By Catherine Austin Fitts
It is a misty morning in Venice, Italy. The air smells of the ocean – of sea lanes and trade routes to distant lands.
I am staying at a hotel that is a former abbey – an ancient refectory of the Discalced Carmelite Brothers – near the train station. Leaving breakfast, I passed the courtyard and found myself here for a moment of reflection, admiring an unspeakably beautiful palm tree.
I can only imagine how the original seed came to be planted in Venice.
Once again, I am reminded of how beautiful the Earth is. At such times, I recite Wordsworth:
“Therefore am I still
A lover of the meadows and the woods
And mountains; and of all that we behold
From this green earth; of all the mighty world
Of eye, and ear,—both what they half create,
And what perceive; well pleased to recognise
In nature and the language of the sense
The anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse,
The guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul
Of all my moral being.”
~ William Wordsworth, Lines from Tintern Abbey
I’m off to Trento by train into the Alps and our discussion of screening and then the workshop on the Pistis Sophia.