Berend Lange’s KOMPASS

     Good morning Mr. Mandela,

     Today is your 90th birthday - as always on the 18th of July, I would like to wish you all the best for your health and wellbeing in the future. I am sure you are going to spend your well publicized day of honour with lots of friends, family, children and admirers again, as usual.

     This year I want to congratulate you in writing, however - as a German expatriate who has lived in South Africa for more than 22 years, I feel it is time to show my appreciation in a more permanent way in return for all you have done for South Africa. 

     My thoughts may well reflect the sentiments of many who call your lovely country “home”, as I once did : unfortunately, my confidence in the successors of your office has dwindled and my wife and I have returned to Europe more than a year ago.  

     We often see on TV, or read in the papers about the well-deserved honours you receive all over the world for what you have achieved in your lifetime, and our hearts go out to you in admiration for a man of such integrity, benevolence and stamina.

     These notions are shared in all sectors of society, everywhere. The honours show a universal gratitude for your abilities as a statesman and the exemplary qualities of a human being - if it hadn’t been for your leadership, your country and indeed the continent of Africa would be a far less prosperous place to live in. Many crucial challenges for the transition to democracy have been overcome, numerous others remain.

     I imagine that it must be very difficult for a man of your caliber, wisdom and consciousness to watch the seemingly insurmountable obstacles of poverty, crime and AIDS threatening the fabric of Africa’s culture - and know that a solution could well be reached.

     Fighting against the symptoms of these excesses, as we do, will only give them more power and make them worse - we need to work on the root of these disruptive indicators which are all based in fear, social and individual separation, and the greed for power. Violence as a means to assert control will only temporarily reduce feelings of insecurity and anger.

     As long as we think of ourselves as poor and victims of history, we will continue to experience violent and corrupt struggles for dominance. As long as we don’t focus on service and contribution instead of segregate and competitive ethnic cultures, nobody will feel secure in any country, community or family.

     Irresponsible, even reckless behaviour cannot be condoned, of course - but ignorance needs to be forgiven because the perpetrators simply don’t know better. There is nothing that has to be changed, except our perception - to recognize that our reality is a mirror-image of ourselves. This is the hardest of all things to do, hence the universal challenge to ‘Know Thyself’.

     You know this and have acted all you life accordingly with enormous courage and strength, which is what makes you stand head and shoulders above other world leaders. If more of them had your understanding, the world would be a much better place today. We will eventually get there, but it is going to take time and effort. In the meantime, you shine as a beacon to others.

     So today is one more occasion to celebrate who you are, and I salute you. I wish you, and us, many happy returns of the glorious day you were born.

     Yours sincerely in gratitude and appreciation,

     Berend Lange

     Four years ago today, Friday the 23rd of April 2004 was a brilliantly beautiful autumn day in Cape Town - warm, sunny and calm.

     The perfection of the universe was showing off in a spectacular fashion and for most people it must have been difficult to see the other, the darker side of the coin inherent in every aspect of the world we experience.

     For me it wasn’t, because my father passed away on that day, just before his 83rd birthday.

     This was utterly unexpected because my father was visibly enjoying his life - he always liked to be active around the house and garden and had the strength to do a million little things every day.

     That’s what he was doing on Wednesday morning, but that night we had to get him to a hospital in a hurry and the fact that he died not even 48 hours later was difficult to understand.

     To cope with a loss is not easy and for most of us, grieving is how we react to a tragic event - we feel helpless and sink into emptiness and despair, questioning the apparent futility of it all to regain our sanity.

     We think that grief and sorrow are inseparable and believe this process is necessary to overcome the pain, to eventually accept what has happened.

     But what if we knew - without a doubt - that there are no accidents in our intelligent universe?

     That we have to experience loss in order to learn a valuable lesson, that we have something to gain even from catastrophe and death? 

     I am lucky in that I never had to encounter any devastating blows in my life, so I am not an authority on the subject. But what if we chose not to suffer over a loss which we will ultimately recognize as beneficial anyway? This is not how we are supposed to react, of course, in our European cultural environment.

