home on the alp

15 sept - 15 nov The Schweibenalp

Nicoletta's retreat

9 sept - 15 sept Zurich

up in space, back in time, down to earth, go within

21 aug - 8 sept CES (see photoalbum)

Cess Report
Arrival:
In spite of your excellent efforts to get me to Firenze on time it was all to no avail as the train to Milano arived medio hora tardi, and so I missed my connection to Svissera[switzerland]. Well I wasn't too worried and all worked out as a few bussess and angelic lifts(autostops) later I arrived at the small piccolo of chironico and proceded climb up to the even smaller piccolo Ces. It was already getting dark(8pm) but at 9:30 i empirically proved that one could leave grempoli at midday and still arrive to get a cold dinner at Ces(1400m above sea level).

1st week:
Benny and Florian, 2 young male stutgartians, where the members of the Ces foundation who welcomed me to the main house, mao moa, with it's low ceilings and beams. It was built around 1685! In my first week I was quite oblivious to politics and personalities and consiquently quite happy. I picked herbs from the garden, cooked, cut wood and started to build a garden fence with Florian. Though I didn't find the community I expected, the people were interesting and the place beautiful. The town consisted of the 2 ces members, me, a farmer and his wife and 2 or 3 temporary workers who work for him in summer. Then there where also 2 young woman who lived 15 minutes away and they really lived the simple live. They've been there 12 years(since they were 20) and live like people did 100/200 years ago. I liked them though. They say they sleep a lot in winter :) A friend of theirs also gave me an address of a south african woman living near castel focognano in toskana and said she thinks we would fit well together! Well who am I to argue with prophesy ;)

2nd week:
The history, politics and conflict reveals itself. The pace of live quickened as some guests arrived(the foundations runs 2 rustic guesthouses), also the girlfriend of florian, Benny got a little dog and visits by the wild women. They started telling me about the semi-hippy(how hippy can a swiss be;) origins of ces in the seventies and the current state of affairs. Ces owns one third of the village, the farmer has 2 houses and rents the rest from ces and the rest belong to
the ticinese locals who only come occasionally. The farmer and ces are suing each other and some locals and ces also seem at loggerheads. So that explains the somewhat non-existent community. The original vision from the seventies is no more. Then Florian beat his dog badly when it ran away that it was limping for days. This prompted me to stop speaking to him as bullies and those who mistreat animals are not high on my tolerable people list.

3rd week:
Things got better as a new wwoofer arrived and also swiss guy who is doing his social service. He quit the army when they wanted him to go and protect the g8 leaders in davos. I started to explore the area more and spent more time swimming, walking and meditating. I also finished a book of Rudulf Steiner(study of man) i found in their library. His unique perspective on life was a pleasant surprise and very fortuitous. He was active in the fields of health, spirituality, architecture, education and farming. These teachings i will definately explore further :)

In the end I enjoyed my time there but was ready to move on.
Read my Cess Report...

leavin' las zurich

18 - 21 aug: Grempoli, Italy, with Prem and Gyan (see photo album). Many things are happening but i cannot write them down. Alas until the flame of inspiration alights once more in my hand i merely state chronology. Perchance these canvasses might be painted on later. asi fue. si.

the land of in-between

tonight i am loneliness
tonight my home is a stone hut
where i swim through rain and cold
... deserted
Strange and disconcerting
there are no animals around me

how could i have lived this way so long?
how could i have stayed in this place, this state
where i am a stranger?
it started long before i came,
here, to this house,
this storey of in-between.

now amazed i leave.

i took so long to see.

how long can one be an alien?
how long can one freeze one's soul to keep fear away?
i feel like walking out of myself,
out of this alien self
towards laughter and fire,
towards a dog, a friend of my soul,
towards peace and my soul mate.

is it this place, is it me?
i am a stranger in a strange land
as i was to the south,
at my birth
(and on my travels)

Few things are worse than being sin casa
i have become something far away
i don't realize what
i inhabit the land in between
(
desires make me play
and dreams
yet more and more the sound of eternity
rings closer
)
Set me free you big-eyed beings
you don't want me to remain
in this soft land of in-between?
Were is my home?
i want to go home
i want to BE home
show me the way
to my home,
my real home

aha

tonight my dear friend Jan gave me the answer to a long standing problem of mine ..woman ;) I expect openess from others, to have a free-er kind of romantic love(as in 'free love, not free beer.. open source love if you will ;) ; and yet i myself approach every nice woman in the fashion of love me now totally with your (w)hole heart and soul and foverever we shall explore together. i forget we all hang together in a web of loves and lossess, and that true bonds take time and sharing. so my friends, inside and out, i will b aware of the desire and trap of trapping my intimate & soul mate, and be aware there's a way of letting her flow to and through and away from me. peace

MY full moon departs

Today I made a great step forward ;) Instead of saying goD or life is fucked and blaming them as i'm sometimes in the habit of doing, i'll be more accurate and local and just say it corretcly in mexican slang: ME LLEVA LA CHINGADA! The fact that the metaphorical weather or rather 'climate' sucks in my life doesn't mean it is like this elsewhere, that this kind of climate can't be enjoyed or even that is has some sort of purpose that might be lost on me. btw. the physical weather also sucks ...

lies & love

Accept this if you can: follow the truth but accept and give love to your lies, follow the truth but be aware it is supported by lies, follow the truth but know it is a lie, or just follow, it leads beyond truth or lies.

