(… continuing from here …)

In the morning, while T sleeps in, Wolfgang prepares breakfast for us and then drives me to the train station. We say farewell and I mount one train after another … to Mönchengladbach, crossing the border, changing trains again, until I eventually walk out from Tilburg train station.

And lo! this ain’t Tilburg any longer, for here I guide my steps through Ayreon City. The banners that herald good tidings of this 30th anniversary concert weekend stand proud and tall, their fabric waving in the breeze.

My heart pounds faster as I carry the heavy backpack towards the campsite in the middle of the city. Yet even as I approach my destination, my heart falls strangely tranquil and tears come to my eyes. For in bright daylight a beautiful song fills the air, coming from that very campsite; and my ears recognize the voice of Marcela Bovio, and her voice fills my heart with joyful ache. The Ayreon song “Valley of the Queens” is followed by “Here To Stay”. And so it comes to pass that upon entering the campsite I can listen fully to that final song, and I still remember many moons later how hauntingly beautiful Marcela’s voice sounds.

The magic fades – time to get pragmatic. How do I put up that new tent again? If only I had a hammer! Good news: my tent-neighbour Jille has a hammer. He keeps the goddamn tool to himself kindly lends me the tool and watches me with non-judgmental amusement. 30 minutes later, voilà – the tent is up!

I return the hammer and head into the city for the screening of the “01011001 – Live beneath the waves” concert at the Pathé cinema. I give my spare ticket to a fellow Ayreonaut, and we arrive in the cinema hall in the midst of a fun quiz hosted by none other than the maestro himself, Sir Arjen Anthony Lucassen and his chief co-conspirator Joost van den Broek. And then – lights out.

Live Beneath The Waves

For the next 134 minutes I have tears streaming over my cheeks, and a hard time sitting still in my chair like everyone else around me (seriously, guys, did none of you want to jump up from your seats and headbang the shit outta yourselves? And why didn’t I just start?) because the concert recording feels just outright epic. “01011001” is my favorite Ayreon album. I’ve had tickets for one of the rare live shows in 2023 and yet couldn’t go … one of the bigger regrets of my life. This is my first time seeing the full recording, a glorious live perfomance of the whole album with a fabulous array of guest singers ranging from Hansi Kürsch to Anneke van Giersbergen, Damian Wilsom, Simone Simons, Michael Mills, Daniel Gildenlöw, John Jaycee Cuijpers, Maggy Luyten, Arjen himself, and many more. I don’t know if that makes sense to any of you, but to me this album offers a particularly haunting glimpse into the heart of the universe “out there” as much as “in here”, and a prophetic vision of our – and humanity’s – very own fate. I feel so expanded and small, connected and isolated all at once.

Oh, my dearest Anneke singing these beautiful zeroes and ones in the middle part of “Age of Shadows“! Oh, that violin and flute interlude of “Comatose“, and Damian Wilson’s final burst of emotions! Oh, how Maggy Luyten rocks the chorus of “Liquid Eternity“, and Jeroen Goossens plays that chilling flute solo, and Ben Mathot the heartbreaking violin, before it’s Maggy Luyten and Brittney Slayes slaying it again. My beloved “Beneath the Waves“, like an opera in itself, even better than on the album. Riding on the migrator trail with “Ride the Comet“, featuring extra guitar solo duels between Marcel Coenen and Timo Somers. Oh, what joy to hear and see Simone Simons of Epica with Arjen in “Web of Lies“, and later Arjen with Liselotte Hegt in “The Truth Is In Here“, bringing the vast dimensions of the cosmic storyline down to Earth!

I would like to prescribe a good dose of “The Fifth Extinction“, eventually followed by “The Sixth Extinction“, to every leader on our planet. I know it won’t change much, but let us indulge in such unreasonable hope for a while, shall we?

Happily exhausted, I traverse the city again, enter a beautiful cathetral along the way, return to the campsite and hang around with fellow Ayreonaut campers who make music under a large tent with sofas and tables. This is the evening of Ayreon’s premiere show at the 013 venue, my ticket is for the following Saturday afternoon show. On TicketSwap there are (unfortunately, yet also fortunately) way too many spare tickets available, selling at dumping prices, so I acquire one of them for the Saturday evening show as well.

