Küche als Meditationspraxis - im Gespräch mit unserem Retreat-Koch

00:00:14: We'll switch to English for now, because I have a guest who doesn't speak much German. You came from

00:00:33: Israel to cook for us. I was in Germany already, but just arrived from Israel.

00:00:39: Yes, and it was such a nourishing contact that now, 14 years later, we are still working

00:00:50: together. And I would like to take the opportunity to talk a little bit with you. Happily.

00:00:57: Partly, so the people who come and came to the retreats learn to know you a little bit,

00:01:03: your perspective. Maybe also your perspective on what we are doing. I

00:01:11: think for many people who hear, okay, you come from Israel, you came yesterday.

00:01:20: It's not what we are doing, but it's where you come from. How is life for you in Israel

00:01:29: now? Well, it's intense. It's intense and getting more intense over the last years.

00:01:36: Obviously, there's been conflict and war ongoing, active. So it's been very,

00:01:43: very intense to be in this environment and to contain all the drastic emotions that it

00:01:52: brings up and the stress factor in the society, in the environment. And yet at the same time,

00:02:01: it's a wonderful place with wonderful people and a wonderful history, not just the Jewish history,

00:02:08: but the human history that's come out of this land and it's still breathing.

00:02:13: This history is still breathing and showing up,

00:02:17: showing itself. So it's quite a tough life, but it's a good life. This is what I can say for me.

00:02:26: I'm very blessed to be on this side of things in this time. But for many people it's

00:02:34: an awfully hard life. You are one of the people cooking for us who also

00:02:42: spend time in the meditation hall in the time that you are cooking.

00:02:46: For some people, the cooking is just so much work that there is no time. They find no time. Some

00:02:52: other people need other ways to regenerate and they spend their time outside in nature.

00:03:01: You also spend time in the hall. What is your spiritual practice? Well,

00:03:07: I've been regularly meditating in my personal life for the past 13 years. So

00:03:15: coming here to a space where people come to practice and sit together and being in this

00:03:22: quiet place that we are, it's a big blessing for me for my own practice because obviously

00:03:31: in my daily life I don't get the chance to sit regularly with people like I do here.

00:03:36: And also when I do sit with people, it's not necessarily in a space that's been so precisely

00:03:43: adjusted and made for people to really have a very, very profound and deep experience of

00:03:49: practice and meditation. So for me, meditation is a part of my daily life anyways. And coming

00:03:54: here and having the chance to practice in the hall, it's just a great blessing.

00:04:02: The past five and a half years we had a daily live meditation in the morning. And

00:04:08: I noticed that you also participate there again and again. We start at six o'clock.

00:04:17: In Israel it's five. Seven. It's seven.

00:04:20: Ah, yeah, it's earlier. Okay, it's seven. I would like it to start at six in Israel.

00:04:25: It would be actually better for me if you can... Would fit better in your

00:04:28: schedule. If your community is agreeing to start at five. Highly unlikely.

00:04:36: Yeah. So how do you experience sitting online in a group and the guided meditation is in

00:04:44: German? It's a good question. Firstly, because I've been sitting in the hall over the years and

00:04:50: listening to your teaching in German, so I feel like I've soaked a lot of it in.

00:04:55: And even though I don't understand most of what you're saying, I understand

00:04:59: where you're coming from. And your intention and you, because we know each

00:05:04: other all this time. So it's a great opportunity for me to have a sangha.

00:05:09: I'm an international person, so having an international community that's not where I live,

00:05:15: it's enriching for me. And having the routine that you maintain so incredibly, really sitting

00:05:24: every morning with your community and holding the space, for me it's also a big blessing, because

00:05:32: you're the only person I know that's accessible to me that holds this kind of daily space. So

00:05:39: it's great for me to open up the phone, the Zoom, just connect and hear your voice.

00:05:43: And it helps me to feel like I'm a part of the group. And when I come here,

00:05:47: I feel more connected. My first contact with your family was one of your brothers who came

00:05:55: to Plum Village when I was there to participate in a peace conference.

