bear encounter before a long rest

meanwhile the last few maple leaves fell from the trees
your body left the surface of the planet earth
you took farewell in the same place where your life first saw the sun
in that same stead you finally laid down to rest
but that site is forever yours, and you are forever the site

your body, as the mountain, heavy and full of wisdom
you were magnanimous just as the wide vastness of the forest
you were a torrential current, as the river with its magnificent power
your heart knew of no limits, as the infinity of the horizon
you were generous as the woodland with its red gold

you could flare up just as a heap of leaves that blow in the wind
just as fast you would calm down again
your calm was as a lake, your still reflection in the water
your footsteps just as stable as a pine and fir
you were soft and mysterious as a fen
your eyes were warm as the colours of the maple leaves

every time I walk in your forest, breathe the air, pick the berries, I will think of you
cause now you live amongst us, your spirit float between the tree tops
you still exist in the water drops that falls on the spruce hut
you are eternally there in the air the trees breathe, in every single breath
the pines whisper your name, the creek and the thrushes sing your song

when I walk there I know in my heart,
while the beautiful colours of autumn fade away and enter the bleakness of the winter
your spirit will rest, as the bear hibernate
then later, on the first day of spring
it will see light again when the first life begin to sprout
you are once again a part of everything
you, the king of the forest

Today it was exactly two months ago that I left Florence in a rush to go to see my family. A family member, my step father, my mother´s husband had sadly past away in an accident a few days earlier.
It came as a shock to us all. No one was prepared to face such pain and sorrow.
I was really scared at first. I thought I never could handle facing such sadness. Then I thought about my family, and at sudden I knew I had to face the situation. At least I had to do it for them. We had to be united in such difficult times.
It helped me to write about his death. I wrote a poem, then I wrote articles which were later published
in different newspapers. Many people were affected by his sudden farewell. He knew many, many knew him. He was that kind of person that everybody knows. Any time he came you would notice him. Now that he is not here with us, he left an emptiness. A hole not easy to fill again.
The only way I know is to continue to write about him and talk about him. If we learn from him,
he will continue living amongst us. Cause a person is not its flesh and blood. A human being is such because of what he or she stands for. For what one worship. And we can continue to treasure those values he cared for. We can try to embody what he lived for.

Three nights ago we were once again remembered of his presence. That he never really left us. Only his physical body left this earth. This time his appearance was quite unusual and unexpected.
My mother and brother, still living in the same house where he lived almost all his life, were woken up two hours past midnight by an animal barking. At first they believed it was the neighbour´s dog. But then they thought it was too loud so they went out to see. On the street outside their house they could spot a small fox barking under the light. It semt rather scared. Like it was barking of fear.
They returned to the house. My mother told my brother to have a look from the balcony if he could see any other animal. He could see nothing because of the dark. But he heard a very loud growl just a few meters away. Then he could sense a heavy animal lope away from the house towards the forest. By then he was sure it was a bear. He wanted to go out into the dark to see it. But my mother stopped him. None of them had never ever seen a wild bear, none the less would they ever expect to see one just outside their door.

Next day, at daylight, they did go out. They saw traces from the bear all over their garden. He had eaten from their apples. He had been outside their cellar where they keep even more apples. He had been spying around their property. There were traces everywere.
When my mother told me the story, I was shocked, but also convinced. This was her husband coming back to greet her. For the last time before winter. Bear usually eat as much as they can before hibernating. He was probably really hungry. And he knew there were lots of apples in his own garden -who would know it better than himself?
My mother was worried he would come back the next night, and the next. But I told her, no need to worry. It is only her husband coming back again for a last farewell. And she should put out the apples from the cellar so that he has enough food for the long sleep during wintertime.

I know this will not be his last time to lay down and rest. May he rest in peace.

we are star dust

Infinito cielo stellare: ti guardo e subito mi domando "cos´altro sono oltre a quello che gia so di essere?"

Infinite sky of stars: I look at you and I ask myself "Who am I, more than what I already know to be?"


Sometimes I wonder if there is a parallell world for me on some other place on this earth. I wonder how I would be, how I would live, what kind of people I would be surrounded by.
Is there more sides to me to discover? Sometimes I feel like I am wasting my life. Each time I traveled far in space and time I have discovered new parts of myself. Secret rooms of a huge unhabited castle I never visited before. There can be treasures there to be find, but also others rooms which I rather would not walk into.

