Mundekulla was amazing!!!!!! Wow, so together and so mature and deep and transformative. The very woman who picked me up from the train and has helped out on the Mundekulla land just in the last 2 years just emailed me that she's finally talked to her husband about needing to move out of relationship with him. What courage, and what community support and reflection! She said she came to her first women's festival there last year, totally sad and tired and at a loss as to what to do. While at the festival there, I offered to lend my ear, and we had a great sister session on the second day of the festival!

But I arrived at Mundekulla totally exhausted. My plane from Berlin was delayed by 5 hours, so I arrived in Copenhagen after midnight and spent the night hanging out in the airport there with a cool American musician and 2 very sweet and respectful partying Lithuanian teenagers! Not bad at all, I must say. And then the morning train took me over the big bridge from Denmark to Sweden, three hours, to the countryside near the East Coast. Mundekulla is the vision of Anne and Peter Elmberg. Anne had envisioned getting land and establishing a retreat place for many years. Then she met Peter, a musician and dreamer himself, and they have now birthed a beautiful retreat place in the neighborhood where Peter grew up, and all with support from Peter's parents, Irene and Bernd. There are three big, old beautiful buildings and one big new one they built from lining up old caravans together and building a second-story performance space on top with a pointy, Swedish roof. It looks really classy, all insulated with different sustainable fibers like hemp, cork, linen, and fitting in nicely with the style of the old builings that were already there.

I had time to settle in and have a meal and a coffee time and a little tour of the buildings with Camilla. She was on Big Island in January and February at COCO's, where I met Peter and Anne Elmberg and did two concerts. Camilla is a Swedish goddess who plays a frame drum and sings earth songs. She spent part of last winter at Mundekulla and is also a talented chef. Camilla greeted me warmly and showed me where I could sleep. I tried to nap but was too excited. Also, my roommmate Ageha from Denmark came in with all her musical instruments and stuff. That was a great pairing. She does meditative music with computer mixing and live Tambor, autoharp, and singing bowls, and many other instuments. I supported her on her set Friday night by making a pot of Chai for all to share and helping her move her instruments. She loved it, kept telling everyone all weekend about the Chai, which was so funny because many of the Swedes had never heard of Chai.

But my performance ended up being around 10:30 pm on the night I had only a couple power naps in the airport. The Lithuanian teenagers, delightfully under the influence of Bacardi Pineapple Coolers, guarded me while I slept on 6 chairs that they and the American guy Peter had pushed together for me. I was tired but inspired, fully loved and supported by new friends met on the journey and fully handing it all over to goddess and Swedish faeries to do the magic for me. There's something about being very tired that allows me to let go and wear my heart on my sleeve and get out of the way for the angels to sing through me. Oh, and the song Intuition with the slide guitar really sang at the end of my set! The audience was so full and present and listening to my stories of Shekhinah and Dineh grandmothers and travels in Berlin and fingers squished in the door at the goddess craft faire, that now seems a lifetime ago, and that got me to start playing slide because I couldn't chord my guitar for 6 weeks! The Swedish audience went all the way there with me, traveling with me on every prayer and every arrow launched with my peaceful warrior's love bow, landing like lullabies and rockin' folk song offerings for the Swedish land.

Good thing Bhima insisted on sending 30 Cd's instead of 20. "You're gonna rock those Swedes," he said, and sent a package of sweet things and 30 Cd's that were pretty much gone by the end of the festival, traded for Swedish Krowns, colorful paper money with images in purple and pink and orange of Swedish queens and authors and a fairy tale boy who rode a swan all over the Swedish countryside. The boy was mistreating the animals, so a gnome put curse on him, shrunk him right down to size. It's actually an old geography lesson book from Sweden, and in the story, the boy character flies with the swans on their annual migration, beginning in the South of Sweden and circling over the whole country, seeing all the towns and hills and lakes and fields. In every home in Sweden there are gones, Zwerge in German, some sort of Faerys or Tomtoms that guard the house. And at Christmas time it's neither Santa Claus, nor the Christmas Man as in Germany, but the Tomtoms, the little people, who bring the presents. But the boy in the story, Nils Holgerson, learned to respect the animals and the little people. And on the 20 Krown note, he sits ever so tiny on the back of a swan, gliding over a Swedish farm.

