Judith Valente | Writers' Voices

In The Italian Soul: How to Savor the Full Joys of Life, award-winning journalist, poet, and spirituality author, Judith Valente, takes readers into the slow-paced, tranquil lifestyle of the Italians. Having visited Italy a number of times, her book is geared to anyone seeking to calm their busy lives and live a more mindful and contemplative way. She remarked, “I realized that the Italians, the way that they naturally live their lives have a lot of contemplative aspects to it, and so that’s what I wanted to write about in the book and how we can incorporate these practices, these ordinary things, that Italians do in their daily lives, how we can incorporate them into our lives, and live more mindfully and joyfully.” One of the things Valente noticed and appreciated as she was walking the streets of Italy was how visually stunning her surroundings were and she found its beauty incredibly nourishing for her soul. “…there’s all these little pieces of beauty that you see as you walk along… but seeing beauty, I think, has an effect on our mood and our soul… we’re always going to need to feed the soul…”

From hanging clothes to dry, to buying fresh ingredients daily and eating together at the dinner table, The Italian Soul offers a plethora of recommendations that readers can incorporate into their own lives. Valente said, “…most of the houses [in Italy] don’t have any dryers, clothes dryers… and that’s because… electricity is expensive and dryers use up a lot of electricity, and so people hang their clothes out to dry and I found that this became a contemplative practice for me… you not only get out in the fresh air, but you get out and you see your neighbors…” And as far as preparing meals and eating together, she suggested, “…maybe we need to just get back to the simple, everybody sits down at the same time, everybody eats together, everybody chats together, talks about their day, and that’s very common still in Italy, you know, that reverence for the meal table… [also] the idea of, there’s a real push in Italy for farm-to-table… shopping for the day…I love that idea of having a meal everyday, of preparing a meal everyday, and preparing it with fresh ingredients, if possible.”