At times I am amazed of what I find inside. There can be all kinds of magic in there. That is why I always have risked everything. Sometimes you need to leave all you have behind if you want to find something new. Each and every time I find a new secret room, I grow. Life becomes magic. It is just as if there is a whole undiscovered world inside me, full of unknown talents. There are two events in my life which made me realize this.
There are two dependant conditions. For your potential to fully bloom, you need to risk all you have, and you need to have faith. Universe, in the end, is nothing but energy.

During the phase of my life while living in China I had a desperate need of moving. My housing situation was going beyond control and I had only two or three days of time to move. But I could find no place nice to stay in. While walking on the street with a Chinese friend, a lady comes up to me on the street. It turns out I go to live with her and her sweet son. That was the beginning of living together with a wonderful Chinese family and a friendship that will last forever.

 

 

I always wanted to meet a Swedish singer. I knew all her songs by the age of twelve. I used to sing her songs, playing them on my guitar.
While living in Stockholm for a brief period of time, I felt time had come to realize my dream of seeing the singer live. I seriously thought about it for weeks, and told my friends how I could feel it coming. I had faith it would happen. I was very lucky to recieve four tickets to her realease concert, which was only for invited guests. The concert was amazingly intimate.
I stood only a few meters away from the singer. But I still felt it was not enough  - I felt I needed to talk to her. My curiosity was taking over.

After a few weeks time I told my friend I had faith that time had come. I was walking with her in a park, and when we split up, she called me telling me she had just seen the singer there. But I could not see her anywhere. I felt disappointment coming over me like a cold shower. I laid down on a bench in the sun. The warm sunlight gave me strenght. Lying there I realized this was not the only chance. Somewhere deep inside, I knew there would be more chances.

Next day me and the same friend was watching a concert in a jazz club. Music was wonderful.
We were enjoying the company and our drinks. When I looked around me, I was almost chocked when I saw the singer standing just at an armlength of distance from me. I almost did not believe my eyes. But I realized my moment had come. I had faith this moment would come. And here it was.
So I did not hesitate one second. I stood up, and went over to talk to her.

Now I wonder If there is a new secret room to discover for me? Shall I follow my instinct or will it bring me on a tuff winding road again? Where will I find total peace?

It might be that our destiny is written in the stars. It might even be so that each and every one of us used to be a star. When someone dies a star stops gloving. When somebody is born, a new star starts shining in the sky. Or is it that the light that comes from a star is born inside of us at birth?
If we could carry that light inside of us, that little star, we could be happier. If we could have more faith in universe life might be easier. If you believe your destiny is written in the stars, you need to have faith. You do not need to worry anymore. Destiny will take care of you. Little star.


Siamo figlie delle stelle (We are the children of the stars)
 

owl transformation on a full moon night

“I want to realize brotherhood or identity not merely with the beings called human, but I want to realize identity with all life, even with such things as crawl upon earth.”

                                                                                                                              Mahatma Gandhi

Today I had a strong emotional experience watching a movie. It is not every day I get moved by films, at least not as strongly as this one, and not as profound. The story is about a vet student who loses his both parents in an accident and end up going to work for a circus. He fells in love with the woman who trains the horses. In the very beginning one of the white horses dies from a disease. It is sad. I cannot support watching horses getting hurt, none the less die. It reminded me of the time when I saw a real horse getting carried away for slaughtery. It was full moon that evening, and I cried.
But the event that made me cry desperately was when the circus director is hurting the elephant really badly. The elephant is lying down, full of wounds and blood. It was a terrible scene. It made me full of sorrow and pain.

Elephants are spiritual, and deeply emotional animals. I experienced that myself on a trip to Mandalkiri, Cambodia where I realized my dream of riding an elephant. I was not sitting on the back in a box like many poeple do. I asked to sit on the head of the elephant, to steer it with my own feet, and so I did. It was a truly wonderful feeling. After riding for a while, we stopped in the djungle to swim together with the elephant. In the water I had a spiritual, close-to-euphoria, experience. When I was bathing the giant animal, and getting so close to him that I could touch his face, I looked deep into his eyes as he was lying in the water relaxing. It was something special to me. Unexplainable.
What moved me the most was what happened while riding our way back to the village, where we had to cross a road with cars. A big truck with loads of standing people on it, came towards us, backing up to let people watch the elephants. Both people and truck were very loud. The elephants got really scared, they were trembling and we were shaking. They were screeming like frightened children. They tried to run away. The mahouts got really nervous, hitting the elephants with a stick to avoid them to escape. In that moment something that I will never forget happened: one elephant took the other´s trunk and twirled it around his own trunk. That way they were looking like they were hugging each other. They were comforting each other.

