Ayreon 2025 – Day 4: Aeropress

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Dear reader, here I must confess:
getting to know the Aeropress –
as A confided now in me –
it might have happened on Day 3.

So maybe the following already took place the day before, on Saturday morning …

I am sitting in the tent with a breakfast bowl on my lap and a water bottle in my hand. Near me I see and hear a group of three Spanish speaking people. One of them uses a manual grinder to prepare fresh coffee. They take their time, no signs of hurry. When the coffee is ground, he puts a strange cylindrical device on top of a large cup, places a round filter inside, adds the ground coffee, pours boiling water over it, and uses another little gadget to press down – not directly on the water, but on the air above it. Et voilà: fresh coffee drips through the filter.

I approach them with a spontaneously courageous utterance of broken Spanish. “Es la primera vez que miro la preparación del café como así.” I add a friendly smile for good measure. The three people immediately welcome me to their circle with open arms, congratulate me on my multilingual attempt, introduce themselves and offer me to partake in their morning coffee ritual. Thus I meet the brothers Andy and Jonatan and their friend Alfredo from México, and a while later their friend Lilia too. It turns out they are also my tent neighbours. The whole memory still warms my heart to this day!

For the remainder of our time here in Tilburg, we talk lots, buy food at the nearby Albert Heijn supermarket – chillies, bread, cheese, sausages – and share food and coffee. I do not recall whether we attend any of the same Saturday shows (probably yes), but it turns out that we are going to go together to the final Sunday evening show. So let us fast forward to Sunday. My new Mexican friends and I share breakfast. They are so lavishly generous that I struggle to keep up with their level of hospitality, so I am happy to have some Zotter chocolate to share with them, while benefitting from their sausages and other yummy things. Oh joy!

Jonatan and I having fun waiting in the queue.

Later we walk into town together, stand and sit in the long queue, and eventually we enter the venue. Andy and I position ourselves next to the sound & light technician’s isle (offering a very interesting perspective!), while Lilia and Jonatan stand behind us on the first stairs. The concert starts and the first half is similar to the Saturday shows, with subtle differences. Overall the performance is a lot smoother, and it seems the artists are feeling more comfortable and enjoying themselves and the show a lot more by now. Let us continue here from where we left off the previous day: the moment when the Dream Sequencer avatar of Irene informs us that the second half of our journey will be all about “timeless classics”.

And it starts with a blast: Joost and Jeroen start playing the inimitable keyboard intro leading to “The Theory of Everything“, with vocals performed by Mike Mills and Maggy Luyten, supported mainly by the backing vocals of Marcela Bovio. I simply love the juxtaposition of the father’s “A Beautiful Mind” like borderline insanity drive to find “one single master equation, the unification of the great and small” and the mother’s equally desperate, yet more humane call for his care and attention for their boy. And what good is it anyway if you “need some more time, for the answer is blindingly near”, yet you are blind to life and love itself that are actually right here?

Now I don’t wanna be a bitch, and comparisons are always mean, but I can’t help compare it with the epic “Ayreon Universe” live version of 2017 and conclude that the mother’s role isn’t ideal for Maggy’s lower-pitched voice – for me it needs the emotional, higher-pitched melodic outcry that Marcela can deliver like none other. I felt this more strongly in the Saturday shows, but now on Sunday there is a much better balance, and Maggy & Marcela together create a beautiful harmony that comes very close to that gold standard of 2017. Your mileage may vary!

Thanks to someone (Arjen? Lori? Joost?) having ingenuously strategized and concocted a setlist that oscillates between energetic epos and soft ballad, we get an actual fantasy-filled breather with “Actual Fantasy“. :-) And then, guess what – it’s epos time again, introduced by Ben Mathot’s violin intro.

And what an epos! Can you imagine a more fatalistic task than steering a spaceship “Into the Black Hole” at the center of the galaxy? Even so, can you imagine that being done by none other than Damian Wilson? Now I don’t wanna be a bitch, but compared with the already epic “Ayreon Universe” live version of 2017 featuring Tommy Karevik, this time Damian absolutely fucking kills it. The man goes all out and all in, he stands tall like a mountain, commanding insane respect. Way beyond performance, Damian sits on that very spaceship and pours his entire heart & soul into one final song as he dives straight into the black hole with us all.

