Restlessness

Today, I want it all!! Darn moral codes and values – senseless – everything could be so simple without them, for sure.

Just what is that pull ... that pining ... that yearning? It hit me last night, out of the blue, from one second to the next. I felt alone yet wanted nobody there. Nobody who was available anyway...

And there is more ... I want to do too many things but lack the time, or the money. Work gets in my way. Moral ethics get in my way. Social conventions. Nothing's enough. Or already too much.

It's just one of these days. I know it will pass, but it can be agonizing at times. I'll never understand where it comes from when it happens without warning, arising from nothingness. Or where it disappears, from one moment to the next. No explanations, no clues.

It's like a physical pain sometimes, as if I'm being torn in two. Hungry, thirsty, craving ... and I cannot even say what it is that I so desire then – whatever I can't have maybe. More ... of what? Maybe just something else than what I have. It all seems so dull and worn at times ... futile, mediocre.

And all the time I know that once I'd have that "something else", it wouldn't be the right thing again, not over any length of time. I have everything already, everything I need ... and more, much more.

Maybe I crave perfection ... when there is no perfection. Or is there?

I try to remain in the moment, but still ... I want that moment to be different ... right here, right now ... I wanna shine, burn ... I want passion, fervor, life ... oooooh, life ... I taste it and it overwhelms me.
I can't get enough. I want, I want, I want ... I wanna embrace life wholeheartedly, passionately, without reserve ... when the one thing that gets in my way there is life itself. Can you hear the universe laughing? Hahaha!

Where does serenity go when it can no longer stand the silence?

As I said, I know this mood will pass. I've been working too much. I haven't been out in the open ever since I returned from the country and I miss that desperately, even after only a few days.

I need the night
the air
the stars
the smell of the wet grass
by the lake

nightbirds
fireflies
moonlight
upon my skin

I need to run real fast
swing high up in the air
spin around and around and around
with the wind catching in my hair
until I fall down on the ground
laughing, crying, laughing
hopefully
breathing it all out
the want, the need, the restlessness.
the thought of those hands
upon my body

gone

what is your cure?
what do you do?

Summertime & Happiness

I’m loving this summer. Not that it’s remarkable in any way, it’s just one of these half-hearted summers, somewhat undecided. One week you’re melting, the next you’re freezing your ass off. I must admit I do not even know what I love about it, other than ... umm... everything?

Haha – I know this doesn’t make any sense but it’ll have to do. Fact is, I have no explanation. Maybe summer is really just an extra in all this, maybe I’m just loving this life right now, summer or not. Yeah, I guess that’s it ... I’m so in love with life, with the cosmos, with everything. I’m happy! (Cheesy, I know ... but couldn't care less).

Yep, in spite of the occasional pain and sadness, the struggle and doubts I temporarily give in to, what I fall back on, again and again – and what seems to be a much more natural condition – is happiness ... soulfulness, joie de vivre ... a simple, accepting, all-embracing joy. Finding beauty in the little things ... in simplicity, in the seemingly boring, the plain, the unspectacular ... so sublime.

For me, reconnecting with nature is usually the key. I am not much of an indoors person. As much as I can lose myself in a book or in front of the computer at times, I find to be true what Charles Eisenstein says in „The Ascent of Humanity“ (http://www.ascentofhumanity.com) – that „the more I come to live in those artificial realities, the more separate I become from the inherently fascinating realm of nature and self…“.

Turning too „indoor-centered“, I normally start feeling discontent, bored and unhappy after a while. Things that started out being fun or some simple diversion – doing stuff on the computer, surfing the internet, watching movies, reading books – they end up being more or less dissatisfying and unfulfilling if pursued over any length of time.

As soon as I step out of the door though, I feel those tensions lighten up. My worries fall off me, to an amazing degree. Going for a walk – taking a deep breath, paying full attention to my senses – is often the best remedy against getting too caught up in my own head.

It’s where beauty happens …

Like last week, when I almost forced myself out the door, going for a walk in the twilight, expecting nothing but a bit of fresh air. But there I stood ... watching the sky blend into the lake, concertedly melting into shades of pastel, consuming the horizon in their pairing ... completely in awe! All boundaries vanished as the glassy surface of the water turned into a giant kaleidoscope, a magic mirror, duplicating and distorting the indistinct reflections of clouds and trees, boats and birds, street lights and landing stages, creating something new – pure color and shape, void of any meaning – volatile beauty.

The falling darkness transformed everything once again, one by one the colors fell away, turning from violet to blue, from grey to black, shapes shifting into silhouettes.

Sitting by the nocturnal lake, I suddenly found myself shrouded by a blanket of scent and sound ... the spicy smell of the damp, dewy meadows ... the quirky cacophony of countless frogs quaking away on the water lilies ... myriads of fireflies shimmering and dancing amidst the dark silhouettes of the tall wild grasses, like little fairy lanterns, so enchanting. (Come to think about it, I don’t think I have ever seen this many fireflies before, there is an abundance of them this summer, they must be loving this humid heat...)

Beauty seems to find me wherever I go and whatever I do lately ... it’s stunning at times ... like that triple rainbow the other day – another thing I’ve never seen before. It started out as a plain, yet huge and intensely lush, rainbow – beautiful to look at. I stopped under a tree to watch it rise ... its bright colors against the daunting, dark grey sky ... the sunlight tinting the trees a glaring yellow-green ... oh, grace and wonder. Standing there in the rain, I suddenly noticed a second rainbow forming right on top of the first one, spanning the whole valley. They were the biggest, brightest rainbows I had ever seen, breathtakingly beautiful, almost unreal. I couldn’t stop staring at them, all abuzz with fascination and awareness ... and then a third rainbow appeared, in a little distance to the first two ones, partly overlapping with them.
It’s impossible to describe the beauty of that moment, the intensity of that natural phenomenon, and how it touched me. It filled me with such a deep gratitude, sensation on every possible level, bringing a peace and contentment far beyond the satisfaction that comes with the somewhat entertaining but more shallow distractions of „indoor life“, the more labored, forced amusements I sometimes seek.

„Happiness is only real when being shared“, somebody said. My first impulse was to agree, but I’m not so sure anymore. I guess it can be real even when experienced all alone. Happiness has to come first, it must be real first, for me to develope a desire to share it, right? Sharing it can sure magnify and enhance it to some extent, but my ability to really experience it – to feel it – depends directly on me being connected and not separate from my self. If I am, if I am truly whole, happiness comes as a natural condition ... it’s only from there that I can share. Taking it a step further – maybe the truth is that whenever we’re really connected, in harmony with the universe, radiating that „inner bling“ – whatever we feel, we become – and in that, we cannot NOT share!

"Amen" ... haha!

Should we talk about the weather..??

This summer is just unreal so far. The weather has been crazy ever since I returned from Colorado – it's been so cold, I had to turn on the heating even as late as mid June when normally I turn it off by mid May. With the summer solstice it got a little warmer, or maybe I should say – the rain turned a little warmer – for that's what happened, it started pissing down like mad ... diluvian rain, for two weeks, making me feel all weary and irritable. The sound of the rain never ceased ... rain, rain, rain ... only interrupted by some violent hail or thunderstorms every now and then. When it finally stopped, the sudden silence was almost scary.

Within two days, it turned boiling hot. I guess you can imagine the effect of the soaking wet ground heating up like this ... jeez – outside it's steaming!! Some stifling muggy wash house climate. Everything’s damp. Even inside the house the air is so humid that the wallpapers start to peel and the books curl at the edges. Leaving the house, the skin turns sticky and sweaty within seconds. The slightest move is too much, too fast, too strenuous an action...

I haven’t experienced this kind of moist, humid summer in years. I feel like I'm in South Central Georgia again ... wondering how those Dixie storms managed to make it all the way here ... it’s raining every other afternoon now, along with heavy thunderstorms. After the rain, it usually cools down a bit, but in the morning the heat is back, steaming up the air ("what air?", one is tempted to ask) in no time.

For the first few days I felt just fuzzy, listless and somewhat paralyzed, but I must admit that I'm starting to like it somehow. I feel „comfortably numb“ – actually, it’s not such an unpleasant feeling, temporarily losing all sense of time and space and purpose. Days just merge into one another, slipping right through my fingers. Everything is blurry, like not really real ... last night, yesterday, last week, ten days ago ... it matters not, it all feels the same. Far away, dream-like, irrelevant ... laissez-faire is the only attitude one manages to maintain in this heat.

I wish I had a wooden front porch with a rocking chair where I could sip my iced tea in the evening breeze ... I'd close my eyes and dream of the south ...