The festival organization at Mundekulla is beyond comparison, and part of that is due to being small, about 350 people, 10 years old, and alcohol and drug free. Plenty of intensity, deep workshops, deep music. Very little trash was generated. They had very light-weight wooden forks and knives that were then composted, and all the dishes in the cafe were washed by hand. The cafe had cake and coffee available all day and into the night for 4 days! I spent a lot of time in there, writing and sipping. The music: Boushra, gorgeous Moraccan-Swedish woman, Queen of Soul, rocked everybody on Saturday night. Andre De Lang, originally from South Africa, did a super soulful set on Sunday night. And he also sat on a panel on Sunday afternoon called The Power of Music, with festival producer Peter Elmberg, myself, and Anders Nyberg, who is a musician, composer, and international activist involved greatly in South Africa, married to a South African, though he's originally from Sweden. Great people, many magical stories about music and social change. A sweatloadge was built and used and then taken down at the end. I did a shamanic drum journey with a huge group, just practicing trying to get my mind out of the way, really. There were workshops on singing, guitar, healing circle, climate change, women's circle, and many more. Every morning Peter and friends led a super-sweet singing circle outside for the whole festival group. I invariably ended up intears at the joy of seeing people blissing out, holding hands in circle and singing together Peter's sweet songs of trees and love and connection between people. I had an experience suring a song that went something like, "I remember seeing you before, in another place, maybe in another time. But the feeling is the same, love in my heart, peace in my mind, happiness all the time." We went around the circle singing it over to different partners. I came face to face with a woman whose face I really didn't even see. As it happened, I looked into her eyes and saw the eyes of my dear Bhima, and I started to cry and sing and dance with those eyes, and the song felt just right, and Bhima was there! and I was so at peace and delighted at the magic of my life.

That was Saturday morning, and Saturday was amazing at Mundekulla. During the day a woman came to me and said her daughter was greatly affected by my music and presence. The girl, Sigrid, 13, feels different from other kids her age, sees things they don't, is a musician. Sounds like she saw herself in me and was validated. She's inspired to play her music and keeps talking about me, her mom said, and that she saw all kinds of things when I played. I definitely walked away from that conversation with tears in my eyes. Very sweet family, mama, papa, and daughter. I got to sit and talk with the mama again on the last day of the festival. She is a professor of psychology at the Karlstads University in Stockholm. The mama, Anette, also studies runes and Norse mythology, which she said very few people in Sweden are interested in, and she was delighted to see my interest and to hear more about Shekhinah's work, specifically with runes. (She has occasionally watched on the internet lectures given at Esalen Institute on various psychological research!) She mentioned Valhalla, which we are often told is a warrior's party after-life place. Anette says it actually means Place of Choice, (Val is Choice; Halla, hall, room, place). The Norse believed we went there when we died, that we would run hard through a long hall, till we dropped, and then, based on the life we'd lived and our karma, we'd have some choices to make about our next incarnation. And then we'd be reincarnated.

On Saturday night we had a stunningly beautiful pageant of candlelight around the tiny lake there. The 350 people attending Mundekulla each held a long, blazing, white candle stick, and all walked out to the forest and back in around the little pond. I waited in the shadow with my guitar, though the full moon shone bright, rising, and slowly eclipsing before our eyes! It was the most amazing thing! As the people approached, the flutist began to blow, the didgeridoo sounded, the singing bowls softly rang, beckoning. The burning candles ringed the water, and the moon continued to disappear in the quickening of the total lunar eclipse. Then the drums slowly rose, crescendoed and stopped. At that point I stood, and, in the waning moonlight, strummed my guitar. A dancer hidden on a tiny island in the tiny lake stood, dressed in red and ringing cymbals. I began to sing slowly, Earth my body, Water my blood, Air my breath, and Fire my spirit. . . . until I heard the people's voices coming back to me, and the dancer swayed and rolled her hips to the rhythm of 350 people singing their hearts to the elements. Peter led me, leading the people, around the pond, doubling back on eachother, and up to the concert hall for Andre De Lang's sweet singing and powerful music, the moon now fully eclipsed. I can only say that I've never seen anything quite like that candlelight by the water, the moon eclipsing in ritual, and singing, the hearts circling around a heart-shaped pond at a peaceful gathering on well-loved land in Sweden, no less!

From there I came here to Eckbakka, the Oak Hill, a German-owned farm in Sweden, with the sweetest people you ever did meet. There are about 100 animals on the land, mostly sheep, pigs, and goats, plus two dogs that look just like my little girl Mesa who we rescued from Big Mountain, Roberta Blackgoat's place, back in 2000, chickens and ducks, and some random cats. It's perfect for me, because I'm delighted to be in Sweden, experiencing yet another land, people, culutre, beauty, but I wasn't finished speaking German, which they speak here in the home! These folks moved from Hamburg 8 years ago. They had vacationed here and basically fell in love with the people and the land. Their youngest two boys, Anton, 13, and Jonathan, 7, are in the local Waldorf school. All schools in Sweden are no-cost by law, great because Waldorf can be expensive. Katrin, the mama here, who looks 35 though she's 45, is a textile teacher at the Waldorf school. She tells me the teachers are learning to teach through their hearts. She says the Waldorf stuff can be so heady, so intellectual, that the teachers can lose sight and just come too much from the head. I went in to the school on Tuesday and sang and spoke for the teenagers. They seemed really into it, really listened, as I told them of my traveling life, singing for the elders at Big Mountain, the prisoners in New Folsom, and for the ancestors and the land wherever I go.

