Stopping is a great art.

It is a humble art, it is to guess when we are tired or when we need to walk slowly towards ourselves and no longer towards something or someone else.

Stop and listen to the beat of things, feel the silence, its nuances.

We live in a universe that does not end, that is still expanding and we ignore it. Perhaps stopping helps a little more to admit that we are in a great strangeness.

Those who are tender do not want to make it at all costs, they want to feel how they are and feel how others are, they are a sister or a brother, they are neither a parent nor a teacher. Tenderness knows how to be on par, side by side, it is not frontal. So rare today that you turn the corner and find a guru, but you have to travel all over the world to find a sincere friend who cries with you, laughs with you and doesn’t want to explain life and solve its mysteries. Here tenderness discovers mysteries where others see problems.

Chandra L. Candiani

Here we are. We look at each other absorbed and amazed, we are together. We rejoin in a circle, in the amazing simplicity of the moment as the morning air of a late afternoon can sometimes be. A meeting to remember and transform our togetherness, as the earth promises its fragile and unstoppable revolution to the sun. In a symposium, a community of intentions, that reunifies and moves.

We are about twenty present, and we are infinite by counting the absent.

“What is Matrika for you”? We come together in order to express it, as if we were never lost, knowing that everyone has been lost in their own way: and how we shine brighter when we contemplate each other amicably. Without doing anything. We contemplate the importance of doing nothing together.

After the circle we follow Marta towards the lawns, towards the top of the mountain. But the journey is made up of steps, the goal is the journey itself: we slow down and together with Adele, three and a half years old, we all feel small, our curious eyes meet nature, we walk at the rhythm of her attention. We know attention is the spontaneous prayer of the soul, like a poet said. And our faces relax realizing that there is nothing we have to do.

We meet flowers that talk and bloom with them, insects that love, other hidden and unexplored worlds … we arrive and sit down to make room to introduce ourselves, know better each other, and share. With Marta for a common practice: “The strength that rises from tenderness” . We wonder how tenderness is for us and how strength is. And we discover – in everyone’s story, that tenderness is perhaps a living feeling, it is certainly a state of being, an eternal source that gushes with disarming strength.

We do not find ourselves in the overly simplistic opposition force insensitive armor – gentle tenderness openness, we are an expression of armor that sighs and aspires to remain tender, kind, and of ferocious openings, which powerfully caress the gestures of everyday life, with gratitude. Tenderness must be exercised, and when it is encountered it makes you feel embraced by a safe boundary, it makes you feel protected by listening.

We go back to the camp, hungry, set up the camping tents for the night, and prepare the food. Everyone brought something, some a very good potato, some vegetables from the garden, some homemade cheese … We like to eat together, and sharing food is creating a kind of home feeling. There is a delicate way of expressing one’s needs that emerges spontaneously. A butterfly enchants us when it lands on Marco’s head.

The belly rumbles. We are at the table. The setting sun hides behind the mountains, the last rays irrigate the bright green profiles of the woods, the leaden aura of the trees that breathe clear skies. Jerry prepares the wood, let’s light the fire. The cool humidity of the evening embraces the warmth of the fire.

A full moon, primitive, veiled in pink at sunset – immense sweetness of the heart, accompanies us together with the nocturnal fallow deer in love, while we dance near the fire at the rhythm of the spring: slight thrills, jumps, caresses, laughter, jousting of arms, legs , limbs, hands and eyes like reflections of stars. Are we stars looking at other stars?

Slowly we go to sleep, to rest. In the morning some of us join an awakening shared practice on the terrace: Tantra Shivaita from Kashmir, proposed by Carola; someone else begins to prepare breakfast, others are still in the dream world. We rejoin together with Marco, with curiosity, immersed in Nature. While walking we practice Intuitive Herbalism and discover together the faces of plants, their use over the centuries, their value as a powerful medicine and in a certain way free. In the sense that money in this case is not the medium. Perhaps the medium here is life itself. While we walk we collect the necessary for a shared herbal tea, to drink together once we return after having created a mandala with the herbs collected.

The wonderful color of the flowers, reminiscent of that of fish and birds, frame and painting in themselves at the same time: Iris, roses, daisies … celebrating smells and colors. Perhaps tenderness is also strength recognized in the senses, in the taste, in the smell. After a shared practice with Nadeshwari, thanks to which we listen to the pleasure of the voice that resonates in the body in motion, powerful and reconciling, we rest by giving ourselves to the earth, following the intuitions and wisdom rooted in Yoga Nidra. The body leaves what is unnecessary to the earth, we are lighter. Let’s go back to the camp.

Shared lunch thanks to the support of those who helped in the kitchen, refreshed we prepare for a practice proposed by Jerry. In triads. Listening and trust. Welcome and respect. How do we take care of our needs? How do we orient ourselves when we are in difficulty? When do we allow ourselves to be touched by the other? Perhaps there is a delicate touch that can dissolve lumps, blobs of pain unexpectedly, with apparent simplicity, in agreement with ourselves and respecting our history, our environment?

A “round table” then starts in which, closing the two days in a circle, everyone brings their experiences. Who are we, after two days together? Gabri and Costanza jump on the mattresses while we are in a circle talking about ‘important things’ and their voices echoes happily.

We are here, with generous firmness. We drink the herbal tea prepared by Marco with the herbs gathered together, a feast of colors in the hot water. Without naivety or spiritualism. Aware that the beauty we are witnessing these days must be understood as much as our most disturbing complicity with the war economy, that is also spiritual, like the bank account, like climate change and the extinction of the idea of human beings which we have known and frequented until today. As Hölderlin recalls, perhaps only by being uprooted can one walk towards the authentic. And every authentic encounter expands the horizon of our experience.

A small fundraiser – who can, thanks to which Matrika has always been committed to supporting those who really need it. This time an association of migrant women on the border, refugees.

We say goodbye. Arrivals and departures have a unique rhythm. Each with their pace. The eyes sparkle, the hands tremble. Hearts rejoice. Until next time!

Team Matrika