Norway: Upward and Onward!

I’m leaving Balestrand, Norway refreshed, renewed and totally bewildered as to the next part of my Norway month. 

I thought it was oh so planned. First two weeks with Rebecca in the garden (but bailed with her consent after one week due to midges, ticks and slugs.) 

Then two days on a fjord. Which turned into four because Balestrand is so delightful. (Lesson learned – when a place says, “Stay for awhile, “ stay for awhile.) 

Then I was to end up south of Oslo at another home/farm. 

Somehow in between for some duration I was to stay somewhere with my high school friend Oystein and his wife Liv. But they have various cabins on two sides of Norway and I got totally confused. Especially when Charlotte had to cancel the second farm experience due to her bummed shoulder.

Oh well, upward and onward! But first to say good-bye to Balestrand. 

Here is a lovely bicycle ride one day. 

A church yard along the way where live flowers by each grave are actually tended!

Here are artists’ houses with dragon peaked roofs.

And the Viking Burial Tombs, with statue of King Bele donated by Kaiser Wilhelm.

Here is the Cider Hurst, ie. Cider House, that grows its own apples and serves a lovely dinner and view.

And here is St. Olaf’s Church, a 1897 rendition of the old stave churches. 

Marie, the minister who serves here two weeks each summer, relates – “It is a result of a love story between an English mountain- climber and her local hotel-owner husband. She made him promise before she died  two years after the wedding  to build an Anglican Church here, in a Lutheran country.” It is so lovely, in fact, that Marie claims Disney came here and fashioned parts of there movie “Frozen” from the church and dragon features in town! I told you Balestrand is magical! (And isn’t there an Olaf in the movie?)

And here is the evening light, which will stay with me no matter how the rest of the month progresses.

Where to Next?

First a boat ride to Flam, then the special train-ride up the mountain to Myrdal, then a regular train ride to Bergen. If you visit Norway you may sign up for the easy “Norway in a Nutshell” tour.These last two train rides are a part of the circuit. 

“Upward and onward” can certainly describe the initial steep ascent called the Flam Railway, touted as the world’s most beautiful train journey. 

Wild, magnificent, with mountains, rivers, waterfalls ,.. a marvel of Norwegian engineering etc… See the switchbacks from the train window? 20 km, height difference of 866 meters (for you engineers) with a horseshoe tunnel spiraling in and out of the mountain.  Just 17 years to construct! (See the sign for the workmen who used horses in the construction!)

As an aside, we were told over the loud-speaker of some mythological woman who tries to enchant you into the mountain. Tourist hype? Here she is…

https://youtu.be/BN5UmADdfRI

And then? Not at all sure of where this journey will lead me. But for now it’s “upward and onward” to rainy lovely Bergen… 

Stay tuned.

Norway: A Magical Lady -- Antidote to Midges

I’m in a magical place...

 ...having arrived here wet and weary up the Sognefjord in miserable weather. 

See my poor luggage on the express boat improperly protected from the rain while waiting. Why or why didn’t I bring covers for them??

And… landed in the lovely Kringswy Hotel I Balestrand.. The hostels were all full so I’m paid a hefty price but boy was it worth it! 

Look at the view from my room!

Quiet, warm, and all to myself. Soon I’ll have to share with a 6 bed mixed dorm hostel in Bergen. But for now, there was… peace. Free bountiful breakfast. And plastic covers for my luggage, compliments of the clerk who is buying his family Hotel.

What is so magical about Balestand?

Well, I picked it because the end locations on this fjord were fully booked. Yep-- I guess Norway is a prime location for vacationing Americans and English in the summer.  (The Norwegians go south to warm beaches.) For some reason this town had an opening. Yay! And the perfect place!

It has a history as a tourist town, fed vacationers only by boat, since the late 1800’s. It is on the longest and deepest fjord in Norway. I don’t really see how anyone could make a living here except by tourism. The west coast of Norway was responsible for most of the 800,000 Norwegian emigrants to the US!

Look at this little farms slanting down the mountain side. How are these hay fields mown, much less how can the cows walk on them? 

Beautiful beyond words but highly impractical for habitation.

The boat trip up the Fjaerlandsfjord from Balestand tells you why this is the perfect spot to make home for a few days. Magical! To the “book town” of Fjairland, bus to glacier museum and glacier, and boat home. Peaks and waterfalls and clouds dissolving, mist and tiny towns, improbable farms and tiny churches…. The stuff of storybooks. Probably trolls too.

