The Fall of the Beech E-Book

Katharina Wolter

• Herausgeber: tredition
• Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2017

Seitenzahl: 462

Beschreibung

The end of a relationship throws Katharina, a 30-year-old woman from Germany, into a deep life crisis. While her identity breaks, she builds up a whole range of different personalities. To get back on her feet and to learn how to trust again, she moves to Spain, where she finds her behavior and life mirrored impressively. The story is honest and human: Full of misapprehensions, roundabouts and unconventional decisions, enriched with a pinch of humor. It is based on a true story and describes the interdependence of the inner and outer reality. What if all events in life are not pure chances but results of this interdependence? This is a book that embraces the endless richness of human experiences and builds bridges between people through its honesty. We are not alone in all this!

Leseprobe

Positive projections are something beautiful because they have the power to create a better world. They will awake the most loving side the human in front of you has to offer.

Katharina Wolter was born in Germany in 1982 and is an interdisciplinary artist. She studied education science and German language and literature at the University of Münster with a focus on creative writing in connection with dance, theater and music. In addition, she has realized numerous interdisciplinary art projects. Since 2013, she has also been active in fine arts. Many themes of her prose and poetry are reflected in her paintings.

The pictures to her book “The Fall of the Beech” can be found on her website:

http://www.katharina-wolter.de/index-english.html

Ria & Katharina Wolter

The Fall of the Beech

A Holotropic Journey

Copyright © 2017 Katharina Wolter

Cover design: Katharina WolterCopy Editors: Anne Wolter; Daniel Ross

Publisher: tredition, Hamburg, Germany

ISBN

Paperback:

978-3-7323-9302-2

Hardcover:

978-3-7323-9303-9

eBook:

978-3-7323-9304-6

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher.

For Nienkethank you for your trustand your beliefthat my love will be stronger than my fear

The Fall of the Beech

Prologue

1. The fall of the beech

2. A journey through Corsica

3. Living in a room-cave

4. Mom

5. Drawing a split identity

6. A baby in a trauma clinic

7. Exploring a new world

8. Voiceless between wide sea and wild mountains

9. Bonding and belonging

10. New teenager new chance

11. One of seven billion

12. Last wave of resistance

13. A discovery

14. The return home

Epilogue

Overview of the personalities:

Personality

Age

Description/Themes

Nana

0-1

Nana is needy, sensitive and indigent. She often is called “the baby”. She loves to be held and breastfed.

Naira

5

Naira is often lost in her pain. She has a great fear of loss. She does not talk. She loves to be held and listen to music and voices.

Nira

9-13

Nira is very open, intelligent and tender. She wants to be seen. She loves colors and painting. She often goes swimming, surfing with her body board and she enjoys nature. She takes good care of the younger ones.

Ria

17-18

Ria is insecure, angry and moody. She has a lot of energy and she often does not know how to handle her emotions. She loves expressing herself by writing.

Katha

22-25

Katha is strong, organized and communicative. For her the other personalities do not exist. She loves to see herself as a hero and believes that she can handle every situation. She loves sports.

Katharina

30-34

Katharina is creative, baseless and introverted. For her the most important question is: What’s the best for everyone? She tries to balance the situation and feels ashamed every time she does not succeed.

Ladra

ageless

Ladra is loving, funny and observant. This orange hand-puppet loves optimism and everything orange. She believes that in the end everything will be alright.

Prologue

When I was fourteen I had an idea of how my life was going to be. I did not really expect to ever make this dream come true – but nevertheless, I had it. My idea of the perfect life was to have a little family and to live in a small house with a garden next to a river. I dreamed of owning a kayak and enjoying my time with this hobby. I wished to find true friends. Certainly, I hoped to find a job I liked. It all did not need to be big but for me my dream seemed to be a little paradise.

Fourteen years later all this has become true. Together with my girlfriend and our cats I live in Germany in a cozy, little cottage. I teach creative writing at a university and sometimes I also work in a bakery. Still, I find enough spare time to establish and build up a Capoeira society, to teach and practice Capoeira and organize public performances together with my girlfriend Merrit.

My life is a successful mixture of stability and an unconventional lifestyle. Everything is a little bit extraordinary: I am living in a relationship but it’s lesbian. I am one of the heads of our society but this society is a multicultural, colorful and joyful group of crazy people. I am living in a house next to a river, but it is a holiday house, heated by a wood stove and when there is high water I have to get to work by boat.

I love paddling, watching the ducks, geese and nutrias, watching the plants grow, the river flow and the wind blow. I love to sing and make music. I have a piano, some Berimbaus and drums. In the nights I love sitting with my back leaning on one of the big beeches of our garden and listening to all the sounds around me.

If it were up to me my life could stay like this till I die. Of course, it is not perfect, but I am living MY life and MY dream. And I do not expect life to be perfect. Sometimes, my relationship is quite difficult. Merrit and I have a very close and symbiotic relationship and every time there is a conflict, she gets angry and I get sad. Then, I often look at her and the thing I feel most is that I love her, and inside myself, I somehow have to smile happily. How could I get angry with her? I cannot fight with her, nor stand for my beliefs or my needs. I will always try to do what she expects from me, even if that means losing my friends or denying myself or not trying out the things I would like to. But in the end, this all does not really matter to me. For me, she is more important than I am and I want to spend the rest of my life with her. I want to grow old with her. I am happy just being next to her and watching her. As long as I am in that relationship with Merrit nothing can really happen to me because inside myself I feel this deep love towards her notwithstanding her behavior. There is nothing more important in life than love.

