Do you like reading reports, annual reports, for example? And if you open one, would you read more than 2 lines?

I think most would answer both questions with a “no”. Clicking a “like” on Facebook is easier and faster than understanding what a report like the Annual Report of WTT-Global is really about.

12 years ago, Sri Kumar told me on two occasions that such an overview of the activities of the movement is very important. And he remarked that it had taken him years to convince the Indian members of its significance so that they started preparing such reports.

I felt the impact Sri Kumar was giving to compose an Annual Report but I didn’t really understand. I had just been called by him into the Executive Board of WTT-Global. For the previous 2 years I had translated the reports – they were more reviews of the tours and activities of Sri Kumar  in different parts of the world. Since I wasn’t touring this could not be my approach. I would collect information about the tours but rather gather reports about what the groups are doing.

Since 12 years, I am now editing the Annual Report of WTT-Global. The first report had 24 pages – short inputs from activities from 31 groups – the last one, published on May Call, has 81 pages – reports from 38 groups and committed individuals, partly very long ones, with insights into a huge variety of activities of service and meditative work; furthermore short insights into Sri Kumar’s tours in the West, the Paracelsus magazine project and the activities of the Executive Board.

The work for the Annual Report – writing, compiling, translating, and editing – turned out to be full of subtle dimensions. It was not only a kind of taking the pulse of the various groups – I can strongly feel the echo of the qualities of the different groups. The seemingly administrative exercise is a fascinating instrument of weaving a network of cordial relations around the globe. You feel a difference whether the contributions are a “copy-paste” of the previous year (“we are just doing the same like in the years before”) or from a group which reflected on their own work, discovered the scope and complexity of what they are doing. You easily forget this in the currents of everyday life. By sitting down to formulate and to translate, to gather photos and inputs from the other group members, you receive new impulses, for re-sharpening the focus and cooperation: When you look at a thing with loving attention, a further unfolding develops.

Last Tuesday, the day I wanted to get the report printed, I received the biggest group input, a very impressive read which I included just before I drove to the copy centre. And two days ago another interesting contribution arrived which I could include only in the soft-copy version – I started gathering the texts in March but it seems it is not so easy for the groups to organize themselves. And some groups didn’t react at all – no problem, all are free to decide what they want to do.

Sri Kumar gave two mottoes for this year’s Annual Report, one for the cover and one as an “Editorial”: “There is no higher purpose than serving the Plan and the Hierarchy.” and “Let us Strive to Beautify the Personality To be Temple, the Solomon’s Temple.” They describe not only two guiding lights of the spiritual path but also of the work the Annual Report is all about: An instrument of alignment and transformation.

>> Read the Annual Report online / Download PDF version

16 years ago, in May 98, I participated for the first time in a “May Call Day” – an international, or better intercontinental group living of the WTT with Sri Kumar on Mt. Rigi around 29 May. I was deeply touched by this get together in the spirit of synthesis. So it was in a way the beginning of a “love affair”.

I came to learn that the energy of synthesis was received by Master CVV in 1910 in Kumbhakonam and anchored in the planetary ethers. The Master started distributing it on 29 May 1910 by transmitting some of the energy to those ready to receive it – for a quicker transformation. Many things sounded fantastic to me but I also experienced a touch of the energy in form of profound meditations  – and by coming into contact with many people with a similar orientation. Sri Kumar explained that this energy is related to the qualities of Uranus – “bend or break” – and that it might cause a speed-up of inner and outer changes.

When I look back I see that in my life it has become quite true – rapid changes, sudden breaking away of relations and situations, emerging of new ones with other qualities… The meeting on Mt. Rigi was for me a kick-off for annually participating in nearly all following May Call meetings. They brought me to different corners of Europe and even twice to South America. I blogged about some of these meetings in previous years.

