Much felt familiar as I began my hour long sit spot on the terrace adjacent to the 17^th century stone farmhouse, Podere di Santa Maria, the Farm of Saint Mary. To the east the familiar faint first light of day lifted above the forested hills of Tuscany.

The air was filled with a typical pre-dawn freshness.  I heard customary morning sounds—a rooster crowing, a dog barking, and around me the steady drone-chirp of crickets.  I sensed differences as well—a faint herby fragrance in the air and a simultaneously dry yet soft touch of the air on my skin.  I saw the shapes and foliage of very different trees—olives, English walnuts, and wild figs.

Seated on a wooden chair in Italy, I had the opportunity to engage in compare and contrast—compare what was different and what was the same. But no, I thought, compare and contrast sounded too intellectual, too much like the instructions for an essay test.  This was, I decided, more about knowing; knowing your home patch, and knowing a new patch.

It had, I reflected, more to do the with spirit of the place, what the Romans who once reigned over these hills called the genius loci, the guardian and protective spirit of a place.  They felt and I over the years have also come to feel that each place in nature has a unique spirit. 

I wanted to use my senses, heart, and mind to know the spirit of this place.

Birds

Just as I do at home I listened for any stories that might be told by the morning bird songs. But it was quiet and I remembered then that mid-August is a silent time in the avian life-cycle.  Nesting is over so there is no need to sing to attract a mate or to proclaim and protect a breeding territory.  The fledglings are grown and no longer begging for food. 

In late summer the birds are well served by silence as a way to avoid predators and to focus their energies on feeding and fattening up for the migratory journeys ahead.  In this case those journeys would be across the Mediterranean to sub-Saharan rainforests or as far as South Africa, while others would be off to the Middle east or India. It was the same wondrously complex and miraculous journey as in the Americas just different routes, different destinations, and different challenges to face.

But even in the quiet time it seems that the birds can’t completely suppress the urge to greet daylight with a celebratory song or call.  I heard a repeated chuckle, just like those made by mocking birds; the heralds of daylight.  I heard snippets of a warbled-whistle, perhaps a finch.  Nearby I heard familiar squeaky chirps, a European chickadee.

I hadn’t studied the birds of Italy in advance, but was gratified that I could more or less recognize families of birds, finches, chickadees, and possibly a thrush, families that would inhabit the same niche, behave similarly, and choose similar foods.  It was like the same play, but with different actors in a different theater.

I wondered about the chuckle call.  Might it be a nightingale?  The owner of the farm, Christel, told me that that from May through July nightingales, the most melodious of all the songbirds, sing through the night and into the morning.

In his Metamorphoses the Roman poet Ovid wrote about poor princess Philomela, who was violated and then had her tongue cut out to enforce silence.  She was mercifully transformed into a nightingale and thus able to exact revenge by singing her lament through the night.

It turns out that Ovid was a better poet than an ornithologist as it is the male nightingale that sings.  However, the nightingales that sing through the night are unmated males so perhaps their song does have elements of a lonely lament, a lament that I would very much like to hear.

Old and New

On a day trip to nearby Sienna, I saw a sign marking the location of an Etruscan Necropolis.   The Etruscans whose home area was Tuscany were the first documented civilization to live in and work this land. Ultimately, they were replaced or absorbed by the Romans, the super organizers who built roads and practiced systematic agriculture.  (Agricola is a Latin word.). More layers of history followed, the dark ages, the early, full and late Renaissance, city states and the eventual emergence of the nation of Italy.

Noticing an old stone outbuilding to my right I thought about this farm having been worked for centuries.  In front of me, below the terrace, stretched an open flat area, a meadow now, but in my mind it might have previously been a vegetable garden, for greens, grains, herbs, peppers, tomatoes and potatoes.  To my gardener’s eye the area looked well drained and with a southern exposure, a good garden spot.

At the back edge of this open air in a chicken coop grew an olive tree with a dense mantle of slender green-silver leaves. Beyond the garden stood rows of English walnuts; I counted over 250 trees. Olive groves grew along both sides of the old road leading to the nearby village of Ciciano.

The scene around me spoke of centuries of cultivation, yet the view also seemed wild with rolling forested hills where wild boar and deer roamed. All around me grew a casual variety of grasses and wild flowers.  I didn’t sense that typical American drive to maximize the output of every square foot of ground.

In front of me little black ants scurried along a wooden fence rail.  Bees and flies buzzed by. Mosquitoes hummed around my head.  A red and black beetle scurried across a flower of Queen Anne’s lace. Was I seeing and hearing more insects than I did at home?  Was it possible that less insecticide application led to a healthier population of insects free to pollinate and offering abundant food to the birds and reptiles.

It occurred to me that I was viewing a greater harmony between the cultivated and the natural.  Was it, I wondered, deliberate, was it through benign neglect, or was it the product of a coevolution between man and nature, between the cultivated and the wild?  Whatever the cause, it felt settling and affirming to be in the presence of a more gracious accord between humans and nature.

