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GREAT GARDENS, LANDSCAPES, TOWNSCAPES
Do you have a passion for the food and wine of Italy? ... landscapes full of life, that radiate warmth, beauty, and sense of place? ... that heal today's stressful split between mind--as head or intellect--and the qualities of soul, of spirit, shut down within the body?
building on a good idea for the creative spirit in all:
* (Carl Gustav Jung, 1875-1961) Swiss psychologist and philosopher Jung originated an openly extendable conceptual framework of 'analytical psychology', as opposed to the 'psychoanalysis' of Freud and Adler. He developed the concepts of introvert and extrovert personality and the detailed typology of four psychological functions of sensation, feeling, thinking and intuition. He studied dreams and other archetypally driven manifestations of the unconscious, alchemy, astrology, comparative religion and other mythology such as fairy tales with archetypal human psychological development themes projected on the opus. In his creative life, moving forward maturing with wisdom after a mid-life crisis, he learned in creative work the importance of staying grounded in a very practical, down to earth sense by keeping in close contact with nature, with activities such as walking in the countryside, sailing, bathing in the lake, yoga, growing his own vegetables, preparing firewood for heating and cooking, and stone carving. Over three decades he built with his own hands a stoned walled courtyard - tower complex, a solitary retreat at Bollingen on the Zürichsee, with foundations extending into the very lake itself, cognizant of water being a well-known symbol of the collective unconscious.
You may begin a process of cultivating your true self for more receptivity, warmth, and insightful, meaningful, in-depth work and life, in a traditional over-the-alps grand tour sojourn in southern, 'old world' landscapes. As the Great Mother Earth archetype awakens within, you learn to work with the inner landscape in a widening of your conscious viewpoint and emotional depth as you discover your own key to the source and pattern language for a timeless way to design which is informed intuitively and animated from the 'heart'. It enables you to generate environments integrating archetypal patterns originally in organic design process. Its the ARCHE in design embodying blissful qualities of harmony, beauty, warmth and containment, and with a 'sense of place' evoking feelings of relatedness to nature and of human dwelling in peace with the universe. It engenders human growth and rounding out of personality, or one's individual karma, so to speak in Hindu and Buddhist terms, in accord with a metaprogram in the DNA of the designer, also in the beholder of the designed environment. The timeless way and qualities of beauty, warmth and containment emanating from the heart are simply not there in conceptually abstract, mechanically calculative, computer styled 'objects', or 'spaces' frequented with things as if read like a list of items. There's a lot of inconsequential, really quite superficial stuff out there in our modern world erected on false foundations scientifically and philosophically. And it can be experientially cold, sterile, soul-alienating and stressful! If there's no magic or veritable here there, in so many unintelligently designed non-places, what happened to the soul, the delight, the luminosity of the numinous to stir up people's hearts and imaginations? We long for the spiritual radiance of essence in places and works we all recognize having the magic and quintessential power of a Michelangelo, Bernini, da Vinci, Olmsted, Henry Moore, or even Disney? Now a 'head trip' is to acquire information, computing skills, styles and techniques externally and mechanically--the TECHNE--in a superficial persona, a role you play, merely acting out of unconscious shadow. This is a mask. It negates true feeling and your whole self. In fact it sets up stressful internal conflict in a split between the mask and your very essence of being that is also your wellness and all of your creative potential bound together within your whole self. Constantly living out the mask is stressful and blocks psychological growth. Dis-ease can turn to disease, affecting in neurosis, depression, addictions, migraines, cancer, heart, any illness depending on genetic proclivity. One-sided schooling of intellect throughout formal education shuts off emotional intelligence, spiritual growth and realization of creative potential, leaving little feeling of freedom or sense of being in place internally, no real feeling of being alive, rooted in soul. For many, acquiring information and technology has been a first step and communicative necessity, a Twentieth Century teaching - learning holdover. Its a kind of Machiavellian rite of endurance. It sets you up for a revealing Fall... eventually to get up again having recovered wider awareness! It might better be followed by an initiation in enlightened, integrated education for Mastery of a more ecological and humane vocational calling constellated in the New or 'Aquarian' Age which began at the turn of this Century. It means to rediscover, like the ancient masters in another humanistic - ecologistic 'Renaissance', a psychologically balanced universal way to design, originatively, from origins, aided by a quaternity of typological functions differentiated from the greater self and balanced within a wider consciousness.
The timeless way to design lies repressed by obsolete, modernist education within the deeper layers of the embodied psyche. It simply awaits your inspiration to uncover THE WELLSPRINGS OF CREATIVITY, incidentally, known to many of the world's greatest artists of all time. Now the TECHNE can be acquired by intellect
acting on matter with the aid of the 5-senses, but this design approach comes with limitations. It is physically deterministic, reductive and calculative--mechanistic! It helps us describe or manipulate objects, but negates the feeling and intuition to reach humane design with meaningful content. We all desire enjoyable, meaningful work, but restricted emotional intelligence reduces us to the depressing drudgery of unselfconsciously engineering 'things'. And people who experience things as objects, or abstract ideas, are unmoved by superficiality and 'design concepts'--the designer head trip! We talk merely 'about' humanistic environments and we seek solely rational ways of human problem solving in the quantum sense. We miss entirely the real challenge, the quality issue--how do we generate from the heart and creative wellsprings human and ecological solutions which are alive, which actually live, embued with a sense of place which is timelessly universal? The ARCHE requires us to find in the depths of the psyche what is impossible to educate with intellectualism and the modern, mid-20C design approach. It may be functional, but in human terms it is meaningless. We need to recover from our hidden self potentials a deeper, universal way to synthesize environments, working with knowledge of the self-regulation or balancing process of the human psyche and the compensatory relationship between the conscious and unconscious in an in-depth, originally creative process from origins. This was known to many Ancient and Renaissance philosophers and was mentored in some of the greatest artists of all time. Some may have discovered it entirely on their own during their creative life journey. The 'timeless way' allows you to build not spaces, rather places which are alive--sensible and sensuous, really beautiful environments radiating warmth and a welcoming sense of containment--with delightfully stimulating food for the soul--with an uplifting spirit of place. True-Self generated places are embued with densely layered archetypal patterns informed with universal meaning. The ARCHE embodying archetypal patterns and images contributing to wholeness within a truly creative, imaginal generative process is organic, especially in initial design. It flows from the designer's embodied heart when one's feet are planted firmly on the ground, connecting a highly complex and originative (from origins) mind source through flesh and bones gripping soft pencil, or modelling by hand. Unfortunately, this highly tactile, value and archetypal content laden, image-synthesizing process does not cross the digital and mechanical divide that separates the calculative engineering approach assisted by manipulating abstract points, lines and fields in 2 dimensions, to be bent and rotated within a formula of mathematical relationships, in and out of perspective on a computer. Any creative method that is too mechanical or electronically abstract walls off a necessary flow and layering of