I didn’t want to give any of it words as the boat glided along.. 

It was all about the form and formless and the interplay of rock, rock moving, ice, ice moving, water flowing, mist changing… All about what we think of as time embodied in landscape.

Until the words were given to me at the Pilgrim Restaurant.

I was attracted to this yellow house with a globe-top by the menu out front. Reindeer stew, troll soup and the best dessert ever! That and the attached art gallery of the married owners Bjorg and Arthur. Something special about this place! And after a week of midges, ticks and slugs I was ready to be treated!

Troll soup? Everyone I texted a picture to asked for the recipe. 

My best guess was mushrooms, onions, carrots and lots of butter. Bjorg said the recipe is secret but it definitely contains two trolls!  The reindeer stew was accompanied by lingon berry sauce.

But the very best was the "best dessert ever!" 

I was stuffed but how to could one pass up a description like that? I nabbed her as she wandered by the table. looking as colorful and as on the move as a gypsy. “And what makes it the best?” I asked before ordering the unnecessary calories? "Well, it was judged the best in the 1970’s by a TV station." Really? "First you make a yellow cake which is very rich with egg yolks. Then on top you make a meringue with the egg whites and sugar. Then you bake it – but it takes just the right level in the oven so that they each cook correctly. (Sounds like a lot of trouble to me!) Then, when it is cooled, you cut it in half and  put one half upside down on the other."

 Voila! And boy was it good enough to win that prize in the 1970s!

But the best part was the Bjorg, the magical lady. 

I kept asking her questions as she drifted by. "What is the Pilgrims Trail that you are building? What is a troll? What do you love about this place?"

The last answer first—the light here is special. The fjord takes a bend here, making a wider area, the mountains further apart, and more light can enter. And the artists did flock here to paint.

The Pilgrims Trail is not yet complete, having to conform to the EU’s standards, even though Norway is not in the EU. 

And a troll is a stone if the light hits it. Kind of a back-wards answer.

And then she took center-stage, telling us how Norwegeians get through the long winter, grey and cold, by thinking of the spring. That is when she paints, when the Restaurant is slow, and she needs to remember the fragrance of summers. And here she is!

https://youtu.be/wUbuS6lU30c

After passing out free birthday calendars containing her lovely watercolors, she invited several tables to her secret room. We obediently followed. One key hidden in an old telephone box opened one door. The inside was dark, but voila! Christmas lights appeared and holiday decorations! I felt like her grandchild! But how to get out? 

A second key did not work for a second hidden door. So she passed out water-colored renditions of a Norwegian Christmas song, in Norweigian, and the other American couples and I did our best. Voila! The door opened and we climbed into a crystal dome overlooking the magical lights of Balestrand’s sunset. (How do I end up in these places?)

On the way out I questioned her chef husband Arthur, an equally talented artist, whose specialty is naked women in water, in trees, in light…. In his write-up he acknowledges that people mistake his art about just being about naked women. "It isn’t sexual," he insisted!! "Women understand water more than men do! Water is spiritual. Women are spiritual, the earth mother, creativity, movement!" (My favorite art piece stated that "Holding onto love is trying to hold onto water.")

So, are there really words for the magic in this place? Maybe only art and song, lights and secret keys. 

Midges have been forgotten. And if the weather and biting insects ever get me down again, just like Bjorg in the winter thinking of spring, I will think of Balestrand, Norway.

Norway: Where is home? Or rather what is home?

Where is home? Or rather what is home?

I’ve been wandering Europe for months now and my feet, butt and head are asking those questions.

Feet—"OK, Kathy, where do you wipe me? Where shall I return to after a day of sightseeing, getting lost, finding food…?”

Butt—"Where in the heck can I find a chair on which to park, much less to get on wi-fi and type on the ipad?”

Head – “And where is the pillow on which to lay and rest, perchance to dream? Quiet would be nice too.”

At my farewell “launch party” in Florida my friend Judy gave me this experienced advice. After all she too had traveled for a year, painting as she went. “Kathy – home is where your stuff is.”

OK, suitcases, emergency food, bottle of water. This is home?

After sleeping in a 4 person hostel room right next to the noisy kitchen/dining room/living room in Bergen and traveling in the rain by taxi then boat to the island of Mjoima, I needed home! And there it was in the person(s) of Rebecca Smith and 16 month old Linden. They were waiting for me at the boat stop so we could board the bus together to her island of Byrknesoy… Ah… welcome for the weary traveler…

The week I spent with them and  became more and more "home."

