It was special, better, more difficult and more exhilarating to practice QiGong in the air open, under the sky, with voices all around, insects making their curious dances in the air. We met at Volkspark in the Friedrichshain district of Berlin, at the Platz der Vereinten Nationen.
Afterwards, we lay in the grass, talking and making chains from the abundant daisies and clover flowers then, as the sun left the part of the park we were in, we took a slow walk around one of the most popular parks that is a more frequent spot for locals than tourists and other visitors. We were searching for the last spots of sunlight and found them. My photos are from “incoming” from Frankfurter Tor to the M6 tram lines along Landsberger Allee.
Scharmützelsee. If you’ve read or viewed this blog for a while or just a short time, you’ll probably know its my regular haunt, my beloved location and a relaxing place of fascination for me. It’s a moderately sized lake in Land Brandenburg about an hour from Berlin and usually I make a lot of photos whenever I am there, but this visit I didn’t. I just wanted to be, to feel, to experience. I didn’t want to concentrate on visual stimulus as a recording device and memory trigger as much as I wanted to just look and let it lead me to into contemplation.
Fields by Red Haircrow
I rode a bus from Fürstenwalde through Neu Golm (though usually I go through Petersdorf) to Bad Saarow-Pieskow then around to Wendisch-Rietz and several even smaller villages in between before heading back to Bad Saarow where my friend, from so many entries here, has a home I visit and have lived at before.
Summer. It’s been filled with incredibly rainy, cool days this year in Germany. Last year was the same but at least it was warmer, so this day I hoped at least for just one or two rain showers instead of dozens or all-day, and was pleased to receive none at all even though I was mostly riding instead of my usual walking or bicycling. I was in a state of bemusement, thinking about someone I care about, puzzling my feelings of lethargy lately, and actually didn’t even end up wandering the lakeside or looking for glacial stones as I’d planned.
I paid for extra tickets and kept riding, looking out of the window at the changes of scenes but which were predominated by fields of waving grain with thick forests at their edges. One of my favorite songs by Robert Burns playing in my mind, and since I was usually on the bus alone except for the driver, sometimes I sang aloud: “Now Westlin Winds.”
“Now westlin winds and slaughtering guns
Bring autumn’s pleasant weather
The moorcock springs on whirring wings
Among the blooming heather
Now waving grain, wild o’er the plain
Delights the weary farmer
And the moon shines bright as I rove at night
To muse upon my charmer.
The partridge loves the fruitful fells
The plover loves the mountain
The woodcock haunts the lonely dells
The soaring hern the fountain
Through lofty groves the cushat roves
The path of man to shun it
The hazel bush o’erhangs the thrush
The spreading thorn the linnet.
Thus every kind their pleasure find
The savage and the tender
Some social join and leagues combine
Some solitary wander
Avaunt! Away! the cruel sway,
Tyrannic man’s dominion
The sportsman’s joy, the murdering cry
The fluttering, gory pinion.
But Peggy dear the evening’s clear
Thick flies the skimming swallow
The sky is blue, the fields in view
All fading green and yellow
Come let us stray our gladsome way
And view the charms of nature
The rustling corn, the fruited thorn
And every happy creature.
We’ll gently walk and sweetly talk
Till the silent moon shines clearly
I’ll grasp thy waist and, fondly pressed,
Swear how I love thee dearly
Not vernal showers to budding flowers
Not autumn to the farmer
So dear can be as thou to me
My fair, my lovely charmer.”
I am a long time fan of Celtic music of a variety of kinds: Scottish, Irish, Breton, Welsh, and a story of those surprised I know what I do can be found here, when I am an unexpected visitor at an Irish “green” club in Berlin, The Shannon.
The video description of a biography written in memoir style of a courageous young deaf man, the compilations of notes, journal entries and essays, as well as my observations of a person I felt the personification of beautiful. Of the ability to create light from darkness, joy from pain. For more details, description and an excerpt, please visit its page on GLBT Bookshelf, Silence, and for a great review of the work at The LL Book Review.
I first heard the song “Midnight” by Minako Obata, when it was the end theme of an episode of the anime, “Black Lagoon.” I was riveted in place, and found it unforgettable, just like G.Y.S. The acapella arrangement is lovely, haunting, with a bittersweet sadness that also reminds me of him. He couldn’t have heard it, but he could have felt it.
As I wrote in more detail in my previous author’s note: “He lived most of his life in or near Berlin in Germany. Whether by train, bus or foot sometimes when I am wandering through the countryside or city, through the many parks or shopping arcades filled with people and I happen to see a tall, slim person with long reddish hair: I have a little pain inside me.
It stops me in place because I think of him. If the person is moving away from me, sometimes I wish it were him somehow, still alive, still touchable in the physical sense. I want to imagine he is alive and loved by someone even if it is not myself, he, my special phantom of the city. It is hard to accept sometimes that so vibrant a soul is now gone from this world, but I believe I will see him again one day.”
This photo used in my video is one I took at Scharmützelsee, where he also used to walk, as I still do as often as possible. Other photo journals I’ve made in Germany can be found in this entry on Songs of the Universal Vagabond.
Lyrics:
“Someday I want to run away
To the world of midnight
Where the darkness fill the air
Where it’s icy cold
Where nobody has a name
Where living is not a game
There, I can hide my broken heart
Dying to survive
There, no one can see me cry
The tears of my lonely soul
I’ll find peace of mind
In the dark and cold world of midnight.”
Poet, Writer & Independent Publishing Professional
Both traditionally and independently published, Red Haircrow is a writer of fiction and non-fiction, poet, private chef, reviewer and former law enforcement officer of Native American (Chiricahua Apache/Cherokee) descent who lives in Berlin, Germany. They are completing a degree in Psychology and operate the indie publishing label "Flying With Red Haircrow," which opened on 31 October 2010.
Among other things, Red Haircrow loves photography, traveling, learning languages and cultures, and spending time with friends. The two-spirit author is active in Native American life and affairs, and can also be found playing RPGs, browsing 2nd hand shops, practicing QiGong and savoring the meditative Zen of archery with the medieval Longbow.