intuitive - feeling content needed to build up more complex images synthesized in solutions informed by, embued with valued practical-functional and meaningful archetypal patterns. A coldly engineered 'space' and 'object' approach substituted for more original design, from origins, is too hard-edged. It eludes humaness, it cannot warm the human heart with 'product' or 'items', it fails to grasp or to engage the human soul. There is no formula, no cookbook solution for acquiring the ecological and humanitarian way to design in today's technical schooling. You discover it in the timeless way of the Ancients, when you are ready, with the help of an experienced guide aided by the wisdom of archetypal pattern language, myth and rites of passage. You nurture and maintain a balance between mind and body to find that center. ECODESIGN WITH HUMAN NATURE flows organically from the jewel point in your psyche, but for many its been blocked by formal education since early childhood. When nurtured by good enough environment, physically and psychologically, the jewel point reconnects you with your creative source and true feelings allowing spontaneous access to genuine creativity. In addition to what you will find in this work on this web site, rooted in psychological understanding, you are encouraged to consult other perspectives on design with similar conclusions--in various Oxford Press seminal books, especially The Timeless Way of Building and archetypal Pattern Language for Towns, Buildings, Construction, and A New Theory of Urban Design. More recent books also written by scientist and award winning architect Christopher Alexander include his 4-volume series: The Nature of Order, An Essay on the Art of Building and The Nature of the Universe, publisher, The Center for Environmental Structure and PATTERNLANGUAGE.COM
Richard Forster, a view that encompasses the arts and sciences which shifted beyond a turning point into a wider sweep of consciousness that began during the previous century. And you are ready. You are not going to be satisfied with mediocrity in life. That's a failure to let the inner brilliance shine, the spark of inner genius that lies at the heart of every person. This spark of essential being disappears when you merely conform in the great herd like a bunch of sheep or goats living a boring, collective existence. Mediocrity is an attitude, where one does only what is required or sufficient, in a life that is at best superficial. Life does not shine. It has little meaning as there is little emotion, no real depth of experience. The individual who, in maturing discovers melancholy and that creativity has been imprisoned within gradually wakes up seeing her/himself, often with the aid of dreams like being on an elevator, on the one hand, going up to where there is a sense of hubris, however briefly, that is ungrounded, where one soars too close to the sun in intellect, or sun consciousness, and then one descends toward the basement, or falls, toward the shadowy depths, on the other hand, as one experiences the feeling of not having a soul, of not having an essence worth showing. As one begins to get the whole picture and determines to move forward and works to reconcile the outer landscape with the inner landscape, the melancholy, the amplitude of the up and down cycles decreases until one discovers that center, the quintessential balance point, amid instinctual functions which may be likened to being at the centerpoint of the cross viewed as a quaternity of opposites. One gradually learns how to balance these functions within the body while staying grounded in nature allowing greater freedom, especially to manage the creative process in life and the workplace. The creative spark that lies in every person needs to be be set free. The golden spark of essential being, really the psychic energy centerpoint, or quintessential quality animating life, needs to be reclaimed from one's personal inner shadow. Without it one can access neither the light of intuition, nor true feeling for design. Like creativity, these are instincts to be recovered from the darkness of fear and ignorance in the depths of one's personal shadow. And shadow is merely the stuff of unconsciousness feeding insecurity which builds up when one instinct, the intellect acting on matter solely with the 5-senses, is educated out of all porportion with other equally important instincts. Intellect which becomes the only source of light in consciousness cuts off other functions which fester, well up and threaten one from the shadows of darkness. One is left with a general feeling of insecurity, of inadequacy, and a fear of what lies buried within--which is simply fear of the unknown. Ignorance is not bliss! So travel to the hot spot, rediscover your creative spark and your sense of awe, wonder and openess that's been repressed since childhood. Use it to re-find your own inner garden ground with its flowing, rejeuvenating waters, imaged in the alchemical fountain of youth rebirthing journey projected onto built form, metaphorically, as in the Medieval hortus conclusis, or the Renaissance secret garden. You can grow, as you cultivate your inward garden and widen your conscious viewpont, in an inner rebirthing process, emerging with a refreshing spiritual attitude which enlivens your life and work. Now you really discover maturity of purpose in maintaining contact with nature, gardens, even gardening, while at the same time cultivating the inner landscape at a meaningful, metaphysical level of human existence. And you discover why it is so important for yourself and all people to have constant physical and symbolic reminders of value-laden, meaningful experience in our everyday worlds. As a Master designer you prepare yourself to conserve natural systems while eco-designing--for human nature as well as nature's nature--enjoyable buildings, delightful indoor and oudoor places, and inspiring secluded gardens and public open spaces. Your work is more consciously informed, and creative from origins in the potentials of the greater self, using the synthesizing powers of the unconscious. You are no longer merely a reductionist engineer of spaces solving circulation objectives and some 'social', or other problems in the abstract or mechanistic sense. The energy of life with true feeling flows into your work organically, through the unconscious, as you contribute to, facilitate with others, environments which live. Consciousness-widening experience is offered in travel-study programs for the university--in particular the graduate or mature--student, or the teacher, or the practising professional, or working artist. You will find on this page, and throughout this entire web site, an in-depth, explanatory work-in-progress. It lays out scientific and philosophical foundations for ecologically responsible, humane environmental planning and design honoring humankind's highest instinct, the creative urge to live an outstanding life, centered in--and to work more consciously and conscientiously from--one's own True Self in service toward all life on an increasingly desperate, fragile planet. Unless we act quickly at the political level, life on the planet will no longer be sustainable in a very short time. We are on the cusp. Impending dangers with time forecasts are revealed almost weekly in respected, major scientific studies on global warming, loss of the magnetic radiation shield, loss of fish populations throughout the oceans, loss of freshwater aquifers, and the probability of a consequential world-wide economic depression, with more yet to come. There will be revealing studies on widespread sick building and outdoor environment syndrome in our cities and towns. Studies will connect psychological depression, chronique fatigue, and other symptoms with such conditions as lack of community or privacy, lack of warmth and psychological containment, lack of visible and tactile connection with nature, lack of symbolically meaningful content or personality, ugliness and lack of beauty and human scale, unnaturally cold use of materials and lighting, poorly understood or little use of ornamentation, color and centering in composition, and other qualitative factors contributing to general shut down of the human psychological growth process with alienation of the human soul--more widespread than affects caused by more obvious bio-physical contaminants like fungus, mold, asbestos, or vibrating lightwaves. Designers and the entire building industry will be taken to task for sloganism and for superficiality, and grounded to own up to their inability to make beautiful places and buildings in liveable cities that people like. There will be revealing media documentaries. Architecture, landscape architecture, urban and interior design