This is the second stage of the new journey undertaken by our magazine. Drawing on the work of the last conference of the Turin Gestalt School, held in May this year, we want to explore the phenomenon of marginality and the margin.
The margin we are going to talk about is not that empty strip that surrounds a written sheet of paper and on which we add notes, even if it has some aspects in common with it.
Our margin is a place that becomes such, that takes on this name, because marginalized people live there, but they are marginalized precisely because they inhabit that place. Individuals define the environment, and the environment defines individuals, so marginality is a phenomenon of the individual/world field.
But who are these subjects who become marginalized? And who are the subjects who marginalize? How can one be both marginalizer and marginalized at the same time? What purpose does this field of marginalization serve, which defines both subjects?
In his studies on the structure of the fairy tale, Vladimir Propp developed the figure of the antagonist, the person who hinders the hero or heroine from achieving his or her goal.
The antagonist is fundamental to the development of the tale because by fighting against the hero/heroine, trying to destroy them, he/she actually helps them develop determination, to forge courage, strength, and to overcome fear.
The Big Bad Wolf is perhaps the most famous antagonist in the world of fairy tales and in the imagination of children.
The big bad wolf wants to destroy us, eat us, but to do so he must seduce us, provoke us, make us deviate from the right path.
In his version of Little Red Riding Hood, Perrault particularly emphasized the sexual, perverse, and misleading nature of the wolf, who, disguised—though not quite so—as a grandmother, invites Little Red Riding Hood to lie in bed with him, and only then eats her. And in Perrault’s version, which he wrote expressly to warn the daughters of the early eighteenth-century French nobility, there is no savior; the story ends like this: with Little Red Riding Hood eaten by the wolf.
The wolf does not adapt to the values and laws of society, he does not want to and cannot be part of it, and if we give in to his flattery, his seduction, there is no salvation, we are lost forever.
The wolf can be confused with the dog, but it is different.
The dog is a symbol of the civilized human being, the citizen: reliable, protective, controllable and “domesticated”, faithful to the city and its laws.
The wolf is hungry, wild, dangerous, aggressive.
The wolf lives in the forest and we domesticated animals in cities, towns, and cultivated fields.
We travel safe roads that sometimes run alongside or even through the forest, this uncivilized place that separates one civilized place from another, where wolves live, those similar to us but different.
In this issue we will deal with diversity and the places of diversity
We will question what creates marginalization and the damage, dangers, and evil that reside there, but also the richness, beauty, and solidarity that is created within it.
We will explore diversity in its various declinations and personifications, because the big bad “wolf” is not only out there in the world, but also within us, in our bodies and in our imaginations. And in our therapy, counseling, and training rooms, many people come who have experienced it and who fear it, both the one outside and the one inside.
We all wander the world “always watching out for the wolf.”
Laggiù c’è un prato piccolo così
Con un gran rumore di cicale
E un profumo dolce e piccolo così
Amore mio è arrivata l’estate
Amore mio è arrivata l’estate
E noi due qui distesi a far l’amore
In mezzo a questo mare di cicale
Questo amore piccolo così
Ma tanto grande che mi sembra di volare
E più ci penso più non so aspettare
Amore mio non devi stare in pena
Questa vita è una catena
Qualche volta fa un po’ male
Guarda come son tranquilla io
Anche se attraverso il bosco
Con l’aiuto del buon Dio
Stando sempre attenta al lupo
Beware of the wolf
Beware of the wolf
