Berend Lange’s KOMPASS

     Five 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? 

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     Heute vor genau zwei Jahren saßen wir fast 12 Stunden im Flugzeug - mehr als 22 Jahre lang waren wir deutsche Auswanderer in Südafrika.

     Diesmal hatten wir nur ein one-way-ticket, wir hatten kein zu Hause mehr. Das fühlte sich schon komisch an.

     Aber wir wollten zurück nach Europa, in eine andere Zukunft … in Südafrika ging politisch und sozial zu viel in die falsche Richtung, und außerdem wollten wir unsere Wurzeln wiederfinden.

     Was ging mir auf dem Flug so durch den Kopf?

     Worauf blickt man zurück?

     Hier ist mein Artikel ‘Back To The Future’ - ich habe ihn ein paar Tage nach der Landung auf Englisch geschrieben.

     Haben wir unsere Wurzeln hier in Österreich wiedergefunden? Waren sie überhaupt noch da?

     Dazu mehr ein anderes Mal.

     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 to 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

     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.

     Finally - on Sunday morning the sun was shining again at the Cape of Good Hope, after heavy winter rains all week.

     It was still nippy with a bit of a breeze, but we were dying to get out, to smell the sea and maybe see some whales - on Saturday we had spotted the first Southern Right of the season from our deck in Simon’s Town, blowing its typical V-shaped spray some distance away.

     Walking down to Fisherman’s Beach, we noticed that many flowers enjoyed the rains and were in full bloom. The surf was pounding against the rocks on which some penguins waddled about - others were still taking their morning bath, splashing in the little coves surrounding Boulders Beach.

     For most of the week we had been confined indoors by the weather, but now we were thoroughly enjoying nature again, following its rhythm - and honouring our own. Early August is wet here, so what? Many people don’t like this time of the year, but our dams are filling up for summer and hopefully we won’t have water restrictions again for Christmas.

     Being German, we love the South African sunshine - but why do we also miss the dark and cold weeks in Europe sometimes, when we celebrate the Advent of Christmas and families gather at home around an open fire with a hot drink, the goodwill of humanity shining through the armour of self-interest for a change?

     We follow so many of these comfortably familiar rituals during our days, weeks and years without really noticing and honouring them. They mark the rhythm of life as we know it, of course; there is a time for sunshine, and a time for rain. These days, however, we tend to want it all, and now - why can’t we have it all at once?

     There is a simple reason : we cannot see one-ness, we always need a sequence of events to understand the whole story. We live in a world of duality and see everything in steps of two, one after the other, which creates a rhythm - and the illusion of time. The ultimate truth is that everything happens at once, in the Now - but we see a past and a future. You can read more about these concepts in “The REAL Facts of Life”.

     We need time - not only as a concept - to go through the stages of growth and development, the rhythms of day and night, good and bad, life and death, rain and sunshine. Together these opposites don’t exclude each other, they are just different aspects of the same thing and depend on each other.

     Like two sides of the same coin : take one of them away and you no longer have a coin. If you deny the peak or the trough you don’t get a wave. On their own, the parts don’t exist. We always have to deal with both aspects to see anything in its entirety and get a whole picture.

     Stop breathing out and you won’t be able to breathe in again - life will stop. Breathing is the existential rhythm most of us don’t even notice, let alone honour. When we are young we also want the knowledge that comes with age; when we are older we long for the vitality of youth.

     Being a desk-jockey, all too often I get caught up in my work and forget about play, jeopardizing my balance in life - passion also has its dangers.

     Leaving our favourite walk along the shore of Simon’s Town for home, we noticed a pair of Egyptian Geese with eight little chicks strut by, the gander proudly flapping his wings as if to say : “See, I am honouring the cycle.”

     Nature is so wise - I need to get out more often.

     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