The greatest things in life are not things.
We all know that.
They can not be bought, not even be stolen.
They come to us when we don’t expect them.
And when we want to catch and conserve them, they shy away from us.

In Donizettis L’elisir d’amore, Nemorino wants to win the love of Adina, who ignores him, by purchasing a love potion. Nice try. At the end, they a couple. But not because of this drink (which turned out to be a bottle of regular red wine anyways).

It works differently.
Which is basically the moral of this masterwork of Belcanto.

 

A geography teacher asked his students to off the cuff write down the World Wonders they know of. An interesting task, for there are a few different categories. The most famous are the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, followed by Seven Natural Wonders, there are the Seven Wonders of the Industrial World, the New Seven World Wonders and so on.

According to these different categories, naturally some wrote the Pyramids of Giza, the Colosseum in Rome, the Grand Canyon, the Colossus of Rhodes, the Panama Canal.

One student had a different approach.
He wrote: “To see, to hear, to feel, to taste, to smell, to touch, to laugh and to love.”

What if the greatest things are nothing, when there is nobody to witness them?
What if it’s our perception that makes things great (or something different)?

We take it for granted that we can do these things. That we can notice the world around us, that we feel we are part of a cohesive reality. But what if this alone is a world wonder?

 

Yesterday I saw an image of a herd of zebras. Zoomed in, one clearly could differentiate individual zebras. A little zoomed out, you would only see black and white stripes, not individual animals, just some sort of a pattern in the landscape. Zoomed out a little further you wold just think, well, there is nothing there, it’s just hot air over shallow water.

I personally would add the zebra and it’s stripes to the list of Natural World Wonders.
It can disappear, just like that. All that’s needed is a little distance to the eye of the witness.
Nevertheless, if you love this animal you would still feel the herd’s presence.
Isn’t that fascinating?

 

Harvey Mackay says:
“Sometimes, the greatest wonders are not built by human hands but felt by the human heart.” – How true!

With much affection,
Anselma

Recently, in an illustrated art book I came across a beautiful painting by Lawrence Alma-Tadema named “Pandora’s Box” depicting a lovely redheaded woman with flowers in her hair. She holds a greyish jar in her hands, watching it intently. The jar looks to be from dark marble, on its lid a sphinx is guarding the content.

The story told by Hesiod reads that Prometheus, who stole the fire from Mount Olympus to bring it to the humans of Earth had a brother, Epimetheus. Interestingly enough, the two brothers do have telling names, describing the ways we can move through the world. Prometheus means foresight, where as Epimetheus means hindsight.

They embody our tendencies of planning ahead and following a vision on the one hand and concluding and reflecting how things worked out on the other. Both are necessary, both are invaluable to human life.

 

In the story, Epimetheus was given a pithos, a greek jar made of clay, that contained all the things, humans don’t want to experience: death, sickness, troubles of all sorts and – take note – hope.

Out of curiosity, Pandora, Epimetheus wife, one day inspected the jar and opened the lid. Though she hastily tried to close it again, all the evil inside could escape and since that time, humans of Earth are plagued, having to cope with their existance all the time.

When it turned out that humanity would almost perish being confronted with all this evil, she let out hope as well to help them carry on.
It turned out, that hope was stronger than all the evils together. It would always prevail.

 

What an astounding story. It speaks about our ability to recover, to carry on, to triumph over misfortune and hardship. We can turn around almost we are determined to change into something useful and of value. Or, to use a Buddhist expression, we are able to turn poison into medicine.

I also like that the much-quoted box is actually a round pot of clay. Not rectangular, not an Ikea-style cardbaord box. So many things in reality are quite different upon close inspection than we might think. There is always stuff to examine, to ponder, to verify, very epimethian – so to speak.

So where do you need more hope to win over something uncomfortable or hindering?
Where did some evil weaken a part of your precious soul – waiting to be transformed into something of value, enriching your life again?

And don’t forget, next time you see a box:
Leave it alone, don’t touch it OR
open it twice immediately!

Much love,
Anselma

Back in the day, Adam was strolling around in the Garden of Eden. He just had been created and now stood on his feet, not quite knowing what to do with himself (ok, that’s my idea of it, I admit).

God was quite happy with him, but he thought, well, something is missing here! What could that be? He called Adam and said: “Hey Adam, I think you need a job. So go out and do something useful. Tend the garden. Make it beautiful and lush, prune the trees, collect dry grass and make sure the flowers have enough water.”

