Life Coach: Spirit, Body and Mind » Sardinia

Self Nurturing: Sedona Massage

Margo — Tue, 30 Aug 2011 19:47:36 +0000

I received my first massage many years ago. I was living in the UK at the time. I believe it was sometime in the sixties and I discovered a small massage and facial salon had opened above a shop near my parents home. I very tentatively booked an appointment and remember how my heart sang and I knew that I was hooked from the very first touch. There is nothing quite like a massage for relaxation, de-stressing, pleasure, and coming home to yourself. Massage does for the body what a deep relationship with God does for the soul.

I probably received one or two more massages during the next few years because I really couldn’t afford more than that. Then, about five years later, I moved to Sardinia, Italy with my first husband and our two boys. In 1970, we helped to open a large holiday village called Forte Village in the southern part of the island not far from the capital, Cagliari.

There were many holiday agency reps working in the village and the two girls from the Swedish company, Vingresor, were extremely grateful for the “extra mile” that I went in order to help smooth difficulties for their customers. They came to me one day and said they would like to show their appreciation in some tangible way and asked me what I would most like. I knew they had their own massage therapist on call in the village, so I requested a massage. They were gracious enough to gift me with a series of four massages, and my love affair with receiving massage was rekindled. Since then I have received many massages and eventually, when I was fifty three years young, I trained to become a massage therapist myself. I feel as much joy giving massage as I do in receiving them.

Fast forward to April 2011. As I mentioned in my previous posting Traveling- Las Vegas & Sedona Rich and I enjoyed a wonderful visit to Sedona, AZ. I knew that I wanted to receive a massage in Sedona because it is a place of natural healing and there are many alternative therapy healers in the town. As Rich and I were settling into our condo, he checked out a file of information about various activities and points of interest in the area, and called my attention to an advertisement. The wording in the ad from Sue really spoke to my heart and soul, and I knew that this was who I would book my massage with.

A few days later found me in Sue’s studio. Little did I know that I was about to have a very significant and life-changing experience. For the next two hours Sue worked intuitively with my body. I have never received a massage quite like it. She used many different modalities during the course of the massage and I knew that something very special was going on, especially when she started chanting as she worked my heart chakra. I remember thinking, “I hope she is going to tell me what that was about”, as I felt a kind of a “whooshing out” feeling from my chest. Then shortly afterwards, as Sue worked on my lower abdomen, I could feel “something” going on and a great deal of heat.

At the end of the massage, when Sue gave me some water to drink, she asked me if I wanted to hear her perceptions. My heart lifted and I said I wanted to hear everything. She checked first of all if I believed in past lives and also asked me if I was familiar with any of the ancient civilizations such as the Mayans or the people of Atlantis. When I assented, she shared that while she had been working on my heart chakra she was drawn into a vision where she saw me as a tall, regal person, dripping with golden jewelry, and knew that I was one of the ancient wise ones. She felt that I was royalty of some sort and told me that whenever I walked into a room people were enveloped in a sense of tranquility and felt healed. I told her that many people told me this today also.

She then went on to tell me that it was no longer enough to just “walk into the room”, that I was “being called to more”. She said that I needed to be ready for more work and not to be afraid. I remembered Kevin’s words just a few weeks earlier at the Lenten Healing Mission. Sue then explained that while she had worked on my lower abdomen she had felt “something birthing”, and she encouraged me to be ready, to prepare myself for some new work that I was going to be called to undertake.

As I left Sue’s studio, I felt very blessed. I was filled with a sense of peace and yet was also aware of a very heightened sense of energy. I felt like I could have run for ten miles. I was very grateful for this because later that afternoon Rich and I went to experience the energy vortex at Bell Rock and I was able to climb about three quarters of the way up the rock formation without feeling tired.

I will always remember my massage experience with Sue with much gratitude. My main personal work since that time has been to quietly prepare myself for whatever work Spirit wants me to do. Just two weeks after this experience, I attended a Qigong event in Orlando and a complete stranger there repeated the message: “Margo, you are being called to more. Do not hold back.” I will share more about this experience in another posting.