00:06:02: That he organized. That Thích Nhất Hạnh and Plum Village organized, and I was

00:06:08: one of the people in the support team. He was the Israeli contact for this group.

00:06:15: Yeah, your brother was the Israeli contact. And my responsibility there was

00:06:22: taking care of the Palestinian group who were in our hamlet. But then I was also present in

00:06:30: the meetings where, I think it was about a dozen Jewish Israelis and about a dozen Palestinians.

00:06:43: And they had that talk. This was my first contact with your family,

00:06:46: your brother. So he has a contact to the Plum Village tradition, to Thích Nhất Hạnh.

00:06:55: What is non-Jewish spiritual practice in Israel now? Oh, there's plenty. Because

00:07:02: Israelis have been traveling, especially after the army, but not only for probably 40 years

00:07:10: already, 50 years. So many Israelis, secular Israelis, came out of Israel and met spirituality.

00:07:18: Often for the first time, not in Israel, because our Jewish tradition, like you have with

00:07:23: Christianity here in Europe, once you're born into it, you don't necessarily identify with

00:07:27: the spiritual side of it. It's more a family tradition and the customs and the holidays. So

00:07:34: for Israelis, Jewish Israelis, you find, I believe, almost every spiritual practice

00:07:45: in the land of Israel, whether in bigger groups or smaller groups.

00:07:48: But meditation is a very common concept for Jewish Israelis. Also,

00:07:54: there's religious Jewish that practice meditation and that adapted the kind of

00:08:00: Buddhist perspective onto the Jewish perspective and made a mix. So yeah, it's very, very common.

00:08:11: Back to here, Wallander, Germany. So the past 14 years, you have been coming

00:08:23: again and again to cook one or two. Now you cook two times 10 days.

00:08:32: How do you experience this? What is your experience being here cooking? It's work,

00:08:38: that's one aspect. Yeah. What's the rest? Well, for me, I think what first really excited me

00:08:47: about this work from the first time I met you and we cooperated is that I really have the chance

00:08:53: to affect with love positively people's processes that are going through a very,

00:09:01: very in-depth process of introspection and mindfulness and self-development.

00:09:08: And this is something that I've always loved to be a part of in my daily profession. I'm

00:09:14: an emotional life coach. I coach individuals and couples to make positive changes in their lives.

00:09:19: So I was cooking professionally before I started being a coach, but this coaching side

00:09:24: of me has always been a part of me from a young age. So being able to go into people's bellies,

00:09:32: like I like to say, and to put my intention and love into their experience through the

00:09:39: food, it's been a really amazing chance to fulfill myself and give

00:09:45: my gift to the world and feel that I'm positively affecting people's lives. At

00:09:52: the same time, I get to witness people go through this transformation from the moment they arrive,

00:09:57: from their life, with all their energies, you know, of the outside world, and then see them

00:10:02: kind of saying, I do, and going into the first evening and the first morning where things are

00:10:08: still a bit bubbling in the hall, and then to just see how slowly, slowly people are calming down.

00:10:16: In the last retreat, I also understood that people don't actually look at each

00:10:20: other, that they're guided not to look at each other. There's no eye contact. No eye contact.

00:10:24: So I'm actually the only one besides you, I guess, and Kati, that gets to really... I'm

00:10:29: allowed to observe. I especially observe people when they eat because I want to

00:10:33: see how they're behaving while they eat the food, so I get my feedback, because I can't

00:10:38: get feedback through talking with them. So I really get to see this process, especially

00:10:45: I love how I can see it on people's skin, on their face, how you see how the wrinkles, they

00:10:51: start to disappear, and the light starts to shine through the same places where there was stress or

00:10:57: like a shrinking of the facial muscles, and then to talk to them in the end and to hear what they

00:11:04: went through and to see... I love the final meal in the last evening where everybody sits together

00:11:11: and to really just see these people that I was only seeing them silent, and maybe I heard them

00:11:16: talk a bit when they arrived, but then getting to know them, it's an incredible experience, I

00:11:22: think for any person that likes to observe people, it's a really special, special experience.

