Last summer I'm been on another adventure, în Viișoara, having no idea what to expect, having just a thought, a transfomative mechanism, a way of experiencing a place as a mindmap of symbols that is countinuosly creating and transforming as the village itself with every encounter.
We passed the hills and forests and arrived here, at Hundorf. The first thing I spotted was a bell, the same one I had in my mother's house when I was little. I let the space guide me, without having a final destination or goal. I let the space become my home and it didn't take long for me to give it my trust back. I began to add memories and symbols in my mental map, first the place, the trees, the wind, the rain, the houses, the graves, the hills, then I made peace with the dogs, horses and cats, finally placing the people, one by one, each completing the map and the story. I learned that the village was actually two villages, that the people demolished and rebuilt their church in one night, that the streets were full of ox carts and many residents in a united community. I also learned about the mourning willow that hugs you and welcomes you warmly to another existence, about the grape designs and the strong connection between people and nature and their desire to be with each other again. The symbols I discovered and invented write the story of the place, theirs and mine, and which are now embroidered with a thread in front of the altar of the Evangelical church.
I found acts of love and the absence of it, in more ways than one. Starting with the animals and their protective ways of being with their family and their territory. I found the desire for better good, some sort of a community blended with the wanting of helping another to grow, to be understood, but I found deep ways of grief, with melancholy and bittersweet taste, that is hard to leave behind. I found love in almost touch, in listening the hills, in making food for others, in starting random little childish games and in everything else.
I found love for myself and this world there, in this long process healing process that I still have, trough every encounter, meditating in the cemetery, in my hammok on the porch, in the thunderstorm and in silence surrounded by birds and slow wind, the Foxy cat and the Hogwards dogs.
And I found love for these precious humans that were my fellow residents and the way we all connected to create a home.
And all I did was understand through play, like a child, a new, welcoming, curious and wonderful world. I ate rosehips, slept under the stars and collected rocks.