Early morning sunrise at “May Call Day” on Mt Rigi in 1999

Group photo of the May Call meeting 1999 on Mt Rigi

These thrilling big May Call gatherings in the West ended in 2012 when Sri Kumar declared that at least for the next 8 years he will do these group livings in India – in Bangalore. Here, too, came a change – me and others had supposed they would go on in the West. Sri Kumar recommended me better not to come to the May Call in India, not only due to my private situation which also had changed. Also for many others it was not possible to go to India for the May Calls. And so last year we organised a meeting in the Vosges, France, a beautiful get-together. At the same time there were many other regional celebrations.

Last January, while in India,  I had an e-mail exchange with Martine, one of the co-organisers of last year’s May Call, and I asked her, “What about organising again a meeting in the Vosges?” She replied, “Let’s wait if Sri Kumar says something.” I thought, he won’t say anything if no-one asks, and so I sent him an e-mail. His answer was quick and direct: “Dear Ludger, let others decide for themselves as you decide for yourself.”

I felt irritated, a bit disappointed. I thought, so let’s wait and see – and I supposed nothing would happen. And nothing of a joint May Call celebration in the nearby countries seemed to pop up. It took some time before I realised the deeper meaning of Sri Kumar’s answer.

When meditating together with a friend beginning of April I told her about Sri Kumar’s comment and mentioned that this year there probably won’t be a May Call group living. She proposed to do a small one with a few friends in the holiday house of a friend of hers. But a week later, at our little group meeting with another friend, she told me that we won’t get the house. The other friend said that last year she went alone for a silent May Call Day to the Paracelsus centre of the WTT at the birth place of this great initiate in Einsiedeln: “Why don’t we do a May Call there?” All three of us said, “Yes, let’s do it.”

Since the Paracelsus centre doesn’t have much space we sent the invitation just to a circle of friends – in the end we are now 9 persons, from Germany and Switzerland, who will gather this week for “our” May Call, including two night stays. And I heard from others that they will also gather in their local groups for meditating and aligning with the energy. So the impulse goes on, and we will join in.

“The Avatar of Synthesis coming from Sirius to Earth via Uranus”, 25 Dec 2009
Download print version

Whenever I experience Sri Kumar doing a fire ritual, I feel a fascinating magnetism spreading throughout the space and uplifting all who participate. I once heard Sri Kumar explain that invoking the presence of the Devas creates this magic appeal which does not manifest otherwise. Yes, that’s the energy of Agni, the foremost of the Devas, the Lord of Fire on the various planes of creation. (Last year I did a blogpost on a case study of the environmental impact of the fire ritual.)

I love the fire ritual but what Sri Kumar does is a complex thing. However, today 14 years ago, at Taurus Full Moon 2000, he gave a short version of the fire ritual, saying “You can do it once a week, once a fortnight, or once a month.” He further explained that it is thought for all and does not take more than seven minutes. He explained some more details and taught us the easy version with a step-by-step introduction of the intonation (MP3).

Sri Kumar and his wife doing the fire ritual in Kandersteg, May 2003

I was “fire and flame” and said to myself, this I will do! The next days I started learning the details. I bought a small vessel and camphor, cut pieces of pine-wood, prepared ghee, and, on 28 May there was the first test run – it worked. So on May Call, 29 May 2000, I did the first “real” fire ritual. And continue to do it regularly till today.

However, there were some difficulties: The burning pine wood made noises and sometimes pieces of the little wooden sticks jumped out of the pot so that we had to be very alert. Later we did it with birch wood which burns quietly. During a later visit to India I also bought a little larger copper vessel, and to avoid a cumbersome cleaning of the vessel I used covering it with aluminium foil.

Our family was living in a 4 room apartment without a chimney or anything like a fire place. Doing fire rituals is not just what an ordinary Swiss family would do, to say the least (on many terraces and balconies you see barbecue devices for that kind of fire rituals), and what about the house administration?

So I decided to do it in my office room with the roller blinds closed. I constructed a canopy with curtain fabrics and an insulation film to catch the soot. This only worked to a certain degree – slowly the soot settled all over the room. I tried to keep it clean but… all 2 years we secretly painted the room.

