The Little Garden

Posted on August 26, 2013 by Stefan Hammel

Mr. Wright lives in Hopville at the river Gies. This is situated near Evenbrook at the Reed, close to the village of Lowfield. Every day, Mr. Wright works in his little garden. He hoes the ground and weeds out the dandelions. He plucks the dry leaves off the sunflowers and waters all the plants in his garden. Two neighbours pass by. They whisper: “Oh, look at him! Does this man have nothing better to do than to water his flowers all day?” The hobby gardener hears their words and says to himself: “I don’t deserve to be considered lazy. I have plenty of work!” The next morning, Mr. Wright gets up quite early. He throws himself into his work and puts in some overtime. He is very industrious. His boss is proud of him. The beautiful plants in his garden dry up however, and after a few weeks, his garden is full of weeds. One evening, he hears his neighbours passing by: “Oh, look at him! How this man lets his garden go to waste! It is an embarrassment for the whole village!”

The next morning Mr. Wright gets up even earlier than before. He takes his job very seriously, working hard without a break, all day. Coming home from work late at night he works in his little garden. While doing so, he hears his neighbours say as they pass by: “Oh, look at him! Hasn’t this man got four children? He spends no time with them nor does he support his poor wife in her daily work. He should be ashamed of himself.”

From then on Mr. Wright gets up even earlier. The break of dawn sees him working in his little garden, just before he goes to his company, where he works like a madman. In the afternoon, he helps his wife, and then he supports his children in any way he can think of. Dead tired he falls into bed. This continues for a while until one morning he does not get up any more. The doctor fills in the death certificate. “Myocardial infarction” he notes. Two days later the funeral takes place. His faithful neighbours also accompany him on his last journey. “Oh, look at him! He could have taken it a bit more easy and lived a calm and pleasant life. Why did he work so hard?”

Picking Blackberries

Posted on August 18, 2013 by Stefan Hammel

As a child I often helped my parents in the garden. I remember how my father instructed me to harvest blackberries. “Take a blackberry in your hand and pull at it a little. Not tightly, only quite lightly. If it is ripe, it will fall easily into your hand by itself. If it doesn’t come off by itself, leave it. That one still tastes sour.”

The Ginnel

Posted on August 12, 2013 by Stefan Hammel

I knew a man who told me this story. Someone came to him when he, like you, no longer knew what to do. “There’s nothing more I can do”, he said. “I’m stuck in a dead end”. Then something occurred to him – he who told me this – and he explained:

“This reminds me of the small passages from one street to the next, called ‘ginnels’. You can only get through them on foot. They are not much wider than a man. In the area I live, I know a dead end like you describe. When you go in, it goes no further, as is the case with dead ends. But with this dead end it is different, and I believe there are more like it: When you go right to the end, you find the ginnel somewhere on the side, quite inconspicuous between the houses.”

The Sea Dog and the Land Dog

Posted on August 5, 2013 by Stefan Hammel

One day the old sea dog received a visit from the land dog. They both had known each other since puppy school. Then the sea dog had left and travelled the world far and wide, and had survived many adventures and finally returned home, rich in treasures and experiences. The land dog had remained in his native cave. He had found a land dog wife, and had land dog children. In the meantime, he had grandpuppies and great grandpuppies, and they had all become genuine good land dogs.

“Sometimes I wish I could live all over again”, said the land dog to the sea dog. “I feel exactly the same way”, the other answered. “I would do a lot of things differently”, said the land dog. “Yes, me too”, answered the sea dog. “I would go to sea”, dreamed the land dog. “I would get married”, sighed the sea dog. “I would have adventures”, explained the land dog. “I would have some pups”, stated the sea dog. “I would be a rich dog. I would experience terrible and wonderful things I could tell stories about”, enthused the land dog. “I would have grand-puppies and great grand-puppies who would love and take care of me when I became old and sick”, declared the sea dog. “And I would now sit with you in this sea dog lair”, continued the land dog, “… and I with you …”, it occurred to the sea dog. The land dog nodded: “And then you would say to me now: ‘Sometimes I wish I could live all over again”, and I would answer: “Yes, I feel exactly the same way.”

Imaginative Remedies

Posted on July 22, 2013 by Stefan Hammel

He was an experienced physician. “At times it happens”, he reported, “that I cannot give a medication to a patient because it is too expensive or too hard to obtain. How, may I ask, can I provide a remedy made out of lion’s milk? In some of these cases I tell the patients to write the name of the remedy on a sheet of paper, and to have a close look at it. The startling thing is: for those who follow this advice, the effect of the paper is about the same as the effect of the remedy, had it been taken.” A woman who heard this story laughed about it. She had been working for years as a nurse in the intensive care ward of a hospital, and had helped to save more than one patient’s life by giving himthem the right medication at the right time. What would have happened if she had handed himthem a sheet of paper instead, showing the name of histheir medication? Some days after this conversation, she woke up with a severe headache. She knew it was nothing serious, only this well-known pain, which a doctor had once described as being there simply for the sake of being. She knew that she did not have any pills at home. She imagined putting a glass of water next to her bed. She envisioned how she would throw a pill in the water, and how it would dissolve. She pictured herself drinking the water in little sips how the water would be absorbed by her body, and how the medication would become effective.

She fell asleep for a few minutes then woke up again and went to work. Everything was as usual. When she looked back on her day late at night, she noticed that her headache had vanished in the minutes after she had taken the imagined remedy, and that she had completely forgotten about it for the rest of the day.