1. The fall of the beech

It is a beautiful weekend. Merrit and I are on a trip to the Netherlands with some people from the Capoeira society. We have a lot of fun together, doing Capoeira and playing games, riding around by bicycle and sleeping on the beach in the sand. And even though the weather is not really good, our mood is.

At the end of the weekend we all drive home. Merrit and I say goodbye to the rest of the people. It is afternoon. The streets are wet because it has been raining. I listen to the sound of the wheels while they are rolling over the pavement. We are both tired. The night before was short. It is the first time this weekend that we are not surrounded by people. We are on our way back into our little paradise. How nice! I am happy. Once again we have organized a beautiful trip with the Capoeira society. And the people loved it. They had a lot of fun. I look at Merrit who is driving and smile. Then I realize that something is badly wrong. As if it suddenly gets dark inside the car. Much darker than outside.

“Your behavior was awful. I do not understand why you acted the way you did. Did you think of me even one second?” she asks.

“Sorry, but what did I do? What was not right for you?”, I want to know.

“If you don’t know that, I can’t help you anymore.”

I feel tears are coming up but I swallow them down. I need a clear mind. I need to understand what happened that made her so upset. I thought everything was okay. The whole time I thought Merrit was in a good mood. She had not given me any sign at all although I had tried to be attentive to see her actual mood, what was going on inside of her, and not only the happiness she demonstrated to the outer world. But I was not aware of the fact that there was something wrong. I swallow hard again and say:

“I am sorry. I did not realize that I did something wrong. Please, tell what I’ve done because otherwise I won’t be able to change it next time.”

“We had this subject already too many times. And if you still don’t know, I don’t know what to say. How many times shall I tell you? This is my work and not my leisure time.”

“I know that teaching Capoeira is your profession. And sometimes it’s also mine. But what did I do wrong?”, I want to know.

“I don’t have a personal relationship with these people and you talk with them about personal things”, she answers.

“Yes, but I did not say a word about our relationship. I just talked about myself and not about us!”

“But how can you tell them something personal? You know that I don’t like that at all. And why did you jump into my conversation with Luisa when we made up that story last night.”

“I am sorry – I did not know that the story you made up was only for the two of you – I thought it was a game for everyone, so I just threw in some ideas.”

“What you were doing was not appropriate at all and if you had been a little more attentive you would have known before.”

What can I say to all this? What can I reply? There is nothing more to say. I feel like I am being treated unfairly and she feels like I have crossed her borders intentionally. There is no solution to all this. It is just that my borders are somewhere else than hers. We slowly reach our little house. The cat is mewing. Merrit greets the cat happily. I am standing in front of our house. Slowly I follow them inside.

“I am sorry. I did not want to cross your borders”, I say quietly. Why can’t we just make up with each other again? I do not want to argue with Merrit. I am so happy that we are here now. That we are alone. That we are together.

“You know?”, she answers, “the thing is: it will not change. I have really had enough of all this. It cannot go on like this. I need more space.”

“Yes, I can understand this. I think having more space would be good for both of us” I answer. And this is true. I do nothing on my own or with the friends I had before I got to know Merrit. I already lost all of them. Our relationship is too close. Too symbiotic.

“And I need more time for myself ”, she says.

“Yes, you are right. We do everything together. I think this would be a good idea for both of us.”

“And I need to do more things on my own.”

“So true. Me too.”

She looks at me furiously. Her whole body gets tense. And it seems as if she spits out the next words:

“You do not need to repeat everything I am saying! And it’s not the first time I am saying these things.”

I need to concentrate – to put away all my feelings, my shivering, my fear. I need my mind now – more than ever before. I need to stay clear.

“I know”, I answer calm but serious. “What I am trying to say is… that we both have the same problem. And both of us are unable to solve it. And it won’t change on its own. So we must make a plan about how to deal with it.”

“No! I have no problem. You ARE the problem.”

Don’t react to this, my mind is telling me. Just don’t react. I need to think. I need to stay clear.

“We could make a weekly schedule for our personal timeouts”, I say.

She shakes her head: “No, that’s odd. And maybe I just want to stay here alone.”

“Then we have days in which one of us is here less”, I try.

“No way. This is also my home. And in a relationship that must work on its own.”

“Or we can sit together on a regular basis and we’ll find a way to work round the problem.”

“No. I have told you about this problem often enough. And it did not change up to today. Why should it suddenly change?”, she returns.

“Then we need help from outside. We could go to a therapist together.”

“No way!”

“Or we could ask a friend”, I say.

“You know that I don’t talk about my relationship with other people.”

I have no idea what more I can say. Somehow it feels strange. I feel strange. I am watching a scene, maybe in a movie, or a theater. Merrit opens her mouth:

“Fact is, it has to change. I won’t be a part of this anymore. It has been the same thing over and over again”, she says.