One day in the last year at that place I got an e-mail from the neighbours living the floor above telling that there were strange clouds of smoke coming up and we should please stop it! Oh, we gave them a big excuse – and aired the room now from the other side of the apartment… When in 2011 we finally moved to another apartment , I had done 4 painting sessions with the office walls – and we got a painter doing it again before handing over the apartment…

Luckily the new apartment had a chimney, and I enjoyed it very much. When we knew we had to leave this place the first months of 2014, a chimney was at the top of my wish-list but we couldn’t find such an apartment – they were too expensive.

When we found the one we are now living in, I saw that it has big flower boxes in front of the balcony and that it was possible to remove the barriers. I did some web search and finally found a potter not far away doing nice earthenware terrace ovens. I gave her a ring and she said that 10 days later she and her friend would be on a craft fair at the Berne cathedral. The oven she brought there was too small but they had a used one, just the right size. They told me that in the morning the police had stopped them doing fire on the market but I could get the oven for half the price of a new one – and in the evening, after the market had closed, they brought it to our home…

Now I enjoy doing the open-air fire ritual early Sunday morning – with sometimes a curious eye from a balcony of a neighbour house. The fire in the little oven is burning well, even when there is wind and rain. Also this morning.

An Indian friend  wrote me a comment on the last blogpost and added, “Please keep sharing your experiences in the path, as much as you are permitted to.” So I will pick up his proposal. This blogpost is about another crucial time in my life.

Precisely 14 years ago, from 16 to 21 May 2000, a seminar of the World Teacher Trust (WTT) with Sri Kumar was scheduled in Kandersteg in the Swiss Alps around Taurus full moon (18 May). The location is about 70 km from where I am living.

End of April I had left, or was thrown out of a group where I had been for over 10 years, but this is another story. For me it has been a challenging and partly traumatizing time. The last 3 years I had been in contact with Sri Kumar and the WTT, together with the other group. The group rules, however, did not allow me to follow another group.

Now I was free. I wanted to participate in the seminar but felt uncertain if I might be permitted. Tiziana, who was organizing the seminar, said to me, “You come!”

When I entered the seminar hotel, Jesús, Tiziana’s husband, was in front of the staircase with an armchair and asked me: “Can you help me carrying it up?” I took the armchair and followed him up the stairs. We went along a corridor until he opened a door. We entered.

To my utter surprise there was Sri Kumar sitting in an armchair, just like the one I was carrying. “Welcome”, he said with a smile. And pointing to the armchair which I was still holding, “Please sit down.”

I wanted to tell him that I just had left the other group. He answered, “Yes I know”, explaining me some things about the backgrounds. “But here you are warmly welcomed.” He continued telling that at the seminar he doesn’t have much time but invited my wife and me to meet him in Zurich, at the home of Tiziana and Jesús, after his return from the May Call seminar in Iguaçu, Brazil. From this moment on I felt part of the WTT family. It had taken me 19 years from my first hearing about it until that point. It was not something outer that happened, something had touched me to the innermost core. I felt that many different strands of my life met in synthesis, a feeling of coming home. Though in the course of the coming years there were many challenging situations and crises, this innermost touch stayed.

After the seminar I thought of starting a WTT-group in Berne. I intended to ask Sri Kumar for a name but also wanted to start the group on May Call Day, 29 May. So I took “Circle of Good Will” as a provisional name, feeling inspiring by the Indian project of the same name. On 29 May I registered a postal account in this name, as a physical anchoring of the future group.

When beginning of June I met Sri Kumar in Zurich, he suggested that we should stay with this name, being a very good inspiration. I asked him, “We are just 2 persons – is it a group?” He answered, “I am the third one.” That is how the Circle of Good Will started.

He further proposed that I should do a monthly newsletter to come out for full moon. When I sent him a draft about the “Full Moon Round-Letters” some days later, he answered, “You decide, I am behind you.”

