Une table a trois and the roulette of life

cafe dans le Rue Lepic!“I wanna dig more in the meaning” asked Omar over at the ZEN-MEN facebook page, thanks for asking!

I wrote the song and the lyrics of ZEN-MEN feat. Caroline – “une table à trois” in 1997. Caroline was pregnant in her 9th month and you can hear movements of her unborn daughter in the original recordings. It’s all about relativity, duality, about hopes and fears, obvious but hidden rules of life, the illusion of time and the One.
She comes into the cafe and sits down at a table with an old gentleman. Their conversation pauses from time to time for “meta-thoughts” like “Night and day at the same time, the sun shows the time but the sun itself has no time”. She takes two pieces of sugar for her coffee, one shaped like a heart, one like a cube. The old man explains her how he shares the sweetness of his heart, how he offers it in his open palms to the world.

Elle voulait être libre. Mais qui peut apercevoir les étoiles le jour, le soleil brille toujours pour celui qui sait le voir!

“She wanted to be free. But who can see the stars at day, the sun always shines for those, who know how to see it!

They talk about the game of life. She asks him, if he ever did win. “Since I know, who plays with whom and tomorrow, today will be yesterday, yes! In this game, there are only winners.”

Un jeu sans perdant, tout est emprunt̩, a qui? A celui qui laisse les fleurs sӪ̩panouir.

“A game without losers, all is borrowed, from whom? From the one, who lets the flowers blossom.”

She does not understand why he is talking about three persons all the time. In the story, she did not know yet that she was pregnant already. (So obviously, the story plays at least 9 months before we did the recording 😉 )

Yin and Yang, black and white, what is bad, what is good. The duality changes with the viewpoint of the observer. Both can be “wrong” and “right” at the same time. If we are stuck in a 2D view, we might miss the 3rd dimension. Some say there is a 3rd eye which might open a kind of over-view over duality. Mankind uses the (fixed) binary approach since a long time, “the earth is flat, the earth is the center of the universe, man is the crown of creation. Is this normal?”

Les jeux sont faits, rien ne va plus, la roue se met à tourner.

“Les jeux sont faits, rien ne va plus, the wheel starts to turn.” You could name it Karma or fate, sometimes it seems, when you spin the wheel of life, make a decision, drop the ball – at the end, it will land on black or red and maybe even on your lucky number… or on the One. In green.

… to the lyrics of  ZEN-MEN feat. Caroline – “une table à trois” in french
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Stress and Autism

Stress and Autism; you could say that’s not your topic if you consider your-self as a “normal” person (whatever normal is…). In the past, mankind found gold nuggets, answers, solutions and hope in so called unrelated areas like foreign cultures, religions, dreams, chaos, spirituality, absinthe, drugs, conversations and blogs. I invite you to dive into a 10 questions interview I recently did with a friend and come back with some interesting insights for you…

A sneak in:

2. When you hear/ read the word stress, what comes first into your mind?
A.: that’s a difficult one. lots of things happening at once, and all needing attention at the same time, maybe. (…)

3. How would you describe your relation to your brain, to your heart?
A: for me, my heart is what pumps blood. (…)

6. What do you do, when you feel stressed?
A: i’ll try to get rid of lesser priority tasks that make me stressed. (…)

10 Questions by CFR
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Felicity with FeliciTEA meets Dragon Well

felicitea and dragon well
It’s teatime again! I got more tea from wearetea/ London, thanks Mikel!

Felicitea – the happiness tea

Fact; we can’t all be happy all the time. Whether the central heating system has decided to pack up, you’ve just become single again or you’re just down on your luck in general, we all need a pick me up from time to time to help us to remember how good life can be. Felicitea may not be able to fix the boiler, repair broken relationships or being good luck but it can provide a moment of happiness and we think that is priceless.

I did open it, the tea, the flowers, the colors – the perfume… instant happiness! 😀 I suddenly saw the tea scene of Alice in Wonderland before my eyes (the 2010 Tim Burton version), thought of pink Hubba Bubba chewing gums from my youth. The tea triggered funny memories in my brain and delivered a wonderful carpet with its taste to enjoy and dive into those precious emotions. Priceless!