Emotions are welling in our eyes as Heather Findlay invokes the “Dreamtime“. This song would have been performed by the wonderful Edward Reekers, just like in 2017 when it was the intro song to the “Ayreon Universe” concert (starting at 4’50”). But this year Edward already has late-stage cancer, and his transition is near. I will not even dare to compare because NOTHING in this world compares to Edward, and his passing leaves a gap that cannot be filled. Kudos to Heather for stepping into these giant shoes and imbuing them with her heartfelt musical soul.

Soul … wasn’t there a song about that? An epic again? And how about a million of them? Yes, we’re taken back to the Universal Migrator album with “Dawn of a Million Souls“, and at the risk of repeating myself, there is also an “Ayreon Universe” live version of 2017 of this song that is absolutely worth watching (you should go get it right now and support the artists!), where the vocals are performed by your friendly hardrock-loving Harley-driving favourite uncle (as I like to imagine him) named John Jaycee Cuijpers. This time however, it’s your younger talented up-and-coming rockstar nephew Dino Jelusick who drives the crowd crazy in the best possible way. The arrangements with violin and cello are just beautiful, and Timo Somers plays the lead guitar solos like a virtuoso. I like to joke that his facial expressions are reminiscent of someone walking on lego bricks while being simultaneously afflicted by diarrhoea and constipation – no offense, Timo, it’s a weird kinda compliment, I love you! :-D

What beautiful ballad haven’t we heard yet? Jeroen plays the flute again, and Anneke, Marcela and Heather are bringing the ancient voices from the “Valley of the Queens” to our modern world. Of course there’s also an “Ayreon Universe” live version of 2017 of this song with Anneke, Marcela and Floor Jansen. There cannot be enough versions of this song. It was actually the first Ayreon song I’ve ever heard, thanks to a medieval/gothic music sampler from 1999 or so.

Following the pattern, we need another song with a bit more oomph, and didgeridoos are also cool, which sounds just like a thing for Jeroen. It’s the intro to “Loser” and the self-deprecating lead role is taken again by Mike Mills, just like in the “Ayreon Universe” live version of 2017 where the wicked man is righteously bullied just a bit better by four women instead of two.

The ghostly voice of Peter Daltrey guides us into “The Castle Hall” where we get to see (in a really cool purple outfit!) and hear Robert Soeterboek for the first time in this concert, in duet with Damian Wilson. Yes, for your entertainment there is also an “Ayreon Universe” live version of 2017 with Arjen playing the lead guitar himself. Did I mention that you should go and buy the live album, or better yet, ALL the albums?

Robert Soeterboek is not running far, he returns for “An Amazing Flight in Space” together with Arjen who is dressed all in red. It’s quite the show, and it gets better thanks to not only their theatric performance – Robert the Barbarian brags about all his battles and exploits, while Arjen the Hippie goes “Hey Dude, you’re so uncool but hey, that’s alright” and hands him a cup of tea and a sweetener – but also a little hiccup: the sweetener gadget completely falls apart in Robert’s hands just as he tries to apply it, and half the people on stage have a hard time not bursting into laughter. Prank or accident? Put your take in the comments below. :-) Oh, and of course, there’s an “Ayreon Universe” live version of 2017 for that song too!

Just so that things don’t get too amazing and hippiesque, let’s make sure that “Everybody Dies” and get Mike, Tommy, Wudstik, Irene, Maggy and Marcela on stage together. All the singers are shining in this one and enjoying themselves. Extinction has never been so much fun! And yes, there’s an “Ayreon Universe” live version of 2017 for that song too, including Hansi Kürsch and Floor Jansen. How could there not be?