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Going Raw: Part One

Margo — Mon, 11 Oct 2010 02:38:34 +0000

(My Life-Long Love Affair With Food)

I don’t normally put sub-titles to my postings, but I felt this one deserved one. There is no way I can share my “adventure” at going raw without giving some background as to my relationship with food. And it is a love affair.

I have had an intimate relationship with food ever since I can remember. Some of my earliest memories of food are:

- sitting under the dining room table in the middle of the night eating rice paper (don’t even ask!!)

- sitting for what seemed like hours on the garden gate or at the front room window waiting for Aunty Polly to arrive with ice cream and candy

- going to Aunty Peggy’s to have wonderful four course dinners that included incredible appetizers, cheese and crackers, dessert with coffee (like in a “grown
up’s” restaurant)

- going down to the kid’s secret den to eat as many candies as I had been able to take from the pantry without it looking as though someone had taken them
(I’m sure my mother realized!)

- finger-swiping the frosting off a freshly baked “chocolate horror” cake (bliss!)

- sneaking teaspoonful’s of Fry’s chocolate spread (pure paradise!!)

- biting into the crusty heel of a fresh loaf of country bread slathered in real butter

- English cheddar cheese and crunchy pickled onions

So as you can see I was pretty much addicted to food from an early age. I could describe in detail, and still can, the sensations of different foods hitting the different taste buds in the various areas of my mouth just the way someone can describe the details in a picture. I think God proved that He really, really loved us when he gave us taste buds.

I discovered “ethnic” restaurants in my mid to upper teens and a whole new world of tastes and flavors opened up to me. English food is usually so bland and much of it, particularly vegetables, is simply boiled into oblivion and mush. Indian curry and crisp Chinese vegetables were like heaven, and the awesome blend of herbs in authentic, freshly cooked, Italian cuisine can still send me into a swoon today. I think you get the picture.

Moving to Sardinia, Italy in 1979 was a dream come true for this foodaholic. The Sardinian cuisine is unique and is as beautiful as the island itself. Home-made pasta was the norm in a Sardinian home in those days and if you have never eaten fresh home-made pasta you need to before you die. Roast lamb, kid, and pig are nothing like anything over here. I have eaten some of the best bar-b-q pork since coming to the States but nothing touches a succulent roast-in-the-ground pig in Sardinia.

From Sardinia I returned to London in 1978. It was mainly a “big mistake” but forms part of my life journey so it was important. During the five years I remained in the UK back then the only time that I ate well was when I cooked Italian pasta or I ate ethnic. I missed Italy badly, not just the food but the whole culture. So it was with a happy heart that I returned in 1983 to live in Naples, Italy.

Naples, rather like Sicily, gets a bad rap in some tourist books, but I fell in love with Naples very quickly. There’s an Italian saying that goes, “see Naples and die”. There’s a Neapolitan saying that goes, “Napoli ti prende per la gola” – Naples grabs you by the throat. The people are warm-hearted and friendly and the food, well I’m not sure anything I could say about Neapolitan food would do it justice. There are amazing pasta dishes with incredible sauces and fresh seafood cooked in the simplest but most divinely-tasting ways. “Dolce” (cakes) are out of this world and the pizza, oh the pizza!!!!! You have not eaten real pizza until you eat pizza prepared and baked in Naples. Not even the pizza in other parts of Italy is as sublime as Neapolitan pizza.

And then there’s REAL mozzarella cheese freshly dripping in its own liquid. This is an absolute delicacy that is only made in Naples, Italy. There is only one place over here that I know of where you can find real, fresh Mozzarella cheese and that is at the Fratelli La Buffala restaurant in the beaches area of Miami. They have it flown in fresh from Naples two or three times per week.

So, with all this love of marvelously prepared and served food, how do I get to going raw? With great difficulty let me tell you! I guess with age comes some sort of wisdom, and my brain began to tell my body that two hundred pounds on a five foot four inch frame was not so healthy. And, as usually happens with the fat accumulation, my blood pressure had risen and my cholesterol was fast following it.