Some say the Swedes are closed and have trouble accepting foreigners, and have a special negative attitude about Germans, left over from The War, you see. But Katrin and Bo Schwere, who own the old organic farm here for 1 and 1/2 years, are in their mid 40's and speak Swedish now, and have 5 boys who all speak Swedish perfectly, and are great community people. They are living alternatively in a country where it's hard to find much alternative anything, medicine, whatever, and organic food is finally starting to catch on. I hear there can be a lot of pressure to conform here, to look and behave like everyone else. But here on the farm there are Woofers from England and Japan, Austria and Germany, and me, the American girl, the little medicine woman with the big songs and little leaves of sage to burn. Ironically I did my first Native American-style sweatlodge here with Katrin and Bo, who were taught by a Crow man from Montana, Ben Cloud. So beautiful it was, so much sweat and singing, drumming and letting go. There must have been a dozen of us in the lodge, family, friends, old and new, Hey Ya, Earth my body, warm, hot, bliss, heal.
Love,
Diane

Today is my last in Berlin, and it's been nothing less than magical, divine, challenging, flowing, musical, mundane and mysterious.

My new friend Andrea took me to breakfast today at the very cafe that I first played in front of. Beginning and ending, on Mariannenplatz.

I landed here on July 2nd and was whisked away to the countryside by train with Tobias for some grounding and connecting there. A few days later I came back to Berlin, again on the train, with Ofer Gulany, to spend the Saturday busquing in the streets. Ofer is an amazingly talented songwriter and peace activist, originally from the states, and Isreali by culture and Dutch by current homeland. He tours with his music, resisted the military as an Isreali youth, and has a family in Holland. I hope to work with him more in the future, but it's no surprise that one of the first stops we made with Ofer's battery-powered amplifier was on Mariannenplatz in the coolest area, Kreutzberg, right in front of the cafe where I just had my last Berliner breakfast till probably next spring. Andrea and I met to discuss possible tours through Italy next spring and then Germany in June. Anything is possible, especially with the support of friends!

My time staying at Lohmühlewagenburg has been very grounding. It's so sweet, a big, mellow garden in the middle of a raging city. I stayed in the tiniest gypsy wagon there, maybe 6 foot by 6 foot. It's covered in blue and red and black graffiti, has a wee stove in it for staing warm in winter, and a little 2-burner stove. Candle light makes it bright and cozy. I think I forgot to sweep again on y way out, damn. I brushed my teeth outside and spit in the bushes, just like home in Mendocino hills. Mmm, nostalgia. I had enough room to do yoga in the tiny wagon, since of course I'm quite used to caravan/motorhome living, and yoga is a big part of life!

The Löhmuhle inhabitants do laundry and bathing for no charge at a spot called Heilehaus, Healthy House, about a 10 minute bikeride away. Tuesdays and Thursdays are women's days, and Friday and Sunday are mixed, so I went twice during my stay, and that was fine. The second time I had the place all to myself and took the most luxurious bath in a deep tub with very hot water. Wow, I needed that. (Esalen, Benjamin, I miss you!!) But the first day there was funky. It was Sunday, a mixed women and men day. Some guy with decent energy asked me if he could borrow my hair conditioner, I let him. But when he gave it back to me, his hair was dry like he hadn't even washed it, and his dick was standing up. He even asked me what conditioner was for, after having borrowed it. I'm answering him and slowly getting it what he was up to. Hmm. Mixed day, OK. I walked around thinking, "What an asshole," about that guy for a couple of days. But whenever I got that feeling I would stop myself, because the thought was really negative and didn't feel good. So I'd think to myself, 'His Karma,' and let it go. His karma. Funny story.

But Heilehaus is cool. They offer a really great service. Besides Mr. Funny, it was a small and easy crowd there. Clean, helpful. And the place offers quite a few other such basic needs-type services to the community.

Lohmuhle was great, quiet, lots of dogs, a big hand water pump in the middle of the green place. The water pumps into a big claw-foot tub, and i used that water for dishes and for washing my hands and watering the trees around my caravan. The trees right next to my guest wagon looked dry and thirsty. I left plenty of tobacco offerings there, and even a bunch of my hair, as I had a fun evening by myself with the candlelight and the mirror maintaining my punker doo. I got to do some songwriting and practicing, there, and good thing, because I just heard from the festival in Sweden that they want me to play tomorrow night, Thursday, the day I arrive. No time to ground in. Rock and Roll! No problem!

