Of course, after having understood how things are going, after having discovered that “either you follow the rules of the market or you stay out of every field”, the choice to continue on the difficult and fruitless path of art is truly crazy. But I can’t turn my back on myself and my fantasy, and especially in recent times if I hadn’t had all these dreams with me yet, I think I wouldn’t have been able to go on. Sometimes instead I say to myself, trying to convince myself, that it would have been better not to have these dreams at all and not to have all these creative abilities, since up to now they have not brought me anything concrete because I do not compromise for any reason and I do not I want to sleep with anyone to get credit. This crisis due to covid pays for itself first of all precisely those sectors of genres that are considered unnecessary, and art is one of them. Certainly having a nice painting hanging on the wall does not fill people’s stomachs so even I would not feel like convincing someone to buy a painting rather than buying groceries. First of all, I myself have had to give up those beautiful things that make life more pleasant (dinners out, accessories, hairdressing, cinema, theater, concerts, cosplay fairs, …) and so why shouldn’t others give it up too ?! The covid spared no one. So what’s the point of creating so many beautiful things if they have to remain closed in a box or drawer? Being an art therapist seems nonsense. Working with autistic children seems inconsistent. Yet it requires a lot of patience and a lot of control. But I never talk about my passion for saving children.

MISUNDERSTOOD

When I speak and say something, I am never understood. When I speak and say something I am not listened to because I do not speak on video. I write and speak. I don’t record videos. Those who make videos perhaps have a better chance of being heard and understood, even appreciated by everyone. The videos are more followed. I am never taken into consideration because I don’t start talking in front of a cam, I don’t show my tits, I don’t whisper, I don’t blink, I don’t talk about fashion and make-up. I feel very frustrated about this because in this society only videos matter. People want to see someone, fantasize, imagine. I don’t show videos. I speak. But I’m not understood.

I DIED ONCE

I wandered through a fantasy forest.
Blue branches, yellow barks, purple grasses, star gourds.
My one second dream.
Those who keep their hats even at night.
The thieves of gods.
Tears without taste.
Drinking.
I don’t protect myself with the sacred.
My mantle is made of mountains, bright rocks, forests that I don’t know.
Human journeys first were made by dogs.
Flora is like a colored texture around the inky black of my path.
I was a happy child and I was making bouquets of flowers.
Now I collect stones to consolidate my torn chest.
I died once where I haven’t walked yet.
I was taken without my permission.
Collected by an ogre they didn’t warn me about.
It wasn’t his garden, and I hadn’t crossed over.
Maybe my being a doll brought him closer.
Perhaps beauty sometimes brings death.