I almost didn’t go.

As we were leaving a dinner party, a girlfriend asked whether I would join her for a meditation session the following evening. I heard myself say yes - partly going along with the convivial ease of the evening, and partly because I had not seen Marie-Laure in some time and welcomed the chance to do something together.

By the next day, however, I found myself resisting the commitment. It did not align with how I like to spend my time. More deeply, I have always been hesitant about group meditation practices, preferring time alone to reflect. And yet, I wanted to remain open to saying yes to something shaped by another’s suggestion. On that basis, a rain check was not an option. I went.

I arrived just as the session was about to begin. Marie-Laure had already settled into place. The facilitator greeted me warmly and motioned toward an empty cushion at the far end of the semicircle. As she began to speak, I was immediately soothed by the quality of her voice. It carried a calm clarity that felt almost weightless. Before long, I found myself drifting into a state somewhere between wakefulness and sleep. Just before that threshold, she invited us to visualise ourselves inside three shapes.

What would it feel like to inhabit a cube? At once, I sensed enclosure, structure tipping toward confinement, pressing inward around me. Then, a sphere. This felt more agreeable, yet balance depended on movement. Finally, a pyramid. Here, the sensation shifted. It was as if the crown of my head were being drawn upward, lifted beyond the density of thought toward a brighter, lighter place. After that, I surrendered to the experience, recalling little else.

When we were gently guided back, the facilitator invited each of us to share what we had noticed. Speaking last, I admitted - somewhat self-consciously - that each form had produced a distinct bodily response in me. No one else had mentioned the shapes. She smiled and explained that the cube represents the soul, the container that holds the many lives we have lived; the sphere, the Earth in perpetual motion; and the pyramid, the spirit - our higher orientation. Given this symbolism, my experience did not surprise her.

Her explanation stirred my curiosity. I left wondering whether these forms held meanings that extended beyond a single meditation. Later, I found myself seeking to understand where such symbols came from and why they resonate with us. Each form invited its own attention.

The cube has long been associated with stability and structure. Its six equal sides imply order, boundary, and definition. In Plato’s cosmology, it was linked to the element of earth, the most grounded and immovable of forms - reinforcing its association with solidity and permanence. Architectural and religious traditions have repeatedly returned to this form, most strikingly in the Kaaba in Mecca. The geometry of the cube can be seen as anchoring experience within realities that both contain and limit us.

Throughout time, the sphere has symbolised wholeness. Ancient Greek thinkers regarded it as the form closest to cosmic perfection, while Renaissance astronomers envisioned the heavens as concentric spheres in harmonious alignment. Even today, the sphere suggests integration. Unlike the cube, its unity is continuous rather than fixed, allowing coherence to remain dynamic. This principle appears in configurations that endure through movement, such as planetary cycles, cellular formation, and recurring patterns in nature. The sphere reaffirms that we live in orbit; equilibrium emerges through motion.

Finally, the pyramid carries a different orientation altogether. This is one of ascent. Across civilizations, from ancient Egypt to Mesoamerica, its form has expressed the universal yearning to bridge earth and sky. The pyramid has long signified transformation, standing as an enduring gesture of the desire to rise beyond the material world towards spiritual transcendence.

Later, it occurred to me that the sequence of the cube, the sphere, and the pyramid mirrors three orientations to life - containment, continuity, and transcendence. The progression traces a subtle arc: we begin within structure, grow beyond it, and occasionally glimpse the possibility of rising above it.

What struck me most was how instinctively the body recognises symbolic language. Before thought intervenes, something in us responds. Perhaps understanding does not belong to language alone. Perhaps we are shaped as much by forms we feel as by ideas we articulate.

The Kaaba in Mecca is one of the most striking cubic structures in the world.

Meandering started with walking.

I’ve always walked a lot. It revs my engine; I walk to clear my head, to think, to not think. It’s my daily ritual that weaves together the shifting fabric of each day.

