the Moon Change Newsletter

A few days ago I booked myself in for a couple of writing classes on Barbara Bernardini’s Seedbed, and in the dialogue that followed, I discovered that Barbara is also the author of Stolen Arms“A fortnightly newsletter that launches at the change of the moon: at the new moon and full moon, to tell you what is happening in the garden, to invite you to write and invent through fantastic exercises, and to wander through paths of reading, walking and observing.”

We thought it was a good idea to give space to Stolen Arms on our site starting with a writing by Aurora Faletti that you will find on this page.

In 2024 we published the incipits of some of the aticles that Aurora Faletti sent us from the blog to which she had entrusted the account of a long WWOOFer tour: you can find them here

A vegetable garden, a soma d’aj and Cesare Pavese:
woofing in Duipuvrun

by Aurora Faletti

I have wanted to live on a farm ever since I was little.

I want the horses and the chickens and the mud and I know it’s a bit of a Pinterest vision but I used to spend summers at my grandparents’ in the vegetable garden and some of the seeds must have stuck with me.

However, then growing up I went to bumptious aperitifs, to meetings with serious people, to calls with sharks. And then at a certain moment I wondered where I had ended up and where my mud was instead. Where is my sprout?

Whatever, the usual realization to which I react with tears, nihilism and ice cream. But then I discover WWOOF.

WWOOF (world wide opportunities on organic farms) is a global movement that reconnects people to the land through organic farming. It is basically a project where you work in a garden/farm/farm in exchange for room and board.

It’s nice to wwoofing say like in California or Africa with all the exotic plants and animals but me go figure, I know myself, and it’s not like I really feel like going to Tasmania and then anyway first it’s good to know your own of country, of soil, of hills, right? Right? Here.

So I choose a place fifteen minutes away from home. Very good. The place is in Costigliole, it’s called Duipuvrun and it’s a biointensive garden that I knew about because it organizes crazy events at sunset with vegetable menus and music sitting on the grass. Stefano Scavino is the daddy of Duipuvrun, the artichoke man, the farmer at himself. Already I could see myself there, beautiful serene as a puciu getting dirty with the soil, reading in the hammock and sharing minimalist words with this guy who is definitely zen and also a bit Bruno from the Eight Mountains.