Traveling around from group to group of our spiritual movement of the WTT for now two weeks turns out for me to be much more an insight-seeing than a sightseeing tour. Traveling and living in the houses of friends / group members for some days each time opens up new and deeper views into their way of living and the way they are walking the spiritual path.

Besides the many intense talks we have each time I enter into an inner dialog with the thoughts and impressions I encounter. I feel that this is working on me, making me reflect on my images and judgments, the way I perceive others. When living at home I much more stay in my own perspective. Now the perspective changes very much, not only from day to day, but through the whole environment of thoughts, feelings, ways of understanding, besides the changing rooms and cities.It opens up my viewpoints, it is like the inner core widening and spreading into the surrounding.

This process makes me to adjust, to reverse subtle prejudices, to open up to the different viewpoints and attitudes, especially when perceiving the living energies of groups and their qualities. At the same time I try to keep up with my rhythm of meditation, the e-mailing and other work coming via the web, blogging, and my daily writing of a poem in thee early morning hours, which I started about 6 weeks ago.

This subtle work with language, where perceptions and impressions find an expression in a condensing word-flow is somehow sharpening my perceptions and the awareness of what is going on in and around. Of course the exchanges with my wife help a lot in structuring the experiences. So the journey is an intense process and at the same time a most interesting study.

Two days ago we saw the new Harry Potter film. I like the sensitivity with which the characters were portrayed and the intense images of the story – being a HP-fan since the beginning, following the adventures in reading, hearing and seeing. A really good story touching many subtle dimensions.

Today we are leaving Berlin for Kassel.

Crystal rosette in the house of a friend in Berlin

Yesterday we passed a beautiful day at the Baltic Sea near Schloss Schwansee (Chateau Swansea), a former holiday residence for party cadre of the German Demacratic Republic. now transformed into a hotel. A beautiful little park with sculptures of African artists added to the charm of the scenery.

At the beach the air was filled with the fresh breeze of the sea, very relaxing. We had a beautiful swim and enjoyed sitting some time in the sun.

In the evening a friend of our friend came for a visit, and we had a lively conversation on subtle energies, healing work and integrating spirituality into daily living. Here are some impressions of nature and art in nature.

A beautiful limetree alley near Chateau Schwansee, leading to the Baltic Sea
Walking towards the sea

Beach at the Baltic Sea in Mecklenburg

Ladybird on the beach

A fountain in front of the Chateau Schwansee

Sculpture “Family” by an African artist in the park of the Chateau

Morning light over a barn

Morning greetings from a horse

Crystal in the window

Some time agou I posted a blognote on the Playing for Change series. A Belgian friend now sent me the link to another song of this inspiring session. And she added a link to an interesting video on the functioning of the right and left hemisphere of the brain, by Jill Bolte Taylor.

Sculpture of an angel by an African artist in the park of a castle near the Baltic Sea.

From Hamburg a one-hour drive brought us to the house of a friend and his wife living at the outskirts of a small town. Sitting in the garden, surrounded by flowers, we spoke about different stages of our spiritual journey through life, while our wives were exchanging experiences in the living room. Later we joined together.

For years my friend had had a spiritual bookshop and a publishing house for spiritual / astrological books. Later he sold the shop and focused on publishing as well as on managing the production of nice jewellery with spiritual symbols, in Asia.

In his life he showed a great love for freedom from limitating structures and a great aspiration towards cosmic depths. He is much interested in creating a space for people to meet in freedom. He told us of a round table group of men with different spiritual backgrounds and with an intense inner journey which a friend of his, a publisher, had formed a year ago where. They meet every 6 months for a weekend of exchange, contemplation and reflection. Our friend is planning to launch a free meeting with friends of our spiritual movement for next year, and he showed us his draft of a concept.

After evening meditation we continued our drive eastwards to meet a friend near the Baltic Sea.

A wind mobile in the garden of  our friend

Buddha meditating in the garden

On our tour through Belgium and Germany we are now in Hamburg. Yesterday and today were filled with lively conversations and exchanges. It is very fascinating to have a look into biagraphies and to get a closer feeling for the steps of  experience people have walked. These are all friends with a long spiritual history and a deep search for light, a committed expression in their surroundings, integrating spiritual living with professional life.