programs are likely to become rated on their effectiveness for dealing with the problem of humane environment and sustainable ecosystems. There is cause for hope. Widespread political denial on the state of the planet is likely to be overwhelmed by breaking news from respected researchers on every front, and actual catastrophic events, galvanizing worldwide action to try to win a race against time to slow down ongoing destructive processes. The body of work you find on these pages is set in a DESIGN ACADEMY in magnificent landscape in CANNERO RIVIERA. Its a base for design workshops, seminars and field trips in Spring-Summer or Fall semesters allowing time to absorb inspiration and incubate wisdom for integration in a design project. It's for you the environmental planning, design profession, arts, environmental studies, or ecology-minded individual. You appreciate the quality and comforting effects of ecologically balanced, beautiful environments on the human soul in connection with the intangibles, the psychological, mythical and spiritual needs of people. You are open to explore timeless patterns, archetypes, and 'quality' and 'meaning' issues in planning-design. And you are the self-motivated learner, with a passion to discover some of the key ideas forming the new scientific - philosophical worldview, drawing from your unconscious a humanistic way signaled for Century 21 design. The experience can be the rapture of enlightenment in true self discovery, the learning opportunity of a lifetime. It's not however a semester abroad 'vacation' at public/parental expense for the unready, the collegiate 'puer child' escaping serious study, or deep reflection, or adult responsibilities filling in time with silly and trivial diversions and ungrounded meanderings. You employ an environmental conservation ethic, common sense, basic housekeeping, recycling and cooking skills, read the local culture to fit in, and you may do yoga or mindfulness meditation, but you exercise actively in nature, you walk up and down hilly terrain on your daily rounds to stay grounded and apply yourself--prerequisites for intelligent work with the unconscious and creativity. The Italy base is a very old village perched on an alpine bench with spectacular mountain surround at cliff edge 300m above the NW, or 'Gold Coast' of the serpentine Lago Maggiore (the Verbano of the Romans). We are in Piemonte Region in Northwest Italy 2 hours by car or train NE of Torino which hosted the Olympics. International access is from Milano - Malpensa airport close by. The 'Costa d'Oro' enjoys a mild, cooler in summer - warmer in winter Mediterranean climate due to sheltering mountain - lake effects. The Verbano is known for beautiful stonework, wrought iron grillwork, cobbled streets, and luxuriant, exotic-naturalized vegetation with the greatest diversity of plants on the continent--many camelias, azaleas, rhododendrons, magnolias, palms, bamboos, enormous old cedars and cinnamon camphors. There are fine botanic gardens and hundreds of splendid garden villas including several renowned island villas. There is locally a centuries old tradition of hosting the famous and unknown of both artistic and scientific northern temperments who came over the alps on the Grand Tour. What followed for many was a soul-animating, inspiriting, warming of personality, moreover, it radiated from subsequent creative work. The search for a 'DESIGN ACADEMY' from which to tour, and to host a community of interns, scholars, artists, scientists and practitioners--like the Platonic academies of the Ancient and Renaissance humanists and medieval hortus conclusis--fell to Verbania Province, in the vernacular village Oggiogno ('Oh-john-yo') set among garden villas. It is an outlying Frazzione of Cannero Riviera (pop. 1,050) near the Swiss border. Accommodations are in the Residence Oggiogno 2-3 story garden apartment rental complex built for visitors. Furnished apartments accommodate 1 or 2 in studios, or up to 4, or up to 6 persons. It has impressive vistas--down over Oggiogno itself, the Cannero Island Castles, Cannero Riviera on an alluvial fan jutting onto the lake, and an inspiring mountain - lake surround with predominant chestnut forest below tree line peppered with stone or terra-cotta roofed settlements. Due to a south facing bay and steeply sloped sheltering mountain aspect affording protection from winds, Cannero enjoys the mildest climate on the lake with flourishing Mediterranean vegetation: bougainvillea, palms, oranges, lemons, olives, mimosa, other subtropicals, e.g., jasmine, gardenias, eucalyptus, and some tropicals, e.g., araucaria and banana. In Oggiogno our Academy takes place around the community and on the upper floor of a small villa once used as a preschool known as the 'Asilo'. This charming villino with art nouveau exterior decoration commands awesome mountain-lake views from windows, balconies and a south facing terrace. It stands apart below the Church and belltower terrace amid a hill cluster of old stone roofed buildings, a car-free village with a maze of narrowly winding, cobbled pedestrian ways. The former schoolhouse is tucked against the lower garden wall of a larger villa above. The Asilo has garden rooms, one a small terrace used for student 'desk crits' overlooking a green meadow extending down to a low seat wall atop the cliff above Cannero Riviera. The house has a refurbished kitchen used for community dinners some weekends and a community cafe-bar. A multi-purpose room has windows into an exterior portico and walled entry court garden, these spaces being used for indoor/outdoor dining, meetings, or design presentations. There are billiards in a stone walled grotto on the lower level. The upper floor has been used by Academy groups for lectures, seminars, small library, and design studio, including the larger of 2 balconies for moving tables, chairs and chalkboard out-of-doors. Mindful of the principle 'small is beautiful' this building of modest pretensions in recent recent years has been renovated in stages by the Commune of Cannero as a community center for the 'Oggiognese' to which it was donated long ago for cultural and educational use--with Richard Forster and his Design Academy an occasional ongoing use since more than 20 years. (Asilo: typically in Italian, rifugio, mountain refuge or shelter for the people, sometimes a preschool) The Academy setting encompasses the entire Verbano, indeed much of Italy, with many inspiring study places. In our village the Residence Oggiogno where students have stayed, prepared meals and socialized more recently, the Asilo (for studio - classroom) and fountain Piazza with stone tables and benches for gathering under sun or in shade of vine pergolas afford the perfect venues for spontaneous alfresco happenings, seminars or quiet reading or contemplation. Here you meet residents on the daily round and come to know a special 'sense of place' in vernacular tradition in simple, very down to earth life. From the year-round Academy residential base in Cannero Riviera - Oggiogno, field trips in regions: Piemonte, Toscana (from Cortona, and sea farm secondary base on Tuscan Maremma's Argentario), Veneto (from Vicenza), Liguria, Umbria, Roma-Latzio, Campania (from Amalfi: Pompeii, Capri, Ischia). Sojourns or sabbaticals in villeggiatura are hosted for teachers, scholars, artists and professionals. Seek inspiration like those who gathered or were mentored in the Platonic Academies of the Florentine Renaissance. Enjoy that much needed break to reconnect with the creative source in a re-energizing personal and cultural rebirth in the countryside. Sojourners may join academic field trips evolving from this web site copyrighted Richard Forster. MORE - on humanistic design, inner wisdom and creativity: review entire web site. Academy setting + field trips: scroll down, click the book 'Ecodesign with Human Nature' to 'Foundations', scroll to bottom, click 'Next Chapter' to 'Foundations/1', then scroll mid-way to LAGO MAGGIORE--CANNERO RIVIERA. IMAGES - For images Google 'Comune di Cannero Riviera' ~ 'Borromeo Turismo' ~ 'Isole Brissago'.
There are various options ~ Experience the rustic pleasures of Tuscany's "la dolce vita", in villeggiatura. You can rediscover "the art of doing nothing ... beautifully!" ... in the quiet of the countryside. You may simply explore, from an old island vineyard-villa, with sea views over olive groves and holm oak forest, surrounding a bay with secluded beaches in the mountainous enclave of Maremma coastal region's 'Argentario'.
Visit some of the most ideal, perfect European gardens for design inspiration, as you are guided, unearthing ideas for landscape improvments for your own villa: your house and garden surround
WHY THE GRAND TOUR? ... WHY ITALY?