Thankfully, when the student is ready, the teacher appears. Back in 2005, about eighteen months after getting to Jacksonville, Florida, my church hosted a series of classes on the vegetarian diet. I was interested not only because I thought it would help me lose weight, combat the BP and cholesterol issue, and improve my overall wellness, but also because the classes were offered by the Cancer Society as a way to help people prevent cancer or live cancer free once they were in remission. Because there is a history of cancer in my family I decided it was time to take the bull by the horns.

I’ll leave the “vegetarian experiment” for my next posting in this series.

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Poetry: Greek God on a Tube Train

Margo — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 05:33:49 +0000

As mentioned in my previous posting, Musings- Creativity and Cold! here is the poem that I wrote in September 1980. Perhaps I should set the stage a little. I had returned to live in England in October 1978 having lived the previous ten years of my life on the beautiful island of Sardinia. Sardinia is located about forty minutes flying time due west of Rome in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea. It is an Italian island.

The weather there is fantastic. Hot and sunny from mid-May through to mid-September. Delightfully warm and sunny from mid-March through to mid-May and again from mid-September through to the end of November. There are a few exceptions to these time lines but they are just that, exceptions. Winter lasts from December till mid March but is not so cold as to be brutal, nor is it so rainy as to be continuously miserable. I remember sunbathing many times in January and February.

So to adjust to England’s climate when I returned to the UK in late 1978 was difficult to say the least. The culture and way of life was also problematic and frequently I found myself spiraling downwards on the emotional level as I tried to stay positive and live up to my nick-name – Sunny!! One day as I sat on the underground train going to work I was struck by my sense of isolation and felt myself being swallowed up by and absorbed into a daily “grayness”.

Each person in my carriage was totally closed in on themselves. Nobody looked at anybody else. It was as though each one of them was enclosed in one of those glass domes that are used to protect special dolls or statues. I found myself reacting to this by going in on myself – under my own glass dome. But suddenly there was a moment of “aliveness” which brought me back into my real self. The following poem describes that incident.

GREEK GOD ON A TUBE TRAIN

Somber blue, black and gray pinstripes
Seated in uniform regularity
The full length of the carriage,
Like regimental toy soldiers on an assembly line
Waiting to be dispatched, briefcase in hand,
To equally somber banks.
Dead-pan, pallid faces devoid of emotion,
Set above their city suits.
Bored, I stare ahead, merging into the nothingness
That surrounds me.
The train stops, doors open and close,
And suddenly my eyes are shocked wide open
By a non-conformity in this sea of gray monotony.
There he sits, or rather lounges,
A healthy sun-tanned lean Greek god,
In indolent disarray.
Tight jeans mould to his masculinity,
And he wears an open neck shirt from which spills
A heavy gold chain nestling in luxurious hair.
His dark and heavy-lidded eyes smolder
As they roam lazily over my femininity,
And I welcome his bold male gaze in the midst of such insipidness.

London, 24 September 1980

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Mentors: Along the Path of Life

Margo — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 03:09:38 +0000

Where do I start? As I look back along the path of my life there have been dozens of moments when the sets of footprints have been many. I know that God has been with me all the way, even when I have chosen to ignore Him. So I know that there has been at least one set along the sands of time when He was carrying me and, when I was “in a state of grace”, then we walked side by side leaving two sets of prints.

But those other times when more feet left their mark are when some very special people walked with me. People who loved me or at the very least cared about me enough to accompany me through difficult times. Sometimes these people were professionals whom I sought out for specific help. Other times they were special friends, the kind that leave footprints not only on the path of life but also across my heart.

If I were to be honest, even though I did not recognize it at the time, I would have to say that my mother was my first mentor. It would probably be even more honest to say that I was not capable of recognizing her in the mentor role. But with the wisdom that age eventually gives us and with the passage of time, I am able to understand and admit that she did indeed give me many of the values that I hold dear today.

