Went to sleep at 4am here Berlin time and woke at 8:30 with my head so full of stories I couldn't get back to sleep.

Yesterday was so very full and astonishingly beautiful that I have to tell it so I can rest! I started with yoga and felt much better after that. My body is getting stronger and stronger, carrying my guitar in its heavy hemp case and biking around like crazy, but I have to stretch to stay happy and flowing!

I took off from the current all-women house I'm staying in and, because what I had planned wasn't happening, ended up outdoors in the thick of it all at the super-cool cafe I'd been eyeing for weeks now. Joy! It's called Cream. They served me the fattest, fluffiest, most delicious cappucino I've ever had, and I worked on some translations of my songs that I'm preparing for a concert on the 3rd of August in the countryside. It'll be super sweet for my all-German audience to have my lyrics in-hand, in English and German. I'm definitely getting help with the translations, so it's like study time.

After a couple hours of cappucino heaven, Derrick came by to meet me for a stroll through the park and a picnic. Derrick is really cool, grew up a Catholic girl playing music at mass, just like me! He's from South Germany, and he says Catholic school was fun, full of music and friends. But he's suffered a lot from depression, partly heaviness from parental pressure. Namely, his father was so judgemental o fhim that he has a hard time believing in himself still, though it's getting better. We talked about cellular change and taking power over our own lives. He's found that his health issues really let up when he's not smoking, but continues to smoke. I find that I feel better when I eat light, but I often eat heavy. (Overeating causes the body to age more quickly. Look out!) Personal Power. We are the masters of our own destinys. Or, as my Berliner friend Boris taught me, an old German saying: Everyone is the blacksmith of their own luck.

Derrick and I picked up some hummus at the closest Turkish market and walked in to Görlitzer Park. Lots of kids were hanging out, West African men in groups there usually, lots of Turkish families later inthe day. The sun came out strong and browned my shoulders. We had a great meal with tomatoes, bread, and cucumber that Derrick brought, and then I started to play some songs. Derrick loves my music, so he kicked back while I played new songs with the slide and navigated my way through some Shekhinah Mountainwater-inspired tunings. After a few songs a group of nice folks with guitars came over to jam, and we played in the sunshine. It's been raining the past week in Berlin, so the sun was especially welcome.

This guitarist Donnie and I started talking,and he's also had much depression and mental challenge and self doubt, citing heavy pressure from his mother as one source of difficulty. Both he and Derrick agree that the Germans have something heavy to deal with in both their culture and in their difficult history around the Holocaust. I mentioned, that for any American paying attention at all to what the U.S. is doing around the world, we may have THE SAME SADDNESS, regret, guilt, and frustration. Violence, genocide, war, radiation-laden weaponry, economic domination and repression, stealing of resources, etc., etc., are tarnishing the once-beloved American name. And worse, creating devastation for people and environment globally and a world of bad karma for all of us Americans locally. They understood what I was saying. Europeans tend to know more of what the U.S. is up to than Americans know, on the average.

Of course, many Americans are spreading love, care, working hard to make a difference in a positive way in this world. I like to count myself among them.

By 5:30pm I was ready to relocate. I rode to my favorite sweety pub, Johannes Rose, right on the edge of Görlitzer Park ,and 2 doors down from the Free Palestine grafitti that originally drew me down that block. Did I already write about the Neo-Nazi kids here and how they wear the black and white scarves identified as Pro-Palestinian freedom? It's true, and I'm sure it has nothing to do with standing up for anyone's freedom, but the Neo-Nazi kids identify with the Palestinians simply because the Neo-Nazi kids identify as Anti-Semitic. Sadness. I know our job is to continue the music, joy, film, theatre, art, creation, love, bridge-building poetry, earth-love, gardens, bicycle-riding, whatever positive pursuits can fill the space for the youth, leaving them no time to focus on hate. Yes.

