Musing on seven-year cycles

Came across something that sent me wondering just now ... I had a message somebody had updated his blog so I went to have a look and he was talking about his 49th birthday yesterday ... seven times seven ... wondering what he had been doing on every single one of those seventh .... and it got me thinking as well, I have always been a believer in that our life changes like every seven years in some way. We change, it's a biological thing to some degree, nature inflicted, hormones, whatever, but it's a fact that every single cell of our body renews in that cyclical rhythm, so you have a completely new body every seven years. Also there is a change in our energetic life cycles or rhythms, a different chakra is entered every seven years (if you want to know more, read here: The Chakras), bringing a change in awareness and activity, reason and willpower. The old indians believed that a man only becomes a "real" man with his 42nd birthday – entering his true spiritual path only then – and will only reach some stage of enlightening or Samadhi with his 49th ...

I don't know about you but I'm always pretty much aware of these things, how I change, how my body changes, my mind, my perception of the world – wondering what is bringing that change about and what comes with it – and I can see how my life took a turn of direction every seven years or so ... sometimes rather subtle, sometimes very distinct ...

At age seven most of us have just started school and experience how our world changes to some degree at that time .... we experience the first major constraints and responsibilities of our childhood, people start messing around with our minds, influence us, form us, and we have to go along and find our way in all that somehow ...

Around fourteen we fully enter adolescence and I guess we all know how that changes everything again .... wow, thinking back now, that was a heavy time ... the ballerina became the punk ... it's the time we try to find out who we really are and where we want to go I guess, hopelessly caught between childhood and adulthood, feeling somehow out of place in both worlds.

At 21 most of us have a vague notion of what they want to do and who they may be, have plans for the future, start developing their gifts and talents further ... many are in their first serious relationships, first serious jobs ... life is a strange mixture of expectations and everyday routines, dreams, hopes and possibillities, a desire to have fun and enjoy oneself and at the same time settle for something in some way, mostly with a regard to success in all it's different aspects ... life is ours in our minds and just waits to be conquered ...

At 28 we have most probably experienced our first failures and our first successes, have had to make some clear decisions concerning our lives ... some have started families by then, others have some kind of professional career going on, enjoying the fruits of their labour for the first time in their lives, being able to buy things, afford cars and holidays. Or if not, there still is this certainty it's sure gonna happen sometime soon ... life isn't as exciting anymore but still seems so promising and rewarding ... still we feel very much in control of everything and satisfied, more or less ... hungry for more ...

Then at 35 ... well ... all I can say so far is that this was the time I started to question all my earlier decisions ... started to scrutinize the so-called successes and accomplishments as well as the failures and flops, the routines and "safe-harbours", the paths I had chosen and where they were leading ... finding out that what had seemed hugely satisfying or promising at 28 no longer held much attraction. I had come to understand by then how little control we really have over our lives and how all that career thing leaves you with nothing much to hold on to in the end. Just emptyhanded when it comes to your self, your own reality beyond who you may be professionally. Same for relationships ... for the first time I could see clearly which had just been carried along, which had developed, which had failed, which left me empty or flat and which were rewarding in some way ... it was as if I got a clear picture of the whole situation – past and present – looking much deeper for the first time, knowing and understanding that this wasn't what I had wanted and feeling somehow reluctant to go on with it ... decisions had to be made – still have – things had to be straightened out and clarified in some kind of inventory of my own life. I guess that's where I still am, what I'm still doing, despite having a feeling so much has changed already ... such a long way to go yet ...

This is where my seven-year cyclic rhythm experience ends because I do not yet know what's gonna happen in the next stage ... at 42. Seems so far away, but looking back I see how fast time passes. What I expect is that by then I will have to look again and reconsider some of my present decisions, filter again, observe and scrutinize again: where have I been too scared to go all the way, make the right decisions, where have I been driven by fear, where by safety-thinking or a need for comfort, for company ... maybe things will seem more urgent in a few years ... more imminent ... less and less time to lose ...

