by Catherine Ann Lombard
Another scorching June afternoon in Italy. The bus descends the winding road down from
Rocca di Papa onto the sleek autostrada as we head north to Florence. We are thirty pilgrims
on our way to Casa Assagioli, the home in Florence where the founder of Psychosynthesis
Roberto Assagioli lived, worked, taught, and wrote. Tired after a three-day international
conference, we still manage to fill the bus with chatter in anticipation of the next day’s
adventure. I long for rest and quiet, and slip into a seat near the front, next to Keith Hackwood
from Wales. We are the first group invited to directly encounter Assagioli’s archives, and we
come from all over the world—Canada, Australia, Sweden, Germany, Brazil, Portugal,France, Haiti, Spain, Poland, Ireland, the USA and, of course, Italy.
Our hosts are Alle Fonti della Psicosintesi, translated as “At the Well-spring of Psychosynthesis.” Since 2007, this international group has been sifting and sorting through the boxes of material that Assagioli accumulated during his lifetime. Initially gathered and examined after Assagioli’s death in 1974, his notes, international correspondence, appointments,articles, books, pamphlets, hand-written reflections, and scholarly assessments were later stored in the “Esoteric Room” of his house. During its recent restoration, the roof
of this room was removed and the need to protect and relocate the material became mandatory. At the time Phyllis Clay, from New Mexico, was visiting the project’s architect, Paola Marinelli. Phyllis insisted that the boxes not only be moved but sorted, and so the archive project and Alle Fonti della Psicosintesi came into being. As an extension of the June 2012 conference “Psychosynthesis and the World,” the group decided to extend a welcome to anyone interested in spending a day visiting Assagioli’s house, study, and garden. In addition, we would have the unique opportunity to experience the archives ‘hands on.’ An afternoon
would be devoted to our reading, studying, and perusing the cataloged files including original
handwritten material by Assagioli.
The journey
The bus speeds through Lazio into Umbria. We pass the hills of nearby Montepulciano and
soon enter Tuscany. The evening light washes the hills of Arezzo into shades of mauve, the
same hills where Assagioli during World War II had to hide, wandering in discomfort with his
family. Fiorella Fiorini, our official interpreter, suggests that we come up to the bus
microphone and introduce ourselves. One-by-one, while the bus sways between speeding cars
and 18-wheel-trucks, each of us takes a turn. But tiredness is creeping over us, and the Meeting at the Well-spring journey starts to feel endless. We shout with laughter at Fiorella whenever she mistakenly
translates from English to English or Italian to Italian. The long switch of black hair running
down her back sways with the bus and her returned laughter. Suddenly a soft, fluffy man
from Catania is nearly sitting on my lap! He croons a song of longing in Sicilian dialect and
leads us in a refrain of lalalas. Then a French Canadian belts out Alouette, and Keith and I
giggle with exhaustion and joke about forever circling ring roads around medieval cities to the
tune of foreign ditties.
Eventually, we drive past Assagioli’s rose-colored house at 16 via San Domenico and
are finally released from the bus. Heading to our various hotels for the night, we prepare for our
next day’s “encounter of the heart.” But Florence refuses to let us rest, as it is San Giovanni’s feast day and the city is ablaze celebrating her patron saint with street fairs and fireworks. From my hotel room above the city, the Duomo appears like a wedding cake church, the waxing moon hangs haloed in the sky, and fireworks explode with precision and streams of fairy dust light.
At the same time, Italians roaming the street roar as their Azzuri team beats England in the
European soccer semi-final. Encased in a strange and beautiful mixture of human and divine,
I finally settle down for the night.
An encounter in Assagioli’s study
We gather the next morning in a mediation circle. Singular words fly between us, our shared feelings of Action, Joy, Eagerness, Surrender. Our first task is to stop at a small round table full of wooden blocks. These blocks are stamps especially made by Assagioli to imprint his evocative words. Bang! Bang! We select a block and carry another word into the day. Vitalità is now stamped onto my soul.
We divide ourselves into two groups for the house tour, and soon English, Italian, and French fly up and down the two-story villa. Hung on walls throughout the house, white boards forever carry Assagioli’s handwritten words and diagrams. We climb up to his apartment where his portrait as a 20-year old greets us, beckoning all to reflect, know, love.