Later that night I grab some strange food in a crowded bar, where two friendly locals start a conversation with me about music and traveling. Later I enjoy the (final?) live performance of the best Ayreon cover band, Ayreon Project. They play with such joy, passion, and love for detail, for almost two hours straight! And the Ayreon songs are anything but easy to arrange and perform.

Again back at the campsite around the fire bowl, I make new friends with Lady V, her mom Iwona and her sister Yunin. How amazing to travel to epic concerts with one’s metal mom! Eventually we retreat to our respective tents where that inescapable blessing called sleep is upon us. One last round of nighttime dreams before the Ayreon concerts …

Pre(r)amble (a.k.a. You Can Totally Skip This Part^TM)

After an initial rush of enthusiasm and inspiration (“Now I’ll finally write again, yay!”) I often experience a long phase of recoil and doubt. Thus my passion is delayed for an arduous while.

Fortunately the time always comes – and may it come ever more swiftly! – when ink and quill return to my eager hands, and my longing heart rejoices as (letter upon patient letter, keystroke upon loving keystroke) words ecstatically pour forth from the realms of imagination, form slient whispers upon longing lips, and eventually – finally! – flow lavishly, like skaldic mead of poetry, from these dancing fingertips.

So come take a seat around the fire, let’s hear our stories!

Musical Trains (a.k.a. The Actual Story I Want To Share With You^TM)

Thursday, 11^th September 2025 is a good day for a long train ride. After way too little sleep I somehow manage to pack (don’t ask, it is always a miracle), leave home around 5:30am, and finally settle into my seat on the first train from Graz to Linz. First step: done!

Then I proceed like 35 years ago (holy shit, how the time flies!) – I look out of the window and watch the beautiful lanscape of Styria, the green hills and little villages, the Alpine mountain rocks, all being pulled across my field of view by unseen forces. (Yes, yes, I know, it’s all relative.) But one thing is different: today I listen to music along the way, which resembles about 30 years ago. Back then I was a teenager, playing mixtapes from my friend R on my Sony walkman – to him I owe gratitude for introducing me to a variety of metal bands and genres: Amorphis, Blind Guardian, Jag Panzer, Manowar, Rhapsody, Therion and many others. He also tried to get me into Motörhead and the (newer) Onkelz, but I kinda refused, ha.

The other main music influences came from my uncle (The Kinks, Jesus Messerschmitt), my cousin M (Skid Row), and especially my brother who, during our teen years, introduced me to bands like The Sisters of Mercy, The Mission, The Cult, Paradise Lost, Helloween, Ozzy Osbourne and Black Sabbath. Since this journey that I’m writing about here takes place not too long after Ozzy’s passing, and as I have recently paid homage the Ozzman by playing his entire discography up and down (and man, did he make some amazing songs!), this time I choose to listen to some Black Sabbath albums. I thought I had never payed much attention to Tony Iommi and his ever-fluctuating peers, and today most of their songs seem new to me (except for well-known classics like “War Pigs” and “Paranoid”). Until …

… I listen to the “Cross Purposes” album and immediately remember that I know every. single. song. inside and out. Do you ever get that feeling when you revisit a memory from the distant past that you had all but forgotten, whether music or something else … and suddenly, in the blink of an eye, it all comes back in one fell swoop?

As a teenager I have spent many an evening just listening to albums with headphones and dreaming along. I must have listened to “Cross Purposes” (critically unacclaimed, but who cares) a good few times. And now “Cross of Thorns” gives me chills. I remember the slow-paced doomy riffs and psychedelic songlines of “Virtual Death”. I get all romantic over “Dying for Love”. I rock to the groovy depths of “The Hand That Rocks the Cradle”. Oh man! What is it about music that gets to me like that? What about it evokes such emotions, memories, and all those unnameable, unspeakable, magical, mystical feelings?

