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.
2 commenti:
Hello,
I am responding to what you wrote on 2 August; I apoligise for not replying more quickly.
I agree that Latin is a sacred language. And I agree that the Romans were a people who were pious. But Latin is not exclusively or even mostly filtered through Christianity ... but this is grammar, philology and not very important, you are correct.
For a deeper spiritual meaning, SOME Romans are excellent teachers, but I do know that in those ancient times many Romans were as unconcerned as some (many?most?) are to-day. This is the beginning of an ode by Horace, Quintus Horatius Flaccus:
Ode 34
Parcus deorum cultor et infrequens
insanientis dum sapientiae
consultus erro nunc retrorsum
vela dare atque iterare cursus
My own translation:
Little intensity for the gods and infrequent at that
I was raging and wise, self-righteous wise
ravings I stumbled over now backwards
I raise sail back and think my route to repeat
I read the ode many years ago; there is something honest in it, at least in these four lines. The Romans did not have perfect virtue. Sometimes they wandered.
The rest of the poem references Greek locations, which makes it feel affected and slightly abstract. But it does capture what I mean about SOME Romans being teachers: from what you have written you cast a glamour, an extra shine to the Romans as if all or even most had great religious feelings when in fact many had no interest at all or came back to it after traumatic and sad events. Cicero wrote nothing of the gods until the death of his wife caused him great sadness. Have you read his Phillipics? At one point he blames Marcus Antonius and Julius Caesar for ruining the spirit of Lupercalia and says that in earlier times the religion was true, but now (at that time in the first century BC) they are used for political purposes, with Marcus Antonius running around nude, oiled, and drunk. And this occurred during the period of the Republic. I believe you disagree, but the habits of Romans in the past appear similar to the habits of Italians to-day. Is not Berlusconi someone who wishes to be exactly like Caesar?
My criticism of the grammar was because I felt you wished to present the Romans with a special shine, with a piety beyond piety and were using language and grammar to prove ideas that could not be proven by grammar.
But let me praise the Romans too. They did not feel the hatred towards other gods that the Christians and Hebrews did. Rome accepted the foreign cult of Cybele, Magna Mater so much that it was considered natively Roman. They welcomed Isis and many others.
I do not view your blog all the time, but there are some things I agree with you or other matters which I had not considered in the past and am swayed by your words. I feel there is something to learn from the piety Romans paid to their deceased, to their ancestors (though this is something that still exists in Italian culture to-day). I don't believe I have seen what (or if) you have written about the Roman Lares, but my psyche, my animus ... or my gut to use a simple but hard-to-define English word, recognises they exist. Thank you, your correspondent, silkie.
Dear Friend,
thank you so much for your comment. I higly appreciate your expertise and sensitiveness. Your comments are always an opportuntity for me to think over many aspects and issues related to particular topics of my spiritual life.
In this comment you evidence in particular a very sensitive and relevant question: I thank you again to push me to reflect about it.
First of all, I would like to tell you that I'm not a "magister", I'm not an augur or an expert in Antique Roman Culture. I'm not a reconstructionist. I do not look at the past in legendary terms. I do not believe in an Golden Age of the Antique Times.
You are surely right: Ancient Romans were "normal people" with their attitudes, vices, virtues, good and bad qualities, honest or less honest: just because their were human beings like modern people.
So what I'm doing here? I'm just describing my walking along a path, and probably you are doing the same, with many doubts and infinite ignorance. Of course I do not base this experience on some personal discoveries: but the only thing I can say is that, going behind history-literature-architecture-religion, there, in the Roman Via, there is - hidden - a "way to perceive the World" a Vocabulary to read in a different way Nature and the Universe: it's a peculiar heritage, a long tradition (capable to condense thousands of years of other traditions) which has been (more or less) suddely interrupted. Of course Roman Times are dead but what once deceased in the past not always was worth dying.
In these last weeks I renounced to use the term "Roman Religion" just because I realized that the term Religion was unable to describe this "way of thinking and living the relations with the Deities". I rather use the term Spirituality to evidence this approach to the Divine Dimension. This is to say that, reflecting and writing about Gods/Goddesses, meaning of rites and so on, I have the clear feeling to approach a "different Knowledge" or a "different approach to Knowledge". This is not a Religion, it is a "Knowledge".
It's not easy for me to explain this idea but defining all this as "religion" is a too narrow explanation. In this perspective I find this Roman Spirituality so modern and in line with other traditions (above all from the East) however deriving from the common origin of Ancient India.
I would like to write more, but it's too long. (it would be nice to discuss with you about these topics directly drinking a bottle of good red wine...)
I hope however to be able to clarify these points as soon as possible.
Pax et Fortuna.
(sorry for my laming English!)
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