It’s time for a “short and sweet” 16-minute Speech by Arjen + Joost. I see it three times in this weekend, and I still find it way better and more entertaining than, say, certain speeches by the bass player of a self-proclaimed true metal band that started in the early 80s with an album called “Battle Hymns” (bonus points if you guess which one I mean). Sir Arjen thanks the fans fom 71 (!) different countries, brags about having become a real knight, talks about Edward’s condition, and brings Joost on stage. It’s time to give a shout-out to Joost van den Broek, an extremely talented musician and producer whose speech makes it clear that he is also a very kind, warm-hearted, cool person. If I were a musician, I would totally want to work with him!

Alas, it’s clear that this concert is coming to an end. We are taken for another fast and wild space-ride with “Set Your Controls” – for a change, there is no “Ayreon Universe” version for that! – which proves to be one of the most energetic and upbeat songs of the entire show. Damian and Dino, Marcela and Irene, and all the musicians are on fire. Time for a shout-out to three kick-ass musicians I haven’t named yet – Ed Warby on the drums, Ferry Duijsens on the second guitar, and Johan van Stratum on the bass.

After a last interlude with Irene’s avatar on the “Dream Sequencer 3“, the final song of the evening begins: “Isolation” from the album “The Human Equation”. As is tradition at Ayreon concerts, literally everyone comes on stage for this epic conclusion. Tommy and Anneke start us off, Tommy and Wudstik continue, Maggy delivers an ass-kicking chorus, Dino chimes in, we’re back to Tommy and Wudstik (I love that man!), Maggy and Dino, the soft angelic voice of Heather, and after a long solo part ALL singers comes on stage to deliver the final chorus lines, with some really cool added “solo” layers by Robert, Tommy, Mike, Damian, and Dino.

Damian Wilson persuades fans to help him crowdsurf like a Sir.

And that’s a wrap! But not for Damian, who does what he actually does best: not singing (that’s his second best) but crowdsurfing. I actually get my hands on his buttocks too, or was it his leg? Never mind, I made good on the missed hugs and selfies and touched the man! Just kidding. But it’s a sweet memory no less. I just love how playful Damian is. After my valiant attempt to help him reach the very back of the venue just by crowdsurfing, I meet Andy and Jonatan at the pop-up merch store. Many items are already sold out, yet I get an Ayreon cap for myself, a “Hey Dude, you’re so uncool but hey, that’s alright” T-shirt for my brother’s birthday, and a signed earbook of Arjen’s new dystopian “Songs No One Will Hear” album. Andy, Jonatan and I get interviewed about the show and our Ayreon experiences, and we eventually become immortalized on the Blu-Ray.

Jonatan, Andy, Lilia and I head back to the campsite, where we eat, drink and talk long into the night while rain starts pouring down … but more on that later. Time to sleep.

Phew! The concert review is finally done! :-)

Ayreon 2025 – Day 3: Showtime

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Yummy breakfast bowl is yummy.

Today is the day. It starts with a yummy breakfast bowl from the Crêperie. Although the night was short and chilly, and my air mattress is just as thin as the sleeping bag, I’m feeling refreshed. There’s nothing like the moment when you crawl out of your tent and greet a sunny morning with a feeling of victory!

I also recall a beautiful conversation with Jille, the tent neighbour who has lent me his hammer on the first day here. It confirms to me that I am not alone in being so moved – sometimes even to tears – by the music, lyrics and themes of Ayreon that I cannot possibly put the right words to it. Jille feels the same. I believe many people feel the same, each in their own way. Same same, but different!

The afternoon concert is slated to start at 2pm, and there are queues, so it makes total sense that Lady V, Iwona, Yunin and I head into downtown Tilburg before noon. We stroll through the city streets, grab some food here and there, and join the queue. We talk a lot about music, and Lady V and Iwona give me several recommendations for progressive rock & metal bands.