00:11:29: I hear from some of the participants that it's difficult for them to imagine how it

00:11:35: is to cook without getting feedback, to be silently working and serving three meals a

00:11:43: day, and nobody gives any feedback. It's not exactly correct because I do give feedback and

00:11:52: Kati does give feedback, but how did you learn to cope with this situation? It took me time. I

00:12:06: always remember the first retreat I cooked with you, I was so nervous because it was also the

00:12:12: first time I did something like this, I was only 26, and I remember myself finishing to

00:12:20: serve the meal and going outside and just, I don't know, kind of dancing, just taking all

00:12:25: the energies out of my body because there was so much tension for me, being in this

00:12:29: situation of serving and not knowing, and what if it's not enough, and it's not like a regular

00:12:36: kind of cooking job or even a retreat cooking job, it's a buzzy kitchen that you work in.

00:12:44: So it was quite challenging for me, but over the years with my own professional experience and with

00:12:49: coming here again and again and seeing that I'm doing a good job, people are very happy with what

00:12:53: I do, you're happy with what I do, so I eventually eased into it, and today I love it. I love this,

00:13:03: it's a kind of an adventure. Colleagues of mine that I tell them about this job, they say,

00:13:07: I don't know how you could do it without getting to talk to the people and ask them, but I love it,

00:13:14: it's a special kind of experience.

00:13:19: I really like the experience with you. We had many people cooking for us, and you are one

00:13:22: of the people who brings in the energy we like. I

00:13:34: have the feeling that you also carry, bear the retreat and the participants, that they

00:13:42: have a place in your mind when you are cooking and you see the whole process,

00:13:49: the whole group, and for me it's very good to experience that you, in the morning and in the

00:13:55: evening, you are in the whole and you meditate with us, so you're connected to the process.

00:14:07: I hope, I wish that for all cooks, but with many it's not there, and still they can be

00:14:17: perfect for the job. How do you manage your time? Because you are cooking for 24 people, and

00:14:32: you serve a breakfast, a lunch, a dinner, you have a tea table, you have fruits, and other

00:14:42: things at the buffet that people can take for themselves, and then you have

00:14:47: to go shopping, you have to plan what you do, you have to keep your kitchen clean, you don't have,

00:14:54: actually Katja and I, we help with the dishes that come from the dining hall, but your own cleaning

00:15:03: in the kitchen is also your thing. How did you learn to manage to do so much, and to do so much

00:15:11: continuously? Like now you are 20 days working, and there's no break, no break day.

00:15:18: How do you experience this? What did you learn? How did you learn to do it? It has

00:15:27: been a process. Firstly, I'm a naturally very organized person, and clean person, so

00:15:34: I think from this side, when we first came together and worked together, I

00:15:40: was able to adapt myself to your needs pretty quickly, because I have this orderly way of

00:15:46: being in my own personal life, and I think also because I was young when I started, I

00:15:53: was able to take in a lot of your input, and a lot of your suggestions, and I wasn't fighting

00:15:58: it. My ego wasn't thinking, I already know how to do this, so he shouldn't tell me what to do.

00:16:04: I was very open, and so in some way I can say that the foundations of my professional

00:16:09: cooking career were based with you, and so coming back over time and also seeing the

00:16:17: systems that you developed, and the order that you and Kati developed, and that Kati developed over

00:16:22: her time, I really was open to taking it in, and learning from the experience made when I'm not

00:16:30: here, and by today I already understand the job in such a way that I have the overview of the time,

00:16:40: and the amounts, and the shopping, and because I'm an organized person, so I know how to plan. I

00:16:49: have a good ability to plan and foresee time lengths, and how much time something will take

00:16:55: me, so it's my professionality. What I noticed in Israel, also this year I spent some time

00:17:05: in Israel, and what I noticed is Sabbath is respected by almost everyone, almost anyone.

00:17:15: So you are used to six days action, one day calm. How do

00:17:21: you cope 20 days action, no Sabbath? That's a good question too. I think the practice of

00:17:33: mindfulness, here especially, and in the kitchen even more.