I am eager to enter his study, and upon doing so my eyes scan the shelves in search for
a book that spoke to me five years earlier. When I first entered this room, the book American
Humor, thick with a bright orange cover, seemed to jump off the shelf and call my name.
Being an American living in Italy at the time, suddenly the man whose vision of the human
psyche that had so profoundly touched my life seemed to tickle me as well. Smiling to myself,
I imagined what great jokes we would have told each other. Meeting at the Well-spring
Today I run my finger along The Art of Expression by Atkinson, A la découverte du Yoga
by Adams Beck, Unità Creativa by Tagore, and The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche by
Jung. But the book American Humor eludes me — it is not where my memory has held it all these years. There is little time, as we must make way for the second tour group, and I wonder if perhaps the book has been moved to the general library.
For some reason, I feel the need to see and touch this book again. Turning away from the
bookshelves, I notice a small leather-bound guestbook on Assagioli’s desk. I open to see—is it new or old?—and then, did I once sign it?
I don’t remember, as I flip through the pages, scanning dates for 2007, and then my name. I
am there! Clearly signed, with the date, and my comment in Italian: Bellissimo e grazie. A
stranger beside me, Linda Dyrefelt from Sweden, from the place of mother, softly and
playfully, exclaims beside me, “Oh, look! You’ve found yourself!” Instantly I drop and I soar. I wonder at this meeting between me and myself and this point of recognition offered by the stranger,unsuspecting and spontaneous, moved herself by the higher reality we momentarily share—my finding myself in Assagioli’s study. I sob deeply and Luce Ramorino, our guide, stands silently, watching. I am aware of Linda’s warm hand gently placed on my back at my heart chakra. I disappear and yet stand still, held by God and everything in the room. Then I feel the need to come back, reassure those around me. “I’m okay,” I say, grounded yet breathless.
It isn’t even noon, and yet my work feels finished. Everything else received that day
promises to be an extra blessing—bountiful gifts of light, the ease of being, a heart moved
towards knowing.
Our group now eases outside, across a patio, through a disheveled cantina, and into the
garden where Assagioli would meditate on his roses. A pungent smell of wild ground mint
fills our senses, and pruned olive branches with olives the size of seeds lie at our feet. A tree
bares green susine prunes ready to ripen. I quietly watch a white butterfly drink from lavender
nectar. Strong light etches delicate shadows onto the terracotta pavement. The trills and
swishes of various languages float above me as the frenetic Florentine traffic rushes by.
Cicadas vibrate their rhythmic song, a resonance of midday heat.
Dr. Renzo Giacomini is now sharing in Italian his personal memories of when he was
a student of Assagioli’s in 1972. “There are two things missing from his study,” he says in a
low, almost conspiratorial, voice. “A spittoon and a big, black telephone. Assagioli had
respiratory problems and was often spitting into a spittoon which he kept near his desk.” The
Sicilian couple who is listening appears to struggle with this piece of information. “Oh,” they
finally surmise, “it was la vecchiaia, old age.”
“And the telephone would ring and ring, but being deaf in his old age, he would never
answer it, leaving it for the secretary downstairs,” continued Dr. Giacomini. “Yet, he always
seemed to be able to hear whatever question you had.
“He loved his books and when he and his wife went up to their summer home, he
would often fill up his car with so many books that his wife barely had anyplace to sit.”
Time for lunch. Eggplant baked in sugo, oozing with melted mozzarella. Thinly sliced
zucchini layered with parmesan. Salads and fresh greens. Tozzetti and cups of diced sweet
fruit. Real conversations on folding chairs placed in the shade.
Another circle, only this time we are instructed on how to approach the archives. Take
care of the energy his handwritten material evokes. Move slowly. Allow for the paper and
words to touch you. Breathe and know this is only a taste.
The archives – accumulators of energy
Thick blue boxes wait for us at various tables throughout the villa. Some of us move to rooms where Assagioli and his wife once slept, ate, received guests. Windows are open and dry hot breezes waif in from the street and neighboring courtyard. At first, we buzz with excitement along with a touch of anxiety, dividing ourselves amongst the boxes like kids at Christmas, in a candy shop, in the school library.
