The four episodes tell the stories of four "leading characters": an old shepherd in the last days of his life; the birth and first few weeks of a kid till its first pasturing under the olive trees; the life of an old chestnut tree in the course of the seasons; and the transformation of the old chestnut into charcoal through the work of the charcoal burners. All four episodes are set on the Ionian side of the Calabrian peninsula and are intertwined with one another in such a way as to make up one single story: the story of one soul that goes through four successive lives.