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Resistance by Andre Platteel , May 4th

Chairs stand empty in a bar packed full. Evening has fallen. A warm spring night lies ahead. A waitress pushes her way through the crowd outside, picking up glasses, those offered and those left on a brick wall. Leaning against this wall, he talks with his friends. Nothing particular. Just subjects arising in mind. Women. Careers. Unnoticeably, as usual, he is competing. When it starts to rain, no one tries to go inside. Knowing it will pass quickly, they shelter beneath an awning. Too many people. The sudden heavy rain drowns out voices and he loses contact with his friends. He finds himself looking into the face of a young woman he had not seen minutes ago when he was scanning the crowd. She is carrying a baby on her belly, wrapped in cloth that is knotted around her neck. He makes space, but not enough. They stare into each other’s eyes. She looks away. She puts her arms around the cloth, around the baby who is visible through the curves in the cloth. ‘I hate this’ she says, the words bouncing back from the ground and hard to hear. When she lifts her head again he asks if he can help. In the redness of her face, her eyes move quickly and her jaws are tight. The moisture on her forehead does not come from the rain. ‘Just talk to me’, she pleads. He does not know what to say. There is silence. ‘Talk’, she commands. He thinks of questions, but immediately realizes that she is not looking for a conversation. She needs words only as distractions. She tries to + more Chairs stand empty in a bar packed full. Evening has fallen. A warm spring night lies ahead. A waitress pushes her way through the crowd outside, picking up glasses, those offered and those left on a brick wall. Leaning against this wall, he talks with his friends. Nothing particular. Just subjects arising in mind. Women. Careers. Unnoticeably, as usual, he is competing. When it starts to rain, no one tries to go inside. Knowing it will pass quickly, they shelter beneath an awning. Too many people. The sudden heavy rain drowns out voices and he loses contact with his friends. He finds himself looking into the face of a young woman he had not seen minutes ago when he was scanning the crowd. She is carrying a baby on her belly, wrapped in cloth that is knotted around her neck. He makes space, but not enough. They stare into each other’s eyes. She looks away. She puts her arms around the cloth, around the baby who is visible through the curves in the cloth. ‘I hate this’ she says, the words bouncing back from the ground and hard to hear. When she lifts her head again he asks if he can help. In the redness of her face, her eyes move quickly and her jaws are tight. The moisture on her forehead does not come from the rain. ‘Just talk to me’, she pleads. He does not know what to say. There is silence. ‘Talk’, she commands. He thinks of questions, but immediately realizes that she is not looking for a conversation. She needs words only as distractions. She tries to focus her eyes, wants to find rest in him. He reads the fear he himself knows so well. Not a particular fear, not a fear for something or caused by anything. ‘Not now. I must take care. Not now’, she repeats. He makes the space smaller between them. Without thinking he puts his arms around her and the baby. Carefully. Trying not to create a misunderstanding. ‘You are bigger than the fear you feel right now’, he whispers. And he also thinks: whatever happens, I’m here to take care of you and the baby. He doesn’t speak this thought, knowing that it would sound pathetic. Worse, the intimacy would spark this energy she is fighting with so intensely. She makes small kicking movements with her legs. She is losing ground. He feels shaky too. He holds her loosely, but firmly. His grip is telling her that he is here for her. And also that she is strong enough to cope with what is happening. He looks to the sky and sees a bird flying through the rain. The bird is already grounded. He looks back at her. She is crying. Her body is shaking. There is no resistance anymore. She is becoming grounded. Soon, the fear will leave her. He feels tears welling up in his own eyes. And in the back of his mind an uninvited voice hopes that his friends have not been paying too much attention to him over the last few minutes. - less tagged:   fear   silence   mind   Body    permalink  read: 2057  print  forward  comments: 0  add comment      name:

Photo: Annemarieke van Drimmelen

Ignorance by Andre Platteel , April 28th

He had reserved a table at their favourite restaurant, which they would visit after seeing a film at a nearby cinema. In the film, a little boy dies. The whole family is devastated but tries to ignore his death and get on with their lives. Thanks to living in denial, however, death almost completely takes over their lives. She was still sad about the boy during dinner. He couldn’t talk her out of it by saying that it was just a movie and that if she Googled the actor’s name, she would see that he was still alive. She answered that these things happen in real life, too: people die and the sadness it causes can be so big that the people left behind die a great deal as well. Whatever he was trying to say to cheer her up, he was actually making her sadder, even more upset. The restaurant had an outstanding name, but her meat was too red. And her beans looked frail. She hardly ate anything. Then suddenly, out of nowhere, she said she wasn’t sure if she loved him – that she felt it was possible that her love for him could disappear. How can love be true if there is a chance that it could pass? He felt her distancing herself from him. Tears welled up in his eyes, although he knew she wasn’t talking about their love. She went to the bathroom and returned pale and sweaty. He said 'sweetie'. She eventually filled the silence that followed by saying that she also doubted life, because life is not eternal, and how can you trust something that ends? He ordered some coffee and + more He had reserved a table at their favourite restaurant, which they would visit after seeing a film at a nearby cinema. In the film, a little boy dies. The whole family is devastated but tries to ignore his death and get on with their lives. Thanks to living in denial, however, death almost completely takes over their lives. She was still sad about the boy during dinner. He couldn’t talk her out of it by saying that it was just a movie and that if she Googled the actor’s name, she would see that he was still alive. She answered that these things happen in real life, too: people die and the sadness it causes can be so big that the people left behind die a great deal as well. Whatever he was trying to say to cheer her up, he was actually making her sadder, even more upset. The restaurant had an outstanding name, but her meat was too red. And her beans looked frail. She hardly ate anything. Then suddenly, out of nowhere, she said she wasn’t sure if she loved him – that she felt it was possible that her love for him could disappear. How can love be true if there is a chance that it could pass? He felt her distancing herself from him. Tears welled up in his eyes, although he knew she wasn’t talking about their love. She went to the bathroom and returned pale and sweaty. He said 'sweetie'. She eventually filled the silence that followed by saying that she also doubted life, because life is not eternal, and how can you trust something that ends? He ordered some coffee and chocolates and told her that they had come to this beautiful restaurant to celebrate love and life. Seeing these words fail, he tried another tack: ‘You know, when something passes and seemingly ends it comes from something eternal.’ ‘But when one of us dies,’ she asked sweetly, ‘we are separated. You can’t deny that, can you?’ The waiter came back with a cup filled with chocolates and raspberries. He tried again, with different words. But these didn’t convince either. He couldn’t reach her or himself. Their minds were filled with voices that had created a conspiracy against everything they believed in and knew was true. - less tagged:   ignorance   mind   life   love   fear    permalink  read: 2249  print  forward  comments: 0  add comment      name:

Photo: Annemarieke van Drimmelen

The Cleaner by Andre Platteel , April 18th

Tired barn, leaning backwards, some planks missing / an old farm, feeding cows, my job since I didn’t want to go on a school trip. A mountain, creamy cloud on the top, vanilla / first clouds seen from above, viewed from an airplane window. Moose, at least a dozen, walking on water, religiously / skating on a ditch behind the house, drinking hot chocolate after making a quick circuit. Two men cutting down a tree, the tree turning to wood that will soon go up in fire / a body, suddenly lighter than a second ago. A woman walking with two dogs, ten traces in the snow / my aunt carrying bags of groceries, on her way to make food for us. In my head I hear the clicking sound of a camera. And just as a digital camera can show pictures taken earlier, my mind projects pictures from long ago, from someone I no longer am, randomly alluding to the pictures I see now. The train stops. People grab suitcases and climb into coats. Thick coats. Outside, people are waiting, sitting on suitcases or standing next to them, ready to leave for home. “Scotty.” A woman’s voice. She’s calling to a little boy dressed in red ski pants and a red coat, the latter still unzipped. They don’t match, the coat and the pants; the reds are different. Underneath the coat he has a fleece jacket. He wears glasses. Quite thick ones, turning his eyes into eggs. His hair is white. He is little and probably small for his age. “You’ll catch a cold.” Not a worried voice, an irritated one. Scotty seems to be too excited. His right hand grasps his skis; his grip is strong. He holds a mountain. With his left foot he plays with the snow, plunging it into the white, pulling it out, showing the snow to the sun. After a few seconds the snow starts to melt, dripping on the ground, more yellow now, like porridge. Snow doesn’t like to be described; it wants to be felt. “Zip it!” An order now. Snow falls, softly, tenderly. Scotty doesn’t hear the voice. He’s seeing himself going down the slopes. His hips make similar movements to those he made moments ago, up the hill. He is sealing his memory. “Scotty.” A man’s voice now. “Do you want to go skiing next year? Then zip your coat.” The boy tries to zip his coat but doesn’t know where to put his skies. His legs are like rubber bands. The man’s voice continues, blind to Scotty’s efforts: “Shall I smack you?” The words are too far away for Scotty to recognise. The man looks strong. A sportsman? His hair is white, too; cut short. His face is a map of still-to-be-lived sadness. His coat’s zipped. Scotty sees himself in the future, when he’s become ‘Scott.’ He sees that his father is visiting him and that he leaves his coat on, zipped up. Scotty decides that if the vision comes true, he won’t ask his father to undo his jacket. Scotty is almost losing his balance trying to do the zip thing. Only his skis hold him in place. A few seconds later he snatches something from his trouser pocket. A stone he’s grabbed, secretly. Where would he have found it? Has he had it for a long time or is it a recent find? It seems to feel familiar to him. But familiarity doesn’t say anything about time. Some things feel instantly familiar. + more Tired barn, leaning backwards, some planks missing / an old farm, feeding cows, my job since I didn’t want to go on a school trip. A mountain, creamy cloud on the top, vanilla / first clouds seen from above, viewed from an airplane window. Moose, at least a dozen, walking on water, religiously / skating on a ditch behind the house, drinking hot chocolate after making a quick circuit. Two men cutting down a tree, the tree turning to wood that will soon go up in fire / a body, suddenly lighter than a second ago. A woman walking with two dogs, ten traces in the snow / my aunt carrying bags of groceries, on her way to make food for us. In my head I hear the clicking sound of a camera. And just as a digital camera can show pictures taken earlier, my mind projects pictures from long ago, from someone I no longer am, randomly alluding to the pictures I see now. The train stops. People grab suitcases and climb into coats. Thick coats. Outside, people are waiting, sitting on suitcases or standing next to them, ready to leave for home. “Scotty.” A woman’s voice. She’s calling to a little boy dressed in red ski pants and a red coat, the latter still unzipped. They don’t match, the coat and the pants; the reds are different. Underneath the coat he has a fleece jacket. He wears glasses. Quite thick ones, turning his eyes into eggs. His hair is white. He is little and probably small for his age. “You’ll catch a cold.” Not a worried voice, an irritated one. Scotty seems to be too excited. His right hand grasps his skis; his grip is strong. He holds a mountain. With his left foot he plays with the snow, plunging it into the white, pulling it out, showing the snow to the sun. After a few seconds the snow starts to melt, dripping on the ground, more yellow now, like porridge. Snow doesn’t like to be described; it wants to be felt. “Zip it!” An order now. Snow falls, softly, tenderly. Scotty doesn’t hear the voice. He’s seeing himself going down the slopes. His hips make similar movements to those he made moments ago, up the hill. He is sealing his memory. “Scotty.” A man’s voice now. “Do you want to go skiing next year? Then zip your coat.” The boy tries to zip his coat but doesn’t know where to put his skies. His legs are like rubber bands. The man’s voice continues, blind to Scotty’s efforts: “Shall I smack you?” The words are too far away for Scotty to recognise. The man looks strong. A sportsman? His hair is white, too; cut short. His face is a map of still-to-be-lived sadness. His coat’s zipped. Scotty sees himself in the future, when he’s become ‘Scott.’ He sees that his father is visiting him and that he leaves his coat on, zipped up. Scotty decides that if the vision comes true, he won’t ask his father to undo his jacket. Scotty is almost losing his balance trying to do the zip thing. Only his skis hold him in place. A few seconds later he snatches something from his trouser pocket. A stone he’s grabbed, secretly. Where would he have found it? Has he had it for a long time or is it a recent find? It seems to feel familiar to him. But familiarity doesn’t say anything about time. Some things feel instantly familiar. “So, shall I smack you?” The little boy grinds the stone: it turns to sand. It absorbs the words of his father. The little boy knows how to turn something solid soft. He has his hand open. The stone has become stone again. He knows his father cannot see it. The father’s hand is freeing itself from the body, preparing to follow up on the warning just spoken. The hand cannot reach Scotty. His eyes are simply too big: the hand that is about to smack disappears in them. The father starts walking. From where to where? “You know what happened to Robby? Do you want to end up like him?” Words have been spoken. Scotty still has the stone in his hand. This time it doesn’t get reduced to dust. It doesn’t absorb his father’s words. They go straight to Scotty’s memory, which has started up again. Everything that has happened to Robby is happening right now. Vulnerable. If nothing answers, pain will. Scotty sees his father has become stone, beyond his power. He can’t help saying it, he knows. The suppressed has its own escape routes. Can someone be blamed for that? Even when that someone is a father? “No, I don’t want what happened to Robby to happen to me,” Scotty answers. He says it without fear in his voice. The feeling his father’s words sought to inject him with is not returned. “Will you hold my skis?” He zips his jacket and sticks out a hand to his father. His father’s hand remains open. Red and sweaty. Damp. Scotty folds his hand into that of his father. He wants to feel his father. And feel that his father hardly feels anything himself. In the background I see a machine up the hill, preparing the slopes. Traces being wiped out. Cleaned away. Snow is still falling and soon the hills are covered with it. With fresh snow. - less tagged:   father   fear   power   balance   blindness   memory   slopes   movement   mountain    permalink  read: 4717  print  forward  comments: 0  add comment      name:

Photo: André Platteel

Snow will fall by Andre Platteel , April 14th

“Snow will fall this night. When you wake up everything will be white. Up till your knees you will disappear in the fluffy white. And your voice will be silent. All the voices will be. Have you ever noticed that the snow steels them, voices? With snow all your secrets are safe. It prefers to talk with your feet only; in a strange way only snow understands.” After a two hours flight, and a small taxi ride, I am arriving at Hell station, Norway; a deserted station, two lines of rusty metal and a little house, above the door of the house the name of the station painted black. There is no place to hide. The wind is too strong for my jacket. The cold too strong for my eyes to keep them open completely. Squinting: a landscape vision. I take the train for another two hours I had never expected to arrive, and I am crossing the night and the border with Sweden. Snow. Still falling, like little white shelves, folding themselves within other white shelves creating a carpet of heaven. Up until my knees I disappear. “First we are going to learn how to stop.” I am eager to learn how to stop. The skis on my feet don’t feel natural at all, just as the steepness of the hill. I glide and fall. I had crossed my skis and walked over my own enlarged feet. Fifteen years ago I tried to learn to ski for the first time, invited by a friend to come along with him. I took lessons in a group: a macho teacher, wearing a moustache and an orange ski overall, like he had just stepped out of a seventies Swedish Erotica movie. Ten girls as students, and one guy, me. Like now, I fell after two seconds, gliding into a gate, my skis entrapped in it. I asked Mr Love for help, but he was already gone, with his group of ten girls, leaving me to play for half an hour or so to get my skis out of the gate again. And to get me out of the skis. This time I have decided to be persistent, to not give up. Charlotte is the name of my teacher, in the winter she works here, and in summer she is an entertainer in a hotel in Mallorca. Her English is funny. Her body packed in red, labelled with the name of the ski school. Of what I can see, she has a particular Swedish face: quite round. There is no group this time. One to one. After I have learned to stop we take a steeper hill. I look down and feel fear. And I feel ridiculous seeing kids no older than four taking the hill graciously. Although I have learned to stop, I fall and fall and fall, over and over again. I am going to fast to stop. The ground is too slippery. I project my falling already going up the hill in the elevator again. The first lesson is a disaster. I feel less like a child. That night I cannot catch any sleep: my feet feel being on slippery ground. Someone is moving my feet through me, and it is not I. The whole night I fail to imagine my feet being grounded. My mind projects images of things going fast: a bullet been fired; a cockroach on a tilled floor; a plane crossing another plane; an arrow in slow motion, still going fast. I try to slow down the speed of the arrow as much as possible. Does the arrow actually move or is it fixed in any moment of time? + more “Snow will fall this night. When you wake up everything will be white. Up till your knees you will disappear in the fluffy white. And your voice will be silent. All the voices will be. Have you ever noticed that the snow steels them, voices? With snow all your secrets are safe. It prefers to talk with your feet only; in a strange way only snow understands.” After a two hours flight, and a small taxi ride, I am arriving at Hell station, Norway; a deserted station, two lines of rusty metal and a little house, above the door of the house the name of the station painted black. There is no place to hide. The wind is too strong for my jacket. The cold too strong for my eyes to keep them open completely. Squinting: a landscape vision. I take the train for another two hours I had never expected to arrive, and I am crossing the night and the border with Sweden. Snow. Still falling, like little white shelves, folding themselves within other white shelves creating a carpet of heaven. Up until my knees I disappear. “First we are going to learn how to stop.” I am eager to learn how to stop. The skis on my feet don’t feel natural at all, just as the steepness of the hill. I glide and fall. I had crossed my skis and walked over my own enlarged feet. Fifteen years ago I tried to learn to ski for the first time, invited by a friend to come along with him. I took lessons in a group: a macho teacher, wearing a moustache and an orange ski overall, like he had just stepped out of a seventies Swedish Erotica movie. Ten girls as students, and one guy, me. Like now, I fell after two seconds, gliding into a gate, my skis entrapped in it. I asked Mr Love for help, but he was already gone, with his group of ten girls, leaving me to play for half an hour or so to get my skis out of the gate again. And to get me out of the skis. This time I have decided to be persistent, to not give up. Charlotte is the name of my teacher, in the winter she works here, and in summer she is an entertainer in a hotel in Mallorca. Her English is funny. Her body packed in red, labelled with the name of the ski school. Of what I can see, she has a particular Swedish face: quite round. There is no group this time. One to one. After I have learned to stop we take a steeper hill. I look down and feel fear. And I feel ridiculous seeing kids no older than four taking the hill graciously. Although I have learned to stop, I fall and fall and fall, over and over again. I am going to fast to stop. The ground is too slippery. I project my falling already going up the hill in the elevator again. The first lesson is a disaster. I feel less like a child. That night I cannot catch any sleep: my feet feel being on slippery ground. Someone is moving my feet through me, and it is not I. The whole night I fail to imagine my feet being grounded. My mind projects images of things going fast: a bullet been fired; a cockroach on a tilled floor; a plane crossing another plane; an arrow in slow motion, still going fast. I try to slow down the speed of the arrow as much as possible. Does the arrow actually move or is it fixed in any moment of time? “Do not try to look down. Just follow me down hill. Face the trees on the left, face the tree on the right”. The surroundings are stunning. “Move you whole body along with your face.” I am learning to make some turns. “All your weight on the outer ski. Push. No weight on the inside ski. Look how easily I can raise the inside ski.” It feels unnatural to lean with the weight of my body downwards. And as soon as that thought comes to me, I loose ground and fall. I try again and have the feeling to be after something that keeps on escaping me. How can I get grip to something that is so fluid? “Feel grounded”, she says, reading my mind. “Feeling grounded means feeling grounded at any ground. No ground is solid. Everything is always moving. Just move along with it. Trust your skis. Trust the earth.” My ski teacher suddenly turns out to be a teacher of a different order. For years I have practised grounding, at least that was what I thought: standing in a single position, feeling my feet touching the earth, being fed by it. This is a totally new exercise to me. I am in a moving position and on a ground that doesn’t easily stick to me. Finally, I have come to a ground I have tried to escape for such a long time. It hits me how easily I have mistaken my many hours of standing: it is not the stillness that makes me come really alive; it is the movement within the stillness that actually is life. “Now don’t push to hard with your outer ski. Make the movement round. Pushing hard makes you come to a stop. You don’t want to stop that much. For you to enjoy, you have to glide. Glide.” And I do. The days after I practise on my own. I glide. I fall. I glide again, and am enjoying the gliding. I gain trust, and I feel the hills have arms, embracing me, lifting me up: a shivering through my body. Now I feel like a child. Tears are aloud. Moments later I fall. I twist my ankle. I have to rest. I try again, I glide, I hate it, I fall and something comes to me that looks like if I am actually learning to appreciate slippery ground. - less tagged:   snow   fluid   fear   grounding   Body   understanding   trees   grip    permalink  read: 5150  print  forward  comments: 0  add comment      name:

Photo: André Platteel

Northern Lights by Andre Platteel , March 28th

Today, I am quite immortal. I open my eyes and see a sky full of stars; a landscape that’s totally silent. Wide open. Dark background deepened through the ages. No time. There is no time that can make darkness as deep as this. A thought escapes: this does not exist. It does. Even if I was nothing more than air. I make a meaningless sound. Wait. Make another sound. Not loud, just for myself. I am trying to follow the rhythm of light and dark above me. And wondering: Is the darkness the silence between words or is it the light that represents silence? It makes a completely different rhyme. There is no distance between my eyes and the stars; their light burns my retina. My eyes fly. Anything further than ‘none’ falls off the edge of my vision. The Northern Lights are radiant tonight. It’s as if they are leading the other stars in a flight so fast that movement becomes invisible. How can lack of movement be so moving? I go into the living room. A big space. I see wood that makes a table. The table makes the living room. The living room makes the house. The house makes the street. What if this house decides to move somewhere else? The light outside has decided to shine on some garbage that’s acting silently, hoping to be left alone. I clean, light some candles and think of her and of the last time I saw her. There is a hole in my thinking. A sound. And with it returns the memory I failed to retrieve a second ago. I push a button. A short distance away a door is opening downstairs. A few seconds later she knocks and opens the door of the room, leaving me no time to answer. Long hair; a waterfall of gold. There is a dark blue fly on the table, and the moment she enters the room it takes off, flying like a lost child. She passes me, speaking with her eyes. My legs are burning. She walks to another part of the room. I had no time to see how she is dressed. There is a wall between my eyes and her. Thin. I could blow it away with my mind. She walks back, heading my direction. Stops half way. Undressed. She stands near a cupboard, a few metres from me. She impresses me. Outside, the future is humiliated. She curves her body, her arm resting on the top of the cupboard, her legs crossed, one of her heels curved upwards. She knows her classics. I could liberate her from her pose. Paradise is just a few steps away. To stand here, watching her, seeing her breathe and shape her body, makes me want to be air. “I can never love you,” she says. “I could never hurt you.” She sounds sure but feels unclear. There are shadows between the words, shadows that behave like time stretching endlessly. Words can create such a feeling of powerless. Still, I feel more than I can see or hear. + more Today, I am quite immortal. I open my eyes and see a sky full of stars; a landscape that’s totally silent. Wide open. Dark background deepened through the ages. No time. There is no time that can make darkness as deep as this. A thought escapes: this does not exist. It does. Even if I was nothing more than air. I make a meaningless sound. Wait. Make another sound. Not loud, just for myself. I am trying to follow the rhythm of light and dark above me. And wondering: Is the darkness the silence between words or is it the light that represents silence? It makes a completely different rhyme. There is no distance between my eyes and the stars; their light burns my retina. My eyes fly. Anything further than ‘none’ falls off the edge of my vision. The Northern Lights are radiant tonight. It’s as if they are leading the other stars in a flight so fast that movement becomes invisible. How can lack of movement be so moving? I go into the living room. A big space. I see wood that makes a table. The table makes the living room. The living room makes the house. The house makes the street. What if this house decides to move somewhere else? The light outside has decided to shine on some garbage that’s acting silently, hoping to be left alone. I clean, light some candles and think of her and of the last time I saw her. There is a hole in my thinking. A sound. And with it returns the memory I failed to retrieve a second ago. I push a button. A short distance away a door is opening downstairs. A few seconds later she knocks and opens the door of the room, leaving me no time to answer. Long hair; a waterfall of gold. There is a dark blue fly on the table, and the moment she enters the room it takes off, flying like a lost child. She passes me, speaking with her eyes. My legs are burning. She walks to another part of the room. I had no time to see how she is dressed. There is a wall between my eyes and her. Thin. I could blow it away with my mind. She walks back, heading my direction. Stops half way. Undressed. She stands near a cupboard, a few metres from me. She impresses me. Outside, the future is humiliated. She curves her body, her arm resting on the top of the cupboard, her legs crossed, one of her heels curved upwards. She knows her classics. I could liberate her from her pose. Paradise is just a few steps away. To stand here, watching her, seeing her breathe and shape her body, makes me want to be air. “I can never love you,” she says. “I could never hurt you.” She sounds sure but feels unclear. There are shadows between the words, shadows that behave like time stretching endlessly. Words can create such a feeling of powerless. Still, I feel more than I can see or hear. The fly is back on the table; it knows it belongs there, for now. With those few words she has erected a whole world between us. I wait: which of us will give the word ‘distance’ another meaning. Two steps, three, and a small one. Behind her back it’s the wood that disappears first, followed by the table, the room, the house and finally the street. It is snowing in summer. I feel I am not nothing, not anything, but that I am alive. I once bought a little box in a Chinese shop near my house. It was the size of a small button. When I opened it, stars appeared. I took them out, one by one, right hand placing them in the palm of my left. As I did so I was thinking what to do with them. After some time I still had no clue. I decided to put them back. The man who sold me the box, a tall dark guy, certainly not Chinese, said that the box held a secret. The box weighed next to nothing. I look at her: I can see that darkness and light are both silence and sound simultaneously. Her hands are tight to the sky. “What are you afraid of?” She becomes transparent. She falls off the edge of my vision but I know she is still there. “Can love cause pain?” she says without asking. “Are you in pain?” I ask. She giggles and I read: Not after the moments just gone. “Are you sure you are not in pain?” I ask. She stops giggling and moves her head in confirmation. Serious now, as serious as a little child. I call for the sky and the stars to be my judge – the Northern Lights are beside me, already here. - less tagged:   body   stars   mind   life   darkness   love   fear    permalink  read: 5737  print  forward  comments: 0  add comment      name:

Photo: André Platteel

In the heart of Otherness by Andre Platteel , January 29th

Although he had stood in front of the mirror probably a million times over the past decades, he had never before seen the little boy inside his heart. It happened by coincidence: he was walking in a shopping street, passed a window and suddenly clearly saw something inside him. At first he thought it was his reflection and that of something else coming together in the window. But the moment he saw the image he also became conscious: he felt the boy inside his heart. Although he felt the little boy, he didn’t feel he was discovering something he had known was there all his life, something that was suddenly and finally revealed to him. He didn’t know the little boy; had never seen him before. He was not shocked to see him inside him; it just felt as if his world had become utterly new, in less time than time can measure. He knew it by his breath. He thought of his breath as a fresh meadow in Spring, blossoming grass telling the animals it’s time to come home again. It was as if his heart had opened and he himself had just walked in. He knew how it felt when his heart opened slowly, like a flower. He had known love. But inside his heart now was not a lover but a little boy. And his heart was opening not because he wanted to give it to a lover: there was someone in his heart already. He moved closer to the window and saw how the little boy had found a small but perfect space inside his heart. The little boy was part of its flesh and blood. It felt so completely strange and so natural. He knew things were about to change for him. Everything always changes, so why not his heart, why not his breath? He had walked away from the window; people had passed him, one of them almost bumping into him, he had closed his jacket; he had crossed his arms high, protecting the area around his heart. He didn’t want anybody else to see the little boy he, himself, had only just discovered. What he had found was too precious to show to anyone else at this stage. When he arrived home he undressed and walked to the mirror. He stared at himself, met his naked reflection and saw two people. He had never before experienced his nakedness from within. + more Although he had stood in front of the mirror probably a million times over the past decades, he had never before seen the little boy inside his heart. It happened by coincidence: he was walking in a shopping street, passed a window and suddenly clearly saw something inside him. At first he thought it was his reflection and that of something else coming together in the window. But the moment he saw the image he also became conscious: he felt the boy inside his heart. Although he felt the little boy, he didn’t feel he was discovering something he had known was there all his life, something that was suddenly and finally revealed to him. He didn’t know the little boy; had never seen him before. He was not shocked to see him inside him; it just felt as if his world had become utterly new, in less time than time can measure. He knew it by his breath. He thought of his breath as a fresh meadow in Spring, blossoming grass telling the animals it’s time to come home again. It was as if his heart had opened and he himself had just walked in. He knew how it felt when his heart opened slowly, like a flower. He had known love. But inside his heart now was not a lover but a little boy. And his heart was opening not because he wanted to give it to a lover: there was someone in his heart already. He moved closer to the window and saw how the little boy had found a small but perfect space inside his heart. The little boy was part of its flesh and blood. It felt so completely strange and so natural. He knew things were about to change for him. Everything always changes, so why not his heart, why not his breath? He had walked away from the window; people had passed him, one of them almost bumping into him, he had closed his jacket; he had crossed his arms high, protecting the area around his heart. He didn’t want anybody else to see the little boy he, himself, had only just discovered. What he had found was too precious to show to anyone else at this stage. When he arrived home he undressed and walked to the mirror. He stared at himself, met his naked reflection and saw two people. He had never before experienced his nakedness from within. He stood in front of the mirror in silence, the minutes passing. The little boy smiled at him. He waved back. And felt ridiculous. Had he gone mad? Still naked, he made some tea. Somehow it didn’t feel appropriate to get dressed while this little boy was still inside him. He was afraid to insult him, as if by getting dressed he would be drawing the curtains; a strange idea actually, because he had originally seen the little boy when he was dressed. When the tea was ready he invited the little boy to join him for a cup. While they were enjoying the fine Darjeeling, he asked the little boy what he was doing in his heart. He had always been there, came the reply. Not as a little boy, but as everything. Did the little boy have a name, he wanted to know. “Now, I am Otherness; I am neither your past nor your future, nor I am you here and now. I am enduring. I am all the ones you have always been and all the ones you will become in the future, all at the same time.” “That’s not Otherness, that’s me in all of my stages,” he said to the little boy. The little boy took a cookie from the box that was always on the kitchen table. “If you believe what you already are, you can never become. In order to become who you really are you have to meet me, Otherness.” Otherness was starting to feel more and more strange to him. “Are there others hiding in my heart,” he asked, fear invading his voice. Yes, in a way, the little boy answered. And no, because all others were he - the little boy continued. “Why have you chosen to be Otherness now,” he then asked the little boy. “Because you have asked for me: you have invited me into you heart.” “How can I have asked for something I am not aware off?” The little boy did not answer. He smiled, not arrogantly or ironically, not even tenderly – just smiled. The room they were in grew darker. He could barely see Otherness now. He felt lost. Indeed, he did lose everything in a moment that cannot be measured by time. His heart screamed, as if the little boy in him was for the first time experiencing a never-ending, hard-core rollercoaster ride. It was as if he had dived to the bottom of the earth and any idea of him, the world or others faded. He thought he would die, and panicked. But the panic also faded. He met nothing. Within seconds – if you want to measure in time – his eyes adjusted to darkness and nothing, and he saw Otherness again, more clearly now, no longer as a little boy but as all that he had never known; all of which he now knew was him too, all of which he had known deep in his heart without being conscious of it. In the darkness he and the now formless Otherness drank more tea, ate more cookies and saw the brightness darkness is made of. Drinking tea, eating cookies and watching brightness in the dark – yes, that’s what they did. - less tagged:   otherness   image   consciousness   fear   Spring   flower   blood   change   gravity   darkness   brightness   heart   knowing   earth   irony   experience    permalink  read: 7530  print  forward  comments: 0  add comment      name:

Photo: Annemarieke van Drimmelen

The eagle and the condor flying together by Andre Platteel , January 23rd

There are four of us, maybe six. It feels completely dark. The only light comes from the sky: thousands of stars and a sliver of moon reaching to the earth. Yet even though the sky above me is clear, the heavens still don’t provide enough light for me to see my immediate surroundings. Although we have walked this path along this amazing coastline at least a dozen times over the last five days, most of us carry flashlights. The near abyss is magnetic. I am having a lazy time in the place that gave birth to the Human Potential Movement, back in the early Sixties. Actually, the Sixties never stopped. There are people gardening naked; the food comes from little gardens within the compound; girls are painting flowers on the walls of buildings; in the evening we gather around a fire outside and those people with guitars play Fleetwood Mac, Crosby, Stills and Nash and Bob Dylan. I went hiking through the wilderness the other day. The sky changed second by second. I walked through rain, in the sun, through storm and even snow, all in no more than half an hour. I felt like Hugh Grant near the end of Notting Hill, with a bit of Indiana Jones thrown in. I tried to find my way through the tall trees and wild bushes. There was no path. Then, the moment the wilderness opened up a bit, my eyes met those of three huge, powerful birds. They stared and shifted their long, thin necks in my direction. They spread their wings – at least six feet wide, I guess – not to take off but to impress on me how big they were. At first, fear stiffened my body. I tried to relax and backed off a bit, still looking into the eyes of these creatures. Condors. I had read in a guide that they used to live here, but had not been seen since the end of the Sixties. Had they been hiding since then, or had they returned? Watching these Condors, I felt a strange otherness I had never encountered before. I felt so alive. Sometimes it takes otherness to remind us what we are made off. + more There are four of us, maybe six. It feels completely dark. The only light comes from the sky: thousands of stars and a sliver of moon reaching to the earth. Yet even though the sky above me is clear, the heavens still don’t provide enough light for me to see my immediate surroundings. Although we have walked this path along this amazing coastline at least a dozen times over the last five days, most of us carry flashlights. The near abyss is magnetic. I am having a lazy time in the place that gave birth to the Human Potential Movement, back in the early Sixties. Actually, the Sixties never stopped. There are people gardening naked; the food comes from little gardens within the compound; girls are painting flowers on the walls of buildings; in the evening we gather around a fire outside and those people with guitars play Fleetwood Mac, Crosby, Stills and Nash and Bob Dylan. I went hiking through the wilderness the other day. The sky changed second by second. I walked through rain, in the sun, through storm and even snow, all in no more than half an hour. I felt like Hugh Grant near the end of Notting Hill, with a bit of Indiana Jones thrown in. I tried to find my way through the tall trees and wild bushes. There was no path. Then, the moment the wilderness opened up a bit, my eyes met those of three huge, powerful birds. They stared and shifted their long, thin necks in my direction. They spread their wings – at least six feet wide, I guess – not to take off but to impress on me how big they were. At first, fear stiffened my body. I tried to relax and backed off a bit, still looking into the eyes of these creatures. Condors. I had read in a guide that they used to live here, but had not been seen since the end of the Sixties. Had they been hiding since then, or had they returned? Watching these Condors, I felt a strange otherness I had never encountered before. I felt so alive. Sometimes it takes otherness to remind us what we are made off. In the darkeness I tell about my encounter with the birds to the four (or is it six) others I’m with. A girl’s voice reacts. I recognize an Esalen-girl I had met earlier and who has lived here all her life. She says that the area is known for eagles and that the condors left decades ago. An Esalen legend tells that when the eagle and condor fly together peace will descend on Earth. Light will defeat darkness. The moment she finishes her story, we all look up into the sky, our attention grabbed by a huge fire high above. Something’s burning. An enormous fire, blazing away, the seconds dragging by. We stop and watch. We don’t speak. It can’t be a plane crash – it’s too high up and too intense. And it’s burning too long. You can see whatever it is trying to reach through the earth’s atmosphere. The fire crackles and bangs. It makes the normally invisible atmosphere visible. Watching the mysterious fire I find myself in the same situation as when I was eye to eye with the condors. Primal fear invades my body. My mind is posing questions that make me feel small: Just how little do we know of the place the fire comes from? How little do we know of the Earth as part of that? How little do I know about myself as part of all this? I feel vulnerable and mortal. Suddenly I feel the fire I see above burning inside me. As if there is no longer any difference between outside and inside. Vulnerability and mortality going up in flames, creating a huge fire. Earth, the Heavens and I are burning, too, but are not destroyed. There is only aliveness. Sometimes it takes fire to show us that what we are is always burning, and always will be. - less tagged:   fire   fear   life   heart   Eagle   Condor   light   darkness   Esalen   sky   understanding   spaciousness   reality    permalink  read: 7372  print  forward  comments: 0  add comment      name:

Photo: Annemarieke van Drimmelen

How is Diego Maradona doing? by Andre Platteel , January 8th

As a kid, I used to watch martial arts movies with my father. He was a travelling salesman and mostly only got home at weekends. When he did, I would rent VHS tapes from a guy who copied films illegally. They cost next to nothing. My father and I particularly enjoyed Bruce Lee films: Way of the Dragon, Enter the Dragon, Fist of Fury, Game of Death. Bruce Lee didn’t act, he was a master in Wuchu styles like Wing Chun. Lee saw himself as water: “Be formless, shapeless like water. You put water into a cup, it becomes a cup; put it into a teapot, it becomes a teapot. Water can flow, or crash. Be water, my friend.” I watched Bruce’s movies again and again, trying to copy his fast and furious hands in front of the television set. What I didn’t know then was that his lightning-fast hands didn’t come from ‘doing’ quickly’. When I was about twelve years old, a sports school opened near where I lived. They didn’t teach boxing, Karate or Judo, I heard, but something quite different. When I went to see what it was, I joined immediately: Wing Chun. I trained for four hours every Saturday, first in a small group, but growing bigger over the years as Wing Chun became more and more popular. My mother was glad. At the time, I was anything but water. I was a fat kid lying on the couch, only interested in reading comics and watching movies. The training was tough. We had to harden our fists and shinbones through contact with stones, wood and by hitting the fists and shinbones of others; for the same reason, the teacher would hit us in the stomach without warning; we had to hold ourselves in positions no normal person would hold for their pleasure; we practiced fighting multiple opponents simultaneously, learning how it feels to have eight hands demolish your body. After four years I joined the core group. About ten of us were picked to do extra training and to prepare for the yearly competition between selected fighters from Wing Chun schools in different cities. I was nervous about the tournament. Although I fought every Saturday, I had never had a real fight, except for one, with a friend who had tried to kiss my girlfriend. I walked up to him, all very masculine, he stretched out his arm and I stretched out on the ground. Game over. + more As a kid, I used to watch martial arts movies with my father. He was a travelling salesman and mostly only got home at weekends. When he did, I would rent VHS tapes from a guy who copied films illegally. They cost next to nothing. My father and I particularly enjoyed Bruce Lee films: Way of the Dragon, Enter the Dragon, Fist of Fury, Game of Death. Bruce Lee didn’t act, he was a master in Wuchu styles like Wing Chun. Lee saw himself as water: “Be formless, shapeless like water. You put water into a cup, it becomes a cup; put it into a teapot, it becomes a teapot. Water can flow, or crash. Be water, my friend.” I watched Bruce’s movies again and again, trying to copy his fast and furious hands in front of the television set. What I didn’t know then was that his lightning-fast hands didn’t come from ‘doing’ quickly’. When I was about twelve years old, a sports school opened near where I lived. They didn’t teach boxing, Karate or Judo, I heard, but something quite different. When I went to see what it was, I joined immediately: Wing Chun. I trained for four hours every Saturday, first in a small group, but growing bigger over the years as Wing Chun became more and more popular. My mother was glad. At the time, I was anything but water. I was a fat kid lying on the couch, only interested in reading comics and watching movies. The training was tough. We had to harden our fists and shinbones through contact with stones, wood and by hitting the fists and shinbones of others; for the same reason, the teacher would hit us in the stomach without warning; we had to hold ourselves in positions no normal person would hold for their pleasure; we practiced fighting multiple opponents simultaneously, learning how it feels to have eight hands demolish your body. After four years I joined the core group. About ten of us were picked to do extra training and to prepare for the yearly competition between selected fighters from Wing Chun schools in different cities. I was nervous about the tournament. Although I fought every Saturday, I had never had a real fight, except for one, with a friend who had tried to kiss my girlfriend. I walked up to him, all very masculine, he stretched out his arm and I stretched out on the ground. Game over. My first opponent in the tournament was a girl and I didn’t know how to behave. Could I just hit her breasts? Instead, she forced me to get out of my head and into my body: she whacked me in the face. My nose bled. And I reacted as a shark would, attacking without mercy, not even for her breasts. Mean. She began to cry. But I felt no guilt. Three more fights followed. Easy fights. My opponents were more nervous than I was. Later, I heard that one of the guys was afraid of me because of my recently grown moustache. I never asked him why. My other two opponents had only recently begun Wing Chun, but were chosen to fight me because they were skilled in Karate. But the rules of Karate did not rule in this Wing Chun-protected area. One more victory and I would become number one in my class. My last opponent was a heavy guy, at least ten years older than I was. He had dark skin that somehow forced respect. He was one of the first fighters in our Wing Chun school. A year before our fight he has been injured and had had to train very hard to get into the competition. I had no chance. He was stronger, better, more skilled and clear of mind. After the first two two-minute rounds I felt tired, broken and embarrassed. I was outclassed. In the third and final round I made a terrible mistake. I made out as if my opponent had hit me in the eye – something that was not allowed and which was punished by the judge. Because of my lie I won the competition – I became the winner. Afterwards I felt so embarrassed that I never picked up my title, and I never went back to my Saturday morning training sessions. My lie has followed me for many years, often resembling water shaping itself. But unlike Bruce Lee’s water, this water didn’t find its way within me. It felt like fat water that couldn’t mix with the 64% that is naturally me. Recently, I noticed that when you truly taste ‘fat water’, it actually purifies the water that makes up so much of our body, the water that I had thought was already pure. I often wonder how Diego Maradona is doing. - less tagged:   mind   fear   martial-art   BruceLee   Wing-Chun   water   DiegoMaradona    permalink  read: 3331  print  forward  comments: 0  add comment      name:

Video: André Platteel

Where the heart is by Andre Platteel , November 27th

As I sit in the back of the four-wheel drive and look down through the window, everything looks upside down. Things I usually look up to see are now far below me: houses and mountain roads are all down there. The only other time I have been this high is in a plane. The boat that was to bring us back didn’t go. Why is not clear and, at this moment, almost on top of a 1600-meter-high mountain, no longer relevant. We have decided to take the mountain road instead, a seven-hour trip through an astonishing, empty landscape. Our driver has never driven this road before. This road is the reason people use the boat. It’s a road that isn’t really a road, more a surface of dirt and mud barely wide enough for a car. It’s raining outside. We drive slowly, slipping and sliding. The driver tries to reassure us, telling us he’s concentrating to the full – he wants to see his wife and children again. But somehow his words do not reassure me. How close do you have to get the edge of the cliff before you decide to jump and test the powers of gravity? The road’s height and narrowness play an interesting game with my mind. The road is just wide enough to hold the car, but for some reason I begin to doubt the solidity of the mountain itself – will the mud and stones hold us? And although I am sitting on a solid seat, I also begin to doubt the solidity of the car: what if it suddenly decides to grow? Then another question starts to bug me: Why do mountain roads always go so high? One of the reasons becomes visible after we make a sharp turn: the rain has moved on from this side of the mountain and the view is unbelievable: I see a huge lake with five rivers entering and leaving. Various dams form ‘compartments’ that control the flow of water. The rivers come down the mountain into the lake then leave it again to continue their journey, to discover the land. The image resonates with my picture of the human heart: blood from different veins and information from different cells flowing into the heart, welcomed within the different chambers of the heart. Blood and information brought together, momentarily becoming one then immediately leaving as separate flows once again. The heart – the organ that welcomes differences – both brings together essence and accepts that this essence will leave again via different, separate routes. + more As I sit in the back of the four-wheel drive and look down through the window, everything looks upside down. Things I usually look up to see are now far below me: houses and mountain roads are all down there. The only other time I have been this high is in a plane. The boat that was to bring us back didn’t go. Why is not clear and, at this moment, almost on top of a 1600-meter-high mountain, no longer relevant. We have decided to take the mountain road instead, a seven-hour trip through an astonishing, empty landscape. Our driver has never driven this road before. This road is the reason people use the boat. It’s a road that isn’t really a road, more a surface of dirt and mud barely wide enough for a car. It’s raining outside. We drive slowly, slipping and sliding. The driver tries to reassure us, telling us he’s concentrating to the full – he wants to see his wife and children again. But somehow his words do not reassure me. How close do you have to get the edge of the cliff before you decide to jump and test the powers of gravity? The road’s height and narrowness play an interesting game with my mind. The road is just wide enough to hold the car, but for some reason I begin to doubt the solidity of the mountain itself – will the mud and stones hold us? And although I am sitting on a solid seat, I also begin to doubt the solidity of the car: what if it suddenly decides to grow? Then another question starts to bug me: Why do mountain roads always go so high? One of the reasons becomes visible after we make a sharp turn: the rain has moved on from this side of the mountain and the view is unbelievable: I see a huge lake with five rivers entering and leaving. Various dams form ‘compartments’ that control the flow of water. The rivers come down the mountain into the lake then leave it again to continue their journey, to discover the land. The image resonates with my picture of the human heart: blood from different veins and information from different cells flowing into the heart, welcomed within the different chambers of the heart. Blood and information brought together, momentarily becoming one then immediately leaving as separate flows once again. The heart – the organ that welcomes differences – both brings together essence and accepts that this essence will leave again via different, separate routes. I don’t know if this image of the heart does it justice biologically, but it does justice to the way my heart feels. When open, my heart is an instrument to receive information from the world, information that comes from different sources, different people all expressing their uniqueness in their own way. At the same time – and inspired by consciousness – the heart sees the unity within these differences. Yet in seeing unity, the heart does not attempt to make all things one, it simply accepts the expression of Oneness within the differences. As we drive further I see that one river is drying up. A bit further still and more inland, another of the other rivers is also drying up. Yet it seems as if the first river is trying to help the second: it has divided itself and appears to be trying to reach the same place that the other river is trying to reach. But thanks to all this splitting and dividing, both streams of water have become weak. The translator tells me that one of the dams in no longer functioning. This sends my thinking, or is it my heart (a doctor recently told me that in the process of thinking, there is more activity in the heart than in the brain), off in a new direction: What if the heart is unable to bring back the flow released by one of its chambers and cannot create unity in the first place? - less tagged:   heart   flow   fear   wholeness   oneness   consciousness   body   river   unity    permalink  read: 5191  print  forward  comments: 1  add comment      name:  Frank F., November 30th • Is my hearth the centre of my thinking?