So with Leo 2000 the first newsletter came out. From the beginning it was a monthly mailing and a page on the newly created website (here a historical view from the internet archives of the Way Back Machine). For 4 years I wrote about the qualities of the zodiacal signs on the basis of the teachings of the WTT. In February 2004 I suggested to open the newsletter to more general spiritual topics and he gave the name “The Lunar Messenger“. They started with Leo 2004.

From the beginning, I wrote the newsletters in German and translated them to English. Autumn 2000, a 84 years old group member from Argentina, a former military and a very focused spiritual person, contacted me and proposed to do the Spanish translation. I was very much impressed by his clarity and directness. He did the translations for 9 months, before his eyesight receded and a member from Miami took on the job till today. And 2 years later, a French translation started. For some time there was even a Russian translation an a few Bulgarian issues. All the texts are published here. And with the blessing of Sri Kumar you find them also as Wisdom Teachings on the WTT-website since January 2014.

Extract from a group photo with Sri Kumar and his wife Kumari, Mt. Rigi, 1999. Somewhere you see my wife and children, and me.

Often you don’t notice when you pass over a threshold in your life, only later you realise the impact of a seemingly small step. But afterwards life is different from what it has been before.

14 May 1974 was such a day for me. And its 40th anniversary, which happens to coincide with Taurus Full Moon, the Vaisakh Festival, is thus a special personal festival, the start of my meditation journey. That day I was initiated into “TM”, the “Transcendental Meditation” of the late Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. So I’d like to tell you about the strange circumstances of this event.

Thomas or, as we called him, Tom and I were studying at the University of Münster, Germany. We felt much inspired by the Hippie movement – long hair, dancing to rock music, and of course, regular smoking of dope. When in April 74 I met Tom in his students’ hostel, he told me he had stopped smoking hash and started meditating: “Meditation gives you a ‘high’ that is better than smoking dope and your experience of listening to music will become better.”

Quite a strange motivation from today’s perspective but what Tom told me rose my interest. I just went through times of big changes – that April I had changed the direction of my studies from economics to philosophy and Romance studies. And together with 2 friends I had moved to live on a farm, our little “free community” which we had decorated with colourful paintings. We were doing experiments for what we called “expansion of consciousness”, with “macrobiotic food” and alternative lifestyle. I had tried meditation practices from Zen and autogenic training but without sticking to them.

Tom told me that the Maharishi was the guru of pop-stars like the Beatles or the Beach Boys – so he seemed to fit well into our hippie culture, also his outlook:

Extract of the passport of the Maharishi, from Wikipedia

At the university there were posters inviting for information lectures about TM; I went there end of April. The lecturing TM teacher said, “Before getting initiated into meditation you have to be ‘clean’ for at least 2 weeks, no hashish and alcohol.” I thought, ok, let’s give it a try. I didn’t suspect that it would profoundly change my life.

On 14 May I came with some fruits and flowers to the initiation. I loved the ceremony – the incense, the singing of the Sanskrit pooja and the waving of camphor light in front of a picture of Maharishi’s guru created an enchanting ambiance. When I was given a mantra as a “secret word”, I quickly dived into profound silence. It took some time to come up again – a very fascinating experience. It repeated during the next meditations – an inner call had surfaced. I told my clique of friends about it; some weeks later nearly all of them started meditating.

Quickly I decided to become a meditation teacher. It was also the start of a strange life parallel to my studies. It rose a lot of dreamy fantasies, fuelled by the TM movement and their lofty promises – cosmic consciousness? will take 5-6 years; Yogic levitation? “In 3, 4 years the meditators will fly over the Lake Lucerne”, I heard the Maharishi say 1978 in Seelisberg, Switzerland. (Here you might read two anecdotes of my time with the Maharishi or a post written at his passing and one about flying mystics.) I went through the whole TM career – TM teacher in 77, head of a TM “Academy of Vedic Science” in 78, “sidha”, “governor”. And after my MA exam I got a small job at the office of the “Maharishi European Research University” in the German TM headquarters in 81.