But no, I'm not complaining – for the first time in a long time, I'm pretty content being where I am. Maybe the "where" really doesn't matter that much at times. I feel like I carry it all right inside lately, everything I'd normally seek in the distance ... beauty, peace, harmony, adventure ... whatever. Maybe it's myself, providing places with all that, myself carrying it there, my own mind creating my own reality. I normally just don't even try to find it where I am anymore, assuming it is some place else. I guess it's not. It's right here.

These past few weeks have been filled with bliss, beauty and wonder. So much to be grateful for, so many moments of happiness, of peaceful adventure, moments of joy and pleasant surprise, moments of love ... moments that make everything else seem worthwhile, no matter what.

What a wondrous, wonderful life this can be – right here where I am.

Life and Me and Henry Miller ...

Yesterday night I have been talking to a friend about how Henry Miller's books have influenced both our lives so much – and how a lot of people are really amazed to hear that, not thinking Henry Miller's books are actually the stuff that guides you anywhere, life-changing or enlightening or whatever. There is other books that seem to be classics when it comes to that ... but Miller???? Just why is it his books are so often confined to the scandalous or the obscene? Well, I think maybe these people just didn't read with their hearts and minds open enough ... maybe they couldn't see. Or maybe they didn't read Miller at all. There is a lot of spirituality in Miller's books, a lot of wisdom and insight. It will be different things for different people and I don't claim my perception of his writings to be the only possible one – I sure have my very own, very particular, very lilli-ish relationship with Henry Miller, influenced by my own complex past and self, others have their's ... well, so.

When I first laid hands – and eyes – upon a Henry Miller book I must have been about thirteen – and that had nothing to do with it's contents at all. The book was 'Tropic of Cancer' ... it was bound in purple velvet with red and silver print and had a wonderful abstract illustration of a crab on the front cover. It looked so wonderfully louche and bohemian – I was completely mesmerized by it for years and years. I must admit I have always had a certain liking for louche aesthetics ...

I was about sixteen when I finally read 'Tropic of Cancer' and I was almost disappointed, having assumed to be in for something lewd, judging by the blurb and preface. As it was though, it couldn't actually shock me much. My family was not quite what one might call decent middle-class, my aunts running a whorehouse, one uncle in jail for armed bank robbery, another a shady croupier in a big casino. They were pimps and peculators, gamblers and cheats, at home in the boxing arenas and racecourses of Germany. My mother would tell them again and again to watch their language with us but they never managed for any long time and you bet: my brother and I just loved to hang with them ... it was another world, so fascinating, so seemingly dangerous, so "out of bounds" ... it seemed as irreal as TV or the movies, somewhere between 'Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn' and 'Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid'. Sometimes my aunts would take us to the brothel (while it was closed, mind you!) where we would sit by the bar on those high, wooden stools, hypnotized by the sounds of the slot machines, feeling strangely excited, completely in awe of the place. The women working there would smother and mother us, teaching us how to play poker and blackjack, letting us win most of the time, so that we always came home with huge amounts of extra pocket money which we had to hide from my mom in order to avoid her getting suspicious or even worse: making us give it back. It was a wild time and always made for interesting stories with our friends ...

Of course, that's only half the truth – just one side of the coin. As you can probably imagine, there was also a lot of bullshit connected to growing up amongst a horde of ... well, – hookers and criminals, really. But what I meant to make clear was that it sure kept me from being especially appalled by any of Henry Miller's writings. I had grown up with all that seemingly obscene language and I knew how it was just words – different words than those we were supposed to use, yet somewhat more honest and direct, often enough spoken with much more feeling (not necessarily positive though) than the hypocritically polite vocabulary used in most of my friend's houses.

What I found with 'Tropic of Cancer' was a book that for the first time blended the two clashing realities I had known so far: the poetic eloquence my literary grandfather had aquainted me with and the blatantly vulgar vocabulary of the streets ... I was thunderstruck, absolutely fascinated. I have always had a special relationship with words, loving them for their sound or feel, without even caring what they mean at times ... and here was Henry Miller ... overwhelming me with his lavish use of them: new words, strange words, complicated and exotic words ... I'm not sure I paid much attention to the actual story when I first read it, all I remember is that it left me hungry for more.

So I snatched 'Sexus' from my parents bookshelf. On the outside it didn't look half as exciting as 'Tropic of Cancer', but ... wow! This time I must admit I was indeed kind of shocked, stunned at the very least. I mean, it was so much more explicit – it may be different for a male teenage reader, I don't know – but as a girl of sixteen or seventeen I was kind of repelled by his detailed descriptions, disgusted even. The way he was talking about sex was like miles from the romantic notions I might have nurtured back then. And yet I couldn't stop reading – I sensed something almost mysterious behind his words, something deeper, something beyond my grasp. I remember I merely skipped over the "raunchy" parts (I couldn't stand the way they made me blush and left me feeling all bashful) but the honesty and frankness of the book had an enormous effect on me. I was reading it in English and didn't understand half of it, neither literally nor figuratively and after stumbling through maybe one third of it, I gave up on 'Sexus' for the time being.

I didn't know anything about Miller back then, he was just a name, just some author. I didn't know any of the backgrounds to his stories. The Henry of his books seemed to be a fictional character to me, yet a strangely touching one. He came across as being so human, so real and likeable in all his scruffiness and that intrigued me quite a bit.

Years passed and I was well in my twenties when I touched 'Sexus' again. It was amazing, it suddenly felt like a completely different book. It couldn't floor me with it's language anymore – I mean, I was warned, I knew what was coming and my notions on sex had become somewhat less innocently romantic by then – but it left me speechless, once again. What struck me unexpectedly was the depth, the profoundness, the straightforwardness and stark honesty with which Miller laid open his innermost self.

I came to adore Henry Miller. In 1994 I read 'The Colossus of Maroussi' – my favourite of all Miller's books – and that finally sealed my high esteem of the man. It was a revelation in terms of insight, history, philosophy, apperception and the relativity of truth. Greece seemed to come alive in front of my eyes and I yearned to go there and explore it for myself. One year later I finally did, ending up on a Kaiki, a greek fishing boat, in a little harbour on the Peloponnese, near Epidaurus, facing the island of Hydra. I would spend night after night sitting on deck with a petrol lamp and a glass of Retsina, with just a dog and hundreds of mosquitoes for company, reading Miller ... not exclusively but to a great extent. It's forever etched on my memory, the atmosphere of those nights ... the distant noise of the taverns by the harbour, the greek music and voices, the smell of garlic and mediterranean herbs and the distinct tasty smell of the inevitable gyros being prepared in the bar by the pier. My time with Henry, yeah!

My english friends were laughing at me, joking I was too young to waste my life on a dead guy, however ingenious, that there were other men out there, alive even ... but I was smitten. For weeks on end, every night, there was just Henry Miller ... and Lilli clinging to his every word, smitten with his eloquence, smitten with the truth he spoke. By then, I had long come to understand that his writing was mainly autobiographical and I admired him for his arresting candor. I still had to swallow hard at certain chapters, still felt myself blushing, happy to be alone and unobserved while reading – but first and foremost it was the deep and sharp, pictorial thinking that had me hooked on him. That and the way he described people and places, making them come alive through his words. It was a gift I came to highly appreciate ever after, a gift I would forever seek and venerate, in my heroes as much as in the everyman.

The complexity of Miller's character fascinated me. He was a failure in the eyes of some ... and yet some kind of hero. A heartbreaker and an asshole at the same time. A poet and a plague. How somebody could be so obscene and yet so gentle, so careless and yet so profound – so bemusing ... it simply sent my head spinning. Reading Miller I started to question a lot of things – but most of all my own thinking and (mis-)conceptions. The second time I read 'Sexus' it was not so much the action or the words that fascinated me but the person Henry – I was mesmerized with this personality ... so real, so wild.

My sailor friends brought back a biography from England but reading it I found that all I needed to know was already there in his own books. He gave me food for thought, causing me to reflect on a lot of things, but as I returned to Germany by the end of the year, I became too busy to read or occupy my mind with Miller – or any other writer – for a long time. My obsession with Henry Miller ebbed off, yet his way of seeing things had influenced my thinking quite a bit – and for good, I tend to say.