for professionals, or advanced students in environmental studies, the creative arts, city planning, urban design, landscape architecture, architecture, landscape design, garden design and interior design:
~ 'Understanding - Accessing - Nurturing - Sustaining the Wellsprings of Creativity'
~ Experiencing great outdoor gardens, landscapes and urban places, identifying timeless, cross-cultural, life-sustaining, archetypal townscape design - urban design - garden design - parks and open space infrastructure design patterns WHY THE GRAND TOUR? ... WHY ITALY? 'Grand Tour EU-Italy Traveling Seminar' Aim and Focus: To illuminate the sphere of the problem, the challenge of our time: 'Shifting the Mechanistic Design Paradigm' ... from cold and overly calculative approaches and works that alienate the human soul, of modernism, post-modernism and stylism, etc., ... to Ecodesign with Human Nature (c) ~ more rooted in the unconscious and grounded in the body, and in nature's nature, and, therefore, more humanistic and spiritual, embodying in biophysical environments psychologically, the warmth, welcome, receptivity and aspects of refuge, containment, and nurturing honoring unconscious, creative process and powerful aspects of the 'sacred feminine', or 'divine goddess', with her ties to Nature and Mother Earth, so to speak, metaphorically, with reference to the underlying archetypes in the collective unconscious ~ to be able to design in a more subjectively and objectively conscious way, with a discrimination of opposites distinguished conceptually from a psychologically uninformed, 'unselfconscious' design approach typical of the design professions in the previous century, preoccupied with some 'social' aspects, but generally ambivalent toward, or unaware of depth psychology and the evolution of a human consciousness with a soul, having comfort, creative and spirit needs to be supported by total environment ~ of a need especially for qualities of harmony, beauty and 'warmth' in biophysical environments and other intangible or archetypal aspects which help constellate or sustain human spirit and overall wellness, including psychic wholeness or completeness, in a rounding out of personality with similar characteristics mirrored in symbols occurring in nature and in cultural form ~ understanding the need as designers to be more aware of the unconscious contents, archetypes, creative-imaginal functioning and compensative processes of the psyche ~ now, with today's expanded and widening worldview and the need to balance technical schooling with a tendency to be merely intellectual--that is, 'in the head'--of the need for enlightened education, more grounded in the mind-body totality, more able to help the designer, as an artist, to become deeply rooted in the psyche to access universals, archetypal values, qualities that cannot be named, yet exist, universally, recognizing we are planning/design facilitators requiring a deeper conscience and a respect for nature reconciled, in unity, in tune with the 'Aquarian Era' we have just entered ~ ecodesign calls for nothing less than a professional 'renaissance' in authentic creativity and a deeper understanding of principles, if the planning/design professions will be capable of making meaningful, local contributions to a sustainable planet with an integrated stewarding of its interdependent forces and resources ~ in a timeless, universal way, meaning with a sense of humanity and dwelling, being grounded 'in place', with a mind--neither separate nor dissociated, neurotically split off in thought or in fact from the inward garden, the self and nature--rather, being connected with nature through the instinctual body, having a quintessential sense and a feeling and intuition of rootedness, of 'being', in unity with both the inner and outer landscape, as a part of nature, taking a conscious, interactive part within all nature, reflecting a unified potential self and one's inner authority for 'Mastery', as a designer able to access authentic-original creativity and timeless values ~ introducing meaning in built form, the significance of metaphor, mytho-poetic presence and the power of symbolism, archetype and pattern language, layered in image, form, materials, path, enclosure and in authentic landscape character, or personality ~ embodying the creative-integrative wisdom of the logos ~ balancing in environmental design both 'yin' and 'yang' principles, with the unconscious yin, passive, receptive-incubative and the conscious yang, active, directed aspects ~ in authentic-originative, creative process stemming from origins in the self, together with a more conscientious and compassionate understanding of the feminine, largely absent 'yin' principle which needs to be balanced with the predominant, masculine 'yang' principle to make designed environments healthy as human habitat ~ for example, the need to integrate 'yin' receptive - 'refuge' qualities with curvy-voluptuously flowing forms resonating with warmly welcoming character, or enclosing, containing patterns (i.e. a sheltered, 'alcove' recessed into a retaining wall like a cave, or a grotto containing also a spring-water source suggesting access to an inner landscape, instinct-informed perspective on the world, viewed from a comfortable sitting bench with an ergonomic designed seat with back to lean into), to balance the overwhelming 'yang' active - 'prospect' (like the bold, axial 'Versailles' sightline cut through nature--but viewed from a comforting, instinctive wisdom nurturing alcove--not from a cold and backless, granite or marble slab bench plunked down in wide open space offering no protection from the elements, no intimicy, no security from crowds of onlookers), the yang is the straight or linear and quadrate in form, the abstract concept and architectonic - intellectual idea, or the 'designer's personal ego statement', possibly shared by the similarly educated designer 'in group', but not well grounded in the instincts and seldom understood or appreciated by the collective--with the real meaning immediately obvious to any individual true to the greater self, having mature personality being aware of aspects of soul as it functions in the world ~ when the masculine yang is unselfconsciously and one-sidedly projected through one's shadow into designed environments, it may be unmasked to expose an immature and distinctly cold and calculative designer's approach, when read instinctively from the symbolic viewpoint by an increasingly aware public ~ it is more likely to reveal unrelatedness on the part of the mechanistically schooled designer, a psychological dis-association with nature, the feminine, authentic creativity, and the wholeness of a greater self potential capable of synthesizing 'holistic', or integrated environments ~ a one-sided 'yang' approach reveals, regretably, in the designer, not the true individual but someone with no real character at all, one who is not individual but collective, the plaything of circumstance, superficiality and general expectations identical with the latest 'in thing' or style of the moment, however incomplete, the product of an unanimated (uninitiated), lower, and thus immature plane of externally cultured thought disembodied from soul and spirit ~ in sum, we may say this shadowy, one-sided, collective persona is artificial, a masked identity, a state of non-being, ungrounded, disassociated as it is from the more conscious humanism of the true individual with a synthesized self potential, having a vital relationship between the ego and the self realized in an ongoing, creative personal growth process informed by the archetypal idea of wholeness or 'The Self' ~ it means living with a conscience on the mature higher plane of the logos... with a balanced and integrated, masculine (which is the synthesized, mature animus in the female), capable of consciously integrating yin and yang--the feminine with the masculine principle--in a life working on an altruistic, elevated plane of spirit and intellect firmly grounded in the five senses and in feeling and intuition rooted in self-discovery process, yet tempered with necessary library knowledge and technical ability acquired in formal education ~ put in the simplest of terms as the ancients did, they envisaged their world in 2 halves where they projected these opposites from the inner landscape of the mind onto the outer landscape, with attributes of male and female gods and goddesses, who worked to keep a balance of power ~ Yin and Yang, or Moon and Sun consciousness ~ when female and male powers were balanced, there was peace and harmony in the environment ~ "life out of balance"--what the Hopi Native Americans called "koyanisquatsi" (title of an excellent film documentary)--is an unstable situation historically marked by 2 millenia of the gods of destruction and testosterone-fuelled wars across the landscape, misogynistic societies, plagues and other man-induced natural disasters, psychological and economic depressions (or recessions), and a widening disrespect for 'Mother Earth' ~ we contemplate a brighter looking future as we slowly come to the realization the planet is the only proper 'in group', capable of moving us forward into the present Aquarian era ~ this is not another era of unconsciously fused opposites more typical of the hermaphrodism of the ancients in the darker age of Pisces in the preceeding 2 millenia, however ~ the archetypal program for the new age calls for androgyny: a functionally differentiated awareness of 'yin' and 'yang' at work as guiding principles ~ merely being a member of either sex allied with the male principle is not enough ~ the human species has evolved requiring that both female and male principles be differentiated, integrated and balanced in the designer and reflected in built environment we facilitate, whether one is male--and female (being aware of the feminine 