My summer 2025

The sun is shining on the street in front of my house. It's Sunday morning and I've had breakfast. I love this time of day when the surroundings are relatively quiet, the neighbors are starting their day, and I can work almost undisturbed. Yesterday I went for a hike in the nearby Spessart forest above Lohr.

Nature as a source of energy for Fornos

View of the old town of Lohr on June 14, 2025

I arrived by train at 7:45 a.m. and headed straight into the woods above the station. On my roughly 13-kilometer loop, I experienced nature in its purest form and encountered very few people. Deep in the forest, I took a break at a hut and refueled with the muesli I had brought with me. To stay on track, I use the Komoot smartphone app. I've had excellent experiences with it, and it almost always guides me to my destination. The photo on the left was taken on my way back to the station. For my artistic pursuits, nature offers a wonderful treasure trove of inspiration. During the week, I work diligently on this creative path. What is your relationship with nature? Where and how do you find strength for your everyday life?

Nature and LSD

So today, June 15, 2025, has started very well for me, and I am truly grateful for my wonderful life. On my hike yesterday, I encountered a fawn off the path, which looked straight into my eyes from a distance of 100 meters. To my left stood a hunting blind covered with an olive-green tarpaulin. Once home, a personal story from my youth came to mind. In 1982 or 1983, during an LSD experience, I sat on a hunting blind in the Holter Forest in my then-hometown of Schloß Holte-Stukenbrock. My parents had moved to the Lower Franconian baroque town of Amorbach, and I was subletting a room from an elderly couple. I had the experience in May with two friends. During this trip, I sat on a hunting blind there and, induced by the LSD, saw the trees in the forest begin to sway, and the needles of the young spruces around me turned yellow and brown. This experience deeply affected me at the time, and I believed I had seen the end of the blue planet as a prophecy.

Memory

Arriving home yesterday, I was haunted by another experience from my time after leaving the municipal grammar school in Oerlinghausen near Schloß Holte-Stukenbrock. In 1981, after submitting my reasons for refusing military service in the German Federal Armed Forces, I was summoned to an examination board in Miltenberg, about 10 km away, near my first residence in Amorbach. In my explanation for refusing military service, I recounted an experience from my youth. I based it on a similar incident in the woods. A hunter's shotgun pellet struck a deer right before my eyes, and the deer died immediately. The impact of this experience on me was so profound that I could not perform my military service and instead wished to undertake 16 months of civilian service as an alternative. My explanation was accepted.

Current events

My déjà vu in the woods yesterday had a different context than the experience of conscientious objection in 1981. Nevertheless, my interpretation of it as a parallel is a warning to heed the growing danger of a major armed conflict, given the current situation in the Middle East. I already foresaw this danger in December 2024, which is why I painted the Forno "The Thread."

I painted the Forno "The Thread" in December 2024. It can be interpreted as a warning against autocracy and an escalation of wars worldwide. I see this as a danger to the globe.

The book "The World of Yesterday"

During my studies in Modern History and Art History at the Technical University of Berlin from 1987 to 1993, we read Stefan Zweig's book "The World of Yesterday." The Austrian author wrote the book in 1941. "The World of Yesterday" is his autobiography as a committed European during a time of spreading National Socialism. It also sheds light on the history before the outbreak of the First World War in September 1914. He published it in 1942, shortly before his suicide.

June 2025

I also think that the world is currently at a similar point. The terrible events of the last few days in the Middle East are perhaps evidence for this assumption.