From eating disorders to addiction, the true stories of people who took their lives back “thanks to a flower”, in the book Salvarsi con il verde by Andrea Mati.
When the scent and beauty of a mimosa tree restored to him feelings of wellbeing that had long since vanished, Eugenio could not yet imagine the immense power nature would come to hold over him — powerful enough to tear him free, once and for all, from the dark vortex of drugs. While she lay in a hospital bed, broken by the effects of anorexia, Alice had no way of knowing that the frail cyclamen brought to her as a gift by a friend would become her lifeline and the starting point of a new beginning. These are just two of the many true and extraordinary stories told in the book by Andrea Mati, Salvarsi con il verde – La rivoluzione del metro quadro vegetale (Giunti Editore), published last April.
Mati's book is a precious chronicle of lived experience through which the author has chosen to gather and share forty years of experience spent accompanying and rehabilitating people affected by addiction and disability on a journey of rebirth through nature and the care of green spaces. It is a way of making the most of the results achieved, thanks to an immense passion and to collaboration with scientists and researchers, rehabilitation communities and organisations active in the social sphere. A shared purpose placed at the service of others, grounded in biophilic empathy — that is, as we read in the book, "that exchange of mutual benefit that makes us feel fulfilled and connected in an ancestral way with nature".
Andrea Mati himself will present the book Salvarsi con il verde on 17 June at 6 pm, as part of the celebrations marking Cascina Cuccagna's 10th anniversary in Milan, which will also be attended by LifeGate's scientific director Simone Molteni and Elena Grandi, Milan City Council's councillor for the Environment and Green Spaces.
The stories of Eugenio and Alice (fictional names used to protect the identities of real people) form part of the second chapter of the book Salvarsi con il verde, which is structured around the rhythm of the four seasons, with four chapters dedicated to autumn, winter, spring and summer respectively. What all the stories chosen by Andrea Mati have in common is the life-saving, reciprocal relationship that has always existed between human beings and nature — a relationship that allows even those who fear they have lost all hope and trust in life to find them again. Many small but great miracles, of which the author himself has been a witness and, in some sense, an architect throughout his life, and which have led to the founding of cooperatives and experimental nurseries dedicated to the rehabilitation of people affected by addiction, as well as to the creation of genuine therapeutic gardens designed for specific pathologies, syndromes and psychological difficulties.
The life-saving effect of nature on the human mind is particularly evident in the cases of people affected by addiction — to drugs, pathological gambling and alcohol. Drawing on experience of community service work in communities for people with drug addictions, Andrea Mati has been able to witness over the years the effectiveness of this atavistic relationship between human beings and nature, even in particularly difficult situations. First at San Patrignano and then at the Comunità Incontro run by Don Gelmini and its Centro di solidarietà di Pistoia, Mati was able to observe how working in high-maintenance gardens helps people suffering from addiction to redirect the mind's primary attention away from their fixations, boosting their sense of responsibility and, in turn, their self-esteem.
The story of Eugenio is undoubtedly one of the most telling in this regard, and vividly illustrates plants' capacity to rehabilitate those in the grip of addiction, by setting against the false rewards offered by drugs and other substances the genuine ones generated by work and by a relationship with nature.
In the thrall of a merciless drug addiction, Eugenio was in prison when a priest took him outside into the garden and brought him face to face with a magnificent mimosa tree. An unexpected encounter that would change his life for ever. "It was still winter, but that mimosa tree was in full bloom. Its scent and beauty brought back memories of my grandmother. Something inside me lit up, sparking the beginning of a deep desire for change."
The miraculous ability of this pioneer plant to flower in winter thus becomes the symbol of a tenacity that the author describes as the "gentle strength of a mother" and at the same time the "capacity of nature to distil life" — the perfect combination to offer a glimmer of hope to a man with nothing left to lose, who has since then lived and worked in close contact with nature, in turn helping people affected by addiction. "Who better than me can understand them?", Eugenio admits. "Watching nature with its changing seasons is fascinating and gives you intense feelings, especially those who had lost them, like me," he continues. "Now, when I come to work and see the plants and gardens I have tended and looked after like a child, I feel happy and experience a deep sense of satisfaction. The beauty of nature fills my heart."
So many years on, reading his story in the book Salvarsi con il verde is a powerful emotion for Eugenio, for whom the relationship with nature is now an indispensable resource. "I believe it can be a help to others. The green world brings you into a direct experience. A painting, however beautiful, stays there, hanging on the wall. A garden is in a constant state of change, and that keeps you looking ahead, always forward. It's a stimulus for the mind."
Among the many conditions that can be treated through a relationship with green spaces are those linked to eating disorders. So much so that, to help those who suffer from them, green spaces exist with sensory and dietary rehabilitation areas where patients, by tending to plants and vegetable gardens, manage to rebuild their self-image, in a journey of exchange and rediscovery that contributes to greater self-worth and even to strengthening the immune system, with positive physiological effects.
To tell this story, Mati included in his book Salvarsi con il verde the story of Alice, "a chrysalis that did not want to become a butterfly", a victim of an insidious condition like anorexia. Reduced to a mere shadow of herself, Alice had been in hospital for some time when Andrea Mati himself, a family friend, gave her a cyclamen. A plant of powerful symbolic value that combines beauty and resilience and which, like the mimosa, blooms in winter when other plants go into dormancy.
"I no longer had any desire to live or to commit to anything. Even though I was doing very well in my studies, I was in the grip of my illness," Alice recounts. "That cyclamen was a turning point for me. It was blooming in the depths of winter, while it was cold outside. It was a delicate little plant that reminded me of a small wildflower. Little by little I grew attached to it and started to identify with it. I began to care for it and it became beautiful." This miraculous identification was of course only a first step towards a slow but progressive recovery, which led Alice to graduate in psychology with top marks and to continue nurturing her great passion for classical music.
Today, several years on, Alice is a new person who now, in turn, helps other people to recover or to ease suffering caused by disorders and addictions. "I see many people change their lives over the course of months," Alice recounts, for whom working in contact with green spaces has meant understanding the value of food offered by the earth, as a gift from nature. "Working in contact with nature all year round allows you to live in a particular dimension and to feel yourself part of a larger design," Alice continues. "It is a rewarding job, but also a hard one, because plants need constant care. In return, though, they give you far more."
The cyclamen has remained a point of reference in her life: "Now I have a large collection that I grow in a greenhouse and which keeps me company all winter. It is like having a dear friend by your side, or a pet. I talk to them, as if they could really answer me. It is an almost childlike relationship, but I think it works because I see them grow every year, more beautiful each time."
After pulling herself out of her darkest moment, Alice has not relapsed since. "Having had a very serious problem for fifteen years, the risk is always there and, as with addictions, the ghost remains. Once you become aware of it, however, you have many tools to keep it at bay, should it ever resurface." In this challenge "nature continues to be the greatest resource, because it allows you to discover the rhythms of life and to understand what is truly important," Alice continues. "Seeing people take their lives back, after everything seemed destroyed and lost, is a great satisfaction for me. It is a powerful driving force for always moving forward."
For her too, as for Eugenio, reading her own story in Andrea Mati's book was moving. "Andrea wrote and told it very well, because he captured the most important aspects with tact and sensitivity, while also highlighting the rawer aspects of the illness that need to be said, without too many filters. Many years have passed, but he remembers everything in detail, just as he remembers all the people he has helped, because these are things that always touch him deeply." The many stories gathered in his book are a clear and moving testament to that.