Then at 49 ... what will that be like, I wonder? I think it's the last chance to really change something after all. Some kind of "now-or-never" situation. If you still act out of fear and safety-thinking, seeking comfort and serving outside expectations you'll probably end up doing that forever, getting a new chance only in a future life ...

Well, so much for my Saturday morning pondering ... thanks to Mike Scott ... if you care to read, here you go: Mike Scott's blog

Awareness and ignorance

Sometimes life is so much of a mystery ... things happen all the time, they come into being and then they pass and we never know for what reason, neither why they appear nor whey they disappear.
Instead of trying to comprehend why they do, I should just take them for what they are, remaining in the moment, simply seeing, enjoying and being grateful for what is pleasant ... accepting what is not ... but my mind is so restless lately, always wondering, pondering, trying to comprehend.

What happened to my assumed 'peace of mind' ... have I been carelessly taking it for granted, endangering it by that? It may just be that way. I felt so content and happy ever since I returned from the desert, nothing could disturb my balance, I felt rooted in reality, mastering my life with so much awareness and gratitude. It was nothing I did with much activity on my part; I had just given up trying to control what was happening – taking life as it came – and that had left me with a certain peace of mind.
It wasn't an easy time – early this summer I had to go through what might have become a bit of a tragedy in the past but I could just watch it and remain in awareness and avoid to fall into the abyss the way I would probably have a year ago. Now, this sounds quite arrogant in a way, and maybe it was ... expecting this 'new condition' to be there for good ... some kind of spiritual armchair ... just sit down, recline and make myself comfortable. Looks like it doesn't work that way – and I guess I knew it all along.

Why is it that we master some things with so much sensitivity and consciousness and others leave us completely lost and helpless. Why can we see the traps and dangers of going wrong so clearly in looking on others but are so often blind when it comes to ourselves?

All spring and summer I have been there for a friend in need, completely forgetting about myself, simply serving the moment, giving my guidance, my comfort, sharing my gifts freely, somehow independent of my self. I could just divine this friend's needs, fears and doubts – somewhere beyond intellect or reason – and gently guide him out of his darkness, back to a point where he could take over again, able to cope and go on by himself. Now I see something similar happen to myself and all I do is squirm and whine, losing patience with myself, blaming myself, dramatizing things instead of accepting them.

What I was able to detect with so much love and understanding in this friend, I find hard to grant myself, looking at myself with a certain rigour and prejudice of how I should be, how I should act and feel. It's silly and I know it – I can see all that, I can see what I'm doing to myself and I still don't seem to be able to act accordingly.
I carry that quiet resentment, that feeling I have been done wrong, played or fooled ... that the world is unfair, concerning a certain situation iny my life. I can not even claim that I know no better, I have no apology or justification for what I'm doing to myself, I am in fact aware of how I cater to my own suffering ... so why don't I just get up and do something, help myself ..? Am I enjoying my momentary misery? I feel so tired and weary, so reluctant to act if that means I have to question myself or my reasons for suffering. Maybe I don't want to look. Or maybe it just seems so arduous or complicated to get to the bottom of things. I am drifting into some kind of inability to act, some resignation or reluctancy to come to terms with myself. Everything feels so idle right now. I feel it is all too much, too strenuous to think about it. But is it really?

I feel like everything is too much for me when really I do not have much to do at all. What do I do but sit around feeling sorry for myself? I make an attempt to get started on something then lose myself in some moment in time, lose my relationship with time and reality and before I know, hours have passed and I still sit there – none the wiser. Later ... always later.

Outside it's dark all the time, or so it feels. It's grey and wet and cold. I miss the colours. I know it doesn't make sense. They won't come back until spring, so why quarrel with reality? And yet, there is a certain mood in the air and it gets at me. Winter depression. I detect it in almost everybody around me right now and I take up the mood. Again, knowing it's stupid to harm myself by doing it. I know better than that. But ... always but.

