All is Good! It appears that I have managed to row my little coracle out of another episode of hell-symptoms and am floating along fine today––well enough to be working on a number of new poems! It’s interesting, it seems as though it takes my getting knocked-down sick to soften some part of me that I usually work very hard at keeping strong and impenetrable. I have been brought to tears many times today. It feels like a gift and a relief.

When I checked my emails from yesterday and today I was reminded of how none of us are alone as we balance our ration of suffering and fear with our wonder and celebration: the terrifying news of a friend’s beloved brother with an unexpected recurrence of cancer, the thrilling notice of a cousin expecting twins: a boy and a girl, the tale of adopting a puppy with the necessity for constant vigilance but the incredible bonding that also comes, and the reassurance from a friend of continued friendship despite my tendency toward self-absorption and sporadic communication…

And then, as if my heart wasn’t already brimming, Ellie, the woman who handed me the first end of the healing rope I am presently following just called from here in Munich! It was our first time getting to talk. She is a friend of a friend of a friend whom I’ve not yet met in person but who referred me to my acupuncturist (aka: Healing Angel) Mudita Voigt. Mudita has not only been an extraordinary healer in her own right on my behalf; but, has also untiringly searched for my cure since we met nearly two years ago. And it was this same Mudita that found out about Dr. Kübler and his revolutionary treatment and encouraged me to look into its possibilities. So, I have now spoken to Ellie, the first link…

Yesterday in the clinic I was lying next to a woman from Carmel (there have been several women from our part of California treated at this clinic, that I know about, in the past several months but she and I are the only “California girls” presently being treated) and at one point in our conversation, we got to talking about the extraordinary experience of feeling mysteriously but unmistakably “led” to each next step of our healing. She, too, had experienced a strong “knowing” that led to certain decisions even when they went against what the western doctors recommended. And like me, she feels so grateful that she was given and then followed those intuitions (aka: Grace).

Ok, I’m going to try and rein-in my philosophical and cosmic galloping today and tell you that I ventured out of Munich last Friday to visit the nearby Alps! I got the thrilling news my family will be coming at different times in October to visit and so I decided I had better do some reconnaissance beforehand so that I could show them some great sights.

I had been tracking the weather all week on the web and felt quite proud of this uncommon prudence (Ha!) on my part. It was a cloudless morning when I left Munich so I brought no rain gear, just a warm jacket, hat, scarf, camera, and the pig (of course!). I took a 90 minute train out of the city, through the rolling green pasturelands of rural Bavaria, through wooded stretches, over milky green rivers, and past little towns where there’s always at least one magnificent and pointy church steeple sticking above all the brilliantly white-painted houses with thier red roofs.

Just as the train was pulling into my destination town of Garmisch Partenkirchen (sight of the 1936 Winter Olympics) it began to sprinkle: rain! My intention had been to travel to the summit of the Zugspitze, Germany’s highest peak that, according to my Daytrips Germany guide, “offers a fantastic panoramic view extending across four nations. At one time, only mountain climbers could enjoy this spectacle, but today an ingenious network of cable cars and a rack railway make the ascent fast, easy and safe.” My trip would include “a ride on the Zugspitze Banhof, a small rack railway that would take me past Eibsee, a lovely lake near the foot of the mountain reached in about 40 minutes, and then would plunge into a long tunnel, winding its way like a corkscrew up through the middle of the Zugspitze to reach Germany’s highest skiing area at 9, 340 feet above sea level half an hour later.” Then, I would take “the Gletscherbahn glacier cable car for a quick few minute ride up to the summit, Zugspitzgipfel at almost 10, 000 feet where I could stroll out to a sunny terrace and survey the world below, have a snack, and/or cross the border to Austrian soil and have another snack…and then return back on the Eisbee cable car for the thrilling ten-minute descent directly to the Eisbee lake and then back on the rack railway again to Garmisch Partenkirchen…”

Well, when I got to the ticket booth to buy this round-trip excursion pass, I took a look at the live web-cam showing views of the top of the mountain: it looked like it was snowing on the moon! I was definitely not prepared for that kind of weather and knew I would be disappointed to have little visibility along the way and at the top.

So instead, I opted for going up a closer mountain and still got to ride the rack railway and take a gondola up to a restaurant at 6, 725 feet. I ate a traditional Bavarian lunch of goulash and spätzle (short doughy pieces eaten as noodles) on a sunny deck surrounded by the snow-laced Alps all around, complete with Bavarian music cranked over the stereo speakers. From there I caught another gondola to another lodge (these people know how to live!) and then walked for half an hour taking deep breaths of that vital air that can only be found at high altitudes, snapping tons of pictures of the surrounding peaks (und mein klein schwein–snort! snort!) and the autumnal trees with their leaves just beginning to turn yellow and persimmon-colored. There were wonderful benches placed along the ledges, every one of them occupied by other “day-trippers”. I was thrilled to see that the majority looked to be 20-40 (!) years older than I out walking the paths in their hiking boots and armed with their walking sticks. Truly inspiring! I caught my last gondola (sadly) down the mountain, took the rack railway back to town and the regular train to Munich. What a day! As you can imagine, I’m still reeling from the mountains’ eloquent grandeur.

And, I still hope to get to the top of the Zugspitze with one of the daring family groupings that are coming next month; not to mention, the 12th century abbey where the monks still brew what’s said to be the best beer in Germany! (If Germany arguably makes the best beer of any country in the world and this sanctified place makes the best beer in Germany, then wouldn’t it follow that theirs must be the best beer in the world?! I feel a bit obliged to do reconnaissance on that one, too!)

¡Basta ya! As is said, not in German but Spanish, when “enough’s enough”. I’m going to blame this long rambling on my friend Dane who wrote and encouraged me to write blog entries: “the longer and more detailed, the better, and more entertaining, and crucial to keeping all your reader’s existential separation anxiety issues abated.” I don’t know if this approximates what he had in mind when he wrote “more entertaining” and I certainly hope you’re not afflicted with too much “existential separation anxiety issues”; but rather, I hope this week’s dispatch finds you healthy, even frequently frolicksome, and able to eek out some well-deserved rest now and then!

Alles ist Gut
und
Alles Liebe,
Katalina

PS: I’ll try and get my brother to load a couple of Alps photos here. Stay tuned.

kathleen Other