The Landfill Harmonic Orchestra

Posted on July 21, 2013 by Stefan Hammel

Sometimes clients who come to therapy describe themselves or each other as broken, as rubbish, as worthless… and sometimes they may not use such words but treat themselves and others like rubbish. Some injure themselves, some try to suicide. And possibly all of this is happening because they didn’t learn to discover that they are valuable themselves. I believe that everything in life can become valuable and can be seen as a value. Anything, even the most unuseful things in life can be utilized for making life precious. I don’t mean that this were an easy task. The contrary is true: “To turn shit into roses” (Virginia Satir) is what the Germans call “Lebenskunst”, meaning, the high art of living a fulfilled life.
This short documentary is telling a story on this art, a story on how to turn rubbish into music and rubbish lives intoproud, happy beautiful lives!
Have a wonderful day, all of you!

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The Eye of the Lion

Posted on July 15, 2013 by Stefan Hammel

“When you meet a lion”, so Mr. Mniyka from Kenya told me, “you must look him unwaveringly in the eyes. A single short glance to the side, a mere tenth of a second, and the lion attacks. He leaps faster than you can move or speak or even think. That is why, when you come across a lion, look him fixedly in the eyes. Look at him, simply look at him, unwaveringly – so long….until he goes.

Compulsion

Posted on July 14, 2013 by Stefan Hammel

The pictures followed him. It was like a bad film, which he had not consciously chosen, but stumbled into by mistake. Whenever he passed a stroller, he saw himself dragging the child out of it and trampling it on the ground. When he saw a beautiful woman go past, he saw himself tearing her clothes off her body and raping her. Were he with his family, he feared he could suddenly take a knife and stab one of them. Were he alone at home, he saw himself setting the curtains on fire. Were he on holiday, he feared hearing the voice of God telling him: “Set off today, go away from here without any belongings, and rely solely upon me from now on.”

It was torture. The more he tried to suppress these gruesome pictures and thoughts, the more they plagued him. Finally he said to himself in anger: “You idiot, you deserve it.” And he began to imagine everything in the smallest possible detail. How he trampled a child. How he raped a woman. How he stabbed his family. How he set his parents’ house on fire. How he went on a far journey without possessions. That day, the pictures lost their power. They became paler and paler.

Where are the Stars by Day?

Posted on July 7, 2013 by Stefan Hammel

She is two years old and full of questions. “Where are the stars by day?” she asks her father. “In the sky, like at night.” “Are they turned off? They don’t shine at all!” “But of course they continue to shine. It’s just that the light of the sun is so bright that you can no longer see their little light. It is the same when you can no longer hear soft music when someone turns on a loud machine next to it. The music is still there, but you don’t hear it any more. The music is drowned out by the noise, and so is the starlight by the light of the sun.” She ponders for a moment and then she says: “Now I know where my dreams are in the daytime when I’m awake.”

The Storyteller

Posted on July 1, 2013 by Stefan Hammel

Many years ago, there lived an old man in our country who knew how to tell so many tales that the people said about him: This man is an inexhaustible source. Yet more notably he had the gift of telling each tale in such a way that it became the story of the listener. Often the storyteller had many listeners, and sometimes, after one of his tales, he could hear them having a dispute, for each person felt deeply that the words had been chosen exclusively for him, while someone else claimed the same for himself.

People came to the storyteller with multifarious concerns. There was a mother who accused her son of being dull and inactive. And her son replied that, since she was always wandering restlessly about, he could not work. There was a woman who complained that she constantly had to admonish her husband not to drink so much. And her husband said, only when he was drinking could he bear her habit of complaining. There were children who ate too much or too little, there were the sick who wished to recover, and those who were suffering and hoped to be freed from pain. There were couples, who wanted to come together, and others who wished to separate, and many other people who addressed him with their needs. He was able to help all of them in one way or another.

One day a young man stepped up towards him saying: “I want to learn this art of yours.” The old man looked in his eyes. Those eyes told him about the desire of this young man, to be able to tell stories to free people from their sufferings. They also spoke of the young man’s fear that his wish could be denied, and that he would never have the opportunity to learn this art from its master. The old man nodded. “You can live with me as long as you are learning, and you can pay later if you are content with what you have learned. The young man was happy to hear this reply, and thus began his apprenticeship.

“First you need to learn to pay reverence to the stories”, the old man said to him. “Only he who can tremble from the power of a story can receive it with its full effect. You need to find within yourself the yearning for the word of release, for the word that frees, for the word which opens the doors and sends your listeners on a voyage. And you need to learn to be silent. The moment when your tale has its greatest force is the moment when it moves your listener and yourself with the greatest speed. This is when it must end, so you gain momentum and are flung on the path that it shows. – This is not true of all the stories”, he added wisely after a pause.

“You need to learn to feel the power of the words” he stated on another occasion. “One sentence does not have the same power as another. For mostly it is like this: Any word that is too much is taking away some of the story’s power. The contrary may be true for people who talk a lot without saying much: Their speech robs their listeners’ strength.”

“There are different powers within words” he once said. “Threatening and strengthening powers, and power that guides you on your search. All three are good. But you must know, which of the powers is contained in the story that you are telling.” All this the young man heard with curiosity and wonder. Yet he felt grieved to find that the old man did not tell him any stories. It even seemed as if his master hid his tales from him, and only told them when he was absent. At first he did not dare ask the old man about this. But with every day that passed by, his disappointment grew, and finally he decided to address this question. He had not yet opened his mouth when his master began to speak:

HYPS

Blog by Stefan Hammel