Dimbovita

He was born in a wealthy family, one of the largest producers of pasta in Italy. His earliest memory was of wanting an American toy and finding it on his marble table the next morning. His father's pilot did many such things. Like showing up with a car-trunk full of videos from London or a fresh salad for Miami or Paris. Antonio had so much money, so many toys, so much of everything that he knew nothing but instant fulfillment.

Another early memory was restlessness. Sitting by the river and feeling it flow, how he was like the river! Always changing, being here then there and never the same yet always the same. If he was at the pool-end of the estate he felt pulled to the tennis courts. If at the stables, he had to go to the greenhouse. When they visited Bucharest he couldn't wait until he went to Athens. And so it went, his young soul flowing from one place to the other, always wanting to move, to be somewhere else.

A third trait of the black-haired, black-eyed youth was his attire. His parents were beyond any need to impress others so they let the boy dress as he chose and his choice was eccentric. A turban today, stripes or polka dots tomorrow, a crown, hip boots, velvet cloak.

Never the same and always different. Like his desire to move, his clothes also changed constantly. But if the boy had a favorite it was the bedraggled and crumpled rags of the tramp.

"How can one so wealthy wear such rags?" asked the help.

"He should wear silk and velvet and such. It's a disgrace."

"He is lucky that his millions are in a Trust Fund or he would waste them on the riff-raff."

But Antonio never heard them. Never heard anything but a voice that seemed slighter higher than his change-loving being.

When he was eighteen he disappeared for three weeks. He left a note so his Mama wouldn't worry. And for the next three months the eccentric multimillionaire dissolved into the environment.

This venture took him into Romania, to the bank of the River Dimbovita. How did he get to that camp of Gypsies outside of Bucharest? By the way of all true Romo: By the desire to move and dwell with like-souls. Antonio Garipello was born into the body of wealth, but his soul was that of a Gypsy.

Antonio's second venture took him to Spain. Again he spontaneously found and lived with Gypsies. And he loved it.

The clans folk loved him. Romanian, Spanish, it made no difference. Each, like him, had a core that was different from the rest. Inwardly spiritual, always natural, following an unwritten code always to remain independent, never beholden to another outside the clan.

The Gypsies knew nothing of Antonio's great wealth. And he so loved the Gypsy life that he forgot it himself.

After his return from Spain, Antonio didn't return to Naples for thirty-seven years. He left his past life of the super-rich, including

his interests in the great Garipello pasta conglomerate and multimillions in the Trust behind completely. For the better part of four decades he wandered with his new family.

Gypsy, Gypsy, here is your heart,

On the dusty road and rolling hill.

Camped by the river with fire flickering,

The wagons, vans, campers and trailers.

Move, Gypsy, move, never plant your feet.

You were born to move, and to move and to move.

Be free, Gypsy, be free!

Never become dependent

On anything outside the clan.

Move, Gypsy, and be free!

Antonio Garipello sat by the fireside by the river Po. He whittled a block of wood into a fat-bellied friar. He had taken to wood sculpture and found it self-satisfying. Also, townsfolk bought the statues readily. This was good for he could contribute to the clan.

Antonio looked above the fire and smiled. Margarite, nearing eighty, smiled back. Her heavy earrings pulled the sagging lobes until they looked like a Ubangi's lips.

The old lady's voice rasped, "And when you finish, you sell it in town and bring me back a shawl, eh, Antonio?"

"Of course, Grandmama." Everyone called the queen Grandmama. Even her husband, Claudio.

When the boy returned he saw the old woman's mattress outside her wagon. The queen was lying motionless, her massive hair

disheveled ignobly. Twenty clans folk sat and kneeled nearby. It was the custom. One was never to die where he lived: Always outside.

Claudio held onto a chair. The man mumbled to his lifelong companion.

"I will give you some moments of peace before you go." Everyone understood. It, too, was the custom. To send life into the departing one on his journey from the clan.

The Gypsies owned no land, never stored money, worked as they moved, passed their knowledge through action and the higher-mind. They never, NEVER became part of anything that claimed their freedom, so Queen Margarite was cremated. Even in death the Gypsy would have no permanent home.

After the services, Claudio resigned. He had traveled as leader throughout Europe, South America, and the British Isles. He had stood as patriarch for three decades. Now he bowed to another.

The clan voted Damon as new Chief. He would do well. He was a Romo. An original. He would preserve the old way and all knew this.

So Antonio set out with the clan to a new land with a new leader and he continued carving.

As the man carved, he let the rest of his mind blank. Concentrated, one-pointed, his ever-present inner dialogue, analyzing, and judgment-passing vanished. His mind transcended its lowness. This allowed his high-mind, the transcendental, to soar in Akasha, the ethereal, the abode where the mystic dwells. And without thinking, Antonio realized that he was a true Gypsy.

The others knew it too. Claudio was the first, then Damon, the fortune tellers, tinkers, weaver and cook. The children knew, too.