“I have said every solution I know. So what’s your idea?”, I ask her.

“I have none. But I know for sure that I won’t continue like this.”

I shake my head in disbelief.

“What do you mean? If you have no idea and you can’t open yourself for any of my ideas, what does that mean then? Has our relationship come to an end then?”

She shrugs her shoulders. It is so unbelievable. It’s absurd. I try to feel something but I can’t feel anything. During the conversation I must have lost every feeling. Where was it? When? There is nothing left to say. All I feel is that during this evening someone numbed me and there is no way back.

*   *   *

We watch a movie. No, we actually don’t. I don’t remember who had the idea to switch on the laptop. I want to scream. Everything inside me just wants to scream. But my face reveals nothing. Then there is a sound outside. Like a soft thunder. Slowly. Something is breaking. A tremble is running through the air and through the walls. Merrit and I are scared. There is not much to hear – it is more a feeling. Something just happened outside – and whatever it was, it was big. We listen hard, prepared for about anything. As if the house could collapse above our heads. But nothing happens anymore. Slowly we both start moving. We open the door to the terrace and it takes my breath away. The big beech in front of our house is gone. It is simply gone. There is a big hole and out of this hole pokes out a great root plate. A big part of the terrace is destroyed. The slabs of the terrace lie around like fallen dominoes. It is a picture of destruction. We are both shocked.

“How could that happen?” Merrit asks. “This can’t be! There was no flood, no storm, nothing!”

I don’t reply. But I know the answer. It is what I feel! It is exactly how I feel inside. I am not able to express anything of all this. But looking at this strong beech, which just fell into the river, looking at this picture of destruction, there is nothing left to express. It is like my inside suddenly has turned outside. And I feel sorry. I feel sorry for this lovely beech.

The next morning, I run through the garden, searching for scions of this beautiful broken tree. I know that there had been some in spring. Scions of exactly this fallen beech. Maybe, there is something left I can save. Maybe, we can fill up the hole and plant a scion from the broken beech there. Maybe. My hands search the ground desperately without success. The big strong beech took everything with it. There is nothing left to do, nothing I could save.

I move with my things into a little room under the roof of our house. I talk with Merrit about who will stay in the house and who will move away and we decide that we both will try to find something new and help each other. I do not know what to do with my life. The relationship had been my basis in life – my ground. This relationship was my meaning of life. In my desperation I write down a list of wishes for my life: “traveling / healing / kite surfing / sailing / Shiatsu / Holotropic Breathwork / music”. I don’t have the courage to write down “love” or “joy” and I can’t find any joy inside myself by writing down these wishes. It all does not really mean anything to me anymore. It doesn’t even really interest me. I just write down these notes to have an orientation. Something to hold on even if I don’t know what for. I don’t want to eat anymore. I don’t want to sleep anymore. I don’t want to talk to anyone. I feel like being far away, removed from everything. I am not part of all this anymore. My life is over and my body still feels numbed. There must have been a moment in which time suddenly stood still. It is not really true because I can look at my mobile phone and see the seconds running. But I don’t run with them anymore. Sometimes, I watch for hours how the seconds pass by.

The following nights Merrit isn’t at home. I ask her about it and she says that she is sleeping at Luisa’s house and I am glad that at least she has a friend by her side right now.

2. A journey through Corsica

Itry to get from one day to the next. I contact my old therapist Elisabeth. I need to get away. I wish I could go to my parents and spend some days or weeks there till I am strong enough to restart my life. But the relationship with my family is awful. I do not want to get in touch with my friends. They are all connected with the Capoeira society and many of them know me as their trainer and as this strong, happy, energetic woman I once was. I am not interested in my job or my hobbies. It all does not really make sense to me.

I pack my backpack, put in my sleeping bag and a little pocket cooker and book a flight to Nice. I must be crazy to go to Corsica – I was there with Merrit once. Maybe one of the happiest times we both had together. I need a plan on how to go on. I need distance. I need a new perspective. I need to get away from here.

*   *   *

The ferry is tremendous. It would be possible to squeeze in some houses. I need some time till I have passed the belly of the ferry and find the deck. The big motors vibrate, the ferry starts moving. I am sitting in the sun. The ship knows the direction. I have no direction. All I can think of is death. I feel like dying. My will died when the relationship with Merrit broke. I do not know why I am doing what I am doing. I don’t do it because it feels good. I do everything I do because it seems to be necessary at this particular moment. I can’t explain anymore why I am doing what I am doing. There is no logical reason, no sense. I just follow an inner wisdom. Right now the ferry carries me to Corsica. No idea why. In front of me lies a six hour boat trip, behind me lies a whole life.

The following days I walk through a desert. I had decided to cross it because it is the loneliest place on the island. And I want to be alone. With me, the rocks, the sea and the sun. I

spend the days walking. My backpack is extremely heavy. Sometimes, I carry up to eight liters of water in addition to my luggage. One time, I almost have no water left. I need water and there is no way to get any. While I am walking, I concentrate on the energy surrounding me.

“Spirits, angles, whatever is around me right now,” I say “I need your help. I need water.”