Herbs

To my right growing on its own from a gap in the stones at the edge of the terrace, stood a thyme plant taller than any I have ever grown at home even with much care and tending.  The thyme plant was festooned with white blossoms upon which bees, warmed by the first rays of the sun, landed and gathered pollen.  Alongside the steps to the terrace grew rosemary plants big, tall and healthy, again untended, a perennial plant in Tuscany. And below me in the field near the chicken coop I saw the green leaves and pale purple blossoms of oregano growing as wild and prolific as a weed.

I inhaled deeply and smelled the fragrance of the herbs.  Three days ago, during a late afternoon walk to the village after the sun had thoroughly warmed the leaves and opened the blossoms of these wild herbs and when a gentle breeze wafted their scents through the air, I felt as if I had been immersed in a session of aroma therapy.

Color

“Look for blue light of Tuscany,” were words of advice texted to me by my friend Jerry.  He had owned an art gallery at one time so I figured he knew what he was talking about.  Accordingly, I set a personal agenda to discover the true Tuscan blue.

Now with some time set aside to sit and study the sky, I had watched carefully as the daylight slowly increased. I was hoping for a colorful sunrise, but the scene was surprisingly subdued, just a faint arc of creamsicle orange presaging the rising sun.  Above the arc of orange spread a deep blue sky. Could that be Tuscan blue?

Gradually, as the sun slowly rose the sky became a cathedral dome of blues, lighter at the horizon, deeper, richer, and fuller above.  Maybe there wasn’t a single Tuscan blue, but a palette of shades of blue.

Later, I asked Jerry for more information, but he couldn’t find it. Had he dreamt or intuited this theme of Tuscan blue?  But he did find a reference to the painter Giotto di Bondone (1267-1337) who broke with the tradition of painting the heavens in gold and introduced the radical notion of portraying the lovely blue skies of his native Tuscany.  His painting was a bold foray into naturalism.  His use of natural colors is thought to have been a means to more directly express and elicit emotions and to connect with the experiences of everyday people.

Giotto painted different shades of blue.  His famous sky frescoes in the Scrovegni Chapel were made from crushing precious lapis lazuli creating a rich ultramarine, a color that my artist friend George describes as the “ultimate seduction.”  Giotto painted other skies and cloaks and dresses with a rich blue pigment made from crushed azurite. 

Later that day while swimming in the infinity pool, I paused and looked past the blue water to the blues of the sky, a light blue at the horizon and a deep ultramarine above.  I remembered that science has validated that viewing blue spaces has an immediate settling, relaxing, and rejuvenating effect.  Usually blue spaces refer to water, but here in Tuscany the blue spaces were surely the sky.

Nourishment

My sit spot hour was winding down. I thought how much I enjoy a cup of hot coffee and a hearty breakfast after a sit spot, how such a post sit spot meal has become an integral part of the experience.  Perhaps the physical nourishment of a breakfast is a tangible way to anchor the more abstract and fleeting sensory, emotional, mental, spiritual nourishment that occurs during a mindful hour observing nature.

Taking in nourishment in this environment seemed particularly appropriate.  All the food I had eaten in Tuscany tasted particularly good–the bakery fresh onion focaccia, the stone oven arugula pizza, the linguine with wild boar, and the sumptuous pistachio gelato its thick layer of pistachio cream artfully swirled in.  At the local open-air market, the vegetables, the tomatoes, peppers, escarole, and radicchio looked and later tasted fresh.  The restaurants opened at 7 p.m., making dinner the event of the evening, a concluding celebration of the day.

There also seemed to be a spirit of social nourishment—people gathering in the square or under table umbrellas for an afternoon espresso or Aperol, gathering in parks to talk, or strolling together through the public places.  Staying at the old farmhouse with my wife, daughter, and grandchildren I felt this social nourishment as well.

I wondered if it was simply easier to socialize outside in the Tuscan warmth and sunshine that stretched into the evening.  Or was all this social and physical nourishment somehow embedded in the culture, a culture evolved through time amidst the green hills and under the blue hued skies.

And there was a theme of spiritual nourishment.  The farmhouse was named for and dedicated to Saint Mary, venerated as the holy mother, the bringer of life, hope and renewal, the interceder for all forms of nourishment.

I gathered up my notebook and walked up the steps to the old stone farmhouse.  I would make my coffee Italian style in a stove top moka pot, eat some fresh ripe melon, spread butter and pecorino fresco on a slice of pane integrale, nibble on a chunk of biscotti, and let the experiences and meanings of this Tuscan sit spot settle in.

This sit spot was conducted on August 10, 2023.

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You can read about more sit spots and wander walks on this blog and in my book The Stillness of the Living Forest:  A Year of Listening and Learning available on Amazon and through Shanti Arts Publishing.

The Stillness of the Living Forest: A Year of Listening and Learning: Harvey, John: 9781947067592: Amazon.com: Books

The Stillness of the Living Forest, John Harvey (shantiarts.co)