Kind of a Pilgrimage to the Lake Constance Area
My annual visits at the beginning of July to my friends in Heiligenberg in the Lake Constance area are more than just warm visits for me. Spending time together with meditations, exchanges and excursions, relaxing and “bathing” in the beauty of the lush nature of the area and especially in the little “paradise garden” cultivated by Manfred, speaking about spiritual topics and experiences, meeting with other group members of the surrounding – this is for me a time of retreat and kind of a pilgrimage.
Meaning – readjusting by being in a different surrounding and on perceiving afresh the subtle worlds and the divine through beauty and in exchanges/encounters.
On the day of my arrival, they took me to a farmhouse transformed into a theatre, the “Hoftheater” for a presentation of cabaret artist Stephan Bauer about “Married couples go to heaven – they’ve already been to hell”… It was very humorous. At the entrance to the farm parking there was a beautiful old statue of Christ blessing:
Statues of sacredness had been part of everyday life in the past but have largely disappeared in today’s outer life, esp. beyond the religious. However, they serve as signposts to orient within and vertically to the Light.
I passed some time of the days in the beautiful garden in Heiligenberg, reading, resting, and contemplating.
Two friends / group members joined us in evening for meditating and dinner – a group life.
The next day, I went with Victoria to a pilgrimage place of worship of St Mary at a rock wall in a forest near a brook.
We exchanged about the wisdom teachings and teaching them to co-students and interested persons. Manfred has a website (German) called ‘Yoga of Synthesis‘ where he presents introductions to many facets of the wisdom teachings and talks he had given, and he organises group meetings. To kindle the inner fire of students is mostly a long path, and there are many directions people can turn their focus of life …
Manfred has another website on the healing powers of plants, and with a group, they have worked out existing knowledge about herbs to make it available in an understandable way. He has a great knowledge of and dedication to cultivating flowers and plants.
Very near to the place where they are living, there is a big nursery with a plant shop and plenty of statues for sale called Bamboo Forest. It is in a valley along a brook at the place of an old mill. A beautiful place where they have plenty of replicas of Buddha and Ganesha statues and other objects of garden art. Even as decorative garden objects, they bring in a silent, meditative orientation to the place.
By chance, we met the owner of the “Bamboo Forest”, a good acquaintance of Manfred who had built up the entire area from bottom up within 20 years. He had radiant eyes and you could feel his enthusiasm. In his youth, he wanted to become an archeologist but now he travels around the world, especially to the East and Far East, to find places where such artworks are created for importing them. It was fascinating to listen to him.
He told us that he also go the rights from museums to reproduce artwork of Leonardo da Vinci and other classics which he displays over the brook, in trees and at little lakes. A masterly visualisation of sublime presence.
We also went to two Peace Forests (FriedWald) in Heiligenberg, where urns can be buried next to trees. (In Germany, you cannot just poor ashes into forests, there are reserved places.) Many people have reserved places at registered trees where they plan to have their urns placed or where urns are already place. It was a beautiful and somehow sacred ambiance, with people sitting near trees, probably to feel close to the remains of loved ones. And for pondering on the eternal Presence beyond the physical, expressed through the “trees of life”.
Towards the end of my stay, we went to the Langenargen Festival located directly at the Lake Constance and with the Montfort Castle in the background.
That evening, they performed Romeo and Juliet on the open-air stage. Due to my hearing impairment, we received places at the first row. The weather was very warm, and while the performance was going on, there was a gorgeous sunset over the lake. The tragic love story by William Shakespeare was a bit modernised and the artists played captivatingly. Shakespeare was teaching people through the play the fatal impact of letting lower emotions (of servants, soldiers and rulers) cause fights which finally bring about the death of the couple in love, but not of love itself. Through the enactments of the plays the love and teaching goes on.
I felt it to be a divine blessing to witness all the beauty and wisdom experienced during these days.
July 25th, 2025 at 8:41 pm
Todo tan hermoso!!
Muchas gracias,
Saludos fraternales,
jesus y evelia
July 26th, 2025 at 5:59 pm
Looks like a wonderful retreat time! So much beauty and learning!
Thank you for sharing!
Best,
Rosa