After the death of Raven I spent every year’s winter in South Spain. In the spring I migrated with the birds to the North wandering the summer season in Northern Europe. The wind, the weather and the people I met on my way, gave direction to the temporary shelter in the northern cities.
[1]
Regularly I visited Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Stockholm and Oslo. The volatile friends from the past were swept away from everyday life by the mysterious disease that had the name AIDS. Several old friends started another life without place for a wandering Bhikṣu. Usually I lived by the street with magic, storytelling and I had started singing.
My performance of Jacques Brel’s “Ne me quitte pas” [2], moved the audience. Parts of the text about shadows – during the night shadows of murdered villagers and in daytime shadows of lost beloved ones – was applicable on my life.
Let me be
Shadow of your shadow
Shadow of your hand
Shadow of your own. [3]
[4]
After 18 years wintering in the South and in summertime wandering in the north, I was an adult in my third incarnation; each moment, hour, day, year was different and the same. Although I carried always the shadows from my previous life with me, this simple life rhythm gave some inner peace.
In the autumn I sang lines from “Ne me quitte pas” for an audience on the Leidseplein in Amsterdam:
I, I will give you
Pearls of rain
from lands
Where it never rains.[5]
After singing the words “from lands where it never rains” I knew that my mother had died. Her commandment to move to Amsterdam and its realisation had ended. I bowed to the audience and in honour of her memory I immediately set off “εἰς τὴν Πόλιν” – to the city – to Istanbul [6]. From Istanbul I wished to move to Konia the following spring. It was time to swirl in the footsteps of Rumi [7].
Come, Come, whoever you are,
Wanderer, idolatrous narrator and worshipper of the golden glow,
Come even though you have broken your vows a thousand times,
Come, and come yet again.
Ours is not a caravan of despair. [8]
[9]
On the road to Istanbul I was accompanied by my mother, like Rumi wrote in a poem:
“My thoughts are in the heart of my mother,
the heart of her will be sick
without the thoughts of me”. [10]
The fourth incarnation in my life had begun. I deviated from my usual autumn migration to South Spain. That year, the winter started early in Middle Europe. Mid November there was already snow. On the way to Istanbul I became adrift by the cold. Early December it froze solid. I had nothing to eat. The next clear night at new moon my breath watched over me. The ghosts and shadows from my life temporary found peace. The frost took me in; earth and firmament were one.
Stone and stilled
Inside and outside
One in the cosmos
[11]
[1] Source image: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vogelzug
[2] To be listened via: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=za_6A0XnMyw
[3] Source: Own translation of the last lines from Jacques Brel’s “Ne me quitte pas”.
[4] Source image: http://bat-smg.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abruozdielis:Southwark_Park_Evening_Shadows.JPG
[5] Source: translation of the first lines from the second verse of “Ne me quitte pas” by Jacques Brel.
[6] See also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Istanbul
[7] Jalāl ad-Dīn – in the West known as Rumi – was born near Balkh in Afghanistan in the 13th century CE. His parents fled for the Huns. Jalāl ad-Dīn received the name Rumi in the Arab world because he lived in Konia South of Ankara in the current Turkey while writing his great works. This part of the Arabic world was identified with Rome from the Roman Empire. Hence Jalāl ad-Dīn is named after the name of his main domicile in the Arab/Persian world. Source: Lewis, Franklin D., Rumi, Past and Present, East and West. Oxford: Oneworld, 2003 p. 9
[8] Free rendering of verses by Rumi. Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rumi en Rumi and His Sufi Path of Love (2007) by M Fatih Citlak and Huseyin Bingul, p. 81
[9] Source image: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dervish
[10] Free rendering of a poem by Rumi. Source: Nicholson, Reynold A., The Mathnawi of Jalálu’ddin Rúmí, Book II. Cambridge: Biddles Ltd, 2001 p. 281
[11] Source image: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Starry_Night
Man Leben, Narrator and Carla Drift are the three main characters in this part of the Odyssey “Who are you – A survey into our existence”.
Who are you 