Photo: André Platteel

The Swordsman by Andre Platteel , October 31st

Someone takes the seat opposite me in the train. He sits down very silently, almost as if no one is doing so. He looks at me for a few seconds, without wanting anything. I move my head slightly with the idea of making a friendly gesture. We pass Leiden, a small Dutch city that I used to live in. It has great universities, and a great hospital – a huge complex, almost a village really, mainly coloured yellow. I have never understood that colour. Memories in my body remind me of the times I spent in that village of sick people. I reboot my brain to the here and now. But this doesn’t stop my mind from raising questions. How come so many people get sick? Sickness isn’t our natural state, is it? So why do so many people get ill? It strikes me: And why haven’t I felt really healthy for a long time? I am glad I don’t live in Leiden anymore. I feel the eyes of the man opposite resting on me. When I look back I see not only a man, but also someone, probably of Japanese descent, wearing a beautiful suit; he has small but bright eyes and short black hair. The lines in his face are fine, no particular marks. He doesn’t have a big nose, nor does he have a strong jaw or pronounced lips. I find it hard to guess his age. His face could be anyone’s face. On his lap he holds a long black object, longer than the span of my arms. It looks as if it is made of strong material; probably containing something inside, but I have no idea what that could be. Or, to be more precise, ideas about what could be inside are bubbling up in my mind (some quite bizarre), but I can’t verify any of them – unless of course I grab the object and look inside. I don’t move. When we pass The Hague, he starts talking to me. He whispers, but his words are crisp and clear. He tells about great Chinese and Japanese warriors. “The best fighters did not fight that much,” he says. “A great swordsman often did no more than show an inch of the shaft – nearly that was enough to make the other person decide to back off.” Someone wants to sit next to me, but for some reason he then steps back and decides not, walking further to look for another seat. He carries two bags and I am sure they have books inside since I recognize the name of the shop printed on the bags. Books. For a long time I was addicted to buying books. I bought more than I could read. And the more I bought the less I read. I could no longer make a choice about which one to choose. One day, I got fed up with stories and sold almost half my collection. Most of them left my house unread. “That small but sharp and shiny piece of metal was enough to show the other that the limits had been reached. And let there be no confusion, if that warning was not understood clearly, the sword was used, without hesitation, fully and deadly. And without sorrow.” + more Someone takes the seat opposite me in the train. He sits down very silently, almost as if no one is doing so. He looks at me for a few seconds, without wanting anything. I move my head slightly with the idea of making a friendly gesture. We pass Leiden, a small Dutch city that I used to live in. It has great universities, and a great hospital – a huge complex, almost a village really, mainly coloured yellow. I have never understood that colour. Memories in my body remind me of the times I spent in that village of sick people. I reboot my brain to the here and now. But this doesn’t stop my mind from raising questions. How come so many people get sick? Sickness isn’t our natural state, is it? So why do so many people get ill? It strikes me: And why haven’t I felt really healthy for a long time? I am glad I don’t live in Leiden anymore. I feel the eyes of the man opposite resting on me. When I look back I see not only a man, but also someone, probably of Japanese descent, wearing a beautiful suit; he has small but bright eyes and short black hair. The lines in his face are fine, no particular marks. He doesn’t have a big nose, nor does he have a strong jaw or pronounced lips. I find it hard to guess his age. His face could be anyone’s face. On his lap he holds a long black object, longer than the span of my arms. It looks as if it is made of strong material; probably containing something inside, but I have no idea what that could be. Or, to be more precise, ideas about what could be inside are bubbling up in my mind (some quite bizarre), but I can’t verify any of them – unless of course I grab the object and look inside. I don’t move. When we pass The Hague, he starts talking to me. He whispers, but his words are crisp and clear. He tells about great Chinese and Japanese warriors. “The best fighters did not fight that much,” he says. “A great swordsman often did no more than show an inch of the shaft – nearly that was enough to make the other person decide to back off.” Someone wants to sit next to me, but for some reason he then steps back and decides not, walking further to look for another seat. He carries two bags and I am sure they have books inside since I recognize the name of the shop printed on the bags. Books. For a long time I was addicted to buying books. I bought more than I could read. And the more I bought the less I read. I could no longer make a choice about which one to choose. One day, I got fed up with stories and sold almost half my collection. Most of them left my house unread. “That small but sharp and shiny piece of metal was enough to show the other that the limits had been reached. And let there be no confusion, if that warning was not understood clearly, the sword was used, without hesitation, fully and deadly. And without sorrow.” The train stops in Rotterdam. I need to get out, but my body somehow refuses. A voice carries through the train, announcing stuff. “Every day, we take our sword out of the sheath, just an inch, many times. But most of us don’t know we do it. The movement of the sword remains unconscious. Some of us take out the sword and use it. But most of us not to the full, and with regret.” He takes the long object from his lap, moves his body slowly and stands up. He puts the object on the seat and tells me: “Know when you show your sword, use the sword when necessary – use it fully and without regret.” He walks away. At the next stop I get out too. As I leave the train I look through the window at the seats where the man and I were just sitting. The long object is still there. I know that what is inside must be inside me. There is no need to take it along. - less tagged:   swordsman   Japan   warrior   Chinese   fighting   wholeness   understanding   fear   Hero   martial-art    permalink  read: 4580  print  forward  comments: 0  add comment      name:

Photo: Annemarieke van Drimmelen

Culture of fear by Andre Platteel , October 16th

What happens if fear comes to you while you are in your most comfortable place? What happens if fear, instead of coming from something outside of you, ‘out there’, comes with no warning from inside you? We seem to live in a culture of fear. The media landscape surrounds us with pictures that feel anything but relaxed. It isn’t only the fear of terrorism that makes us feel unsafe, there’s the fear of global warming, which makes us fear for the future, or the fear of other religions invading our bubble-like Western society, with its hard-fought-for values. Brands that promise a better world are also trading on fear: we are not beautiful enough; we are not friendly enough; we are not clever enough; we don’t have enough friends; we are not safe; we are not adventurous enough; we don’t smell good enough – unless of course we buy the brand that will enable us to enter a world in which all our shortcomings are compensated for – and more. Marketing not only uses fear, it creates fear as a means of seduction – not accepting us for who we are, and so in fact continually insulting us. My view is that fears are ‘created illusions’ that look convincing, put there to make us consume – a product, an ideology, an event, a whatever that promises to make the fear go away. Since most of these fears-slash-illusions arrive from ‘outside’, we can see them coming – sooner and sooner, actually, because the system of manipulation-through-fear leaves tracks that we increasingly recognise. But what if the fear is not coming from outside, but from somewhere more unexpected, a place that we inhabit ourselves: our body-mind system? Lately, I have met many people who are being terrorised by fears from within. The fear of losing: oneself, others or the world. I have met people who no longer want to travel, who do not want to go out anymore; who do not want to fall in love anymore; I have met people who have stopped watching the news, watching CSI, watching Six Feet Under. The presence of fear is probably nothing new, something that’s existed throughout the ages, but it is new to me. Not only do I sometimes encounter strong fear; I have never met so many people who start talking about their fears openly. It seems too difficult to reason those fears away as mere illusions. What is fear I ask myself (often to figure out my own fears)? For me, David Lynch is a director who plays around with fear quite cleverly: you never know what to expect, what will come next. His characters don’t follow a logical psychological pattern: a guy who seems to be the nicest uncle can suddenly become extremely violent – because of nothing, out of nothing; a cowboy who seems to be a red-neck killer turns out to be an intellectual and an interesting debater – something that doesn’t, however, make him less fearful. + more What happens if fear comes to you while you are in your most comfortable place? What happens if fear, instead of coming from something outside of you, ‘out there’, comes with no warning from inside you? We seem to live in a culture of fear. The media landscape surrounds us with pictures that feel anything but relaxed. It isn’t only the fear of terrorism that makes us feel unsafe, there’s the fear of global warming, which makes us fear for the future, or the fear of other religions invading our bubble-like Western society, with its hard-fought-for values. Brands that promise a better world are also trading on fear: we are not beautiful enough; we are not friendly enough; we are not clever enough; we don’t have enough friends; we are not safe; we are not adventurous enough; we don’t smell good enough – unless of course we buy the brand that will enable us to enter a world in which all our shortcomings are compensated for – and more. Marketing not only uses fear, it creates fear as a means of seduction – not accepting us for who we are, and so in fact continually insulting us. My view is that fears are ‘created illusions’ that look convincing, put there to make us consume – a product, an ideology, an event, a whatever that promises to make the fear go away. Since most of these fears-slash-illusions arrive from ‘outside’, we can see them coming – sooner and sooner, actually, because the system of manipulation-through-fear leaves tracks that we increasingly recognise. But what if the fear is not coming from outside, but from somewhere more unexpected, a place that we inhabit ourselves: our body-mind system? Lately, I have met many people who are being terrorised by fears from within. The fear of losing: oneself, others or the world. I have met people who no longer want to travel, who do not want to go out anymore; who do not want to fall in love anymore; I have met people who have stopped watching the news, watching CSI, watching Six Feet Under. The presence of fear is probably nothing new, something that’s existed throughout the ages, but it is new to me. Not only do I sometimes encounter strong fear; I have never met so many people who start talking about their fears openly. It seems too difficult to reason those fears away as mere illusions. What is fear I ask myself (often to figure out my own fears)? For me, David Lynch is a director who plays around with fear quite cleverly: you never know what to expect, what will come next. His characters don’t follow a logical psychological pattern: a guy who seems to be the nicest uncle can suddenly become extremely violent – because of nothing, out of nothing; a cowboy who seems to be a red-neck killer turns out to be an intellectual and an interesting debater – something that doesn’t, however, make him less fearful. Is it the unknown that we fear? But how can I be afraid of something I don’t know? If I don’t know it, I don’t recognise it and so it can’t touch me, can it? If I were afraid of death, would I be terrified of death itself (which is unknown to me), or would I be terrified of losing everything that I know, of death ending my relationship with all that’s known? I think it is the known that makes us afraid. Fear comes when we are afraid for something that we know will go away in the future: our body, our loved ones, our parents, our children, our status or our money. Instead of enjoying what we know and have right now – things so dear to us (because otherwise we would not be afraid losing it) – we worry and are afraid of losing it in the future. At the same time, strategies to prevent bad things happening seem only to add to the fear because, once again, we are creating something we know – and which therefore we will be afraid to lose. If fear is known and related to the future, what could the remedy be? The only thing I know that helps me, but only if I do it wholeheartedly, is to be present at – consciously open to and aware of – everything that happens without forming any judgement, even when it involves fear. Rather than seeing fear as something that is not part of me, something to be got rid of, I must accept that it is part of me. Fear is something of me and can be welcomed within me. Which isn’t to say that is easy, especially when fear is knocking uninvited and from within. Everything that enters our consciousness becomes known, becomes an idea that is inherent to change. Consciousness itself is more spacious than anything that may arise and is always present. In being the space that we truly are there is no thing that could make us run; even fear is just another interesting guest to be welcomed. - less tagged:   fear   consciousness   merketing   brands   Lynch   TV-series   seduction   body   spaciousness    permalink  read: 4711  print  forward  comments: 0  add comment      name:

Photo: André Platteel

Mind blowing by Andre Platteel , October 3rd

Five hours north of New York, following the Hudson River all the way, I reach the Adirondacks. At Lake George, the start of the Adirondack Mountains, I will attend a week-long silent retreat with Gangaji, a teacher in Advaita, the Hindu philosophy of non-duality. A half-year earlier my girlfriend and I had also attended a retreat with Gangaji, at the legendary Esalen Institute in Big Sur, California. The experience was mind blowing. This time the retreat is at a YMCA, a big venue built in a beautiful style that pays tribute to those typical family holiday destinations of the 1950s, the ones that have been so beautifully captured by photographer Martin Parr and in the film Dirty Dancing. The consciousness of all being one has been burning in me ever since I discovered Advaita, seven years ago. The experience of Wholeness that is at the core of Advaita has led me to investigate who I am – a process that is ongoing. Gangaji is a great teacher: through silence you experience the essence of who we are. Her pointers are clear and she is sweet about any question that arises. After a few days spent in silence, experiencing the intense love that comes from the feeling of being all connected, it suddenly feels weird to be in this retreat. I feel a strong hunger to know ‘outside’. Of course, if all is one, there cannot be such a thing as ‘outside’ and ‘inside’. However, being in this retreat feels that way: you have to wear a name badge all the time; alcohol is forbidden; you have to stay and wait for five minutes after Gangaji has left the room; you have to answer certain questions; and couples are advised not to hang out with each other all the time. It is true that every ‘social community’ has its rules and regulations, but it is just this knowledge that leaves me with no reason to stay. After four days, my girlfriend and I decide to leave the retreat: it has never felt so good to play truant; it has never felt so strong to demonstrate the experience of freedom for real. We spend hours driving south beside the Hudson River, hit the Holland Tunnel and enter downtown New York. It’s rush hour; New York streets don’t have lanes and we get squeezed between hundreds of cabs. Finally, after being stuck in traffic for yet more hours we reach our hotel. The last day of our stay in New York we decide to go to the Metropolitan Museum of Art where there is an exhibition of Dutch Painters. The Age of Rembrandt features 228 masterpieces displayed together, works of Frans Hals, Johannes Vermeer, Gerard ter Borch, Pieter de Hooch, Jacob van Ruisdael, Aelbert Cuyp, and – of course – Rembrandt van Rijn. Being Dutch, we feel a bit like Japanese, eating only Japanese in every country abroad. + more Five hours north of New York, following the Hudson River all the way, I reach the Adirondacks. At Lake George, the start of the Adirondack Mountains, I will attend a week-long silent retreat with Gangaji, a teacher in Advaita, the Hindu philosophy of non-duality. A half-year earlier my girlfriend and I had also attended a retreat with Gangaji, at the legendary Esalen Institute in Big Sur, California. The experience was mind blowing. This time the retreat is at a YMCA, a big venue built in a beautiful style that pays tribute to those typical family holiday destinations of the 1950s, the ones that have been so beautifully captured by photographer Martin Parr and in the film Dirty Dancing. The consciousness of all being one has been burning in me ever since I discovered Advaita, seven years ago. The experience of Wholeness that is at the core of Advaita has led me to investigate who I am – a process that is ongoing. Gangaji is a great teacher: through silence you experience the essence of who we are. Her pointers are clear and she is sweet about any question that arises. After a few days spent in silence, experiencing the intense love that comes from the feeling of being all connected, it suddenly feels weird to be in this retreat. I feel a strong hunger to know ‘outside’. Of course, if all is one, there cannot be such a thing as ‘outside’ and ‘inside’. However, being in this retreat feels that way: you have to wear a name badge all the time; alcohol is forbidden; you have to stay and wait for five minutes after Gangaji has left the room; you have to answer certain questions; and couples are advised not to hang out with each other all the time. It is true that every ‘social community’ has its rules and regulations, but it is just this knowledge that leaves me with no reason to stay. After four days, my girlfriend and I decide to leave the retreat: it has never felt so good to play truant; it has never felt so strong to demonstrate the experience of freedom for real. We spend hours driving south beside the Hudson River, hit the Holland Tunnel and enter downtown New York. It’s rush hour; New York streets don’t have lanes and we get squeezed between hundreds of cabs. Finally, after being stuck in traffic for yet more hours we reach our hotel. The last day of our stay in New York we decide to go to the Metropolitan Museum of Art where there is an exhibition of Dutch Painters. The Age of Rembrandt features 228 masterpieces displayed together, works of Frans Hals, Johannes Vermeer, Gerard ter Borch, Pieter de Hooch, Jacob van Ruisdael, Aelbert Cuyp, and – of course – Rembrandt van Rijn. Being Dutch, we feel a bit like Japanese, eating only Japanese in every country abroad. The museum is huge and although this is a major exhibition we find ourselves being sent in every direction but the right one. We get lost between thousand-year-old Buddhas, mummies, African masks and remains of Indian temples: a bizarre collection of man-made devotion to God and Godlike. Finally we reach the Dutch painters. So many pieces that some of the paintings are exhibited on top of each other. Lots of heads from centuries ago are staring at me and it is as if I can touch them, can talk with them: they come alive. I am overwhelmed. The energy in my body starts dancing and I feel a strong urge to leave, just as I felt at the MoMa exhibition a few weeks earlier. Fear is running through my body and I am disappointed that the silence and rest I experienced during the retreat seem to have left me. It becomes almost impossible to look at another painting: the energy I derive from looking is so strong that I lose my sense of and stability. I need air. The fear of fainting comes on top of the unknown fear that is taking over my body. I try to open myself for the fear, to give it space, but restlessness runs through me and I move into a survival mode: get me out of here as quickly as possible. On my way to the nearest exit I encounter a small painting by Vermeer: a head of a young girl, with a face like porcelain. Her face is round; she wears a white dress; she has dark hair; there are hardly any colours in the painting. She has no particular expression in her eyes – they are just open to receive light. The girl’s face stops me. I stand in front of her, for minutes probably. In an embarrassing emotional state. But I don’t feel embarrassed; I experience how this girl turns my fear into the sweetest joy. The painting blows my mind. - less tagged:   NewYork   consciousness   BigSur   spirituality   Gangaji   Esalen   MartinParr   DirtyDancing   MET   painters   Advaita   India   God   connectedness   fear    permalink  read: 7362  print  forward  comments: 0  add comment      name:

Photo: Annemarieke van Drimmelen

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June, 2010 Dutch Political Leaders Receive book Our World		May, 2010 Resistance Decadence New Book: Our World		April, 2010 Arrogance Naivety Ignorance		June, 2009 Mother of all memories
May, 2009 Come again, and again, and again		April, 2009 The Wolf		March, 2009 The three voices		January, 2009 Born to adore This Dancing with the Beloved
December, 2008 Listen carefully		October, 2008 A fragment of a circle God’s Gods You, me and everything else		September, 2008 Man with powers		August, 2008 The hidden promise Crazy for love
May, 2008 Dr. Feelgood What’s the limit of love		April, 2008 Spring Snow will fall The Cleaner		March, 2008 Motherless Child What I am made of Falling upwards Northern Lights		February, 2008 Glass-made-mind The outer layer of the mind Growing younger On Holy Ground
January, 2008 Watch for the wind to blow How is Diego Maradona doing? What are we guilty off? Everything is what is besides language The eagle and the condor flying together In the heart of Otherness		December, 2007 The man who loved too much The dark brightness The windmills of our mind To make two mountains one, gone Bigger than the stars		November, 2007 Act of passion Making love Life has no meaning Where the heart is Oneness is never the same		October, 2007 Mind blowing Becoming authentic Coloured Mind Hide and Seek Culture of fear The man on the bench The Swordsman
September, 2007 What is thinking? World happening Unity in diversity Smell no evil Going in all directions without beginning or end Alternative routes Superheroes don’t age No place like Utopia? Fog		August, 2007 The Wholeness of being Spirit through matter Looking in the mirror A new heart Is matter what matters? World of opinions. Spaciousness for a flower to grow