When you take a life and steal its shadow
All that’s left is humanity

On that note … Fuck war. Or maybe: fuck nonconsensually(!) enforcing war upon people who want to live in peace. Fuck sending others into the hell of war – you’re not even standing in the effin’ frontline yourselves, you cowards (yet you call yourselves ‘leaders’, what a joke!). I mean seriously? After all these centuries and millennia of senseless bloodshed, we can do better than that, can’t we?

But what if we still can’t? :-(

And still: “Can we don’t though?” (Thanks for this, Kyle!)

And still I know that (with all the shadow work and integration and whatnot) peace is the way.

Such kinds of thoughts can tear my heart asunder and comfort it at the same time. How can I explain? I’m afraid there is no explanation. Maybe you know the feeling. Why do I want to find people who know the feeling? Sigh. Even if I have found them, I still want to find them. Anyway, we’re gonna get back to this rabbit hole. Sorry not sorry for the digression!

Namesakes

A star shines upon the hour of this journey (how do you say that in Quenya: elen síla lúmenn’ journeyelvo? ;-)) because both ICEs are almost on time: one from Linz to Nürnberg (Nuremberg), one from Nürnberg to Köln (Cologne) where a local train (the only delayed one – someone’s gotta hold up the reputation of Deutsche Bahn!) brings me close to my namesake’s home.

Wolfgang picks me up with his car. Until that moment we have only ever seen each other on screen, and I realize I have pictured him to be a bit taller. I apologize for my slightly metalesque outfit (with the good old black Lee Denver bootcut jeans, well-worn after 22 years) and he assures me there is no reason for such. :-)

Wolfgang and I first met in 2021 in the late Terry Patten’s online community “A New Republic of the Heart”, where we were auspiciously assigned to become buddies for 2-3 months. After that period we decided to remain buddies, became friends, and kept on meeting online almost every week since.

Today, more than four years later, we meet “live”, and I get to stay for a night in the beautiful home that he and his betrothed (meanwhile his beloved spouse) have created. Their hospitality is amazing and reminds me of the beauty of hosting friends. I’m also impressed by the artful play of colours that is only topped by the absolutely stunning lighting throughout the apartment. We talk for a while, then go out for yummy dinner at a nearby Asian place. I love hearing the story of how Wolfgang and his beloved T met. We keep talking back home and conclude the day with a brief meditation together. Not much later I sleep like a baby – my best sleep during this journey.

In the morning, while T sleeps in, Wolfgang prepares breakfast for us and then drives me to the train station. But wait – that’s another story!

(… to be continued here …)

(continuing from this earlier post)

Scrambling my things together (large backpack, tent, two small bags from General Semantics conferences – let’s better not go down that rabbit hole just yet, but … soon!), I asked the train staff about my breakfast. It had been promised for 6:00am, which had given rise to me rising early. Now the clock showed 7:35, and the arrival in Linz for my change of trains was scheduled for 7:43. The train staff apologized (bless his heart!) and said he’d bring me a to-go package.

I chatted briefly with the woman in the cabin above me. Her long dark hair framed her beautiful facial features in a slightly mystical appearance, and I wondered how our lives would change if I were to stay on the train until Vienna and converse more with her. What if I were to share my feelings about Ayreon and experiences of the journey with her? And what would she tell me about the her life, her happiness and grief, her contentment and longing, the challenges confronted and treasures found along her own journey?

We’ll never know.

I received my breakfast package and left the train just in time. Hot coffee spilled through the lid and over my hand. I didn’t mind. I stretched my back. Sleeping in the tent had felt surprisingly better despite the rain and chilling winds. While the mini cabin on the train had given me an equally uneasy sleep, there is another key difference. In the modernized context of polished surfaces and touch panels, where the climatised air blows into your face as though it were mid-summer, you simply won’t be replenished by the smell of wet grass and soil. You cannot crawl out of your tent on all fours, stretch and yawn into the rising morning sun, let your eyes glance across the landscape, smile understandingly at fellow tents and tent-dwellers, feel the strange joy of knowing “we’re in this together!”, and make any funny noises of your choosing that half curse, half praise the crazy adventure.