I had my own room – quiet except when Linden woke at night. I could prop my butt against the pillows and type. And there was a much used mat on which I could wipe my feet (gum boots.)

Home became where I could play with the children. Take Mirren to the beach, admire her seaweed mermaid and playground accomplishments. Walk Linden to kindergarten in his pram and watch him point out lorries, sheep, seagulls and flowers. (Children with British accents sound so smart, don’t they?) 

Give them gifts of  stuffed-animal dragons after telling Mirren the legend of Perseus, the Argonauts and his killing of the Ljubljana dragon in the marshes, before reconstructing his boat and returning home with the Golden Fleece. Watch a puppet show. 

Celebrate the construction of a duck house. 

Eat new potatoes unearthed by my over-eager weeding.

Home is where I gave the Istanbul airport gift of Turkish delights, which Mirrin apologized for not liking. Tasted new Norwegian delights of open-faced sandwiches of cheese and Marmalite (British), garnished with cucumbers and red peppers. Codfish casserole, which she loved!

And watched  Mirren and her father Ryan compete over their shared cravings for tinned mackerel in tomato sauce. (Really?) “It tastes lovely,” claimed Mirren.

Home is where we can complain about the weather, rejoice in a bit of sunshine and dry our laundry in the living room. Where I am asked for stories of Florida and about hurricanes, alligators and crocodiles. And am told of Mirren’s nightmare that America started a war. (Where does this come from?)

And home is where I am told I will be missed before I board the bus to take me to the boat to the hotel in Balestrand. 

For a short week the village of Byrknes was home.

And proof of that is Ryan’s special dessert to celebrate our shared time – fresh strawberries, cream and Cocoa Puffs.

Home, I’ve learned, is where the heart is. Even if for a week.

Thank you!!

Norway: Midges, ticks and slugs .. oh my!

 It was my choice, I confess. I picked the west coast of Norway to start my August sojourn.

Why, you might wonder? Well, because the rest of Europe is hotter than blazes in August. So… I assumed that Norway would be comfortably cool. And that the west coast was as good as anywhere to start, considering I knew nothing about Norway. No travel guide, no research, flying by the seat of my pants. (Actually folks, before you judge my non-planning strategy – when you're having a great time in Slovenia it’s really hard to think about the next destination!) Well, in retrospect it might have been a good idea …

To my planning credit, I did get on the Permaculture Europe and Permaculture Norway Face-book. That is a big step for a woman who has never done Face-book! And I came up with a lovely site for a volunteer permaculture position on a very small island on the west coast. Living with a family, working on the land, eating tons of vegetables and shaking the city vibe out of my system.

Sounded perfect. Right?

Well, the boat ride was gorgeous as you can see here. Islands, nestled houses and boats, occasional bridges, rocks and crashing waves… the stuff of travel brochures. Then when I disembarked Rebecca and 16 month old Linden were there to greet me and help me board a bus, over a one-lane bridge, and to get off at their driveway. A perfect welcome for a weary traveler. 

With Linden helping to haul my luggage up the drive-way.

It has been a good week. I feel a part of the family. 

I help walk  Linden in the pram to kindergarten. 

I take the 6 year old Mirrin to play at the beach and admire her mermaid made of seaweed and sand. We pick bilberries together. 

And the generous family introduces me to Norwegian cuisine of pickled herring, codfish casserole, crispbread, rice pudding (a staple Saturday lunch) and open-faced sandwiches of cheese topped with cucumber slices or pepper. Mirin’s favorite is tinned mackerel in tomato sauce!

                                                                A truly cultural experience. And the permaculture? 

Rebecca is extremely well-educated, both initially as an ecologist and then in permaculture design. She has thought out well the set up of the gardens, called Seversgarten on the island of Byrknesoy. See her initial plan. 

It was and will continue to be a challenge! I certainly don’t share these particular planting parameters. Wind from the south, impenetrable granite creating poor drainage, rich boggy soil  that discourages earthworms, a short growing season and pests. Her accomplishments include composting from the toilet, a budding forest garden on the rocky ledge behind the house, wind-breaks and fruit trees in the front, vegetables which struggle in the wet and flourishing plantings of potatoes. Ryan, her husband, is a super father and supportive of the projects. 

As for my part in it? I was more than willing to work for my room and board. 

And I could have contributed mightily, I hoped,  except for … the weather!

