Month: April 2023

Ibiza

Every month I come back to Austria for two days to visit my daughter.

It is a tiring journey as I leave Lagos at 8 am and arrive at my home in Vienna usually after seven hours or more when I don’t find a direct flight or if there is a two hour delay like the last time.

The next day I take the 10 am train and travel for about 4 1/2 to five hours (door-to-door) to get to Corinthia.

Usually, I spend three to five hours on that afternoon with my daughter, then go to rest (or have a sauna).

The day after I see my daughter again at 9 am for two to three hours before I take the train back to Vienna, usually arriving some time between 4 pm and 8 pm at my Vienna home, depending on the timing.

The next morning I usually take the 7 am flight back to Faro (which means I leave my home about 5:15 am) and arrive back to my home in Lagos around seven hours later.

This time I didn’t find an affordable flight back to Faro, so I’m not flying direct and not to Faro but Malaga, which eventually makes my trip back about 22 hours long.

It’s tiring and stressful. Last time my immune system got so weak in the process, that I was ill for more than a week.

And it’s expensive. Including flights, trains, hotel, food and presents each of these journies makes up about a quarter of my monthly living expenses.

So it’s at least a 75 hour journey with two flights and two train rides of at least 4 1/2 hours, about 6.000 km and takes more than 10% of a months time out of my life to see my daughter for five to eight hours in neither a private nor intimate setting.

Is it worth it?

Of course! She is my daughter! And by that, I don’t only mean my blood… all my aunts as well as my parents say, she has the same look in her eyes and the same charisma like me – when I was a child… dominat, charismatic, intense.

Apart from that, I’ve seen so many women (and in the Algarve even more) that have many issues and struggle after many years and even decades because their fathers were physically or emotionally absent. And I want to make sure that my daughter knows I really love her more than anything.

Recently, she started to express her wishes that I bring her to bed, that I come to her place to play with her in her space – her world – as we usually only meet in public without any privacy or intimacy, and she also stated multiple times that she wants to come to Portugal.

For her mother, it is not yet possible. I’m not sure why but have some wild bets 😉

I am certain, even if her mother is too caught up in her mental models to ever acknowledge, our daughter will one day see the effort daddy made to be part of her life and make her own conclusions about if mummy’s restrictions were justified.

But maybe I am just delusional. Maybe my daughter doesn’t deserve to be with her dad in a private and intimate setting ✌🏽

Ahasveros

Up in the sky

The other day, I danced with the moon again for the first time in a long time. When we returned to Cristaland at two in the morning, long term resident Aaron hugged me and said:

“You know, I never heard anyone here saying anything negative about you. You know everyone around here loves you!”

I was deeply touched…

Cristaland is a very special place. Different from most other communities, it has hardly any rules other than being alcohol and substance free and dogs are not allowed (with some exceptions). It is something in between a community and a camping space for travellers with a conscious mindset. It is so beautiful that you have a core team and than there is also always interesting new people coming and going all the time. Some farewells are hard because this is a space of love and connection and some people you start to love deeply.

The trees in Cristaland are very special living between them is deeply healing.

One guy who lives here now for a couple of months. He is around 30 and amongst other things was diagnosed manic depression. Since he is in Cristaland he is symptom free for the first time in his life.

Or our cook here, she is deeply spiritually connected. Whenever I talk to her, I get a answers of a Satsang teacher, not a normal human being. It is always a pleasure to talk to her. I hope her future husband will not come around any time soon (her plan is to stay in Cristaland until he passes by and picks her up) and I am happy that her suicide attempt (by holding her breath as long as she could) didn’t work 😉

And there is many people here with interesting biographies and various issues (however, people with serious mental issues cannot stay). The beauty here is that nobody needs to hide them here. You don‘t to wesr masks here.

The other day we sat at the fire. Akut – the owner of Cristaland – proposed that everyone sitting in the circle says something he likes about every person in the circle. When everyone started to give me feedback, eventually it was Aaron‘s turn.

“Where shall I start?” he said and then started to say many beautiful things but eventually he said some things I was kinda surprised about “… you are so light and humorous and make people laugh and feel good all the time!”

I was stunned… “light and humorous”… my best friends in Vienna would describe many good things about me but definitely not “light and humorous”!

It is true, I am really teasing and joking a lot and people here enjoy my presence. Sometimes people here start to gather around me to listen to what I have to say, talking like a wise fool, joking around but sharing wisdom with the jokes and teasing.

So now some people here start calling me Bab’Ahash… well actually it sounds like Baba’Hash 🤣

The last time I consulted my psychic supervisor in September she told me that I will be the metaphysical leader of a community but that I don’t want to accept that role… yet.

In fact, I came to Cristaland to be a resident. After being here for three weeks I’ve been asked to become the vice-president of the association that is running Cristaland. And now some people here call me the spiritual leader of the community, although I show them every day, how deeply human and flawed I am.

I never asked for any of that, yet, finally, I am living a life where I’m dancing every day, am light and humorous 😉

Ahasveros