I was not surprised when I read the news that an elephant had killed two trainers while escaping from a zoo. The elephant did not even touch the people that had not caused him any harm. He only killed or hurted the ones that had been evil to him  earlier on. I believe this is karma.
They say elephants and horses remember everything. I would like to sign on to that. I belive that if you hurt an animal, it will one day, sooner or later, get revenge.
I will not tell you here the end of the film, but I can assure you the end has to do with karma.
I never hurted my horse and she has never ever even tried to bite me. A neighbour of mine just got bit by his horse really badly. That horse was used to violence from his earlier owner.

The other day, while I was walking my dog as I usually do in the evenings, I saw a a beautiful white barn owl. It was quite and calm outside, the night was black except for the road lights that lightened up the way. The owl was sitting majestly on top of an electric cord, standing out as it was, huge and white, in the black night. I had an emotional boost, since it was one of the very few times in my life, and for sure the first time seeing a barn owl. I knew by seeing it transformation was on its way. Owls bare a rumor of being the symbol for change. So I felt. I find myself in a moment of life, undergoing different transformations. Seeing the owl was just an affirmation that I am walking in the right direction. All the changes I am living right now will benefit me in one way or another. I could sense I am having positive vibes. Attracting all kinds of animals lately should be a sign for that.

Tonight is full moon. Full moon always makes me wonder about our connection to this earth, universe and existing as a whole. How come the cycle of the moon is just as long as the femal cycle? Every time I watch the moon, I always try to see if I can trace its face. Normally I always find the two eyes, the nose and...yes, its smiling mouth. It appears to me the moon is always smiling. I wonder why? Does life on earth look really funny from so far away? Are our day to day problems so small, if you look at them from a distance? I wonder if the moon would have the answer to all these questions.

meditation on a pear tree: enjoying life from a fruit perspective

 "in the universe there is a huge tree which nourishes all unborn souls"

                                                                                                                           Aztec belief

Just a few days ago I was sitting on top of a pear tree meditating. Looking down under me, I watched my two horses and donkeys chewing and enjoying the sweet pears that fell down to the ground. It seems sitting up there, you could look at life from a different perspective. Sometimes very little is needed in order for us to look at the world with brighter, more clear eyes.
Letting my animals eat from what mother nature has to offer gave me a feeling of deep satisfaction. Just as a mother watching its child swim for the first time, I felt happy since they really enjoy eating fresh fruit. And what could be more fresh than pears directly from the tree?

While meditating up on the tree I imagined myself being one of the many pears. I could visualize for a while a pear tree full of people. On each branch, instead of a family of pear I could see a family of people. And then the bigger branch included the bigger family, and so on. This way we create a whole society of pears. A tree full of people. Everyone with different shapes and forms. Some are sweeter than others. Some are more mature than others. Some grow old quickly. Some stay young for all their lives. But in the end we are not that different from each other. Just like a tree of pears, we humans are quite similar to each other. Some stick out a little bit more, some hide away behind the leaves. But we all connect somehow. We all suffer in one way or another. We all have similarities. Things to share with each other.

Once we stay on the branch with our pear family life is generally easier. It is when we fall down, become mature, that we need to take responsibility for our own lives, everything gets a bit more complicated. For some people it can be the freedom they always wished for. And for most sooner or later they create their own little family - on a new branch with other small little pears.

Sitting in a comfortable position on the tree, I was listening to the song of the balm cricket and meditating about some people that live close to me. I could see how people seem to become more and more individualistic. It almost appears that we are living in a narcissistic era. Society is hedonistic: focus is to have fun, always, in every situation.
I read that in order to develop a good self esteem you should avoid narcissistic concepts such as impatience, constant acknowledgment, focusing on yourself and your own goals, stay away from negative feedback, comparing with others, and fixate with your own appearance.

A healthy self esteem should be based upon letting go of your own self, your own ego. Dedicate yourself to others and their needs, achieve vision that are not only about yourself,  reward effort and learning plus having an immense patience. At the moment when I was sitting up on the tree shaking the tree so that the pears fell down to the ground, these feelings appeared. I believe that many having babies can have the same feeling - when you dedicate yourself to the baby you feel better.

Part of my meditation was also about acceptance. I am reading a book on the subject, which makes me contemplate. It is not easy to accept a lot of things in life. I often realize I try to avoid thinking things or feeling in certain ways. But my book says I should not try to avoid it. It says I shall just open up the doors to my inner self, let the thoughts be there, let the feelings come and go. Just as clouds on the sky. Not try to change them or influence them. Just let them be. Thoughts and feelings are just that. They are not real as long as you do not act them out. If you manage to see them as human constructions, not as a copy of reality, you can more easily invite them in, let them come and go, not keep them, and not change them. Just accept them.