As I move, it grounds me while opening up the world in motion: I notice the light changing, the weather turning, the sounds and scents in the country or the animated pulse of the city. Even in bad weather, when the landscape offers little to hold the eye, the rhythm turns me inward, and I often find myself thinking more freely than on the brightest days. Walking has the curious effect of loosening my mind’s grip; thoughts wander, rearrange themselves, and surface in their own time. Then, as if by magic, a solution to a problem springs to mind, or an idea forms with unexpected clarity. I am often amazed at how I got there. But as a psychologist, I should know that the mind does some of its greatest work behind our backs.

Sometimes, though, that rhythm is interrupted. I inadvertently miss a turning or take the wrong path. Frustration kicks in - the sense of wasting time, misjudging direction and, as usual, making things more complicated. I feel myself clench up with the urge to get back on track. And yet it is often off-course, in that uncertainty, that something shifts. The destination still exists, but the route loosens its authority. The unforeseen way slows me.

At other times, a wrong turn doesn’t take me away but brings me back to an idea I wasn’t ready to notice the first time. And perhaps that is the point. If everything were linear, learning would lose its depth, its range and, above all, its process of discovery. What first appears as a mistake opens up a different way of seeing.

Walking has made me more aware of how meaning forms. Some impressions pass quickly; others linger. But this way of moving through the world extends beyond walking. In travel, it is discovering which aspects of places resonate. In spaces, it is feeling which interiors and art forms draw us in. In reflection, it is recognising questions that quietly insist on our attention. The lingering begins to shape understanding - following an alleyway we hadn’t planned. In this sense, meandering is allowing attention to move more freely and trusting that what stays carries the most meaning.

My shadow in the photograph, taken mid-walk, stretches ahead of me, distorted by light and terrain. Later, it called me back, reminding me that the shadow is something I can’t step out of: I am both subject and object at once. Experience is never neutral. It is shaped by what we see, what we carry, and what we are ready to take in. The self is a lens through which the world comes into focus, even as it is itself part of the scene.

A month ago, we bade farewell to dear family friend Valentino.

His life-long companion and business partner, Giancarlo Giammetti, organised the funeral at the Basilica di Santa Maria degli Angeli e dei Martiri in Rome. Built within the remains of the Baths of Diocletian and later adapted by Michelangelo, this grand Renaissance church is at once bold and beautiful: just like he was. The eye naturally lingers on detail, something Valentino himself understood better than most. It felt like the right setting for a man who devoted his life to beauty.

The service was deeply moving. The bishop spoke of a life rooted in beauty - and of beauty as the path Valentino shared generously with the world. Listening, I realised how fortunate I was to have known him. He was my mother’s close friend, and by extension I grew up within the gentle orbit of his world. Being part of something can make it feel almost natural; as though it need not be defined because it is already enveloping you.

Yet there are lives that alter the texture of the world around them. Valentino’s was one of those. Only now do I find myself trying to crystallise the magnitude of his contribution - the life he lived, the beauty he gave, and the standard he so effortlessly set. In doing so, I realise that this was, in fact, extraordinary.

His career unfolded during the years we have come to know as la dolce vita - a period when post-war austerity gave way to a renewed appetite for elegance, beauty, and the pleasure of being together again. The phrase gained worldwide recognition after Federico Fellini’s 1960 film La Dolce Vita, which portrayed a Rome alive with glamour, curiosity, and restless possibility. Beneath the surface, however, Fellini suggested something more lasting: the sweet life is sweetest when lived consciously. Over time, la dolce vita came to mean a cultural sensibility grounded in the art of living well.

Valentino did more than mirror la dolce vita; he helped define its tone. Together with Giancarlo Giammetti, he founded the fashion house in 1960, introducing a visual language that would shape modern elegance. Valentino’s designs became renowned for their architectural silhouettes, flawless tailoring, and sumptuous fabrics. Yet, what set Valentino apart was his intuitive understanding of how to make women look - and feel beautiful. Women did not simply wear Valentino; his genius lay in an innate talent for drawing out their sensuality. Perfectly attuned to the delicate interplay between allure and restraint - the heart of that sweet life - this dazzling quality became his hallmark. It marked an important psychological shift in fashion: elegance was no longer stiff – it was felt. His signature shade - Valentino red - came to symbolise a willingness to step fully into life.