I guess I will just have to stop typing and start looking and acting. Come face to face with reality. Stop wasting precious time ... sorry for whining like that ....

The Wonderful Wizard

my wonderful wizard grew weary
of life, the world and the wife
leaving him flat, always wanting,
looking for more ...

go! fill that god-sized hole
with another willing victim
a sweet enchanting soul
sharing your chocolate kisses
your dream of love beyond belief

ah, and yet
just another face in the crowd
beautiful, but ...
is it real?
just another online dreamer
prepared to be fooled

pick them out
suck them up
drain them out

leave them emptihanded
but leave – always just leave
nothing is real here
nothing is yours
run home to mommy
she'll pay your bill
take you back – tuck you in
she always does
leaving you flat but provided

how much of a gift
can you really afford to give?

Anam Cara – Communion of Soul to Soul

In the Celtic tradition, there is a beautiful understanding of love and friendship. The old Irish term Anam Cara is translated as soul friend. When one has an Anam Cara, they are joined in an ancient and eternal way with the person who is a friend to their soul.

"Relationships with an anam cara are not made but rather seemingly unfold or are discovered. The anam cara relationship is the awakening of a friendship in which the anam cara sees you as your highest, most beautiful self and with whom you may share the intimacies of your spiritual journey through life. An anam cara may or may not be physically present in your life to serve in that role."

The desert

I've been back for quite a while now and still find it difficult to write anything coherent. There are bits and pieces, single thoughts and reflections, but it seems impossible to write any kind of fluent itinerary concerning my time in the desert. I feel like a lot has happened and changed ever since I went there – and since I have last posted in this blog – but I couldn't name it, really. There are hardly any visible changes, it's more subtle, almost impossible to figure out, even for myself. It's as if the desert perturbed me, messed me up, but in a positive way. Going there has proved a most valuable experience and even though I've spent a relatively short time in the Sinai desert and mountains, it was so much more intense and impressive than any of my other travels so far. The desert made me see a lot of things in a totally different light. There were plenty of wonderful experiences that left me with a somewhat changed perception of the world in several aspects.

Forgive me if my following writing is going to be all jumbled and confused, I haven't yet found a way to put the desert into orderly words (especially not in English) and probably it's a futile effort ... I guess I shouldn't even try but somehow I want to share my impressions and maybe a tiny little bit will still come across and give you a slight insight into what it was like to be there ...

(My favourite valley in the Sinai desert)

When I decided to go into the desert it wasn't mainly because I was looking for a deeper meaning of life or new insights. I also expected the whole thing to be as much of an adventure trip as a spiritual journey. I wasn't searching, but willing to find and be found, to come across things without purpose ... whatever life would decide to provide me with – or put into my way – I was prepared to deal with. I didn't so much want to 'discover' as to 'uncover' what was already there. The only intention I had was to challenge myself, to defy and allay my subliminal fears and bring back to life those things inside me that had become forgotten over the years, numbed by routine, comfort and safety thinking. I wanted to regain access to my natural energies and intuition and felt that the desert might be just the right place to try to do that.

(An especially beautiful multicoloured uromastyx – spiny-tailed lizard)

Despite being extremely curious and keen to discover this mysterious place, fascinating me beyond explanation, I was still pretty scared of what might expect me there. The thought of sleeping under the open sky, without any shelter made me feel kind of awkward ... sandstorms ... the heat ... cold nights ... the thought of all possible creepy-crawly animals, insects and reptiles ... uaargh! Telling myself that I would certainly survive all that, as others have before me, I avoided to think any more than necessary about snakes or the notorious scorpion. But there were other doubts instead ... I had but a vague notion of the Bedouins ... wild and untamed people I'd have to come to terms with ... what would they cook, how would we communicate ... how would I manage to ride a camel – so many tiny yet slightly disturbing worries! You see, I wasn't all pleasant anticipation as my departure drew near, my courage slightly faltered during those last few days ...


(The immense heat around noon blurred all images, making them seem unreal and fugitive ...)