There I realised that my life was moving in a strange direction, leading me into a dream-world full of boosted claims in various garments. Some of my friends totally lost contact with physical reality, facts which were ignored by the TM people; they landed in psychiatric treatments or even committed suicide. I had profound meditation and energy experiences but at the same time observed great discrepancies between the teachings and the practices of human relations.  So I decided to get off. 2nd August 1982 early morning, from one day to the other, I left the TM headquarters and movement never to return again. Turbulent months of reorientation followed.

But the fire of regular meditation twice daily had been kindled and I kept on, though the methods changed. My understanding of the path also underwent many changes. I still feel grateful to the Maharishi for having me taught the importance of rhythm and regularity and for having me given the initial spark for the search of the eternal wisdom.

I kept on experiencing a deep attraction and repulsion towards “Indian” spirituality – often a mix-up of profound wisdom and living experiences together with vacant “spiritual marketing claims”, self-centredness and ignored shadow-sides of “double standards” – these not being specific “Indian” shadow parts. Only slowly I gained discrimination and a deeper understanding – through practice and especially by observing Sri Kumar, my teacher, of the last 17 years. And I learnt how the “outer” experiences I go through are reflections of my own inner inclinations.

Meditation has accompanied me ever since the beginning, like a thread running through my life, linking me to the core.

A lotus, India 2012

2009 was for me a time of a prolonged inner crisis and of signs of a deeper transformation. I experienced a high sensitivity towards people and words. Between June-October I wrote a series of 90 poems; 2 came a bit later, written in memory of a friend who passed over. Then the doors closed again and no more poems came through. In April 1980 I had experienced a similar influx of words leading to my first book of poems, “The Song of Silence” (German). 33 years passed until the German publication of the new volume appeared in 2013.

I called it “Shades of Yous” (Schattierungen von Dus), because “The poems speak of the reverberation of encounters, of wounds and their healing, of dangers of the way and surprises of everyday life.” (from the preface)

People whom I showed the poems often asked me, “What is Yous?” I reply, “The plural of “you”. – “But there is no such plural, you is always singular.”

I know, but each time I met a person and later a poem arose, it was an intimate echo of this encounter with a “you”, and each encounter had a different quality, gave rise to another shade of yous.

When reading the poems you might feel other such irritations. They reflect the inner reactions you might experience in encountering friends or also just passers-by. Often, however, these sensations drown in the currents of everyday life. I tried to save them in these poems. For if you listen to what the irritations want to tell you, you will discover a message, and this message might guide you to a deeper understanding and even show you a way out of a crisis.

Last year I published the German version – in digital form and one as a paper copy –  each poem illustrated with photos visualising an aspect of the respective message. I edited the images in a way that they do not superimpose the poems.

It was an adventure to translate the poems, and often it was not easy to render the content and musicality of one language in another. Vijay Ganugula from New Jersey, USA, helped me a lot through his proofreading and our discussions. He wrote: “Some of the poems touched me deeply – as I noted in my comments on those slides. It is especially very inspiring to see in the 4th part how the tide turns and veils get lifted when you have confidence in the inner/Yous/Master. … Like your paintings, these poems are a true gift from you to people like me. Thank you for sharing this gift.”

You can view the “Shades of Yous” online on my website, download it as a powerpoint or as a PDF. And here you find some words about their creation.

On Easter the sun was shining and we decided to make an excursion to Vallamand. It is a little old village in the French speaking area at the Lake Murten in the Canton of Vaud. It turned out to be a special Easter walk.

We parked near the lake at the jetty with a beautiful panorama – the sight seeing boats, however, were not yet around. Following the circular educational trail about the cultivation of wine, we arrived at a cemetery with a church in the vineyards. My wife Cyrille asked me, “Do you also feel there are some earthbound souls around?” and so we sat under a tree in the middle of the cemetery. Some of the gravestones showed dates from the 19th century while a few were even younger than the birth dates and age of our children.

We invoked the help from the planes of Light and then called the earthbounds. Cyrille guided the process and I followed it inside. We felt the presence of a number of beings. Cyrille spoke to them and explained their situation and how they should to turn to the Light. Within a few minutes we felt that most of them were gone.