My Aunty Polly was another mentor in my young life. She was not a blood relative but someone my parents knew from before they were married. She had an amazing ability to make me feel loved and cherished no matter what I may have done. She always had a compliment for me and she always smelled of some divine French perfume, and when she hugged me I wanted to stay inside her arms forever. As I struggled through my teen years her love and support never wavered. She was always ready to be my champion.

Sad to say I remember no particular mentors in my life during my upper school years or college years, although Aunty Polly was ever available if I bothered to approach her. This barren period of my life stretched into my marriage to my first husband. But the barrenness was of my own creation as I slid further and further into isolation.

It was not until a few years after I separated from my him that I began to seek help and became aware that there were some very compassionate people available if I but looked. Dear Fr. Hill, the Catholic chaplain with the U.S. Navy in La Maddalena, Sardinia was the first of those. His laughter filled the corridors of the Navy base and filled my battered heart with hope. In turn he introduced me to a young woman called Lou Ann who was to mentor me through the first few months of struggling out of my “dark period”.

As I took my place among my fellow citizens on this path of life I slowly understood that there was no stigma in seeking help from professionals. Since then I have been blessed with help from many psychologists and spiritual advisors: Dr. Lockart, Dr. Fernandez, Dr. Werbel, Dr. Boger, Chaplain Gerry Smith, Chaplain Steve Jensen, Chaplain Wendy Bausman, Chaplain Rod Kelley, Chaplain Terry Robertson, Chaplain Paul Witt, Chaplain Robert Church, Chaplain Mark Logid, Chaplain Greg Gillette, Chaplain Larry Smith. I know there were others. I can see their faces but my memory is being unkind and not allowing me to remember their names.

My dear friend Herm del Prato in Naples, Italy was another soul with whom I shared many personal stories and struggles. His ear was always willing and he was never judgmental. And how can I forget my “soul sister” Cawne who came into my life in 1987 and, in her own woundedness, opened up a whole new path of spiritual possibilities to me. Despite a large geographical separation we are deep friends to this day.

As I think of my life today I realize it is full of mentors in the unique friends who I choose to surround myself with. Men and women who are all questing on their own paths and yet willing to share and give of themselves to me. My beloved Mavis, who is also a substitute mother-aunty-sister-friend and who teaches me to remain teachable. Cathy and Lorelei in St. Augustine who help me stay true to myself.

Kathi, Paige, Tish and Robin who all help to keep me “right size” and show me how to live by going out there and living life themselves. Michael, who massages my body and through his skills, talents, knowledge, and experience helps me to get nearer to myself. Linda who helps me care for my garden and teaches me lessons of genuineness like no other.

And there are many more, too numerous to name, who through their actions and the way they live their lives, fill me with gratitude for their presence, for their friendship. They enrich my life with love, with compassion, with humility, with joy. They nurture me along my path. I am truly blessed.

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Musings: Sharing Our Gifts And Talents

Margo — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 19:06:43 +0000

It has taken me a long time to”go public” with my writing. About two weeks ago in my posting Poetry- Words Painting Pictures, I shared how I have always been fascinated and influenced by the written word. Even as a child I would write poetry and, as I progressed into my teens, I wrote funny “ditties” for friend’s birthdays. I even wrote a skit or two that we used in high School.

Diving into the “dark period” of my life I isolated from the creative Muse. But as I approached the end of those troubled years and was close to breaking out into the sunshine of true living, it does not surprise me that the first sign of her return was in poetry – even though it was somewhat depressive. I think the expressing of my feelings as I came through that difficult period helped me to walk out of the darkness and into the light.

Shortly after the poetry came the painting. (Art classes were second favorite to gymnastics and outdoor sports when I attended the Ursuline High School for girls.) I lived in Sardinia at the time and I was blessed to have a wonderful artist in my life at that time. His name was Santiago (still is, he lives in Puerto Rico with his wife Josefina), and he was an engineer who worked in the same set of offices as I.