The queue gets larger behind us and progresses rather slowly towards the “013” venue because doors have not yet opened. Besides our geeky conversations, the long wait is sweetened by the fact that Damian Wilson walks along the entire queue, greets literally every single fan, and happily lets them take lots of pictures and selfies with him. One might ask where the man takes so much energy for doing this, but I suspect he actually receives energy from it. Anyway, for some obscure reason I forsake the opportunity to get a picture with him, which I immediately regret afterwards. Lady V and her family make a wiser choice, and at least I can be a good photographer.

Ayreon City is real!

Eventually we get into the venue, which has alredy filled up quite a bit, and find a good spot somewhere slightly right from the central axis and a bit before the sound & light isle. I enjoy the privilege of being reasonably tall (slightly above 180cm, or approx. 6″ for the imperial ones), and most Dutch folk is even taller, whereas Lady V and her family are a bit shorter. So we come up with the idea: What if a crowd would spontaneously self-organize such that shorter people are standing front and center, with a steadily increasing gradient towards the sides and back? Then everyone would get a decent view of the stage. One downside would be that friends or couples of different size might not be standing near each other. But one could at least approximate the organising pattern, and people would likely be happier on average!

And then the show begins …

In the beginning there is flashing light. The projection of a starship deck appears, zeroes and ones, a floating brain, and then: “Dream Sequencer System Online.” The year is 2084. The holographic avatar of Irene Jansen welcomes all Ayreonauts to an amazing flight in time. The crowd cheers. Red lights. A red planet. Wudstik begins with a powerful performance of “My House on Mars“, accompanied by backing vocals of Irene and Marcela. About 2’30” into the song I get chills: “I’ll never smell the ocean breeze / I’ll never climb the highest trees / I’ll never feel the burning sun / I’ll never meet my chosen one” – for the first time I feel emotional about this song, hearing themes of loss, loneliness and abandonment. Are we really prepared for spaceflight?

The atmosphere changes swiftly as Maggy Luyten takes us back to the dark ages in the catchy and upbeat “Sail Away to Avalon“, with Ben Mathot on the violin, Jurriaan Westerveld on the cello and Jeroen Goossens on the flute. I love Maggy’s stage presence and leadership qualities! The next song, “Green and Cream” performed by Tommy Karevik, while not among my favourites, adds to the diversity of the setlist. I confess that the song with its complex rhythmic structure and intense chorus parts slowly but steadily grows on me.

Next up is Sir(!) Arjen Anthony Lucassen himself, all dressed in red, with a new rendition of his old classic “Days of the Knights“. The tune is again catchy and upbeat, featuring an amazing duet between Marcela and Irene. Whew! And then without further ado, my beloved Anneke van Giersbergen enters the stage for the heart-wrenching “Childhood” … and how could even the most space-battle-hardened Ayreonauts not shed tears over such a beautiful tune and such emotional lyrics?

After this we get immersed in yet another change of atmosphere as Marcela and Irene take the center stage for a beautifully intense rendition of “Dragon on the Sea“. You can tell how much they are enjoying themselves, and this emotion is absolutely contagious. I love that many of the songs on the setlist are among ones I haven’t listened to very often. We change again to a soft ballad, to flute and acoustic guitar, and to a stunningly beautiful Heather Findlay for “Sign“, another song from The Human Equation. Of course more instruments join the party as Timo Somers on the e-guitar has a brief duet with Ben Mathot on the violin.

The calm before the show.

And then I am twice struck with awe: screams, sirens, and a characteristic cello immediately accompanied by a flute and joined by a violin mark the beginning of one of my absolute favourites, “Sea of Machines“, sung by none other than Damian Wilson … eargasm alert! And not only that – for the epic chorus we get Tommy Karevik with Irene and Marcela. Heather Findlay’s compassionate interlude puts icing on the cake. How on Earth can they make it sound even better than on the album The Source?

But wait, there’s more! Dino Jelusick comes on stage and rocks “The Year of ’41“, a song from the Star One side-project. Once again the powerful backing duo of Irene and Marcela lifts the song to epic spheres. And if you think it doesn’t get any better than this, enter Mike Mills joining the grande finale! After this we need a breather, right? And whom haven’t we seen in a while? You are damn right – the inimitable Wudstik does it again, becoming “The First Man on Earth“.

