We’ve been back in Guardia Sanframondi for almost a week now, and I am champing at the bit to get back to our land. But we can’t. It is simply not ready for this season, and we’re forced to step significantly backwards, takingstock, thinking a bit harder on it all, and generally assessing what CAN be done with the not-rain-proof diposito that we were trying to live in until last week....
It has been glorious to have hot water... coming out of taps! ... and out of a shower head!!! It is gorgeous to bump into friends and (the nicer) neighbours, and to have some sweet social time with our favourite folks here. We got to pick J’s brain about selling the Arthouse, and came away with the clarity that we are practically doing it all right, already. And I sold a dress from last year, to a dear friend – who also bought us lunch, and some meat to keep us going this week! She is the oldest friend I have from my time in Italy, and has been my saviour at various points – buying art and clothing from me, and bringing food treats when I most needed it – the very best of friends.
the house on our land (right) and our potential new property (left)
So we feel well warmed through, clean, nourished – and indulged! Drinking a glass of beautiful local red wine with 
It is hard to acknowledge – for me at least, though Vincent is more stoic and practical (in this context) than I am – that we cannot manage to do enough whilst winter is raging around us, that'll allow us to move in proper. It is simply not sufficient a protection from the elements, no matter how passionate we are to be there.
But we had to try it to truly feel that - to know it. And having actually felt the house, the land, the elements, the rhythms; we are all the more informed about our future home and location. We know much more than if we had given it a superficial look-over and then snuck back here to lap it up in the cittá!
It is an immensely important aspect of permaculture planning, which I loosely follow, to just observe a place, a landscape, before building or planting anything. The constructions that we do finally put there will form organically around our actual needs and wants, and around the long-long-long-term sustainability – or rather the flourishing – of both that place and the larger world. This is absolutely not to be rushed, and in fact we are somewhat grateful that Bitcoin is down this season, so we are not hastily pushing ahead before we know what is the very, very best.
I wish very much to learn more about wood and construction, organic architecture and stonework, too. These are skills that I have basic knowledge in, but the true art of working with such natural materials is something that will take years. And we have all the time! Literally. We are moving from a reality following city and commercial rhythms ....to being guided and inspired instead by the natural seasons and elemental changes.
This is huge: it changes dramatically how we think, how we feel, how we sleep and eat, how we project our reality into being.
We are changing physically also, becoming more lean and having better musculature. We breathe more deeply, and stretch more often. We have to take better care of certain parts of the body, which are tiring quickly, and taking longer to recover – whilst we work more and more intensively clearing plants and trees, and cutting wood for the fire and for constructing things.
Our forays into the woods almost always involve a very steep climb either up or down; pretty much all bar a few square metres of the land is super-steep. In a few places it is almost impossible to climb! We have to circumnavigate a couple of patches which have no trees to hang onto as we move upwards like
chimps, especially when it is damp. And certain clay-ey pathways which are so very slippery when they also have frost along them. Hehehehe! We have both landed on our billen regularly, slippy leaves, mostly a soft landing, hehehe!
I miss this intimacy with nature, when we’re in the ‘city’ – even if we are above the wildly unkempt gardens here in Guardia, which we love to forage and exercise in. It is not the worst home-from-home, and we know that the next person who lives in the Arthouse is going to love it here even more than us. But for the time being, it is just a more comfortable spot for us to rest and get our breath and our sanity back.
To remember that we have an inimitable creative approach that does involve rather a lot of chaos, BUT we also have skills between us which will help us avoid the pitfalls of just keeping in that creative chaos and not actually achieving the priorities FIRST. Priorities are such a very, very different thing from city to country, and from living under commercial law to living under Natural Law.
We have already let go of a lot of ego-related wants and expectations, comforts and benefits and privileges and fears that keep most of us tied into the hamster-wheel rhythms of modern ‘life’. We are good with washing less, with basic comforts taking a lot more effort and time, and we are even happy AF to be in the (relative) silence and solitude (together!) of the wild mountains of Molise.
Our priorities before were quite different: work, internet and being visible online, communications, media, catching up with local gossip, purchasing stuff, paying bills here and there (if they were very few), getting to the shops at the right time. Living out in the wilds demands an entirely alternative hierarchy of needs.
So we are learning all that, deepening our wisdom, our embodied knowing, our capacity to act from our core and our (slowly incrementally) improving vitality. It’s not so much trial and error; more super-slow and subtle augmenting of our reality. Our consciousness and our health are ever so gently improving. We can’t always even perceive the changes, until we come back here to Guardia like we are doing, and we suddenly recognise that we’re calmer, that we find it easier to make decisions, we are more able to roll with the waves as things come towards us.
This is a great improvement, for myself. I spent many of my first 16 years in Italy, struggling fiercely with things alone. Even when I supposedly ‘had a partner’. Periods of being ‘partnered’ were probably even more sfidoso, frankly. Until I met my Beloved, of course. We struggle together, and struggle to
communicate even at times, but these struggles, as with our land, are so very, very, very worth it.
