“having crossed the forest of suicides, arrives in the burning land”: Via Triste, Dante and Castelsardo

Top, the teenager in Chiesa Santa Maria on Via Regina Margherita in Castelsardo, in front of the "Black Christ."
Bottom:Caroline as a Vermeer and other shots along the road.

http://www.castelsardoturismo.it/it/santa-maria-delle-grazie

JULY  15

After dinner we said goodnight to Matteo and Fatima.

They’d keep on boating.

We’d journey Southeast down the coast to the Agriturismo Nuraghe Tuttusoni.

Meandering along the road, past a luxurious tree, a feeling, the ups and downs, making our way around the island.

We’ve done the same in Lesvos and Vieques, driving around an old island for weeks on end.

You want to see the whole place, the whole body, the whole island.

Its just how we roll, noted Caroline.

But you take yourself with you, bringing your fears and defenses along for the ride.

They dance with us as we make our way, eighteen years of these journeys.

Its not always easy to move.

Caroline suggests we stop.

A lunch here, a medieval castle, a town called Castelsardo, where we walk down Via Triste into the centro storico through the dark alleyways of this melded into the grey peak of this 12^th century medieval city, founded by a Genoese family.  

I think I've been here. 

But I can't remember.

Just a feeling. 

In 1448 it fell to the Spanish, before it became a part of the Kingdom of Sardinia , in 1767 taking its current name  for Sardinian Castle.

Old women sit in the doorsteps with their baskets, timeless.

Dante reminds us we all need guides and mentors to help us through the journeys of our life, even when we’re lost in the middle of the woods.

“O human race, born to fly upward, wherefore at a little wind dost thou so fall?”

― Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy

“Who , after having crossed the forest of suicides (canto XIII), arrives in the burning land”

Liliana Cano’s show, “"... WE TIGNEMMO THE WORLD OF SANGUIGNO" was inspired by the 19^th canto, 34 paintings for 34 songs of hell.

Her pictures point to a history of sensations, of poetry, deep inside.

The water sparkles below.

Kids jump in.

Bella luna visits after dinner.

And moods shift, unplugged.

If I think of Brooklyn, it hurts too much said the teenager.

Mom and Dad are more than happy to be away, stepping away think of Christa Wolfe and the Prince of Tides.

Its all just part of being on the road here.

“Very dark under the great carob tree as we go down the steps. Dark still the garden. Scent of mimosa, and then of jasmine. The lovely mimosa tree invisible. Dark the stony path. The goat whinnies out of her shed. The broken Roman tomb which lolls right over the garden track does not fall on me as I slip under its massive tilt. Ah, dark garden, dark garden, with your olives and your wine, your medlars and mulberries and many almond trees, your steep terraces ledged high up above the sea, I am leaving you, slinking out. Out between the rosemary hedges, out of the tall gate, on to the cruel steep stony road. So under the dark, big eucalyptus trees, over the stream, and up towards the village. There, I have got so far.”

― D.H. Lawrence, Sea and Sardinia