🌅🌈 Into Wonderland!

✨️ Say yes to vibrance! ✨️

⏰️🥰🌦 You see a double rainbow at 5:55 a.m. shortly after sunrise.

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🐯🔥 By day 10, it was obvious that I'd been on the move the whole time. The sun, the salty wind, and the exertion of hiking a total of 200 kilometers were clearly visible on my face. Tanned leather, but that sparkle in my eyes – a wild man!

🌳🌿 I immersed myself deeply in the nature of this island world, regardless of whether it rained or the night blinded me. I persevered exactly as long as necessary. After returning home, I hobbled for six weeks because of a stress fracture. But it was worth it!

❤️‍🩹🪺 But why did I actually return to this place, even though I was always here with my family, who had caused me so much pain in my life?

🧠🫧 One of the hardest challenges after psychological or emotional abuse is learning how to live with the memories I shared – especially the beautiful, powerful moments that once felt so meaningful. These memories are often tied to a relationship that now casts a shadow over them. What once felt precious can now seem strange, heavy, or distant – as if it no longer truly belongs to me.

🤲✨️ A key step in healing is to look at these memories in a new light – not by hiding them away, but by taking them back. When I put my own presence at the center, I free the experience from the old bond. I take it back into myself – as part of my wholeness.

🎒🥾🗺 Sometimes it helps to return to familiar places. This time not in the company of the past, but alone, and on purpose – for me. To feel again, to see again – and to meet myself again. Because the connection that matters most now is the one I have with me.

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🌊🌾 The sea gives. The sea takes. It's in its nature. Wave by wave, it carries away what once was, and brings something new to shore elsewhere.

❤️‍🔥🧠 Memories settle within me too – not always willingly, not always welcome. Beautiful things buried beneath pain. Pain laced with beauty. What belongs to me mixes with what I had to let go of.

🪾🌱 I can't hold on to what is in motion. But I can acknowledge that loss also shapes. That what was taken from me creates space for something else. And that some things I thought were broken are part of something greater.

⏳️🌓 The hourglass of the tides doesn’t stand still. And while the sand trickles down, something grows beneath the surface: not the old, not the same, but something of its own.

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🌊🌾 A mere heap of sand is nothing enduring. No memory – only wind, rain, and tides carry it onward. For something to remain, it needs life that grasps it, holds it, gathers it – like the marram grass that forms the first embryonic dunes. The birth of new life, when the horizon rises and is eventually crowned with white dunes. From up there, one can see far and wide how life and death make fertile land thrive. The dunes turn grey, then brown, and the diversity of life marks each of these hills that, without an initial impulse, would never have been more than a fleeting mineral in the wind.

🌲🌳 Amid shrubs, pines, and bog birch forests, one quickly forgets that all this soil was washed ashore by the sea and carried to this place by the wind. One looks out over endless salt marshes, over reeds and the Wadden Sea, whose tidal creeks meander deep into the newly formed land. And far on the horizon, on the other side beyond the dunes, one sees a solitary hill – a warft – where humans made this world their own, found refuge, and fed their livestock on the salty meadows.

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A pleasant variation! 😊🌾🌼

🌳🌾🍎🏡 Right in the heart of Germany lies a hidden dune landscape. It’s a striking and unexpected contrast to the typical surroundings of meadows, forests, fields, and traditional orchard grasslands.

🧭🦬🌬 The Schwanheim Dune is a remarkable natural monument in the western part of Frankfurt am Main. It was formed around 10,000 years ago at the end of the last Ice Age, when strong winds blew sand from the dried-out bed of the River Main and piled it into dunes. Such inland dunes, located far from any coastline, are rare – unlike the more common coastal dunes found in northern Germany.

🌲🪵🏰 Originally, the dune was covered by forest, but in the Middle Ages, large areas were cleared for farming and intensively logged for timber. As a result, the sandy soil was exposed to wind and erosion. Without protective vegetation, the sand began to drift and posed a threat to nearby settlements and farmland. To stabilize the area, pine trees were planted – many of which still shape parts of the landscape today.

🌾🦟🌿 Despite these changes, a portion of the open sandy terrain remained – providing habitat for rare, specialized plants and animals adapted to dry, nutrient-poor conditions. Today, the Schwanheim Dune is a protected natural area and a valuable ecological refuge.