Boxes labeled: “The Will—Italiano,” “Transpersonal Self— English,” “Writings of others,” “Handwritten Notes of Assagioli—English” call to us. Without much thought, I sit in front of the first free box I find, one labeled “Superconscious Material—English.” I unsnap the box’s clip, unwind the protective blue cover, and discover folders and folders of material. Reverently I open each folder. Staring back through time are onion-skinned papers lined with typed quotations, handwritten notes, various pamphlets and letters all concerning superconscious material. Suddenly I stop shifting through these pages, frozen by a simple note of Assagioli’s: “The Will of God.” It is paper-clipped to a small book on prayer written by an American minister. The book’s margins are full of penciled notes. Double vertical lines run along the edge of a paragraph he once noted, some words in the text are underlined for emphasis. The Will of God. I shudder and cry.
It is all so much, so I stop, climb the stairs to the apartment where his principal
collaborator, secretary, and the first president of the Institute of Psychosynthesis after his
death, Ida Palombi, once lived with her cats. I sip black coffee, ease myself into a chair on the
terrace, breathe. A poem is forming inside me about finding myself in his study, and I give
birth to it in the room’s empty silence.
Once more I return to sit at yet another table. The others around me are filled with
determination, a kind of hurried mission. Some scribble notes, others run the pages through
their hands. A Parisian woman gasps. I look up and our eyes meet across the table in
acknowledgement of the profundity before us. She is weeping.
Determined (and strong willed!) to find American Humor, I return to Assagioli’s study. It is dimly lit with the shutters drawn. On the desk is a kitchen timer, a small U.N. flag, model ship, a small photo of Assagioli meditating under a tree, and a postcard of Mount Fuji.
I sit for a moment on the divan where he would receive guests and try to still my mind, but I
am soon drawn to continue my search. The librarian has promised me that no books have been removed, so American Humor must be here somewhere! Finally I find it tucked into a back corner, irretrievable as another bookshelf blocks its freedom. Relocated since I last saw it, the book reflects my own life. During the past five years, I had also relocated my home from Italy to the Netherlands to Germany. I am happy to find and touch this book again.
I leave the study to engage with a small yellow folder on the Will. There seem
to be endless slips of small, sepia-stained pages, 8x12 cms in size. Some have been
visibly torn to size, others are purposively folded together to form small, loosely-bound
books. Assagioli’s hand varies from dancing loops, to bold strokes, to indiscernible
scratches. His notes appear in Italian, English, French, or German, depending on what
language he was reading at the time.
I discover quotes from Dante. The verses float before me, anchored between my fingertips.
“Luce intellettual piena l’amore. Intellectual light full of love” (Paradiso XXX:40). I remember Assagioli’s quoting this verse in his essay on the synthesis of polarities when he discusses Logos verses Eros.
Another quote from
Purgatorio catches my attention:
Quel dolce pome che per tanti rami
Cercando va la cura de’mortali
Oggi porrà in pace le tue fami.
(Purg. XXVII:115-177)
That most sweet fruit which all mortals eagerly
Seek with so much care from many a bough
This day shall give your hunger peace.
Turning away from Dante, I am delighted to discover a small drawing of the egg diagram, a brief sketch concerning inner obstacles to the will. I wonder, what made Assagioli consciously select this size paper? A week later I find the answer in Massimo Rosselli’s article “Roberto Assagioli: A Bright Star.” Andrea Bocconi, one of Assagioli’s youngest students, once posed the same question.
“They are accumulators of energy” was Assagioli’s smiling answer.
Amongst these ‘accumulators’ I find he has written on the back of an invitation to attend a meeting in Rome. It is 1930.
I am so full, I hardly know what to do anymore. Half of the three hours allotted to this encounter has flown by. I move again to another room, sit at an empty table, allow my thoughts to soar out a high window open to the greenery across the street. Where did he find the time to write all this? We are thirty students all engaged with our own box and still more material lines the bookshelves. What a great scholar he was, carefully quoting others, meticulously studying all that he read. How much life flowed though him!