Back to Johannes Rose, the pub with the big cherub on the bar that's blowing a kiss at you when you walk in the door. I've played a lot of music there already, and yesterday it was a good 2 hours. I play pretty softly, like the stereo is on, creating a vibration and dropping in songs like Mountains of Things that gets somebody every time. Thank you, Tracy Chapman! This week Jutta the owner/creator of thebar, and her boyfriend are taking a little vacation from Johannes Rose. They welcomed me warmly when I first walked into the comfy livingroom atmosphere, piano, Soul Gallery upstairs, mellow baristas and free tampons in the bathroom. (I happened to be on my moon that first visit!) I had a fantastic beer there yesterday, Franziskaner Weissbier, sweet, and orange-colored. The brand new barista, Daniel, wouldn't let me pay, and instead gave me a Euro in appreciation of the music. I think he was moved to tears hearing Mountains of Things, kept putting his fingers to his eyes in a downward motion and telling of the first time he heard it when he was 11.

After Johannes Rose, I ventured north over the Spree River, by Schlesisher Tor, over the Warschauer Bridge, with lots of other bicyclists, to Friedrichshain, another super fun part of town, former East, to check out a bar that was recommended by DJ Oliver. Discovered a whole new neighborhood on the way, fascinating. I'm reminded of our daughter Alex's experience in Europe in summer 2004. She looked out of the train window as we rode past Brussels, Belgium, and she said, "You know, I knew there were big cities all over the world, but I didn't really get it that they are FULL of PEOPLE!" See, in the summertime, much of Berlin, and much of the world I'm sure, happens outside, and one can really see life going on, commuting, eating, working, talking, drinking, vacationing, living.

I checked out Cafe Stedal, Oliver's suggestion, and that was fine, nice guy at the bar, just a few tables outside with people drinking, but empty inside, as all the spots were at that time, dinner time, warm, very light out, not dark here till 10pm. The bartender said they'd be glad to have me play there, just try coming back tomorrow night for the jam session, or anytime later in the day. It was about (:20pmwhen we spoke. Afterwards I cruised the area and at one point was completely astonished, stunned at the vastness of the cafe scene, with long blocks going on and on and on, full of cafe tables, Italian, Turkish, Indian, German, funky, sophisticated, cheap, expensive, wine, espresso, motorcycle style, Mexican, Thai, Japanese, hipster, family, ice cream, breakfast, cake! Hundreds and hundreds and another block and around the corner and down the street and up the next blocks! My eyes were wide as saucers. I had to park Jason's bike and walk up and down and streets with a grin on what was left of my face with my jaw hanging down to my waist. I tried sitting down a couple times, actually sat down at a little table once, thought about ordering a plate of cheeses with tomatoes and olive oil and basil for 3.50 Euros, or a glass of wine, but I couldn't get too excited about enjoying the moment by myself. I said to myself, "I want to meet some new people. Who will I sit near and strike up a conversation?" But nothing and no one drew me in. I decided to go back to the grrrl house and write or visit there. Excellent choice.

The bike ride home was stunning! I found myself along the Maybachufer canal banks watching huge white swans drift along as kids and people sat and walked with bikes and beers and candles and hung out along the banks in the fading light. It actually felt like I was at the Oregon Country Faire. And it's not the first time I felt the faire here. The magic is so alive, and something about the light on the forested path as the sun is sinking and the warm night full of possibility. I am everywhere.

ahhhhhhhhh. breathe. sigh, stretch. smile, joy to share these images. i still travel without a camera.