What I didn’t know or look up or plan for was the rain! It always rains in Bergen! I had to take a very expensive taxi ride from the  hostel to the boat just to protect my luggage! An old Bergen joke concerns a wet tourist who asks a young man – “Does it always rain in Bergen?” “I don’t know,” he replies. “I’m only 13.”

To my credit, I did help build a duck house, … in the drizzle. I did weed potatoes ... in the drizzle. And the one day it didn’t rain I did help chop branches from felled trees for kindling. But really, not enough for room and board.

And then there were the midges, ticks and slugs, oh my!

As for the midges? Clouds of them! They come out whenever it is damp and the air is still. We pray for a breeze, not to mention sunshine! I even emailed my friend Suzanne for an aromatherapy recipe to deter them. Hand creme and lavender deters their biting for an hour but they still invade the eyes,  ears and lungs. Prams even have midge covers!

Ticks? No deer hosts for deadly ticks here but apparently the wandering sheep host the ticks that carry Lyme disease. So each night Rebecca checks the back of my legs for the freckle-sized demons. Yep – three ticks extracted! In spite of being totally covered and wearing boots!

And slugs? Well, I’m not the struggling gardener here but the fall-out for me is that there are no salad greens. Plenty of potatoes through. And we can’t mulch to keep down the weeds because that attracts the slimy little buggers. Lack of mulch means more weeding of the potatoes. At least I can be glad Florida doesn’t host these greens-munching predators.

(It does sound like I’m anti three whole species of animals. I have to confess that nothing would make me happier on this rainy midgey afternoon than if they would just go extinct! But then maybe the polar bear would wish the same for global-warming humans…)

I know it sounds like I’m moaning, folks. And I guess I am. 

It’s a great place and please come to volunteer. It’s not Rebecca’s fault – I just came in the wrong month!

On the up-side, I’m glad I came—this is a lovely little island. 

Roads are one-lane wide except near the schools where a side-walk is added. I actually saw a stand-off between a bus and car until the bus backed up to the turn-out area. We walk to the kindergarten, neighbors and island store. You could call the latter a very small Walmart that reflects the unique needs of a Norwegian village. 

Sheep fleeces next to the ice-cream freezer. Sewing machine oil in the notions section. (I think they sew and knit a lot during the winter.) And on the gardening shelf? Gum boots for the rain! (That’s rubber boots for us Americans.) Actually,  I had to borrow a too-large pair from Ryan for the duration and found it strengthened my legs while walking the moors.

Ahhh.. the moors… Worth the trip! 

They remind me of Connemara in Ireland. Or Dolly Sods Wilderness in West Virginia. Something about the stone, heather and bog. (Maybe the granite that doesn't drain well?) Beautiful, even desolate in the mist. 

But it makes it difficult to do agriculture here. That and the midges explain to me why the West Coast Norwegian Vikings went to sea! Trade for fruits and vegetables,  plunder for riches to buy midge-masks and abduction of slaves to weed in the rain! 

So, I’m leaving the gardens a few days early because of unforeseen environmental factors. 

Rebecca agrees I'm not able to accomplish much in this rain. Am I a wuss?  Yep! I’ll just spend the money I didn’t save on free room and board on a fjord cruise and some hiking and make up for the cost in Nepal. 

Remind me not to complain of mosquitoes in Florida? As for now, midges—good riddance!

Slovenia: Nonviolent Communication on the Pohorje Plateau

8-24-17 Slovenia: Nonviolent Communication on the Pohorje Plateau

This week-long European Nonviolent Communication Summer Festival was the real reason I visited Slovenia. 

A very happy and empathetic couple from Canada, Cis and Cat, had thrown it out as a possibility while we gardened together in Bulgaria. Why not? I finagled a room at the over-booked conference by promising Ivana, who had a bed to spare, that I didn’t snore and I was in! In what I wasn’t sure but it promised to be an instructive week in a posh-ski-resort high above Maribor with lots of nice people. I could use that after getting lost, impersonal hostels and moving luggage. A place to stay put, be fed and it turned out .. to be loved.

Feel free to skip this blog if I get too saccharine but I promise you that this was one of the highlights of my year! 

I had already studied NVC (also called Compassionate Communicaiton) with David Warren (feel free to contact him at dwarren6768@yahoo.com, re. classes and resources) in Melbourne, Florida, USA for months but couldn’t say I was proficient. As I left home with conflicts unresolved, I was wondering whether this communication practice could have prevented a relationship fracture. And I surely wanted to arrive back in the States having changed parts of myself that were unskillful.

