guiding eyes

''I want to guide you with my eye''

Eyes tell so much. Talking without looking into the other persons eyes is quite unusual and impolite. You wouldn't say you've met someone, even if you had seen him and he had seen you, until you hadn't met his eyes. The eye-contact is more essential than having exchanged words. Avoiding it while talking means, that the other one has to hide something his eyes would give away. They shape the whole expression of a face and they're unique. Scanning the Iris is used in one line with taking fingerprints. Eyes identify a person – and if that's to be avoided, they're covered with a black beam. Of course, when you know a person, you'd still recognise her – or is this because you know her eyes and can imagine them?

When you've got a very good relationship with someone you sometimes can communicate without words, only with your eyes. The intimate relationship is necessary for wordlessly understanding how the other one thinks and what he means by the small gestures. People who are in love are known for these conversations where everything is understood on a level deeper than language.

Still, this mainly applies for couples who are crazy in love and anyway don't see anything else than their dearest or for some of the rare couples who have been together for a time so extraordinary long that they know each other by heart. The one status usually is not ever-lasting, the other is a very rare one.

But there is another more day-to-day relationship where one can observe this eye-contact-dialogue: on the playground. A small child, about three or four years old and old enough to know that there are some things not to do, will play, walk around and try out things. But ever so often it'll turn around his head and watch out for his mother: Is she still there? Is she watching me? (otherwise, unobserved, I might do something she wouldn't like...) Is that ok what I'm doing?

When they know each other well, the mother only has to nod encouraging or look stern and shake her head and the child will obey. Of course this does only work, when it knows, that the confirmating nod is trustworthy and that ignoring the shaking of the head will have it's consequences.

I think it's amazing, even such a small child, which isn't able to understand any complex matters, will follow the guidance of it's mothers eyes. At the same time when it's testing it's borders, it's always looking back for confirmation and being lead.

Why are relationships that close that make guiding with the eyes possible, so rare when we have outgrown toddler age and gained our first little bit of independence? Everyone longs for close, intimate relationships of love. Maybe they're rare because it costs a lot of energy and will to get to know someone by heart – and to defeat your self-protecting reluctance to open yourself so the other one can really get to know you. It makes one vulnerable to love like this. And, what I think is at least as big a factor: it'll make you dependent. We defeat our independence nearly as much as the darkest secrets of our soul and our ego. All three are definite hindrances for a ultimately close relationship and for the ability to look the other one in the eyes openly, honestly and with understanding. Maybe thats too much a high request.

Being guided with someones eyes surely can work with less of what is lined up here. Talking can also work without really speaking the other one's language. It will only liken the misunderstandings and resulting frustration.

Who even tries that hard to build a relationship, where an eye-to-eye conversation is possible, when we all have language to make ourselves understandable in a way far more easy? The quote above this text is from the bible*. God says this. He is the one who is willing to invest that much into a relationship with you, and although he is very well able to talk through powerful storms and make man follow him, he prefers the more gentle and subtle way, although this can cause many misunderstandings and other disturbances – it's the way of love: Guiding with his eyes, like the mother on the playground. Do we watch out for his look or do we run in the opposite direction, doing what we very well know is not good and hope he isn't watching? Do I know him well enough to understand what he wants to tell me? Whatever you're doing, he's always there, watching out for you and waiting that you'll once meet his eyes and trust their promise. He longs for a close relationship with you. ''I want to guide you with my eyes“ - will you let me?

*Psalm 32:8, King James Version 2000

fairytale forest

Being some hundred metres in a naturally grown forest and away from the path, I sometimes feel like I understand how and where all the fairytales and stories about fairies and dwarfs have come from. Do you know what I mean?

A forest can have something magical 

– a silence that most of the time is no silence at all, but a constant murmuring, rustling trees, rushing wind and singing birds. There's light that reaches the ground only filtered through 

a roof of branches and green leaves. A ground that is covered with the most varied parts of plants: layers of dry leaves, bushes and herbs, old dead trees and younger branches among stones, earth and small brooks and ponds. Being in a forest creates the most different feelings in humans, depending on their situation, company and of course, season and hour. You simply cannot compare the same woods in spring, summer, fall and winter! Some people relax when walking through the forest, some get frightened - especially in the night - or feel utterly lonely. You can get – or simply feel - really lost in a forest.

Some feel a secrecy like in a hidden place – why else would a faraway meadow in the forest be 

a major motive for a romantic place? I think the feeling that the forest will always keep some secrets you will never get into, has inspired people throughout the centuries to the stories about fable creatures who live in the woods. At the same time they tried to tame nature, to make maps, paths and roads, to cut or burn it down and replant it.

But a forest which got so thouroughly combed that no secrets and hidden places remain would 

be a park. And who won't agree that the atmosphere in a park is always different? I think it cannot be compared with the feeling you get while straying through a 'genuine' forest.

Some people also feel quite small in the great woods and see the greatness of its creator. 

And a single picture can impossibly describe the diversity of the different forests with their atmospheres – winter, summer, spring, autumn, dusk, daylight, dawn, night... - one gets to know here in Germany, let alone around the world!

You don't have to be a freak of nature (which I'm most positively not! Being outside can be so ...uncomfortable ;) to enjoy the charme of the woods. Whether you go there alone or with a friend, take a look around yourself: Although I cannot promise you to see a fairy or any spectacular animal you might anyway catch that fairytale-feeling too.

happy family

„All happy families resemble each other, but every miserable family is unhappy in her own way.“ (Tolstoi)

This first sentence of the novel Anna Karenina seems to have some truth in it. Of course every family is unique in its ways, but in a happy family one can say: Everything is ok. This is not the case in a unhappy family. The span reaches from one thing that isn't ok and disturbs everything up to „nothing is ok“. And the reasons for this are as different as the people under the sun . They reach from small conflicts of everyday life, stress, lack of money, troubled communication, difficoult characters to death of a family member or other grave catastrophes.