Most folks I've met here speak English with me. Understandable. Carrie, who lives here at grrrl house #2, speaks German with me. Yes! So good to use another part of my Brain! So I got to speak with her,and she asked meabout my music, wanted to hear a CD, we put one on, she gave me 10 Euros for it, which was very convenient since the ladies are charging me 10Euros a night to stay here. They need the money. Later Elizabeth came in, gorgeous tall woman from San Francisco, met her through another friend from California here in Berlin. But Eizabeth wasn't warming up to me, definitely she's maxed out form German language school, renovating a new trans/bi/lesbian/gay center in town, stressing on joblessness, and nursing a tiny baby sparrow that fell from a tree in the park. Turns out, I bring up Derrick and how I didn't get to talk with him as much as I wanted to about him getting to be a boy now and how wonderful that must be, and Elizabeth got confused and wondered why I was interested in what it would be like to be a boy. She had just made the transition away from being a boy over the last two years. I think it's hard to warm up to people before you knowhowopen you canbe,with such abig journey onyours hands, so to speak.

Wow. Beautiful, the most courageous thing a person can do in this world, I think, and I always say so, because I know it's a hard journey with society, family, expectations, complications, hormones and operations. Friends need only be loving and supportive. And speaking of that, I am writing these stories in innocent wonder and joy of journeys made, without permission and with names changed. So take it all in, dear reader, with compassion and love, with the distance of a story read in a book about people you will never meet, so that we can have these amazing stories without causing any further wounding to the fragile hearts of those seeking simply to feel at peace in their bodies and genders. And don't most of us take that feeling for granted!?

Wow, the many layers of the day! Since I'd had coffee with Carrie at midnight, I put on Michael Franti's beautiful Yell Fire CD, with all of his heartfelt songs resisting the Iraq occupation, and did some more yoga. Yes! I get into the warrior pose and pull an arrow out of my quiver with a deep inhale, breathe it out over the bow, breathe in the bowstring pulled tight across my heart, and release that arrow, back to the home heart waiting for me in Cali, the fire I tend in my prayers, in my gratitude for magical, mighty healing, in my offerings to the trees and spirits here, in complete amazement at the layers of depth and beauty, holding me at every moment, goddess sent, divine, I am so worthy.

They don't bid each other a safe trip home here in Berlin. It's just safe here in Berlin, according to my sources. So, enjoy!

True Love Waitz, says the grafitti on the wall at the gypsy caravan community, LohMuhle Wagenburg. The land sits up against an old train bridge in Berlin's cool Neukoln district. There were many, many of these communities on bare land with little trailer-sized gypsy wagons parked together in the open time after the Wall Fall, early nineties raging with art and party and squats of all shapes and sizes. The land holding 18-year-old Lohmuhle Wagenburg was just sand back then, and the folks who parked their wagons there planted trees and flowers and vegetable gardens, put in a water pump that pulls water through the sand from the canal, and generally set up living, art and performance space. Eighteen years later now, it's sweet, green, welcoming. On Sundays it's cafe and music there, usually live music, but somebody was out of town, and I showed up by myself on a borrowed bike with my huge hemp guitarcase on my back, drawing interest and pouring myself a self-serve cup of coffee for 50 cents.

Alfredo handed me the cup. He's 40, Italian, handsome, present, has a super sweet little wagon there and has been there for 7 years. He told me the history I've given you on Lohmuhle Wagenburg. Lohmuhle is the name of the street the wagon community faces, and it means 'low mill.' It's definitely at the water level.

I spoke with Alfredo, answering questions about my guitar, "What's in the case," where I'm from and what kind of music I play, and Alfredo said I could play there if I wanted to. "Tolle," I said, a German equivalent of "Cool," and glanced over at the DJ set up under a nice patio umbrella, with 2 turntables, right next to the outdoor coffee and beer bar. After a while I struck up a conversation with the DJ, Oliver, and spoke with him a bunch about how I appreciated the mellow downtempo beats and jazz selections he was spinning on vinyl, low volume. Sweet. He really dug the complement and kept asking me if I still liked what he was playing. He's from Hamburg and prefers the vibe in Berlin, living here for some years already.

Then I had a long conversation with another German guy, who I thought was Italian because of his accent, and who spoke English with me. He also knows fluent Spanish along with his Italian. Andreas was also very interested in my music.