In many Buddhist contries, and also in ancient China, you don´t use the expression "I am sad", "I am happy" or "I am angry". You would say "There is a sadness", "There is a hapiness", or "There is angriness". You are not your thoughts and feelings. Your thoughts and feelings just live inside you for a little while. And you can choose which feelings and which thoughts feel good to live with inside of you. Thoughts that are constructive for you in some way.
Just as waves in the sea, both positive and negative feelings come, culminate and fade out. How many times do we not wish to stop, change or inhibit the uncomfortable feelings? Sometimes it works, but most of the time not. What we can do is to "surf" on the feelings just like a pelican surf the Pacific ocean waves - to have them and to be in them - but without acting upon them or lie floating upon them.

There is so much suffering in this world. We can choose to not suffer. If we accept more what happens in our life, in ourselves, all around us. The things that happen around us may not create suffering just because it happens. It is the way we look upon them that create the suffering.
Next time you feel anxious, you should try to sit up in a pear tree, see the world from a different point of view and try to immagine being a small green pear. Sweet and innocent. Just existing.

the importance of speech for our well-being

Your thoughts create your speech, your speech create communication, your communication create reactions, reactions creates relations, relations is the mirror of your well-being.
                                                                   Universal Education for Compassion and Wisdom


Have you ever wondered about how speech and languages are important for us human beings?

The unique with us humans is suicide. Suicide is an action that no other living creature on this planet committs. How come? What distinguishes us from other life?

The answer could be the speech. Humans can speak and communicate in a way that no other creature is able to. Speech have enormous cultural and biological advantages, but also psychological costs. Speech in a wider sense (images, thoughts, writing, singing etc), is an efficient help to pass culture in all its forms. Let us not forget our capacity of quickly communicating vital information.

We can connect through reflecting and sharing information about our inner self. This way we can strengthen our community. But speech can also cause trouble. It can even cause pain.

Speech is an abstract phenomenon which enables us to interpret and misinterpret each other. Negative feelings are often associated to neutral verbal activities - words. Word have power. When you think or say a word, you are starting a series of activities. Words create images, feelings, physical sensations and actions. Plus, words have the power to create pervasive basic perceptions about ourselves if you allow them to exist in our conscious for too long. If you tell yourself: "I am worthless and ugly" five hundred times a day - how will you feel like in the evening? What will you do?

Words are not objective, true or even real. But they still have the power to create suffering. An experiment to test that would only be possible on a human being. A stately lion or a hot-tempered ant do not have the capacity to comprehend words such as useless and ugly. None the less say those or communicate those words to others. The consequence: the ant will continue struggling, maybe suffering, maybe happy. At least, she will not feel ashamed or bad about herself.

The words also have the power to affect us positively and functionally. We have, luckily, also the capacity to sometimes think good, helpful and happy thoughts or thoughts which are neutral and realistic. The problem for us are knowing which ones are good to socialize with. Which ones should we let affect us?

The negative thoughts have a tendency to dominate many peoples minds, creating unpleasant pain, which worsen their lives. We need some sort of mental discipline and training in order to identify and socialize with the helpful, realistic and happy thoughts, knowing that they, as well as the dark and negative, are just that - thoughts! With other words: words as constructions.

What is interesting about culture and speech, is moreover how languages can form our minds and behaviour.
Scientists say that in these days, the overlapping of different cultures are creating a new kind of human being: Homo Biculturalis.

Luigi Anolli, professor of psychology at the University of Bicocca, in Milan states that "During the study of Chinese Unviersity students in American campuses we discovered that these youngsters have a mind capable of moving with ease not only from one language to another, but also between different value systems. They are individul and hedonistic with their American friends, but respectful and modest with their Chinese counterparts".

We are not talking about schizofrenia or hypocrisy here: the fact is that their minds are really capable of functioning in two different ways without contradiction. Images obtained through magnetic resonance prove it: when the students are induced to feel American, they elaborate concepts such as "mother", "myself" and "another person", in different parts of the brain. When they are induced to feel Chinese the same concepts overlap in the same area of the brain.

