After a cold day yesterday with stormy rain and sometimes even snow, this morning the sky was blue and the daffodils in the garden were glowing in the early morning light. In German the jonquils or daffodils are called “Easter Bells” – and this year also ringing in the start of the new solar year. This is much more the starting point than January 1st – March 21, the start of the sign of Aries, bringing in the energies of a new beginning.

Some time ago I got an inspiring story by an anonymous author called the Daffodil Principle (and when googling the title, there were of course a great amount of posts. I’ve posted it as a PDF and also translated it into German. It is about a woman who planted a big daffodil garden, creating something of indescribable magnificence and inspiration:

“When we multiply tiny pieces of time with small increments of daily effort, we too will find we can accomplish magnificent things. We can change the world.” – Enjoy.

This morning’s daffodil in the garden, recovering from the cold

You now can surf with Google through the galaxies and discover planets, nebula or supernovae with the web-browser, without any other software. The Argentinian programmer Diego Gavinowich from Buenos Aires was a finalist in Google’s Latin America Code Jam and won a 3 months internship at Google headquarters in San Diego, USA.

Google writes: “You can search for planets, listen to Earth & Sky podcasts, watch some beautiful Hubble telescope images, or explore historical maps of the sky from the comfort of your browser.”

Seeing the pictures of the cosmos reminds me of the “Conclusion” of the Critique of Practical Reason, where the great German philosopher Immanuel Kant writes:

“Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing admiration and awe the more often and steadily we reflect upon them: the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me.” (written on his tomb)

For moral law we today might say the subtle inner worlds you discover on the spiritual path. You find more about “Meditation – Experiment and Experience” here.

Google Terms of use – free for private use.

While the rest of the family went skiing today, I stayed at home. Since the sun tinged everything in a soft, misty light and brought back a spring feeling after a few days of a winter backslide, I took my bike and went to the nearby Elfenau park in the afternoon. There was a beautiful spring magic around, which I tried to capture in a few photos.

Crocuses heralding the approach of spring

A meadow full of violet and white

The fish of a fountain – is he drinking the waters of spring light? – The right ambiance of the present Pisces time.

Statue of a maid in a meditative mood enjoying the rays of the sun

Statue of a child playing with a fish -another symbol of the Pisces time

Some elves playing in the bushes of the Elfenau (the name meaning meadow of the elves)

Promenaders enjoying the sun, with view of the Alps and the Aare river in the valley

A totally different magical world in the greenhouse of the botanical garden just 50 meters away.

Water dripping into a little pond

Fiery flames of vibrant life

Violet flames of radiant beauty

Depth of the heart

View into a cactus – creative unfoldment

Beauty is a profound expression of spirituality. In the beauty of nature you can discover depths of your own soul.

Two days ago when I came from the office in the evening, there was a fantastic view of the Bernese Alps. When there is foehn, the air is sometimes extremely clear and the mountains, about 50-60 km away, seem to be close-by. There was no wind, but the whole day the weather had been below freezing point.

View from the Elfenau via Muri to the Alps, March 5th, 08

Seen from the same place with zoom: My Himalaya

Sometimes in meditation there also seems to be foehn: The mind is calm and transparent, and the subtle worlds very much present. But just like with the weather, mostly there is haze, or clouds of thoughts are blowing by, if not some rain-showers are obscuring the scene. You might like to see the powerpoint-presentation on “Recognising, Understanding and Overcoming Obstacles” for understanding more about the reasons for these “internal weather changes”.

P.S.: After reading the blog-post a friend sent me the following photo she took last year. The left mountain on the photo is the right mountain on the photo above. The right mountain on her photo in the Jungfrau (: “Virgin”, the “Top of Europe”), it shows a shadow like a giant cross, which can only be seen at a special time.

Today I came across a hint to the website about the “water footprint” and the “Virtual Water Project“. Virtual water means the amount of water used in the production of a good or service. The water footprint is generally expressed in terms of the volume of water use of an individual or a community per year. The concept has been developed in 2002 by Arjen Hoekstra from UNESCO-Institute for Water Education IHE. You can calculate your individual water footprint (or that of a nation), based on your country and your consumption pattern, to get an idea of how much fresh water you consume. Or you can see here, how much fresh water is being produced for the production of an apple (70 litres), a glass of beer ( 75 litres) or a hamburger (2400 litres.

