Why am I writing three blog-posts about this visit? What is the deeper meaning and purpose – for me and for a reader? These questions came to my mind early this morning while doing asanas, and also some answers.
It is about experiences. My friends chose to bring me to certain places, and I noticed that these places had a specific relevance for me, our lives and our friendship. The walk to a forest and cliff in Heiligenberg (Holy Mountain) on the first evening was like a prelude – we were in the beauty of nature around their home, at a natural burial side, and, while overlooking a vast horizon from a mountain cliff, speaking about life and “transition planning”. Such “viewing life from an inner mountain” is something to do from time to time: “Where do I come from, where am I, where am I going to, and what is the purpose of it?“
The visits to Meersburg and Ueberlingen turned out to be linked to experiences in earlier phases of my life, also those of the last excursion. Thoughts and emotions conserved therein are a part of my “inner museum” though normally not part of my present life. Some visits were like rays of light from the past into the presence, or coming from dimensions of poetry and theater culture. It was inspiring and nourishing to be there together with my friends. This togetherness was enriching and the main purpose of my journey. It strengthened the foundations for our work on plans for future co-operation. And this was also the undercurrent of the third day of my visit:
In the morning, we started our trip to Reichenau Island in Lake Constance connected by a causeway to the mainland. The first stop was at the Church of Saint George, forming part of an ancient Benedictine monastery founded 1300 years ago.
Due to the fragility of the old wall paintings, it is opened only at certain times. We participated in a guided tour. The guide living her whole life on the island, gave plenty of interesting facets and humorous anecdotes on the biblical wall illustrations of the wonders of Jesus and the eventful history of the monastery. She told, for example, that there are relicts of the cross of Jesus in the monastery, and there exist so many relicts that you could fill an entire ship with the wood of the cross.
The murals about miracles of Christ are unique for their age and location – the only preserved complete set north of the Alps, survivals from the 10th century.
After lunch on a camping site at the lake, we visited the Abbey of Reichenau dedicated to the Virgin and Saint Mark. The abbey was a great artistic and spiritual center claimed to having been the largest center for producing illuminated manuscripts in Europe during the 11th century. The outer forms are still there, the inspiration is still there if we see and integrate it in a way relevant for us. These were places, where groups of souls intensely collaborated in a joint spiritual endeavour.
The excursion brought up a lot of memories of experiences on the path through life, our lives. Seeing the events and places not as outer experiences but integrating them as reflections of the inner – this is part of working out the next steps.
This work culminated in a way Tuesday morning during the last hours of my stay in Heiligenberg. Sabine and I worked on the project for a future website of the German speaking community of WTT and exchanged about other plans for the future. The co-operation goes on, strengthened with new impulses.
