Audiostretto 59/4/24 English

A few months ago I was able to work with clay and made a lantern out of a lump of clay. I noticed how carefully I had to shape the clay with my hands to get a more or less regular form, or how soft and sensitive the clay reacted to my pressure. I think we all have soft, very sensitive places in our lives, especially mentally and emotionally. A lot of pressure or hardness doesn't help, rather a fine hand. If I had left the clay unformed, it would have just dried out like that, misshapen, and eventually stayed that way. However, with the necessary care and perseverance, and then the subsequent drying process, something... let's say usable - but beautiful in my eyes, because I invested time and energy was there. I believe that this can also happen in our lives: a mild and patient Creator's hand that is kind to us, that deals gently with our sensitive parts and gives them enough time to heal. May it be so for you today!

I wish you an extraordinary day!

You may have grown up in the city or in the countryside and your parents may have worked in agriculture or as teachers or in hospitals or.... and you experienced your environment as orderly and beautiful and your parents' profession as something that satisfied them and offered them regular working hours. And then at some point you saw an ugly industrial complex, chimneys, smoke, large production halls, people who walked around the site almost like robots and hardly radiated any joy - and maybe you thought that you would never want to work like that and that it was desirable not to live near an industrial site or to have anything to do with it at all. But the fact that so many people are so well and happy, that they can live peacefully in the countryside or in a good flat or house in the city - they owe it all to industry, which produces cheaply what we all need. We are sometimes all too quick to turn up our noses at things or people and form a pejorative judgement - without realising how much we owe these things and people and ultimately how much we need them. Wouldn't it be time to be grateful for this, to show respect and perhaps even proactively set a sign of gratitude for others doing what most of us don't want to do?

I wish you an extraordinary day!

Many bottles today are closed by a screw cap or with a lid. The former can be opened with sufficient force without tools. The latter, on the other hand, in the rarest of cases. That means I need a bottle opener. With such a thing, opening is very easy - most of the time. The bottle opener grips under the lid and, with the help of the law of leverage, a sufficiently large force can be developed with relatively little pressure or force to make it possible to loosen the lid. Such a bottle opener is not a special part. No electricity, no battery or anything like that is needed. But without... the bottle usually stays closed. Annoying if you don't have one at hand. Watch out today: it could be that in a situation such an opener is suddenly offered to you by chance or consciously, enabling you to open an area in your life that has been closed for a long time - be it externally or inside you. With little effort.

I wish you an extraordinary day!

I belong to the generation that still listened to music with a record player and vinyl records. A long outdated technology - but it worked, was popular and reliable. Today I'm amazed at how it was possible at all: a groove is stamped into a plastic material in a very small space with information - which can then be picked up and converted by a fine needle and finally reproduces sound waves. Wow! What an amazing invention! My greatest respect. Without the needle, records would be in vain, their information inaccessible. Without records, the record players and needles would be useless. Dependence or mutual fulfilment of potential. However you want to see it. There is also a beautiful melody imprinted in your life and I speak today over you that your record shall come into contact with the needle and its system it takes to make your beauty accessible to your environment and you experience this appreciation for yourself and your song!

I wish you an extraordinary day!

Are there things or situations that leave you speechless? It's familiar to me. Especially moments in which I am simply amazed or moved, as if I can be out of time for a moment. It is the amazement, for example, at things in nature: how there are forms and shapes that we humans could hardly make so well designed and beautiful. A polished stone, the wonder of the indefinability of transitions - for example, where does the sea begin and the beach end? The same with forests: when is it still a group of trees and when a forest? Or the sight of an animal living in the wild or a look from friend to friend, watching two honoring and very familiar people. I hope you can immerse yourself in such a miracle today and enjoy the beauty of it and leave time for a moment and be speechless.... 

I wish you an extraordinary day!

In summer, the sun warms the stones and the asphalt or the ground in general. After a cool bath, children like to lie down on these heated stones to get warm again. So the stone absorbs the heat of the sun and gives it off again. What power the sun must have to heat up the lifeless material of the stone! And the stone itself is simple - it receives and passes on - if it is exposed to the sun. It's different with water: it needs a lot more energy to heat up, for example a lake. What are you focused on and what energy do you allow to fill you? Good or destructive? Do you also pass it on or do you only absorb and if you pass it on: can people warm up with you or do you radiate something negative? I wish you for today that you see the sun, absorb its energy and radiate it as a blessing for others!

I wish you an extraordinary day!

Do you like crossword puzzles? The aim of these is to fill in the letters of the word you are looking for in the given number of boxes. It has to be the correct word, otherwise it won't work with the other words that cross it. In life it is sometimes similar: we feel that certain things fit, others don't. Although outwardly everything seems correct and it fits temporally, relationally or professionally - but still we somehow feel: this is not the right thing. I believe that this is our spirit advising us well here. We are more than body and soul. Our spirit, sometimes our conscience or gut feeling, guides us - I believe - to and into truth. She guides us a good way, the correct way. But we need to learn to hear her voice better and also to listen to her better. That is what I encourage you to do today.

I wish you an extraordinary day!

My grandfather collected mushrooms and every now and then we had them for dinner, usually stewed. I didn't like them very much. Mushrooms come in many forms, including those that indicate that an environment is not clean, so that mould then spreads. Or then there is mould cheese that is edible and other mould on cheese indicates that the cheese is spoiled and should just not be eaten anymore. Not all mushrooms are the same and only experienced people can distinguish the good ones from the poisonous. In life there are also situations that have to be interpreted with appropriate wisdom to answer the question: good or bad? Life-giving or destructive? If you meet people today who have this wisdom, like mushroom experts with mushrooms, then use this wisdom and learn from them. You will be glad one day to be able to apply this wisdom appropriately in an important situation.

I wish you an extraordinary day!

Frederick Buechner wrote "Beauty is to the spirit what food is to the flesh." We recognise with our eyes and in our spirit what is beautiful. Beautiful perhaps not in the sense of perfection, but I believe in a broader sense that words cannot express. Beauty can happen suddenly from one moment to the next: a smile, a warm handshake, a heartfelt thank you or a flower moved by the wind, a person's face regardless of gender or age. As human beings, we are made for more than functionality. Beauty is - to speak with Buechner - as much an essential nourishment for us as meals. Therefore, I believe, we must afford to indulge ourselves in beauty and in doing so also learn to see it and consciously perceive it - just as one looks for, picks and enjoys berries at harvest time. Open your mind today and your eyes to the beauty around you and feast on it!

I wish you an extraordinary day!

Do you pay attention to certain labels when shopping, for example organic? Do you consciously buy organic to eat healthier and promote sustainability and biodiversity? Such products are usually more expensive because more effort is required and unhealthy or chemical substances are avoided for a greater yield. Organic. If the label is on a product, we believe it is organic. We trust - who actually? The seller? The packer? The producer? Either way, as individuals we are not in a position to judge the correctness of the organic label on a product. We simply trust. Perhaps today is a time for a general reflection on who you actually trust blindly in your life in all the different areas. Do you do this consciously or simply because you have no other choice? What does this insight do to you? Do you realise or are you even shocked by how ultimately dependent you are on so many things in your life?

I wish you an extraordinary day!