How Long Does It Take to Slow Down?

This is how fast you travel in the Amazon.

I’m the most unlikely person to travel to South America. When I was a kid, I dragged my blanket into the kitchen and slept on the floor there because there was a moth in my room. It wasn’t that I thought it was ew. I was absolutely terrified.

I like things, people, the world, in general, to be fast. The faster the better. Relaxation used to set in for me when my foot lies heavily on the gas pedal and the needle passes 100 miles an hour. Then I calm down. Then I begin to breathe. Life is good.

My rhetoric is my weapon; I can talk anyone down and out. Die-hard atheist and vegan with zero patience who dreamed of having intestines of stainless steel and an invisible electric shield around her that would kill anyone who came closer than three feet. Queen of sarcasm, racing mind, reckless, restless, ruthless.

When I studied American studies I had a class on oral history. One day we had a special appearance of a group called Kanto de la Tierra. This is a group of Native American chiefs from all over the Americas. They had formed the group in an understanding that the only way they could save at least some of their culture was to introduce the white man to it and help them appreciate it.

One of them, a chief from a Colorado tribe, was the most powerful, amazing, captive person I had ever met in my life. He was a big man, no doubt, but his presence filled the room beyond anything physical. Every word he said, I knew, was the truth. As he was speaking about white people’s frantic lives, incapable of stillness and silence, and about their own cultures and rituals, I could feel almost physical pain.

I knew everything he said was true. I also knew that as soon as he’d leave the room, I would continue with my life just the same: always running, multitasking, racing from job to university to student council meeting to other job. I would continue to drown myself in work, party, busyness. Always fast, always doing something.

How we got to be alone in the room I can’t remember. But we were. It was dark already, even the lights in the room were out. There was only a dim light coming in from the corridor. He leaned on a table as I told him what was going on for me. That I loved his words, I knew they were true, I longed for this truth. But it seemed stuck in my head, unable to descend to my heart and change my life.

He slowly raised to his full height and pointed his finger at my forehead. To this day I don’t remember whether he actually touched it. It doesn’t matter. As his finger pointed to my third eye and his calm, deep voice said the words: “One day it will reach your heart” I felt an unbelievable warmth spreading from that point on my forehead throughout my whole body. It was not heat. It was pure energy, filling me to every cell as if struck by lightning.

As I had expected, my life continued unchanged after that day. I even forgot the entire encounter, as powerful as it was. Except I did not. My life did change. Slowly.

I did not make the connection to the Chief when I declined an offer for more than €100k annually for a successful start-up. Instead, I went to the U.S. to study Environmental Policy and Human Rights.

I did not make the connection to this encounter when I refused to take on a career at the UN and moved to Colombia instead. Entirely on my own, without money, without institutional backup, to work and live with the peace communities there.

I did not remember him when I moved to the Brazilian Amazon and accepted my man’s marriage proposal after three months. He was a hunter. I was a vegan. He grew up in the depth of the rain forest. I am an urban German. His entire world was physical. Mine was mental (if you want to know how that plays out read this). He was Catholic. Do I have to say more?

I kept working in human rights and environmental protection in all kinds of places. Until one day, in a major clash with my supervisor in the Philippines, I packed up and moved into the deep jungle with my husband and firstborn child. No electricity, no internet, no streets, no stores. Rivers and forest only. Bugs and snakes. Scalding heat and apocalyptic thunderstorms.

Three years, my mind kicking and screaming at times.

The Chief’s message had finally reached my heart.

And yet. I’m out again. Moved to Uganda, then to Portugal. I have no car, no TV, no social media (is medium social media?). I’m still fast. I have tried yoga and cried with boredom. My meditation is Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. The closest I ever get to doing nothing is cleaning the bathroom.

I still don’t know where I am. Or who for that matter. This is why I write. As I spill my words, maybe one day the answer flushes out. In the meantime, I write about anything that catches my attention, fuels my curiosity, and tickles my ego. Welcome.