naturalinjapan

winter wonder land

2012-02-05T05:55:00.000+09:00

greatest blue sky, deep fresh snow and a best friend to climb up mountains: life cant be better. Thanks, Lydia! Love ya! And the snow. Wanted to show it to my dearest kids but that might take a little bit more time and preparation, but I promise both of you: we will be there together the next time! as soon as I fighted down what drags me right now, I will be there with both of you in exactly this snow! Thought of you, my dearest kids, all the time. Love ya, too!

Happy New Year 2012

2012-01-01T13:04:00.001+09:00

Sunrise into the New Year at our beach.

A first to me to see in my 50 years of life.

A bright path into a bright future.

Still living in my mind in my beloved German life, whilst my body has to be here.

2012 shall bring settlement and strength to me and to all of us, wherever we are.

The sun rises anywhere anyhow, isnt it.

Happy New Year 2012!

kamakura

2011-12-23T21:32:00.001+09:00

moso bamboo at Hokokuji Temple. beautiful greygreen shades

amazingly strong

amazingly dynamic

love those fishes' colour!

"senryo", the New Year's berry

Ms. Kubota, my dear German student

love your always so friendly smile, Kubota-san!

still autumn here

maple leaf's lace

gingko tree's beautiful yellow

those Kamakura moments

a flowering cherry tree in december

I try to enjoy Japan. Which is not easy to me in the moment. A strange wave took me back to here. Actually we should stay now in Germany for Christmas and for our Foreign Year out of the country. It did not work out. Reasons? No reasons. Beside strange coincidences, strange chain reactions. Strange behaviour of me, which is really difficult to explain, a mixture out of exhaustion and fear beyond, I guess, a missing of clear vision, a missing of a clear plan, my brain seems to be backwards bound, always on delay, and that brought us back to here. I do not feel right in place in the moment, my mind wandering to Germany, thinking of what could have been, what should have been, finding no answer why I am actually back to here. Would love to be back in summer doing the right things at the right moment. That would have me now sitting in front of an open fire, caressing a cat, looking out to a snowy garden, all dreams of mine.......I have to be very careful to not fall into even deeper depression about this strange situation. I could have had it, if I wouldnt have entered that plane....nobody will ever be able to understand it and I cant explain it, am just very sad about what we missed.
My German student, Ms. Kubota, tried to show me the beauty of Japan and for some moments, my brain was able to relax. Kamakura is for sure a really beautiful city. Thank you so much, Kubota-san, for taking me out. It helped for a short time to take away my sadness. But, I guess, it will only go away if I find a way to go back to my country with my children, but this will take time.....hope for me that I can stand it until then.
In the pamphlet of Hokokuji Temple is says "We wish your visit to this temple will bring you peace of mind". Exactly what I need so urgently.

more serendipity cafe

2011-11-29T16:24:00.003+09:00

Serendipity Cafe has this wonderful ocre toned walls and it has the most lovely wooden windows, nothing more beautiful than wooden window frames! ( and believe me, I know what I talk about, since I am living with aluminium frame windows here at my place, ughhhh)

goods from our shop, Advent Candles, Dr. Rick Tan's Waldorf postcards etc.

aren't these twigs funny? These are Sekka Sugi, a special kind of Cryptomeria tortuosa.

To me, they look like miniature Dwarf Christmas Trees!

and not to forget, the incredible handmade Christmas Cookies. So adorable!

Serendipity Cafe

2011-11-28T16:27:00.002+09:00

Christmas decoration at SERENDIPITY CAFE

We added some rowan twigs ( Sorbus, with their beautiful red berries and grey skin) and our christmas decorations to the already beautiful walls and interiors of this really cozy space with lots of good food and music.

Please visit Serendipity Cafe in Chigasaki!

253-0025 Chigasaki, Matsugaoka 1-7-35

Tel 0467-84-5244

http://serendipitycafechigasaki.doorblog.jp/

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Serendipity-cafe/255070147875219?sk=wall#!/pages/Serendipity-cafe/255070147875219?sk=wall

LEBE

2011-09-27T16:18:00.003+09:00

How much I love this poem by Joseph Beuys, how much I would love to live it.
it says:
LIVE
let yourself fall
learn to watch snakes
plant impossible gardens
invite somebody dangerous for tea
make small gestures
be friend of freedom and unsafetiness
look forward to dreams
weep while watching movies
fly as high as possible
do things out of love
sleep a lot
pass money
do it now
believe in magic
laugh a lot
take children for serious
bath in the moonlight
read every day
imagine you are magic
listen to old people
look forward
let fear go
talk to your inner child
hug trees
write letters

LIVE!

