Comics: September rituals to start again by Red Naima

 Oh, September might just be my favourite month of the year.

 
The thing is; for me no two Septembers are alike. It can be a summerish September, a tail of summer like last year. Or it can be rainy and cozy, like in this episode of Fronn ‘e Limon below.
 
For most of us, it’s the month where we start again and reinvent ourselves.
 
As a kid, it was the time my brother and I were going shopping for school supplies with my mum. The look of the notebooks, pencil case and diary we would choose would set the tone for the entire year. Though we definitely didn’t think it that way consciously, for us it meant recreating the aesthetics we wanted to incarnate for the new school cycle. 
 
More recently, September has meant for me returning back to the capital, Rome, after a summer spent on the sea. And like the Grease movie, it looked like sitting at a table with my ninjette and ninjas, and sharing how we spent the summer, adventures, trips, new lovers.
 
All these small rituals are what make this month so full of possibilities. There is the anticipation of the gifts the new season might hold in store for us, and yet September makes us really present to the beauty of the summer just gone, the impermanent beauty of the fall.
 
I’m well aware of how things are different this year, how these moments of gathering shifted due to the global crisis. But does it really takes away from the essential beauty of our lives?

Walking home through from my grandparents’ house this Sunday, I happened to mute for a bit the streaming of my past-future musings; that 6pm light stopped in my tracks. I couldn't help but notice how it was highlighting all the infinite beauty present all around me.

The shadow of branches, a passing scooter all customized with stickers, a turn in the road I hadn’t previously seen, an open mysterious window, a soft sound of 80s music, minus chords electronic drama, the quietness of an hour walk all for myself, my own body alive as I walk.

The list goes on and on. It’s an exercise in really feeling it.
 
When you practice, you realize there is so much love, enchantment to direct our attention towards. So much we can’t ever get enough of.

I’m reading right now a traditional text on meditation called “Finding the Center” where the Hindu god Shiva tells her beloved Devi an array of meditation techniques to find enlightenment. Not surprisingly, they are all about focusing on the smallest things, like the pause between an inhale and exhale breath, the power of our attention to transfigure reality, and so on.
 
That's how we find our center, and from there, move out into reality in a new way. This September. Starting again.
 
And now I’ll leave you to child Fronn’

PS: My new graphic novel, “Desire for Victory: Virgin of the Rocks, Virgin of the Sands” is coming your way soon on Amazon, both in Italian and in English. You’ll get another Red Letter from me in the next couple of weeks with all the juicy details!
 
 
Yours Truly Red,
Naima