Biculturalism which alter the architecture of the brain is the theme of the book of professor Anolli. "To have a mind equipped with many different cultural "tool boxes" will be crucial to move around in an increasingly interconnected world. It might become such an important factor for success that, in the long run, it could reveal itself as a reproductive advantage. In the human gene pool these brain characteristics will spread",

What differentiates the impact on the human mind when humans of today mix - in respect of before - is the social and technological conditions. For instance Italian immigrants in the United States first created a half-cast culture, then progressively, mixed in the melting pot. Today, cultural identities are stronger and contacts with mother homeland through travels and internet are intense and continuing.

"Individuals that grow up in between two cultures do not wish to be assimilated with one or the other. They rather wish to be a bridge between these", Agnolli says. "This gives them an extraordinary advantage, both as mental openness and professional possibilities. They are precious persons, that each country and region should value highly".

everybody is looking for fame - with or without Facebook

everybody is looking for fame; to have their fifteen minutes of notoriety, maybe on facebook

     

                                                                                           Roberto Benigni, Italian director

Facebook is a phenomena of strong impact. Up until today there are 850 millions members and its band-with is increasing with 10 million of users per month.

As I earlier stated I have started annabook as a healthy alternative to Facebook. Though I admit the many positive sides a global platform such as facebook have, I feel the negative aspects are far more damaging to the individual as well as to the world as a whole. I have seen many dangerous signs from the continuing development of Facebook, but no real resistance to this movement to be found. I am not trying to convince anyone to stop using Facebook. I just think that many individuals are not really reflecting upon how they use Internet, and the long-term effects their habits might have. I believe more people need to be aware of the cyber-world they are merged in before they click "agree".

Let me start with some positive aspects regarding Facebook. We have all seen how much power such a platform had during the spring revolutions in the arabic world. It might not have been facebook and other social networks that started the revolution, but it can be stated that these worked as a way to connect thousands and thousands of individuals to stand up against their leaders. Such a massive demonstration, especially in strongly controlled dictatorships, could otherwise have been hard to realize.

Many also like to show on the way these social networks can be a way to democratize the world. Through sharing, and especially when sharing without paying for it, we can get together and change things. If we are enough people, we can make things come true.

An example of how lots of people together changed the world was "the invisible children". An American was filming in Uganda when he discovered how the rebels kidnapped thousands and thousands of children and turned them into child warriors. Since the US government would not do anything to stop it, he started an organization, which grew and grew and today has thousands of members. The organization even managed, through pressure, have Obama send a small troupe of soldiers to protect the children in Uganda. And all this was made thanks to a huge amount of people getting together, through various platforms or social networks.

A third positive example of how facebook can be a good thing is for connecting with people which might otherwise not be having contact with anyone. Lonely people or elderly which do not have a lot of social contact, can find such on websides such as facebook. But here again, I am sceptical because of the real quality of such connection. Is not the lonely person looking for friends on Facebook, not only making illusionary friends? is not a real friend someone you should meet and have a direct relation with? Facebook might be a great way for some people to exhibit what they do in their lives, and just as Benigni says, it might feel like they are standing in the spotlight. But are they really being paid attention to, or is it just an imagination developed in a virtual world?

I will willingly agree, that if a platform is used in these ways they are positive. But as it turns out these are only the good sides of it. The darker sides are often sides many people do not know about, or are too lazy to really care about. Or they know about the negative sides but continue using the platform anyway for its good sides. Any way, it is important that each and every one of us open our eyes for what social networks are doing to us. And here is some of it.

During the year 2012, the fight between the giant four of Internet has intensified, according to Swedish Newspaper DN. Each and every one of these would like to rule the world: the e-commerce giant Amazon, the social network Facebook, the search engine Google and Apple. So why is it not until now that these globalized companies have culminated? Because before they were doing business in different branches.  The key to expansion today for these companies is to find ways to connect our social lives with  our consumption, and try doing this with their own hardware. Their strategy is to merge culture, media, newspaper, music and products so that all comes in on the same arena.

When it comes to Tv entertainment Google/Youtube and Amazon not only act as distributors, but also as producers, with their own channels and program development. The key word is to control the whole experience. For both national TV-companies as well as Internet companies, the digitalization brings possibilities of mapping viewers preferences. In other words, the television is watching us, just much as we are watching it.

During these last months, a couple of news have proven that the four Internet giants are moving their positions forward against each other - and the users! During the launching of its new policy, Google stated its right to store our personal web history for eternity - in order to produce personalized advertising!

During the mapping of our lives, the Internet companies do need our formal agreement. What they do therefore is to make sure that we, the users, register. The giants' collection of data is so enormous. Such an amount of data has never previously been seen during history. The global giants have found a the world's largest and best sellers - our friends!