(You also cannot celebrate the art of making and tasting coffee with your new-found Mexican friends … But more on that later.)

Nonetheless, let me give the ÖBB (Austrian railway company) a huge shout-out for maintaining, expanding and modernizing large parts of the night-train network in Europe. I love night-trains. Even if I “regret” having chosen them the next morning, I am deeply grateful for the service. I love all trains! And my heart aches for all the train networks being run down upon privatization. Please everyone, keep the train networks in good shape, make people and the planet happy. Train travel means slow travel. To me it means expanding horizons. Looking out the window, seeing the landscape pass by, reflecting on life. There is no train ride without at least one small epiphany or beautiful thought that drops a tear from each eye. Typically there are several such moments, and sometimes the human-to-human encounters are priceless too. I might as well be talking with the lovely young lady across the table instead of typing this!

On that note, slipping back to the present – we’re currently delaying for a few minutes in Hinterstoder. Yes, I am in Austria again, for Hinterstoder is a name that you wouldn’t easily find anywhere abroad!

And we’re moving again. The journey from Linz to Graz takes me across the beautiful mountains, winding an iron-clad path betwixt forests and rocks, mist and clouds, streamlets gradually mingling waters and swelling in size to become majestic rivers which are destined to traverse distant realms and to eventually pour themselves wholeheartedly into the vast and unfathomable sea.

Right now I am listening for the first time ever to the classic Queensrÿche album “Operation: Mindcrime”. What on Earth took me so long? Thanks to Lady V and also to Jonatan, Andre and Lilia for suggesting it to me. The music is amazing! The singer reminds me a bit of the early works of Crimson Glory, some of which I had listened to on my train rides at the beginning of this journey. When it has some “substance” to it, Music can have a tremendous impact on me. Which reminds me of the purpose and “official” thematic focus of this blog series … Ayreon. I say “official” because you never know where the journey wants to take you. In the end it isn’t really about Ayreon. Ayreon, like Ithaca, is giving us the lovely journey.

This blog series will be an experiment – hopefully not “The Final Experiment”, but the first of many. I intend to write more in a raw and unpremeditated style, without editing much. I might do some minor polishing for typos and mistakes, add links and context and a few pictures. If you like it, feel free to comment! Given that I practically never promote this blog, perhaps not many humans will ever read our entries, but trust me: I surely will. :-)

We’re leaving Selzthal now. Queensrÿche sings “I Don’t Believe In Love” (“… I never have, I never will …“). I totally love that catchy track and – nope, I totally do believe in love. :-) This album is really great. I’ll listen again and follow the lyrics and story more intently. And in the coming days we’ll get started with Day 1 (Thursday, 11th September 2025) and follow day-by-day up to the present. I can’t wait to write this. It will be risky because I will lay bare some very dearly and deeply treasured emotions before you. Yet the price of not sharing is greater, and the life-spark deep within clearly says that I cannot afford that. Wherever it truly comes from, and whatever its true nature, I’ll trust and follow. For, pray tell me: what else is there to do?

Na eben. :-)

It feels hard to convey to you what the music, the storylines, and the live shows of Ayreon truly mean to me. So I shall attempt to do just that: express that which seemingly cannot be fully expressed. I am going to weave diary-style memories, existential reflections, deeply heartfelt emotions, some contemplative insights … you know, the usual suspects. :-)

For context: I am currently on a night train, in the morning, with red eyes from the inconvenient sleeping arrangement of a small almost-Japanese-style sleeper capsule, conveniently listening to the 34-minute track “First Light” by the progressive rock band Shadow Gallery (to be fair and accurate, the song contains 5 minutes of utter silence starting around the 23′ mark, which yet makes it no less epic and beautiful). The accumulated lack of sleep – and the fact that the train personnel must have forgotten about bringing me breakfast with at least some semblance of coffee – doesn’t make for a particularly good arrangement to scratch my memories together into coherent articulations. But then, what better time could there be?

