The free and independent thinker

The free and independent thinker

Spinoza - an early peacemaker"Peace is not the absence of war. Peace is a virtue, a state of mind, an inclination towards goodness, trust, justice." As part of my interest in peacemaking processes and personalities, I received this email from a reader. The above quote...

Promoting peace in a different way – a look at nature

Promoting peace in a different way – a look at nature

Do we need a peace movement in these times when people are taking to the streets again?Absolutely.Do we need diplomacy and dialog between countries at war?Absolutely.Do we need efforts to engage in direct personal exchange with other countries, cultures and ethnic...

The thing about forgiveness

The thing about forgiveness

The thing about forgiveness In the New Testament, we find several passages in which Christ forgives the sins of people who come to him. One of the most impressive scenes is the one in which Mary Magdalene wets his feet with tears in the house of a Pharisee, dries them...

Traveling for a country – Romania

Traveling for a country – Romania

Impressions of a peace-promoting travel culture In the very early days of 2025, we, nine members of the Healing Research Kitchen in northern Italy, decided to set off on a 6-day trip together. This was preceded by a year of intensive collegial and friendly...

Content-related and artistic work for peace

Content-related and artistic work for peace

From 16.12.2024 to 1.1.2025, the so-called "Artists' Days" took place at the Free College of Spirituality in northern Trentino. Above the municipality of Comano Terme, in the mountains, lies the small village of Lundo and half an hour's walk up through the forest to...

Cleaners – our bringers of light?

Several people inspired me to think about cleaning - a teacher from my youth who said the following: "Correcting is the activity I like least of all. I prefer cleaning even more." Then a very interesting woman, Linda Thomas, who sees cleaning as a meaningful and...

Where your gentle wing dwells

Where your gentle wing dwells

Connection through music and poetry Friedrich Schiller wrote his "Ode to Joy" in 1785 for Christian Gottfried Körner, who later published a complete edition of Schiller's works. The "Ode to Joy" was written out of friendship, it was set to music by Beethoven in 1824...

The divine within us?

"It is what is and what is not at the same time. It is the totality of all potentiality, you could say. And that is something that is so within us, so deep within us, so deep we are sometimes not within ourselves. In other words, the divine is closer to us than we are...

Let your soul dangle

Let your soul dangle

  Does my soul want to relax? Or is that what she wants? Resilience!Just relaxing is quite normal when I've had busy, stressful times. But the exciting question is whether more relaxation comes from dangling trees or from a relaxing yet somewhat demanding...