Quando in un bosco ne percepisci la bellezza e diventi tutt'uno con il bosco, allora, intuitivamente, sei in armonia e in pace con le Dee e con gli Dei. Essi sono parte della nostra vera natura, la nostra Natura Profonda, e quando siamo separati dalla nostra vera natura, viviamo nella paura. Percepire questa normalità vuol dire dare un senso reale al vivere che è insito in tutte le cose.

Intraprendere la Via Romana al Divino significa iniziare un percorso di risveglio: praticando l'attenzione e la consapevolezza continua ci incamminiamo lungo una strada sapendo che ciò che conta è il cammino per sè più che la destinazione.

When you, entering a forest, perceive the beauty of the forest and you feel to be in a complete harmony with it, then, intuitively, you are in peace with the Deities. They are an essential part of our real nature, our Deep Nature, and when we are separated by our real nature we live in the fear. Perceiving such normality means giving a real sense to our lives.

Undertaking the Roman Via to the Deities implies a path to awakening: with the practice of continuing consciousness and awareness we undertake our walking knowing that taking the path is more important than the destination itself
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venerdì 9 novembre 2012

The Olive Tree

In this period, in many areas around the Mediterranean Sea many people are involved in olive harvesting. For this reason I have decided to dedicate this post to a tree having a very important role in the Traditional Roman Religion: the Olive Tree.
 
I would like to highlight that when I talk about trees, in this case as in other occasions, I do not want to make historical or cultural anthropological considerations but rather to provide some reflections about a way, in my opinion, to consider the trees for a modern Cultor/Cultrix as Deities' living manifestations.

Today, as in the past, olive and oil are fundamental components in the Mediterranean diet and the Mediterranean landascape itself cannot be imagined without olive trees. Quite commonly we in Italy eat olives (in various modalities and dishes) and we always make common use of oil whose benefits for health have been confirmed also by science.

The olive tree is a "cosmic tree" by definition: it is the "Tree of Life".

Oil is a sacred food; so sacred to be used to "consacrate".

The olive tree is sacred to Minerva. I think that the link between this tree and Minerva can be explained by the fact that in the past oil was used also for fuelling lanterns. Oil is thus a "light-maker". Minerva is the sacralization of the "Light of Reason": so oil symbolically fuels this light.

The olive tree is sacred also to Ceres because is a tree providing food to mankind.

Wood from olive tree is one of the main material to create sacred symbolic imagines. Cutting or burning an olive tree with no reason is considered an insult to all Gods/Goddesses in particular to Minerva and Ceres.
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After the oil harvest in mid-november we use. to celebrate the new oil, to have a dinner with family members and friends based mainly on oil. Oil is used on slices of garlic bread, to dress beans, onions and chickpeas.



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