Dream now, Travel later

Cas Gasi is in all it’s splendor, wild flowers are blooming everywhere and the fragrance of the orange blossoms is in the air. It’s spring, and Easter is around the corner… It’s also Covid19 and everything is different this year.

Don’t worry if you cannot travel now. Enjoy missing out and opt for delayed gratification.

We are faced with a powerlessness we had not known before. We are used to thinking that in our advanced world there is hardly anything we cannot control.

The Stoics had a wonderful way to get along with any situation: to persuade oneself to want the things one already has and to embrace what has happened, whatever it is. This seemed an important insight, but it left open the question of how, exactly, could we accomplish this. They had, as one will be delighted to discover, an answer to this question. It is a fairly simple technique that, if practiced, can make us glad, if only for a time, to be the person we are, living the life we happen to be living, almost regardless of what that life might be. They called it the ‘art of acquiescence’ – to accept rather than fight every little thing.

And the most experienced Stoics take it a step further. Instead of simply accepting what happens, they urge us to actually enjoy what has happened – whatever it is. Nietsche, many centuries later, coined the perfect expression to capture this idea: amor fati (a love of fate). It is not just accepting, it’s loving everything that happens. That’s a recipe for happiness and joy.

Turn tragedy into triumph, disaster into opportunity.

Here at Cas Gasi, we are under lockdown, as are many other places around the world. We share this exceptional time with our resident guests. Our little tribe hardly leaves the property, we are self sufficient with our vegetable garden and resources: potatoes, carrots, cabbage, sweet potatoes, artichokes, spinach, onions, lettuce, and it is as good as it gets. We are now our gardeners, our cooks, we clean and tidy up, we watch movies and discuss books and the news. We have turned to leading a simple life, and time seems to stand still.

We’ll be back to normal before we know it, and can’t wait to welcome you again to Cas Gasi!

With love and gratitude,

Cas Gasi