00:17:39: Over the days I go through this process of becoming more and more

00:17:42: calm and present, obviously also coming from a very stressful place, and then

00:17:46: making the journey which adds stress in a way. But then thanks to the practice and the

00:17:53: atmosphere here, over the days I as well calm down, and I find a way to integrate

00:18:00: rest into the daily work in a way that it doesn't get too heavy on my shoulders. Yes.

00:18:06: And it's not easy for me to not have this resting day. It's true,

00:18:11: my system is really used to this rhythm. But I think psychologically and intentionally, because

00:18:22: I know I'm coming to serve, so there's this saying in Hebrew, pikuach nefesh docheh Shabbat.

00:18:29: It means if you're practicing or doing something that's meant to look after another soul, like on

00:18:35: a deep level, so you're allowed not to keep the Shabbat. This is for religious people,

00:18:40: for secular people. But it's this idea for me that I come for service, and I know it's temporary.

00:18:49: So I prepare for this mentally before I come, and then when I'm

00:18:53: here, on the Shabbat I do lower my pace. Yes. It comes naturally and

00:19:02: also consciously, because I feel it in my body that today I'm more calm.

00:19:06: So it works together, because this is not like some kind of a food court and some festival,

00:19:13: you know. This is a place where people come to calm. So in some way every day is a bit

00:19:20: like Shabbat for me, on the energetic level, and on the practical level.

00:19:24: So I deal with the physical challenge, which, like I said, because it's integrated with

00:19:31: rest and with a pace that I'm more and more conscious of over the days, so it doesn't

00:19:37: become something heavy for me to carry. And how did you learn to... because you start

00:19:46: your day... What I see is when people are really engaged in the kitchen, and

00:19:52: quite some of the cooks are, then it's very much like a retreat. You wake up, you are in

00:20:02: the hall at 6 o'clock to sit in meditation with the rest, and when the rest, when the

00:20:08: group starts to move at 7.30, something like that, they start to do prostrations, and you

00:20:15: go in the kitchen, and their movements are like this, and your movements are like that.

00:20:20: It's quite the same. And the participants have a program that runs through the whole

00:20:28: day without a break. And of course there is time to go to the toilet and time to eat, and there

00:20:35: is time for everything you need, but there is no time where you sit and you think, OK,

00:20:43: what will I do with this time? I can choose freely anything I want.

00:20:49: There is none of that. And I notice that in the kitchen, if you really,

00:20:55: and you do it, and I also see it with Dionisie and with Mark and

00:21:01: with several other cooks, they engage the whole day. How do you experience

00:21:07: this? What does this do for you? And maybe also where are the difficulties? Well,

00:21:15: again, it's something I've learned over time thanks to the experience I've gained here.

00:21:22: I appreciate it because I'm a very independent person in my daily life. I'm

00:21:27: an independent business, and I'm a person that's really stubborn about keeping life

00:21:35: to be something I live from choice and not getting caught up in expectations of other

00:21:41: people from me or society. So I'm actually very used to managing my time very, very freely.

00:21:49: Sometimes it's too free for me. Sometimes I would like some more structure. So coming for

00:21:56: a temporary period of time to a place where I have this environment, it's a structure that I choose.

00:22:03: It's not forced upon me. I want to have this structure for this

00:22:07: time that I'm here. So I actually enjoy it.

00:22:11: It is important for me to have time to rest between. Not every day it's

00:22:16: possible. When I shop, I don't have time to rest or to take a walk.

00:22:23: But it balances itself out all in all because over time being here, so my stress factor comes

00:22:30: down, and after a few days of cooking, the system is already working inside of me. So everything

00:22:36: kind of just I know what to do, and it happens when it needs to happen. And very rarely do I

00:22:42: get to a point where I'm like, oh, I don't have enough time or I'm stressed more than I want to

00:22:48: be, and I don't like this feeling because I'm serving food for people that are meditating.

00:22:53: Very rarely it happens to me. But it is very important for me over time. It has

00:22:59: been and still to learn how to do things more and more simply and effectively.

