FIELD NOTE 01
LU'MA emerged from a question.
Long before the objects. Long before the garments. Long before the website.
There was a question.
A simple one: Can the body and the immaterial part of ourselves live in harmony?
For years, I explored this relationship through different paths.
Presence. Spaces. Objects. Forms. Beauty.
The way our surroundings influence our inner state.
Then LU'MA was born.
And, as often happens, the research began to take shape.
Garments. Objects. Images. Projects.
In recent months, however, I began to notice something.
While I was building the form of LU'MA, the body kept calling for my attention.
Not through ideas.
Through symptoms.
Through fatigue.
Through very real requests to be listened to.
And so I realised that the original question was still there.
Perhaps more alive than ever.
What happens to the body when we stop carrying more than we need to?
When we stop holding expectations, tensions and burdens that do not belong to us?
When the nervous system no longer has to remain in a constant state of alert?
I do not yet have an answer.
Perhaps LU'MA was never meant to be an answer.
Perhaps it was always meant to be an exploration.
An ongoing research.
And for a while, it will begin again from here.
Field note 02
Sometimes I prefer to make mistakes on my own.
Not out of stubbornness.
But because it’s the only way
I can remain whole within a choice.
Over time I followed advice,
shared fears,
safer paths.
And often something
didn’t feel truly mine.
Making mistakes on my own
is not an error.
It is a way of staying.
Field note 03
There is a moment
when you stop trying to become something.
And you start noticing
what is already there.
Not louder.
Not stronger.
Just more true.
Field note 04
Not everything needs to be solved.
Some things
only need to be held
without being forced.
FIELD NOTE 05
It doesn’t ask you to change
“It’s not a book that teaches.
It’s a book that shifts your perspective.
It doesn’t ask you to change.
It gently invites you to recognize yourself.”
—
Filomena, Salerno
FIELD NOTE 06
I noticed a cactus in the corner of a room.
Beautiful.
I didn’t say it.
A few seconds later
it folded into itself.
It made me smile.
And remember
something simple:
not everything
is as it seems.
Some things
hold only
for a moment.
field note 07
Here and Now
A few weeks ago I was having dinner with friends. A beautiful table full of people. Voices overlapping.
Someone was talking about tomorrow, someone else about next month, someone else about a trip they were planning.
There was a bit of chaos.
At one point, without really thinking about it, I said out loud:
"Here and now."
Then I added:
"Let's stay here, now."
Silence fell over the table, for just a few seconds, but long enough for me to notice something.
They looked at me as if I had said something unusual. Almost startling, as if I had named something rare.
And yet I had simply pointed to the place where we already were.
Here.
Now.
I've been thinking about that moment ever since. Because the present is probably the most available thing we have and, at the same time, the one we pay the least attention to.
We are often a few steps ahead of ourselves.
Projected into what we need to do, organise, fix or achieve. Or we are turned backwards. Replaying conversations.
Revisiting decisions.
Imagining alternative versions of things that have already happened.
Meanwhile, the present remains exactly where it has always been.
Quiet.
Patient.
Waiting.
Not perfect, or always pleasant.
But it is the only place where life is actually happening.Perhaps that is why returning to the present takes practice. It is not something we understand once and for all. It is a continuous movement.
Noticing that we have drifted elsewhere.
And returning.
Noticing that we are already living tomorrow.
And returning.
Noticing that we are still arguing with yesterday.
And returning.
Here. Now.
I often wonder when it happened.
When we started treating the present as a waiting room between one problem and the next.
When we traded the direct experience of life for constant planning and endless mental rehearsals.
Perhaps there is no precise answer.
But there is a possibility.
To notice.
And from time to time, in the middle of a dinner, a walk, or an ordinary day, to remember that the only thing we are actually living is this.
This moment.
Which, by the time you finish reading these words, is already gone.