Let’s let this one be raw and unpolished, and discover the always-already-inherent beauty in it.

My thoughts trail off to a group of three Mexicans whom I have first met just two days ago – hard to believe it hasn’t been longer! – on the Ayreon campsite in Tilburg, who turned out to be my campsite tent neighbours. And to the other campsite tent neighbour from the Netherlands, who had gifted me with more than just lending me his hammer to drive my tent hooks into the soil. And to my other campsite almost-neighbours, a Polish-German family of a mother and two daughters who had enjoyed this musical trip to Tilburg a.k.a. “Ayreon City” together. And back to the coffee and breakfast that never comes, and my approaching stop in Linz. Oh my goodness, I need to pack up!

(… to be continued here …)

Thursday, 7^th October 2021

My roommate Mikkel lets me in on the ‘sacred secret’ purpose of his journey to Berlin: he just had one of his thighs adorned by a resident tattoo artist. The result looks impressive. A very specific purpose, I think. How specific is my purpose? I am here for the Emerge Gathering, for reconnection with J and W, and for a trip to Hamburg to co-create Mindful Researchers things with Annika. And there is more. There is something I want to lean into, something I want to give myself to, and it is more specific now than it was in June. It has to do with energies and transitions, with developing a certain sensitivity to different worlds and a growing awareness of their inherent inseparability. I know that my journey here supports this revelation. I know it is purposeful. Yet can I be more specific than that?

I check out from the hostel and stow my luggage in an empty storage room. On a long morning walk across the river Spree I am taking in first fresh glimpses of this vibrant metropolis called Berlin. The Coffee Lab café offers three tiny tables inside and some larger tables and benches outside. I am taking a seat inside near the glass front, inhale the scent of freshly ground and brewed coffee, and start journaling while observing the comings and goings around me.

Sometimes I fantasize that I might be a 'bringer of revenue': I sat down with a salmon bagel and a double cappuccino, and a legion of customers has since trickled in: two young blonde Berliners engaging in lively conversation to my left; a short-haired brunette in a rose-brown-ish coat that reminds me of the Dude's morning robe, now sitting outside and sipping coffee while reading a tome about women's rights; a tall blonde-haired dude with an epic beard; a dark-skinned lady in a red jacket with several bright-skinned folks, now standing outside with their liquid takeaway loot; a guy with a grey cap checking things on his phone. (...) 

A wasp comes greeting me at the table in this tiny coffee shop. (...) what I truly care about is connection, not the particular form of connection. I want to hold this affection lightly, without need to give it any label or story. Love flows on its own terms, spontaneously, "a braided and networked process that is fundamentally unpredictable, embedded in situatedness / interrelationality / mutuality / non-explicit reciprocity / adaptivity ..." to paraphrase qualities that Roshi Joan Halifax elucidated vis-à-vis compassion; it is fundamentally enactive. I anticipate that the 'enactive view' is the most profound cognitive update in my life since my spiritual heart-awakening. The unfolding and enfolding of meaning holds the frame, like a 'non-view', to give context to all views. Knowing everything to be enactive, how can one hold views as if they were absolutes?

– Journal entry on Thursday, 7th October 2021

I pause and think back to an image from Dune showing several moons. How would life on Earth be affected if two moons were circling around it, even at different revolution frequencies, causing quite distinct tidal patterns? Yet surely such more complex cycles would also have stabilizing effects. Cycles lead to iteration, to renewal, to establishing patterns of life, to the flourishing of life. While the cappuccino is beginning to affect me, I make a highly unsuccessful attempt to weave a thousand thought-threads into one tapestry.