Once there, the desert quickly lost it's horrors. What scared me so much in advance felt just natural being there. Inavoidable, for there were no choices or alternatives anyway. I'd have to accept whatever would occur and try to make the best of it. Like many other problems, the things that made me so nervous in advance, became simple facts in the deserts, to be considered rather than be afraid of. I felt so much at peace, so centered and genuine from the first moment I got there – calm and quiet inside ... no more worries, no more wishes ... everything seemed to be just right, consistent and wholesome. I've never felt so much at home inside myself. All the sorrows back home lost their meaning and were put back into the right proportions. There was nothing to be solved. I completely lost my usual urge to 'take care' of things, being overactive in trying to control them. In an almost buddhist manner I realized that if I just took certain things for what they were – facts instead of problems – they'd probably lose a lot of their impact. I became aware of how often I created my own problems by fighting the facts – the reality of things – instead of accepting what was beyond my influence. How useless ... and how much healthier to just let go of the resistance!


(Waking up under the open sky ... every morning had it's special magic ...)

So, what was the desert like ..? Instead of providing me with the adventure and excitement I had expected to find – snakes, scorpions and all kinds of outer extremes – it proved to be a quite different, more miraculous and mediating experience with an enormously healing effect. Challenging in a quite different way than I had thought before. It was full of things impossible to be foreseen ... where I expected monotonous routines there were umpteen unpredictable moments instead. One can not conquer the desert, or force anything, the only satisfying way is to attune one's own rhythm to that of the desert and with a bit of luck, it'll freely share it's energy. It's been such a precious gift, to be allowed to experience the unbelievable power and strength of the Sinai, the vast stillness, the immense peacefulness, the curative force of this place and it's people, the Arab Bedouins ... so strange and alien to me in the beginning, so dear and familiar after all in the end.



(Bedouin household – baking bread on an open fire in the living room ...)

How much heart and humour is in this people, how much courage and curiosity, love and laughter, tolerance and respect. How little do they meet the cliché we have of the Arab people. Traveling and living with the tribe of the Tarabin was quite an enriching experience. The time I spent with my 'desert family' (consisting of me, six Bedouins and two Bavarian friends) left a lasting impression. I don't think my heart and soul have ever been in such close communion before. I wouldn't have thought something like this to be possible, such an overwhelming anam cara feeling, a real 'epiphany'.




(The desert sure was adventurous, breathtakingly beautiful and very impressive – but it was also a lot of fun ... playing innocent children's games with the Bedouins, joining in their singing and dancing ...)




The Sinai is an unbelievably beautiful place, and yet – as any other desert – never to be understimated. One need not fear or dread the desert, but certainly one has to respect it. It's easy to forget about the dangers, taking them too lightly after a couple of good days, but despite being quite impressive and admirable, the desert regularly reminds you to take it seriously, sending a sudden sandstorm, unexpected rain, terrible heat, it definitely has it's ways ... and yet it has so much to offer, to enjoy and be grateful for. It's powerful and peaceful at once. There's so much beauty and variety there, so much life ... I'd never have expected to find in a desert of all possible places. If you walk and ride with your mind open and willing to see, it's a magical place.



I guess people either love or hate the desert, there's nothing much in between. I couldn't help but fall in love with the desert, it captured my heart and my soul and I'll never be able to forget it or leave it quite behind. A part of me seems to have remained in the desert, leaving me restless for it's peace and beauty, forcing me to come back, again and again. Yes, it does take a little of your soul ... but in exchange you carry a bit of the desert inside yourself, taking it's peacefulness with you, wherever you go after leaving it.

(That tiny little figure with the orange headscarf is me, contemplating and enjoying the unbelievable stillness all around)

Planned or not, the desert really relieved me of most of the ballast, the unnecessary luggage that I carried inside myself. Just like I had been told in advance, it was getting lighter with every step I went further into the depth of the Sinai.
"Water may wash your body, but the desert cleans your soul ..." that's what the Bedouins say ... and also "Somewhere in between laughing and playing lies the remedy for an injured soul" and they're right, I guess.