🌼🌸🏵 Walking along the boardwalk, I came across beautiful wildflowers such as St. John’s wort (Hypericum perforatum), viper’s bugloss (Echium vulgare), and the evening-primrose (Oenothera biennis). Grey hair-grass (Corynephorus canescens) is also typical of this dry dune environment. While it is widespread in the many dune landscapes of northern Germany, the species is considered endangered in the state of Hesse.

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🥰 Enjoyed until the last ray of sunshine! ✨️

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🏕🌛 I spent my vacation on Baltrum at the campsite. That way, I felt especially close to the completely car-free island. The campsite is located right in the nature reserve of the Lower Saxony Wadden Sea National Park, surrounded by dunes and directly adjacent to the salt marshes.

⛱️ Since school holidays hadn’t started yet and I was the first camper of the year, I had the place mostly to myself. Only over the long weekend starting with Ascension Day were there a few other campers. The site belongs to the youth education center of the Lower Saxony Gymnastics Association and is managed and maintained voluntarily by its members. Many things on the site were built by the young people themselves, such as a shelter and seating areas.

🎵🐦🌳🪺🌾 During the day, you occasionally hear children playing, but at dusk and during the night, there’s no sign of people. You hear the trees rustling in the wind, the flapping of the tent canvas, and a choir of countless birds. In the morning, a pheasant crows to wake you. It's currently breeding season—around 300 different bird species are counted in the East Frisian Islands region in May. The campsite is located right between the two most important habitats: dune landscapes and salt marshes. There’s also a small stand of trees on the site, and nearby you’ll find wet meadows and moorlands. When you open your tent in the morning, the first thing you see is numerous rabbits scattering in all directions.

🦭☠️ A mysterious discovery: after the other campers had left, they left behind a skull. After a bit of research, it turned out to be a seal skull, which they most likely found on the eastern end of the island. That’s where seals spend their youth from autumn to spring.

😊 Altogether, I spent 10 nights in the tent, and the weather was mostly good. It was an extraordinary experience—definitely worth repeating!

✨ After my return home, I noticed that my senses were heightened. I perceived smells, tastes, and sounds with particular intensity.

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🦕☘️ The ginkgo, like the magnolia, is a living fossil.

The perspective from below upwards is not accidental. It always has something to do with wonder. With searching. With longing. Perhaps even with submission.

It is the gaze of the child, the believer, the questioner. It doesn't ask for control. It asks for meaning.

And when this person pauses, they themselves become part of this old system - not as a ruler, but as a listener. Perhaps this also reflects a silent desire to feel roots again.

It could also be an image of hope.

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😊🏖🥕 My skin color is not due to the sun or artificial sunlight, but rather my daily consumption of carrots and carrot juice. These contain substances called carotenoids.

☘️🦐🦩🍅🥕 Carotenoids come in hundreds of different varieties, with a color palette ranging from yellow to the pinkish-red of flamingos to purple. They are produced exclusively by plants, as carotenoids are important for photosynthesis. The most well-known carotenoid is beta-carotene found in carrots. However, flamingos cannot make use of carrots and shine in vibrant colors because they absorb special carotenoids in highly concentrated forms, for example, from crabs, which in turn feed on algae. Algae from the genus Dunaliella are extremely rich in pigments. For flamingos, their appearance is necessary for survival: without the right feather color, they do not attract potential mates, and there is no offspring.

☺️🧡 Beta-carotene also offers health benefits for humans. It binds free oxygen radicals and neutralizes carcinogenic substances. When the skin contains a lot of beta-carotene, it is better protected against UV radiation. It does not redden as quickly. Furthermore, it acts as a provitamin, a precursor to vitamin A - not only important for vision but also for the immune system and the communication abilities of nerve cells. There is no need to fear an overdose of beta-carotene. Only as much beta-carotene is converted into vitamin A as the body needs. Anything beyond that is stored as a pigment in the skin and subcutaneous fat tissue.

🥕🧈 A common misconception is that carrots must always be consumed with fat. This is only partially true. While fat is necessary for the carotenoids to dissolve, it is sufficient to have consumed something fatty beforehand, as it will meet the carotenoids in the digestive tract (fat is digested slowly and often remains in the intestines for several hours).

🥳✨️ I enjoy both, the health benefits and the flavor!

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🌹 Black Mirror: Talisman

The word talisman was borrowed in the 17th century from the Italian “talismano”, which comes from the Arabic طلسم / ṭillasm and means “magic image”. The Arabic word in turn can be traced back to the Middle Greek “τέλεσμα (télesma)”, which means “offering, consecrated object” or in Byzantine “magic object”.

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