     But I believe that in the western world, what we mostly lament is our own loss and not so much the fate of the deceased. In other societies, death is an occasion for celebration - I have seen this myself in Bali.

     There they know, even in times of mourning, that the universe’s timing of people’s arrival and departure on this planet should not be questioned - everything is in perfect order, even painful experiences.

     Is the loss of a loved one different from losing worldly possessions?

     Yes, definitely. Once gone, family members cannot be replaced … ever. But they live on in our memories, whilst the loss of a house, money or a job should be forgotten as soon as possible and stimulate us to move on to even better things.

     The basic underlying challenge here is change, and whether we think we can cope with it. I know that my father is where he is supposed to be right now, and I accept his schedule - I just have to learn to live without him.

     Heute vor genau einem Jahr saßen wir fast 12 Stunden im Flugzeug - mehr als 22 Jahre lang waren wir deutsche Auswanderer in Südafrika, diesmal hatten wir one-way-tickets von Kapstadt.

     Wir wollten zurück nach Europa, in eine andere Zukunft … das Gesetz der Anziehung hatte wieder einmal ganze Arbeit geleistet.

     Was geht einem auf solch einem Flug durch den Kopf? 

     Worauf blickt man zurück?

     Hier ist mein Artikel ‘Back To The Future’ - ich habe ihn ein paar Tage nach der Landung geschrieben, geht doch mal hin.   

     Nur eine kurze Notiz heute : ich habe übers Wochenende meinen Artikel ‘Beginning Of A Journey’ hochgeladen : man kann ihn auch auf meiner Seite ‘Über Berend Lange’ und unter ‘Links’ als PDF-Datei finden, einsehen und sogar runterladen.

     Er ist nicht lang und schildert, wie und warum ich angefangen habe, mich bewußt mit Persönlichem Wachstum zu beschäftigen … und meine Perspektive im Rückblick mehr als ein Jahrzehnt später.

     Der Artikel ist allerdings auf Englisch geschrieben - ich habe damals damit den ersten Preis eines Wettbewerbs des südafrikanischen Magazins ODYSSEY gewonnen, wo er auch veröffentlicht wurde.

     Ich hoffe, er dient euch als Anregung, mal zurück zu denken und in ein paar Worten als Kommentar im Blog den Anfang eurer eigenen Reise zu schildern - das würde viele interessieren und euch selbst helfen, mit etwas Abstand nachzudenken und Zwischenbilanz zu ziehen.

     I was sitting at one of our gorgeous beaches in Cape Town’s False Bay with a friend when we saw a school of dolphins in the bay.

     Not far away, they were swimming close to the surface, leaping forward half way out of the water and heading towards an unknown destination in their peculiar determined way, like they often do.

     One thing was different this time, though : the leading dolphin and a few others behind him in the group were jumping far out of the water, straight up, doing summersaults backwards and forwards in all sorts of twisted ways.

     It was absolutely spectacular! Other people had noticed their unusual behaviour as well and stopped whatever they were doing to watch.

     I always thought that dolphins collectively chase a shoal of fish when they swim in a group close to the surface, but they were clearly jumping for pure joy here! What’s more, this exuberant display of fun and happiness was contagious, since more and more dolphins started to breach and all the spectators had a big smile on their faces, too.

     Dolphins are well known for their playful behaviour, and this reminded me that joy is an essential part of our life as human beings.

     Most of us have buried it under layers of boredom, frustration and responsibility, though - when have you last felt the urge to jump for joy? I enjoy life most when I allow myself to be free of all that, to hold on to nothing and to have no restrictions.

     I am free when I look at the sea from my office window, when I forget my own self-importance and the pressure to perform, when I am no longer offended by the actions of others, nor in need of their approval.

     My best creative work is done when I can be myself, often by myself, not distracted from the source of human inspiration and uninterrupted by daily chores or phonecalls. Freedom and joy are inseparable - they are a state of mind, I think, most easily found in children uninhibited by the burdens of our competitive lifestyle, lost in play with no intent to do harm.