Social commerce, the so called s-commerce, will lift our willingness to consume to new levels. Generally people have developed a scepsis against sellers, advertising and other one-direction publicity. Of our friends, on the other hand, we still have faith. Therefore our shopping habits will be merged with our social interaction. Next month Facebook will be introduced to the stock market with an extremely high evaluation. The reason is that Facebook is the world's biggest and most natural junction

 - family wise, locally, and globally - with an outspoken intention of a meeting spot for consumption.

The strategy of the giant four is no longer to build its business around one unique branch. You do not earn money on selling some few products, but rather on the knowledge of when, what and how you manage to sell to people. These companies want to know, and build their business-models according to, people's psychology and behavior.

The stories we buy are being adapted to a market need - but the opposite way will also be used: marketing will be adapted to the stories we are ready to hear. A Swedish marketing-strategist working for facebook Ninni Lindertz said that instead of one-way messages to consumers, facebook's advertising will be composed of an interactive "storytelling", where the offers have a direct correlation to our lives. If you are planning to have an Italian dinner, an ad for an Italian wine, that a friend have recommended earlier, might pop up.

The giant are developing more and more ways to get into people's brains, passing by their social relations. What are people thinking of? What do they want to pay for? What do people want in one hour?

In this movement, Amazon, Apple, Googl and Facebook, will dominate in the next coming years. Other such "social" companies are for example Tumblr, Pinterest and Twitter. These are companies which, just like the giant four, are based on human knowledge and social behavior, rather than technical competence.

This struggle has led to a repeated intrusions in our private spheres and trading of people's choices in a legal grey zone. A couple of weeks ago, it was discovered that Twitter , through the company Datasift, had offered all the twitter history (including information of the user's location) during the last two month to external companies. It was recently detected that Google and Apple use cookies and apps to spy on its users. In one case with iPhone, Apple had distributed the access to users private address-books  and photos.

Even if the mapping of our behavior has come a long way, the control of our thoughts are only just in the beginning. New methods for measuring are always developing. Apple has taken patent of an interface for reading of our eye movement. The company Senseye proclaims it next year will have a program ready for telephones that can register how we react on different pages and read.

The US has also developed a software that is capable of screening eye movements and the change of size of the pupil. This way the program can detect and avoid criminal actions before they are committed. 

What is stunning to me is not the huge amount of treading by these four giant. What is surprising to me is that no one appears to be protesting against this. Neither are parties or organization working for integrity moving a finger.

No matter which will be the players on the market in ten years, the monitoring of the worlds population is built on participation, on a freewill basis. The giant four therefore need to take care about their reputation as a nice friendly company with compelling visions. This is getting harder as controlling ambitions increase. What will be decisive for success will be the fact that in the end these companies deliver convenience. Life becomes more comfortable with the integration of our needs.

Today we can only guess what the commercializing and mapping do to our social relations and how it affects our relationship to the net giants. However, not much fantasy or cynism are needed to see the risk for a decisive next step will be that the market players and the states - of course with a nobel motive - unite their data. This way they can study our behavior, read our thoughts, deliver us products, drain our purse and intervene before we commit false actions.

All we need to do is that one and only click "I agree".

music can cure your heart

There is a crack in everything, that's how the light gets in
                                                Leonard Cohen, master in arts
           

In my last post I was writing about how facebook is a world which makes me feel disconnected to the essence of life and the surrounding universe. I wrote that on the other hand there are many things which make me feel connected, amongst them are animals, traveling, passions, people etc. 
I do not know how I could forget one of the most amazing of them all: MUSIC!
Music has like no other managed to open my heart to the world in a unique way. On certain occasions, only music has the power to penetrate my heart and soul and leaves me without breath. 

Here I am going to tell you one of my stories about music, though there are many more to be told. 
I once went to a small concert in one of the old quarters of Beijing, in the old town, the hutongs. The concert was held in an old style indoor patio, very colorful and cozy. The ambient was warm and friendly.
Though everything seemed like the perfect setting I was not feeling well at the time. I was feeling blue, lonely and isolated from the world. I was feeling lost.

As the music started and the three musicians set down, playing exotic oriental instruments, something happened. Just as the main musician started to stamp his feet where he had attached some bells, and played on the strange looking guitar, some of my inner strings started to move as well. It was as if the vibration from the instruments was affecting my body, which also started to vibrate.
Then, when the arabic musician started to sing a song from a forgotten era, it was as if I was traveling back in time, thousands of years. The music took me on a trip in time and space. It was vibrating and moving.

