Have you ever sat in awe of a glorious sunset? Or stood in front of a mountain range feeling small and humble? Have you stopped in your garden to marvel at a freshly blossomed flower? If the answer is yes to even one of the above questions, then you understand that nature is our biggest master. And thus, our little balcony garden is like a nice, gentle primary school teacher to us! 🤗

It is no surprise that now science can prove that reading makes us better people (indulging in novels can make us more empathetic), widens our horizon (or how else do you travel in time and space just with the help of a few pages?), and, maybe most importantly, allows us to dive into a fictional world that stimulates our imagination with the magic of, well, words. 🧞‍♀️

Today’s topic: Gifts. Who doesn’t love them? There are many occasions to surprise your loved ones with nice presents: for birthdays and anniversaries, to say sorry, for moving into a new home, to make someone feel special, to keep in touch, to congratulate someone on a promotion, for standing on the doggy’s tail (so sorry, Rexy!), or to impress someone … the list of reasons and intentions is long, culturally diverse and therefore rather complex.

Through our education systems, humans are conditioned to excel and to strive to be competitively superior in almost all other aspects of life. No doubt, great successes have been achieved by the human quest (or greed?) for more. Would we ever be able to travel to the moon without the ambition of a selected few?

We’ve all been there: The moment we take the first bite out of our well-deserved afternoon snack, whether its a piece of cake, or even just a cup of tea with a sprinkle of sugar in it, BOOM, literally out of nowhere, an army of ants arrive to claim their part of it. Usually, we are not willing to share, and rather try to brush off those little soldiers, or even kill them.

There is a big difference between active listening and hearing. While hearing is a passive sense involving a physical process (sound hits the ear, and gets transformed into meaning through the brain), listening, on the other hand, is an action we consciously choose to do.

The next couple of months ahead are the perfect time for serious reading, with hours and hours of rain, feeble afternoon light that looks more like evening, and a bed so comfortable one never wants to leave it (expect to sleep-walk to the coffee machine and back)… Yup, the rainy season is AMAZING.

Today’s term ‘crochet’ (when you say it out loud, it sounds like ‘crow-shay’) stems from the Old Germanic word ‘croc’, meaning ‘hook’. Crocheting is the process of creating fabric by interlocking loops of yarn, thread, wool, or any other strands of materials using a hook, or even your fingers.

”The Earthing Movie - The Remarkable Science of Grounding” is a 1 hour and 15 minute documentary, directed by Sundance-award winning filmmakers Josh and Rebecca Tickell. Based on the Tickell’s personal journey, it reveals the scientific phenomenon of how we can heal our bodies by doing the simplest thing that a person can do… standing barefoot on the earth!

Money, health, work, the world’s future - we live in scary times, and there is plenty to worry about literally every single moment of the day. I worry about my family in Germany and in New Delhi, I worry about my friends locked down in Mumbai, San Francisco and Berlin… I worry, full stop, and I know that I am not alone.

There is no better place in the world than your own bed, alongside a hot cup of hot coffee, a snoozing cat, a cute hubby, a pile of books, and a nice, cool breeze that gently flows through the open windows and doors of your room while it is raining cats and dogs outside. #yeahyeahyeah