Our 7th place to be

2011-07-23T07:12:00.000+09:00

12 times moving between in total 7 places. Finally we landed. The other places were good places too, but this one is very very special: it has an open fire and it has a laundry line! In the garden! And this is a big huge dream of mine.

I am feeling like being in Sweden, wide lush greenery in front of us, water everywhere. My daughter is outside every single second, running barefoot, what a life. And I enjoy this laundry line!

can you see the small river? Pure enjoy, pure energy.

green

2011-06-30T22:23:00.000+09:00

GREEN

My colours changed from dark to green.

I did not post for a long time, having been in a dark world, tired and confused from a lot of constant changes. I don't want to tell you details, want to keep them closed in my heart. I am grateful for that time, it showed me many things. Now I start to rediscover the splendid GREEN around me. Love the summer in Germany, so many trees in lushing green, so many wide meadows, such wonderful the smell of fresh cut grass, will enjoy it through July before heading back to Japan in August.

The picture shows the view from the 7th place we stayed since March. Makes 7 moves in 3 months. And still 3 moves ahead of us. What a life.

family

2011-04-30T07:33:00.003+09:00

For the very first time in our adult lifes, my 2 younger sisters and me were at the same time in our home town of Weingarten! We got together for Easter at my mum's place, and we all brought our kids with us.

We 3 sisters managed to get a boy and a girl each, imagine!

3 girls
Youngest sister's daughter Sophie, my own daughter Katarina, my middle sister's daughter Sarah

3 boys
My own son Kurando, my youngest sister's son Jan, my middle sister's son Kai

One good effect of the earthquake was to shake us together for Easter and fulfil my mum's longtime wish of having all her children and all her grandchildren in one place!

taking a turn

2011-03-31T01:12:00.001+09:00

Going back to Chigasaki does include a turn over Germany for us.

We will be back.

Some ways are complicated, some ways are long, but they are all ways leading to somewhere.

This March left me with a lot of thoughts, altering a lot of my attitudes.

Left is just one:

GRATITUDE.

nothing else than gratitude.

travelling

2011-03-20T22:12:00.001+09:00

we left our home for the south and are at my husband's family right now, Tiny, cramped place, but lovely people. A shelter for us.
But how to go on ?
We wont go back to Chigasaki. It is still in the circle around the atomic plant, they say radiation in the strength of a x-ray, means lowest dose, but who wants to be exposed to x-rays all day long?
We have to choose between staying here in the south or leaving for Germany, and this is not an easy decision. We are safe here, people are great, charity basaars everywhere, people collecting for donations, preparing shelters for the refugees from the north.
What to do?
Stay with the country, which was always friendly to me, or leave to protect my kids from looming danger?
So hard to decide.
I never felt worse like I feel these days.

Japan, so sad

2011-03-13T10:45:00.000+09:00

Sad times for Japan.
We are still safe here south of Tokyo.
It is frightening and everybody is on high alert.
Feeling for all the people in Miyagi. It is devastating.
We are lucky that we got some sleep this night in our home without those horrifying sirens.
A new earthquake in front of Ibaragi, more south, was just announced now, Sunday, 13rd, 10:30.
We are prepared, but how good can you be prepared, living 5 minutes from the ocean, on a wide long bayshore on 0m height.

The sun is shining, outside it looks like a wonderful soft and warm day.
What a combination.
Will keep updated.

Willy Puchner

2011-03-11T02:37:00.000+09:00

This night I got a mail from my dear translator. She found the most amazing thing in the FAZ, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung: a colour journey through the world from Willy Puchner, an Austrian illustrator and author of children books.

Please go to here and click on the pictures, each will link to the next, I am so excited here in the middle of the night!

Love it, love it, love it!

and if you can read German, these are the most amazing colour names I ever read!

Guten Morgen, liebe Kinder

2011-02-15T16:10:00.005+09:00

Now here is a real gem for the Waldorf interested visitors on "naturalinjapan":

the documentation "Guten Morgen, liebe Kinder" ( "Good morning, dear children") is now available on DVD. Remember, I sent you a link last autumn about the documentation of the first 3 years in a Waldorf School in South Germany. The movie was available for one week on BR ( Bayerischer Rundfunk) and got the highest access numbers ever. Many many people asked for a DVD and now BR and Maria Knilli, the sensitive producer of the documentation, created it.