Cyrille, however, then sensed the presence of an earthbound with some problems – of a man who, as she felt, died with an asphyxiation a longer time ago, probably during a disease. He got stuck in this feeling of agony . Suddenly there was a tinge of a heavy mood in the sun-filled afternoon air. With the help of a regression technique, Cyrille led him: “Go straight through it”, just like she had gone through a similar past-life experience guided by her trainer. Then, for the first time, the man was through and we felt his relief to be now in the spiritual world. He seemed to disappear. We thanked the invisible angelic helpers and set on with our walk.

Some hundred meters later, Cyrille stopped: she felt the man again but this time full of joy. He had approached again to express his gratitude for the assistance and then disappeared. It was an unexpected Easter experience with the resurrection of souls.

In the last years, we increasingly came into contact with this sort of subtle help and similar kinds of spirit releasement work. We first encountered it through Anton Styger, as Swiss clairvoyant (some time ago I translated his website about intermediary worlds). Later we came across more profound research work such as the book “Freeing the Captives” by Louise Ireland-Frey, or “Spirit Releasement Therapy” by William J. Baldwin, sharpening our understanding. Cyrille intensely entered into this work and assists people, also via Skype, with spiritual releasement and regression.

We continued our walk along the vine cultivation trail speaking about the major thresholds and turning points in our lives. I noticed that the profound crises took 4 to 5 years from their harbingers to the climax and the final integration into the current of life. And as a part of integration new vistas are opening for a deeper understanding. The sensitivity for the releasement work is also a result of such an inner transformation.

Walking towards infinity…. at the jetty, view with the Alps at the horizon

A “turning point”, at the end of the jetty

View of the little harbour, with our red car

The church with the cemetery surrounded by vineyards

We sat on a bench under the tree in the centre

A little Easter bunny in the bushes

A spring swing

A painting by Nicholas Roerich of Christ descending into the nether worlds for redeeming the beings

At the moment, everywhere the buds are exploding and green leaves are springing forth from trees and flowers – spring time. What has been prepared for a long time in the invisible realms becomes visible with the emergence of the beauty of nature, passing over the threshold of manifestation.

A week ago we moved to our new apartment, just at the beginning of spring, with the full swing of the energies of Aries. The preparation has been an intense time, and it was also an experience of manifestation through a sequence of steps, slowly concretizing.

The thought of moving from the old place lingered around in the subtle spheres already a year ago. We told our youngest son that we will move some time in the near future and that he might look for a new place. Very soon he left to live together with some friends. For us, however, the time seemed not to be ripe yet. In September, we thought it might be good to start searching for a new apartment in February and move next spring. But before we started, our landlord told us he wanted to sell the apartment and gave us the notice of termination. We wrote a letter to the subtle realms and described what we need. We started searching but nothing turned up around Christmas time. Mid-February, two weeks after returning from India, we saw the ad for the apartment. Both of us felt, that’s it, and finally we got it.

Preparing the move was a process of further concretisation – and of letting go. Things disappeared in boxes and seemed to vanish into thin air. Then came the move last week with a removal firm, quick, directly after the trip to the group sharing meeting in North Germany… Days of slalom between the boxes in the new apartment followed – searching for the new order. I had to think of the Manu, who at the beginning of this creation brought the seeds of the last one for a new cycle, and things came out again “in due and ancient form” – in various aspects the new apartment looks like the old but many things had to find a new place – a creative amalgamation.

We didn’t have to do much cleaning of the old apartment since it will be totally renewed. When we did the cleaning last Saturday and I went around the now empty rooms with the vacuum cleaner, thoughts came to my mind of how everything had been there just a few days ago and now had disappeared again into the unmanifest. It was like being in a virtual space after manifestation – the ether was still brimming with the old forms. We celebrated the good-bye with a pizza and pasta at an Italian restaurant.