After having said that, I feel a huge trust into the world and the spirits around. I do not need to think about my water problem anymore. I can just let it pass. When I go around the next rock, I suddenly see a half-full water bottle standing on the middle of the trail. I have to laugh.

“Sorry, spirits! You are right. I have to express myself more clearly. What I need is fresh water. A few liters for the next days.”

It does not take long and I pass a street. A van drives along the street and stops right beside me. I think the driver wants to know if I need a ride. But I do not really understand him because he only speaks French and I only speak German and English. Suddenly, I have got an idea. With my hands I try to ask for water. He smiles, opens his van and gives me a five liter bottle of fresh water. I feel so grateful and thank him... and I thank whoever has sent him to help me.

The nights are warm. With my sleeping bag I lie down on the naked rock. First the rocks feel hard, but then in deep trust I let myself fall into the arms of the rocks and they become soft. As if they were holding me and caring for me. I feel very safe, lying there somewhere in a desert with nothing but the stars above me. Sometimes, I even feel like sinking deep into the stones, so they will surround me with all their stability and safety. One time (please, don’t tell anybody) I feel like opening my mouth to suck on the rock. I feel so deeply connected with nature around me. I do not feel like a human child. I am a child of nature, of the rocks of the stars and the sea. I cannot find much of a human inside me anymore.

One night I keep on walking. It is so beautiful. The moon is shining and throwing my shadow into the waves of the sea. I am walking through nature, without a trail, without a map, without being able to see the ground under my feet. But it does not matter. I feel it. I feel every step. I feel so much part of my surroundings. It is as if a deep sense inside myself awakes, an instinct, which carries me safe through the night, as if I were pure being and this pure being were not human. In my deepest being I am an animal, a strong one, and my home is nature. This is where I feel safe, secure and strong. At the same time I see my human body. Maybe I am in a fairy tale. It is so unreal. I want to put down my backpack and take off my clothes and just run totally free through this beauty. Good luck that my mind reminds me that this would be quite impractical and I probably would lose the few things I have.

Another night I suddenly wake up and the soil looks as if it was red. I cry and scream for my mother. Not the woman who bore me once. She will not help me. I long for a universal mother. Maybe I am even crying for a human mother to have by my side in this life.

While walking I think about the relationship between Merrit and me. How could it break? Why? When did it start? And why couldn’t we find a solution? I do not know and I do not understand why it happened at all. Maybe I do a little bit. Somehow, I feel freer than all the past years. I don’t have to be and behave in a special way. I don’t need to explain anything to anyone. There is no need to fulfill any expectations. Still, I had been so convinced of this relationship. I had been so sure that we would stay together. It was an illusion. How could I have been so blind? How could I have believed in anything, knowing that everything is always changing. There is no security. There is no stability. That’s it. That’s the truth. The only thing that exists is the moment. The now. And I should never let myself in for an illusion anymore. I never want a relationship anymore. The only thing that exists are encounters. I belong only to myself and I need nobody else except myself. Intensity and the feeling of connection towards another humans exists only in the moment and belongs solely to that particular moment. Am I able to devote myself completely to that existing moment? Who is open enough to fully live that moment of encounter, knowing that everything is lost as soon as it is over? Do I want this? But it is not about what I want. The only moment that exists is the present moment. It is a fact. There is nothing to choose. There is no security, no continuity in relationships between humans. But, if this is the reality, do I want to have any contact with humans then? The consequences I draw from this insight about the moment seem to tear me apart.

*   *   *

On the inside I fight with myself. On the outside I fight against the elements. Today it is the wind. It blows strongly while walking through the day. When night falls I am totally exhausted and my nerves are on edge. And worst of all: No matter how hard I try, I do not find a place to sleep. It is almost dark, so I just lie down between some rocks next to the sea. The stones are sharp and uncomfortable. I try to fall asleep but it starts raining. I get out my tarpaulin and try to fix it, which is almost impossible because of the wind. The result is that I cut my legs and hands on the sharp stones and after a while I give up. I am simply too exhausted. Everything gets wet, all my things, my books (I know it is crazy but I just can’t travel without them), my sleeping bag and of course: I get wet as well. I feel angry.

“From a statistical point of view it is very unlikely that it would rain right now here in a desert”, I think and somehow have to smile about my thought because it does not change the fact that it is raining. I try to find a solution. I cannot stay here. I will never manage the whole night like this. But neither can I look for another place as long as the weather is like this. It is much too dangerous. An idea crosses my mind: The weather is like me. Like my inner fight. Like the battle I have been fighting against myself since I have been on this island. The mercilessness with which I goad myself the whole day to walk. The way I force myself to keep going and never really stand still. I can’t change the weather. But, I can change my inner weather: my feeling. I can let go of whatever is inside me. In the middle of the windstorm, lying on sharp stones, soaked to the skin and chilled to the bones, I close my eyes, take a deep breath and let go.