I didn't touch his books for more than ten years. Then there was this day last winter, when picking a book by buddhist writer Pema Chödrön to take to bed with me to read, I suddenly found myself staring at 'Sexus' and felt a sudden urge to take that one instead. And once more it was like ... wow!!! It was all there again, right upon reading the first pages ... so stunning, moving, touching, exciting, stimulating and arousing ... in more than one aspect. But just like the last time, it was like reading a different book yet again. It was like the book had grown with me or I with the book ... I found myself almost dumbfounded by paragraphs and sentences I couldn't even remember to have read the last time. They kind of jumped out of the pages, sometimes shouting at me, sometimes whispering ... as spiritual as anything possibly can be, or so it seemed to me. So much wisdom in there. This time it really touched my heart and soul, somewhere beyond fascination, much deeper. My understanding of his words was a different now. I could feel the pain and the many shattered dreams, the lost hopes and illusions ... and still so much joy, so much optimism, faith and strength ... Miller's energy is so contagious, almost addictive. He makes me hungry for this life, always. Vibrant with joy and a restlessness to go out there and live, just live, in spite of all and everything, in spite of life itself even.

The beauty of his words is so rough and true and universal, so all-enclosing and evocative, it's staggering. I read 'Sexus' and it adds a new dimension to reality, a dimension that reconciles the right with the wrong, reconciles irony and hope, joy and bitterness. I can see beauty in the obscene and wisdom in the trivial, the devine in the dirt and dust of everyday life. Lightness in the seemingly overbearing. It brings out every possible emotion in me, the whole spectrum of colours and moods. It makes me want to have a relationship with reality that is true, genuine ... somewhere beyond the dullness and routine ... direct, instantaneous, full of passion. It makes me want to risk more, defiant of potential pain or fear, despite possible shattered illusions.

Henry Miller ... somewhere beyond or besides or beneath being so drawn into his words and his world, he led me to see my own world so much clearer, bringing me much closer to it. What a genius he is, a wordsmith, an alchemist ...

My ice cold winter wonderland …

Aah, I'm sad … this is my last day in Austria, my final night in the mountains. In spite of worrying quite a bit before I left (due to some family related issues) and in spite of the rather nasty cold, I've been enjoying my time here a lot. Over the years this tiny village, nestled in between the Dachstein and the Tennen mountain range, has become "a home away from home”, a place where I love to be, where I feel welcome and comfy and at peace with myself and the world.

My stay didn't quite turn out the way I expected — upon my arrival in the valley I was informed that an avalanche had cut off the gravel road that leads to the little cabin I was planning to stay in and that it wouldn't be accessible for the next few weeks. Thankfully, a friend quickly offered me a room on their farmstead, next door to my mom and her husband, and in spite of being somewhat disappointed not to be able to spend my time the way I had hoped for (a little further away from the village – and, the family..!), I gratefully accepted. Yet I wonder what would have happened if the avalanche had come down only AFTER I had reached the cabin?? Would it still have taken weeks to clear the road?

Anyway, so I ended up staying at this mountain farm, living in a cosy little room facing the Tennen Mountain Range. What a wonderful view upon waking up!!! My window is facing west, so I can not really see the sun as it rises in the morning, but I can watch the peaks in front of my window turn from blue to pink, from salmon to yellow and finally white, as they reflect the sunlight — it's so lovely to watch: those changing colors, the light's play — every morning I wake in anticipation of this spectacle …




This wing of the farmhouse is next to the stables and sometimes when I wake right before dawn, all curled up underneath the warm sheets, I listen to the noise of the cattle being milked, the light sound of the horse sleigh bells as the sleighs are taken out of the coach house, the panting and stamping of the horses … and in spite of the awful cold it makes me feel all cosy and snug, I bury myself deep in my pillows and under my giant down duvet where the cold can't reach me and go back to sleep until the first daylight comes up and wakes me again — this time to the sound of the heating being turned on — and I stay in bed watching the mountains change colour … by the time they turn from salmon to yellow the room is usually warm enough to dare come out of my eiderdown shelter and finally face the day, take a shower, have breakfast and get dressed for the world outside … which means covering my body with down again, haha, turning into something that resembles a marshmallow at best, a fat little "Michelin Man" at worst … these past few days we have had degrees way below zero (in Celsius anyway), dropping as low as -17°C / 1°F at daytime.


(click pictures for bigger view)

yeah, I look funny, I know! Just look at those mittens above, haha! A friend gave them to me, they may not be exactly elegant but I wouldn't have been able to take all these pictures without them in the freezing cold, they're the perfect photographer's winter equipment, a fingerless glove and a mitten all in one, real cool!




Looking like a marshmallow man I leave the house at about ten every morning, going for long walks, hikes or snowshoeing tours, either by myself or with family or friends. I always feel a little odd and clumsy, trying to move with all the many layers of cloth, heavy boots, hat, scarf and mittens on me …
Out there, what I find though — once I start moving and forget about the cold and the clumsiness — is a near perfect winter wonderland … a bleak but beautiful landscape, formed of patterns, shapes and texture, sun and shadow constantly painting pictures onto the snowy white canvas spread across the land, pictures that change from one minute to the next, everything is in motion and yet nothing moves.



(click pictures for bigger, better view)
The world is frozen still, motionless underneath the wandering light, the everchanging shadows giving the illusion of a liveliness that ceases as soon as the sun disappears for even the briefest of moments. A fierce cold is all that remains, a world void of colour other than shades of grey and blue … a hostile, threatening blue that bites my face as much as my soul, creeping up my back and under my skin, sending shivers up and down my spine … it's impossible to stand that cold blue — that blue cold — for any length of time, to keep on moving is the only way to escape — that, and praying for the sun to return soon. Until then, my batteries run on emergency power, moving like a robot, not thinking, not dreaming, not looking right or left … one foot in front of the other, looking down, head pulled in between the shoulders, making my way to some lodge, some fire place, some hot cocoa … to come alive again and finally find the strength and motivation to face the way back home, ha!


Do I sound unenthused? Haha! Truth is, as unpleasant as it sounds when I describe it like that — and as much as I curse that blue cold while being exposed to it, for sure — I still adore it! It's some kind of love-hate thing, I guess. I love the way the cold makes the following warmth seem so much more wonderful and valuable … I like the challenge of being out and about in that kind of weather, the way it makes me become aware of nature's strength and power and the beauty and wonder of being able to move therein.



It's a world of opposites — one moment everything seems dead and gone, like the world is hibernating, even the colors and sounds — but it only takes a single ray of sunshine sometimes, to make everything come alive again. It's fascinating and enchanting and at times I can completely lose myself in that, following the light's play with my eyes, listening to the stillness, simply being alive. I stop all the time, looking here and there, taking pictures of wayward findings, odd little details, snow that glistens and shines like rhinestone in the sun, snow crystals as big as pebbles, looking like feather and down, so soft and flaky, like it's not cold at all, haha! What a mistake — I'm reminded immediately upon touching it with my bare hands, ouch!





The weather is changing all the time, too. Up here in the mountains a bunch of clouds in the distance can turn into a nightmare above my head within minutes. A sky so blue that it hurts my eyes can turn grey and black while I have a quick cup of cocoa in a ski lodge. I have been told all sorts of scary stories, people getting lost in these mountains, caught by thunderstorms, dying in landslides and avalanches and whatnots … and I will admit I'm a bit of a coward, I have no intention of risking my neck or other important body parts, especially not when I'm out all alone, so I always ask the locals for weather forecasts and trail conditions before I start, making sure there are lodges within reach of the trails so I can rest and warm up and — most importantly for a gourmand like me — grab some decent food! I must stay strong, after all, and in the cold one burns sooooo many calories …

In fact, this year places to go have been pretty limited, due to the somewhat odd weather and snow conditions. Many trails are not accessible in this deep, way too fluffy snow — at least not by foot. Even with snowshoes or touring ski it's difficult and rather hazardous now, with the — unseasonably — high risk of avalanches. There are quite a few summits that have lifts or ropeways going up but usually that means just tons of people and completely crowded lodges, which I'm none too mad about, so most of my favourite peaks are subject to being adored from the distance only this winter, looking up from below instead of the other way round, the way I'd prefer. Well, if I see the mountains at all, that is! Right now there is no trace of them on the horizon, like some greedy giant has stolen them overnight.



(somebody just stole the mountains ... click for bigger view!)
The place where they should be is one huge, murky, grey plane, a misty swirling of clouds hanging so deep you no longer reckognize them as clouds. Yesterday's blizzard brought tons of ice and new snow and the sky has been completely cast over ever since, it feels like it hardly lights up during the day. It put an early end to my tours and hikes, limiting the possibilities to spend the day quite a bit, but it's still beautiful.

The trees … they look like they are covered in icing and sugar now, every little twig is coated in white — multitudes of teensy-weensy white ice-cubes, so funny to look at! Many of the young alder trees are bending and breaking under the heavy, frozen snow, exposing the fresh orange wood on their inside, the colorful splinters forming a strange contrast to the monochrome blue and white around them, looking almost obscene.