Just having to take the cable-car up to the Pohorje Plateau gave me an above-it-all possibility of change. 

What a break to get outside of entangled attachments and take a fresh view! And hopefully to land back into Maribor, Slovenia a week later with new understandings and practiced skills.

Nonviolent Communication is a communication process developed by Marshall Rosenberg in the 1960’s as a result of his work initially with racial tensions. It is designed to rapidly shift conflicts in groups, improve compassionate connection in relationships and bring one’s focus back to self-empathy and defining one’s own needs. Sounds a little airy-fairy, I know, but I’ve experienced it as profound. It takes practice of course and is better learned with someone rather than with a book. (But buy the book by the same name for starters!)

The Giraffe and the Jackal

I don’t have many pictures to share, folks. In the center of our opening group are the playful but oh-so-real symbols of NVC.  The giraffe, symbolizing that wise and compassionate part of ourselves. And the ever-present jackal, that selfish irritable judgmental part of each and everyone of us! During the next week in workshops and events we got to work with all parts of ourselves and each other, with increasing acceptance and compassion. 

NVC is a constantly evolving field, being taught throughout the world and incorporated into politics, schools, therapy and the work-place. Yep, it’s age old wisdom but new in its innovative applications.

How did it work for me? 

Well, I was still working on problematic conflicts that I thought I had left at home. But nope – here I could transform them and move forward on this journey, with less baggage and more lightness in my being.

Not to get too personal here, folks, but those of you who love me know my issues. Usually around men, right? With your indulgence, I’ll describe the transformative process I went through. Maybe you can relate to it or at least breathe relief that I’ll stop whining  to you!

First, I was shown how to “step into your enemy’s shoes.” 

Not that anyone was truly "enemy", but just someone I had a conflict with.I thought I had vowed not to cast anyone out of my heart as the First Pearl of Macedonia.  And that I had “forgiven” him as the Third Pearl. But that didn’t mean I had actually stood in his shoes, which after all is the foundation of compassion. What was different about this facilitated process is that as I first stood in my shoes, I was given empathy by a partner. Then in his shoes, given empathy for him. Then back in my shoes, looking at him with new understanding. Knowing what I now knew, what would be the best possible relationship going forward? I got the answer.

Part of this is accepting the jackal in all of us! Its just there, folks! No big surprise.

Secondly,  I identified my “unmet need” that had led to so much ambivalence. 

Mine turned out to me (and it popped up from nowhere) – i.e. my need “to matter.” Of course we all need to matter to someone! We need someone to know us, to care about us… to love us! Especially, on these crazy travels I needed someone in the world to report to every day so that someone would know if I was alive or dead! Did I fall off the mountain, drown in the lake …? But I did not want this “need” to fuel an unhealthy relationship. What to do? OK, folks, getting really weird here… A group of us took turns lying on a recliner, while the others circled, whispering, touching, telling us whatever we requested so that the important “need” was filled. I needed “to matter” – and that’s what they gave me in this Love Bath. I can promise that whenever I lie in a hostel, unknown by bunk-mates, or travel anonymously, I can still close my eyes and receive their love. I do matter. Of course I do! Just need to remember it…. 

Here is my home/empathy group -- don't we all need someone to listen to us without giving advice? And to remind us to think with giraffe higher wisdom and compassion.

Thirdly, and then we come to strategies. 

Some practical ways to get the need met. Empathetic listening first, then strategies. Each of us stood in front of the group and listened to them brain-storm possible actions we could take to help ourselves or to ask for help. I listened and realized that just by simple daily text-messaging and skyping I can feel I matter. I can transform an unhealthy dependence on one person into multiple sources of love, duh! And relate to that one person in a less-needy way.

Descending in the cable-car back into the “real world” I was changed. I had found courage. (Even courage to go down to the "naked" sauna -- actually a normal thing in Slovenia and clothes are forbidden. Thank goodness no one else showed up!)

I had strategies. My sweet daughter April offered to message me everyday. Friends will email if I just remember to email them. And Cis and Cat, even though traveling to Sweden and having a baby, offered to  always be available as my “empathy angels.”  

If I get too critical of another I just remember this song, "See Me Beautiful."

Here is the inspiring link for Marshall Rosenberg singing it: https://youtu.be/9V1Bx4-5EnY

And here is our group singing it: https://youtu.be/9V1Bx4-5EnY

And you really want to get silly!!

https://youtu.be/wh8hxrFRTL0

Slovenia? I definitely experienced it as a place to love and be loved.