My mind is drifting far away. I do not feel or hear the wind, the rain, the cold. I am lying in the middle of a circle. A healer kneels next to me. There are some women standing around my legs. They are singing a short melody which they keep repeating. And each time they start, they focus on another part of my body. It feels like the tones flow inside that particular body part. The inside of this part is growing, like looking through magnifying glasses. It gets unbelievably three dimensional. The healer has something like a spiral with which he opens my throat. Suddenly, there is a passage between my chest and my mouth. Through this passage flows all kind of imaginable and unimaginable sounds: gargling, cawing, croaking, whimpering, bewailing. In another reality I can hear how all these sounds mix up with the roaring of the sea. The healer repeats this procedure a couple of times till I feel like my throat has a diameter of three meters. Then the healer reaches out to my three-dimensional body parts. I feel deep trust towards the healer and towards his hands. I like to feel his hands inside my body although they are men’s hands and I normally keep distance from men. He searches for solids. Every time his hands find some, he comminutes them between his hands and all kinds of sounds come out of my mouth. The biggest solid is inside my stomach. It is adhered to the front side of my body. The healer tries again and again to separate the solid from my body. Desperate sounds of pain are echoing from the rocks. The healer finishes his work. He takes my thyroid into his hand. It is like a little, round stone and at the same time it is like three meters wide. Slowly, the healer equates these two realities to one another and I wake up. Three hours have passed. I am totally wet. I fall asleep.

When I wake up two hours later I am in a wonderful mood. With a child’s voice I sing:

“It’s raining, rain falls out of the sky. What’s wrong with it? There is nothing wrong with it!”

I laugh with all my heart and I know that at this moment no rain of this world matters to me anymore. I can breathe freely. I can breathe in and out freely and deep into my lungs. What a wonderful feeling. I had not even known that I was not able to breathe freely before. I laugh about this whole situation. How bizarre! How very alive. It is almost four o’clock in the morning, it has stopped raining and I put my belongings together and start walking. I sing all kind of songs, whatever comes to my mind. I wander through both beautiful and scary copse. Sometimes, it closes above my head and I walk through a tunnel of absolute darkness with only one narrow band of white sand on the ground. It is entirely stunning. Slowly, the sun rises announcing a new day.

Five hours later my clothes dry on a beach. I lie next to the sea and am falling asleep when I suddenly hear someone singing. I open my eyes and look around but there is nobody. The whole beach is empty. I listen carefully. The voices I hear come from the sea. As if they were part of the sound of the sea rushing. I hear more and more voices, a choir. It is one of the most beautiful songs I have ever heard. The men’s voices I hear are very rhythmic, like a base and above that are soft, warm, high women’s voices. Does this come out of my mind? This can’t be. I could not create such beauty, but I wish I could record it or memorize it deep in my heart. I take it in gratitude as a present from the sea.

*   *   *

The next night I wake up and almost jump out of my skin. Something pulls at my right foot. My right foot is caught in the mouth of an animal. I try to shake it off. No idea what kind of animal it is but it jumps away. My heart is racing. This is not a dream. It is fully real. The animal is still close by. I feel it looking at me, even though I cannot see it. It is too dark. I try to figure out what kind of animal it is: It isn’t too big. It is deft like a cat and I can feel that it is determined. It lurks around me. I feel its attention. It is not afraid of me, it is cunning and it prepares itself for the next attack. I look around. What are the most important things I have got with me? My money, my passport, my ticket for the flight back. They lie in a little fanny pack next to me. I take it and put it deep into my backpack. The backpack is too heavy for the animal. Then, I put everything I can find around me into the backpack as well. The animal jumps forward, but it cannot pick anything up. I clap my hands and it runs away. I think it is a polecat. I get out my mosquito net, fix it to the ceiling and tighten it with stones. Well, I know that a mosquito net is not insuperable, but it will be an obstacle for the animal and that will give me time. After that, I take my camera and wait. I want to take a picture of it. With the camera in my hand I fall asleep. Early in the morning, I wake up when the polecat steals my tarpaulin. It runs away and between the rocks under my cave I can hear how the polecat tears the tarpaulin into pieces. At the horizon the sun rises slowly. The air is fresh. I get up and have breakfast. I guess the polecat was searching for some food. And now it has only a tarpaulin. I do not have much food anymore and I do not know if polecats like muesli, but I decide to dump some muesli on a rock. Maybe, the polecat will come back to see if there is something left at my sleeping berth. I take my backpack and walk into the morning.

In the afternoon, I stand on a beach watching big dark clouds coming nearer and nearer. There are three people who leave the beach in a rush to seek shelter. I can’t go away because I am so amazed by this beautiful-scary natural spectacle directly in front of my eyes. The atmosphere is electrified as if the air is filled with energy. I walk along the beach directly towards these dark heavy clouds. My whole body vibrates and I start to sing. I sing the oldest Capoeira songs I know. My chants are not pretty but loud and wholehearted and through it all shines a beauty I cannot describe. It is a deep joy, a dance of energy without any will. I just let go. Suddenly, it is as if my voice communicates with the clouds. My body feels as if it simply consists of energy – an energy that is deeply connected with all the energies around. Then a thunderstorm breaks out. I don’t care about that. I am part of this amazing energy. I just continue singing and walking along the beach. When I reach the end of the beach, the thunderstorm lies behind me and I get aware of the fact that my body and all my things are still dry. I am stunned. I have been walking through a rainstorm and I am still dry! I can’t believe that! It can’t be true! But it is. I put down my backpack. All the energy leaves my body as if I had totally overextended myself. I feel freezing cold and my body shivers. I get down on the ground, right on the path where I’ve been standing and fall asleep immediately.