Time passed and Alfredo returned from a phone call to his parents in Italy, and then he checked in with the folks using power tools in the neighboring tent to see if they wouldn't mind taking a break while I played a little acoustic music. It all flowed together, and maybe an hour and a half after my arrival, Alfredo set me up a high bar chair out front of the bar. By then, the maybe ten tables out on the open space between bar and performance/movie tents and train bridge in the back, had all filled with people. I took my guitar out of the case and tuned up at the DJ booth with Oliver, who said to tell him when I was ready and then stopped the recorded beats at the end of a track.

I sat down to play The River and was happily applauded by the whole scene, so I happily proceeded to play Eagle Feather, Pachamama is Rising, Further, and Box of Change. I introduced myself and the songs briefly in between, speaking in German, as I can say more in English, but surely less will be understood. Great time. Dogs played behind and around me and people sipped German beer and Club Mate' from bottles and got cups of coffee and drummed their fingers and watched me do my California thing. I say I'm from Cali and I always get a reaction: OOh, It's hot there, it's burning there, it's great there, where in California, how long have you been here? They assume I've been in Berlin for a long time because I speak German. It's rare for Americans to speak German, I guess. Jason, the activist I wrote about, speaks German he learned here just living and also taking courses. His German is different from mine. He's got a lot more vocabulary, and it's in global and political and community realms that he uses in his global organizing. Mine is from my time in a home in Northern Germany, immersed. So my accent is very good and I have perhaps more idiomatic phrases and natural flow to my speech, though I quickly get in trouble searching for words.

But back at the caravan community, another guy behind the bar took my hat around and got me some righteous donations, and then two people gave donations for CD's, including a young artist living currently in one of the guest wagons there. Jasmine is a really good painter. She must have been inspired, because when Alfredo took me for a short tour around the land, we passed her working on a beautiful image, gorgeous faces and colors, warm.

I conversed before and after my acoustic set also with Andreas' friend Ralph, a German living long in Berlin and traveling to warm places in winter and biking to nudist-friendly spots on lakes ringing Berlin. A good hippie, he's also an indy documentary filmmaker who went to New Orleans and taped lots of footage and interviews. He filmed me playing there on a simple little camera and later that evening handed it to me on a CD. Cool. Maybe I'll get help to put it on the web for you somewhere. Audio's bad, low; but image is great, unique, downhome gypsy caravan.

I left Lohmuhle after being there for 4 hours, and with about 45 Euros more than I arrived with! Give thanks!

I headed out on my first cross-city bike journey, up through Mitte -middle- by Alexander Platz, and by Prenzlauerberg, to Schokoladen, the radical punky collective bar art music gallery theatre space. It was the 3rd day of their 18th annual Hoffest. That's a big party out in the old crumbly brick courtyard that's usually pretty junky-looking, but that looked great filled with people and three bars, a big sound stage with numerous bands throughout the weekend, an ongoing wurst and steak barbeque, and Schoktails like mojitos. I finally arrived on the evening of the 3rd day, so much happening for me, and staying across town with Masao Sato's friend Ariel Shlesinger from Israel. Ariel is really cool, about 30, an inventor, I'd say, and a very artistic photographer. He lived in Santa Cruz 10 years ago and worked with my friend, musician Masao, doing Masao's traditional Japanese architecture and construction.

Schokoladen raged on Saturday night, I heard, and a thousand folks packed the Hof and listened to the bands play, even through the light rain. I missed the bands on Sunday but got to see how beautiful the Hof was, all lit up with lights on strings as it slowly got dark around 10:30 pm. The bratwurst barbeque ended and shut down JUST as I walked up to get a protein blast. Damn.

