JEANNE D’ARC

Then there are Joanne of Arc and the acts of the Rouen trial celebrated in 1431. Over the centuries Jeanne has been read and interpreted as everything and the opposite of everything, the heroine of the right and the champion of the left, a monarchist and a revolutionary, a feminist and a martyr, and the canonization of the Church adds up to all of this. So my interpretation of her can only be filtered by all the interpretations of the story and by all the eyes that have looked at her and yet I seem to see her in focus: so clear, I seem to know her well, to recognize her. A 19-year-old girl who feels fit and fit for her task, which isn't just any task. Yet Jeanne is steadfast and uses her will, her body and her intelligence to do what she wishes to do and what she feels she is called to do, in a society like that of the fifteenth century that was not really friendly towards enterprising women. to be. When I read Jeanne's words in the proceedings at the end of which she was burned alive, although translated from French into Latin and reorganized, I recognize her. Not sweet at all, rather radical. Not at all sad, if anything at times desperate. And when I was in Domrémy-la-Pucelle in the Vosges, where she was born, and I saw the small church where she was baptized and the baptismal font still there, eternal, and the road that runs through the houses of the village that ends in the pastures and the green-brown and high horizon, behold, I thought that I recognized that place, it was as familiar to me as Jeanne is familiar to me. Harsh and not at all reasonable. What I said to Jeanne in that place remains for me, but the importance of preserving the feeling I felt that day in my daily life remains fundamental for me, otherwise it becomes all surface and repetition and a rush towards one goal and then another. , while the goal remains to feel suitable and suitable for the task that has been assigned to us, without shirking ourselves.

When she was little, she was called Jeanine, and Jeanne when she was older. At thirteen, he kept his father's flock in the fields. Pious and charitable, she loved to give relief to the suffering poor. If, during the winter days, a lost traveler asked for assistance or asylum, she would gladly give her his bed and go to bed in the barn. It has never been known that all good.

However, some episodes happened to this woman that radically changed her life. These are angelic apparitions that she herself reported in her writings and in public interrogations.
The first angel
One summer day, around noon, while he was hoeing in the garden and fasted that day and the previous day, a great light appeared that hits his eyes.
A voice told her: “Jeanne, daughter of God, always go to church, always be good and God will help you”.
Jeanne was very afraid, since she was very young at the time; but the voice was so dignified and so sweet that the shepherdess was comforted. All happy and cheerful, after that episode, she felt like consecrating her virginity to God.

Another time, St. Michael appeared to her accompanied by angels: he told her what pity the kingdom of France was reduced to, and added that he should have helped King Charles VII in arms, and repelled the siege of Orleans by the English. Jeanne began to cry, saying that she was a poor girl who could neither ride nor lead a war. The archangel replied not to doubt, to go to Vaucouleurs, to Robert of Baudricourt, captain of the aforementioned place, and that this Roberto would lead her, or give her soldiers to lead her to the noble king. The rest of Jeanne's story is well known: she will fight against the British, be taken prisoner by the Burgundians and be tried by an ecclesiastical court in Rouen.

The Voices will always accompany her, giving her advice, reproaches and - in the end - contributing to her death sentence. In fact, the origin of these Voices will be one of the themes of the sentencing process. Hearing Voices was a fairly widespread phenomenon among medieval saints, prophetesses and mystics and many hypotheses have been made on the subject. In the proceedings, Jeanne talks about the Voices to reinforce her version of the facts and her behavior. She submits to their authority.
Faith and trust in God radiated on the so pure forehead of the virgin of Domrémy, when she answered her judges. At the stake, his last word was: "Jesus, and his soul flew, in the company of the angels, to Paradise".

Jeanne was accused of dressing like a man, which was inconceivable at the time. But the most serious accusations and the most correlated behaviors with the Fairies are attributed to the Maid during her adolescence. Although not used directly by the prosecution, these rumors were in the public domain and certainly influenced the final verdict, which was still quite obvious for political reasons. According to these rumors, Jeanne allegedly claimed that the fairies were not evil beings (assimilated at the time to the Devil, according to Catholic thought). In addition, the girl claimed to have had visions of St. Margaret and St. Catherine, near a "fairy tree" or a "sacred fountain". Around that tree, Jeanne would dance on certain nights, even leaving some hawthorn garlands as an offering for the fairies. Furthermore, according to her own testimony, Jeanne's godmother would have been a woman familiar with the Ancient Practices who, not infrequently, had relations with the Little People and who would have transmitted some of her knowledge to the young woman. Some testimonies of the time, some also reported in the trial, outline an interesting, albeit somewhat strange and, in a certain way, quite disturbing situation. According to these sources, Jeanne, in her youth, was not very much guided in the ways of the Christian faith and its principles. Instead, it seems that the young woman had been instructed by some old women in the use of certain spells, in divination and other magical arts, or in any case part of popular superstition. It also seems that our Jeanne frequented some villages, known since time immemorial to be suspiciously linked with the Ancient Beliefs, and to be frequented by individuals with unclear activities, suspected of practicing what the Church considered witchcraft.