(click pictures for bigger, better view)

Ice, ice and more ice … everything is freezing over, even the creek has disappeared, though I can still hear it's babbling sound. Way down underneath it's heavy, gently rounded ice crust, it still flows, invisible to the beholder.
All the hundreds of little waterfalls coming out of the hillsides, they have turned into scary gatherings of icicles, looking like mighty spear heads, like the hastate portcullis' of ancient castles …






In spite of the weather, I went for a long, final walk today, partly following the cross country ski tracks (as far as I could see them in the mist), partly trudging through the deep snow … I so love the crunching noise of the snow, it always has a rather becalming effect on me, almost tranqulizing..! Today though, in the dense fog, everything sounded quite different, somewhat muted, subdued, like really "flat".
There was no trace of the sun, as well — it seems to have disappeared with the mountains for good. The cold became unbearable after a while, my face was frozen so stiff, I couldn't even move my lips to greet a fellow hiker, it was simply impossible to form a single word, ha! Hard to believe this was the same trail I walked only a couple of days ago, when reaching the summit and being exposed to the sun, it was so warm that I could pull off my jumper and sit there in a t-shirt, getting a tan (umm, okay — more like freckles in my case...). That day the sky was almost brash blue and instead of the vast nothingness, there was a mass of summits in front of me, it was silent as well, but in a different way, a distinct crystal clear silence … broken only by nature itself, the whistling noise of the wind, the soft, fissling sound of little snow clods sliding down the slopes … every now and then I could hear a bird in the distance, it's song echoing off the mountain face. I even saw a few roebucks while I sat there that day, moving about noiselessly — something I could not even imagine today, with zero visibility.

That day was special in more than one regard, seeing those deer was an exception, for sure. Fact is, most of the wild animals I saw during my time here were dead … elks and chamois, shot by Dutch hunters. A few days ago I went down to the valley to have dinner with my mom and her husband, when a couple of dead elks blocked my way ... the hunters were posing proudly and dozens of photographs were taken of the men and their prey. The snow in front of them was blood-soaked and the giant stag's antlers formed a spooky silhouette against the backdrop of the violet evening sky … so majestic those animals looked … such a sad sight ... their dead eyes wide open, their necks bent in the most bizarre of angles, their bodies still warm enough to steam in the cold … what a shame.
Considering that the above "event" was nothing too special for anybody involved, I no longer wonder why it is that by day I find all these animal traces but hardly ever come across any of their causers … quite different from what I experienced in the Rocky Mountains, wildlife hides all day in these parts of the world, coming out of the woods at night only, knowing all too well that their heads carry the hunter's favourite trophies …

Ah, it's getting late, I guess I must come to a close now, facing my last night in this wonderful winterworld. Here I sit and type, looking out of the window as night falls, missing my friend, the moon … like the sun, it is hiding behind those ruthless clouds. Not that it was ever really there at night, ha! … but by day, turning my face to the sun, what did I find up there in the middle of the blue sky? Yep, the crescent moon! Visible all day, disappearing with the twilight. For a few minutes every day I could see it in the dark, right beside Venus, the brightly shining evening star, before it finally went down behind the mountains. Without the moon to brighten up the sky, the starry night was overwhelming ... glistening and sparkling like a carpet of jewels, some celestial snowfield, reflecting these earthly ones.

During one of my first nights here, I got up in the middle of the night, felt my way to the window and opened the curtains, expecting to find the snowy, greyish night sky that I had said goodnight to a few hours ago … instead I suddenly found myself gazing at millions and millions of stars! The brightest, biggest stars I could imagine, bigger and more impressive than any starry sky I've ever seen, even bigger than the stars in the desert. I was completely mesmerized by all the twinkling — I opened my window, staring up into the sky, ignorant of the cold, almost hypnotized … it was like the sky was pulling me in, sucking me up, spitting me right into space, to be a star among stars, twinkling down from above, eternally … but alas, the chilly wind transported me back to reality in no time, forcing me to quickly skedaddle back underneath those warm eiderdown quilts …

So, goodbye it is — goodbye mountains, goodbye snow … goodbye my cheeky little kittens, goodbye wonderful view ... boohoohoo — I'm sooooo drippy and sappy and sentimental, haha!

Okay, I guess I should sleep for a few hours now, before it's time for the long drive back home ...

ps: more pics to follow soon!

So this is Christmas Eve ...

... in the Austrian Alps.



I've been dreading this day, just like I've been dreading this vacation, in spite of looking forward to it so much. I cannot even say what exactly it was that I dreaded so — it had to do with my mom and my recent thoughts and emotions, my recent struggle with the way she deals with our past, things concerning my childhood. A vague unease, nothing I could name or describe, and yet it was there, a certain fear, a tension that grew bigger and bigger right before we left for this holiday. Another issue that had me worried was her husband's drinking — his denial of his alcoholism as much as her habit to bring it up, their quarreling and argueing about it in my presence. And what I feared even more is his tendency to verbally attack her and pick on her in front of others. I've been going through all that so often and I'm just tired of it ... unnerved and disgusted.

Anyway, maybe I worried for no reason — things are going smoothly so far and these past four days have been pretty much okay. He DID drink too much yesterday night, having a hard time trying to articulate himself, and she DID start to become cynical and somewhat smug towards him, but I decided to just stay out of it as it's none of my business after all. I was hoping they wouldn't force me to take sides or to comment on anything that was being said, and gratefully, they didn't.

The days out are much easier than the nights at home — we're outside all day, walking and hiking, exploring the mountains and hillsides around here. Both of them are so much more approachable then and we actually had quite a few good conversations, even concerning the past, childhood issues, some of the stuff that has been troubling me lately, trying to come to terms with my mother's part in it.

We went for a long walk today, having lunch in a nearby village, and somehow the subject of my former stepfather's (not her present husband's) drinking and violence came up — it wasn't even me bringing it up, it somehow came about “naturally” in the course of a conversation — and I decided to just go for it and mention some of my recent thoughts. I was careful not to sound like I was accusing her of anything, I didn't want to sound reproachful in any way or cause some drama there during the meal, but at the same time I couldn't let that chance pass me by, the chance to finally express some of my feelings concerning this subject — and surprisingly enough, she was rather open for what I said. We talked about a few things, the way I experienced them as a child and why she wasn't aware of it at the time, and it felt good to bring it out into the open. It wasn't like we went into any of the details of what happened back then, but even this rather general exchange brought about some relief, and not only on my side, I think. On our way back home through the snow the atmosphere was more relaxed, it just felt different, everybody a bit more at ease with each other maybe.

We spend the afternoon lazing around and then it was time to drive over to the restaurant where we had planned on having dinner this Christmas Eve. What can I say — it was nice and harmonious. The food was excellent and so was the atmosphere. Not exactly heart-warming but relaxed anyway, which was way more than what I had expected. I didn't waste a single thought on my recent fears and misgivings, we were just chatting amicably and when it was time to leave we all felt we had spent a lovely night out together. Not too festive but rather cheerful, which was fine with me, for sure.

Back at the place where we're staying we gave our gifts to each other, which was nice as well, another surprise after a few years of this turning into a bit of a farce and disappointment. Our gifts were small but well considered, not just a shallow exchange of material items. For once, after years and years of feeling the opposite, I DID manage to feel comfortable in my mother's company at this time of year and I'm grateful for that.

The night turned out good, really — quiet, amicable, simple but harmonious — more than I had ever dared to hope for.

One day at a time, yes — I'm really trying to approach things and situations that way now, it's all that makes sense after all. So I do not plan or speculate or worry about anything besides the next moment, the next 24 hours, being grateful for what I find, joyfully present, happy and content at this very moment, and it's all that counts.

This may sound like nothing much to anybody outside, but to me it means a great deal. So thank you for that — whoever, wherever — but thank you, so much.

Desiderata

by Max Ehrmann
written around 1920

Go placidly amid the noise and haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence.
As far as possible, without surrender, be on good terms with all persons.

Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others, even to the dull and the ignorant, they too have their story.
Avoid loud and aggressive persons, they are vexations to the spirit.

If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain and bitter; for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.

Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans. Keep interested in your own career, however humble; it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.

Exercise caution in your business affairs, for the world is full of trickery. But let this not blind you to what virtue there is; many persons strive for high ideals, and everywhere life is full of heroism.

Be yourself. Especially, do not feign affection. Neither be cynical about love, for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment it is perennial as the grass.

Take kindly to the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth.

Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune. But do not distress yourself with imaginings. Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.

Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here. And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be, and whatever your labors and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life, keep peace in your soul.

With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world.

Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.


Desiderata is Latin and means 'things that are yearned for', which in the context of the poem more closely means 'essential things'.

To be free ...

I've taken the quote down below from Paulo Coelho's 'Warrior of Light' today – one of my all-time favourite books – because it is so true for me these days!

The Warrior Is Free

"The warrior hears someone say: 'I need to understand everything before I can make a decision. I want to have the freedom to change my mind.'
The warrior regards these words suspiciously. He too can enjoy that freedom, but this does not prevent him from taking on a commitment, even if he does not know quite why he does so.
A warrior of light makes decisions. His soul is as free as the clouds in the sky, but he is committed to his dream. On his freely chosen path, he often has to get up earlier than he would like, speak to people from whom he learns nothing, make certain sacrifices.
His friends say: 'You're not free.'
The warrior is free. But he knows that an open oven bakes no bread."

That "someone" talking to the warrior may just be my own inner voice ... sometimes I should clearly NOT listen to it but follow my heart instead –it always speaks the truth. Yes, a lot of times I end up speaking to people from whom I learn nothing ... but there is always others, and for that I'm forever grateful. Sometimes making a commitment is the only way there. Sometimes I have to focus on what I need most urgently, what is the most important for me at that very moment ... I may have to disregard countless alternatives and choices on offer to be able to do what is best for me ... making a decision and a commitment and not doubt or question it. If it comes from my heart and not from fear, from a place bigger than myself maybe, it will always guide me towards the right action.
There are times when I have to shut out my own intellect and understanding, when thinking only leads to confusion and staying focused and quiet enough to follow that call that leads me out of myself – away from my "lesser" self, towards some kind of "big mind" – are the only ways I'll ever manage to "get my bread baked" ... it takes focus, decision, commitment ... I see that now. What it takes most of all is the right spirit, the courage to go ahead, which might just be the most difficult for me to achieve ... ah, I'm a stumbling warrior at times ... I fear, I falter, I fall ... doing my best to get up again and simply walk on ... determined, yet free!

Confusion

So here I sit and want to write ... and can't because I feel there is just too much to be said. Where to begin ... I'm lost. My mind is so full of things, full of emotions, thoughts, doubts, questions lately ... they swirl around my head like leaves caught in a vortex on the river. I watch them going in circles, round and round ... leading nowhere. All this thinking that is not actually thinking but some helpless pondering is making me dizzy and somewhat uptight. I know something is emerging, something is coming up ... and on some level I know what it is all about ... yet I can't touch it.

Yesterday morning when I woke I felt I needed to talk or I would simply burst, too full of feeling to keep it bottled up much longer. But having been so reluctant to talk for such a long time now, trying to digest all those new thoughts first, the idea of speaking with somebody seemed strange and unfamiliar. I thought of who I might talk to. The problem for me is that a lot of the people close to me are just too close. At least, right now. On the other hand, the thoughts and feelings I need to share are not exactly the kind I'd share with a mere aquaintance, a person I do not trust to understand in some way. I kept thinking. There were people I trusted enough to talk to, people close enough to me but not so close that I'd feel awkward giving away details of people related to me, something I knew I needed to do, once I'd start talking. My mind kept spinning, torn between the need to open up to somebody and the fear of doing so. The desire to just let go of all the pressure and tension and spill it all out grew overpowering and I finally e-mailed a friend, asking if I might talk to him, knowing him to be very much accustomed with the subject I had on my mind. I knew though that he was facing a not so easy time for himself right now and felt hesitant to just "raid on him" with my story. So I asked if he felt able to talk to me, pretty much upfront, and sent the mail on it's way, (only half-) relieved to have made that first move.

I didn't expect him to get back to me instantly and it came as quite a surprise when he did, saying that he was indeed fine with it and I should just give him a call over the day. That caught me flat-footed – however ridiculous it must sound. It was just too much, so all of a sudden. I know it is probably completely stupid ... first wanting to talk and asking for somebody to lend an ear ... then being so unprepared when somebody agrees to do. It just happened so fast, you know? There I was, having build up this confusion inside my mind for weeks on end, making a decision to maybe get rid of some of it by sharing ... but without much of a clue as to what exactly it is I need to share, or say, or spill out ... I really don't, not in any detailed way. The confusion is just too big. So when this friend said he would speak with me, it sent my mind spinning even worse, like a stirred up hornet's nest, thoughts going into all directions at once, leaving me with a feeling as if about to faint ... dizzy, dizzy, dizzy. Upon reading his words I went hot, then cold, feeling sick to the stomach. I imagined giving him a call and starting to talk ... and found I couldn't. I felt helpless, powerless, numb, speechless ... too much emotion, too much confusion. I simply didn't know where to start. I could feel the old fear creeping up ... I had almost forgotten what it felt like. Now it was overly present again. Faceless, fathomless, yet all too present, looming in the shadows of my mind. Tears came up to my eyes. I so wanted to talk. But did I really? I needed to, that much I knew ... but I couldn't. I couldn't. All I could feel in that moment, picturing picking up the receiver and dialing his number, was a desire to turn and run. Finding some dark hole to hide in and become invisible. I almost regretted having asked for help, thinking that maybe I would have preferred for him to just refuse to talk? I felt sorry and silly, being so undecided ... like somebody who had booked a parachute jump in a moment of braveness and upon hearing the aircraft engines start suddenly remembers he suffers from vertigo, hoping for the plane to never take off.

I struggled with myself, but in the end surrendered to the inability to talk. I got back to my friend, trying to explain, apologizing, saying I obviously wasn't yet ready for it, asking for him to please be there one of these days, if it wasn't asked too much.

Now what? Here I sit. Still confused, still numbed by the amount of questions and emotions inside my head. Still not able to single out one clear thought in that tangled mess of emotion. But a first move has been made, I know for myself there is no turning back now, one by one I will have to move forward, however tiny those steps may be. I must sort my thoughts, put them into some kind of order so I'm able to express them ... and hopefully it will all add up once I start talking, becoming clearer and more obvious. I can't fool myself, I know where this must lead. But it's not easy.

Loneliness ... arbitrary reality

Last Friday has been a strange day — and: a beautiful day. A confusing day, on all accounts. It started good, then turned bad, finally turning out good after all.

"What happened?", you may ask (you may very well not ask but I'll tell you anyway).

I wasn't working, so I was pretty relaxed, however tired from the days before. It was sunny — a lovely, mellow, colorful autumn day, blue skies and golden leaves, the world looked beautiful and I felt blessed, simply being. I spent the day lazing about, enjoying the beauty of it as much as the absence of chores to take care of after a week full of work that had me crazy busy for days and days.

As evening fell, the blue sky turned lavender, then pink, then finally crimson and red. It was breathtakingly beautiful to watch the sun set. It touched me so deeply that it brought tears to my eyes, tears of bliss and gratitude. Then, suddenly ... BOOM!!! ... out of the blue (or red in this particular case) ... loneliness knocked at my door.

I know that being tired and exhausted is sometimes the point where weakness creeps in — the doubt, sadness or loneliness, whatever — depending on my mood. Normally I am warned and watch it. This time I didn't see it coming though, being not prepared for the sudden ache at all. I'm lucky these days, in so far that I'm almost always aware of it when it happens, and manage to readjust my thinking before it manifests as reality, but being so tired ... this time I really struggled.

So there I was, watching that gloriously beautiful sunset, reluctantly saying hello to loneliness as it slipped through my door. Starting to feel all sorry for myself, turning melancholic and sentimental, I caught myself thinking how sad it was that there was nobody to share this moment of bliss. All of a sudden it was all I could concentrate on. Loneliness. It seemed to flutter around me as if somebody had written those letters into the sky, like butterflies they surrounded me ... L-O-N-E-L-I-N-E-S-S ... in large capital letters, scarlet against the already flaming sky.

Now, go figure! Just a second ago I had been perfectly enjoying that moment — all happy gratefulness, all grateful happiness — and suddenly the same situation managed to bring me down like that. I mean, how silly is that?

Having just watched the documentary "What the Bleep do we know" for the umpteenth time, I was very much aware of how we possibly create our individual realities and knew what I was doing and that I might very well change the situation for myself if I really wanted to. But quite honestly, for a moment it felt good, letting myself drift into sorrow and self-pity. It was just less demanding, less effort, you know?