00:23:04: So I waste minimum energy on any action that I do, and this is actually something I've been

00:23:11: learning a lot through you, through knowing you and the way that you approach things and

00:23:18: how you live your life. And I consider you a Zen master, so I learn from just

00:23:25: observing you, and from working for you and how you guide me through your needs over time. But

00:23:35: I'm happy to say it's working through persistence like any life practice, and the

00:23:40: persistence has enabled me to learn to come to a more and more fine level of the actions that I do.

00:23:49: They go really deep inside from a deep intention and they manifest

00:23:56: on a very clearer and cleaner level from retreat to retreat. If

00:24:08: you put your family and other responsibilities and so on aside, and how long do you think you

00:24:17: can do this continuously? So we have four blocks of retreats, and one of the blocks in December,

00:24:27: January is 45 retreat days, one after the other,

00:24:34: no break in between. How long do you think you can do this? Well, this time doing 20 days,

00:24:44: it's the first time that I'm doing 20 days, so I'll see after I do it how it was to do 20 days.

00:24:52: It was actually the last time I was here, when I cooked 14 days, it was

00:24:55: the first time since coming here that I was suddenly feeling, wow,

00:24:59: that ended quite fast. Like just once I started to feel like I'm really, it's starting

00:25:05: to penetrate deep inside of me, the practice and being here, so it ended. And I told you,

00:25:14: it would be good to do this for a longer time, and this time I came for a longer time.

00:25:20: But I cannot imagine my life without my daughter, and so that's why I cannot imagine

00:25:27: it for an ongoing time, but for just alone, for me personally, from a challenge perspective,

00:25:34: an adventure perspective, I would do it for 45 days for sure. For the adventure,

00:25:38: just to have, you know, to go through it, I would do it for sure. We often hear from here

00:25:46: that people say they just cannot imagine how it is to be continuously in responsibility and

00:25:53: continuously locked in a schedule, from waking up to going to bed, over a long period, like 45 days.

00:26:03: And people just can't imagine how it could function. And I'm a bad example to explain

00:26:14: this, because for me it's very natural. I could do this three months in a row.

00:26:18: There's no problem. I have time enough to go to a shower,

00:26:20: to clean my teeth, to move my body a little bit, to eat. I have everything I need.

00:26:29: And like you, you have a daughter, I have a son. I cannot imagine not seeing my son. So

00:26:37: there is a limitation to the process, but the limitation is not I am too tired or

00:26:46: I feel like doing something else now.

00:26:49: I'm bored with this. What did you find out there? What do you need to know,

00:26:59: understand, to be able to work continuously? Quite simply, I would say that meditating morning and

00:27:08: evening, that's a container that enables a really long stretch of

00:27:14: doing anything for me. Because once I have this framework, so I know I have somewhere

00:27:21: that everything comes down to, and then I have this moment to myself, going inside,

00:27:26: practicing in a group, in a sangha, it empowers the practice than sitting alone.

00:27:32: So as long as I know that I have this environment and that I don't have to come

00:27:36: every day, I can choose if one day I want to stay longer in bed in the morning, so I can,

00:27:40: and if one day I want to go to sleep earlier,

00:27:43: then I can. So this is pretty much what enables me. And aside that, I like adventures.

00:27:49: I like challenges that I know I can do, but I'm afraid to do. But I know

00:27:54: that I can manage it if I choose, and then to walk this path of doing this,

00:27:59: going through this challenge. And for me, this is one of the best flavors of life.

00:28:06: What are the mistakes you shouldn't make if you have a stretch like this

00:28:11: ahead? Because I think many people know the challenge, that they have a long stretch,

00:28:17: and you have maybe Christmas. For many people, the month before Christmas,

00:28:22: people are so busy. And they feel like, I have no time for myself.

00:28:29: And they feel exhausted in the end of the stretch. What is the secret? What

00:28:38: are the secrets? What not to do when you have a stretch like that ahead of you? I

00:28:49: can't think of something not to do. I guess when I look at myself, why it's possible for

00:28:54: me to do this, I think living most of my life in Israel, it's conditioned me in quite a rough way.