Thus replenished and prepared, we get the rare treat of a “The Lighthouse/The Argument 2/The Parting” medley from the Theory of Everything album, featuring duets by Damian and Tommy as well as Mike and Anneke. The whole setlist appears as being skilfully arranged into one vast opera that spans eons, galaxies, species, genres. So it should come as no surprise that Sir Arjen The Tall enters the stage again for “Carried by the Wind” from the first Ayreon album “The Final Experiment”.

And that, my friends, concludes the first half of the setlist. The second half will be treated in my blogpost for the next day. I will just say at this point that after all these wonderful songs, the Dream Sequencer avatar of Irene informs us that the second half of our journey will be all about “timeless classics”. I’m biting my tongue hard to not spill the next song already, which will be another one of my favourites!

Non-alcoholic IPA with good taste and great name.

Fast forward: after the concert, Lady V plus family and I part ways, and I embark on the quest for food. My choice turns out to be suboptimal: the staff drops my order more than once, it takes ages until I get my food, and that food is “for the hollow tooth” as we’d say in German. The upside of this place is shelter from the heavy rain. I chat a bit with the one lady from the staff that actually gets me the food. When I tell her about Ayreon and Arjen, she tells me she thought him a wizard. Maybe she is right? :-)

I join the queue for the second concert of that day, this time on my own. As rain sets in again, the soaked Ayreonauts are treated to a spontaneous acoustic street concert by musicians from the Ayreon Project – letting us taste once again the beautiful camaraderie among fans. And though I think I’m late, I actually get a spot much closer to the stage, slightly to the left, which grants me a very good view of the stage and the musicians. While waiting for the show to begin, I check TicketSwap again. Given all the available tickets, I decide to “fuck it” and buy a ticket for the final Sunday show as well. The amazing concert this evening confirms my choice – the live experience just doesn’t get old, it rather gets better like well-aging whiskey!

Plan Nine rocks!

Apropos whiskey: later that night, awaiting an amazing show by Robert Soeterboek and his band Plan Nine, l discover the non-alcoholic Wanderlust IPA and have a conversation with a man who looks like 60 years at most, but tells me he is 80 years old (!) and here with his son. I love these family constellations! Plan Nine rocks the stage from midnight until past 2am and just keeps getting better. Eventually I return to the campsite and crawl into my tent to get some kinda sleep. It kinda works.

Ayreon 2025 – Day 2: Ayreon City

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(… 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.

Q: How many trains arrive at Tilburg? A: Yes.

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.

If I had a hammer …

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

The maestro himself is on the bottom right.

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?

They sure knew how to build cathedrals!

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.

The most amazing Ayreon (cover) project: “Ayreon Project”

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 …

Ayreon 2025 – Day 1: Namesakes

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Pre(r)amble (a.k.a. You Can Totally Skip This PartTM)

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 YouTM)

Thursday, 11th 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.

Beautiful lights are beautiful.

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 …)

Ayreon 2025 – Prelude II

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(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. :-)

Ayreon 2025 – Prelude I

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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 …)

Podcast Interview @ Die Zukunftsweberei

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My first ever podcast interview (episode 12 of “Die Zukunftsweberei” by Ingrid and Christoph) went online today. Wheee! Not yet having listened to the final product, I still remember the wonderfully welcoming atmosphere of our interview two weeks ago – and that I surely talked a lot. :-)

And surely there’s still sooo much that I didn’t share. I wish I had said more about the Mindful Researchers, about my wonderful colleagues and fellow “gardeners”, the joys and challenges of building this community of practice. About the joys and mishaps of treading on unorthodox life-paths, of social entrepreneurship-ish endeavours, love and friendships, mystical journeys, meditation retreats, mythopoetic men’s work, encounters with(in) nature, experiences with(in) community, illuminated days & dark nights, existential questions, inexhaustible learnings. Yet I’m glad I did share my passion for precious practices such as Way of Council and Systemic Konsensing, and a zest for life itself.