     If we agree that feelings of hatred, violence and envy make joy impossible, we have found a way to uncover it - yet our culture does not always facilitate this notion.

     “There is no way to happiness, happiness is the way”, Eykis says in Wayne Dyer’s book “Gifts from Eykis” : allow yourself to be free of doubt, gloom, bitterness and fear as often as you can, every day. This freedom will allow joy to breach the surface and give you new ideas to do more productive work, be a better husband, mother or writer and help you pass it on to anyone who is ready to accept it.

     Happiness must be the default state of being for anything that lives - the only thing that can prevent joy from ruling our lives is the human mind interfering with it.

     That means that we don’t have to create joy for ourselves, we just have to allow it to happen - isn’t it ironic that we find that difficult to do? After all, I have never met anyone who doesn’t want to enjoy himself, and yet so few do - even here in the careless Cape of Good Hope.

     Where else do we see more of the glorious guidance of nature around us? Make up your mind to do something wonderfully joyous at least once a day, whatever tickles your fancy : play with your cat, eat a cookie, tell a joke - or do summersaults like the dolphins.

     I believe there is a ghost ship knocking around in our parts, and it’s not just a legend!

     Doing some research on the Internet, I tripped over some eerie fables about the Bermuda Triangle - but now I am looking out for the red sails of the Flying Dutchman on the horizon right here at Cape Town’s False Bay in South Africa.

     According to the tale of the Flying Dutchman, a maniacal Dutch sea captain once struggled to round the Cape of Good Hope in the teeth of a terrible gale that threatened to sink his ship and all aboard.

     Despite the pleadings from sailors and passengers, the captain refused to change course, swearing blasphemous oaths. When he finally killed the leader of an ensuing mutiny and threw him overboard, a shadowy figure appeared on the quarterdeck and condemned him to sail the oceans for eternity with a ghostly crew of dead men, “bringing death to all who sight your spectral ship, and to never make port or know a moment’s peace.”

     For centuries the Flying Dutchman was spotted, canvas spread and masts creaking in a fearful wind. Sometimes he lead other ships astray, onto shallow beaches and hidden reefs. The story of the Flying Dutchman has been elaborated by many writers, and apparently it is more than a piece of fiction - it even inspired German composer Richard Wagner to write his opera “Der Fliegende Holländer”.

     The phantom ship has also been seen in the 20th century, by the crew of a German submarine during World War II amongst others. One of the first recorded sightings, however, occurred on 11 July 1881 when the Royal Navy ship H.M.S. Bacchante was rounding the tip of Africa and sighted the Flying Dutchman.

     The midshipman, a prince who later became King George V of England, recorded in his log that the lookout man and the officer of the watch had seen the Flying Dutchman : “A strange red light as of a phantom ship all aglow, in the midst of which light the mast, spars and sails of a brig 200 yards distant stood out in strong relief.”

     As recently as March 1939, the ghost ship was seen here in False Bay by dozens of bathers in neighbouring Glencairn who supplied detailed descriptions of the ship, although most had probably never seen a 17th century merchant vessel. The British South Africa Annual of 1939 included the story, derived from newspaper reports : “With uncanny volition, the ship sailed steadily on as the Glencairn beach folk stood about, keenly discussing the whys and wherefores of the vessel. Just as the excitement reached its climax, however, the mystery ship vanished into thin air as strangely as it had come.”

     Is it true that a phantom ship appears to unsuspecting people here? Having lived in Simon’s Town for nine years with a view of False Bay reaching from Cape Point to Muizenberg, I have never seen the Flying Dutchman myself. It is, therefore, not part of my reality - but it could nevertheless be true. The above eyewitness reports are credible enough to suggest that a ghost ship is not mere hocus-pocus.

     When we look for ‘the truth, and nothing but the truth’ in criminal proceedings, it is easy enough to determine ‘the truth’ - even if the suspected thief is lying, witnesses will testify that he walked into a jewelry store at a certain date and time and stole a golden watch. Sadly, this is a common and believable occurrence these days.

