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Freitag, 16. Dezember 2022

16th December 2022

Let me ...
 
... be a feather
Strong, with purpose.
Yet light at heart
Able to bend.
And, tho I might
Become frayed.
Able to pull myself
Together again.
 
(Anita Sams, Daniela Grünwald,
Photodarium)

Freitag, 26. August 2022

Never gone

Sometimes it seems as if the magic of life is gone forever. It just doesn’t show up for you anymore, it’s like it has forgotten you or like you used it up, it leaves you empty and dull. And then you starve, you long for it, you feel like you can’t go on without it. It’s hard to live without something that has become so dear to you. So you keep going as best as you can, feeling more like a zombie that’s crawling through a tunnel, hoping to find the light again. You look for this certain kind of magic that passes all understanding, you know it must still be there, maybe even in the darkness, but you just can’t feel it. Days, weeks, months pass, and nothing happens. Until the time has come, a moment when you didn’t expect it, when you weren’t thinking about the absence of what you were longing for. Boom, there it is, overwhelming you gently. And it might not stay for long, it might not be stable, but it’s happening again. Like a snippet that says: Hello, I’m still there, I haven’t abandoned you, my love. I’m never not there. How could you forget that?

Mittwoch, 6. Juli 2022

No clue (needed)

“Sometimes you have to lose your path completely, sometimes you just have to not know what your path is, have no clue anymore what your path is. Maybe sometimes that’s the path, that’s the next step … to not know what the next step will be … to not know where the hell your life is gonna take you. The path of the moment.” (Jeff Foster, From Depression to Awakening)

“Were coming back to our raw, moment-to-moment experience, and were remembering that we only ever have to deal with this moment. Life is never bigger than this moment. ... Sometimes life can seem so overwhelming, and were caught up in the past or future, and we forget that there is only now.” (Jeff Foster, Mindfulness Meditation for Stress)

Dienstag, 28. Juni 2022

Another one

I just can’t get enough of the plays of shadow and light in my place.
They’re always different, always new.
They never cease to amaze me, no matter how I feel.

Sonntag, 26. Juni 2022

Sometimes I feel I'm gonna break down and cry
Nowhere to go, nothin
' to do with my time
I get lonely, so lonely
Livin
' on my own

...

I get so lonely lonely lonely lonely yeah
Got to be some good times ahead

(Freddy Mercury, Living on my own)

Donnerstag, 23. Juni 2022

Veil?

Longing for the veil of greyness to lift. Which veil?
Nothing to wait for. Waiting and hoping are poison, some say.
Yes and no, I guess. How could I seriously know or claim anything?

Montag, 23. Mai 2022

Sheets

 

Sea

 

Jeans

 

The landscape of my lunch

Sometimes I feel like spending the rest of my life just watching the
forms and the colors, the patterns and the structures in the world.

Sonntag, 8. Mai 2022

Let me show you …

… how beautiful you are
said the light to the shadow.

Freitag, 25. März 2022

Sometimes

Sometimes I feel like Cinderella, I want to be saved. By whom or what I don’t know. Maybe by a man, by a friend, by a stranger, by God, by myself. By the next thought or feeling or happening or view. By sleep, by death. Maybe all of that, or rather none of it. It seems the best salvation is that which is not needed. Or which is happening, all the time. Well, I know it’s like that. I just forget sometimes.

Montag, 21. März 2022

Don’t forget

The world can be so beautiful.
The flowers know that.
Oh, let me be a
flower girl.
⚘ ⚘ ⚘

Mittwoch, 16. März 2022

Enough?

So if you can do it, or help someone else
A little bit, to stay alive, or happy
Then that’s enough
So why are we made to question
The value of our lives

(Rebecca Elson, A Responsibility to Awe)
 

Maybe my specialty is not to be very special
maybe my expression is not to express much
maybe my creation is not to be creative?

Maybe my talent is to just be there
to look around, wonder and enjoy?
Not the worst thing, actually.

I’m not sure
but sometimes the best answer
is when the question dissolves.

Montag, 14. März 2022

Humans

Eight billion individuals, undividables
autists if you will. 

Everyone in their own world
literally being their own universe. 

Yet connected, in varying ways and degrees
dancing with each other, loving, fighting 
(mis-)understanding, (not) caring, ...
and basically all one
the one life expressing
as all of us and everything.

Paradox and beautiful
beyond measure
beyond beyond
poor words ...

🌚

 

 
„Nachtstadt. Alle eilen nach der Arbeit nach Hause. Blinklichter von Ampeln, Scheinwerfer von Autos. Niemand bemerkt dich. Weil du in einer anderen Dimension bist. Du bist gleichzeitig hier und nicht hier. Du bist außerhalb der Zeit, außerhalb des Raums.“
(Kommentar von Roll1and)

Wo ist mein Platz in dieser Welt? Brauche ich einen? Will ich einen? Gibt es einen? Was ist diese Welt? Was soll sie sein, für mich?

