Autor -Katarina Varsikova

Twist of seasons, Virgo time, new beginnings.

Went to pick up blackberries on my birthday; found very few. They had dried in the strong heat and I came home legs full of scratches because I rarely give up an endeavour. Went for a walk a few weeks later, in a perfect rain-shine mixture and in a totally different place. What a surprise – ripe black blackberries popping up at the field edges. Plus, there are walnut trees along the road, most of the nuts still on the trees but some already dropped to the ground.

Yes, our intention often come out differently. Nevertheless, intention is crucial in human life: it dances in a loose embrace with desire.

Last holiday weekend, final days of August, in Berlin it is hot, not even nights get cool, at least not in the small hotel room. But Berlin never tires me, it is a city of bonding. So walkable and sending many messages. Arriving from the Schonenfeld airport we switched metros at the Tiergarten station. I went to the public toilet where the toilet lady pointed to my fishnet bag (this summer hipster-oldies acquisition) and asked me in a thick eastern-European accent:

“From where the bag is?”

I smile. I understand her interest. In my childhood, this was the quit-essential shopping bag; women carried them in their handbags and took them out at the cashier in the times when plastic was a scarce and admired and not a shameful material.

Well, if the toilet lady made it to the hipster Mitte neighbourhood now, she would find this accessory in many boutiques. But she most próbably never goes there.

True, most of the people one sees in Mitte are young, white, good-looking; enjoying life with their babies and kids around, they take late breakfasts in coffee places offering raw, gluten-free, sugar-free, vegan… Other parts of town are surely different and more colourful, but we somehow stayed around Mitte this time. Also because of the heat – it slows me down incredibly.

We pass the Zion church regularly on our walks. On Sunday, the church door is wide open, and people hang around strange arty objects splurged on the lawns. We enter. An androgyny-looking being at the door wearing a pink suit offers visitors an oracle and reads it aloud in a mysterious voice. A woman dances in ropes in front of the altar, exposition includes scary, funny, erotic. And messages, of course. Revolution gone, Love gone, spaghetti cold.

This would never be possible in a church in Slovakia; this would cause a scandal. Still, nothing is dishonouring the sacred place, on the contrary, the church somehow feels more alive and real.

Cheap flights are tedious, perhaps flights in general are nowadays, airports are stuffy and ecological aspect of city trips stirs my consciousness. Still, traveling uplifts and opens me. Plus, I run by intuition to tell me what is right, and visiting friends is one of the best motives. Close friends moving to Berlin are a possibility to discover the town I for many years longed for. I remember once saying as a joke that I would prefer going skiing to Berlin. It was a quite desperate way of saying I never liked skiing which is an almost compulsory leisure activity in my country. I had no idea I would even go to Berlin one. So? Life is a constant shift. Such as Western Berlin feels shabbier and more outdated (well, in parts) than the previously grey communist Eastern part. Who would say that in 1985?

Drop expectations. They are often a source of suffering; connect to intuition, let desire and intention match and then observe the surprises that come along.

For sure we are entitled to what is essential.

Granted to us are many rights:

To breathe deeply in any situation.

To create every day.

To choose acceptance of what is.

To live and speak once´s truth.

To admit errors and mistakes.

To observe without judgment.

To be responsible.