Questo post è disponibile anche in: Italiano
My name is Valentina and I was born and raised in Milan, the Italian city that more than any other dreams of the rest of the world.
In high school I studied classical studies and at the university I majored in philosophy, but I always had a fondness for adventure, storytelling by images, exploring different cultures and, above all, the art in all its forms.
If I had to describe myself in two words, and I could be very generous in doing so, I would say: I am an adventurer and an esthete.
The relationships that I established with the people I met and known in different places and moments are what I’m most proud of, as a personal achievement.
Of all the things I’ve been doing, I loved in particular: acting and performing on stage, traveling the world as a special courier, spreading the tea culture, working as a radio host and collaborate with talented artists.
While I can say that life has been kind to me, because it always allowed me in every context to meet wonderful people with whom I established wonderful relationships, on the other hand, I struggled just to establish a peaceful relationship with some of the practical aspects of daily living, which for me were a source of discomfort and imbalance.
I took a long time, for example, to understand the distinction between the act of eating (habit or pleasure) and the act of really feed and nourish my body. I came a long way to discover and learn how to care for myself, in everyday life and in need, fulfilling my whole being, body, and soul together.
Today I feel I have collected gemstones on this path and there is no day that I am not grateful for that, but also I always repeat to myself: it would have been nice to find all these things much earlier.
With this in mind, I developed the idea of this blog, to gather and share my findings, so that other people can benefit.
I have not done much, I just opened myself to the knowledge and valuable encounters and listen. Everything I collected is the result of the wisdom of others, sometimes thousands of years old, sometimes very recent one.
But I think I can make my contribution by offering this collection of fine pearls to anyone looking for a healthy way of life that celebrates the balance and the dialogue between body and soul. This place is for anyone who is looking to pamper themselves through gentle and simple rites – to be transformed into pleasant daily habits – in order to achieve joy, serenity, wealth, abundance, fulfillment, stability, love for oneself and for all.
The Soul Garden comes from a mantra that resonated in my head while I was looking for a name for this project: body is a temple, soul is a garden.
Body is a temple means that the substance of which we are made is a sacred space, which contains something very precious: our being. As such, it should be treated with care and kindness, some devotion, the one needed to make it shine, without fanaticism. The body as a sacred place must be respected and honored, guarded and protected, kept clean and at its best, never let down or abandoned.
Soul is a garden means that our self is a fertile place, prepared to the growth and flourishing, and blossoming flowers and thriving with fruits. It also means that must be sown, watered, exposed to light, freed from the weeds and, depending on your preference and nature, disciplined or left wild and lush, but always, always nourished and made it prosperous.
I experienced a health condition that allows the body to vibrate in unison with the most intimate part of the self. In that way, our body is sustained and lifted, instead of being forgotten as a dead weight on the ground.
I discovered that it is really possible to let the soul radiates light and beauty in every cell of the body, despite the difficulties and the stress of daily life.
When I think of these two combined images, I think of people in harmonious balance, which live, grow, love and shine. Hence my second mantra, that is an invitation to achieve the full realization of the self, each person in their own way: live, grow, love, glow.
To embark on the path which leads to the realization of the full potential of the single specific nature of each of us, there isn’t a single solution, the same for everyone. There is a personal journey that you can take on your own when you are healthy and that it would be better to take with the best and the adequate guide when health to be regained is the first objective.
However, there are many resources that can be helpful to everyone, that is worth sharing and that’s the purpose of this project.
Gaining and maintaining the balance and the well-being indicated by the true nature of each of us is an art to be improved day by day, listening, learning and experiencing.
Because I believe that everything should be practiced with joy and enthusiasm and adequate lightness (the one that allows you to rise and fly, not the one that slips on the surface of things not going into them), I have also included a section of this site dedicated to the most playful and fun aspects of my life.
It is called Champagne & BonBon, from a line in a song by Italian songwriter Rino Gaetano, that makes me feel all the subtle irony necessary to play down every heavy aspect of life.
Perfection is not a myth of mine, but balance, serenity, pleasure, joy, well-being, self-knowledge, and self-realization are certainly goals in which I believe and which I consider achievable.
With this project, I wish to suggest a direction, illuminated by many discoveries that have improved my life, hoping they will be useful to the readers as they have been for me.
Photo by Sara Baj
Wonderful Site and Wonderful Soul! Congratulations, dear Valentina and best wishes for this Your wonderful project!
Thank you so much dear ShiHengDing!