     Anything we believe is true for us. Most people today believe that calories affect body weight, viruses cause illness, inflation is inevitable, jails curb crime and weapons create safety. Our conception of the world shapes our daily behaviour, our beliefs determine our ‘reality’ and the world we experience is the result of the general agreement that things really are the way we think they are.

     But are they? Only a few hundred years ago, the earth was believed to be flat and if one sailed too far, beyond ‘the four corners’ of our world, one would fall off the edge into a great abyss. This became ‘the truth’ of the Dark Ages because enough persons of authority accepted that belief at the time and used it to extend their positions of power as long as they could.

     Beliefs change, however, and the beliefs we hold today are not ‘truer’ than what people believed some time ago. Beliefs are illusions, actually - an illusion is something that you think is true, but is not.

     Another implication of this is that there is no such thing as ‘the truth’ - we are free to believe anything we want, and no two belief-systems are absolutely identical, so the only truths that exist are ‘my truth’, ‘your truth’, ‘his truth’ and about six billion others.

     If we are obsessed with finding ‘the truth’, we are barking up the wrong tree. Because our age is ruled by facts and science, the idea of illusions ruling our lives is frightening to many. All too easily, however, we overlook the enormous opportunities of being able to believe anything we want, perceive our own truth, act accordingly and therefore create our own reality. Believe it or not, but that’s what you and I are doing every day.

     If you live in the neighbourhood and see the Flying Dutchman, please let me know, will you? I mean it.

     Majestic - that’s the word that comes to mind.

     We stand on top of Goldeck mountain 2140 m above sea-level in Austria, looking down on the Drau Valley, the small town of Spittal and Lake Millstatt; the Alps pile up beyond.

     People ski all around us, they smile in anticipation of the downhill ride. With this perspective, you cannot help to be in awe of all the grandeur nature displays so generously here.

     Right now, we feel like little ants on this planet.

     It must have taken millions of years for the river to carve this valley on its way east, and it was only three months ago that we have arrived back in Europe after 22 years in South Africa, eager to build a new life here.

     The blink of an eye.

     If I think about it, most of our own ride up to this place was actually downhill so far, everything is falling into place in wonderful synchronicity. We must be doing something right - we apply and observe the Law of Attraction consciously at first hand.

     If you’re interested to learn more about how the Law of Attraction and Intention Manifestation works, by the way, here is Steve Pavlina’s fascinating Interview with James Ray that I found last week - excellent reading!

     This is the final stretch of phase two of our mission to re-settle in Europe : wrapping up in Cape Town was virtually complete when we flew out on 20 November, the culmination of establishing our new stomping ground in Austria is very close now.

     Everything goes according to plan : the furniture we took with us from South Africa will be delivered to our new flat in Villach tomorrow and the brandnew kitchen we ordered five weeks ago gets installed on Tuesday.

     Other stuff we want to live with will then arrive in bits and pieces over the next three weeks - it’s been quite intense to put our vision together and we’re pretty exhausted, but happy about the learning curve and grateful for all the friendly and helpful people we met on the way so far.

     After this we’ll enter phase three, the last one, which is to establish a new social and work environment : I work as a Management Consultant in Marketing as a Copywriter/Texter and Translator in Public Relations with small and medium sized enterprises.

     Recently I have received a lot of flattering comments about my work and publications so I put pen to paper and got it up on my BLUE CRANE website, this page is in English and this one in German.

     If history is anything to go by, phase three of our new life will be as successful as the first two, and just as exhilarating as the top of Goldeck mountain in winter.

     More soon from : Berend

     Snow!

     Finally, it started coming down in buckets here on Monday afternoon and never stopped until two days later.

     We haven’t seen any in 22 years of living in South Africa and for us it’s magic, even though it caused havoc for motorists. Ski resorts up in the mountains are relieved, too : winter has come very late this year.

     As planned, we arrived in Austria just before New Years Eve in pursuit of our new home : having spent a month in Germany and Christmas with family and friends, we drove south to Bavaria and then through the Alps to Carinthia in Austria in the most miserable conditions imaginable.