Accept this if you can: follow victory but accept and give love, follow victory but be aware it is supported by love, follow victory but know it is love, or just follow, it is beyond victory or love.

Or as the Toa te ching would put it :)

A good traveler has no fixed plans
and is not intent upon arriving.
A good artist lets his intuition
lead him wherever it wants.
A good scientist has freed himself of concepts
and keeps his mind open to what is.

Thus the Master is available to all people
and doesn't reject anyone.
He is ready to use all situations
and doesn't waste anything.
This is called embodying the light.

What is a good man but a bad man's teacher?
What is a bad man but a good man's job?
If you don't understand this, you will get lost,
however intelligent you are.
It is the great secret.

Source:Toa Te Ching.

italian fauna and flora

Isn't life beautiful

senseless fear and killing

Palestine: A war on children

moon gives a gift of beauty

tonight i saw the most hermosa fullmoon possible, low in the sky framed by the meandering edges of a dark thundercloud. mama mia.

Last week i was in the toskana near firenze attending a yoga nidra course. It ish einfach super huere mega geil schön gsi ;) Great place, people, instruction, food, air and chi... thank u big WI ;)

grotto without limitation

Went with d'Yvonne yesterday to visit and meditate at the Emma Kunz zentrum in Würenlos. Really a beautiful and peaceful place.

violence breeds violence

The Americans have developed an incredibly simple philosophy: anything goes if Americans benefit from it.

- Swiss senator Dick Marty.

'Without going out of doors, one may know the whole world; without looking out of window, one may see the Way of Heaven. The farther one travels, the less one may know.'

the lazy shady bright side of work

i currently experience working from my hammock in our garden and bird-filled forest :)
Dear lorD, can this state be made the default ;)

a secret

is revealed

dark i

that which you deny or repress you give more power

for J

The voice, Afghan matchmakers say, is more than half of love

- Shantaram, p. 24

Everyone, he said later, when his one year in the slum had become three and five and then eight, is connected to Fate through the will of God, and it's not until we open our hearts to what we fear, that we hear Fate knocking at the door of our lives.

- Qasim Ali Hussein

energies ahoy

Last night was full of strange energies. We spent the lovely evening on the K. balcony just chatting like lazy stones for the first time in a long while.

I had a strange dream in the morning which was difficult to capture but here is my best try. In the dream we were sleeping and i was having what i can best describe as pre-cognitive dreams. I dreamt that something bad was about to happen to Mojo's wife. Two woman with me went to try and prevent or help with this event that was about to occur. I 'saw' many dreams very similar but some 'felt' different and they were the right ones to 'take'. The dreams were symbolised as a musical pieces. The process had a feeling of inevitability - we cannot stop the future even though we know what is going to happen. Perhaps the choosing of the dreams had something to do with my decision last night to start writing down my dreams. I alo thought that choosing the correct dream was like a thank offering to God, a blessing.

back to the lake

Returned home today after great fires, food and sleep:) Thanks all.

I feel lots of new things are afoot at the moment. Feelins and truth and facing them. I haven't talked about my feelings in a long time but the captain will sit down soon and write them down in his starblob.

Maya is the many veils decorating the nameless

green hills of germany

I drove up to B's farmhouse near Tübingen yesterday. Went through a pretty rough storm but it was nice to be cruising on my own and the countryside is beautiful.

I had a great sleep and an interesting dream. I forget the beginning, but it felt like a group of us participated in some ceremony standing half submerged in water. Then afterwards I confronted an older man who seemed to be my teacher. This was a first. I shouted at him in mock fury that this enlightenment bussiness was a lot of crap and that i am tired of trying to become like this etc. etc. He just looked at me and said nothing. In the last part of the dream I was together with someone else and the teacher came and wanted to cut away the robe/shirt i was wearing. It was open at the front but still connected by a 'fixed' piece of a zipper just over my heart. I said that my mother is not going to like this as she was the one who made the zipper. I thought that maybe i could still repair it afterwards if needed. He went ahead and cut the robe open.

my dream woman

Last night my anima or soulmate came to talk to me in a dream. she was all i could ever dream of and a friend :) does she exist in the physical world too?

woman in the wood

I had the strangest dream(s) last night. Me, my frien J. and some children were somewhere in a room and J. was explaining/giving a lecture to us on how when children enter into or through the 'wood-world'(another dream world?) they can usually return but that occasionally they do get trapped there (for a while?). There was also the prostrate (sleeping?) figure of a young girl with us. Somehow she was centrally
involved in what we were doing or discussing. Then i think i tried it and entered into or through the 'wood'. I got in but then unxpectedly someone or thing came out of nowhere and gave me a 'fright'(something like saying BOO! behind me). I got such a fright that i immediately awoke shouting something out loud. It was unexpected but i didn't feel malice yet. But things changed. For the rest of the night i was drifting in and out of sleep having the feeling that something sinister is behind my head hiding in the wood and perhaps living in the wood next to my bed. I got the feeling it was a woman and that she is not very friendly towards me. I was feeling very violent(read scared) in my other dreams because i several times told her to go away and when i later saw a cat or kitten looking straight at me in a dream i very aggresively stared it down, mistakenly thinking it might be the woman or sent by her. I approached it and picked it up, softly because i realized i had an open swiss army knife in my right hand. what a night!