At one time he played a song which was rather sad and I cried one tear. Then again, he played a happy song and I smiled with my whole face. He also let the audience participate in his music by repeating the mystical words he was singing, and then moving our shoulders they way he did. As time went by, my whole body and soul was merged in this oriental vibration of sounds. My head was not longer ruling over my body, my soul was transfered into this amazing rhytm. I felt like dancing although I was sitting down.

After the concert I walked over to the oriental musician to ask if he was going to hold any more concerts. First thing he did when I approached him, he hugged me. It was a huge, warm hug, and long.
I told him it was an amazing concert and that his music made me cry. He told me that if his music made me cry, then that was the best effect he could have wished for. Cause, if people laughed or cried, then his music had reached each and every one's heart. 

Then he told me something I will never forget. He said he saw me when he walked into the patio. He felt my heart was cold like a stone. Then after the music started he had seen me moving, and my face smiling. He felt my heart was open at the end. His music had turned my heart warm again. The effect of the music was healing my heart. 
When he said these things, I was chocked. I had never noticed him looking my way during the concert, and I never thought anyone actually could feel what I felt. He could connect to my heart, in some subtle way. That to me was something new.

After these words of wisdom, we sat down and spoke for a while. He told me I should start doing some tai chi. Which I already did at that moment. It turned out we had some more things in common. He was born in Lebanon, but spent most of his life living abroad. France is where he resides. He speaks six or seven languages, I cannot quite recall. But maybe the language he knows the best, is music. Cause music can actually be the most powerful, unspoken language people have ever known. It is an unspoken language between the hearts. No other language is needed if you have music. It can fill your soul and body with love. It can cure your heart. His name is Abaji.

spiders jumping off before the train is tracking out

People have contacted me since my first post, asking to add more material on this topic.

Though I rather like to tell happy stories with a happy ending, I felt the need to explain myself a little bit deeper.

One of the reasons why I came to the point of opening a blog, was to be a non-convential, counter-flowing alternative to facebook. I see the route facebook is taking during the last period of time, and I feel it is quite worrying.

I believe Facebook is like a train tracking out. It has already started but will do so more and more. Some people have started to raise their eyebrows already, or cancelled their accounts. Some rarely access it. But most of my friends still have a heavy use of this social network.

One of the mayor factors to why I feel facebook is not a forum for well-being is that there are no direct indicator to be found how to live a better life, or none of the content seems to be created to improve peoples lives. It rather appears as an easy way to lose time, a distractor which sneaks into your mind and soul in an addictive kind of way.

It seems networking on the internet is a way of people feeling lonely believing they are connected to the world while they are on facebook, while in reality, they are only in a virtual space of immaginary connections. A real connection, in my point of view, is something you can only get in the real world. From people, animals or nature. Feeling connected has to do with your senses, your heart and spirit. Being on facebook looking at peoples posts, chatting with a friend or checking comments, you are mostly only using your brain.

In addition, it also appears to be a fabolous way of exhibiting yourself, to look for egoistic strive and create a immaginary feeling of being popular. People, who no one really cares for, might think they are being watched 24 hours. And this creates an immaginery self-esteem, which in reality has no grounding.

The backside of this kind of self-fulfillment is what happens when topics is talking about a person, and the consequences of the comments shows that that persons becomes a victim of a bully. This is probably not the aim of facebook, but this is one of the ways the train is tracking out.

Another way is the many methods the owners of this social networks can use the data of information they find from their members. This data they sell or eploit in some other way. Marketing and advertising are intrisicly linked with facebook.

If you have pictures on facebook then that is the image of yourself exposed to the rest of the world. Anyone can display a picture of you on their page and than that photo will be a part of your image, whether you like it or not, unless that person will not agree to delete the picture.

In addition to this fear, anxiousness of someone writing news about someone else or having a party
might cause severe problems in some, not being able to control the full outcome of events happening on the platform. Some friends of mine actually had to seeks professional help, and they were told
to quit using facebook for a long period of time.

 What is brand new to facebook is the program they developed together with Dutch airline, KLM. Due, or thanks to, this program anyone flying KLM Amsterdam-New York or San Francisco-San Paolo can, through their facebook account, chose which unknown passenger they wish sit next to, just picking this person through a social network.

Yesterday I read that American college students are not partying anymore when on their Spring break on a paradise beach, whether in Mexico or in Florida. The reason why they do not dare to drink, not even a beer, is because they are afraid of getting drunk, lose control and end up on a picture on facebook or youtube. And since they soon are going to graduate and look for a job, they are really
keen to have a "clean" image. This is how sad the world looks like today, due to facebook.