Santiago was one of those many mentors in my life that I will write a posting about soon. He was a quiet, slightly built man with a round face who looked more like a studious professor than an engineer; not that I know what an engineer should specifically look like! But one thing he was passionate about was the creative and artistic process. And I am happy to say that he enjoyed sharing that with others as much as he indulged in it for his own delight and personal satisfaction.

To go to Santiago’s house on the island of La Maddalena, Sardinia was like going to an art gallery and attending a concert at the same time. Every wall in every room was covered with his art work. He produced paintings prolifically and painted every corner of the island from every angle possible. He used oil paints as well as water colors and his work was magnificent.

He also played the guitar, and many glasses of wine were consumed as he shared his passion for painting and music. Josefina was a very patient hostess who probably did not fully understand this strange English woman who kept appearing at their doorstep. But I wanted, needed, to be steeped in the creativity that permeated their household (Josefina was very artistic in her own way too), although I’m afraid she may have thought sometimes that I just wanted to be steeped in wine!!

It was exposure to Santiago and his love of painting that influenced me to go into town one day and buy all the basics to start painting again. Of course, being somewhat obsessive, I then began to paint in every free moment possible, sometimes working until two or three o’clock in the morning even though I had to be in the office by 8am. But it was wonderful to be in the grip of the creative Muse, and to watch a painting unfold and develop was an incredible experience.

This all happened in the early to mid seventies. I married my husband Richard about ten years later and although I stopped painting I continued to be involved in some form of creative art. We met in a little theater group and our relationship developed amid the smell of grease paint and the magic of the spotlights. Over the years I recouped my love of calligraphy (the art of beautiful writing) and created and printed many pieces for sale.

Today I create cards with the help of Stampin’ Up products and my teacher Mary Gillette. For me it is so exciting to see a piece of creative work develop and then hold the finished product in my hands. To share that with someone as a Birthday card, a Thank You card, or a Christmas card adds another layer of pleasure and satisfaction to the process. It also gives me great pleasure and joy to share my writing with others in the hope that someone, somewhere, will find their own pleasure and perhaps a little enlightenment in the words that I write.

Over the years I have discovered that God has blessed me with many gifts and talents other than a sense of the artistic. As my life unfolds and I continue to be open to whatever path He leads me on, it seems that part of my life’s mission is to be in the right place at the right time with the right words for specific people. To this end God has blessed me with the gift of compassion for others, especially those who are travelling their own dark path or are struggling with hardship and tragedy.

I think this is why I am able to do the work that I do as a volunteer with Community Hospice of North East Florida. It also helps me as I volunteer at my own church in the Ministry of Consolation. And then there are all those individuals who seem to cross my path “by chance”, but when we say goodbye and continue on our individual journeys, I understand that I have ministered to them in His name.

As I read back over this article, I realize that it is not at all what I thought I was going to write. But that is often the way it is for me. I start off in one direction and end up going totally in another. I think it has something to do with that “meandering” quality that God instilled in me. But I also think it has more to do with inviting Him on the journey with me as my fingers start their journey across the keyboard.

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Musings: Relativity & Perspective

Margo — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 03:08:46 +0000

No, I’m not going to do an Albert Einstein. I do not have that kind of analytical and scientific mind. But it struck me that any given situation will probably be viewed differently by each person involved in it. I just have to think about any normal, every day conversation between myself and my husband and how we sometimes struggle to understand exactly what the other is saying – and we’re both speaking English, and are relatively on the same page!

Just recently I read a phrase that really caught my attention. It said something like, “A mistake is just another way of doing something.” Yesterday I read another phrase which said, “A weed is no more than a flower in disguise.” And they both carry the same message as the old proverb, “One man’s trash is another man’s treasure.”

I remember participating in a workshop some years ago. There were various projects and activities that we engaged in during the course of the workshop. One that I will always remember went something like this. We re-entered the classroom after a short break and in the middle of the chalk board was the word “track”.

The instructor asked us to just focus on that one word. Then she asked us not to talk among ourselves and to write a sentence using that word. As I recall, there were about twenty to twenty five of us in the class. There may have been a handful of sentences written that were similar. The rest were completely unique, each offering a different meaning and use of the word.