It is not necessary that Tolstoi has meant one of these things, one or another of these factors appear in families that can be described as 'happy'. No family is perfect. But then they do not affect and trouble family life that much, their effects aren't seriously disturbing anything. And those effects, that what a catastrophe, a mistrust, a problem, a disturbing causes over a short or long term, are what makes a family unhappy and miserable. Stress leads to irritation, this causes fights and a bad mood. When somebody dies, the grief stuns everything, also relationships. Silence begins.

The possibilities for combinations leading to unhappiness are infinite due to the different unique characters in a family and the amount of reasons for difficoulties.

Every miserable family will be unhappy in her own way.

When a family is happy, all these things and surroundings don't matter anymore – being happy is, in the first and last place, a matter of the people, more than of anything else.

I assume that in the following, Tolstoi will have described (at least) one miserable family. This introductional sentence makes it appear much more interesting and unique. But – I never read Anna Karenina, I found this quotation elsewhere. Maybe I should find out what Tolstoi thinks about miserable families in detail, some day...

golden ambitions

abandoned shoes next to a red carpet - is it over or does it begin?

When one grows up and becomes an adult one will, at some point, start thinking about one's aims and goals for life - or maybe thats because of the 21.384 people who want to know about them. It sometimes seems that everyone you're speaking to, especially when you've reached a certain age, is asking for what you want to learn/study/work/
DO WITH YOUR LIFE.
Most children dream of growing up and being an adult. Most teenagers want to be independent, responsible for themselves, be allowed to drive a car, drink and come home late or not at all. Reaching the magical 18, the glorious time of adulthood, the Golden Age.
(By the way, the term Golden Age is mainly used for a time in the fifties when Hollywoods movie-industry blossomed and had a glorious time. Many stars had their greatest time then and still are very popular - Marylin Monroe, Audrey Hepburn for just to mention a few)
Most realise, as they're getting closer to that age, that it's maybe not as golden as one dreams it to be. It won't be like that in the most cases, there is a lot of responsibility coming, duties and wrinkles. In some other ways one stays an eternal child - which is good. The author Erich Kästner says 'Only the one who grows up and stays a child is a human' .
Nevertheless, one still can be optimistic and look forward to a Golden Age!
When I'm asked for my personal plans and perspectives for the future I cannot answer most of the time because I simply do not know yet! I just can tell what definetely is no ambition of mine: becoming popular. Although I very much like Hollywood, Audrey Hepburn and glamour (these are most positively remains of childhood princess-dreams :) I would never want to be there myself.
I have as many inconcrete dreams as few plans. There are a lot of things I could imagine myself (not) doing and high goals for what I want to do...
but only one thing that's secure for me:
I want to go my way with Jesus and put his plans for my life on top priority. Everyone who also tries to follow him will know how high this ambition is.
Though, I'm sure that when I let him decide, he will lead me to true happiness and a really shining Golden Age, better than I could imagine it myself. He has not only promised me to be with me all my life but a time even more glorious afterwards.
T(o know t)his is HEAVEN!

P.s.: If you want to know what I'm talking about (and really looking forward to!), pick up a bible and read revelations 21-22. And if you'd like to experience this - and a golden life with him - too, you've got nothing to do but believe in him...

ice

Ice is beautiful, isn't it? Just look at that picture or imagine crystals, snow... It's marvellous to look at structures that often seem so artfully crafted and who come into existance when plain water freezes.
Ice is also fun. Who hasn't ever enjoyed ice-skating, snowboarding or skiing?
Ice is delicious. Most of you will agree that there is nothing better than icecream, slush or drinks with icecubes on a hot summer's day.
So why do so many people hate winter and especially frost? Because it's cold, is a quick answer.
'As cold as ice' is more than a metaphor. We don't want to be cold. Nobody likes shivering, goosepimpels, a red nose, hurting fingers and toes.
Emotional ice climate is equally unpleasant. Someone who is criticizing you with a sharp, icy voice. A cold personality. A frozen relationship. None of these things is something you'd like, because they're like ice:
Ice is cold, motionless and hard. They ought to be smooth and fluent like water. The characteristics of ice, not only the stiffness, also the fact that it extends in the process of freezing, cause many problems in winter: Ice has the strength to break tubes and stones, harbours and rivers cannot be shipped anymore, mechanical devices are no longer movable... and people wish it would just melt because
Ice is destructive. Ask any installer, or anyone who knows about the fate of the Titanic. Or any gardener. Plants do only survive a limited amount of frost. All living things die when they freeze to hard, animals and humans too (we can just protect ourselves better). When the water in our cells freezes and becomes ice, it's  too late. They burst and get destroyed. Freezing is dying and ice isn't agreeable with living.
Ice is dead/th. Ironically it's always said that water is living - and both are just different forms of the same substance H2O, shaped by it's conditions. And still they're so different that the fluent water is basis for all life while ice has the ability to destroy it. Life and death are so close sometimes...
It isn't without a reason that most metaphors, connotations and literal images about ice are negative.
Ice's beauty can be as misleading as the fun a frozen lake promises
before one finds out that one has been walking on too thin ice and breaks in.
It's hard, destructive and can be very dangerous.
A very good illustration would be the Snowqueen in the fairytale and the White Witch in Narnia. She is beautiful but insidious and dangerous, holding the whole country in an eternal winter's grip and having the power to freeze everyone rock-hard. Both are the evil characters of the stories, living in fierce castles made of
Ice.

P.s. Something to add: There's always something stronger than ice - the sun wins the tug-of-war ever again (as in the stories where the evil Ice-queens always finally have to give in to the good ones who bring the summer)