Mittwoch, 9. März 2022

Montag, 7. März 2022

Vorfrühling ⚘

Härte schwand. Auf einmal legt sich Schonung
an der Wiesen aufgedecktes Grau.
Kleine Wasser ändern die Betonung.
Zärtlichkeiten, ungenau,

greifen nach der Erde aus dem Raum.
Wege gehen weit ins Land und zeigens.
Unvermutet siehst du seines Steigens
Ausdruck in dem leeren Baum.

(Rainer Maria Rilke, 1924)

Donnerstag, 24. Februar 2022

Just a little shift

I was so happy when I first saw this picture last year. Stereogramms are so much fun and so symbolic. Just a little shift in perspective, another focus, or rather a defocusing, and then ... Today I looked at it again and saw another version of the motive: a teapot that’s broken in half and a smaller one in front of it. Amazing! (This only seemed to work on my phone where the picture is smaller than on a laptop.) It was as if life were reminding me that there’s always more to be discovered, even in that which is apparently the same and known. Keep exploring and savoring, wherever you are drawn to, my dear. It’s beautiful :).

Freitag, 18. Februar 2022

"Life is so weird sometimes."


A Japanese music artist creates an astonishingly
beautiful record for a skin care company
to “give away” with perfume bottles.
Some of them leak and damage the
vinyl, which leads to crackly
sounds that some listeners
interpret as being part of
the music. Decades later,
this album is on YouTube,
being enjoyed by hundreds of
thousands of people and doing all
kinds of lovely things to them. The
“mundane” and the “beyond” wonderfully
intertwined. How it all connects, or isn’t
really separate in the first place... (This
little story has been taken from the
comments by “breakline” and
“t4exanadu” in the comment
section of the video.
Thank you.)

In love there are no lines

I dont know why, but I was thinking about the Stockholm syndrome recently. How the word syndrome is already so hard and judgmental and problematizes that which it tries to describe far too much. How it hurts me and gives me bruises inside. How all kinds of labels do that and how outrageous that is, that overly rational, divisive thinking. The truth, or what feels truer to me, is that it’s all blurred and that the lines we draw just aren’t real. You can take them, stretch and bend and move them, you can play with them. You can take any subject and treat it as a coin with two sides, clearly defined, where the coin lies on either one side or the other. Heads or tails. This or that. Period. No more discussion. File closed. Subject killed. Or you can take the coin, put it on its edge and let it spin. Then it turns into a ball that has no points, no sides, no edges. It simply rolls while being everything ...

The so-called Stockholm syndrome was invented as a psychological phenomenon after an incident where victims sympathized with their hostage-takers. Maybe they even fell in love with them, which says it perfectly: The unconditionality of love graciously took them in. Now you could call that wrong or problematic and pity those people, and yes, on a certain level, in a very dualistic sense, it “is” so. Life can pretend so. But you, it, life as you, could also see the beauty in that, the gentleness and the saneness; the saneness and the sameness. You just have to go an inch deeper or wider, it’s just a little shift. Then these are people who don’t fight whats happening, who surrender. They surrender to the goodness of the life that everyone and everything is, and this is what (dis)solves the situation. And maybe (and not even that is necessary) they see the isness in it, the beauty, the dance that dances itself, just like that, in that guise, in that moment in time. You could call it love.

These thoughts, which have not even really been thought but more like sensed (only now, while trying to write them down, literally, taking them “down” into the realm of thoughts and words), have been with me for a couple of days and maybe, I don’t know how it all connects, have led to the moment in time this morning where I felt deeply in love with the greyness and heaviness that has been with me for quite a while, having me in its grip, having taken me hostage if you will. There was no resistance, so it was completely alright and beautiful as it is. And in that, life did its magical, paradoxical thing, and the greyness kind of disappeared. The problematicness of it vanished, it transformed into “beyondness.” The “place” where there is no need to accept or reject anything revealed itself, in its very innocent, obvious way. You could call that home.

Dienstag, 8. Februar 2022

Coffeeshop notes ☕

Im in a coffeeshop and brought the book A Responsibility to Awe with poems by the astronomer Rebecca Elson. Between a delicious broccoli cream soup and a cappuccino with chocolate cake, I read in it, only a bit actually, I feel more like just gazing out the window and immersing myself in the little everyday scenes that are passing by.

The Expanding Universe

How do they know, he is asking,
He is seven, maybe,
I am telling him how light
Comes to us like water,
Long red waves across the universe,
Everything, all of us,
Flying out from our origins.

And he is listening
As if I were not there,
Then walking back
Into the shadow of the chestnut,
Collecting pink blossoms
In his father's empty shoe.

I can relate to that so well, to what she is, I believe, pointing at. “Erklärungen sind immer so hanebüchen,” I once read somewhere (or was it my own” thought, I don’t remember). Explanations are always so outrageous. Yeah. How outrageous it is to claim that I know anything. But also, how outrageous to claim that I don’t.

My thoughts go on wandering, on the up to just now blank page of the notebook on which I’m writing this. Only this one page, the third to be precise, is blank on one side, all the others are ruled. Oh, these lovely little details that surprise you and make you wonder … It’s life on such a sweet note.