Yesterday afternoon we joined the group meeting of the WTT group of Hamburg, where after many years we met again the old lady at whose house they meet since many years. In my exchange with her we realised that very often in our past our paths had been touching very close points. She gave me insights “from the other side of experience”, and I could share with her information, insights andexperiences from my side, about joint companions on the path. It was very touching and heartening to see how we had been strolling our ways in zig-zag movements and had observed many an event in a similar way.

Other friends had joined the meeting, and there were many impressions shared in a short time.

These talks have a great intensity, which I enjoy very much.

Path to the light – staircase in the house of our friend, where we stay at the moment.

Buddha-statue in a house of a friend we visited yesterday

Herb garden on the roof, veranda-impression

On our journey we went eastwards to Germany. In Bonn we had a short but intense encounter with young friends. Then we drove on to Wermelskirchen, to the center of WTT Germany. Our friends gave us a warm welcome. the next morning we joined the fire ritual in the garden of their house, in an enchanted ambience. There is a beautiful statue of Krishna in a little pond, where dragonflies come out of their larva skins to start a new life in the air.

Later some group members assembled for a morning study group with a lively exchange on spiritual topics, where we fellt much at home.
But in the early afternoon we already set off again norhtwards for our next visit, in the direction of Hamburg.

Little Ganesha–statue at the entrance of the house of WTT-Germany

Krishna-statue in the garden, in a little pond

Master CVV was known to have expressed fullness of life by regularly celebrated great dinners with many people, serving numerous courses. I was reminded of this during our visit to the Belgian group of the WTT, where we had beautiful meals in the garden, with lively conversation – besides enjoying meditations, fire and water rituals together. We had the good luck that our visit here co-incided with the birthday of a friend and with the national holiday of Belgium, so that our friends had time for exchange and for havinng joy together.

We particularly enjoyed the visit to the house of a younger member, where other young group members joined. After lunch she showed us her horse, a dear friend since many years. The mare was vividly greeting us and jumped over the field. She seemed to be pure energy, and she expressed joy seeing her human friend.

We later had a walk through the countryside, along golden fields of wheat and through a forest speckled with sunlight. It is a beautiful time of fullness and cordial exchanges. Today we will continue our journey to Germany.

Lighthouse at the Belgian coast

Candlelight on the altar

On our holiday journey to different groups of our spiritual movement of the WTT we stay for some days with the Belgian group in the surroundings of Brussels. It is a very cordial encounter. Sunday after a morning fire ritual and brunch a group member drove with us to the city of Brussels. On the way he described how often when entering into the city images come to him of the many layers of the city’s history. The past experiences are not gone, but stored in the subtle realms of space, impregnating the qualities of the area.

He showed us different places of Belgium’s historical past, of the urge of rulers striving towards grandeur through pomp and displays of power – on the background of utmost cruelties towards colonialized people who were exploited by force. The karmic waves have backlashed repercussions to the society, causing instabilities and social changes.

In the city we saw signs of occult work from olden times (free-mason) on the walls of several old houses, or other symbols with a spiritual meaning, which the passers-by don’t notice, silent messages without a receiver? In some side-road, where our friend had a house, we saw an old underground passage,  which had been used for transporting prisoners – a strange relict symbolising the imprisonment of man deep down in matter. The towers of the EU administration or other signs of present day’s rulership are thus mixing with undercurrents which escape from the rational mind.

Shop-window reflections of different layers of reality

View to the sky along the front of the town hall of Brussels, on the top of which there is a statue of St. Michael.