And … OMG I’m feeling naked! Especially because there’s a link to this blog in the shownotes of the podcast episode. Now the cat is out of the bag (although I doubt that many listeners will land here, but if you do, be welcome to leave a comment or send a message :-)). For the last hour or so I thought of composing some kind of “explanation” because here I reveal so much more of my personal sides and tastes – and of course the travel diaries. But wasn’t their purpose to share stories, to spark connections?

More to trust the process you have, my young Padawan!

Dear reader / listener, may you enjoy. And many thanks again, dear Ingrid and Christoph!

Emerge – Day 2: Research Questions

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Thursday, 7th October 2021

Trust the fancy hostel lobby.

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?

Trust the bridge across the river Spree.

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.

Trust the kids.

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
Trust love.

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.

Trust polar bear.

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.

Trust this Ethiopian dessert.

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.

Trust the … uhm … king!

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?

Emerge – Day 1: Crossing Borders

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Wednesday, 6th October 2021

This travel diary is a sort of continuation of my previous diary from June 2021, but also tells its own story. I’ll use present tense right away. The ‘outer purpose’ of this journey is a trip to Berlin for the Emerge Gathering 2021, with extra days to meet my friends J and W, followed by a couple of days in Hamburg to co-create with Annika for & around the Mindful Researchers initiative and to spend deep time in Nature. As for the ‘inner purpose’ … we’ll get to that later.

From the postcard book “Everything is Connected”.

As for the pictures, just click to enlarge!

Yesterday, in preparation for this journey, I fetch a presumably larger backpack from my brother, then rush to a Mindful Researchers meeting, then rush to the Royal English Cinema (now called “KIZ Royal”) where my friend Klaus awaits me with a huge bag of fresh popcorn. Klaus and I first met in September 1997 as neighbors in a queue, awaiting our turns to become registered as freshman students at Graz University of Technology. Being of highly compatible geekiness, nerdiness, and sense of humor, we quickly became friends. About 24 years later we are in a queue again – this time awaiting our turns to get tickets for the new “Dune” movie. We enjoy the impressive blockbuster and are caught by surprise when it ends abruptly in the middle of the story (oh, it comes in two parts!). For me this is enough of a teaser to listen anew into the amazing Dune audiobook (narrated by Simon Vance and others) upon returning home.

Our status after six iterations.

Arrakis. Dune. Desert planet.

This morning I open an envelope from Annika. We’ve been sending a postcard back and forth for about six times, always adding a little bit, sometimes including gingerbread or feathers. I’m showing the result here with Annika’s permission; too bad we have already run out of space, although we might just add further layers to it and give future archaeologists something to puzzle over!

This time I choose not to pack ALL THE THINGS, yet I still cannot resist preparing a more than generous pile of favourite T-shirts. The new backpack turns out to be not quite as large as I thought, calling for radical reduction. No second pair of shoes, no second hoodie, no second towel. Travel lightly. Pack food. Do the dishes. (Damn those dishes!) Run out of time. Get yourself onto the bike. Ride to the train station. Lock the bike. Hop onto the train three minutes before departure. Find your reserved seat. Sit back and enjoy the 11 hours and 40 minutes ride.

Arrakis. Dune. Desert planet.

My recently finished (audio-)books since my 42nd birthday are, in reverse order:

To be honest, I find that T-shirt rather dystopic.
  • adrienne maree brown – “Emergent Strategy”
  • Gigi Coyle – “Kaleidoscope: Finding my way around”
  • Richard Powers – “The Overstory”
  • Jeremy Lent – “The Web of Meaning”
  • Jeremy Lent – “The Patterning Instinct”
  • Robin Wall Kimmerer – “Braiding Sweetgrass”
  • Darlene Lancer – “Conquering Shame and Codependency”
  • Hermann Hesse – “The Glass Bead Game”
  • Michael Nußbaumer – “Weltübergang”
  • Robert Wright – “Why Buddhism Is True”
  • Pete Walker – “Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving”