It is available here:

http://www.guten-morgen-liebe-kinder.de/

in German only, but worth it, the pictures are talking by themselves.

If you have problems with ordering in German, let me know, I can set up a PayPal button and order it for you.

My daughter is attending this class and I know how lucky we are to be allowed as guest students every year. We once did a hike in the Alpes together with the class and Maria Knilli and her camera. Very impressing.

This summer, we will be there again and I am so much looking forward to get more inviews in Waldorf education, which impresses me more and more.

But back to the DVD:

It is about how to teach math by jumping from pillow to pillow, it is about building a wall with 36x2 children hands, it is about crossing the Alpes by feet in 8 years, it is about strength and determination, but it is also about the dedication and love of a great teacher.

Please take a look!

omochi tsuki

2011-02-04T00:44:00.003+09:00

january is the time in the year with a ceremony called omochi tsuki, the making of omochi, of rice cakes.
you wont believe it, but i never watched an omochi ceremony until now, after 18 years here in japan. unbelievable. but this year, at our elementary school, my chance finally came:

look at this old stove and the funny position of both people

wash the rice

then steam


then wait


and steam


and with a smile

its ready


then the rice gets pushed with wooden sticks


pounded with wooden hammers


even more punched until it turns into a smooth kind of dough


he grew the rice btw!

then small portions are pulled and seized from the big omochi cake

then add choco and strawberries

green tea kinako

raddish and soy sauce

mayo and nori

happy kids, happy mums

thats Heiwa Gakkuen!

there is a lot of history and stories around omochi tsuki, but let me close with just these impressions. It's a great get-together, make-together, eat-together event, mainly planned by the 4th graders. They feeded 200 kindergardeners and 140 elementary kids and us moms, 'cause we helped them.
oishikatta! was delicious!

take a look

2011-01-13T09:09:00.002+09:00

and here, you can take a first look into my book:

http://www.floraldesign-edition.de/ColoursofBlossoms.html

writing a book is somehow like getting a baby, you know it for a long time, but after seeing it finally completed, as a whole, it is fascinating new for yourself and in the same time releasing itself from yourself .

.........you know what I want to say??

printing

2011-01-12T20:35:00.000+09:00

it is at the printing company, finally!
My book about the colours of blossoms and how to use them is finally finally off my desk!
And I recognize only now, how much time and energy it took away for months and months.
Now I am waiting here to see how the colour on the top page really looks, is it purple, is it violet, is it pink or a mixture of all.
Lets see how it looks on blogger:

2011-01-01T11:25:00.003+09:00

HAPPY NEW YEAR 2011!

      Balance, vision, serenity and confidence

   wishes

        Gabriele and family

1.1.2011 6:30am

sunrise at Shonan Beach

up to a bright and clear year in front of us

Merry Chrismas!

2010-12-24T12:06:00.000+09:00

Do you remember?

Yes, it's the stairs up to the tree house in Sweden!

Ulrika set up a beautiful beautiful blog about their life in the Swedish forests.

It is harsh, for sure, and it is hard, for sure, but it is also full of amazing beauty.

Enjoy it ! You will find Swedish forest fairies, models on the lake and Hakan with Spagnum moss!!

Ulrika, you set me in the right spirit for Chrismas!

So, let me here wish a

MERRY CHRISMAS

to all my dear readers and friends out there!!

yes, you guess right, that is Camilla's forest house in Sweden, where we tied grass stars in summer.

Looks like a winter dream, doesn't it!

Advent

2010-12-19T21:29:00.009+09:00

Now Advent really came!

Elfriede, my German friend living in our neighbourhood, arrived Saturday at our place, like an Chrismas angel, she brought dough and walnuts and spices and laughter, and in the afternoon our house looked like this:

Spitzbuben, Ausstecherle, Lebkuchen and Schwarz-Weiss-Gebaeck, we did 4 kinds of Chrismas cookies and the most wonderful smell waved through our house. Divine!

Thanks, Elfriede!

The next day, we took some of the cookies to a small hike in the mountains around Jinmuji in Kanagawa. Our yearly end-of-the-year-gathering of German ladies living here in Japan took place out there in the fresh air and we enjoyed cookies, chokkies, chats and hot tea.
Thanks everyone, for a cold but beautiful day in the woods.
So refreshing!

14.12.

