AURORAVILLE

THE STORY

[FIG.1 image of Auroville, India city center where the faithful gather to pray]

He had a story in mind: the journey. -“I want to take some vintage jackets and tell on each of them the story of every trip I have taken, just as if they were a postcard, a biography, an indelible memory. You could create sandals that blend with these themes and that tell, together with the jackets, the wonderful stories of these trips!”.

After a few weeks I returned to the studio to develop the project but the creative stimulus had not yet fully emerged. -“you see...” he told me in a thoughtful tone, -“I believe in my idea but I am confused about how to best tell and express these journeys in the products”. So we started to jot down some ideas and just when we had finished and were about to say goodbye he told me about Auroville....

Life is a journey to LOSE and one to FIND. It always begins with losing. In fact, the real journey of life begins only when you start losing, because when you start losing, you open your eyes to the world around you and that you have always lived a little out of habit and a little because you found yourself in it.

[FIG.2 plate on the values of life that is found along]

Life is what you choose, not what you are born into. You can lose a person physically, or even more painfully lose them emotionally. You can lose a job, you can lose friends or a family member. You can lose a pet that is like a true friend to us. You can lose your way home, you can get lost because when you start losing you don't really know what your true home is. the path to get to Auroville.] And that's where the journey to FIND begins. The journey to find or rather to re-find is exactly what you are finally aware of.

It is the journey of your life that you take with your eyes open and conscious, the journey in which you choose who and how to take with you. It is a journey of meritocracy, where the prize and the hand are given to you by those you choose and who deserve to stay and continue with you. And that is precisely when real life begins. Because it is when you choose that you feel truly alive. And I began my journey to find it precisely when I hit rock bottom. Just when I looked around and saw the emptiness of those I loved collapsing under my feet. I lost family members, I lost friends, I lost the person I loved, I lost a job. I lost. But then when I opened my eyes to survive and not drown I realized that I was ALONE. I was alone and finally free to choose who to find on my journey and understand who truly loved me.

[FIG.3 plate on the value of HUMILITY, which inspired my journey.]

I found the family members I chose and I accepted them to the extent and limit in which they could be there for me and in me. I found the right measure to face my work and today I am stronger than before and I am finally starting to take real satisfaction. I found friends, true ones, those who when they see the darkness in your eyes come there to turn on the light without bringing the bill, because they do it for free for the pleasure of giving and not receiving. I found a second family. I found a second father. A father who with love, maturity and sweetness was able to give me the right advice and gave me strength and a compass when I was blindly swerving on a completely drunk path. I found a sweet and slightly absent-minded mother who gave me the right advice and opened the doors of her house to me whenever I needed it. I found a sister, the one I didn't choose but who then I chose.

A sister who, even though different from me, knew how to take me in my differences and found the right compromise to always be close to me, even when we lost each other. Because in reality we had never really lost each other, we were always around the corner for each other. But the most important thing at the end of this journey is that I found ME. I found my creativity, my determination, my resilience, my strength to make an orchid grow from a rotten apple, I found the sun that is in me and outside of me.

I found and rediscovered the real Ardemia.