Jeanne does not seem to deny these acquaintances, which also included her own godmother. From these people, the Maid would have learned of visions or apparitions, ways to get in touch with the world of Spirits and with the Fairies, some of which also for declaredly pernicious and evil purposes. Jeanne was also informed that these entities, especially those referred to as "fairies", were beings outside the grace of God and, as such, extremely dangerous. According to Jeanne, the custom for young girls to bring hawthorn wreaths to a certain tree (called the Tree of the Ladies) was quite common in her parts. This tree stood near a spring, the waters of which appeared to have healing powers. As already said, not even she was exempt from this type of practices, decidedly of non-Christian matrix, even if she herself, later on, would have tried to associate them with the Saints of her "visions".

ARTEMIS

Young princess
Child now grown up
You play being a wife
satisfied lady.

The rooms of your home
Polished dwelling-
They might satisfy
Your thirst for tea
friends accommodated
For years to come,
For years.

Your wise husband
accomplished master
He does not feel the pains
Ignore the paleness.

Behind a door
Your pain is hidden
Locked in
Golden lock.

You were free in the woods, 
with your bow and your knife, 
true warrior, 
and now only daughter-in-law.

In twelve months you look at the moon, 
dreaming of that life in a sylvan abode, 
you wait to be sure that the wind will come back 
and take away your days.

HELP THE HELPLESS

 

Do not do to others what you would not want done to you ».
I have made this concept my philosophy of life. But I went even further.
Because not only do I not do what I would not like to have done to me, but I do what
I would like others to do for me. And it is normal that, thinking in this way,
I expect the maximum from others: the very maximum that I am ready to give at any time.
And it hurts to realize every time that I have deluded myself and that I have placed trust in people who did not deserve it.
And it hurts to realize that you are the only one who believes so much in friendship. And it hurts not to be able to give less.
I give all of myself, mind, body and heart. But the others, in return, don’t even give a little of their time

What is a hero? What is an idol?
Simply someone who does his job to the maximum, does what is right, because if he feels it inside,
he does good because his morality is stronger, he makes art for others, to spread beauty in the world,
or someone who he says things as they really are without worrying about the consequences
Someone who would also be willing to give his life for all this and for others
Those who can be considered as such will remain in history or in the memory of people,
even if only one who will keep them in their hearts and minds forever.
These people have given a great purpose to their lives,
leaving the world, an idea, something perhaps priceless and ineffable.

It’s not about loving people, it’s about doing them good. The well-known difference between saying and doing is not just proverbial. Doing good is the only reason we were sent to this planet. There are men who do good, others who do evil, still others who do nothing. You may not agree, but I consider the latter to be the most dangerous and useless. Doing nothing is a very serious fault. The truth is that you change the world by doing good. You don’t have to go to the other end of the world to do it .. Just take care of the people around you. Never take a smile, a kindness, a kiss for granted. Even when you think you can’t change anything, when it’s heavy, it does the same. No it does not. We sow and cultivate the good always, also and above all in small things.

CALL FOR ALL THE “V”

Everything has now become a struggle. Against someone, against something, against the rival, against the rich, against those who do not do, against those who do, against the beautiful, against the ugly. Against judgment that shows just as much judgment, against reason that shows just as much compulsion, against the true, against the false. I saw an advertisement for a woman who “has been fighting obesity for years”. Against. Those behind the scenes know very well what it means to animate the feeling of struggle instead of confrontation. They know that counter strengthens and expands exactly what it is believed to be fighting for. Going against a physical problem, instead of understanding it, as with everything else … gives you back tripled. Keep fighting, keep going against you.

Aren’t we also like that giant of the forest? Sometimes we survive the rare storms, the avalanches, the harsh blows of existence, and then let our hearts devour the little insects of worry, insects that one would be able to squeeze between the thumb and forefinger. Anxiety is not mine, I know. It is something that lives outside, but which I have brought inside and which has now made its home inside me. Anxiety is not mine, anxiety is not me. It is not a war against myself, it is a war against what is around me. I was too, you know, tired of fighting against life, of always having to find a shortcut, a way out, of feeling inadequate, of looking for an alternative to the future, of not knowing how to be myself because it would not have been. popular; tired of the past that slips into the chest like blades, of indecision, of the emptiness inside that seems to speak, that seems to say: “It will all end”.

I feel alone, I stare into space, I wonder how long this will last, I hug the pillow, I cry in silence. They tell me to do it alone, to pull myself up and fight, but the weight I carry is too heavy and only makes me sink lower and lower, deeper and deeper. I find myself in total darkness and no one cares, there is no one there, I only hear the sound of my breath. Memories crowd my mind, my chest hurts, now I even struggle to breathe, I feel like a body without a soul, I feel trapped in a cage. You have to fight, they said. You have to fight they say. But they don’t know, they don’t know that girl no longer exists. That girl, that I was, stayed there in that room.