Now a scene from the movie Paterson appears in my mind. The character of the same name is calm and content and works as a bus driver. His life is very routine and ordinary, still, or just because of that, there is so much beauty in it. Some of it he captures in poems which he writes in a notebook during his lunch breaks or when he spends some time alone in a little room in the basement of his house. His wife adores his poetry, she is more outgoing and ambitious (in a lovely way), so she urges him to make a copy of his notebook and publish the poems. If my memory doesn’t lie to me, she says something like, “You’re a great poet. You should let the world know,” to which he nicely replies that she scares him. Later, their dog destroys the notebook, and the poems are gone. In the end of the movie, Paterson meets a Japanese man who gifts him a new notebook, and he just seems to go on writing as before, for himself, for the sake of the moment. That might not be enough, or simply everything.

Back in the café, theres this little episode happening in front of my eyes. Outside there are a couple of little olive trees decorated at a balustrade. One of them gets blown down by the wind several times, and each time a passerby takes care of putting it back up. This touches me deeply in its uncomplicatedness and loveliness, how it takes care of itself in this pure, simple way. When it happens again, it makes me laugh and share it with the waitress. I think she feels what I mean, but the urge of having to intervene takes over, so she goes out, attaches the tree to the balustrade, and the little play ends. Then she does something else which leads to another plant pot falling over, to dirt falling out and soiling the entrance area. Oh, sweet irony. Now I laugh about it, but in the moment it happened, I felt somehow sad and silly. Like as if more was lost than gained through my talking about it. Why didn’t I keep my mouth shut, why didn’t I just enjoy silently, for myself?

Now that I type this on my laptop and look for the link to the Paterson trailer on YouTube, I get lost in this beautiful movie again, reading the comments, sharing the awe about it with other people across the world, loving how they feel similar and how they put it into words. No, words dont do, but then yes, somehow they do. Its all dancing with each other, all the time.

Sonntag, 30. Januar 2022

Loslassen

Wie schön, wie okay, wie frei, wie einfach-so-seiend es ist, nicht immer loslassen zu können oder zu müssen. Heute bekam ich eine Bestellung über ein gebrauchtes Buch, es ist die dritte innerhalb weniger Monate, bei der ich feststelle, dass ich das Buch doch nicht hergeben kann. Die erste Bestellung habe ich storniert mit der kleinen Notlüge, ich hätte das Buch nicht mehr. Bei der zweiten habe ich ganz ehrlich geschrieben, dass und warum ich ihm das Buch leider nicht verkaufen kann (und eine sehr nette und verständnisvolle Antwort bekommen; wie schön, dass sich so diese kleine Begegnung ergab). Jetzt werde ich der Bestellung nachkommen, aber mir das Buch wieder zulegen. Putzig, wie es gehen kann ... Aber was soll ich machen, ich brauche diese Bücher, ich mag sie hierhaben. Eins passt farblich zu gut in mein Bad, ein anderes entführt mich in wunderschöne Buchhandlungen in Europa (was für ein Geschenk in der aktuellen Zeit), und das dritte heißt Hurry up and wait, hat einen zitronengelben Leineneinband mit einer farbenfrohen aufgeklebten Zeichnung und eingelassenen Buchstaben, über die es sich so schön mit dem Finger fahren lässt, und stand bis eben dekorativ (und wahrscheinlich auch symbolisch und prophezeiend) auf einem schwarzen Stuhl in meinem Wohnzimmer. Nein, es geht nicht, sie müssen alle bleiben. 

“When I was a kid my father would say if you get lost, don’t look for me. Stay there. Stay there and I will find you.” 

I didnt even know I was waiting. I thought I was just here.”

Tell me exactly why I should go. I mean, stay. Tell me that. 

(Maira Kalman & Daniel Handler, Hurry up and wait)

Pears & life

“Forward momentum is great. But we also need sideways momentum. For instance, I just sat down and ate a pear. I have no idea what the future holds but I am very grateful that I am alive and able to sit on a sofa and eat a pear.” (Matt Haig, The Comfort Book)

And I am very grateful that I found your books, my friend in spirit. I love sideways momentum, and I don’t enjoy it as much as I used to, I’m not especially grateful that I am alive at the moment, and I am grateful for not thinking this should be otherwise. Grey is also a beautiful color, someone said to me recently. He’s right, and I want the more colorful colors back. (I like to imagine that Im temporarily out of order for maintenance, and a fresh paint is what they do at the end of the repair.) I don’t know what the future holds either, but I hope that I literally fall in love again, that lightheartedness and joy and awe come to the forefront again. Here I am, dearly at your disposal, my beloveds, whenever it pleases you. I need you like the air to breathe. (Longing and neediness are also beautiful feelings. And I’ve found them to be incredibly sweet and harmless when I feel like a baby: It’s totally vulnerable and needy but naturally surrendered, without the idea that its needs might not be fulfilled or that it needs to struggle or compromise for it. I feel its the same for adult babies if we dont believe and act otherwise, and still then ...) And I hope that I will be able to sincerely enjoy just sitting there and eating a pear again. Which reminds me of a painting, which leads me to going to the shelf and take out a booklet about still lifes called Die Magie der Dinge. There we go ...

Donnerstag, 27. Januar 2022