"Traveling broadens the horizon ..." my grandma used to say – and it does, if one travels with an open heart. How different has it been in the past, when I traveled with merely my eyes wide open, taking not much more than flat pictures with me, too scared of the unknown to try to experience what is beyond my own reality. However picturesque those images may have been, they never became alive the way things do ever since I changed my attitude towards life, towards the world and it's people. Where there used to be frozen images are now lively memories:

... vibrant silence, the breath of the earth, the sound of the stars, ringing like a million bells at night ... to imagine that even the vast endlessness of the universe consists of the infinitely small ... just like the mighty desert consists of tiny grains of sand ... hundreds of different shades and colours, changing with every moment ... desert time ... so different from our occidental time ... flowing like liquid, like sweet thick honey ... sticky and yet fugitive ... timelessness ... no need to measure the minutes, hours, or days ... steps, camel rides, tea breaks ... everything is more important than hours, in this kingdom of light and colours ... of indescribable magic ... the Sinai desert.


(Sometimes even the camels joined us in our meditations ...)

Anam Cara Friendship (John O'Donohue)

John O'Donohue says:

"In everyone's life there is a great need for an Anam Cara, a soul friend. In this love, you are understood as you are without mask or pretension. The superficial and functional lies and half-truths of acquaintance fall away. You can be as you really are. Love allows understanding to dawn, and understanding is precious. Where you are understood, you are at home. Understanding nourishes belonging. When you really feel understood, you feel free to release yourself into the trust and shelter of the other person's soul.

A way of explaining friendship is that between two people friendship awakened. It wasn't manufactured or produced or programmed, but it awakened between them in their meeting. It was almost as if an ancient affinity that was latent in their spirit comes awake and comes alive, and that each is joined in an ancient way with a friend of their soul. People say that friends are made. I don't think friends are made at all, but rather discovered. If you look back along your life, you will see that at the crucial thresholds, different people were sent to you to help you acknowledge what was going on, to recognize your own responsibility, and to bring you over thresholds. The most creative growth points in our inner journey are all due to the assistance, graciousness and surprise that friendship brings.

Friendship has a secret logic and a secret destiny. Something that's startling about one's friends is that the first meeting was so contingent and so seemingly accidental; and yet, if you look back now, your life would be unimaginable without the friends who have helped to shape you and give birth to your soul. To put it more pictorially still, it's utterly fascinating to me that no human person ever sees their own face. We look in mirrors and we have images, but we never see our own faces. And we never see our own bodies fully either. A friend is a true mirror in which we begin to get some little glimpse of who we are and the immensity that we carry - and that sometimes haunts us. Friendship is the shelter; and it's not a complacent shelter but a shelter that settles some primal restlessness down within us. It liberates us to get into the dance of our own life."

Always remember ...

"Paths only come into being by walking them ..." (Franz Kafka)

Lilli goes to the desert ...

Here I am again – I know I've made myself pretty scarce lately, but there was just so much to plan and organize and a lot of work, leaving little time for anything else.
I'm almost gone, leaving for the desert tomorrow, my bag is packed and whenever I look at it I find it hard to believe that's all I'm gonna take with me, wondering at the same time if I'll really need all that stuff. But since I had been given a packing list I'll just trust in it to be all right. What do I take with me? A sleeping bag, an inflatable mat, alarmingly few clothes, and a whole lot of tiny yet seemingly indispensable stuff, like torches, a swiss army knife, a compass, a variety of cords and straps for whatever reasons ... I guess I'll find out once I'm there. I have sold my car yesterday, I guess I'll miss it whenever I'm back but for now I won't need it and decided not to worry too much, I couldn't really afford it anyway.