Fortune on the wheel with the horn of plenty

An angel trumpeting a silent message over the noisy crowds of the central place

Don Quichote and Sancho Pansa fighting against the nightmares of modern life

For over 6 months I was in a coaching group for project managers. It was a small group of 3 persons with a very experienced process consultant with whom I’m in contact since about 16 years. We had 6 sessions together and today was the last one. It was very fascinating for me to have here a space for reflecting the dynamics of complex processes in our projects. The general experience is that situations who seem to be clear tend to do into some kind of diffusivity. Quickly the landscapes change, and situations or agreements which seem to have been clear are getting uncertain or silently enormities happen which you tend not to note at first hand: The commitment of team members changes, the external partners have another understanding than oneself, and though it seems that it has been clarified on paper and in contracts, the clarities tend to diffuse. The process consultant today gave us a paper with the sentence: “With the time every project starts living lies”. You must be very truthful, careful and attentive to see the subtle changes and, if necessary, to do the needed interventions.

The last weeks I had been writing poems (condensed thoughts) – in German – in the early morning hours about observations and experiences. One of them reminds me of this morning’s topic of the coaching group, so I translated it into English:

Where the path might lead me today?
Questioning I stand at the threshold
of a new morning.
Every day opens, related to
the previous one
and embedded in old tracks,
but there are always
new wanderers waiting
and even the seemingly old companions
enter every day
into a new landscape,
where the sceneries keep on changing.
Often a friend seems to hurry ahead
or fall behind
or take to another way
and slips away, mostly unnoticed,
but frequently also only a cloud
or a bend hides the view
and the closeness remains nevertheless.
The community of
those striving to the common goal
gives protection and strength
in dangerous times.
For suddenly the way might lead
through rough areas
and besides it open abysses
of incertitude, irritation or
poisonous clouds of fear,
or there is
a fight against fatigue and
weaknesses and
threads to the body.
It is good to have
a skilful guide,
whose leading hand
gives strength and shows the direction
and sees that the
group of wanderers
stays together and always
keeps the eye on the
star of the goal.

Marzili bridge, today at noon time in Berne, on the way home.

I just came across an inspiring story on The Web of Hope, called “The Flamingo Story”. It starts with a quote from Robert F. Kennedy:

’Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the life of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends a tiny ripple of hope, and those ripples, crossing each other from a million different centers of energy, build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.’  – Robert F Kennedy

“An ecologist studying flamingos on Kenya ’s Lake Nakuru has noticed an interesting phenomenon. Every year, when the time comes for migration, a few flamingos start the process by taking off from the lake. Since none of the others take any notice, they soon turn round and come back.

The next day they try again. This time a few others straggle along with them but, again, the vast majority just carry on with business as usual, so the pioneers return to the lake. This trend continues for a few days. Each time a few more birds join in but, since the thousands of others still take no notice, the migration plan is aborted.

Finally, one day, the same few birds take off again. This time however, the tiny increment to their number – maybe just one extra flamingo – is enough to tip the balance. The whole flock takes flight. The migration begins.

Various terms have been developed to describe this process – ‘critical mass’, ‘the tipping point’, ‘the hundredth monkey’. Modern biologists talk about the ‘butterfly effect’, suggesting that a butterfly flapping its wings in Sumatra can start a tornado in Idaho . The insight, from Chaos and Complexity Theory, is that tiny incremental changes within the dynamics of a complex system can lead to very dramatic effects further down the line.

If we apply this concept to our current predicament, it gives rise to an immediate sense of empowerment. Rather than dismissing a small action – ‘what difference will it make?’ – or the role of the individual – ‘what can I do about it?’ – we see that change is actually always propelled by the individual, or that a small action can be an instrumental part of the significant changes that arise through complex processes.

Seen from that perspective, we are the ones with the power – the power to cast ripples into the pond and become active nodes within a global network; the power to make positive change into a contagious impulse; the power to help build the sort of world we want for our children.”

The “Web of Hope” is an inspiring initiative of education for sustainable development. Their motto is: “We can show you that the answers are here today – and they are being created by ordinary people like you and me doing extraordinary things…”

They are also running project with a website called: “The Waste Ed Roadshow- teenagers changing rubbish attitudes“; it is an 80-minute performance designed to educate teenagers about the waste we create and attempt to dispose of. You find a trailer on YouTube.

Flying Flamingos, from MarioM, Wikipedia.