I could suddenly feel the fatigue in my bones and body and being so immensely tired, surrendered to it. I could feel the loneliness like some kind of physical pain as it started to manifest inside me. It's always the same. It starts in my head, then sinks into my chest and heart, slowly expanding into my tummy where it kind of settles. I feel as if I become heavier and somewhat numb. It's always the same shit and there is just no use in feeling that way. I know that, I do! But it seemed so much easier, letting it settle, sinking into the self-pity and sorrow.

I made a half-hearted attempt to divert my thoughts and jump off that train to nowhere. I tried to phone a few friends — in vain. Nobody answered. I considered going for a walk in the twilight but was too afraid that might just make things worse. So I turned on the computer. I tried to write it all down, hoping to just write it off, that damned loneliness, somehow getting rid of it by describing it like I do now. But there were no words. My mind was blank, empty, tired, sad, melancholic, lonely. Forlorn and forsaken, haha! I logged into myspace, thinking I might just have a little chat there. None of my friends were online. Where was everybody???? Darn it. I changed my status update to "lonely" and logged off, pretty much bathing in self-pity by then.

I got myself some food ... I ate ... alone ... feeling lonely, of course ... poor, pitiful, pathetic little Lilli ... all those lonely meals ... day after day, week after week, month after month. I started to conjure up pictures of how they would turn into years, decades ... forever, maybe?

Then I heard the familiar "pling" of my inbox telling me I had e-mail. I went to look and found a notification from myspace, telling me some friends had sent comments and messages. I logged back in to check.

It's funny – I never think that anybody actually reads those status updates, but quite obviously people do. So I found several concerned and lovely messages, different friends checking in to ask if I were okay, trying to cheer me up, asking if they could be of any help, whether I wanted to talk, if they should phone, telling me they were there if I felt I needed company, however virtual maybe.

Wow, this really touched me. I know I have a lot of friends who care about me. In real life, of course, but also quite a few in the online world. Still, I didn't expect such immediate responses. I know a lot of people are constantly displaying their negative moods in their updates, I hardly ever feel that way, though – and when I do I normally stay away from myspace and other such platforms. Maybe it's due to that that some people get strange ideas about how I am, expecting me to be this eternally blissful and balanced person, in total control of her moods, dealing with everything so serenely. Yes, sometimes I am that person ... but a lot of times I am not. There are more than just a few days when I'm far from having the sun shining out my ... umm ... backside — but normally I'll just deal with it, working on it instead of feeling sorry for myself and being pissed with the world. Normally ... not always. So maybe it was because of that — because of it being somewhat unusual for me to publicly announce I felt lonely — that some friends got back to me promptly. I don't know.

What I do know is that those messages reminded me that I had a choice, after all. The shortest one simply said "Ah, Lilli, don't be lonely!" and it made me pull a wry face at first, giving a somewhat bitter and cynical laugh. Yeah, great advice, thanks ... as if it was up to me ... bullshit ... I felt frustrated, something I rarely experience. And then it dawned on me. It was up to me. That bitter laugh really did it for me, it got me out of it. Suddenly I thought of how I had not been alone for so many years ... how there had been somebody to share those special moments — and how often have we just let them pass. I had to admit to myself that I experienced some of the worst moments of loneliness while being in company, ha! Relationship of any kind certainly doesn't guarantee togetherness. And togetherness again doesn't necessarily eliminate loneliness.

A friend of mine once said: "Loneliness is part of the deal" and I guess he's right. Life is what we make it and so is my aloneness. Quite honestly, on most days I am fully aware of how loneliness has it's beauty as well, if not looked at as being a problem. So the bitter laugh turned into a wholehearted smile and I went to bed — still alone but no longer lonely, falling asleep immediately. It probably was what I should have done right away, when realizing it was fatigue making me so prone to pain.

Looking back now, I can smile again and shake my head at my sudden leap of faith, my silly mood swing ... my sense of reality jumping this way, then that, then back again ... no longer sure it is us adapting to reality but possibly rather reality adapting to us ...

The Solitary Girl

The girl in the corner is small, inconspicuous. She sits with her legs pulled tight to her body, embracing herself with skinny arms, hands clasped in front of bruised shins, her cheek resting on top of her knees. She looks forlorn and isolated. Her long, unkempt hair is the color of red brick, concealing her dark little face like a curtain. Sometimes, when people walk by, she looks up and a sudden anxious expression crosses her otherwise unmoved face, her eyes timid like those of a cornered animal. Her lips open slightly, as if to say something, but she never breathes a single word, silently watching the passersby, before sinking back into her own world, away from the noise and the hustle surrounding her. She's dirty and her threadbare clothes are way too big for her thin body. When she shuffles her feet on the blanket you can see her tiny bare toes, grey with dust. She sits motionless, dispassionately staring into space with tired eyes which seem to have seen it all. She is nine, maybe ten years old.

Raising her head now, she puts a finger to her mouth, biting a nail. Her eyes follow a clumsy little dog sniffing at a garbage can in the alley next to her. For a moment her face becomes almost lively, child-like joy brightens her eyes. „Doggie..." she whispers. When the dog owner spots her, he pulls the puppy away, shooting her a disdainful look. Her smile fades away, devoid of passion she drops her arms and persists in the corner until night falls.

When it's dark, she walks over to the dustbin by the street light, searching the discarded carry out bags from the nearby fast food restaurant for leftovers. She takes what she finds back into the corner with her and leaning against the wall, snarfs down half a cold, rubbery cheeseburger and some french fries. Then she lets her tiny body slip down the wall and cloaking herself with the ragged blanket, falls asleep in the dirt. In her sleep she is happy sometimes, her dreams conjuring up vague pictures of the child she used to be, experiencing a joy that has long ceased to extend into the daylight.

She hardly recollects the time when she had a home, a family, a name. The only reality she knows these days is the hunger — and the fear. The fear of humans, of being beaten up, being laughed at and ridiculed. She can not remember what there was before the fear, before alternately being chased after and being chased away, fleeing and hiding like a hunted deer.

Tomorrow, when she wakes, she will move on. Some days she is lucky and people give her a little money, sometimes even enough coins to buy some chocolate. She loves chocolate. She'll scour about until noon, begging in front of the mall, always on the lookout for the police, avoiding to be caught and brought back to that terrible place she fears more than the cold, more than the dirt and loneliness, more than the hunger even. If she can't get enough money for food, she'll hang around the street market at closing time, hoping for the merchants to let her have some of the rotten fruits they can not sell.

In the late afternoon she'll be looking for another dark corner, another place to protect her from the wind, hiding from the world for one more night. Sheltered from the looks of disdainful strangers she'll fall asleep — hungry or not — dreaming the dream of the child she has once been, until waking to another morning, leaving the hope behind with the dream.


(this has been written a long time ago, living in Ireland, inspired by a homeless little girl in the streets of Dublin. After so many years, I dreamt of her the other night and remembered this story from almost twenty years ago, that I wrote after coming across her again and again, sighting her in different places, always on her own, quite unlike the other street kids. I've never been homeless ... and yet I could see myself in her for different reasons ... I have often wondered what may have become of her ... that silent, solitary little street girl with the red hair and sad eyes that I've never been quite able to forget.)

Looking for clues ...

... so it's one of those days that has me sitting pondering ... my diverse health problems, money problems, family and relationship problems, they bring up so many questions, so much emotion ... thought that is thought yet no thought, it comes without analysis, without attempt ... considerations, meditations ... whatever I call them, the questions remain:

Just why is it that one day we can be happy in the moment, joyful and content while the next day the same facts, the same situation – completely unaltered, unchanged – has us all sorrowful, quarreling with the very facts that couldn't disturb us the day before? It doesn't make sense, does it?

What is the process that leads from acceptance back to resistance? Is it chemistry, hormones? Is it something we can control? Or is it beyond our will-power? Can thought bring us any closer to the root of it? Or is thought the very evil that leads us there? As the I Ching says: "thinking only makes the heart sore."

How can it be that one day I feel so strong and equanimous, serenely dealing with everything there is ... and the next morning I wake with a lump in my belly, caused by too many swallowed tears, swallowed disappointments, swallowed pain ... my chest heavy with a hurt that I found so easy to deal with just yesterday ... not today though ... and yet none of the facts seem to have changed ...

If the change is not to be found on the outside, it must surely be sought for on the inside – looking at my perception of those facts. But if the change is there even before I'm quite awake, before there has been any time for thought, creating sorrow, where does the change in my perception come from? What's happening to our psyche from one day to the next, from one moment to another?