Life finds ways to accommodate to circumstances. On a planet with a different gravitational field, different composition of elements, different sets of moons and suns, it finds its own ways. Cyclical processes support its flourishing: tides, day-night cycles, seasons, eccentricities of orbit around the central star. Too much variation too quickly can be detrimental. But on our planet, the 24h-cycle seems rapid too. It helps to have several cyclic processes at once, another 'braided and networked process', on different scales of time and space and amplitude. One of our biggest mistakes as humans has been our ignorance and denial of these cycles. Any system that has fundamentally grown based on regenerativity needs supporting conditions to maintain such regenerativity. A logged forest cannot easily regenerate. Extracting too much, converting it all into different forms – coal and oil and gas into energy, wood into ships and houses and paper – is by design a one-way street. The ideology of capitalism demands such short-term gains though; it has no value-system that accommodates for the long term, nor for the genuine care for the flourishing and diversity of life. 

I've read an article by George Monbiot this morning, and I agree with his assessment: you cannot tame and temper capitalism – it seeks profit. It is its own 'paperclip maximizer'. Regulations only incentivize the exploitation of loopholes, and they invoke an army of libertarians. No, it is the value system itself! Streets and cars can never solve the 'problem of transportation'; a 'green economy', a 'green deal', a 'sustainable form of capitalism' can never solve the problem of perverse incentives. It is a band-aid, perhaps necessary to stop the blood loss, yet it can only be a precursor to a deeper healing transformation. And we must take care to not have it shield off our view, lest it conceals the heart of the matter. 

– Journal entry on Thursday, 7th October 2021

I chat with the barista and learn that this gentle young man intends to leave this family-owned café and enroll in a military or police academy. Then, heading back to the hostel to retrieve my luggage, walking along the river and crossing underneath a bridge, I catch a first glimpse of the living conditions of the homeless in this city. This is someone’s home. No shelter from cold winds, nor from unwanted attention. A seed of realization is planted in my mind that will take its own time to trickle in and merge with further experience.

The luggage weighs heavily on my shoulders. I pause at a bench facing the river. Gazing at the cars, trucks and humans passing by at a distance, a dawning insight has me pick up the journal again. I’m seeing something, an intuition that both traverses and transcends time, yet the verbal expression on paper is one of intellectual grasping, spiraling in on an elusive moment of redemption.

Sitting and resting in half-shade across the Mühlendamm-Schleuse, pondering the undeniable aesthetics of Teilhardian visions for the evolution of mankind. I've seen the 'flaw' in it with a felt-sense of certainty, not too long ago. Was that conditioned by the cognitive frame I've held, or inhabited, at the time? How could I claim for it to reflect absolute truth? And now I'm seeing the aesthetic value, akin to that of a symphony, of exquisite art, of profound scientific discovery, of spaceflight, of genetic engineering. Engineering. Engine. Mechanics. It exploits the mechanistic lawfulness of our universe, our cosmos. It exploits. Lawfulness. Law. Regularity. Plausible undeniability. Who can deny this? Who can stand in its way? Yet begging the question of emergent strategy: what is life? What gives meaning? Are we meant to send life to other planets? Are we meant to let them unfold on their own terms? Our quest for survival and flourishing does not 'prove' justification of our attempts to colonize. "Because we can" is not enough. Did we consider Wolf? Did we consider Life? Did we consider Spirit? Do we consider Source?

– Journal entry on Thursday, 7th October 2021

Ever so slightly missing the mark, I let go of pen and paper. The walk leads past Checkpoint Charlie and Berlin Anhalter Bahnhof where I am briefly sensing the intergenerational and cross-cultural import of their associated histories, the ever-morphing impact that keeps on flowing through our shared presence. I cross Gleisdreieckpark and watch humans of all ages play, skate, walk, realizing that parks too shape our histories. With the physical discomfort of heavy weight on my shoulders, beginning dehydration, and a certain cautionary closed-mindedness, I am still feeling somewhat alienated in this city. A couple more hours and this too will pass. And are there not little signs of love everywhere? How long will it take me to notice?