I actually stepped out of the Hoffest with Ralph for about an hour. He's interested in my song, Katrina, for his documentary, so we rode bikes 3 minutes to his place and filmed me performing the song along with a short interview. Then a young guy from Austin made pasta for the 7 of us, me and 6 guys, and then we all returned to the Hoffest after eating. There I got to speak with Sandra, who is always working the bar when I stop in, and she asked me if I'm ever not smiling. Hah. I told her about the raging migraine headache I had last Tuesday night after a huge day Monday traveling to the country on the train and then digging a garden bed and wheelbarrowing compost and 4 or 5 hours of lovingly forming a terrace bed in the sandy pile outside of Tobias' gypsy wagon in Belzig. I didn't drink enough water that day, drank a LOT of coffee trying to wake up from time changes here, then slept in a moldy tent and woke up feeling off. I sauna-ed at a super upscale German spa and again didn't drink enough water. Worst headache ever. Had me up all night swaying myself into a trance and visualizing my favorite people holding and loving me. It worked its way out by the next afternoon, not before I barfed at the base of some really cute German trees and generally spent half the day feeling green. OK! More than you ever wanted to know about the real life adventures of a wandering Sufi Bliss Grrrl.

The winding labyrinth is treating me very well, especially when I remember to wind. The direct path to the pastries is not usually the most interesting. The most beautiful and memorable German breakfasts happen when I least expect them. The garden at the Old School, Alte Schule, was my very favorite breakfast spot so far, all by myself and surrounded by faeries and sprites and a naughty little cat, Venus on the half shell sculpted on the lawn, apple trees full of small apples and small elves, good places to leave tobacco and crystal offerings in hopes of a magical and well-attended concert outdoors in sunshine there on August the 3rd. Harald is managing the project on the Old School land, booking and promoting concerts there. He's a very good brother, putting me up for days in his one-room apartment a few minutes' walk from Old School, feeding me and putting up with my bed on the floor taking up most of the room in his little flat. Fun times.

Harald and I traveled back to Berlin with his friend Johannes on Friday to go to a song gathering in Berlin. Dang! There was a group of light-hearted alternative folks singing Indigenous North American-inspired songs and playing frame drums and celebrating the summer season! . . . my pagan sisters and brothers in Germany! My People! High on the 5th floor with a view of the street where the Wall used to run down the middle. Crazy. And Ulricke, the mama and song carrier there, is now off on a trip to Spain to see the 13 Grandmothers on their first visit to Europe. Wow, the circles are spiraling in. Of course I told Ulrike of my connections to the 13, my respect for them. And I happened to be wearing my Hope Mountain Barter Faire shirt, saying Takilma, Oregon, on it, which is the home of Ulricke's favorite of the 13 Grandmother, Agnes Pilgrim, a Takelma elder from right there at Hope Mountain. Wannsinnig. Crazy.

Loving Life,
Diane

Walking around Berlin today and tonight with Jason, a Californian activist living in Berlin and doing some great work educating about the realities of the G8, its effect on world communities, Japan and the G8 conference there, activism and the movement for social and economic justice there.

So many collectives here. Schokoladen, which I wrote about in my last story, and who are still waiting for a lease, is just a beginning. Today we had cake at a bakery that's collectively operated by local women learning and making some money for themselves and their families. It's called Regenbogenfabrik, a kids and culture and neighborhood center, they call it. Besides the bakery, they have a hostel, meeting place-bar, restaurant, realm for young people, bike workshop, cinema, and cutural work office. Wow, many of these collectives of different kinds, some just women, are in big buildings that were squatted after the Wall fell, and then people were able to slowly buy them, or they began to rent them from the owners, who've had to repair them, or not
Also walking down the street tonight went into a place called an collective for art and culture, Salon Petra - Kunstraum, artroom. Dig it.
I asked for someone to talk to about playing music there, sat down with that individual, talked about what I do in a couple sentences, and the person took out the calendar and booked me a show there on August 7th. Wow. All in German! When it's flowing, why resist? There\s music there every night, so maybe people come there regularly to see music. Fun. It's a chill space with a little stage and microphone set up all the time, old upholstered parlor chairs, carpets, a girl sitting at a table with friends and guitar and singing one song while we were there.

