La Terra e il Fuoco

I was born in Venezuela, Caracas of italian parents, in 1967.
I have been living 15 years under the tropical sun, feeding myself with colours, flavours, sents and music of the latin America.

In 1982 we definitely settled back at Genoa, Italy.
I attended the S. Dorotea artistic institute and in 1986 I got my graduation certificate.
The years spent in Genoa had been very difficult to me. I had to experience a different way of living, thinking, and behaving, and I have very often wished to go back to Venezuela.

After graduation I enrolled myself at the Architecture University in Genoa; during the following years I have been attending courses and exams but, after the starting enthusiasm, studings and sitting for exams began to be more and more difficult.
To study architecture had been my decision since the age of fourteen!

Later on I realized I was not so prone for planning as I thought before and furthermore, I had great difficulty to get ahead with long term progects.
In 1992 I started to taking part to some meetings of students and profesors of architecture abroad.

Extraordinary experiences where I could realise that architecture was not only a matter of numbers and exams to prepare for, as I had learned during the years spent in Genova.
I discovered a world of art, expressions, new cultures, coulors, movement and music.
It was then when I found again a part of what I have forgotted during my gloomy years in Genoa. A part of myself that have been left aside.

In gennuary 1993 I attended a workshop at the Architecture University in Belfast, North Ireland and I was introduced to the celtic culture and art.
This experience, awoke inside me an ancient memory of past lives I had probably spent in those magic and misterious places.

Back to Italy I started to design and make jewels, accessories and ornaments, using rough materials like iron, copper, brass, rope, clay, glass, wool and cotton thread.
Quite soon after, I stopped studying and preparing for exams.
I had found a new way, much closer to my personality and my essence, an easier way maybe, but surely much more fun.

Creating with my hands jewels, lamps, hats, handbags, was an experience I could burn in a few hours, a short term progect, an enthusiasm, a falling inlove and a love like a young girl's usual love story, as I was at that time.
Everything had to happen at once, I had no patience, I could not wait!
I began to sell my jewels to several shops in Genoa, Milan, Turin, Florence.In 1994 I designed jewels for fashion photo reportages in Milan.

During a stay in London I met one of the tutors of the teaching staff of the 2 years Master course: Goldsmithing, Silversmithing, metal work and jewellery, of the Royal College of Art. I brought him my Book. My work was really appreciated and I was suggested to attend a summer workshop in order to better my techniques, so afterwards I could be accepted to attend that Master stage, in which only ten students per year were accepted to!

If on one hand my career was going on full sail, on the other the rest of my life was not as much good. My parents separated in 1992 and my father went back to Venezuela for a short period. This sudden freedom from his paternal control and judjement, set me free to choose to abandone my studies at the University.
I was not prepared, it was a psicological shock, I discovered that I was not used to fight for things 'cause, at that time, as many young people are, I could not understand the worth of life and of the chances that where offered to me.

Whenever there was a difficulty I used to give up. So little by little I gave up to all the opportunities that were gived to me. I dropped my London projects and went back home.
More gloomy years, picks and precipices, my life was going from bad to worse.
In november 1995 I met Reiki and had my First Degree Attunements.

Reiki

Reiki is an oriental discipline, 2500 years old at least, but that only at the end of years 1800 has been codified under the name: Usui Sistem of Natural Healing.
The primary purpose of Reiki (First Degree) is to lead people to understand the spiritual origin of their uneasiness and help them to recover. Later on (second degree) Reiki helps people to recognize and organize their own talents and express them in this world. Finally (Third degree), the purpose is to understand deeply the sense of one's proper life and bild one's own destiny.

Thanks to Reiki I discovered and healed those aspects of my life and personality which had been keeped me far from myself and well balanced life.
Working with Reiki showed a new path to me. I started a new walk of deep and difficult personal growht which took me back to meet my essence and my soul.
In 1997 I moved to the Reiki Center of Milan to live and work.

In Milan I attended the Goldsmith Art School of Guido and Sonia Bertazzi. I attended a stage for Ceramic Art with the teacher Marisa Rossanigo.
In 1998 I attended a stage of gems setting at the "Calligari Institute" of Vicenza.
In gennuary 1999 I recieved my Third degree Attunement and I became Reiki Master.

In the same year we all ( members of Reiki Center of Milan), moved to the town of Turbigo which since then became the chief seat of the Association.
In september 1999 my first daugther Elena Vassilissa was born. In February 2001 my second daugther Sofia.

Living in the Reiki Center was and still is for a woman like me, accustomed to live on my own for many years, a growth experience, a betterment of quality of life, a great deepening of interpersonal relationship, the discovery of what is real worthy in the human beings.
I learned what dignity, honor, bravery, strenght, unconditional love, steadfastness, fairness do mean.
I have been a spoiled and lazy girl, arrogant sometimes and domineering, who had had plenty of things from life and was unwilling to give something in return.

Thanks to Reiki I thiscovered I had lacked the most important thing: love for life and for myself. I had been looking for this love outside me before; thanks to Reiki I realize that it was all inside of me and may rather stray life had taken my mind off the true significance of my essence.

Thanks to my fellow travellers and my daugthers, I am feeling now that I have changed, growned up a lot and come to maturity; I am grateful to life that allowed me to meet wonderful persons who, like me , have chosen to recognize their own greatness, and teach the others to find inside themselves their unique beauty with love and comprehension but, above all, together.