00:29:01: Also serving in the army, I wasn't a fighter. But just having to be

00:29:07: so committed to something, even if I didn't want to go, it's the law. If I wouldn't go,

00:29:15: I could be punished to the level of jail.

00:29:20: So being conditioned in this environment and seeing people do very hard positions of

00:29:27: life, people around me being fighters and devoting their lives to the bigger purpose that

00:29:33: they believe in, I think it gave me the ability to know that it's very possible. If this is your

00:29:41: reality, if this is what you need to do, it's possible. And eventually I come here for work.

00:29:46: So I need to work anyways. So if I can work in an environment that also nourishes me and

00:29:52: work with people that I believe in what they do and support them and

00:29:56: support human beings on their journey of development. While I’m doing all of this,

00:30:00: it drives me. It gives me a lot of driving force to do it.

00:30:06: But I think what not to do would be to not practice meditation while you're cooking, for

00:30:13: people meditating. I think that would be very hard if you're living your own, if you're separating it

00:30:18: completely. I'm sure there's people that could do it but for me that would be a big no-no.

00:30:24: Yeah, we've seen that in action. Yeah,

00:30:26: I know. So you frame it in meditation time in the morning, in the evening.

00:30:36: And what is it, what's meditation for you? What is it you do or don't do?

00:30:42: Meditation for me is the chance to face and recognize all the processes that are happening

00:30:48: within me. Because I find for myself, when life becomes really hard for me is when I don't really

00:30:55: get the chance to stop and acknowledge what's actually going on inside of me.

00:31:01: And I'm an emotional person, I'm intuitive, I'm an empath, so I feel people's energy.

00:31:08: I see, I feel, so I need this buffer time to be able to let everything come up to the surface.

00:31:15: And meditation is the practice that enables me to observe it and to enable more intense,

00:31:22: dense feelings to come up over my life. I'm learning that I can also sit with that.

00:31:31: This would be, yeah. That's a beautiful description of meditation. So you say you started

00:31:46: cooking professionally for 13 years, and for 14 years you cooked your first retreat with us.

00:31:53: Your journey as a cook, part of your professional, because you're more a life

00:31:58: coach than a cook. So your professional life as a cook started here. What did you learn

00:32:10: about cooking these 14 years? Well, it's quite practical, I can say.

00:32:21: The most important thing I learned was how effective it is to work clean.

00:32:27: And this is something I've noticed working with other kitchens, with other cooks,

00:32:32: other chefs, even professional chefs that manage operations, not just I need to go

00:32:39: and cook. At least in Israel, where I've done most of my professional cooking,

00:32:47: I was amazed sometimes to see how unaware people are of how much energy they waste

00:32:53: when they work in chaos, or they just don't work consciously step by step.

00:33:01: Step, and then you clear it, and then the next step. It wasn't clear for me when I

00:33:05: started working here, but this gave me the foundation, working, getting to know you and

00:33:12: your kind of advice for me. And then also working with Kati for a certain period here in the kitchen

00:33:19: and seeing how she was new in this, and she was really learning through you her own way.

00:33:26: And I guess this is also a gift of learning and cooking in Germany that naturally the atmosphere

00:33:34: here is more of practicality and efficiency and order. And this is something that I naturally

00:33:40: connect with. So I think that would be the biggest lesson that I learned and practiced.

00:33:47: And then coming to Israel, I worked in kitchens that were very unorganized,

00:33:52: uncomfortable. But thanks to my ability to organize very quickly, I was able to bring

00:33:58: it up to the standard I need and then maintain it through the retreat. And then I would get

00:34:02: feedback that people were telling me, you know, even I cooked for big festivals, outdoor kitchens

00:34:07: that were just I had to build myself and in environments that are very rough, actually.

00:34:15: And I was able to maintain this cleanliness, this mindful kind of calmness in this atmosphere. And

00:34:23: I was working in some festivals, people working next to me with other businesses,

00:34:27: they were telling me, you know, your calmness and your cleanliness and order is radiating

00:34:32: onto us. And it's helping us be more calm and be more tidy and more clean.