'principle' within one's own psyche), or female--and male ~ peace on earth and the sustainability of life depends on recall of another wide-spreading renaissance, a cultural rebirth in a form of enlightened humanism on the scale needed for stewarding our own habitat, the resources and forces of a very crowded and polluted planet, with increasingly endangered ecosystem diversity and balance in the biosphere necessary to sustain human life ~ ramped up exploration of the red planet Mars following several decades creatively projecting mythological themes into 'Star Wars' type motion pictures and other science fiction may well be read as attempts by a collective unconscious to inform the world ~ the soon to be globally industrialized species, homo sapiens, is hastening the desertification of planet Earth, in an alarming spiral of accelerated environmental degradation and disease... to the point where it becomes uninhabitable, like Mars... a lesson to be realized requiring a major shift in political attitudes before its too late to reverse or even to slow what may be inevitable ~ we discuss the ageless process of 'enlightened', or 'universal design', capable of being realized when one is absolutely grounded in a 'hands on' learning approach rooted in practical, 5-senses experience, outdoor exercise and work connecting one's self and inner nature with nature's nature and the land, earthed in skills, methods and values found to be timeless or cross-cultural, that have remained constant in the 'wellsprings of creativity' since ancient times ~ associated ~ with intuitive process together with the so-called 'Golden Mean' and the 'Harmony', or 'Music of the Spheres', meaning psycho-neurophysiologically the brain 'hemispheres' and embodied mind ~ interconnected ~ with the unconscious and its creative process ~ balanced ~ with the 5-senses perception and tactile/kinaesthetic experience of sensible objects in outer landscape, associating with the inner, imaginal landscape ~ illuminated ~ with an evolving higher plane of intellect grounded in the human soul with spiritual insight, being centered ~ rooted ~ in feeling and universal values ~ dwelling ~ with a 'sense of place' residing so deep within the psyche it is said to be archetypal ~ it is best grasped with emotional intelligence through the wisdom of the heart embraced in an out-of-doors, down to earth, 'Academy' + 'Gymnasia' teaching approach, modelled after the Platonist schools of the Ancient Greeks and similar academies of Roman and Renaissance humanists, and, with 'learning by doing' ~ using contemporary design profession technical knowledge, modern practical skills including the combined 5-senses and intuitive perception, analytical - evaluative skills of thinking with feeling ~ and, where appropriate, when individuals are sufficiently mature and grounded, that it may be allowed to work at a deeper archetypal level of feeling than the 'head trip' confined within intellect or thinking function to mere study about phenomena ~ we discover the importance of working creatively at the universal level, embracing the wisdom of natural philosophy, archetypal and analytical depth psychology, symbolism and mythology ~ respecting comparative religion, legends, music, poetry, folk and fairy tales which speak to the human soul directly at emotional levels unreachable by intellect alone ~ including working with the dream, imaginally, and, especially, with feeling, to maintain an ongoing, informative Socratic type of dialogue of discovery via the unconscious with the self, between the personal ego and the unconscious feminine, a dialectical discussion between the conscious mind and the unconscious (attributed with a feminine gender) that is incubated and awakened with relaxation, receptivity, meditation and active imagination--to inform our creativity and design synthesis, out of origins, in the subterranean, collective or transpersonal unconscious common to all ~ this creative process is one and the same as the ageless search for self-realization ~ it may be compared with the ancient alchemist's search for the lapis philosophorum, the philosopher's stone ~ to pursue such a quest meant making the conscious choice to become one of the continuous chain of people, known in alchemy as the 'Golden' or 'Homeric Chain', who from antiquity had undertaken an unpopular, ambiguous and sometimes even dangerous venture of a voyage of discovery to the 'other' pole in the inner world of the unconscious ~ for Carl Gustav Jung it was to become the individuated individual, or complete personality, forged in his 'great work' over a decade after studying mythology including religions and alchemy ~ it is published in his 'Collective Works' by Bollingen Press: Mysterium Coniunctionis (meaning the mystical union of opposites), where Jung lodged his psychology and philosophy upon its historical foundations, finally giving 'gnosis', the discovery of the imaginal, inner world of creativity, compassion and intrinsic values, a comprehensible place in reality ~ it happened after blindly writing Aion, positing that full self-realization was the only foundation for successful unity of being, but not seeing at all what he was driving at, concluding that Christian historic and symbolic religious symbols for Christ figures were incomplete symbols of the self as the religions did not permit Christ to have a dark side, an 'inferior' aspect of personality ~ in Jung's psychology the archetype of the self could not be whole and complete in a highly edited Christ figure which did not reflect the expression of good and evil in the conscious and the unconscious ~ for reference, see the well-researched, official, Jung: a Biography, by Deirdre Blair, 2003, Little, Brown & Co: "One of the most influential thinkers of our time, Carl Gustav Jung has profoundly touched virtually all aspects of our modern culture, including medicine, religion, philosophy, literature, art and, of course the ever-evolving field of psychoanalysis" ~ Jung lent credibility to understanding the Age of Aquarius which began around the year 2000, he even contributed the term New Age spirituality and was responsible for the archetype and collective unconscious, introversion and extroversion, the quaternity of perceptive and evaluative psychological functions, anima and animus, synchronicity and individuation ~ as Freud's influence receded over time, "Jung's ideas--about dream interpretation, about the integration of the psyche as the goal of personal development, about the common roots af all human mythologies--have achieved an overwhelming ascendency" ~ we consider some of the works of the greatest artists and creative people of all time, who were in tune with the natural world and with the balance between male and female principles ~ some, like Sandro Botticelli, Leonardo Da Vinci, Issac Newton, Victor Hugo and Claude Debussy, believed a human soul could not be enlightened, and therefore access authentic-original creativity, unless it had both male and female elements ~ The works of these men as well as Michelangelo, Bernini, Poussin, Albrecht Durer, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Bartok, Goethe, Henry Moore and Disney were infused with hidden messages and symbolism ~ They whispered of the secret quest for the grail, meaning to restore a banished, sacred feminine... the soul animating, spirit nurturing and creativity generating, female principle ~ Leonardo Da Vinci and Walt Disney, who were generations ahead of their times, were avid pranksters as positive exponents of the 'trickster' archetype ~ both were uniquely gifted artists, belonged to secret societies part of the Golden or Homeric Chain, and were known to be mercurial and ready-witted, with heremetic imaginations (like the Greek Hermes/Roman Mercurius), skilled at the 'theft of consciousness' and eloquent, planetary messengers of the gods ~ Da Vinci may have deliberately painted the Mona Lisa with an androgenous countenance, with a knowing, enigmatic smile, conveying knowledge of the secret ~ her name is an anagram, a concealed code for the divine, inner-psyche union of male and female principles represented, alchemically, by the male Egyptian god, Amon and the female goddess, Isis, whose ancient pictogram was once called 'L'ISA' ~ we discover the AMON L'ISA secret, a sacred marriage within, an inner Hieros Gamos, in the truly creative, individuated, or self-realized individual, which, in anagram, became, MONA LISA, an example of active, magical protection under the watchful eye of the Church patriarchy ~ Leonardo's 'Vitruvian Man' whispered the same thing, revealing the naked (without artificial persona), natural or hermaphroditic man, reborn as Renaissance or 'Universal Man', in 2 positions symbolizing conscious 'Mastery', a separation or differentiation and re-integration of the opposites, drawn within the Heavenly, or spiritual Self-symbolizing circle and the material, Earth-symbolizing square indicating empowerment has been achieved through conscious androgeny, in a self-realization or individuation process ~ a mortal, female figure was evidently painted on Christ's right hand side in the 'Last Supper', revealed after the fresco in the Milano Church Refectory of S Maria delle Grazie (Saint Mary of Grace) was cleaned and restored down to Leonardo's original layer of paint ~ she is now considered by many historians to be Mary Magdalene, not a whore as portrayed and banished by the Church, but possibly even a member of a royal family edited out of history by male clergy ~ but thought by many historians and, supposedly, according to the secret society, the 'Priory of Sion', the keeper of the grail secrets ~ Botticelli and Leonardo were inferred to be merely 2 in a long succession of known Grand Masters of the Priory ~ a female line is also supported in the banished but hidden Dead Sea Scrolls and Nag Hamadi Gospels rediscovered