Those swallowed tears, turned into stone, how does one turn them back into water, making them flow again, healing and easing the heart? When the rock in the chest starts dragging one down, making it hard to walk upright and look ahead ... when the heart feels like bursting with countless salty clumps which years and years of unbeweept pain have stored there, more than one heart should ever have to hold ... when one feels as if that rock starts turning into a mountain range, a mountain range of ache and anguish, chagrin and disenchantment, how does one remove that weight?

The weight of sorrow seems equal to the weight of the world at times, impossible to carry ... and yet we all do, we all have to ... we try and keep trying ... and we all fail, again and again ... tossing and turning, trying this way and that. But we walk on and on, don't we? Some manage to still walk upright, others bent. Some break and crack under the pressure. We all struggle, we all fight. If surrender is the answer, how do we get there without a feeling of defeat? What does it take to do so with complete acceptance? Why is acceptance so fugitive, so elusive?

Would all sorrow end if we could just stop anticipating? If we didn't expect anything at all, just lived – and dreamt – without expectations, unconditionally ... would we be free from hurt then? Could we enjoy our dreams simply for the joy and hope they convey? But ... is there hope without expectation? Is it possible to hope in a more open-minded way, not focused on just one certain result? Living our lives the way we might read a book – focused but open for whatever is going to happen? And if it is possible, does there necessarily have to be pain where there is hope? What is the opposite of hope? Abandoning? Resignation? Can there be faith where there is no hope? Can there be hope where there is no faith?

Can our dreams and desires become too big for us? Or is it ourselves being not big enough for our desires and dreams? Not complete enough maybe, not whole enough?

What causes us to hurt when we hurt? Disappointed expectations? Fear of loss? And what is it we fear to lose – ourselves? And what exactly does that mean ... losing ourselves? Maybe it's true we have to lose ourselves first in order to finally find ourselves. Our "real" selfs ... for how can we lose what we've never had ... how can we understand what we've never known? Do we really know who we are, somewhere beyond the images of ourselves?

How many of us are completely content with themselves, without looking upon another for recognition or acknowledgment? For most of us it is difficult to see ourselves at all if not perceived through the eyes of another ... our well-being depending to a large degree on that outside perception of ourselves being in harmony with our own perception of who we think we are. Of how we want or even need to be seen. If we do not get the attention we think we deserve, if the outside image is not in accordance with our own images of ourselves, that causes conflict – we often find that hard to accept. We think we need that recognition ... I think we need it because we are not whole – it's a feeling of incompleteness that causes need.

Need ... more conflict, more pain. When what we think is a need can not be satisfied, we find that hard to deal with. But what is that need? What is need in general, somewhere beyond the elementary needs, like food or shelter or basic clothing or the necessities of everyday life? Is not every need that goes beyond that just a desperate attempt to fill the emptiness inside us? If we were completely content with who we are or what we are, comfortable with and by ourselves ... would we really need all that we tend to think we need, trying to stuff the emptiness inside us with all kind of things? Relationships are used for that as much as drugs or shopping or food or fun-seeking of any kind.

We do not feel complete the way we are, we seek completion and fulfilment on the outside instead of within ... but it's a very vulnerable, a very evanescent kind of "completeness", only ever temporary ... as soon as the outside component falls away, when a partner leaves us, when we lose what we cling to – property, relationships, whatever – we are left feeling empty and incomplete again ... hurt, pain, sorrow ... they just wait for us to come running back into their arms – arms that do not bring any comfort – it's an evil circle.

Knowing the answers in the abstract still doesn't bring me any closer to permanently integrating them with 'what is', with reality ... it's not like I understood with my head only ... I can feel the truth of having to look inside myself, I understand it somewhere beyond intellect, beyond reason or rationality, with my heart and soul and every cell of my body at times ... I can see it lying there, that one answer to all these questions ... so close, so seemingly easy to reach ... and yet as if secured behind a wall of armoured glass ... just a few inches away, still impossible to grasp ... somewhat inaccessible.

All I can do, again and again, is fall back onto faith and the belief that the answers will expose themselves once I am ready for them. Until then ... there is nothing to do but live ... and maybe stop trying so hard ...

Ira Progoff: Wisdom of Life

"If I did not believe
That the wisdom of life
Is greater than my own wisdom,
I could not have survived,
But having survived,
It is more than a faith now,
A knowledge.
I know, that,
Great as my wisdom is,
– Almost as great as my will and my desire –
Yet the wisdom of life is greater.
And, as I could not float upon water when I tried to,
Now I can float upon life
Without trying.
In this is my wisdom
And the wisdom of anyone
To know that I know not
How to carry the weight of my existence.
But the waters of life will carry it for me
In their wisdom.
That is the wisdom of life
From which comes all power
And the ultimate glory.
And the greatness of my wisdom lies
In letting life be wise."

Rilke ... speaking from my heart ...

"I am too alone in the world,
and not alone enough to make every moment holy.
I am too tiny in this world,
and not tiny enough just to lie before you like a thing,
shrewd and secretive.
I want my own will, and I want simply to be with my will,
as it goes toward action,
and in the silent, sometimes hardly moving times
when something is coming near,
I want to be with those who know secret things
or else alone."

(Rilke)

Today ... today I am bliss!

Did you ever experience that almost overpowering feeling of happiness upon waking up to sheer reasonless bliss? When you open your eyes and feel like hugging the whole world, simply because it is so damned wonderful? Don't ask me "what" is so wonderful ... I do not know "what" exactly. Just everything. And everybody. "It". It is wonderful.

To be here.
To be alive.
To breathe.
To laugh.
To love.
To be able to suffer even.
To hurt.
To worry.
To be granted a heart
and a soul
and a life
and a smile you can never waste, however much you spend it.

A day when you seem to have "radiance" and "ardour" tattooed all over your forehead and you know that everything is worth everything, just for the gift of a moment like this.

This is one of those days. I opened my eyes to happiness and thought: "So what! Just forget all those worries – forget the pain and disappointment and sadness – I LOVE this damned old life! Today I'm not just plain happy ... today I'm not just blissful ... today – well, today I am bliss.

Dreams, hornets and chameleons

Another strange dream tonight – just as surreal as you'd expect any proper dream to be. Just why is it I keep dreaming of insects lately? Maybe I should look up that symbolism after all, the internet is probably full of pages on dream interpretation to assist me. Then again, the answers are most probably hidden somewhere inside myself, so why bother.

Anyway ... after I had this bizarre dream a few weeks ago, where hundreds and thousands of purple maggots came crawling out of a huge lime-green yucca seed I had brought back from Utah, tonight I had another insect dream.

It was so weird. I was outside my room, kind of ... well, not really – but it felt like I was looking in from "some outside", like through a window or from behind a glass pane, somewhat detached.

I was talking to someone I couldn't see when something caught my eye, some movement. Where my lamp should have been (one of those round, white, japanese paper things) there was only a huge hornet's nest, right in the center of the room. I could see the hornets fly about busily, seemingly agitated ... and then the queen hornet came out, boy ... she was immense! She carried a squirming white maggot on her back and I started talking to her as if she was human. I asked her why she was leaving and why she carried that maggot and she said it was to make sure the colony would survive, that I would soon become a threat to them (wouldn't one expect it to be the other way round?) and that she had to take precautions.

Still contemplating the queen hornet's words I floated back into the room, right through the glass pane that was no glass pane (sorry, I really don't know how to describe this) – and as I was moving towards the other end of the room I suddenly spotted a huge, man-sized chameleon on the couch. At first sight it looked pretty much alive, so colorful and alert ... but when I stopped to have a closer look, it seemed to lose it's color all of a sudden, turning greyish and dull. I stared and stared until it finally didn't move at all anymore, apparently it had died ... just it's big mouth was standing wide open, as if about to say something or waiting for food.

Wow ... a seemingly dead, man-sized chameleon with a wide open mouth on my couch ... it was somewhat unsettling ... I went closer, still afraid it might come alive after all, shooting out it's sticky tongue, trying to swallow me ... cautiously and very slowly I sneaked up to it ... it didn't move. Obviously it really was dead, as if it had been killed by my percipience, quite alarming!

While I was looking at it, investigating it's now immobile and more or less unexciting presence, I noticed there was something inside it's mouth – a fish! A small multi-colored fish, like a baitfish, flouncing about in agony, suffocating, drying out ... I considered rescuing it, but it meant coming too close to that still scary, big wide open mouth, reaching into it even ... I couldn't bring myself to do that.
I turned around, feeling sorry, somewhat torn between the wish to save the dying fish and a terrible fear of being swallowed and consumed in the process myself ...

Then I saw somebody enter the room, a woman ... I went over to talk to her, I seemed to know her very well even though I knew I had never seen her before. She asked me about the rat and what I intended to do about it and I said "what rat?" ... "well, the one on your floor, it's already starting to smell, it must have been dead for some time..." she answered.