My experiences have been vast, at least for my personal experience, and it's been hard to imaginge putting them into words. The streets here in Berlin romance me. I pick up bird feathers all over the city, especially when I walk along the canals and the river Spree. I saw a painting at Harald's place in the country here that has inspired me to collect the feathers for a wearable art project. I tuck the little grey wing bits into my journal and hope they make it back to my Turtle Island home, so long from now.
The travel is good, expanding my soul, making me appreciate anew the beauty of friends who know me well and long, deep hugs of community and music and places and faces I love. My dear friend Jesikah from way back UCDavis days gave me an excellent read for this trip, The Art of Pilgrimage. It's almost time to read the part on reaching the goal/destination of the journey. Maybe when I get to the gig in Sweden, will I be ready for that. There is so much work to do on my inner strength, my knowing of myself, my journey to self-love and self-care. It's subtle. My little medicine woman wants me to hurry up and learn my lessons so she can be her highest self, her greatest contribution. I am that!

The songs want to come out, to have room to emerge, and much, much inspiration is there in this journey. I have journaled a book and bought another to fill.
The moon in waxing and sits very low on the horizon here at this spot on the globe, which seems to be across from Vancouver, in relation to North America. I've seen the moon only maybe three times this whole month and 1/2 in Germany. She sits low on the horizon wa up here in the high Northern Hemisphere, and the buildings in Berlin are tall, though the streets are just right, not too wide, not too narrow. Now, while the moon is weaxing towards full, a group of my German friends are in the country on the earth, dancing and fasting in prayer, in something they call Lifedance. It's inspired by the Sundance of the Lakota and is a four-day, intense prayer, supported by many singers, drummers, cooks, families, camp makers, and organizers and mamas. My big sister here, Ulrike, has organized this for the last three years, and before that, she actually assisted a Native American man in bringing Sundance to her German community for several years in a row.

Ulrike is a powerful song-carrier and -channeller, and a sweet life-lover! She has long silver-blonde hair and holds her jaw way too tight, I suppose from just over fifty years in this world. We are blessed to have met, thanks to Harald. Having just been in Spain to see the 13 Grandmothers group on their first trip to Europe, Ulrike says her favorite grandmother is Agnes Pilgrim from Takilma, Oregon, (One of my home towns!) and wow, she was mystified to know that I had been to some of the same gatherings as Aggie Pilgrim, forest defence action and Earthdance, etc. Maybe Ulrike will be able to come to California next summer, when Ms Pilgrim says she'll be hosting the 13 at her ancestral home in southern Oregon.

My favorite moment with Ulrike was when we traded a song each. She told me of the Elderberry flower jam she makes every spring. The berry is called Holunder in German, and with its magic is the Light Goddess, Hola, from the North. Ulrike received a song of healing words and melody from this berry, and from all the colors of the people and goddesses, red, black, white, and yellow. Ulrike has moved away from Sundance and toward Lifedance in an effort to seek and share her own ancestral culture, stories, and magic. And this she is doing. She loved my song Eagle Feather and the stories of the Dineh grandmothers at Big Mountain, their resistance, their weavings. Ulrike gave me a blessing of some of her water woman medicine, in the form of a beautiful white swan feather. One sees swans floating through the canals of Berlin all the time. So graceful and light . Even when the bread crumbs were flying I saw a swan gracefully spreading its huge white wings in that cupped in fashion they have. Divine.

I've met a wonderful woman here with information from the divine for me, just one of many, many sources of information, but one nonetheless. She is, however, quite informed by Christianity at this time in her life. I mention this just as a note to one of the challenges on my journey. I am reminded of the limitations of thought. When one thinks they have answers that others don't have or that they are privileged because of their religion, or chosen somehow, up goes the wall. I said so, and she listened with respect. I try to stay open here, knowing we are all equally precious, all learning just what we are supposed to in this time, in just the WAY we are supposed to.

I saw a woman on the street in a full-body, huge, all-black, flowing burka . . . the only one I've seen here in Berlin, or ever, on a living woman. There were three kids bobbing along aroud her and a man pushing a stroller, I assume with the fourth child inside it. Wow. We are all so different. And what we find holy is also so different.
Give thanks for diversity! The spice of life!

The Fuck Parade was full of freaky people. Excuse the explicative, but that's the name of the alternative crowd's experience in response to the Berlin Love Parade, a huge, moving party in the streets, which happens every summer here now for I don't know how long. The Fuck Parade started out on a bridge with a party of all the various punk fashion statements I could ever dream of. (That must have been the inspiration for all the self-haircutting I did the next night by candlelight!) There were at least 100 cops present, though the atmosphere was very relaxed. We did see one kid in a paddy wagon, all alone, no community looking out for him or calling attorney support. This led my friend to believe it was more of a party than a demonstration. There were a few political speeches at the start, and then a long dance through the streets and an all-night raging party, parties.
Just a few reflections, so fun to share, and I'm off to Sweden.

Love!