Every now and then I wonder what came over me when I decided to make this journey ... going into the desert. Why I suddenly felt such a strong need to experience the vast stillness, the brooding solitude and fierce beauty of the desert, see the indescribably starry sky, feel the stinging heat at daytime and the biting cold at nighttime. My sudden desire to meet the people who live there, spending all their lives under these circumstances, so unreal and inconceivable from my central european point of view. Now I'm going to the Sinai desert, travelling with the Bedouin people, the tribe of the Tarabin. Apart from me there'll be two other european travellers, meditation teachers. I haven't met them before but we have been exchanging e-mails and I'm pretty much looking forward to meeting them in Egypt. It's going to be quite an adventure for me, sleeping out in the open all the time, no tent or shelter except the heaven's tent, the enormous sky above me. We are going to have camels to carry the bigger part of our equipment (and us, whenever we feel like riding a camel). Right now I don't see myself doing that, but you'll never know ... maybe I'll end up enjoying it after all! In the evenings the Bedouin will prepare the camp fire and cook a simple meal and I'm full of anticipation for all those new experiences, the impressions, the possible insights and perceptions.

Talking to people who have been travelling through the desert before, they all agree in one thing: nobody comes back unchanged. The desert is said to have a purifying effect, clarifying the thoughts, putting things back into the right proportions. Not just sorrows and problems but also our own ego. They say it's not the equipment you carry into the desert that is your main luggage. It's the mental luggage we carry and the camels can't help us with that. But normally it's the luggage that will get easier to carry with every day and hopefully it can be left in the desert, so we travel home a lot lighter ... Well, I wonder – but I'll just let things happen and see for myself.

I won't have any chance to write here for some time now but I'll carry my little notebooks and tell you about it later, inshallah ...

Take care, ma'as salaama!

Bad habits ...

I really came here to finish a post I've been starting to write weeks ago. After writing a couple of sentences though, I heard there was a new text message on my cellphone and went to fetch it. Rising from my chair I suddenly felt all giddy, like my head was spinning. It took a while until everything turned back from black to normal and I sat there wondering what had caused this qualm when I realized I had not eaten anything but a few crackers for almost 48 hours. Can you believe it, I had simply forgotten to eat – again! I remember having thought about preparing some kind of lunch for myself yesterday but being all absorbed in what I was doing, I didn't want to stop and postponed the idea. Later the hunger must have ceased for I really do not remember having wasted another thought on eating ever since. When I got up this morning my mind was already so filled with ideas and plans for the day, I never thought of breakfast. There might have been the slightest notion that something was missing, I admit, but I didn't feel hungry at all and so I postponed eating, once more.
This tends to happen a lot to me lately and I'm sure it's a really bad habit, especially as I'm already a very poor 'drinker'. I never feel thirsty and as a result I forget to drink. Often I'll realize at night that I haven't nearly drunk the liter of water or tea that I intended to (I know it's still too little but all I manage most of the time). This goes so far that several people send me text messages, reminding me to drink. Like the one I had just stood up for. It was my mother asking whether I'm drinking sufficiently. What am I to tell her? "Well thanks, mom! Yes, I have tea here, alright. But please remind me of eating, will you ...?". She'll think I have gone nuts.

I guess I'll put up notes "Intake Of Food!" for myself at significant places. The computer screen might be a good idea. Or the mirror. And maybe I should put post-its on all the books I'm reading. If I get any thinner, I'll fit into kid's apparel, which is not really my intention. This has to stop. Anybody out there with a good idea how to remind oneself of eating? Isn't the body meant to perform this by suggesting a feeling of hunger? What's wrong with me? I have once read that this happened to Albert Einstein a lot – forgetting to eat or drink, that is. Just – I'm afraid the ideas that preoccupy myself aren't half as profound ...

Okay, I'll get myself something to eat. Though the hunger is already gone again, writing. Yeah, still – I'll eat. Promise.

The Wonder of It All

Do you ever wonder
at the wonder of it all?

Do you ever stand in awe
of the tiniest things
and how perfectly they work together?

Do you ever stop to think
about all the possibilities
and how even though they have no limit
they grow in number with every minute?

