ciao tutti!

Well, well, well - look what we have here: a laptop with internet acces in one of the corner rooms of Avalon.

Avalon is one community within the Elfi. The other 12 communities are in the 'Elfi Valley' approximately 45 minutes from here in a beautiful section of nearly untouched, forested mountains. Here there is an amazing terraced garden on the mountain side with vegetables, olive trees, and grape vines that overlook the small city of Pistoia.

I have been in Avalon for just over two weeks and have become close with some other travelers here. There are a few more permanent residents here with children and designated rooms, but most of the folks around the dinner table are passing through in a couple of days, weeks, or months. Most of them are nomads.

What a life; what a challenging, exciting, lonely, enticing life of a nomad. I am beginning to think that a return on July 17th just might be too soon. One of my new friends asked me to travel by land to India in August with him. I laughed, but he just looked at me. I know it sounds crazy, and I haven't exactly had time to mull it over in my mind long enough, but oh gosh - what an adventure.

Wowwowweewow! So much is changing within this head of mine. I feel very powerful and in-control and ready for (mostly) anything. I left Avalon last Tuesday and I spent two nights alone in a run-down house of my friend, Juan (who had left for germany). I think for the first time in my life I was really, truly by. my. self. His house is in the Elfi Valley, but he plans on turning it into a meeting place for homeopathic-related retreats for foreigners (which is more than slightly controversial within the Elfi community). Anyhow, I left his house feeling empowered and ready to take a hike into the unknown Elfi Valley to find one of the 12 communities, Granburrone.

I left early in the morning and hiked up, up, up the mountain and then down a bit and then thought I had made a wrong turn (which i had) and continued on a path that I hoped would lead me to Granburrone. I walked on the path for a while and, just as the path split and I was ready to reassess my prior decision, I heard a child's voice and then more voices. I saw the barely visible roofs of Granburrone. I sat down with them as they smoked their morning chillum and then started 'pulling the bad grass.'

I stayed there for one night and then left in a caravan headed for the Festa di Socializzazione. The Elfi organize this event every year and set up camp in the small park in the middle of Pistoia for the weekend. They make delicious pizza (nearly round-the-clock), present numerous 'spectaculos' (dances, puppet shows, music), and every night is filled with music, drum circles, and fire shows (!!!). I even learned how to spin a fire stick. Wowwowweewow.

Okokok. I must go. I hope that this provides at least a little bit of insight into what I've been experiencing. I am living a beautiful, beautiful life; a life that is possible anywhere; a life that I am sincerely drawn to. These people are happy, they work because they want to, and they are raising wonderfully adept children. Wow. They're doing it, they're really doing it.

I suppose that I am doing it too. I am really, seriously doing it.

Love, love, love.

Baci è abbraci