Dragon well is one of the most sought after green teas in the world, notice the “great taste gold 09” award. There is not much to write about this tea. The leaves are perfect, the aroma is amazing and the taste is stunning. Immediate feng shui for your being!

Again, thank you Daren and Suzanne for making such great teas!

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Your Blood Type drives your Stress Type

eat right 4 your typeDo you know your blood type? In times of iPads and worldwide networks it still amazes me, that most people don’t know something so fundamental as their own blood type. In 2010 we are approx. 7 billion(!) humans on this tiny planet, maybe 7000 different languages and dialects worldwide, so many different types of individuals, but, only four blood types(0, A, B, AB). Does this ring a bell?

I was strict vegetarian for about 20 years in my life until one day I had the feeling, something is missing. What do you do when your body starts to send (pain) signals? You ignore or investigate – your choice. As always when I start digging, soon the right people, friends, books etc show up. In this case, a book from Dr. Peter J. D’Adamo – “Eat right for your type”.

In short: you don’t fill gasoline into your diesel car and vice versa. I am blood type 0+ and while reading the book I had fireworks of enlightenments! A few things I already found out myself over the years, like when I eat normal wheat pasta, I get sleepy after the meal and soon after I am hungry again. Why didn’t I get that book right at my birth? It would have saved me a lot of stress and would have told me earlier how I can cope best with my stress type. Blood type 0 reduces stress very good with active sport, in my case trail running or mountain biking. Blood type A would rather go to a Yoga class.

“We are what we eat.” You will find a wide range of recommendations for suitable or not-so-suitable food in the book(and MUCH more…!). Yes, as always there are exceptions to the rule, but those lists made me re-start eating fish and since then my body system is more balanced. Discover your blood type, then manage your stress type!

Amazon.com Eat Right 4 Your Type: The Individualized Diet Solution to Staying Healthy, Living Longer & Achieving Your Ideal Weight

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The relativity of Time

Time is relative. Very. In an accident seconds pass by like in slow motion, the minutes you wait for the ambulance to arrive extend to eternity. You see people with green trees on their cars and you think; is it already Christmas again? On your 30, 40, 50, 60th birthday you wonder how did all this years fly by? Sounds familiar?

A look at my Sinn watch shows me time is ticking away, one second after another, precise, unimpressed by my worries not to have enough time. It’s just ticking, tick, tick, tick. Is it real? Do you know the days, when you fight against windmills, nothing seems to move on or works properly. Other days everything is in the flow; you, life, time – all fine. What’s the difference?

Maybe it’s like rafting on the river of life. Sometimes slow, sometimes fast. Wild and weird – peaceful and clear. When our course in life needs a correction, we are lucky to have friends which help us to paddle back on our track. Stones might show us the way, water flows like tides of time – a.way.

All the world is changing. Life is, to traverse a particular time, a certain space, and with a little luck, to leave a few traces behind.
Elie Wiesel

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traveling to Paris without moving

The Tour Eiffel in Paris Lady Victory in Paris one of the best places in Paris

Ready to travel to Paris? Let’s do a refreshing 300 seconds journey for your brain. Your eyes will be the guide, rest about 5 seconds on each of the 60 stations.

Bonjour, welcome to your hotel! Flowers follow us to the magic fountain, and the green guy shows us the way to the Paris Wall Newspaper next to the wonderful restaurant Le Petit Chatelet. The next day we explore the Tour Eiffel and wonder about the E.T. antenna on the top of the sommet. Looking down, we suddenly discover city patterns, the Arc de triomphe, churches and the relative size of humans. We are brave and walk down inside the Tour Eiffel, step by step. In the Notre Dame, a special atmosphere touches the soul and traveling with the Metropolitan subway makes us think about the underworld. Inverse pyramids reveal the secret of life and show nature’s color code right in front of our feet. It feels like standing besides Lady Victory, Louvre here we come! The perspective, our viewpoint – it changes as we move. Three ducks relax surrounded by mystic gates and George V takes us to the Champs-Elysees.