in Egypt in the last century ~ Magdalene, carrier of the projection of the creative feminine principle associated with Magna Mater: the Great Mother Earth, could have been the actual intimate partner, or possibly even the wife and Queen, to an equally mortal Christ, from a line of Kings in another royal family, that of Solomon and David. One must, however, consider a fact that Christ like figures appear in many religions which are projected from universal archetypes within the collective human psyche ~ Jesus, a mortal and possibly married family man... and Mary of Magdala, his closest intimate and heir apparent, a woman unafraid to speak up ~ and with descendants in France! ~ did male leaders cover up the true role of women in the early church and cripple their contribution to civilization for 2 millenia? ~ certainly ~ history is written by the winners in a patrilineal society where the male principle had the overwhelming edge ~ did Leonardo hide clues about church secrets in his paintings? ~ the art historians' debate is ongoing, with the intellectual viewpoint doubting it, yet what our eyes plainly see on the wall and the common gut sense, intuition and feeling of many--opposed to some overly academic-intellectual art historians with fixed historical ideas or other linear thinking types with blocked intuition and feeling--would allow it is highly probable ~ we contemplate the consequences of a fact that women, at one time celebrated as an essential half of spiritual enlightenment, were banished from the temples of the world ~ the pendulum had swung and the days of the goddess were finished ~ 'Mother Earth' became a man's world and the gods of destruction and war associated with the red planet Mars in the Age of Pisces were taking their toll, as the male ego projected outward into the world a one-sided masculine archetype from the collective inner-psyche, the unconscious ~ it took the outer world imago of a male, supreme god allied with the 5-senses and with 'the word', associated with an intellect empowered by a highly edited concept ~ a god that has spent 2 millenia running unchecked by its female counterpart visible, notably, in Christianity and Islam ~ this male god 'power concept', which is mechanistic, is an extroverted idea empowered by abstract thinking disconnected from more introverted feeling and intuition needed to connect with the wellsprings of creativity in the collective or transpersonal unconscious in each individual ~ these functions, which may be constellated by "good enough" biophysical, social and psychological environments, connect us with the unconscious, the imaginal world and creativity, given a feminine identity in many mythologies ~ helping to maintain a balance in our psyches with a sense and feeling of relatedness to the inner Self, the archetype of 'holiness' or wholeness, wellness and health ~ creating an intuitive feeling of being and dwelling, meaningfully, in balanced relationship with humankind and the creatures, forces and resources of the planet... with both a momentary and timeless 'sense of human identity and place': meaning at-one-meant, or in atonement, or simply, at one with, at 'home' with oneself and the Universe ~ the root of the word 'ecology' is Greek, 'oikos', which in English translates as, 'house' ~ the house is well know as a symbol of the self, par excellence ~ the hearth at the heart of the 'home' is a symbol of the core or center of the self: hence, a state of identity, of 'being' emplaced (wherever one may be geographically from one moment to the next), centered or grounded in the whole self, in the body and the instincts, which include the typological functions and attitudes of introversion and extroversion in the psychology of C.G. Jung on which is based the Meyers-Briggs typology and other testing widely used today in education, astrology, and etc. ~ the grail may be viewed, literally, as the ancient symbol for womanhood. The Holy Grail stands for the sacred feminine and the Goddess who had been demonized by the Church and virtually eliminated ~ woman, once the sacred giver and nurturer of life and original creativity, became the enemy, as Christian philosophy, decidedly, embezzeled the female creative power ~ she became repressed in the unconscious psyche of individuals and Western society, along with the connecting instinctive, psychological functions of intuition and feeling with an introverted attitude where the focus is toward the inward garden and object ~ the biological truth was ignored, making man the Creator, with Eve born not of her mother's womb, but of Adam's rib, with Genesis marking the beginning of the end for the traditional goddess of the vernacular and Nature religions which did not die easily ~ legends of chivalric quests for the lost Grail were really stories of forbidden quests to restore the lost goddess--the repressed relatedness and creativity within the unconscious psychological feminine in the individual--in order to discover the 'true Self' feminine and masculine sides in balance, in a sacred inner union becoming the creative logos ~ knights who admitted to be "searching for the chalice" were speaking in code to shield themselves from a prevailing culture that had subjugated women, banished all forms of the Goddess, burned nonbelievers and forbade views opposed to church dogma such as peasant reverence for Mother Earth and the sacred feminine, therefore suppressing the integrated, true self masculine in the male and, likewise, the animus or true masculine principle in the female, substituted with a hollow, ungrounded and opinionated intellect with no deep feeling, no access to universal values and original creativity buried within the individual psyche ~ the rule dictated by the patriarchy became a one-sided, externally educated and edited dogma, essentially a castrated masculine with a negative attitude to the feminine unconscious, creativity and 'gnosis' ~ 'gnosis': conveys as an idea, cognitive, self-discovered, occult knowledge of the spiritual mysteries and of the source or wellsprings of creativity and intuitive processes ~ in other words, the 'religious attitude' with a higher spirit encompassing differentiated feeling and intuition, grounded in the body forming a consciously accessible holistic, synthesized and therefore balanced and integrated 'quaternity' of functions (sensation, feeling, intellect and intuition) ~ a precondition for access to deeper levels of the unconscious, authentic creativity, universal values and archetypal patterns, derived from origins, in unconscious processes of the transpersonal Self ~ in other words, if you are aspiring to be an authentically creative personality like a Leonardo, Michelangelo or Henry Moore, self realization is the process, the path and the journey, it is simply to be allowed in letting go, in opening to mystery ~ the priviledge of a lifetime is being who you are in a complex world where it is so difficult to be simple and down to earth ~ moreover, the opportunities to discover the deeper powers within ourselves generally arrive when the entanglements of life seem most challenging ~ that's the journey ~ its all about finding that prescious jewel, the still point in your mind where compulsion, intolerance, rigidity and 'shoulds' fade away ~ in pre-Aquarian or pre-New Age times the 'true-self' artists, inventors and philosophers kept their discoveries and their feelings to themselves, maintained in the protection of hortus conclusus, one's very own Secret Garden, often concretized in the arts, in literature, painting, and... in actual, constructed gardens ~ some gardens remain extent in whole or part and may be visited ~ the symbolism in these works of art convey compensative messages concerning the human condition: of health and wellness not to be ignored ~ the problem is we need a key for unlocking their secrets to maintain our own health and to access authentic creativity for integrative design--to be able to 'innerstand', as well as to intellectually understand, to work with, and to balance archetypal design pattern languages with materials, mechanical functionalism, computers and technology ~ no one today would argue that ideas about nature cannot or do not change, however slowly, in the conventional wisdom of collective consciousness ~ the Italian Renaissance man, Giordano Bruno, was burned at the stake 400 years ago for having the guts to suggest that Mother Earth, even the 'great outdoors' was its own church, that all things were alive and, incredibly, the earth itself had a world soul (anima mundi) instrumental in animating (enlivening with soul) and inspiriting men and women, when receptive to it, honoring the highest human instinct, that of psychological growth toward the wholeness of the self... and creativity ...one final step above religion on modern sociology's 'ladder of human needs' ~ in the 1950's the Vatican elevated the status of the Virgin Mary, a bold move, if one small step for womankind ~ there is much to be done in formal education as achieving human-level intelligence is impossible without being centered and grounded in the instinctual body, and a disembodied mind will quickly get depressed ~ many of us celebrate nature's arche, her underlying order, the way the pagans did (Lat. paganus, peasant) and don't even know it ~ nature's animating, re-energizing connection may only be whispered around universities and cities, nowadays, but there are many who sit around North American cottage country or wilderness campfires or stroll in the cathedral effect of forest canopied spaces, saying the same as dear old 'Bruni' ~ in Italy, one finds solace and renewal wandering, meditating, contemplating in the beauty of the great churches and cathedrals ~ One finds it also in the 'ecclesiastical gathering spaces' outside these edifices and in the great and the small piazzas, in the beauty of 'the country' or the charming