An Hour of Silence
There will be two texts.
In the first one Mo describes how he experienced this hour and in the second one I write how it was experienced by me.
1. text
Written by Mo Riddiford
An hour’s meditation at the Berlin Holocaust MemorialYesterday Katrin Seewaldt and I meditated for one hour at the Berlin Holocaust Memorial.
In our invitation to others to join us we used the word “meditation” but also (zum Gebet) because we want to open this opportunity to as many people from all religious backgrounds, or no religious background at all.
It was early morning which meant that only security people were there. As always the traffic continued on. We faced into the centre of the massive stone blocks, either sitting on the ground cross-legged or on one of the very low blocks on the perimeter of the memorial.
The hour flew by as I let my thoughts just be thoughts, my feelings just be feelings, while I sat as still as I could, attentive as possible, and within the biggest context I could imagine. The sense of big mysterious appropriateness was palpable.
After our meditation I even said to Katrin that, just maybe (and only from a certain point of view!), “Diese Stelle ist der wohlste Ort in ganz Berlin”.
For me the hour we spent there is just one further expression of a deep inner impulse that started nine months ago when we both visited Auschwitz for a day. This powerful (but seemingly impersonal) impulse keeps encouraging me to reconnect to a history that apparently still lives within those of us who choose to live in Germany. I wish I could say why I want to do this but I haven’t yet found an easy explanation. For that I need your help!
We don’t know what the next step might be but do please let us know if you have some ideas.
Love
Mo*******
2. text
Written by Katrin Seewaldt
Monday Morning. This should be a good time. Almost no one would be there.
It seemed to be a good time to start the experiment without, however, being able to really name it. Mo and me sitting there still for one hour, meditating, on the perimeters of the Berlin Holocaust Memorial. It just seemed to be the right thing to do. Without wanting to effectuate anything; simply sitting there, still, leaving ourselves out as much as possible.
That was the plan, so we started the little journey, Monday morning at something past six.
It was kind of a calm power I felt myself being guided by. A quite unusual feeling for me, as someone rather compelled by a burning passion to the things I follow.
We were looking for an appropriate place, at the side of the memorial, in the shadow of a little tree, on this day that promised to be hot, and sat down quietly.
Normally, when I am meditating, time and again, there are phases, where I get lost in the streams of my thoughts; and many times, when I recognize that, a kind of ambition emerges, which, sometimes slightly, sometimes stronger, produces an irritation about the fact, that it occurred one more time; then there will be a recognition of that irritation, a recognition of that game as such and a coming back to the tranquillity from before being lost, ditaching from the identification and so on.
This time it was completely different from the very first moment.
In an instant I could experience a vast ease within me. It wasn´t about me at all, though. There wasn´t even the attempt of my mind to play the usual game.
I felt as free as only very rare times before.
What I experienced was a profound pure feeling of joy which was completely impersonal. I just felt the urge to be simply available, for that which wanted to flow through me. This joy I experienced as a joy of consciousness itself, a joy particularly because of that, all this with a clarity and purity I had not experienced myself so far.
It seems extraordinarily delicate to put all this in words, and I want to be as discreet as I possibly can. I only can and want to express what I felt and feel at and about this place. What I can say without any doubt, that it feels completely wholesome.
Thanks very much to everyone who could not be there and was there with us anyway, in their thoughts.
Maybe we will repeat this another time to share it with eachother and with others.
In deep love and respect,
Katrin

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