     If you are used to the N1 in the Karoo and traffic in the southern suburbs of Cape Town, driving rain and near-freezing temperatures are treacherous on the road. Little did we know that a full-blown blizzard was waiting for us three weeks later, when we had to drive the 30 km from Spittal to Villach and back. We made it, but that’s another story.

     We are in Spittal an der Drau at the moment, our base to look for a new home in Carinthia - a quaint little town as picturesque as you can imagine Austria, with medieval facades and cobble-stoned squares inviting you to wander and wonder about cultures and people.

     Carinthia is the southernmost area in German-speaking Europe you will find. It is on the southern side of the Alps and there, amongst beautiful lakes like Lake Millstatt and Lake Wörth, only a few minutes by car from the Italian border, is Villach - that’s where we’ll be living.

     We’ve found a very nice, brandnew flat to rent from where we can walk to Villach’s old inner city in 15 minutes along the Drau river - you can find a lot more about Villach on Wikipedia in German or Villach on Wikipedia in English. With almost 60.000 inhabitants it is not too big, offers everything we need and distances are very manageable.

     It wasn’t easy to choose where exactly we want to live, but we had a list of criteria and they match Villach. One of them was infrastructure, climate another one : when hurricane winds caused widespread damage and flooding in Europe north of the Alps last week, we never saw any of it, except on TV.

     We are now tackling part two of our mission to live in Europe again : organise a new household to move in to by 1 March. It takes a surprising amount of running around to find out what, where and how - we thought we would know, but a lot of things have changed in 22 years, and Austria is not quite the same as Germany, after all.

     A popular saying here states that ‘Austria is the better Germany’, and in many respects it seems to be true, at least for us : life is well structured, but less frenetic than in Germany. People are generally cheerful, we see a lot of smiling faces - many shops off the mainstream here in Spittal close for a very civilized lunch-break from 12:30 to 14:30 which reminds us of the ‘Siesta’ in Mediterranean countries.

     After two months on he road, living out of suitcases, we’re a bit exhausted and looking forward to having a familiar habitat again. On the other hand, there is so much new waiting to be discovered by us …

     In the meantime, best to enjoy one day at a time - the snowball-fight was fun today!

     More soon from : Berend

     “Half a meter of Bratwurst for 3 Euro!”

     The signboard at the foodstall on this German Christmas market refuses to be ignored. The delicious smells of food, Glühwein and sweets mix with seasonal music : sausages are a part of German culture - and I love them, too.

     After 22 years in South Africa, we’ve been back home in Europe for almost a month now - for good, not just visiting.

     Christmas markets are everywhere, and we’ve seen quite a few already. If there was one thing we could never get used to, it was Christmas in summer in the southern hemisphere. It’s just not the same.

     Everyone keeps telling us that it’s mild for this time of the year, but they are all lying : it’s cold! And dark - if the sun shows up at all, it is very low on the horizon. Days are short, but that’s when the Glühwein kicks in.

     OK, there’s no snow yet; that makes it easier to practice driving on the other side of the road again. Traffic is crowded, roads are narrow and the highways have no speed limit. Germans are busy, they don’t waste time - until they look for parking space.

     We had forgotten how pleasant it is to live in a really efficient society : things work here. Plenty of rules and regulations, but bureaucracy is nowhere near as bad as we remember it - we had compulsory registration, new ID docs and drivers licences out of the way in no time. If you stick to the rules they work for, not against you.

     For us, keeping an open mind is important at the moment - we have new eyes and still see Germany from an outside perspective, consciously approach situations and people in a friendly and unbiased way.

     And the Law of Attraction never fails to produce the desired results : we found the car we wanted at the first dealer we approached, for example; other things we need fall into our laps without effort.

     Not without cost, mind you : Europe is expensive if you compare it to living in South Africa, but you get what you pay for - the choices of products and services are absolutely overwhelming! Everything is available in many different varieties, so it takes time to sort the wheat from the chaff and find what you want at a discount.