2010-12-14T23:43:00.000+09:00

OMG , what a number to write.....14.12......its actually the number I am writing on the end of my doc-Dokuments when sending them to my German publisher. Today, the last German textes got out, this night have to get the English content check ready. I am over-energized, but also under huge pressure, and my body feels wrenched. Our Advent candle shows the 14th, too, and that means, 14 minus 2, 12 days of no posting here. Time is running too quick these days.
Tomorrow, 15th, is the "Chrismas Reihai" day at our school, the 3rd graders are playing the nativity scene.

the kings, love their faces

the angels

and that is my little angel, 1 year ago

at the 3rd grade, they are still so pure......ok, tomorrow I will be more friendly and not that cranky mum with too much pressure on her workside in the moment, tomorrow is "Chrismas Reihai".

December 2nd

2010-12-02T10:32:00.001+09:00

so that's the start. 2nd of December, our Advent candle got lit.

How do you like the candle in a checkerberry plant arrangement?

First Advent Week

2010-12-01T23:40:00.001+09:00

this year, Advent caught us unprepared. No Advent Calendar yet in our house, no Advent wreath, what a shame for a flower designer! I could pick up one from our shop, but I do not feel like, guess, it is the warm weather and the overall busy time. And, you know, its actually not ok, our private Advent wreath was never something from my shop. Its about the attitude. If I do create something for my customers, it is meant for my customers. From all my heart. That is why.
My book project is chasing me, dead line coming closer and closer, lessons and demonstrations to be prepared, school events and somehow everybody seems to gather suddenly. Not at all what Advent should be! Maybe this year it is meant to reduce a little bit the high expectations which mainly me is setting for me.
So, what we will do from tomorrow morning, starting off the Advent time on the 2nd of December, better late than never!, is this:

a long thin bee's wax candle with numbers from 1 to 24 on it!
First time for us to use these type of "count down", until now we had arrangements with 24 candles in a circle, 24 packages on a twig and gorgeous things like that, so this time it will be a very shortened version. But quite visual, isnt it! Will light the candle every morning and let it burn down to the actual date.

The numbers are on a sheet and can be rubbed off the sheet onto the candles like a tattoo, new item for me, put it in my etsy shop. Too late I know but oh my, thats life.

Decorated the grass stars into a little bit more Chrismas mood

Moege die Strasse uns zusammenfuehren

2010-11-22T23:54:00.002+09:00

This is a posting about my top favourite Christmas Stars of this year:

handmade grass stars from Sweden.
My dear friend Camilla's mother taught them to us in summer and I tried since some variations. Its all about interweaving. The stars are touchingly simple and I have some around in our home:

This posting does include thoughts of my friends far away from me, Jan in Hawaii, can you see the ceramic right side of the star? Its the one we found together up in North Japan, when our boys did ceramic art class together! Fond memories! Miss ya!

and this grass stars floats upon "Moege die Strasse uns zusammenfuehren", a most beautiful song composed by Markus Pytlik. A song, the 4th graders are singing in the Waldorf School in Germany, and which always makes me cry as it is so beautiful. Dear Angelika, you hummed that song while we filled bretzels with butter in the school kitchen and I would love to just beam myself over the oceans right now.

"Moege die Strasse uns zusammenfuehren" means "May the street lead us towards each other" and I dont know if there is an English version. Does anybody of my dear readers know about?

One grass star sits at my daughter's school desk and I hope it will help her with learning

Let me join in something which does not concern grass stars, but the picture leads me to Angelika's daughter Hannah, who is such a nice friend to Katarina. Hannah, that is how it looks around Katarina and that is where she sleeps:

Can you see it? Beside the lamp?

That's the guardian angel you gave to Katarina the very first year we met at school! It watches over her each night.

Pre-Christmas is the season to reach out to friends, thinking of each of you makes me mellow and happy tonight!

Hope, you friends out there are reading this blog, write me a comment!

season mix

2010-11-20T01:18:00.003+09:00

We experience such a lot of mix recently!
Chrismas season since September in our lesson rooms with still close to 30 degrees outside, which collided with Halloween in October, Katarina in a black cat costume on a coldish Halloween Sunday, then off the next day to surfboard on a bright day with 20 degrees, morning glories still blooming outside my window while putting red candles on Chrismas wreathes in November, a stray kitten arriving on our back door and getting her way into our life, sweet potatoes fresh from the fields in our kitchen, while my husband teaching Japanese New Year style arrangements today, me proofreading the same time the text for an tulip arrangement done last springtime......
I dont know if that is normal and what it causes to me and my kids, but have to stay positive and try to see it as an experience going forward and backward not only between two countries but also between the seasons, strange life of mine. Or at least it seems strange to me these days. Although it is not different to other years, but this year I seem to wonder. Do you experience similar strange experiences?