Every blade of grass has its angel that bends over it and whispers, »grow, grow«.
– The Talmud.
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Category: Thoughts
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Life in 2020
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For Easter
Magnolias are astonishing. Such an abundance, every spring anew, fading away in the shortest time and leaving nothing but quite an unspectacular tree. However, magnolias have been the oldest known flowering plants, dating back millions of years, when there were no bees yet in existence but already butterflies fluttering around.
A symbol of the cycle of ephemerality and rebirth. Of resurrection and eternity.
Happy Easter.
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A Day in March
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In Times Like These
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Where I Stand
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Goodbye, Tenerife
My suitcase seems to be lighter, in spite of being stuffed with keepsakes, Christmas gifts and sweets. Just like I have left some ballast here, old worries and fears and the traces of stressful months. I‘d like to stay, yet I‘m looking forward to go home, filled to the brim with new thoughts and ideas. With countless impressions and moments, some of them like right out of a strange and beautiful dream.
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Holocaust Memorial Day
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Getaway
When travelling, I like to spend considerable time just enjoying the small everday moments. Like following the flight of a bird or a butterfly. Observing the movements of clouds and changes of light. Watching the rabbits and hares on the grounds of the hotel here on the island of Tenerife. Or this bunch of goats in the brushes today.
Moments like these keep me grounded and centered while opening my mind and refueling my creativity, giving a sense of peace and of being in this world.
Konstanz: situated in the southwest of Germany, on the banks of Lake Constance, and touching the Swiss border. The town I’ve been living in for more than sixteen years now and the one I consider my home.
The fog of Konstanz is legendary. Although not as world-famous as the pea-soup fog in London’s past (which mainly consisted of smog) or the fog of San Francisco, of course. Still, I often hear things like «Konstanz is such a pretty town, the lake is so lovely – but all this fog in winter!»
True: there are weeks in winter when it doesn’t really seem to get light at all and everything is grey, due to ground fog, high fog and clouds.
But this fog has its own charm. When everything goes quiet and a certain kind of magic descends upon the town, enchanted, melancholic and gloomy.
Today was such a fairytale-like foggy day here in Konstanz, interrupted by a few hours of early spring sunshine during the afternoon.
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Spark(l)ing Magic
When I discovered this kind of winter magic this morning, the thought struck me how much a spider web resembles writing a novel.
At first, there is the concept, a vision; a silhouette, a structure. Then the threads are spun – first of all, for the framework; after that, threads are woven together to fill the intermediate space.
A time-consuming and often tedious process, especially at the beginning. Sometimes flaws in weaving occur; some passages have to be unraveled and rewoven. Holes gape open unexpectedly and have to be mended.
For quite a while, any progress is as sheer as spider silk and almost as invisible.
But then there are these moments when the weave suddenly gleams and sparkles, when it suddenly becomes visible in its entire shape. These moments when one can feel the text breathing and vibrating and emitting sparks, fully alive and completely independent from myself.
Purest magic, every time anew.