Designer Timm Kekeritz from traumkrieger Gmbh, created a double-sided poster, where he visualised the findings of the Virtual Water Project, “to make the issue of virtual water and the water footprint perceptible”, as he writes. Have a look at his impressive visualisation, which you can also order online.

Poster (c) Timm Kekeritz, traumkrieger GmbH.

I yesterday skyped with my cousin, a biologist and IT-programmer. He told me that his daughter had “gastro-intratestinal lapidoptera”. I answered: “Oh, is it a serious stomach disease?” He replied: “A doctor would probably understand the meaning, though he might not know the Latin expression, it means ‘butterflies in the stomach’ – she just fell in love…”

Butterfly – photo by Dinakar, Mysore

Last Saturday I got a parcel with a copy of the book “Practicing Conscious Living and Dying“, by Annamaria Hemingway (see also her website practicingconsciouslivinganddying.com). I didn’t know her, but I got a letter from her last summer where she asked me if I were interested in receiving a copy once it had been published, and I said yes.

I’m very cautious of accepting new books, which involve the obligation of investing time to read them. I took the time for reading the last chapter, about Annamaria’s experience with the passing of her mother, and it is worth while reading (… I’ll certainly read the rest of the stories…).

Annamaria’s account is full of subtle observations, describing the role her mother played in her life – growing up in post-WW2 Italy, then moving to England, having a full life, the outbreak of skin cancer, the slow process of disease and dying. But besides the outer events, there is a whole world of inner contacts going beyond the physical existence, which Annamaria shows that they are more essential, going beyond the end of the physical frame. The outcome is not only the assurance of the continuity of existence beyond the physical, but a process of transformation deepening the lives of all those who had accompanied the process of transition.

The book contains 16 real-life “Stories of the Eternal Continuum of Consciousness”, showing death as an integral part of life. The description says: “They show how each of the individuals concerned has come to understand that death teaches us that the preciousness of life must be lived with a sense of purpose and meaning, as a celebration of our existence.”

You also might like to read the Lunar Messenger on “Death, Birth and Continuity“.

During lunch at the Planetary Healing Centre two men were picking coconuts from nearby palm trees: One climbed up the tree only with ropes as a help, the other picked the coconuts up from the ground – an adventurous view. It reminded me of the adventure of climbing up the spine in ourselves to reach the sahasrara, the head centre or thousand-petalled lotus, which is also a very long adventure in developing our consciousness:

Christmas is the time of presents – this is also the case in the business world. A number of Christmas presents popped in at my office. It seemed that the agencies and partners want to outdo the others in originality – and not necessarily in beauty and style. In some case there is a subtle material “aggression” behind – a kind of an endeavour to gain favours to get another order or contract. I don’t assume bribery ambitions, but there is some kind of this tendency.

Last week however, I got a very original small gift from an agency which has developed a media management system we use for administering our photos. It is a very good system, and I appreciate the executive director very much – he has an enormous commitment, not only for his enterprise, but also in social activities. Over the last decades he has built up in Andhra Pradesh, India, a mango cultivation and distribution system, which helps hundreds of farmers to have a good job. And then he built up several clinics, and also opened an office of his agency in Hyderabad where they do development and distribution of their media managing system.

The last years he sent always very creative little presents: Once a little granite stone with moss from a pass in the Alps, with a little booklet on how mosses survive in most difficult surroundings, showing parallels to our lives. Last year a stone with petrified little fish from South America, and a small booklet about the evolution and power of life. This year he sent an old Intel Pentium (c) chip, which people from a prisoners rehabilitation centre had opened and prepared, together with a booklet on silicon – how silicon, a material second-most spread on the surface of the earth has become the pivotal point of or technical development. By using the qualities of this semiconductor we are now able to reach technical heights unthinkable of only a few decades ago. The booklet mentioned that for the first flight to the moon the Nasa computers had less capacities than nowadays every cellphone has: We have entered into a silicon age. Now silicon starts even to emit light, through its use in LED light emitting diodes. A real step into the sublimation of matter.

The chip – a little work of art, with a beautifully reflecting centre

A friend yesterday sent me a video which I also found at YouTube and others on the web. There was the following description in the e-mail:

“This woman in the video found this lion injured in the forest ready to die. She took the lion with her and nursed the lion back to health. When the lion was better she made arrangements with a zoo to take the lion and give it a new and happy home. This video was taken when the woman after some time went to go visit the lion to see how he was doing. Watch the lion’s reaction when he sees her.”

This heartiness is really a true leonine quality!