I’m sure that this creates problems from time to time. Going back to my husband and I, I can think of a few times when the discussion has become somewhat heated simply because of two completely different perspectives, understandings of, one word or phrase. (We’re probably not a good example because I’m British and he’s American, so the language barrier in and of itself sometimes is a bit of a beast!!!)

But different perspectives can also bring wonderful variety to our lives. Just think of art and architecture, and what about music? All the unique styles created by different people enrich our lives in all those areas. I absolutely love Modigliani and Monet and yet they create works at opposite ends of the spectrum. As do Degas and Dali and yet both have produced works of exquisite beauty.

I cannot imagine life without the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. But there are days when all I want to hear is Dvorak or Beethoven. And when I’m in the mood, please get my toes a-tapping with some down-to-earth, boot-stomping Blue Grass.

On the news yesterday and today are the heart-wrenching stories and pictures from Samoa and Indonesia. People’s lives torn apart, wrecked by savage tsunami’s and earthquakes, forces of nature over which we have no control. Any “small stuff” problems that I may have been lamenting about dwindle into nothingness by comparison.

Probably the biggest example of perspective that I can remember in my own life happened back in the mid seventies. I was living in Sardinia at the time. It was a gorgeous, warm, clear August evening and the sky was littered with millions of stars forming the Milky Way. I remember standing on the patio of my little cottage and getting a cricked neck from staring upwards.

Then I had an idea. There was a six-foot long wooden picnic table on the patio which I covered with a sleeping bag. Then I lay on top and in wonderful comfort began to star gaze. It was an incredible experience. It looked as though someone had taken a dozen sacks full of diamonds and thrown them across the width and breadth of the sky.

It was only then, at the ripe old age of thirty something, that I began to get a clear idea of what the universe was about. As I lay on that picnic table I suddenly realized that it wasn’t just a flat dark blue background with “big stars, and little stars” painted all over it. I understood for the first time the significance of the word “infinity”.

I became aware that the “little stars’ were in fact probably just as “big” as the others seemed to me, but that they were further away and thus seemed “smaller”. And I also realized that if I squinted I could just barely see even “smaller” stars that were even further away. And in that one moment the full magnitude of “the universe” hit me.

In that one moment I was both terrified and also in total awe, and I realized just how insignificant I really was in the bigger scheme of things. And yet I also realized just how important I must be to my God that He has chosen to place me here in the bigger scheme of things.

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Italy: My Soul Home

Margo — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 12:08:00 +0000

I have lived for about thirty years in Italy. The very first visit to that country was to Genoa in December 1963. All I can say is that when I deplaned and my feet touched the tarmac, my soul came home.

I eventually came to live in Italy in 1969. My first home was in a place called Santa Margherita di Pula located in the southern region of the island of Sardinia. This island captured my heart. The sea is turquoise, the beaches are pristine, the rocks are unbelievable, the people are delightful, and the food is incredibly good.

The last four and a half years of my time in Sardinia were spent on the island of La Maddalena. If Sardinia was said to be the crown of Italy, La Maddalena would be the diamond sparkling in that crown. In my post Poetry- Sharing My Love of Sardinia I already described this beautiful island and shared one poem that I wrote in nostalgia after I left. Here is another poem that I wrote during the course of a revisit.

La Maddalena

Hot air hanging languidly in a shimmering haze.
Warm brown bodies proffered to the sun,
Splayed on molten sand.
Still waters reflecting glistening gems
Of cool coral edged with mother-of-pearl
Mirrored under translucent turquoise.
Oh island of my heart, my soul, my mind,
Resplendent as a queen you proudly lie
Royally robed in colors warm and bright.
Your elegant form bedecked with dazzling jewels
Enchanting all who dare to gaze upon you,
By nature so generously endowed.
Sept. 1980

In sharp contrast is the city of Naples. I returned to live in Italy after spending five years back in the UK, and by God-incidence I ended up in Naples. Naples is a wild and chaotic city that lives by its own rules, as do the Neapolitans! It is a city of wide contradictions and immense fascination. There is a saying that goes, “See Naples and die”, meaning that nothing counts after experiencing Naples.