I am also halfway through Hanzi Freinacht’s “The Listening Society” in preparation of the Emerge Gathering 2021. Now listening to Frank Herbert’s “Dune” gives things a slightly different twist and evokes rather peculiar trains of thought – or rather, a rapid succession of gestalts that I cannot quite translate into words:

I'm on the train to Berlin. Yesterday night I watched "Dune" with Klaus. (...) I recall that the audiobook also gripped me. It is fiction, yet also resembling facets of our reality ... and I understood something about rivalrous dynamics, technological advances that can be exploited for dominance, and scarcity of vital resources. Power. Empowerment. Creation. Control. Shadow and light. Prophecy. Narrative. Myth. I understood in some sense; I 'see' the field, yet concrete extractions of conclusions remain elusive. 

I also understand, or choose to understand, all of this in the light of enaction. We enact these worlds, also the technological world. The 'war on sensemaking' is a competiton for frames of enaction. Cognitive frames. Can AI and simulations offer coherent extrapolations of our futures? Oh, but whosoever controls the AI, whosoever feeds it with key parameters and basic foundational laws, may control the fates of humanity! Then it is a race for sensemaking, for the most compelling narrative – religion on steroids. I see a dark utopia of neo-cybernetic weavings, a sublime blindness to unintended consequences. (...) 

We all need the same courage.

– Journal entry on Wednesday, 6th October 2021

These words represent some of the most salient bits and pieces of translation of a quite fast-paced embodied cognitive process – a non-verbal ‘stream of consciousness’ – that matches, mingles, and remixes the arising gestalts, from most basic to most complex. This process feels somewhat like multi-sensory ‘images’ blending into each other, sometimes slow & smooth and sometimes more like a stroboscope, offering new meaning to the observer in every moment. And it feels like it’s unfolding in several ‘planes’, not just the rational-cognitive plane. I have no certainty for what that really means. I just know it is nothing to be troubled about, although it sometimes brings me to my knees when I allow it to have its way with me …

This tastes way better than it looks.

Upon crossing the border to the Czech Republic (yet unrelated to the geographic fact), I am faced with the challenge to find a workaround to replace the forgotten fork. I do have a carrot. I do have teeth. What are our teeth for? Bingo! Gnawing a carrot-fork into existence dramatically boosts the ability to enjoy the prepared food (delicious red cabbage cooked with hemmelige ingredienser and chestnuts, plus boiled potatoes).

One carrot-fork to rule them all.

The beet soup challenge is a lot trickier – this carrot is clearly too slim for me to gnaw a proper carrot-spoon. I drink the soup sans veggies, then apply the carrot-fork to push and pull the veggies; surely crows would have done a more elegant job with twigs and beaks. Anyway, yum! The best part comes last: praise be upon the edible carrot-fork.

We’re picking up 15 minutes delay. An Ouroboros 2021 session with Claire Petitmengin pulls my attention. Annika is among the live participants, and I wonder if she is again taking her signature “colorful notes” – like a graphic recording, but more organic if you ask me – meriting a badge of honour: Annika the artist-researcher. The session title, “The Gesture of Awareness – an account of its structural dynamics”, promises a fascinating conversation. At this point, I don’t know yet how deeply it will influence the rest of my journey. In the following I share some written notes:

What prevents us from being aware? (What a fascinating question!) 

- Phenomenology: the 'natural attitude', 
- Elicitation Interview: the pre-reflective nature of experience?, 
- Buddhism: avidyā (Sanskrit) / avijjā (Pāli) = ignorance. 

How can we learn to become aware of what eludes us? "How can I aim for something that I don't know that I know, while I don't know that I don't know it?"

Thre are gestures of becoming aware, gestures that prevent one from becoming aware, and skillful triggers for the gestures of becoming aware: these can be ... 

(1) triggered by external or existential events, 
(2) learned by self-imposed discipline (e.g. meditation training), 
(3) induced by a therapist, meditation teacher, or interviewer.

A key step is the 'conversion' (or redirection?) of attention from the 'exterior' to the 'interior' world, from "what" to "how" (asking how it emerges) – imposing a temporarily enhanced duality.