Do you ever wonder
when the leaves flutter down in autumn
at the incomprehensible power of life
that brings them back in spring?

Do you watch the waves roll in
and then look out far beyond them
where the water seems to touch the sky
and realize
that the vast expanse before your eyes
is only a small little corner
of all there really is?

And do you comprehend that all there really is,
as unimaginably grand as it may seem,
is only a smaller corner still
of all that there can be?

Do you ever wonder
how love can stay alive
past every pleasure and every pain
and even when there can be no hope
there is more than ever?

Do you ever struggle to lift a heavy rock and wonder
how a massive mountain can rise
thousands of feet above the plain
without even trying?

Do you ever realize that
no matter how much you may know,
no matter how many wonders you may have experienced,
there will always, always be more?

Do you ever wonder
why it is you wonder
and why you know what beauty is
even though you can't define it?

Do you ever wonder
who is doing the wondering,
who is looking out through your eyes
and feeling completely at home
with the wonder of it all?

Whatever you believe,
whatever you profess,
whatever you doubt or fear or hope for,
there are some things
your heart cannot deny
when you let go
and let yourself know
the wonder of it all.

Copyright © 2003 Ralph S. Marston

Healing

Yes, I'm back and very much alive again. Like an injured animal I secluded myself, withdrawing into the wilderness, licking my wounds ...

Last month, when it was coming close on Christmas, I felt I just couldn't cope anymore. I abandoned work, family and friends, Christmas and New Year's Eve and escaped into the mountains, seeking quietness, seeking salvation, seeking clarity.

And I found it there – in the snow, in the silent depth of the forests, in the damp pillowy moss, lying like green carpets in the sun wherever the snow didn't reach. I found it in the beauty of the countless icicles and in the soft sound of the frozen mountain brooks, flowing on and on underneath their bizarre icy covers.
It was a different world from the summer mountains altogether, quiet and almost motionless. The snow deadened every noise with the exception of the gnashing sound of my steps and my breath. Being outside all day and in all weather, experiencing nature and realizing how everything is coherent and interdependent made me understand how this is also true for my own life. I found myself looking at all that snow and ice and water, understanding how they are all connected, how they are all one despite being different from one another, each with it's own beauty and own purpose and yet none better than or superior to each other, and I found myself looking at the bare trees, thinking of how they will start to bud again soon, nurtured by soil that was once leaves ... reflecting on nature's diversity and constant change I became aware of how this is true for everything in this world, how I am also part of this nature, subject to change, bound to it's laws and the universal principle of life: everything is subject to impermanence. And that's that. The universe won't make an exception just because it's me out there.

Trying to internalize this simple truth, raising a deeper and deeper awareness, I suddenly found I felt all peaceful and blithe. At first I didn't dare trust this new found peace of mind but the fears and worries did not return. Instead I felt so energetic again, so soulful, grateful and brimful of life.

I needed to move, I felt like dancing up the mountains but the amount of snow stopped me and finally I went ... snowshoeing! What a revelation! You get everywhere, places you wouldn't reach in the deep snow, not on foot and certainly not on ski. I managed to reach summits I had been to last summer ... and what a different sight now in the snow. I was warned beforehand not to leave certain areas to avoid disturbing the animals in their dormant, but still – everything in front of me seemed like a vast whiteness, completely quiet and devoid of human life. All I found were animal tracks and odd marks left by tiny blobs of snow, skidding down the slopes. The single snow crystals were the biggest I had ever seen, some almost the size of a fingernail, and they twinkled and sparkled like huge diamonds in the sun. Everything was so breathtakingly beautiful and I found myself filled with wonder again and again.

What can I say. I came home full of tranquility and contentment. Confidently looking forward to everything this new year will bring, all the change to the better or the worse ... I'll try to carry it with more wisdom than I managed in the past ... finally living up to my old motto:

"I would love to live like a river flows, carried by the surprise of it's own unfolding." (John O'Donohue)