In my previous post Poetry- The Urchin From Naples, I gave some personal insights into this crazy and wonderful city as well as sharing a poem that I wrote before I ever physically visited there. The following poem describes how I felt about it after being there just one week. Naples had “grabbed me by the throat” (this is what the locals say about the effect their city has on some people!l).

Napoli!

Faded ochre, dirty rose,
Clothed in webs of ivy green
Spattered with dust.
Crooked cracks, crusted crannies
Creeping in all directions
On ancient walls.
Cars, trams,
Buses, coaches,
Trucks, prams,
Vans, Bikes,
Carts, Horses
In bright profusion.
Bells, shouts,
Whistles, screams,
Laughter, clouts,
Sirens, blasts,
Voices, horns,
In loud confusion.
Napoli…………
City of love and painted passion,
Full of life and sight and sound,
City of song and laughter.
The dust may cling and spread around,
Crimes may take place each day, all day,
But you are throbbing, alive, and gay.
You are a heartbeat unto yourself.
And as you spawn your hopes, your fears
Into your maddening noises streets
You live!!
Napoli…………
July 1982

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My Italian Roots

Margo — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 22:16:49 +0000

Since posting the poem “Island Voices” about a week ago, and “Full Moon Rise” yesterday, my Italian soul has been clamoring for attention. So I think I’m going to have to open up a new topic under the label “Italy”. So much of my life experience has been savored in that country, and so much of my soul resides there even when I live elsewhere, that it seems the right thing to do.

Some may wonder if I feel somewhat fragmented because of my ongoing attachment to Italy, but for me it is not so. Italy has been a part of me since before I was born, even though I was raised as a one hundred-percent British girl. There has always been the “Italian connection”.

You see my grandmother, my mother’s mother, was Italian. Her name was Maria Vittoria Jaconelli. I do not know her history, however, I believe it was her mother and father who came over from Italy to live in Scotland. But I do have a coat of arms for the Jaconelli family hanging in my living room full of much italicized flourishes, emblazoned in red, silver, and gold, with a crowned, armor-helmeted head and a very stylized lion brandishing a sword. Extremely impressive!!

My mother was just six years old when Maria Vittoria died following the birth of her last child, my Uncle John. I’m not sure where all the children were born, I think a period of time was spent in Ireland which is where my grandfather was from, but they were mainly raised in Scotland. My mother eventually came down to London where she met and married her very English husband, my Dad, and my siblings and I were all born and raised in London.

So even as I attended schools in the London area and grew up in the times of Mary Quant and the mini skirt (I’m really aging myself here!), the Monkees, Mods and Rockers, Beatniks, the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, the Italian connection always hovered on the edge of my awareness. I knew we had Italian relatives who lived in northern England and on the Isle of White, but they seemed like some exotic distant part of the family.

As a teenager I lived “with my head in the clouds” (one of my mother’s favorite expressions when talking of me), and I was a full blown dreamer, a romanticist who was always looking to be different. Consequently I met and married (against said mother’s wishes – she was right by the way!) an Italian. This did get me my first visit to Italy and that very first experience of “Ah, I’m home”.

Much water has gone under the proverbial bridge since then. I do have two stupendous sons from that ill-fated marriage, Marco and Giulio. They are proof positive of the truth in that old saying “something good always comes out of something bad”. It was Giulio’s wedding that we celebrated in Aviano last month.

As I have mentioned before, I lived almost half of my life in Italy. I spent ten years on the beautiful island of Sardinia, before going back to live in the UK for five years. I returned to Italy in 1983 and lived in Naples where I met my present husband, Richard. We married and two years later moved a little further north along the coast to Gaeta for three years before being transferred to Norfolk, Virginia in the United States. We were given the opportunity to return to Naples, Italy in 1991 and there we remained until January 2004.