A subsequent key step is 'letting go': essentially a shifting from 'looking for' to 'letting come' (which erases the previously enhanced duality of interior/exterior!). This gesture is followed by a 'gap' moment of silence or stillness (note: like a 'delayed reaction' in General Semantics?).

Skillful practices to release a subject's the tension towards the object, in order to loosen the subject-object duality: do not sustain the phenomenon under investigation, leave it "without support". Thus the tension unravels and subtilizes by itself.

A question: "How does a generic experiential structure emerge?" (and what 'is' this structure?)

A comment in the livestream chat: "First rule of the époché: you do not talk about époché". :-)

It becomes readily apparent in the session how difficult it is for us to speak about these fundamentally experiential aspects of experience itself, as if trying to “eff the ineffable”. Even so, ain’t that a wonderful companion to the surgically precise metacognitive and perceptual observations of Paul Atreides and Lady Jessica in “Dune”?

Arrakis. Dune. Desert planet.

By the way, here’s an interesting link: Frank Herbert, the author of the “Dune” books, was influenced by the “trans-disciplinary meta-discipline” of General Semantics. When I asked Claire Petitmengin after a Mind & Life conference in Boston in 2014, she confirmed (if I remember correctly) that she too had been inspired by General Semantics some decades ago; though when sharing it with her supervisor and mentor Francisco Varela at the time, he had remained rather unimpressed by it. I wonder if this had something to do with the oftentimes ‘hyper-intellectual’ presentation of General Semantics, pushing what is actually supposed to be a practical discipline into the realm of our intellects and thereby tempting us to neglect the actual practice. This is a common pattern that I know too well from personal experience, and we will soon encounter it again along this journey.

Sunset à la Czech Republic.

I still wonder if General Semantics holds potential for academia in general and for contemplative research in particular. From 2014 to 2016, I shared several conference presentations and posters on the similarities (and differences) between Neurophenomenology, Buddhism and General Semantics in theory-and-practice. Then I dropped the subject as my focus shifted to the topic of collaboration and the Contemplative Scientific Collaboration project. Might there be a time to revive these old ideas, now that more people have seemingly independently been putting the spotlight of their curiosity onto connections between Buddhism and General Semantics? And might there be a unique contribution to these connections, yet to be explored further, via Neurophenomenology and the ‘enactive view’?

Back to the journey. Night has fallen as we are crossing the border to Germany. I attend parts of a “New Republic of the Heart” (NRotH) community session. This is a quite ‘radical’ – yet profoundly peaceful – social experiment, initiated by Terry Patten. I’ve been dipping my toes into this community since last Summer, around the time when I stepped out of Leap Forward after four intense years. I’ve limited my engagement in the NRotH to a weekly dyad call with another Wolfgang who has since become a dear friend. And occasionally I’m checking into these community calls.

I begin to see a pattern of engaging with social experiments and (intentional) communities. The origins are for me perhaps to be found way back in 1997 with KaraNet. More recently I’ve been engaging very intensely with Leap Forward, rather softly with the New Republic of the Heart, and again intensely (yet quite differently) with the Mindful Researchers. Of these three, the Mindful Researchers community really feels like ‘my heart-child’, a garden that has been growing many gardeners. On this journey I’ll meet people from two of these three communities.

Mmmmmh, Berlin. Currywurst, anyone?

Finally we reach Berlin main station and I take the M5 to Strausberger Platz. What a relief to take off the FFP2 mask and inhale deeply, even if it is the fragrance of streets! Yet walking the dimly lit roads of Berlin at night makes me feel a bit like an alien. What am I doing here, again?

Arriving at the “Singer 109” hostel, doning my mask again, checking in, climbing the stairs to the second floor, coming across legions of youngsters. Entering a simple but stylish room with 2×2 bunk beds, one of each is occupied by Mikkel from Denmark and myself. Shower. Sleep. Dreams.

Intense dreams.
Bizarre dreams.
Sweet dreams.