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Angustia: no way out!

  Thomas Aquinas in his Summa Theologiae describes anxiety as a narrowing (from Latin angustia - narrowness): "Anxiety is that which so takes possession of the mind as to leave no opening for escape" It is sorrow so intense it "binds the soul" and "shuts out all hope" The soul becomes trapped, unable to find a way out. This image is precise: anxiety feels like being in a space that keeps getting smaller, the walls pressing in. Aquinas's proposed remedies all point towards "dilatatio" (expansion) : -Grace as "enlargement and strengthening" of the soul. A distraction that provokes a "dilatatio" (expansion) and therefore:  -Joy and love causing the heart to widen -Hope opening what anxiety has closed -Contemplation of truth delighting more than pain saddens This is grace - not as theological abstraction, but as lived experience of sudden release. My frustration:  Around my 20s when I was trying to deepen Catholicism, I bega...
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Back to sun time

 


In Europe time changed last night. We are back to solar time. It has been a very strange Summer, which reminded me of the north European Summers I enjoyed so much because they were bearable. In Italy, to my perception, they are tough. When you are in the flat lands of the river Po valley because of the heavy humidity. In the center and in the south because it gets really hot.

Not last Summer though. And it was really awkward. In spite of enjoying my “ideal” Summer I felt a kind of uneasiness. My system memorised this kind of Summer in a northern European choreography, therefore it felt so strange, unusual, looking around and seeing the Italian  landscape appearing, so unexpected! It didn't match the memory!

Summer over, and we hoped in a warm and joyous Autumn, but we got rain instead. Just a continuous rain…

Now with an hour difference, at five in the the afternoon, it seems already evening…

 

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