I looked around but I could see no rat, not at all. I thought maybe she was crazy, seeing things. When I looked back at her she suddenly was my sister though, as if she had never been anybody else ... she was talking about something, something normal, as if the rat had never been mentioned. She also didn't seem to find anything strange in my room, noticing neither the chameleon nor the hornet's nest. We stood there talking and as we did, I could see something crawl up the wall behind her ... cockroaches I thought, disgusted ... I stepped forward to check and then realized they were scorpions, maybe ten of them, right behind her head, only inches away from it. I told her not to move, not to turn around but come slowly over to where I stood ... she did and we both looked at the scorpions, they were golden and carrying some kind of tiara where they normally have the forceps. At times they would come to a halt – very unexpectedly, stopping dead in their tracks – and instead of continuing on their way up the wall when moving again, they would just drop down to the floor, falling ... as soon as they touched ground, they turned into something else: flies, lizards, worms ... dying immediately after the metamorphosis ... the floor was already covered with dead things – and bibles ... very old bibles, faded and yellowed. I felt repelled, nauseated even, but also so very sorry for all those poor dying creatures ... I started crying, watching helplessly.

It was then that I clearly figured it was all just a dream, – I was only dreaming and it would be all over and gone once I opened my eyes ... strange thing is ... instead of that fact coming as a relief, it made me feel somewhat melancholy – I could see them disappear already: the hornets, the chameleon, the scorpions – and I cried even harder.

Then I finally woke up, only minutes before the alarm would have gone off ... time to get up ... and here I sit, still wondering what this was all about ... oh, my – Lilli and her dreams..!

Love Letter to Colorado

Flying along the east coast of Canada, watching the sun go down in the west, I find myself reflecting on how strange and how wonderful these past four weeks in the American West have been. High up above the clouds, in an altitude of 30.000 ft, the heights and peaks, the beauty and wonder of Colorado is coming alive again across the distance, its colors mirrored in the slowly sinking sunbeams outside my window. Recalling my last look at its snowcapped mountains, the tears are right there again, the overwhelming sadness upon having to leave. I certainly never expected the place to touch me like this, so deep, so utterly. Thinking of all the things that had to happen to bring me there, to make me decide to come to Colorado, I can't help but wonder ... are our decisions ever our decisions? Is it really us coming to them, or is it them finding us? We may not even be aware of it, thinking we decide "at random", but there is a story behind every decision and I can see it emerging now, while the distance between me and Colorado is getting bigger, flying back east and into the night.

The Gift

It wasn't like I found Colorado, I think Colorado found me. In some kind of cosmic jigsaw puzzle in which every piece needs to be in the right place for us to be able to discern the hidden motif, things had to happen first – people, pictures and prospects had to come into my life and fall into place there, sending me on my way to find – or be found by – a landscape that moved me like no other before. It took an artist to put the finishing touches to that fragmentary scheme inside my mind ... a poet and a painter ... a poet painting pictures with words.

Some of us are gifted in a way that is hard to fathom – somewhere beyond themselves, in spite of who or how or what they are on a different level. It is a gift bigger than ego, a gift that – concerning themselves – may be a curse as much as a blessing: the unique ability to convey images and emotions regardless of self. It sure comes as a blessing when it leads to bring light, joy and comfort into the lives of others. How they do it though is hard to apprehend – inscrutable maybe – but isn't that how art should really be? Coming without purpose, brought into being by a force to create that is bigger than intent, pure energy finding it's way into the world, the artist merely a transmitter of a beauty and a wisdom hardly palpable to himself.

I have a very special friend who is gifted that way – capable of painting the most expressive pictures with his words, pictures that come alive with emotion, color, scent even – able to add shape and structure until they virtually turn into three-dimensional word sculptures – so vivid, so tangible, almost real.
For himself, he does not always seem able to sustain these pictures he paints so well for others – unable at times to draw upon the energy and strength they impart, intermittently blind to the unbelievable grandeur they transmit when they come from a place in his heart that is pure passion, pure love and true openness to the world.

It must have been from there that he described Colorado to me ... and his words found their way right into my heart, placing the cornerstone for a journey that was to become more than a mere "trip through the Rockies", a journey that seems like a key to yet another cosmic puzzle.

The Place

I loved Colorado. I can't explain why or how but it felt like a homecoming of sorts. I touched ground and was smitten – just like that – without reason. Like big love does, it came totally unexpected, taking my heart by surprise. Looking back now, I think I didn't even realize it at first. It wasn't spectacular. It wasn't the kind of love that makes you freak out. It simply provided me with a feeling of immense ease, depth and happiness. Being there felt just right – perfect even – yet in no way special.

I have been to a lot of places across the world. Quite a few have impressed me or made me want to return. Colorado was different – less striking than Utah, less spiritual than the Sinai, less craggy and steep than the Alps, less exotic than Asia and less remote and wild than Africa – and yet it was so much more. It opened up my heart – I felt at peace with myself, belonging – as absurd as this may sound but it felt like Colorado was simply where I was meant to be, coming back home to a place I've never been to before.

Some regions touched me more than others, some left me rather cold, but still ... finding those pictures I had seen with my heart already while listening to my friend's poetic outpours, exposing themselves to all their beauty right in front of my eyes now, it was sheer bliss - grace and wonder.

Walking and wandering for a full month through Colorado's hills, mountains and prairies, discovering it's manifold landscapes, I could feel an energy that was overwhelming at times, filling me with a serenity and strength I hadn't felt in a long time. I never expected it to be that intense. The worries I had felt before, they fell off my skin and mind once I arrived in the vast emptiness of western Colorado. There was not much room for egocentricity in this energy-laden place where all that matters is the moment and nature – and being in tune with them both. Where beauty is omnipresent, all scent, all color, all wide-open nothingness.

The Beauty

It's in the glitter of the granite, those twinkling silvery sparks on salmon-pink rock, reflecting the evening sunlight ... a sky so blue that it hurts at times ... clouds cumulating into giant celestial castles, tinted yellow and black, violet and red ... it's in the burning sun and the afternoon storms, and in the rain that comes as a relief at times, a curse at others ... it's in the shape of the leathern leaves of the scrub oak and in the pastel charms of the wild flowers ... in the sound of the wind echoing off ancient canyon walls, dissembling distant bygone steam trains ... it's in the luscious mountain meadows as much as in the austere prairie grasses ... in the buzzsaw sound of the cicadas and in the high-pitched cries of the hummingbirds ... it gurgles in the white water rapids and rustles in the aspen leaves ...

And then, it's in the air – in this peculiar Rocky Mountain air that surrounds you like a perfume: strong and spicy, balmy and brisk – an overpowering flavor of moss, pinyon pine and juniper, herbs, flowers and grasses. Nature's breath, enclosing your senses in an aura of scent – so lavish and invigorating, you want to get drunk on it, airily losing yourself in its magic and allure.

Colorado, that is an atmosphere so dense, an energy so full of spirit in certain places, it made my hair stand on end, giving me goosebumps when I sat down and went quiet, trying to open up and get a feeling for what was there around me. As if the air was abuzz with history, replete with the ghosts of long gone cultures ... in those wild rivers and red rocks, in those canyons and grasslands, in those mountains and woods and sacred springs ... one could divine their voices in the wind, whispering of a half-forgotten past, singing of ancient secrets and mysteries.

It cast a spell over me, this colorful state, an enchantment paired with the wish to stay on ... a yearning to return. And I shall – if the cosmos wills it too – as in this very second, on an airplane looking out at the stars and the half moon high above the Atlantic Ocean, I have a vague notion something is waiting for me back there ... something yet to be found. The cosmic puzzle is not accomplished, the picture not complete.

The Gratitude

Thank you my friends, all of you who played a role in making me come to Colorado: Michelle – you kindled the initial spark with your great passion for the land! So right you were about the ancient voices! ... thank you, Natasha ... thank you, Brian ... and finally: thank you, Jeff – wizard of words – for being a not so plain man after all.

Thank you all for your inspiration and motivation, sending my mind on this journey until I had no choice but to follow, 'painting' your poetic pictures, pouring your pictorial poems, praising those landscapes again and again – I can not tell you enough, all of you: Dankeschön!

(Author's note, added in the summer of 2009:)
And return I did, spending another month in the home of my heart, Colorado - made possible only by the immense hospitality of my wonderful and amazing friends in Lyons, Annie and Eben Grace. Thank you so much for your patience, for putting up with me for so many weeks, for making me feel welcome and at home. You guys are the best!