Life Stories

Traveling to Maui/HI, I flew with American Airways. As usual, before take-off, the stewardess explained the safety procedures. These days this is accomplished by showing a video, which turns the worst-case scenarios into a harmless movie. I don’t know how often I have seen or heard these instructions but this time when the friendly female voice explained about the oxygen mask it caught my attention, and I listened carefully.… Read more

I walked the beach, this morning, early.                                                                     The waves still gentle, just a bit      curly.

I looked at the traces I left behind,                                                                              How fragile, how short lived came to mind.

They lived one or two waves long, at the most,                                                     Then washed away, blended and lost.

No track left, not even a hint in the sand.                                                                 … Read more

My countless stays in the USA inspire me to meditate about these three words. What do they mean? What emotions do they create in the person these words are told to? How easy can I say them?

„I love you“, says the mother to her child before she goes to school, the husband to his wife, before he goes to work in the morning.… Read more

Once upon a time there was a grandfather. He told his young grandson a story about the two wolfs who lived within him.

“You know,” grandfather said, “One of them is a very nice wolf. He is gentle, funny, always keeps calm, is intelligent, friendly and very joyful.”

“How is the other one?” the little boy asked.… Read more

I have an empty white page in front of me. I could write anything. The choice is enormous, almost scary.

I choose to write about exactly this, the possibilities that I have. So I ask myself,

Should I write about commitment, because I have a friend who just canceled our date? Should I select the encounter I had with a cat the other day?… Read more

We can’t have everything. We can’t always just take. Life consists of taking AND giving. It seems, however, that in our society the giving and taking has come out of balance. This applies to feelings like caring and sharing as well as material goods. The more you have, the more you seem to be valued. The richer in money, the more you supposedly can accumulate.… Read more

There is more to pouring hot water over leaves that we then call tea. Drinking tea can be as elaborate as a Japanese Tea Ceremony using real china or as brutal as slurping a brown sludge in a paper cup that has been brewed from a teabag.

I love tea, all sorts of herbal teas or infusions as you also might call it, and also black tea, depending of the time of the day.… Read more

When I doubt that there is a higher force behind my life, it is usually because things don’t work out the way I want them to or because they work out so well that I think I am the one who knows it all. Then, something comes along and shows me that there must be more to life.… Read more