*   *   *

The following nights I spend in the same cave. I am near a little town and I buy some food. I was here with Merrit once and now I spend time at places I have been together with her. I wish I could look deep into her eyes for the last time. I wish she would look at me and smile as she sometimes did. This warm smile she had for me. If only I could see it again. Only one time. And then? It is gone. It is lost. There is nothing left to do. Nothing I can change. Suddenly, I feel that my smile for her is still alive. My smile still shines through all my pain. It doesn’t matter, what has happened between us. Deep inside I still feel this strong beautiful love for her. And surprisingly, I realize that it will stay. It has never changed during all the years we had been together and it will never change. I take my little cooker out of my bag and make myself a hot chocolate. I look at the place where Merrit and I once sat together, and I raise my cup to her. I hope that she will be happy. I hope that she will find what she is searching for.

After that, it is the first time that I think about going back into civilization. I do not feel like missing humans. No, I feel much safer without, but maybe, it is time to leave the caves and make it a little bit more comfortable for myself. I need to rest, I need to relax and be on holiday instead of continuing this survival training. I decide to walk to Bastia, the capital of Corsica and to rent a car.

*   *   *

How many steps can someone take to reach Bastia? How many steps, how many altitude differences, how much willpower? Once again I fight. After having missed the right path for the third time, I have had enough. I sit down on a wall, my whole body pulsates like a strong heartbeat after all these hours of walking through the hot sun. I drink some water. What am I doing here? Why do I fail to find the right direction again and again? Why has all this become such a forced march?

“So, Katharina,” I ask myself, “why don’t you want to reach Bastia and prefer walking till you break down?”

I try to listen into my body, but there is no answer.

“Okay”, I say to myself, “you do not like to answer. Then I try to guess: Is it because of the city?”

I listen into my body but once again there is no reaction, so I continue.

“Is it because of all the people?”

No reaction.

“Is it because of the car?”

My body reacts immediately: fear.

“So you are afraid of the car”, I say to myself. “What’s wrong with the car?”

I listen and wait for an answer and this time I can even hear words:

“It is too expensive.”

“Yes”, I admit, “it will be expensive. But what are you afraid of? Of spending too much money? That may be the reason for some stress but not for the fear you have. So please tell me: what is the real reason?”

First there is no answer. But then I can hear a very shy

“I cannot drive”.

“But you have already driven lots of times before. You know how to do it”, I answer softly.

“Yes I have driven before. But I always feel so insecure. And I do not know what kind of car it will be. And maybe I will not know how to drive it.”

I am astonished. I had not expected this.

“I can understand that you are insecure. If you do not want a car, we do not need to rent it. But you know, having a car would be great. You could go to the beaches on the east coast, you could visit the waterfalls and you could drive to a megalithic archaeological excavation. This would be fantastic, wouldn’t it?”, I ask myself.

“Yes, that doesn’t sound too bad.”

I go on: “Imagine with a car you can even listen to some music, and you can sleep in the back of the car! So are you going the right way now? Please, stop forcing yourself to walk around Bastia, okay?”

“Yes.”

A short time later I stand inside the car rental Europcar. I do not really know why it is so important to rent a car. I really do not have the money for it. In the end it is absolute nonsense. I must be crazy. But it is a symbolic act. It has to do with autonomy. It is the progress of human history in eleven days. I push my driver’s license and my credit card over the table to the woman at the other side. Looking from the outside I seem to be relaxed as if I’d done this procedure a thousand times. Nothing unusual. The truth is: I never rented a car alone and I never owned a car and I never wanted my own car. Inside myself panic spreads with every second passing. I go outside, walk around the gray Peugeot, look to see if everything is okay and throw my backpack into the back of the car. I smile, wave to the woman from the car rental, get into the car, turn the ignition key and at the same moment the navigation system, the radio and the air conditioning start running. I would like to scream! I need silence. I hit all the buttons I can find till everything is quiet. I need to get out of the city. No idea how. At the first traffic light I kill the engine. At the second one I step on the accelerator as if I was trying to motivate all road users around me to start a collective race. I feel like I’m sitting in a car for the first time. And I drive as if it was my first time. When I pass the city sign, I start screaming. I laugh and cry at the same time. Once I was on this road with Merrit. She was driving while I was holding the map and searching for a way. Now I do not need to search for a way anymore. I just drive wherever it takes me.

*   *   *

Although I have a car now, my journey does not get less exciting. I jump between inner and outer worlds. I visit some archaeological excavation, feeling with my hands deep into the walls, getting information no tourist brochure could give. At one archaeological excavation I get so lost in other times that I lose my orientation and run through a pitch-dark forest for half of the night. One time I am followed by a group of wild dogs. Another time I am stopped by a group of pigs lying in the sun in the middle of the street. Then I get into a Thanksgiving ceremony in a little town. Everybody is dressed up and a whole cow turns around on a spit.