Claudio said, "When a sighted man enters a room of the blind, only the sighted knows the other can see. Antonio has the sight. He has the Gypsy vision."

As Antonio traveled, his expertise as a carver grew. He didn't have to cheat, pawn, or haggle with buyers. Everyone knew the worth of the pieces.

In time, the word of the Gypsy artist spread. Sellers knew they could make money off him so they made offers. One man, from Hamburg, dressed in a pin-striped suit, spoke fast. Antonio gestured with his hand. "You must speak slowly. Not everyone can understand." Damon smiled inwardly. You see, the entire clan listened to business that would influence it.

Everyone sat silently as the dealer presented his case. A spacious studio, free materials and tools, salary, international shows, and of course a healthy commission.

Without looking, everyone watched Antonio. How he answered would reveal if he was Romo at heart.

"You say a studio. That means you tell me where I work. If I accept your offer I would be expected to be in that room. I would not be free.

"You offer me a salary. Thus I would be paid for working at your time, not when I chose. I would not be free.

"You would supply materials and tools. A nice sounding gesture, but it means that I would be expected to use them. Use things refined by others, by people in factories. This would take away from me finding things, using Nature's things. I would lose my freedom.

"International shows sound inviting too, but it means I would be lifted out of HERE. Out of oneness with the clan. Lifted out of now,

out of the place natural for me. I would be among strangers who would pay big money in strange places. I would not be free.

"You offer a healthy commission. This means that I do not get all that I earn; you get part of it. Worse, you will come to think you own my work and grudgingly dole out a portion. No, sir. I own what I make. If I chose to sell it cheap or dear, to store it or use it for kindling, it is mine. Your healthy commission would lessen my freedom.

"Thank you for your generous offer, but I prefer to remain my own man; to come and go at will; to determine as much as God allows my own course. Thank you, but no thank you."

The clan smiled. Damon was proud. Claudio, like everyone, knew that this Italian with the black, curly hair, was one of them at heart.

The years passed. Antonio married Mariano, the black-eyed daughter of a tinker, and had five children. The clan loved them as their own as children belonged to all.

The band now numbered fifty. It traveled constantly. Throughout England, Wales, Scotland, all of Europe, into Turkey, across the mountains through Afghanistan and Kashmir, into the north of India where it was said their forefathers came. Ten years, twenty, thirty years and more.

And now Antonio the carver became a White Beard. He followed the way of the Gypsy as the rest of the world zoomed at its high-tech, computerized, space-traveling pace.

One Fall the clan found itself near Naples, Antonio's birthplace. The man had dismissed Italy decades before when he'd first blended with the environment in Bucharest. Antonio left an art store when he saw a truck marked Garipello Pasta. Remembering the past, his

curiosity aroused, the artist entered the great financial house that safeguarded the estate's millions.

For decades everyone thought Antonio was dead. His wealth was secure in a Life Trust so no one could touch it. What had started as two-figure millions in his teens was now a great fortune.

When the manager saw the common Gypsy enter his grand house he grew irritated. And when what appeared to be a filthy beggar asked about the account of a Garipello he gasped. Then he remembered the description of the pasta magnate: Eccentric.

What was a Gypsy to do with hundreds of millions? Such numbers were counter to the day-by-day, earn-as-you-go clansman. Damon didn't know what to do. No one did.

Candles were lit. Fortunes read. Cards, smoke-filled tents with incense and incantations, every mystical method was used to gleam: what was to be done with all those millions.

Echoes from centuries past vibrated through the Gypsy tents, its dancers, sounds of the sitar and big tambourine, in the voices of singers Gypsy-dressed. What's to be done? What's to be done?

As the Elders settled into their high-minds and experienced the transcendent, the Akasha, the ethereal where the true Gypsy dwells, everyone knew. Everyone knew the clan's highest priority.

Money, like trinkets, come and go. Even life and death are transient. But the Gypsy way, to rely on Self, on forces beyond the material, always to remain attuned to the Natural Self and the guiding spirits, this must be preserved. The money was immaterial.

And so Antonio, Mariano, the children and clan, moved on. To Romania where like-souls dwelt, and they continued their Natural ways. Ways close to soul, to Self, to in-dwelling God, the protector of

the True Roma, the Gypsy.

Antonio sat on a three-legged stool at the campfire. He looked across the river Dimbovita that flowed through Bucharest to the south. "You are us," he said to the water. "The Elders say you can never put your foot in the same river twice, for the water passes as the inner changes . Like the Romo. You, dear, river, are always water, always the same, but you always change, you are never the same. So with us. We are always of the high-mind. Still, our low-mind always changes. The clan always lives, but it is made of these people today, those a hundred years from now. And we camp here today, who-knows-where tomorrow. Yes, Dimbovita, you are of the same vita, the same life, as us."

What happened to the hundreds of millions in the Naples bank? Because Antonio saw himself part of the clan and not an individual with a separate nature, he established a new Trust. He wrote the name of every Romo as beneficiary and Chief Damon as Trustee.

Let the next generation deal with this. And the river moved on.