"Refrain from the unfavorable, cultivate the wholesome and free the mind!" Buddha Sakyamuni
In recent weeks, I have noticed that many people are fed up with the news - fires, floods, war and violence, attacks and crises, climate change and the threat of future scenarios.
By tabooing what is important, the information is often empty and the words insincere. Sensations are reported that quickly become habitual. After the death toll from the fires in Maui, the island in Hawaii, scandal at the Salzburg Festival...
I have been blocked from receiving the words in recent weeks. What remains if I am not allowed to describe the suffering and let it touch me? And if I, Eva, want to leave out the fleetingly entertaining? What remains?
When researching what and how I could write, the word "freedom" kept catching my eye and ear. I want to write about this - because we want to be free.
A personal experience:
As a little girl, around the age of 5 - before I even started school - I am said to have stood up in front of my whole family at breakfast on Sunday and announced: "One day I will be free!"
When I hear the story - and my siblings still make fun of it today - I can feel the sensation in my body.
The sincerity and nakedness of the words, the resistance to constriction, the rebellion, the liveliness, the laughter and the crying in it - the width of the soul's arms, the open breath, the fullness - the dance, the cheerfulness and the lightness. And the excitement of showing myself honestly. Yes, I can somehow even still see myself in this moment. (This perception is not special - we children and young people often sense what is real.)
And perhaps it is also this phrase that we grown-up people feel when we go on vacation - which most people do now:
"I want to be free!"
To be free from the depressing news, climate change, war and violence. To be free from the confines of everyday life, from the same old habits. The need to function and do things. Free from duties and necessities. Free from "being a robot" - meaning "robotic" - work or labor. From the dictates of more, of speeding up, of time.
And to be free for the fullness of life - for the colors, the strangeness, the amazement. For sleeping in and getting up early. For watching the sunrise and sunset. Free for dancing and making love, for a delicious meal on the beach, a glass of red wine and spaghetti. Free to explore and play and be childlike. Free!!! For space and timelessness.
And - isn't it exciting - I looked it up:
The word freedom finds its origin in the Indo-European root noun *per(e)i means near, at = that which is with me.
So we are not so much longing for "being in a foreign place".
We want to be "really close".
Close to myself, to loved and unknown people, to the beauty of a place. Close to the food that I slowly enjoy. Close to the sea that touches me in the vastness of the blue...
Because on vacation we become wide, close, open, generous, feel connected.
So how would it be if we took the freedom to pause again and again in our everyday lives, to be close to ourselves, to be connected to you, to nature?
To perceive the beauty of the landscape, of people - of ourselves?
The liveliness of this one moment? And the possibility of being free from fixed concepts and ideas. From fear and greed. From confusion and despair. From the "learned self" of my history and the history of my country, of my ancestors. Free from comparison, the better, faster, further, the demands of society... Free!
For touching and being touched - and thus the truly beautiful - authenticity, courage, change, abundance. For love and compassion, for respect. For awareness and speaking, acting and being accordingly.
A little story:
A neighbor: "I can't hear and see all the bad things anymore!"
The other person: "I'm practicing, slowly, step by step, not to do it anymore!"
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