Yesterday my wife went to the handing-over of the apartment to the estate agent who organises the sale. When she had asked him how we should clean the rooms, he wrote an e-mail with formalities about how this handing-over is normally done in Switzerland, ending with the words: “Though it is not normal that an estate agent speaks of angels, we both are guided by them and will bring it to a good end.” We were astonished: He had googled the website of my wife and turned out to be spiritually oriented. It was a nice encounter.

Now the forms in our new apartment have sprouted like the spring flowers on the meadows. And from our balcony we can see into the nearby treetops where fresh leaves are draping some old trees.

A last view into the old garden with the old stone stairs through the flowers

Sunrise seen from the new apartment

The sunrays entering the kitchen…

… and illuminating the tree in front of the backside balcony

View from the office room balcony to the Alps in the background

Pisces is the final sign of the zodiacal cycle. It sounds the quality of conclusion for a restart, dissolution for a fresh beginning. Pisces prepares the seeds for the coming cycle, and thus it is the subtle commencement, while the tangible commencement is in Aries.

This year, my wife and I experience the Piscean quality of dissolution in a very intense manner: In the final week of Aquarius we applied for a new apartment and got the positive confirmation at the beginning of Pisces. Already beginning of December we had received a termination notice for our old apartment and we started saying good-bye to the place where we had lived the last 3 years. Now, entering Pisces, the preparation for the move are going on – the dissolution starts manifesting:

I went through the book shelves and sorted out (I mentioned it in a previous blog-post): I took the books into my hands and felt inside if there was still some attachment to a book. If no – it came into a box. If yes, I asked myself whether it was an emotional bond and if I would miss it when I gave it away. Again more books came into the box.

In Berne, we have a huge reference library with esoteric and alternative literature, and most of the books went there – I was glad that maybe some interested reader might make good use of the volumes – and our book-shelves became lighter.

The next step was to unburden our basement rooms. A car load went to the waste disposal. But there were things which people might want to use. So I chose a website where you can buy and sell things – or give them away for free. I didn’t want to start selling but give things quickly away. The first test was extremely fast: Hardly had I published my old guitar that the telephone rang- a lady in broken German asked if she could get it. I said yes and tried to describe how she can reach our house – she lived 50 km away. Since she didn’t understand well my explanations I told her to send me an e-mail. She asked if I can reserve the guitar for her; I said yes.

An e-mail arrived – “How can I get the guitar and where are you living?” I sent the detailed description, and shortly afterwards the answer came that she is coming Saturday evening.

Saturday evening, the phone rang – she was nearby but didn’t find the house – it’s a bit back from the street. I saw her car but she didn’t see me. So I went out with the guitar. An African lady and her daughter came out of the car. The eyes of the child shone about the guitar and the lady gave me an invitation to their market shop where they sell African and Indian products and do Afro haircuts, I would get 50% off – not just what I wanted.

Two days later, my wife got a phone call: A lady in broken German – switching then to English –  told her that she wanted to get the guitar which I had promised her. The guitar was away – but who was the lady? It turned out that the first one only phoned and didn’t send an e-mail and that the e-mails were from another lady…

The other things went away with great speed and without mix-ups – especially a jigsaw – there were more than 10 requests – mostly after I had switched off the online ad, a few minutes after I had posted it. The lucky person came from a town about 40 km away… I wondered if he calculated the gas costs…

Others, when they came and saw what we wanted to give or throw away were happy to take more things – and we were happy to give them away:  my old easel, book shelves, picture frames, household articles, children comic books and games… It was a good experience to see the things disappear, hopefully finding a new phase of their lives.

The only object I wanted to sell was a string trimmer, less then 3 years old. I didn’t put a high price – but no reaction came during the last days. Today I reduced the price – I wonder if someone reacts. I’m sure, if I gave it for free there would be a dozen phone calls. But I’m determined to sell it, at least this one! Or keep it, if no-one is interested. In 2.5 weeks we will move to the new apartment…

An empty bookcase – just one book left for our study circle, the rest is already in boxes.