Moulin Rouge, Rue Lepic, le Cafe des 2 Moulins –  magical. From the Mont Martre to Sacre Coer, the view over Paris is simply stunning. Finally we are sailing in the Parc de Luxembourg, tropical, mystical, spiritual. Arago, let’s go!

to the set with all 60 pictures of Paris

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Yogi Tea Ginseng

Ginseng teaYogi Tea is more than the sum of its parts. For me it’s a micro universe around a tea bag. The package already invites you to discover a lot of fine details and information, not only about tea. Serving Your Spirit is a claim from Golden Temple Natural products, the company which makes Yogi Tea. Many years of knowledge and experience in Taoism, Ayurveda and, let me summarize it, the wisdom about Yin and Yang create its great fundament.

Besides the outstanding tea made of organic ingredients you will find mini-manuals for some Tai Chi moves or a Yoga pose. If you have a tea bag version of Yogi Tea you get a kinda additional fortune teller or let’s say a cosmic reminder. Each tea bag has a tiny message for you, the last one I got was simply: Keep up.

The many varieties always offer the perfect flavor for every occasion through the day- and nighttimes. Most times I pick the Yogi Tea of my choice by intuition or maybe it’s simply the resonance of my magnetic field and the tea. Yogi Tea for your body, mind and soul.

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Eckhart Tolle Findhorn Retreat

book cover of Eckhart Tolle's Findhorn retreatEckhart Tolle‘s Findhorn Retreat was held in spring 2004 at the Findhorn foundation in Scotland. Luckily it was recorded. The result is a wonderful gem consisting out of two DVDs with two hours footage each and a lovely tiny book with the essentials in written form accompanied with some favorite nature photos taken by Eckhart himself. The four hours retreat is like a journey through mankind, histories, humor and stillness. In a very clear and easy way Eckhart Tolle helps us to understand the normal confusions and illusions we are normally trapped in. If we live too much in the world of forms, attach our wellbeing or luck to forms, it gets obvious that we drive on the suffer highway with full speed. Forms come and go, maybe we succeed to get all forms in order for a short time and can finally be happy – but – its just a matter of time and forms decay and chaos comes back in our life. In addition, most of us(including me), are often stuck in the past or the future. The narrator in our head keeps on telling us our stories which happened in the past, which might happen in the future. Our history gets so important for us, that it sometimes feels like we are at the Oscar awards each day. Day in, day out.

How can we find stillness in all this? Rock’n’roll, baby!

Let me explain. Be a rock, practice some Zazen meditation or just sit on a chair. Do nothing. At least try it. Maybe you manage to experience the gap between two thoughts. Find the gap – mind the gap in the London tube…
Roll it. Imagine your life, your histories from past to future written on a scroll of parchment. Now roll it together from each side, what happens? You land in the present moment, welcome to the NOW!

Yes I know, it sounds all so easy if you write or talk about it. When neuronal thunderstorms once again hit my head and heart, for me, Eckhart Tolle’s Findhorn Retreat is a great tool to brighten up my brain and being. And it’s even funny!

Amazon.com Eckhart Tolle’s Findhorn Retreat: Stillness Amidst the World: A Book and 2 DVD Set

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the value of emptiness

Lao Tzu in the Tao Te Ching about the value of emptiness.

Thirty spokes connect to the nave,
The emptiness between creates the wheel.
The potter shapes clay into vessels,
The emptiness therein creates the utensil.
Windows and doors are cut out of walls,
The emptiness inside creates the housing.
The visible constructs the form of a work.
The in-visible makes up its value.

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let it sync

Let it sync. Recently I felt a bit stressed and bumped into a friend who asked me about my world. That day I had, once more, the illusion I might not have enough time. I told him about my worries and that I am aware I dropped into the time-trap again. He only said: Let it sync.

It made me ponder for a while – those mini happy moments when all is synced: my Google Calendar, Contacts and Mail via an exchange server to my iPhone, the iTunes music library, my bank account, my blog, my life. Perfect!
And then, in a fraction of a second, chaos is back. Like the Buddhists say, chaos and decay are the natural state of things. What about inner and outer pressure? Would it help to let it sync? How?

For me being blood type 0 positive, thats another story, I found a good mixture out of meditation, tea and sports. Add a good talk with a friend to it in any mixture and I can easily let it sync. How do you sync?

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