LOVE ONESELF

This is the fearful little girl inside me who still has so many fears! It is her survival strategy and I will never stop thanking her for saving and protecting me when I was little and helpless. But now, being an adult and in a better place, these mechanisms are no longer needed; when I am in a difficult moment I reconnect to the Guides and to my heart, I feel a sense of peace, of security, I feel lulled by love, and I recover the confidence that everything will be fine, in line with my higher good, that I do not I know except in my heart and in my spirit. The path of awareness is a long journey, there is no goal to reach, or a specific destination, but a journey to be fully enjoyed. Even today I was watching the news and reflecting on the fact that in such a divided world so complicated at this moment we can be grateful to be born in a part of the world where there is peace and many many problems could be overcome if only each of us devote even just ten minutes a day to cultivate peace within himself to be able to bring it into the world. So much suffering and so much human misery could truly be eradicated from the world if all of us were able to give and receive love. Yet it seems that this is particularly difficult for the human race. It is often said that before one can learn to love other people, one must learn to love oneself.

STORY OF THE LITTLE GNOMES

She hopped down the path, turning around and lifting her long skirt.
"Father, why are we going to the mine?" he asked, looking up at his parent.
"King Alras has requested our presence on a secret project." the man answered, leaning on the walking stick with his metal hand. "What do you think it will be, Pareia?"
The little girl adjusted her skirt and observed that it fell well especially where the bodice left her free. She stroked her long, dark curly hair and shook her head.
"You know it, father." she replied with a smile.
The man went up to her and ran his hand through her perfumed hair, bending over to give her a kiss. He remembered well the gnome in a jacket who had knocked on his door and had brought the message, waiting for a short reply before returning to the shadows, as well as the urgency of the text. He also remembered when, many years ago, King Alras himself had given him that mechanical arm he was now wearing to replace the one he had lost in the collapse of the mine.
"No, Pareia." he resumed walking along the path. "Since we said goodbye ten years ago, I haven't heard anything about them."
The walk continued in silence, while the trees shaded the slightly uphill path. He paused to look at the marks on the trunks that indicated distance in the gnomic language.
"A little girl was running in the woods ..." Pareia began to hum, crossing her hands behind her head. “He fell into the cliff and broke his leg. "Oh, what a pain, what a pain" ..
He gestured for her to show her the direction and set off.
It didn't take long for the trees to give way to bare rock and stone doors as tall as a human. Numerous figures had been intertwined in the doors which merged into each other and hid numerous small cracks.
"Mr. Veltis!" called a voice from the other side.
Quietly, more quietly than Pareia had ever thought, the doors opened and allowed her to see a long, wide gallery decorated with oil lamps and gigantic statues of gnomes.
Ahead of them was a gnome with short red hair hidden partly under the charcoal tuba and strutting in the suit of the same color.
"We have been waiting for you."
"My sincere apologies for the delay." his father answered politely, while Pareia stood silently behind him and kept his head down.
"No, don't worry." retorted the gnome. "Follow me."
The group went into the gallery.
"His Majesty is waiting for us at the station at the end of this tunnel to present the project to you himself." he continued, with the pride that transpired from his voice. "Our most skilled scientists and craftsmen have been at work for years and the prototype has been in use for several months. From now on we will no longer be dependent on the use of magic for even the simplest things. "
Mr. Veltis smiled slightly. The magic… for him, too, his arm was magic, pure and simple magic from the hands of the gnomic artisans that he would never know how to replicate.
Pareia looked at the gnome statues. The features were rougher than those of the people he normally met, but even in the stone the clothes sparkled with gems and even the details of the fabrics were carried over with absolute precision. He saw the last pair of oil lamps pass by them and in a moment they found themselves in absolute darkness.
Silence filled every corner of the shadows and they stood still.
Only the beating of their hearts thundered in their ears.
The beating of many hearts.
A flame seemed to shine in the distance and suddenly the light blinded them. They closed their eyes. The light grew stronger. The thunder of the drums. A fanfare. Roar of many voices.
Pareia lowered the arm she had instinctively placed in front of her face and narrowed her eyes. The cave was brightly lit and in front of them were two carriages, the first of which was very strange. He looked at it carefully, seeing that it had some sort of chimney from which steam came out, and the carriages were set on rails.
"Mr. Veltis." a gnome much more robust than the others, with clothes rich in gold threads and well finished, stood next to his father. "I am delighted that you have accepted our offer." he turned to the carriages. "This is the project we wanted to tell you about."

PROTECTED

Dreams in the drawer, underwear on the bed, doubts come out of the wardrobe. Yet it always takes me twenty minutes to choose the shoes. I open the shutters, another rainy day. The neighbor yells at her little girl, she doesn’t know how lucky she is to have her. Maybe we never realize the little miracles that happen in our life, for one reason or another, we are too worried about what doesn’t happen. I think another day has passed, even at 8 in the morning. I don’t have time to start, which has already passed. Like sand from your hands, you would like it to gush out of your palms to the bitter end. I am hungry for life, I need air, I want to hug everyone before being a memory.

To slide. The sensation of entering the leather of the seat of this train. I walk away, the body following the thought. I’m not here, I’m elsewhere. These feet are not mine anchored to the shiny, dirty floor. It is not my eyes that see the reflection of these buildings that alter with uncultivated trees and abandoned cars. This whole periphery is not mine, the strength that abandons me, the memory that presses to get out of my head. It is forbidden to cross the tracks. It is forbidden to leave thoughts. I wait for them to leave me. How I abandoned you.

STORY OF LORENZO AND A CHILD

I am never ready for departures, detachments and farewells.
What scares me most of the time that passes is losing the people who are close to me and whom I love.

