Overgrown with brambles, far and wide – a mysterious world full of passages and caves. Unapproachable and impenetrable. One is reminded of Sleeping Beauty. Am I the prince who seeks to penetrate this sleeping world? With the brush cutter and the chopping knife? No!

The determination of the prince’s sword and a strong will are needed nevertheless. The rest is mundane – welcome to the world of current affairs. Dusty, loud, brute – these are the seemingly primitive technical methods of modernity – relentlessly effective. I sweat in stagnant air, dust and chaff particles penetrate all openings between clothing and skin, powerful spikes penetrate sleeves and trouser legs. Even the modern functional armour does not protect against injuries. Does nature fight back or is it just the way it is? A question of interpretation that I don’t want to see turned against me: It is what it is. I am the intruder!

And then it reveals itself, the wall of “Sleeping Beauty’s Castle”. Built by master craftsmen, perhaps centuries old. It stands proud and graceful, each stone deliberately placed.

What drove the people to move up from the lowlands to a remote high valley and painstakingly wrest space from nature to live their own lives under difficult conditions? Narrowness, hardship and poverty? Maybe so. But what was it that made them erect such graceful buildings in tedious work? Don’t we think that poor people have no culture? Sloppy work is enough. They are poor because they know nothing and can do nothing? So they are self-inflicted?But these walls radiate a dignity that also echoes back to the builders. The construction – an incredible effort. My respect!

I realise: the conceit of the intellect so easily overrides the “primitive” achievements of the ancients. But in the past, people still had a sense and awareness of the beautiful, the true and the good. Today, this has mostly been rationalised away – because of the costs! Everything is rational and functional today. Often there is a lack of real substance. Things are ‘performed’, ‘pushed’, ‘faked’, many things are quickly no longer ‘in’, totally ‘out’ and ‘obsolete’. Who are the really poor?

Inner and outer renunciation can also be a liberation…