vernacular of its pre-industrial 'hill towns' and in the cultural landscape beauty of mountains and the seaside places where one may experience 'VILLEGGIATURA' ** 'SEMINAR' not recommended without the accompanying 'STUDIO' spread over the typical 13-week semester for those uninitiated in the 'timeless way', or unfamiliar with archetypes or universal 'pattern languages'. Valuable time is needed to get one's feet on the ground. THE AIM: to experience a PARADIGM SHIFT while learning by discovery and by doing, working on design projects settled 'in place', meaning grounded in the body through healthy exercise in the daily round of outdoor activity, to begin assimilating material accessing feeling content and values derived from the emotions and the unconscious psyche. ~ the lost, feminine unconscious, with its creative wellsprings, belongs to a category of elementary innate ideas that remain beyond the 'conceptual', that cannot be restored by direct access or 'taught' by rote, as if to 'acquire' by intellect, by a 'head trip', something which, due to its qualitative and spiritual nature, is esoteric: only intelligible to the initiated ~ the university classroom, like the big city, may be viewed as 'square' and alien to the 'circle' realm of the countryside and smaller towns and the Grand Tour on the grail quest, which means to discover from within--in the inner landscape--the pearls of wisdom of the heart, the inner beauty and meaning that has arisen, in part, from the irritations or trials of life, our unconscious treasures--our integrity or sense of wholeness--the lasting parts of our nature, not only in an everyday sense, but in a cosmic sense ~ the ability to work with others, for example, is not merely valuable in general, it also expresses the powerful symbiotic 'force' or energy in nature ~ it connects one with the universal ~ wisdom (thinking, balanced and integrated with the other 3 psychological functions of the five senses, feeling and intuition all differentiated to the same level of awareness) may be constellated in an initiatory experience with an experienced guide, one who has worked it through the self, by him or herself, alone, inventing a unique 'cure', in the timeless way, in hortus conclusis, the secret garden 'refuge' or retreat sanctuary journey in the shamanic tradition, and/or alternately attended, as an apprentice with the assistance of a Master guide and mentor--when one is ready for it and open to it ~ aided by holistic/wholesome sacred space, in protected, safe and secure environment: social, psychological and, particularly, biophysical ~ the sensate, inner-outer garden world encloses, contains, protects and grounds, as well as delights and inspires the individual ~ where the inner landscape of the self is mirrored, positively, in the outer landscape, whether in the secret garden or in the magical charm and character typical of 'old world' spaces which are timelessly and organically made 'places' ~ richly embued with beauty and metaphoric content from multilayered, archetypal patterns ~ the patterns passively reinforce human qualities including sympathy, empathy and compassion for nature and the 'other', with sustained feeling and centeredness ~ whilst being in subjective and objective awareness, whilst taking into account, holistically, the 'ecodesign' ramifications of various actions, including one's own interventions ~ In the timeless way ONTOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENT = on-to-logical = the Logos, the discovery process and pearls of wisdom related to being, or existence drawn from life experience and analysis to realize the true nature of being, one reveals the secrets of 'design synthesis'--in the opus that is "the design process"--something which constellates, then wells up organically, originally, and, originatively, from origins in the unconscious depths of the psyche. In our work it evolves both in ego consciousness and within the stream of the unconscious guided by the Self with 2 forms of consciousness, Sol and Luna or Sun and Moon, in which the latter which is the female principle is to be incubated with respect--one works-in layers more and more patterns, in a kind of 'poesis' similar to the way of the poet who enriches the feeling content and meaning of a poem, building into it many layers of metaphor. As professionals we need to allow time for a simple fact regarding the similar act of creative landscape and urban design: the poet cannot will a poem, it simply comes, 'out of the hopper' so to speak, in an enlightened process when it has been incubated sufficiently in the timeless way. The passport for entry to the unconscious and true self creativity for 'artistic design mastery' is learning how to become informed in introverted as well as extroverted ways and in the right subjects, and how to remain grounded in the body and balanced--centered in the psyche, the totality of all psychological processes, both conscious and unconscious--where one may access, follow and guide genuine creativity with openess and with enthusiasm and natural curiosity. And one wants to steward the creative wellsprings taking care with accountability, with serious and heedful attentiveness END OF ABSTRACT selected from Reflections on the Art of Living: THE JOSEPH CAMPBELL COMPANION, edited Diane K. Osbon, HarperCollins See also 'Ecodesign with Human Nature'(c): Foundations For more about the Instructor see Richard Forster Italy accommodates more visitors than any other country in Europe. Why are travelers so often pleased here, yearning to return to her blisses once back home? It's because Italy's particular legacy of cultural and natural resources satisfies the soul's yearning for a certain quality. It is the root criterion of life and spirit in any individual. The quality is difficult to name. We might better say it is a yearning for 'Italianess', as seldom have we copied or created it successfully elsewhere. The essence of this quality, what makes it indispensible and gives it universality, is the embodiment in environment of warmth and meaning with a subtle kind of freedom from human contradictions. The warmth impermeates the total environment of much of the country. It is suggestive of an appealing overall mood, one of friendliness, benevolence and ambiguity of permission, with a lively 'sense of place' which borders on the vivacious. Italy has this characteristic ethos in which the sensate world has a world soul, in Latin the anima mundi. It emanates beauty and suggests meaning, with a rich heritage of cultural resources embued with timeless, archetypal design patterns and mythical, content-laden artistic things. Each archetypal pattern, each meaningful, mythical content-laden thing sensed, has the allure of beauty. It may be likened to the smile of the Greek Aphrodite or Roman Venus, a goddess who's main characteristic was beauty and to whom was awarded the anima mundi, or world soul. The 'smile' the warmth emanated from environments rich in both archetypal feeling and meaning, beckons the human soul and constellates spirit. The Greek word for beauty was kall-us and beauty does call us. As we move through many Italian environments it calls forth within us aesthesis, in a kin-aesthetic experience, where the emotions and passions are stirred up. When we are open to it, they resonate through to the heart to warm up with feeling the sympathy, empathy and compassion of those present. The Ancient world considered the heart to be the organ of perception. The inner reverberations we experience may be likened to the affect of hearing the 'Music of the Spheres' which connects and animates us as the human potential for spirit constellates. We may sense being more in life with renewed energy and vitality. We may appreciate the experience of freedom from calculative thinking, allowing more spontaneity with access to organic creativity flowing from the depths out of our origins in the unconscious, like a wellspring. We may intuit wholeness of personality, perhaps even participation in Divine Mystery, with a spiritual nature many never thought they had. In the Italian experience we may discover again that feeling of timelessness, of being centered in the self, at the heart of all that matters, unfettered by the trammels and travails of life's labyrinth. Obtaining this more elevated plane of existence reflecting wholeness of personality on a more permanent basis with a higher spirit and intellect is no easy undertaking. It is a highly individual process which is timeless. It involves a necessarily slow, powerful, spiritual growth which cannot be brought about by a conscious effort of will-power. Once constellated, however, it is something which simply happens, involuntarily and naturally. It fulfills a definite pattern in the process of becoming where, ultimately, we arrive, able to be as free as the windblown grass, or the willow dancing to the 'Music', moved by the winds of eternity. In fact most people are not fully true to their own inner natures or fully "real" or "alive". For many the effort to become true to themselves is the central problem of life itself, which may be the root cause of many afflictions. Yes, even dis-ease, or stress, and subsequently, disease, which may have environmental implications at the root of various symptoms. The wholeness reflected in many Italian environments may be constellated by a unique synchronicity of things and events. It would include the pervading, special quality of light from the Mediterranean climate, the radiance of 60% of the world's cultural heritage resident in Italy, according to a 15-year old UNESCO study (Tuscany alone is home to more items of cultural importance than the whole of Spain), the beauty of 48% of the world's greatest pieces of art, a musicality in spoken language and body language, and a tonality of warmth emanating from the soil, the architecture and the people.