Irina welcomes me into her cozy Airbnb apartment which is located in the heart of a red-light district, as I will only realize later, being of slow wits in select regards. Irina is curious about the Emerge Gathering and I make a feeble attempt to explain what it is about – changemakers and visionaries of all kinds coming together to tackle our sensemaking / meaning crisis with a kind of metamodern-spiritual philosophy and practice? We share our professional interests and personal journeys, she tells me about Azerbaijan, I mention CERN and the Mindful Researchers. Our conversation quickly deepens and zones in on themes of spirituality. Given our immediate resonance and Irina’s strong curiosity, I find joy in sharing my spiritual journey with her; yet a stirring in my belly literally prevents me from speaking about some of the more recent experiences. Does the serpent protect herself? Even so, we are at zero risk for running short of topics. Only my rising hunger commands us to pause.

I walk towards Nollendorfplatz, admire the graffiti artworks, and pull out my phone to search for hints on nearby restaurants. The almighty algorithms propose Bethe Ethiopia as the #1 choice, literally just around the corner. Ethiopia, of all possibilities! I follow the universal nudge and am generously rewarded with the most delicious food: Yetsom Beyaynetu and thyme tea, followed by Brilli Teji (homemade honey-wine) and a yummy dessert made of sesame, almonds and dates. The amiable chef of this lovely family restaurant, a bellied man with a hearty smile and sparkling eyes, teaches me some Amharic and enthusiastically proposes that I’m a natural when it comes to holding the Brilli Teji flask with my fingers and thumb. Of course, the body remembers! I smile as a crow instantly confirms my strange thought: sometimes you do a thing for the first time and yet remember that you’ve always known it.

Back at the apartment, still slightly affected by the Brilli Teji, I partake in a co-creative Zoom-meeting-dance practice with Annika, Mary, and Marieke, in which we sense into co-creating a Mindful Researchers event. Then I don my favorite black Anneke van Giersbergen T-shirt, and Irina and I have a short farewell conversation as I am getting ready to meet J while she too is preparing to leave. Before we part ways, I show her Mark Matousek’s book “Writing to Awaken” that I’ve lately been working with.

J meets me at the Metropol and we hang out for a couple of hours at the nearby Hafen bar. With J being a director and writer, it is only natural that we land on the theme of storytelling. I tell him about my newly re-awakened joy of writing and my intention to blog about this journey. J shares some trade secrets about dramaturgy, proposing that in a good story the characters come first and the plot evolves from their inner and outer conflicts. What is the ‘research question’ that drives the story and the protagonist? What is an appropriate type of character to walk in the protagonist’s shoes? What is their perceived ‘want’? What is their actual deeper ‘need’? What’s up with the tension or polarity between these two, the ‘want’ and the ‘need’? I feel intrigued and challenged. Have I not sufficiently thought this through? Should I?

We carry on talking about life, love, relationships, heartbreak, healing, music, our coming-of-age years, psychedelic experiences, and recent elections in Graz. During his bio break I ‘secretly’ give in to my new drug of choice: Anneke van Giersbergen’s mesmerizing “Jest Oldu” cover version of Karsu’s cover version of Mustafa Sandal’s ballad. (The grande finale always reminds me of Anneke’s incredible vocal performance with Damian Wilson in Maiden UniteD‘s acoustic cover version of “To Tame A Land” at the Wacken Open Air 2011 – just imagine this song mixed with this vocal energy – and I should mention that said Maiden uniteD concert in Wacken ended with this epic cover of “The Evil That Men Do”, melting the iron hearts of even the most moshpit-hardened and wall-of-death-approved metalheads; and I don’t know what gives me greater chills: their duet or the lyrics?)

In the end I ask J whether ‘coming out’ is a multi-layered process, and he confirms this, saying that in his experience there are three possible stages or areas for coming out: an ‘inner’ (personal) realization, an ‘outer’ (public) declaration, and an ‘inter’ (relational) enaction. I sense that this has something to do with my journey and writing here, too.

On the way back to the apartment, I experience my life’s greatest density ever of being invited to sexy times via fifty shades of “Hast Du Lust?” – I automatically rush past all offers as if speed mattered, soon wondering whether there is also a way for me to relate more fully to these wonderful beings, hearts and souls in passing. After all, one can affirm “no” and still embrace this one human family in this one web of life. Can I learn this? What else is there to learn?