     Everybody is chasing that ‘Schnäppchen’ - finding the lowest price is a national pastime, especially at this time of the year. Most towns have turned their main shopping districts into pedestrian zones and the crowds shuffle all over the place, interrupted only by foodstalls, beautifully decorated Christmas trees and travelling musicians.

     It is Christmas in Germany, we recognize the spirit - and it feels good. We remember our roots - reconnecting with friends and family is a joyful experience, we treasure the kinship that has survived the separation of life on different continents for such a long time.

     People, not things define what you call ‘home’ but the culture we grow up in provides the common background that remains a special bond for life. As much as we love the people and the country, we have known for a long time that we would never be South African.

     Is it the language? Our mother tongue is an important part of our culture, but I write and even dream in English these days - hearing the latest German idioms is a lot of fun but takes some adjusting on our part.

     We’ll find out soon enough : before this year ends we’ll be in Austria where they speak a very different dialect to our northern German accent. We have our eyes on settling there for the next chapter in our lives and hope that we can ring in the new year with a lot of snow.

     Until then, may I sincerely wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year 2007 - may it bring all you expect and dream of for your life : Berend

     Finally, the Sahara.

     We’ve been roughed up a bit over the steaming jungles of the equator, but now the towering clouds have disappeared and 10 kilometers below us, a giant sandbox slowly passes by.

     I can’t help but think how enormously big this continent of Africa is. We have taken off at the southern tip of it in Cape Town early in the morning for a non-stop flight that would take us to Germany almost 12 hours later.

     All our friends think that it takes a lot of courage to uproot our lives of almost 23 years in South Africa and return to Europe. Maybe that’s true, but we are so absolutely sure that this is what we want to do : go back to our own future.

     We’re excited …

     … looking forward to the future, not scared - just creating the environment we want for ourselves. Leaving our comfort zone, yes. We are happy to have that freedom, it’s no big deal really, we’ve done it before; but real courage is something else, and we found a lot of it in Africa.

     I’ll never forget our first Christmas office party in Johannesburg, back in 1984 : just the five of us with spouses, but one of us was black - Peter, our driver. We struggled to find a restaurant that would serve black people in those Apartheid years and it took a lot of persistence to succeed; not a nice memory.

     We considered leaving the country only once, in 1987 when sanctions had isolated South Africa really badly and we had no hope that the situation would improve. But the job in Australia didn’t work out and we made some other changes instead.

     That’s all different now, of course. The dramatic years of transition to democracy were interesting, to say the least - in hindsight I realize how easily things could have ended tragically. A lot of friends had bought one-way tickets just in case when the first democratic elections were held in 1994, on my birthday : 27 April. The only elections we were allowed to take part in as expatriates, not being South African citizens.

     Today, we are on a one-way ticket ourselves.

     Still desert sand down there, the picture-book-dunes-variety now that we always see on the Discovery Channel. Then, abruptly, the incredibly blue Mediterranean at the coast of Algeria in the late afternoon sun. Some white clouds, Europe is almost in sight.

     We look at each other and smile : this is an exciting adventure for me and my wife and we can’t wait to land in about two hours.

     The Cote d’Azure in the south of France now, then the snow-capped mountains of the Alps. This is familiar; we have been homesick - more than we realize, judging by all the joy we feel.

     We’re so lucky. 

     We stayed with good friends in Cape Town until they took us to the airport, and good friends will pick us up in Germany - everyone we know offered unconditional hospitality and helped with all they’ve got when we sold our house and dismantled most of our infrastructure in South Africa; this means a lot to us, and we are very grateful. Thanks to all of you!

     Big Hallos at the airport when we arrive - genuine friendship cannot hide. But it’s cold when we haul our luggage to the cars, and dark : a reminder that we’ve travelled from summer straight into winter. No problem, a good Schnaps will warm us up again later.

     That’s all I wanted when I was younger : live in a world where it was warm and sunny, experience different cultures on an incredibly interesting planet. South Africa was good for us, this vibrant rainbow nation has so much to offer; we’ll be back to visit, stay in touch a lot, but we’ll live in Europe now.