My questions are: where are we going to end up? If the facebook-train is already tracking out, then what miserable consequences are going to come? If we do not let destiny decide for us anymore, then what will the world look like in the future? Shall social networks be ruling our future lives?

I hope the story of facebook will have a happy ending, but I am afraid it is going to be a very winding road before we get there.

could "vintage men" change the world?

The other day something very nice, unusual happened. I relived old memories from a world, which appears far from the world we live in today. Today's world made of individual strive and self-fulfillment.

It seems to me our world is full of illusions and unsatisfied desires. In a globe of social networks, online newspapers, instant messaging, blogs etc. a great share of our reality is lived through a digital world. I recently came back from a long stay in Mexico. While I was there, absorbed in amazing nature, surrounded by simple people living a traditional life, It appeared to me how well I was doing without being connected to cyber-space. I was actually happy that my email was attacked by a virus, because I was not able, even though I sometimes would have wanted, to access my mail box. Just as a drug abuser is not able to obtain a drug. When you know you are doing better off without, but still feel that need of something. And during my trip, I was wondering what kind of need I am satisfying when I am online? Which desires do I try to fill going on facebook looking at what other people are doing, what new posts they put, or new people that added me? What kind of fulfillment am I replacing by accessing a virtual world?

I felt compelled to dig deeper into my mind, and after a long time without even touching the Internet, and through meditation, I finally found my answers. I felt none of my desires or needs are fulfilled through internet. At the contrary, when I was disconnected to the world, my inner self was in harmony. The massive amount of information that attack me every time I turn on the computer, appear to create some kind of chaos, or disorder in my mind. So my conclusion was to try to decrease my use of internet, and especially social networks, such as facebook.
I feel facebook creates a virtual reality which soon becomes a spiderweb. It is easy to access it and like it in the beginning, it is like entering an entirely new world, but it is very easy to get stuck in it. It is easy to get addicted to it. A friend of mine even had to search for professional psychological help, where she was advised to not touch facebook for half a year. This is an example of how ultimately, too much cyber use can lead to psychological damage, or at least a temporary state of unbalance.

I also feel this world, due in part to Internet, is becoming more and more individual. No one appears to have time to dedicate to others. Everyone seems occupied with its own business, interests or other. Little time or effort is spent on making other people happy. The values the world used to have, values such as solidarity, empathy, compassion seem to be replaced by egocentrism, self-interests, hedonism. I read that during a scientific research it was proved that Chinese university students in the USA have a mind which can move from one world to the other with an incredible ease. Not only could they swap languages in a second, but also different value system. They are individual and hedonistic with their American friends, while they are respectful and modest with their family. And they are not schizophrenics or hypocrites; their minds are really only capable of functioning in both ways without contradiction. Images done by magnetic resonance show how these students, when being asked to feel like Americans, elaborate concepts such as "mother", "myself" and "other person" in different parts of the brain. When they are asked to feel Chinese, the same concepts overlap each other in the same area.

It might be the case that we are today creating a brain which are capable of operating in both worlds, the virtual one and the real one. As well as some, in parallel, can move between different cultures and  system values. To have a bicultural mind able to mutate the architecture of the brain could prove to be necessary in our fast changing inter-connected world. It might even turn out to be such a valuable function for success that, in the long run, it might turn out to be a reproductive advantage. Individuals which grow up with two cultures can be a bridge rather than to be assimilated to one cutlure. And this gives them an extraordinary advantage, both as a mental openness, and as professional possibilities.

Let us now return to where I started. The other day a part of the roof of my cabriolet vintage car broke
so I went to look for a store which could repair the small hole. I was recommended to go to a nearby store and when I entered the small craftsman shop I was welcomed by two over seventy-year-old
"vintage" men. After explaining my need and showing them my car I asked them for the price of the repair. They told me "nothing". I asked "how much is nothing?". "Nothing" they repeated and pointed at another man outside the store who had had his leather jacket repaired by them without paying a cent.
I was almost chocked by this experience. I must add that I did offer to pay, at least to cover for their expenses, but they insisted, so I didn't.
After this experience I realized there are still some people left in the world, doing things for others without wanting something in return. Rare people like this with a solidary mind, not putting money or self-interest as the highest value in the value system.

I wish the world could consist of more people like those two old "vintage" men, so that the real world can be a wonderful one full of empathy and compassion. This way we will not be forced to hide away in the virtual world, always in search for a non-existent fulfillment.