I believe that Italy is one of those nations that has most dramatically and positively affected our national life. I feel certain that each of us remembers and cherishes the first time we were mesmerized by Botticelli's Venus at the Uffizi, the first time we entered St Peter's Basilica, or the moment we were overcome with the joy created by the amazing fragrance of a summer drive through Tuscany. In a word, the people and culture of Italy have made us a more enriched and happier people... Lynn Forester de Rothschild, Chairman, Friends of the FAI - Fondo per l'Ambiente Italiano, modelled on the English National Trust
Giulia Maria Mozzoni Crespi, FAI's President and Founder
A beautiful landscape, a beautiful garden, a beautiful hall, a beautiful picture, a beautiful village, may give, even to the most desperate person, an injection of positive energy, they may help people better their lives, they may give moments of happiness and joy that help heal people's souls as well as their bodies. The preservation of beauty allows children to grow up in a better world, it allows elderly people to enjoy their retirement. Italy, for the past 25 centuries since the Greeks came to Sicily, has been a repository for beauty... From prospectus: The Environmental Foundation Inc., an American foundation which recognizes the artistic, architectural, historical and environmental heritage of Italy as an international resource of priceless value. "From FAI in Italy to Friends of FAI in U.S.A."
For example, we find in Italy an acceptance, often delight, in the reality of human imperfection as a fact of life and character we dare not admit in the more perfectionist ethos at home. We find it in the simplest things... brightly colored laundry criss-crossing on lines high above a narrow, winding pedestrian street during the Passaggiata. Or in a marching band accompanying a religious processione where the bandsmen stroll leisurely, one occasionally bumping into the other, with no worry of perfect military column or step. We are filled with laughter, as we discover these contradictions, which exist only in our 'up-tight', cultured head space, are ridiculed by the lively sense of humor behind Italy's pervasive smile. Everyone discovers Italy's indigenous beauty and sensuality. Some, myself included, feel if they go anywhere but Italy on vacation it's as if they have made a mistake. Each time I drive across the border, or step out of the train, or airplane, I can breath again, as I relax in a moment of rapture. I suddenly sense greater freedom. I feel more alive. One's impressions of Europe's heart and soul come not from the exotic, as the richer and perhaps more fascinating landscape is simply the ordinary. There is an unabashed greed for experiencing everything deeply, whether it be the joy of the whole eating experience, the love of places of community or the pleasure of strolling communal spaces... animated markets, piazzas, gardens, belvederes and churches. There is a typically Italian picturequeness in environment, warm and happy, rather than heavy or sinister in its suggestions as we may find north of the alps. One delights in the simplicity of beauty, the neighborhood hangouts of local people, the simple elegance of timeless dress in 'la moda classica', and leisurely strolling, marketing or snacking, punctuated with lively discussion signed with body language. If there is a unifying theme in what is sought after, it may be an intuition and embrace of the wholeness of life in Italy and an affection for the warmth of Italian people. One discovers feeling for people and place. Rather than the divorce between matter and spirit, the secular and the sacred of the northern countries and climates, in Italy, we find the sensory and spiritual experience feels like one vibrant continuum. Pleasure enlivens, animates, delights. It calls up our humanity from both soul and spirit in the daily ordinary. The resonant subtleties of real places and relaxed people reveal themselves. There is liberating humor in an acceptance of complexities and contradictions which intrigue and please humaness. Masculine and feminine seem like an embodied fact of life in Italy--mysterious and integrated--not a mixed blessing of polarized modes of discourse between problem-solving and relatedness. For people of the arts, Italy has been the destination and the journey itself, a familiar metaphor for the life-long pilgimage toward the self's interior and greater personality. The place and the process act together, like a double catalyst, where a change of heart and a freeing up of creativity often become strong motifs of the Italian experience. Travelers have desired of their journeys a liberation from the labyrinth of the self, although they may not have understood it conceals the whole, balanced personality, like a gem radiating from the center. And, in Italy, they find there is no contradiction between the search for and creation of true self. On the other hand, many discover an exhiliarating sense of freedom from the labyrinth's constrictions and persona, or false self. These are dimensions of the self's story within the personal opus which Italy lets play. One discovers ecstatic spaces embued with a timeless 'Music of the Spheres', a breaking free from expected recognitions, both personal and cultural, and a craving for beauty nourished by real food and wine, and by food for the soul... mirrored in art, architecture, gardens, landscape, music and lively peopled streetscape. All of this comes together in earthiness and spirituality, which are the twin vernaculars of Italy. Travelers from 'northern' climates and societies, on the 'Grand Tour', have found Italian places and people compelling and the total experience is a celebration of delight. Italy is a major benevolent presence, which is how it figures in the lives of all who recognize the importance of aspects of the Goddess including the Great Mother Earth.
The travel program grew out of many vacations and several longer study sabbaticals--traveling in Scandanavia, the U.K., the Low Countries, France, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Spain, Portugal, former Yugoslavia, Greece and Turkey. 18 years teaching LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE, including lecturing on the history of European gardens and townscape - urban design, led to coordination and instruction of TRAVEL STUDY+STUDIO SEMESTERS. Over 12 years European experience accumulated, mostly in Switzerland and Italy, on vacations, sabbaticals from teaching, formal research or study sojourns, and guiding university students and private travel groups. Rest assured you are getting an experienced host who has worked with travelers at various age levels who knows many Europeans, their cultures and the geography.
This unique program evolved out of a passion for the art of garden design, old world landscapes, townscapes and the traditional 'Grand Tour' for northerners over the alps to Italy, to experience Mediterranean climate and the ageless beauty and radiating warmth of Italian places, with the...
You'll be staying at an old noble family-owned, terraced citrus, olive oil and wine production villa. You can enjoy silence and the sea well-insulated from traffic and the trammels of the world as you settle into a most inspiring prospect. The landscape sweeps down, from silver-colored rock outcrops above olive and vine terraces, over holm oak forest surrounding a tranquil bay with swimming beaches.
You are on Cala Grande in an enchanting setting enframed by topography with views over vineyards to islands with memorable sunsets. The Argentario is a mountainous promontory with spectacular coastline, quiet roads, footpaths and beautiful fishing villages. Sandpits and lagoons
connect this former island to the Maremma landscape with rare, virgin, undeveloped coastline, nature reserves, plains with grazing lands, gently-rolling hills, hilltowns, Etruscan archaeological sites, |
