BASILICO (Basil) - FULFILLMENT

The name basil (Ocimum basilicum) is derived from the Greek word basilikos which means the “herb worthy of a king”. However, its regal origins are uncertain.

Basil has always been considered sacred. In fact, according to legend, a basil plant sprouted at the base of the cross after Christ’s crucifixion and was gathered by the Empress Elena, mother of Emperor Constantine who scattered it throughout the world. Thus, the reason for the numerous varieties found in the Middle East, Asia, Europe and Africa.

In ancient Egypt, basil was used together with other aromatic herbs for sacrificial offerings as well as in a medicinal application.

In spite of its therapeutic value, there has always been superstition surrounding the basil plant. The Greeks and Romans believed that basil had to be planted with incantations in order to grow. While during the Middle Ages, basil was considered a defense against the evil powers of the monster “Il Basilisco”.

Today, basil is an important ingredient in the Italian kitchen where it realizes it maximum expression. Basil from the region of Liguria is particularly appreciated for its unique and intense perfume and delicate taste.

Basil is an herb used profusely throughout Italy. One could say that basil is to the Italians what vanilla and cinnamon are to the British. Ask anyone in the world to identify an herb with Italian cooking, and nine times out of ten, basil will come up as the response.

Traditionally used strictly for seasoning tomato dishes, pastas and soups, Italy’s new innovative cuisine based on traditional principles, has introduced this versatile herb in recipes such as “Lemon and Basil” sorbet.

For some reason or another, basil was never an herb prevalently used in our kitchen as children. I remember my grandmother, Nana, putting a few leaves into her tomato sauce, but other than that, very little. This was surprising for a Sicilian woman whose husband’s family had immigrated to Sicily generations back from Genova, a Ligurian city famous for its “Pesto alla Genovese”.

The first time I met Isabella through a friend of mine, I was enthralled by her outgoing personality, her strong convictions and her love of Italian history. She was a sophisticated woman with a unique elegance about her that was striking and an inner peace that enhanced her physical aspects. She had been widowed at a young age and had raised her daughter virtually alone, her dear mother being her only other source of assistance. But for her mother, traveling, to Venice by train on a regular basis was difficult, and though Isabella would be ecstatic during her visits, I noticed that they became less and less frequent.

Marriage is what originally brought her to Venice from Genoa, her husband being a Venetian by birth. Like everyone I know who lives there, once in Venice, she became caught up in its magic. Though after the loss of her husband she really had no reason to stay, the “Jewel of the Sea” as the city is affectionately called, held her as if she were magnetized to its hull.

Isabella had lived in Venice now for a good part of her life and she was an unbelievable source of information on Venetian history with its abundant twists and turns. We never walked through a campo (a tiny piazza found throughout Venice) without her telling me a story about what had happened there or why it was so famous. Before long, and despite our friendship being still in its infancy, I had commissioned her to help me escort my clients through this mesmerizing and mysterious city. It might have been my own Venetian roots that constantly drew me to Venice, but I’d like to think that it was also Isabella, who made my time there so special.

One particular morning, I arrived in Venice rather early. We had organized a lavish dinner for a group of fifty in the private palace of a Count and Countess and there was still a lot to do. The company that would provide the gondolas that would take the group to and from the party had not yet confirmed the number of people that could be carried in each, and we awaited last minute news on this as well as other details. By six in the evening, things were pretty well under control and it would not be long before the festivities would begin.

The dinner went beautifully and without a hitch, and by the time we reached Isabella’s home, we both realized how absolutely exhausted we really were. We had been on our feet all day and the last stretch from the Frari stop on the vaporetto (Venice’s public water bus service) to the house had exhausted us.

It was one in the morning and neither of us had eaten a thing all day. We were both tired but also starving, and in spite of the hour, Isabella headed straight for the kitchen. “Posso aiutarti? (Can I help you?), I asked, knowing all well that only one person could fit in her kitchen at a time. She of course said no and instructed me to open a bottle of white wine that she had brought back from Liguria on her recent visit. It was a white from the Cinque Terre, an area famous for its wines and cultivated from vineyards that literally clung to the sides of the cliffs. How they can ever harvest those grapes is still a wonder to me.

It was only a matter of minutes before a steaming dish arrived to the table. The perfume was exquisite. My mouth began to water as I analyzed how the pesto genovese had delicately coated each crevice and ridge of the pasta shells while the pignoli (pine nuts) that adorned it, danced among the fine streams of Ligurian olive oil that had turned green with the crushing of the basil. We has been around food all day, but this, in its simplicity, seemed to top everything else we had prepared.

We talked and ate, then talked some more. We philosophized about the universe; we debated our spirituality and conversed about the destiny of our meeting. We had both had faced difficult times in our lives and had grown from the infancy of those experiences calling on our inner strength to carry us through those same periods of self-doubt and despair. Perhaps it was that same inner strength that we identified within each other that had drawn us together so quickly. Perhaps it was the way in which we faced life. One thing we both agreed upon was that through our spiritual growth, each of us had been able to face and conquer fear and despair, the very emotions that before, had blocked us from a true sense of fulfillment.

It was six-thirty in the morning before I climbed into bed, the footsteps of early risers already clacking against the cobblestone "calle" (walking street in Venice) outside my window. By now, I was not only physically drained but also emotionally drained from the depths of our conversation. My appetite had been more than satisfied and my spirit too. As I started to doze off, I thought of the hours of conversation we had every time we were together and of the Delicious Moments we shared that always seemed to trigger those conversations. I felt blessed to be able to share my spirituality with my dear friend and would miss her terribly once she moved to Milan.

IN REFLECTION:
What is it that keeps us from true fulfillment? Our biggest block is fear. The fear of not being accepted, not succeeding, what others may think, how society and our parents will react, the future, the unknown and principally, the fear of discovering who we really are and our true spiritual purpose.

Almost all the negative forces that exist in the universe stem from fear. How is then, that we welcome fear so readily? From infancy, we are programmed by society and by our parents to meet certain standards, thereby making fear a part of our psyche; to succeed, we must make money, to be accepted by society we must dress, speak and present ourselves in a certain way. To be accepted by others we have to compromise our own beliefs. To go on after the loss of a loved one, we must drop everything and drown in the sorrows of detachment unwilling to face the world alone. To discover who we really are and our true purpose we must thrust aside everything we ever knew. None of this is true.

Negative forces will always exist because the physical world is one of duality, positive and negative, good and bad, and so on. In order for us to grow spiritually, we must be faced with the challenges of the negative and positive for in overcoming these, we automatically embrace the opposite and re-establish balance. Once this transition is complete, we come to understand and identify it as a crucial element in our karmic search for eternal bliss and true fulfillment.

IN NEW APPROACH:
Begin to identify your fears. Then, discover from where they have come. Do they hold any value in your life? Are they stopping you from doing what you truly wish to do and from being truly happy? Are they keeping you from true fulfillment?

If the answer is yes, look deep into your soul and try to understand that it is your fears that are blocking you along your path to eternal bliss. What it simply means is that you have now identified the fact that you need to create balance and harmony in your life. You need to balance the positive and the negative and stop letting fear control you.