I still walk a lot, visit a waterfall where the rocks around me start jumping back and forth because I am so exhausted that I cannot hold myself in the ordinary reality. Even though I enjoy all these unbelievable impressions, my pain keeps me going and going and I can’t stop moving till the moment comes in which I simply break down. Twenty hours I lie in the back of my car, with fever, swollen legs and knees, unable to eat. Everything inside my head is circling. Then I slowly am waking up again. I try to do my first steps around the car. I eat a little even though I do not feel hungry at all. I try to sort out what had happened. Once again I start talking to myself:

“Why did you exceed your own limits in that way? Why have you not been able to stop running and caring for yourself instead?”

This time I do not have to wait long till I can hear the answer:

“Oh stop this! It is therapeutic nonsense. Be careful here and be careful there. I can’t hear this anymore. It is like: put your sweater on to avoid getting a cold.”

“Why are you so angry? And what is wrong about putting on a sweater to keep yourself warm?”, I ask.

“All this caring for yourself does not help at all. It only makes things even worse and I do not want to have an extraordinary experience just because I care for myself ”, is the answer I can hear.

“What? But caring for yourself grounds you. And if you don’t want to have an extraordinary experience, then leave it. Which one is it?”

“My God! What do I know? Nothing really.”

I feel irritated. These answers do not seem to make any sense. And the anger jumps out of every word. So I keep asking:

“Sorry, but you have been walking till you broke down. Did you want to have this experience?”

“No, I was running away from an even worse experience.”

“But your ‘keep on moving till you break down’ strategy is not a really good strategy to save yourself from an experience because it is creating a painful physical experience which is real.”

“I don’t know. Maybe. Now leave me alone! This is enough!”

“No”, I answer. “Not as long as you don’t care for yourself. So what is wrong about caring for yourself ?”

“Everyone says that eating and sleeping and taking a break are important to ground myself. But this is not true. It’s a lie. If I do these things, I feel my body less and then my feelings and inner experiences come back to me and overwhelm me. So I have to keep on moving.”

“Interesting. And what is the experience about?”

“I don’t know. At least not really. I just feel that the pull of the non-ordinary reality gets stronger and stronger. I should let it come and look what it is about. I should allow it to pull me into an alternate state, so that I stand with both feet on the ground afterwards. But I do not have the courage.”

“Wait. I think I cannot fully understand this. If you keep moving till you are totally exhausted then the border between the ordinary and the non-ordinary world gets extremely thin, no? So, I would think that the risk to be pulled into a non-ordinary experience is bigger then.”

“Yes and no. Physical pain is good to keep you on the ground and in the ordinary reality.”

“I can’t understand this. Physical pain is a great gate to get into non-ordinary worlds.”

“That is true. But you can pass this gate into both directions. You can survive sexual abuse for weeks and months. You just go through the door at the right moment, meaning: from the ordinary into the non-ordinary.”

“Please stop – I am getting sick...” I feel awful. But the voice keeps on talking:

“Or you can get back into the ordinary world after an odd experience has already pulled you into the non-ordinary world. And if you are already too exhausted to keep running because you are already too far in the non-ordinary world, you can just cut your arms with some glass or you can stub out a cigarette on your wrist.”

I look at my arms. There is something true about all this. Still, I feel like I don’t really get it.

“Well,” I say, “in the end a non-ordinary experience cannot really harm you, but a sharp glass can.”

“That is what you can think but not what you feel. Compared to the odd experience the cut in the arm feels beautiful. It feels like a release, like a deliverance. After cutting yourself you feel much better. The pain is running out.”

“So what is it about this time? Which experience of the non-ordinary world is so bad that you better hurt yourself ? Do you know?”, I ask.

“I think it has to do with anger. It feels as if my existence is only a grace given by humans. I do not have the right to exist. If I make no demands, if I am inconspicuous, invisible and silent, I can survive. If I am not, or if I am angry, the grace of existing can be taken away.”

What kind of beliefs are these? Where do they come from? I say:

“Okay. That sounds big. But still: in the end it does not make sense to try to rescue yourself from a non-ordinary experience when it comes back to you again and again.”

“Yes, this is true. This non-ordinary experience is following me like a big dark cloud. It is always close behind me. But I don’t want it. I simply do not want it. Not here and not now. I came here for a holiday.”

“But you can’t have a holiday because the experience is pulling you all the time so that you have to keep on running away. It seems that it is a really important experience that wants your attention.”

“But it is too big. It is simply too big for me.”

“Well, you know: You always get more than you think you can manage but less than you are able to manage.”

“Very funny your pseudo wisdom. What am I going to do now?”

“I think you can choose.” I know that my words are not really compassionate. But to be honest: I do not know what to say. Before I can think more about it I can already hear the voice from inside:

“No, that is the point. I cannot choose. If I choose that I do not want to go into this odd experience, it will keep pulling me, so that I have to keep on running till I break down. That is no choice. That is blackmail.”

“Well, maybe you can make a deal with the non-ordinary experience. You can tell it: dear extraordinary experience, now is a really bad moment to appear. But, I will take my time in three days (or whenever). So please appear then and show me whatever you need to show me. Make it big.”

