Drawings by Atit from a journey to Egypt and America in the late 70’s
The two years preceding my meeting with Osho were very intense and decisive for the course of my life, and the drawings I painted during that period show my still-unconscious inner quest.
It all started in 1978 when I won a 6-month scholarship to Cairo, to finish my thesis in Architecture. I was 23 years old and it was the first time I would be away from home on my own for such a long period. I was happy. Little did I know that this journey would become my initiation into spirituality.
I come from a middle-class, fairly-well-off and materialistic family, which was given more to the pleasures of life, with Catholicism as a façade only. In short, it was more Zorba than Buddha.
During the six months in Cairo I came in contact with cultures and peoples who were very different from what I had known until then. My consciousness opened up to something that was beyond the material world. Esotericism appeared in my life for the first time. For example, in one drawing, of the golden bean, the Arab peasant is climbing up the plant to find out what is higher in the sky…
When I came back, I was no longer the same person. I graduated with top marks – and all I knew was that I did not want to keep living in my hometown, Palermo. I did not know what to do next, but fate came to my aid by making me fall madly in love with a young man from Milan who was involved in left-wing politics, as were many in those years.
My over-protective father, to save me from this dangerous love affair, suggested I go on a journey with the money I had earned while working in his technical studio. So my friend Viviana and I left for Mexico on a long journey of almost a year that saw us travel up and down the continent, from Guatemala to Canada and back.
It’s difficult to describe the sense of freedom, lightness and confidence we felt on that trip. Everything from our past crumbled away, day by day.
The drawing of the little girl in the jungle actually represents an experience that happened to Viviana and me on that journey. One morning, all intent and full of enthusiasm to walk to the pyramid of Palenque through the jungle (without the guide we were offered!), we ended up finding ourselves in thick vegetation at night, in the cold, and with all those terrifying sounds around us. There I realised that I was truly lost, not only in the jungle, but within myself. I felt – for the first time – the need for a guide, a Master.
We were certainly protected, because when we had set off in the direction of Lake Atitlan – which is also depicted in one of the drawings – an unforeseen event had prevented us from catching the bus. We later heard that on its way the bus was attacked by Guatemalan revolutionaries, and that all the passengers were killed.
In the Palenque painting one can feel the influence of peyote, the little magical cactus that Indians still use today to connect with the sacredness of nature.
Despite my materialistic past I found myself in that dimension which Osho calls the Religiosity of Life… the divine in every blade of grass.
Our journey extended as far as Canada, where I began to hear an inner voice calling me to abandon our American adventure.
Back in Italy, now free from many old mental structures, a series of mysterious and magical circumstances soon led me to India to meet my Master, who became the light of my life.
It was the beginning of 1980.
Related articles
- You are a Buddha! – A slide show of photos of Atit Maria’s terracotta sculptures, with a personal letter (July 2024)
- Painting was born with me – An online exhibition of Atit Maria’s paintings (July 2023)
- Little Buddhas by Atit Maria – Atit Maria shares with us pictures of her Little Buddhas and tells us the story of how she started making them (November 2010)
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