Firenze!

Firenze

          Today the Florence that Alecia and I love arrived. No rain, no cold, abundant sunshine and the temperature at 70 degrees Fahrenheit. We took our dear friends Frank and Tami to the Academia to see “The David.” A small venue, much less crowded than Uffizi, and inspiring. The David is of course breath taking. Alecia and I asked (again) how could someone chisel out of marble the emotion of anxiety. From one side David seems centered and almost confident. From his other side he looked like he was going into battle mismatched with a Goliath. Genius is a work we hear often, yet with this piece, you see true genius. A block of marble 17 feet square has been sculpted into this elegant man. Please don’t forget that Michelangelo finished this work at the age of thirty!

          The other highlight of the day was a synchronistic experience. While in the museum, I came upon a painting of the Annunciation. The piece itself was probably twelve feet by eight feet. At the top was God the Father. His Light was shining through the dove, a symbol of the Holy Spirit. On the beam went into the Virgin Maria. Gabriel was there as conductor.

          This image of Light took me back to my research and Carl Unger’s Principles of Spiritual Science. In that masterwork he wrote about Light in a new way that seemed to be congruent with this painting. We left the museum, had a nice light lunch, and then split up. I walked back to Il Terrazzino to take full advantage of the flood of afternoon sun.

          I could not find my Kindle to read, and in the process of looking for it I knocked a magazine I had stowed away for the trip, off of our table. When I picked it up I noticed that it was a Summer 2001 edition of the magazine Parabola devoted to the topic of Light. At this moment it dawned on me that perhaps this is what I was meant to read!

          I set up my reading space on the terrace, an old comfortable chair, sunglasses, a Sapphire and tonic, with San Lorenzo in the background. Upon opening the magazine to the Table of Contents, I saw that there was an interview with the eminent Anthroposophist George Kuhlewind. Needless to say I read it.

          I love Firenze, the sun, the ongoing march of artistic genius, and Carl Jung for introducing the idea of an “Acausal connecting principle” to me.