The streets go on and on like this, with subways, trams and busses connecting it all very functionally. Why get in a car? Last night I was in a Jewish-owned super nice vibe pub called Macom, on the Zions Church Square in Prenzlauerberg, part of the old East Berlin, like Kreutzberg also is. I was asked by three fellas hanging out there to play a song, so I did, and we talked for a while, and that was after I\d already been writing and nursing my glass of fantastic red wine for almost an hour. Pretty fun. I played Furthur and What's Goin' On and Unity in Motion. The guys really liked it. More good brothers. But I ended up leaving around 1:30am and didn't know the subway would be closed, and that's the one I know how to use. Uh-oh, I'm across town and the subway's closed. Do I have to walk back to the hostel? Where is there a map so I don't add another hour to what's at least an hour and a half walk, if I knew where I was going, maybe more, with my heavy guitar case on my shoulders. I started asking around and was helped out so amazingly by a number of people on different street corners, first a West African man, then two young women, then a Turkish man, then two young white guys, helping me find the right place to stand and wait a few minutes for the tram and then the bus, getting me home warm and quick, about 45 minutes later. The busses were packed, by the way, at 2am, double long busses, and they were full of lots of young folks heading to home or hostel, enjoying the Berlin nightlife.

Tonight we went to a collective gay bar, cute place with friendly people, lots of trans culture there, dress-up nights, lots of performances. There's a lot of trans culture in Berlin in general, and I'll definitely hook up the Santa Cruz band Frooty Flavors, who always play at the Santa Cruz Dyke March, as I know they'd like to take their music to Europe.
Schwul und Lesbishe translates to Gay and Lesbian. Gay, or schwul, refers to just gay men, so one has to say lesbians to refer to gay women here. Jason and I passed several other gay bars today on our walk through Kreutzberg in a hopping neighborhood, streets just wide enough between maybe three-storied row houses, getting good sun and space for bikes and parking and one lane of traffic that works for both directions. And then blocks with all cafes and shops and cultural spots with an occasional office, colorful and clean and naturally occuring, as opposed to the strip malls and radio shack-type spots in the U.S. In Kreutzberg are lots of Turkish families living and running businesses, and lots of alternative vibe art, books, cafes, accessories.

Also there's a good strong biking community here in Berlin, with a polycentric layout, so one can do everything they need to in a short distance from home, including buy food and drink, go to the post or library, hang out in a pub, visit a park or a mosque. I walked back into the courtyard of a Turkish Islamic Community Center yesterday and spoke with two young men around twenty years old, just our daughter Alex's age. It was a cobblestoned area surrounded by perhaps a four-story brick building. A sign announced Koran study classes, and I am truly interested in that, so I asked the young guys if they have the Koran study classes in English there. One of them spoke some English and said the classes are only in German and Turkish. He wore camoflage pants and was a beautiful, handsome guy. The other young man heard me say, though I don't know now if I was speaking the right language for him when I said it, that I was interested in their place because I'm not OK with people being divided and that I feel like it's time to get to know one another. They were friendly and answered my questions, and then I left.

I walked into a little Turkish eatery yesterday and ordered a $3 salad. At first the 30ish man behind the deli counter wouldn't really look at me. I wondered if it had to do with the old guys sitting around the table across, but I looked at him like, "Come on," and he cracked a smile and took my order. The salad was great, cucumbers and tomatoes, olives and lettuce, vinegary dressing, and the most wonderful bits of goat or sheep cheese, so salty. Then later I got little $1.5 pizza from a sidewalk cafe called Baghdad. I asked the man at the counter if they were from Iraq. They're from Turkey.

Beautiful, lively city. Doesn't feel as big as it is, doesn't have a lot of homeless people, nor does it have a lot of glass and steel financial center vibe, at least where I'm exploring.