As Valentino’s work travelled across continents and from royal courts to Hollywood, he helped broadcast a distinctly Italian sensibility. Paris had long dominated couture, but he made Italy synonymous with cultivated ease. That instinct for beauty extended beyond the clothes themselves, allowing fashion to evoke a way of being. By dressing women who had become international icons - such as Princess Margaret, Jackie Kennedy Onassis, and Elizabeth Taylor - Valentino became an architect of a lived-in elegance long before the language of lifestyle branding came into existence.

Beauty, in Valentino’s hands, was a manner of moving through the world; one in which culture, friendship, and cosmopolitan life were drawn together by his aesthetic spirit. I was fortunate to have known this from within. His homes held a layered enchantment and, even at suppers with close friends, his tables were invariably divine. He delighted in surprising his guests, creating ever-changing atmospheres simply for the pleasure they brought. “Elegance is the balance between proportion, emotion, and surprise,” he wrote - a belief he carried from his designs into the way he lived. There was a lightness to it all - exquisitely composed yet effortlessly alive - that lent time with Valentino an otherworldly quality. He shared this rare gift with presence and warmth, meant to be lived in and enjoyed, with his pugs in tow.

What struck me was not the spectacle surrounding Valentino, but the gentleness beneath it. Even at the centre of such acclaim, he carried himself with remarkable calm and was always softly spoken. There was no performative ego, no need to dominate a room. His authority was quiet - expressed through precision, care, and an unwavering commitment to excellence. He dressed women not to disguise them, but to reveal a more luminous version of ourselves.

As the Ave Maria filled the basilica, rays of sunlight streamed through the high windows, washing over his coffin again and again, until it rested in a warm golden light. Later, many of us found ourselves speaking about that same moment. None of us knew what to make of it, yet we had all witnessed it. To me, it seemed like a soft farewell: as though a man who had spent his life illuminating others was himself being gathered into the light.

With Valentino’s passing, the world bids farewell to a fashion emperor who helped define an era. His loss feels like the closing of a cultural chapter, leaving in its wake an enduring imprint on our understanding of beauty and elegance. Eras fade, but the ways they teach us to see become their legacy.

Valentino’s legacy continues at PM23 , the Valentino Garavani and Giancarlo Giammetti Foundation in Rome.

It has been a little over a month since the tragedy in Crans-Montana. I find myself thinking about the people and families who have lost their children and loved ones. The weight of that grief is impossible to fathom. Sitting with these thoughts brought me back to a deeply personal account of loss and reckoning.

God Is an Octopus is a brave and beautiful book by dear friend Ben Goldsmith, who endured the sudden and tragic death of his daughter Iris in a freak accident. For anyone who has not lived through the death of their own child, the depths of such despair remain beyond comprehension. Ben’s book also conveys how senseless loss carries a layer of trauma that defies language.

From the first page, I recognised Ben’s voice and was struck by its naked honesty. He does not shy away from his suffering. Instead, he invites us into his struggle, his search for meaning, and his attempt to understand the unthinkable. What emerges within Ben’s harrowing ordeal, over time, is a journey toward spiritual clarity.

That reckoning leads Ben to a powerful realisation: that the meanings most likely to sustain us are forged from within ourselves. His commitment to protecting and nurturing nature becomes inseparable from his own reparative process. A deepening bond with the earth opens a pathway to healing, allowing him to find a spiritual lifeline with Iris that feels both transformative and eternal.

God Is an Octopus grapples with loss, love, and healing through grace, courage, and depth. In moments when tragedy enters the public consciousness, books like this are a quiet reminder that behind every moment of shared shock or sorrow lies a grief that must be carried, slowly and alone.

God is an Octopus by Ben Goldsmith