“You think this will work?”

“I have no idea. But you could try. And maybe it can reduce the inner pressure.”

“Okay. I will try. I really need to relax. In two days I am already going to leave Corsica.”

*   *   *

I drive to the sea. I know that there is a long, lonely beach and this is exactly where I would like to be right now. But to reach it, I first have to cross a little beach full of people. They are packed together like sardines in a can. So many people! Why are they doing this? Spending their time together at this little beach next to each other. I would get mad and not be able to relax if I were surrounded by so many people.

“Hey everybody”, I want to shout, “there is a long, long beach next to this one here. There is enough space for everyone. You only need to walk five or ten minutes!”

But then all of a sudden I realize that these people are maybe together here because they want to. They like being so close to each other. I am totally perplexed. I have already asked myself so many times the question how and why so many people can lie together on a short stretch of sand. Now, I realize for the very first time that they maybe do it because they enjoy it. People are really strange. I cross the little beach and find my beach in solitude five minutes later.

Two days later I go back on the ferry. Inside I pass a big mirror and I can’t believe what I see. If I did not know that it must be me, I would not believe that this sun-tanned, slim but strong woman in front of me is me.

*   *   *

The jump back into my everyday life is huge and it is hard to get along with it. I am back at our little river house somewhere in Germany where it has already become autumn. When I arrive home, I realize two things. First, I really love this place. What a wonderful place to be, what beauty! Second, during the three weeks in Corsica something has changed. It is not my place anymore. Not Merrit is on a journey. I am. I feel like the fourteen-year-old girl who once decided to leave her family and her home. And now I do what I did before. I decide to go. I put all my feelings as far away as possible and talk to Merrit.

“Did you look for a new home while I was in Corsica?”, I ask her.

“No. I did not have the time to do so. And I do not want to move just anywhere. If I move away, it must be a beautiful place like this one”, she says. I look around. I know what she means but I need to make decisions.

“Is it okay with you if I move away in a month?”, I reply. She is surprised.

“Of course, but have you already found something new?”, she wants to know.

“No. But I think if we live here together for a longer time, we are going to hurt each other. And I do not want to make it even worse than it already is.”

While I am saying this, I realize how true it is. I have become another person in Corsica. I will never allow Merrit to run me down anymore. Our relationship has changed deeply even if she might not know that yet. And it will escalate soon if we stay here together. But now at this moment she is calm and so am I. And she tries to help me:

“It is the beginning of the term”, she says, “all the students are searching for rooms right now. They are already camping in front of the university. It is really difficult to find a place right now! Stay here till you have found something new.”

“No. I’ll be gone in a month. If I do not set this limit, I will never go.”

A few days later I talk with Andja, a friend I got to know through Merrit. I tell her about this challenging task of finding a room for me. She smiles.

“It is not difficult,” she says. “You do not need to spend hours of reading through adverts in the newspaper or the internet. The perfect place for you is somewhere out there. Trust that it will find you and you only need one phone call.”

I think about my journey through Corsica and decide that there is something true about what she says. So, even with the days passing, I don’t search for a new room but keep my eyes open and have faith. Just like when I was falling asleep in the arms of the strong, warm, motherly rocks of Corsica.

*   *   *

The following days I think a lot about the relationship between Merrit and me. When we both got to know each other she lived on a farm together with eleven cats. They took apart most of the things she had, but that did not bother her... she loved them more than she was able to love herself or any human being. During one of our first dates, she said to me:

“Never trust a human being – you never know what he or she is going to do next.” And I replied: “Well, you are a human being as well – whom can you trust more than a human being?”

Now, five years later it is the other way around. I don’t believe that I will ever be able to trust a human again. At my first Capoeira training after my Corsica journey the scales fall from my eyes. At first everything seems normal. We play music, do acrobatics, practice Capoeira movements. But, there is something different. Luisa has overtaken my role in the society while I was in Corsica. I am fine with that. I like Luisa, she is my friend and I don’t want to be in the middle of the society anymore. Maybe I have changed more during my journey than I had expected. But suddenly, I realize that every time Luisa passes my way during this training, she looks away. Slowly I begin to understand. Maybe Merrit did not let herself in for any of my ideas for a completely different reason. Maybe our relationship was already dead long ago. She and Luisa are a couple. How could I have been so blind? How could I have been so sure that Merrit and I would spend our lives together? How could I have expected that her belief in our love and our relationship was as strong as mine? I can’t believe that it took me so long to realize what has been going on between Merrit and Luisa.

After the training I go to Luisa. I want to talk to her, even though I have no idea what to say. I find her in the changing room.

“You want to come outside with me?” I ask her. She does not look at me but her head goes up and down.

We are alone outside. It is a little bit windy. Most of the trees have already lost their colorful leaves. Somehow it is peaceful. I look at the trees, at the table tennis tables, let my eyes cross the schoolyard and the sky and it hits me: It is not her fault. I turn around to her.

“Listen, Luisa, whatever is between you and Merrit, it is alright with me. I don’t care about that. I just hope that you both are careful with each other. Be careful with yourself.”