'A rotta

'A rotta, the cave. Seventy-four is the space hollowed out of rock, and in a land full of cavities — Naples is built on top of an underground city — it couldn’t be missing. It’s the number of the inner life: the dark place where you take shelter and where you find what isn’t shown outside. In dreams, seventy-four arrives when you withdraw. A time when you need to be on your own, a part of yourself you don’t show anyone, a thought kept under cover. In tradition the cave is refuge and hiding place at once: protecting yourself and hiding are the same gesture, seen from outside or from inside. The image that leads here is the cave, and it stays alone, as befits a number about solitude. When a symbol is already complete, the Smorfia doesn’t give it company. If seventy-four showed up in your dream, there was an enclosed space. It’s worth asking whether you went in to rest or to keep from being found — they’re two different things, and only whoever is inside can tell them apart.