The first day of the year 2025

Beauty and Horror.
The first day of the year.

Last night, in order to avoid the loud, disturbing music which I knew would be playing from many of the neighbouring houses, I decided to go and spend the night in a quiet, beautiful place in Nature, which I knew of.. somewhere around here.

A place higher in the mountains from where a beautiful panorama and a large, clear sky can be seen.

I knew it is a new moon and the stars are going to be glittering with crystalline light.

I went there, sat for 1-2h in the car, and then.. right before midnight, when I knew the fireworks would probably start.. I went outside. To this day, I still feel a sort of childish amazement when I see the light works, the feeling I get from them.. reminds me a bit of the awe and beauty I feel towards Life, in my natural existence. I know that, in this reality, the fireworks are both destructive tools (polluting the air, disturbing the wild birds and animals, etc) and also the expression of a wrong symbol. The loud detonation sound.. being akin to the bombs on a battle field. Probably someone celebrating some conquest, probably a conquest over Life.. but to get back.

I was outside, high in the mountains, and I planned to be sitting and watching the stars and the fireworks. But.. while I was there.. a new impulse came, and all of the sudden.. I felt to start walking. I watched a bit of the fireworks.. and then.. I started walking on the road that was going higher up in the mountains.
It was almost pitch dark outside, but I could see a bit.

The atmosphere was beyond.. beyond superb. There were icy, white patches of snow, almost like glittering or lighting up the hillsides, a patch of large, immense.. birch trees.. and glimmering stars shining between the tips of their branches. I felt feelings and sensations reminiscent of something ancient, forgotten.. that my mind could not comprehend, but something in me knew and remembered. I was completely transposed in a different dimension of reality, a different realm. The stars.. were so loud, so revealing.. it was almost like.. I never felt them so poignantly speaking their invisible meaning, like.. last night.

I remembered something else.. while being there, as well.

That.. we need the entire environment.. the entire Earth, with all of its habitats, to be able to make a sense of our existence here.
See.. if we only look at the stars, from the top of a mountain.. or a blank open field.. but without trees around them, without other forms of vegetations, or mountainsides, or hillsides.. we cannot fully comprehend what the stars are about. In order to make a sense out of the stars.. in order to understand their language, you need to view them.. pairing up the tips of trees. That’s when the meaning of them.. finally starts transpiring more and more. There is no true astrology.. or astronomical measurement, which would ever be able to make a true sense out of the mystery of the stars.. by looking at them in isolation, from an observatory.. or from one of those large and fancy telescopes.

No star ever reveals its true meaning.. in isolation. You have to look at it.. standing from the middle of the Earth, surrounded by as much nature as possible. It is only by having together.. all these different elements, the sky, the trees, the snow, the smell of vegetation, maybe the sound of a night bird or the howl of a stag, the murmur of a thin line of water, only when all of these elements are combined.. can finally the meaning of each of them can start being revealed.
See.. you need the whole.. in order to make sense out of the whole.

So I walked in that dark and icy atmosphere, with the stars lighting up the top of the trees, and I went further and further..
I felt so complete, imbued by a mystery which I could not decipher nor explain with my mind, yet.. something in me knew.. it saw, it felt. I know what I experienced last night.. but I just cannot describe it with words.

Then I went back and drove to a different location, a bit lower in the mountains, a place I knew .. with no houses, nothing but pure virgin nature for some miles. I went and slept there, in the car.

Woke up this morning, started to clean the area around a bit, as I usually do.
After an hour or so, while I was busy picking up some trashes from under some bushes, I hear a car coming and parking near the place where my car was parked. I don’t give it much attention and I continue to focus on what I was doing. But then.. as I prepare to take one of the garbage bags up.. to my car, I see a man, an older guy, looking at me.. with a surprised, almost cheerful face, and speaking in English he says “Wow, how very few people are doing what you are doing here”. I replied something along the lines of “Well, this is our home you know? The Earth. We should take care of it, we should preserve it.” He continued by saying “Well, I don’t know if this is truly our home”. I immediately sensed where he was coming from, and I replied “Well, we can consider it a rent :)”

In 2-3 minutes we were talking about gnosticism, the true god versus the false god, and then.. after 10 more minutes, this man had shared with me some meaningful life experiences that made him understand that eating meat, smoking cigarettes, making sex.. are all.. creations of the devil, intended to pull us down.

If this encountering would have happened even as early as two years ago, I wouldn’t have believed my ears and my eyes, to meet a random guy.. on the first day of the year.. telling me and confirming to me some of my deepest insights and realisations.

And.. the other poignant thing.. among the first few words this man told me.. was about this gnostic writing, called the ‘Clementine Homilies’. A book which, apparently, never made it to the bible, because of the controversial things stated in it. All throughout the conversation he continued to bring the discussion back to this book, recounting different instances from it. Our meeting ended by him telling me: “Find the Clementine Homilies.pdf”

It is interesting how this happened one day after I publicly announced that I open myself to find my true teachers.

This type of event has only ever happened before, for me, some 4 years or so ago.. when a random guy from the street came and asked me if he can take a walk with me. I said, “sure” (his energy felt alright). During our short encounter.. this guy told me to watch ‘Altered Carbon’, the movie series. He repeated this 3-4 times. I watched the movie and indeed.. I found one very important detail in it.

Towards the end of my encounter with this older man today.. he told me his name.. Manfried (German name, as he was from Germany). He went on to say that his name means.. Man free.
And my mind.. immediately thought of the Fremen in Dune.

So apparently.. the year started with a sign, a confirmation and a trace of learning.

When I got back home.. the experience turned on the opposite end of the spectrum, though.
I came home to find that the spruce and pine trees that I recently planted and took great care of, have been ravaged and eaten.. probably by the large flock of sheep and goats of one of the shepherds from around here. Of course, the guy that shepherds them knows not to bring them to people’s yards, but since he is drunk most of the times.. and the general sentiment of some of the people from around here is “we do as we please”, he sometimes still “mistakingly” brings them here.. and that’s when things like this happen.

My heart felt broken.. I still can’t describe the desolation I feel.

I just planted these trees 3 weeks ago, taking so much care of them and of the entire process (going and taking them out of the forest, preparing the ground so it is fertile to them, watering them frequently, etc). They were so beautiful, and since I planted them.. when I would wake up in the morning.. and see them, I felt a bit of joy, true joy in my heart. Now they look terrible, and most then surely.. they will not make it. What wrenches me more than the love I felt and care I’ve given them, is the fact that I took them out of their natural habitat.. the forest.. only to bring them here to die..

I had another internal brake down.. cursing this reality for more than half an hour today.
Why do things have to be like this?
Why someone creates Life, meaning, beauty.. and someone else comes and destroys it?
What’s the point of it?

Then the day continued with the imbuing smell of burned flesh, coming from the neighbours which were making a “barbecue”.. and apparently “having a good time”, while polluting the atmosphere with the most desecrating, abhorrable music, which is considered.. “good times music”.

Beauty and horror.
Profound and profane.
Signs of faith.. and feelings of dissolution.

The first day of the year 2025.