Today I said goodbye to Lorenzo.
It is the last day he will come to the facility where he is being followed as the family, for work reasons, has communicated to the team his definitive transfer to Genoa.

"Lorenzo, today we say goodbye, you know ..."

"I have to study geography, tomorrow they ask me ..."

"Okay, I'll help you."

He takes the geographical map of Italy and shows me our region.

“This is where we are now. Do you know where I'm going this weekend? "

"Here ... look a bit, there is also the sea." I point to Genoa on the map.

"You know I don't care about the sea ... I don't even want to go!" He gets up abruptly from his chair.

"See you no more!"

He keeps looking at the map and shows me with his fingers how little distance there is between the two cities.

"You have to say hello to me because we don't see each other anymore, so today I want to give you the key to all the doors, when you use it we could meet ..."

I can hardly hold back the tears.
I really wish I could tell this little boy that magic exists and we can use it to meet whenever we want, but the sad truth is that sadly I'm not the child he wants me to be. He does not know, of all the times that, in his company, he made me return a carefree and smiling child and all the good that he gave me.
Today I can no longer be that child and he must understand that this is a greeting, a goodbye for both of us.

“Lorenzo, the key that opens all the doors and takes you wherever you want, unfortunately it doesn't work with the grown-ups. But we can write letters, you will tell me anything you want. You can call me on the phone and with your mom we will find a way to meet again. "

"You do not love me anymore! Because?"

"I love you so much, but today, we have to say goodbye ..."

Lorenzo runs to hug me and, at this point, I cry ...

“You're really a little girl, grown-ups don't cry! I'll give you the key anyway, maybe then it works… ”A smile escapes me through tears.

This time it is Lorenzo who is crying in my arms.
He understood that we are saying goodbye ...

Now, I need someone who also makes the little girl in me understand, why people always go away and why it always hurts so much ...

THE TALIBANS RAPE LITTLE GIRLS

( Don’t watch if you’re sensitive to violent images)

Joanne Herring is a Texan billionaire who, close to Pakistan's controversial President Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq, served as Pakistan's honorary consul in Texas. As seen in Charlie Wilson's War, where she is played by Julia Roberts, Herring - whose anti-Communism was fueled by a strange Protestant zeal - had, not even so much behind the scenes, a prominent role in Operation Cyclone, namely the CIA training and armament program of the Afghan Mujahideen during the Soviet invasion of the country (1979-1989).

Herring, who is portrayed as an exuberant libertine overflowing with contacts (like her childhood friend James Bakler III, later US Secretary of State), rounded up the political force needed in Washington to get the CIA to invest billions (with Saudis, Egyptians and even Israelis) in support of the then-called Afghan "freedom fighters", of which the Taliban are a tribal ethnic-religious variant.

The Texan was an inevitable queen of events in Houston, and became famous for her husband's lavish and decadent birthday party in 1959: a large "Roman orgy" themed party that included period costumes and a fake auction. of slaves. The festoon, of dubious aesthetic-political sensitivity even for the 1950s, ended up in the then ubiquitous Life magazine. After all, talking about slavery in America, at least since after the Civil War, is really difficult ... Joking even more.

Well, this is not a joke.

Afghanistan, where more than forty years ago Herring and the US began pumping the tribal-takfiro Islam we are now seeing rising, now sees the return of slavery as a fact.

Not as a joke for a billionaire party: as the reality that Afghan women will experience for centuries to come, if everyone does as Biden did: that is, nothing.

NOW IMAGINE THAT IN PLACE OF THESE AFGAN CHILDREN THERE ARE YOUR DAUGHTERS.
WOULD YOU REMAIN IMPASSIBLE? 
WOULD YOU NOT HAVE THE DESIRE TO HELP THEM?
YOU KNEW WHAT WOULD HAPPEN LEAVING THESE TERRITORIES TO THE TALEBANS.
NO ONE CARES ABOUT THE LIVES OF THESE CHILDREN?
WHAT HAVE AMERICANS DONE FOR 20 YEARS IN THESE LANDS?
ALL TALEBANS ARE STILL ALIVE AND VIOLENT CHILDREN !!!

Afghanistan is one of the most corrupt countries in the world: there will no longer be any guarantee on the control of any funds allocated by international agencies in favor of women victims of violence. The Karzai government, wanted and actively supported by the US-NATO military occupation, certainly does not stand out for its respect for human rights: in March 2009, the Karzai government signed a law intended to affect above all women of the Shiite community: according to this law , women cannot refuse to have sex with their husbands and cannot go to work, the doctor or school without his permission. In March 2007, the Karzai government had ensured amnesty for all crimes against humanity committed in Afghanistan in the past twenty years. In January 2007, journalist Parwez Kambashkh was sentenced to death by a court in Balkh after being accused of blasphemy because of his views on equal rights for women. Although Parwez was pardoned as a result of international pressure, dozens of other journalists are in the same conditions. In July 2006, the Karzai government reintroduced the "Ministry for Vice and Virtue", sadly known already under the Taleban regime. Afghan organizations fighting for human rights also denounce the government’s continued pressure to legalize the "informal" (tribal) justice system within which the stoning of women is foreseen.

It's Italy? Between 2001 and 2011, the Italian government invested hundreds of millions of euros in the reconstruction project of the Afghan justice. We ask the Italian government and the political forces that have supported and still support the military intervention in Afghanistan to explain how the funds for the reconstruction of the Afghan judicial system have been invested, as laws have been passed in recent years that heavily penalize, rather than favoring, the human rights and rights of Afghan women.