My musings are startled by Fiorella. “Have you found what you’ve been looking for?”
she asks, and I have to laugh. “Yes, I have,” I beam back, for what more could you hope to Meeting at the Well-spring find than yourself in Assagioli’s study? But she is now urging me to examine the catalog list to see if there is some specific topic I wish to explore. “Dreams” catches my eye, as I am only familiar with Assagioli’s brief remarks that dreams more often reveal only a partial aspect of the human personality and that only part of the unconscious is able, or willing, to express itself through dreaming.
Did he actually write something more about dreaming?
In fact, there are three small yellow folders on dreams. Fascinated, I leaf through the
first pages where he describes a number of dreams. There is no date and nothing to indicate
the dreamer. Are these dreams his own, recorded one pale dawn? In the last folder, I am
surprised to discover exercises to perform while sleeping. All this, I think should be translated
into English and published.
But this afternoon is only a taste and with only thirty minutes left, I realize that what I
really want to see are his notes on polarities, something dear to my own professional and
personal experience. At the recent conference, I had presented my master’s thesis which
included my own polarities of culture shock. During the past year, I had spent many hours
intimately busy working with these triangles to express my ideas. I hurry to obtain these three
folders and suddenly before me are Assagioli’s own triangles, penciled with question marks,
deletions, and additions. I too had spent much time drawing triangles, crossing out words,
waiting for intuitions. How closely my own struggle to best define the polarities of culture
shock and their higher reality seem to mimic his. What a gift it is to see his reflections and
thought process on the higher synthesized realities of compassion, spiritual dignity, and
revelation.
Sadly, the time is over and we must leave the boxes to return to the group circle.
Why didn’t I take more careful notes? What was the equilibrium point of the Dark and
Light polarity again? Why didn’t I copy the box number down where I found the sketch
of the egg diagram? As I leave his apartment for the larger meeting room and the others, I
find that I already miss Assagioli’s presence, whole in my hands. I pause on one quote on
my notepad, copied by Assagioli from Statesman and Nation by J.B. Priestly.
“Knowledge and Love are one and the measure is suffering.” Assagioli had underlined the word ‘measure’.
Beyond the Well-spring
Another group meditation, imaginary sunlight pouring onto our image or word. We share our
impressions and visions. I am walking alongside Assagioli and then we are walking with
everyone else in the room. At the Well-spring of Psychosynthesis.
We are tired, overwhelmed, grateful, inspired. With great effort we learn a circle
dance and send the well-spring around the world. A final card is taken from underneath an
illuminated candle that is shaped like the egg diagram. A gift from the archives, scanned and
printed for us to take home. Mine is in English: Solution written in his hand, a small token of
his accumulated energy. I am laughing inside. Of course, I would receive the ‘Solution’. Why
not?
Solution
Inner width—Inclusiveness, uni-versality, in - dependence
Outer concentration
attention — painstaking, training and perfecting
Analogy: a good actor who studies carefully and temporarily puts his life into the roles he plays, into the characters which he “represents” – but remains ever himself — ever conscious of not being those characters – of having his own independent life.
To read Catherine's blog, go to www.LoveAndWill.com
Catherine Ann Lombard is a Psychosynthesis Psychologist and Counselor, writer and poet.
Currently, she is a doctoral candidate at the University of Twente, The Netherlands, where she conducts research into student sojourners’ experience of culture shock and their search for meaning. Catherine has published her recent findings in From Culture Shock to Personal Transformation, Studying Abroad and the Search for Meaning available from lulu.com. She received her MA in Psychosynthesis Psychology from Middlesex University, and her Diploma in Psychosynthesis Counseling from the Institute of Psychosynthesis, London. To learn more
about her, see catherineannlombard.com.
1 Roberto Assagioli, L’Equilibramento e la Sintesi degli Opposti (Firenze: Instituto di Psicosintesi,
2003), p. 12.
2 Massimo Rosselli, Roberto Assagioli, a Bright Star, International Journal of Psychotherapy, Volume
16, Number 2, 2012, p. 18.
3 Roberto Assagioli, Psychosynthesis, A Collection of Basic Writings (Amherst, Massachusetts: The
Synthesis Center, Inc., 2000), pp. 83-84.