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The holiday season is approaching and we all
– have a chance to freak out in the pre-Christmas rush or
– to make the conscious choice to savor the yearly chaos and imperfections.

Imagine a time where your home is beautifully decorated with candles, sparkling lights and festive red ribbons, pillows and mistletoes. On the table there are nuts, fresh oranges and some fir branches, fruity and fragrant.

You planned some stuff, some things are working out, others (lots of!) just aren’t.
Still, you feel content, you lean back and take a long and calm look at things.

You probably notice something interesting.
It’s not about outer things. It’s not about what’s apparent.
It’s about kindness and the ability to say yes to life.

 

Here are some ideas how we bring some inner glow to all the sparkle, the presents, opulent meals, lucky (and sometimes clumsy) moments in the splendid gatherings with friends and family:

Full attention
Listen with your heart. This does not work when your mobile lies on the table. Electronic devices do not belong to any kind of face to face social interaction or party. Leave this stuff in the drawer. No technology, that’s important! It divides your attention.

Approval
Notice all the good things people tell you and confirm how much they are doing right. Life is difficult. We all give our best. Praise all the constructive ideas and personal accomplishments. It makes a difference!

Admiration
Say what you love. Nice dress, you look great! What a beautiful cake – how much effort it took you to make it for us! I like what you just said – you are so strong-willed!
– We are used to thinking these things but we are not used to say them out loud.

Greatfulness
Nothing is granted. We are all borrowing.
The cosy home, the furniture – we are lending what is given to us. The amazing people in our life – we are invited to enjoy their company, nothing more. Even our body ist just a loan. Some day we will have to give it back.

Have a wonderful December,
with so much love,
Anselma

p.s. Need some Christmas Tunes? For TWO and for THREE players, in beautiful arrangements. You are welcome! Thanks for choosing to play out of original sheet music books like ours, not from xerox-copies that destroy the publishing world and the livelihood of composers.

Problems are part of life. We don’t like them. We avoid them. We run from them.
We want a life without them.
But still, they are there. And as soon as we solve one, a new one is on the horizon.

Music is such a magnificent playground to learn about life for every hindrance you can think of sooner or later will march into your practicing room. You will be tired, frustrated, exhausted, impatient, angry on the composer / conductor / yourself / god (pick one or all of them!), disctracted, lost and hopeless. Old friends on your path as a musician. Stop giggling!?

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Living means being with people.
A beautiful social setting equals life quality.

We tend to forget that.
We think, it’s about things. Or goods. Or to-do lists.
No. It’s about people.

Pondering this I understand that we do have to found our life in some very simple, but universal basics.

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Today I have a little story for you. A true story.
Once there was a woman named Anselma, who was a very regular person, wife and friend.
She loved music.
And she loved people.

She did not like that in our society there was strife, disagreement and a destructive competition. She experienced that all of these were non-existent when people came together to make beautiful art, to play music together.
All the differences in personal attitudes seemed to be of no interest when humans gave their best to create audible harmony on the highest level.

So she dedicated her life to exactly this wondrous thing: music. On the highest level that was possible for her.

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We are always practicing something. All the time for we are beings of habits.
Habits are the most crucial forming element for our character.
We can speak all day long about this, that and the other.
But nothing speaks louder than what we do – especially what we do when no one is watching.

Stats Inc. did a study about reliability of baseball players. It turned out, when the game comes into the critical phase and the pressure is rising, the players drop 13% in their overall batting average.

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What about being born on Monday, the 1st of Shakespeare?
Or having your wedding day on Saturday, 20th of Aristotle?

Beautiful dates, a bit exotic to our ears. But not for the ones of the french Auguste Comte who in 1849 invented the so called “positivist calendar”.

 

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Once upon a time a little reed was growing at a riverside.
It looked into the world around and thought to itself: How do I want to live?

It saw some beautiful blue butterflies and it thought, I want to nourish these beautiful butterflies! I will go and make very lush blossoms in the spring!

It saw the stunning oaks and high poplar trees and admired their vitality and longevity and it thought, I want to strengthen myself inside, to be like them! When something good happens to me, I appreciate myself and all the helpers who made it happen.

And it did just that.
It tried to be strong and make lush blooms to nourish others.
It praised itself and all the wonderous helpers when something beautiful occured. When a butterfly came along it tried to look gorgeous in order to be seen and to be able to provide good food for it.

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