So it is understandable that so much of my life experience has been garnered in Italy. Italian blood runs in my veins and cannot be denied. And I have most definitely been influenced by the Italian people and their culture and made it part of the way I live my life today – especially in the kitchen!!

And here we are at the end of another posting. The original title for this was “Poetry: From Naples” and I had intended to do a paragraph or two of introduction/background. By the end of the third paragraph I realized my heart was going in a slightly different direction and was not to be stopped. Ah well, there’s always another day.

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Poetry: An Italian View

Margo — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 12:46:37 +0000

I lived for many years in Italy – almost half my life actually. So much of my life experience is based on those years. To say that I love Italy is putting it mildly. Italy is my “soul home”. It is where I feel most at home. It is the place that when I arrive there I feel that internal soft sigh and a voice that says, “Ah, I’m home.”

I think the creative Muse was awakened in me during all those years. Or perhaps it would be more truthful to say she was re-awakened. It was during those years that I went back to painting for the first time since my teens, and it was in Italy that I began to write poetry.

Ten of those years were spent on the island of Sardinia. It was actually on a return visit to Sardinia,to the southern part of the island, near the capital of Cagliari, that I had an incredible experience one evening sitting on a beach at Santa Margherita di Pula. It was a dark yet star-studded night and the water was calm and still, like sheet glass. And then I was gifted to see a full moon rise, and this is what I wrote when I went home that night.

Full Moon Rise

It must have been an invitation such as this,

That sent Columbus round the world.

He must have stood upon the shore one summer’s eve

To watch the gentle waves unfurled.

And as he gazed into the dark and distant night,

An orange glow appeared to East.

With bated breathe he sat to watch the shadowy sky,

Yet ignorant of the coming feast.

Amidst that mellow, musky haze where sky meets sea,

There blossomed forth an amber bloom,

A perfect sphere that seemed to hang suspended there

As ripe as woman’s fertile womb.

Then slowly, inch by inch, it left horizon’s line

And started on a slow ascent

Into the violet, velvet dark of August’s night,

Toward the West it leant.

And as it carefully cleaved a path among the stars,

The amber ball to yellow paled,

But t’was a brilliant pallor, clear and lemon-bright,

The splendid, sparkling stars it veiled.

Upward it arched, the heavens high to reign,

While o’er the seas its light was spread,

Like myriads of dancing diamonds on the waves below,

Connected to a single thread.

A wondrous, silver, shimmering street across the sea,

The gate to worlds yet unexplored.

All this Columbus must have seen one summer’s eve,

The morn his sails to set abroad.

August 1982

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Poetry: Sharing My Love of Sardinia

Margo — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 02:22:29 +0000

I lived from early 1969 to late 1978 on the island of Sardinia which is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea. Sardinia is a very unique and beautiful place with glorious white beaches, incredibly clear, translucent, turquoise waters, moonscape mountains, and low lying rocks of multi-colored hues.

The Sardinian people have been influenced culturally and through blood lines by the Moors and the Spaniards. They can be very open and friendly just as they can be closed and very taciturn. Sardinians are …… Sardinians! They do not consider themselves to be Italian. Their dialects, of which there are several, are said to be a language of their own and most Italians from the mainland cannot understand them.

For almost ten years I lived among them. To this day I have friends there who would open their door to me in a heartbeat. For ten years I shared the “island life” and Sardinia put her own special hold on my heart. I returned to live in England in 1978 and two years later, as I sat among the concrete buildings of London’s City district during a lunch hour, these words came to me.

Island Voices

The voices of my island softly call me,

Whispering on the welcome spring-time breeze,

My heart responds so eager to their summons:

Come hither little one across the seas.

My eye half close and slowly she emerges,

This wondrous jewel that glitters in my heart.

No man can craft another in her beauty,

That God and Nature made a work of art.

And though she lies the distance of an ocean,

Her voices still arrive on spring-time’s breeze.

Persistently they call me to her bosom:

Come hither little one across the seas.

Margo Hay, 1980

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