Lituus

- I -

- I - The Lituus

Lituus is an outwardly simple stick with a curved end, made of material not necessarily valuable. Yet it’s a sign of mystic power or, better, of a mystic will.

It was brandished by a priest, the augur, that didn’t take decisions.

Really decisions were already politically taken but the Lituus specified the fas or nefas of the decisions, i.e. if the actions were welcome or not to Gods.

Today we see its trace in the Christianity: the pastoral is curved as the Lituus, and as the Lituus recall mystic energy and evocative power, but doesn’t recall the pulsing of its arcane function.

The Lituus is may be the most genuine and synthetic expression of the Etruscan people essence. A line with a curve that hints at a spiral. May be the simplest way to define the relation of an Etruscan with the nature. And the thing doesn’t complicate more if the vibrations emanated by its intrinsic telluric strength must be managed by a priest, that is by an augur.

What emerges in my remote mind is the love for simple things, for old knowledges, for living nature with enchantment and regard.

This story is a plunge into a culture that seems no longer ours, a cards chain of a fanciful journey of more than 2.600 years ago in places that yet exist and maintain intact their strength even if corrupted by man.

By man, not by time.

A journey together with Caile Vibenna, sharing his young augur emotions lived in evolutive experiences, in quantic leaps but with the freshness of a boy, with the freshness of the revealing of the divine by the energies of nature: the mystery, the awareness, the rite, the initiation, the action and the passage of the sign of knowledge.

Cards from the past time, received from a traveller of today. And, as an old friend from whom we are accustomed to receive cards, at end it’s easier remember the first card, the more unexpected, the more amazing, non much for its content but for the emotion of being in the thoughts of our friend that, even travelling, wanted sharing with us a picture.

The first card, the first picture, comes from Cerveteri ...