00:34:37: So it's it was very clear to me, this is this is the power. This is the gift that I've. So

00:34:43: how do you learn? How do you practice or live this under time pressure? That's a very good question.

00:34:54: I know about myself that from a young age, I was given the ability to to plan and see

00:35:01: processes ahead. So for me, my starting point, it wasn't like another person,

00:35:11: because I already started from a point where this was something I had, I can plan a process. But it

00:35:17: did take me some years of I was at some point cooking, cooking for people in their homes.

00:35:23: And I would come with a menu that they would choose in advance and they would

00:35:26: prepare the the produce. But every kitchen was different. And that was a really good training

00:35:32: ground to learn how to manage because I came I was earning not so much money.

00:35:35: So I really wanted to keep the time frame. Also, sometimes it was just the time they were out,

00:35:39: you know, for so if they came back and started walking around between my feet,

00:35:43: that would be really hard. So I would really want to manage it.

00:35:46: So I would sit before every every cooking session. And I would plan each step I'm going to do,

00:35:53: I'm going to cut this, then I'm going to put this on the stove,

00:35:55: then I'm going to and I was doing this for about two years. By the end of it,

00:36:00: I didn't need to plan anymore, because I already had the idea and it stayed with me.

00:36:03: Yeah, that's beautiful. I had a similar experience. I learned cooking,

00:36:12: living in a with 14 students in one house, and we all had to do our contribution.

00:36:21: And I didn't want to contribute in cleaning and stuff like that. So I offered contributing in

00:36:27: cooking, Indian food, but from Indonesia, India, very complex, many dishes. And the deal was,

00:36:38: I cook four days a week, one meal, and all the rest is done, and no other responsibility.

00:36:47: And this was only possible with good planning. And for me, planning is a very unnatural thing. And I

00:36:55: made exactly this experience planning, and I need to plan it meticulously, to be able to perform.

00:37:04: And after a few years, I don't need to plan anything because it's known. And from there,

00:37:10: the next step cooking for me was to go into weekends and to cook on ships. And

00:37:16: so we had groups from between six and 40 people, and I was on board to be the cook.

00:37:23: And I worked through an agency and they did the planning. So basically,

00:37:31: I came on the ship, and I saw the menu. And I didn't do the shopping,

00:37:35: I couldn't go shopping anymore, because we were underwater.

00:37:39: And how to handle this situation in a kitchen. And it was, it was great, because it really forced me

00:37:52: to organize myself, and to really plan and think through. Yeah, but we're more about you here.

00:38:03: But it's really nice to hear this. Anything else you learned about

00:38:14: cooking? Yeah. I think here I learned how people can feel me, without talking to me,

00:38:29: even without looking at me, just through the food they eat that I made.

00:38:34: I received over the years, some very incredible reflections that people gave me.

00:38:42: I was touched deeply, like this person really felt me, but he didn't even see me

00:38:48: serving him the food. The food was ready made, he just came in and ate the food.

00:38:54: And I think that's to do with the fact that people go deeper and deeper into themselves,

00:38:58: and they're guided through you to really feel their sensations.

00:39:04: And some people know how to express it very well as well. And that was a big,

00:39:11: it was a big, it was even a life changer, I would say for me.

00:39:15: Because I took it with me everywhere, in everything I do, not just in cooking. But

00:39:21: I cook a lot, and I love cooking for people. So especially cooking for people, it took me

00:39:26: to the place where I understood that even if I take 20 seconds before I stop, I start cooking.

00:39:34: And I just connect with why I'm cooking for this person, why I want to, or how happy I

00:39:41: am that this person is coming to my house. I'm not, I don't do this systematically,

00:39:45: I don't have a routine of doing this, but it shows up in different ways. So it might show

00:39:49: up that I'm starting to cook, and I noticed I'm like very short with my patience and not calm.

00:39:56: And then I say, Okay, so what do I need to do to be more calm? And then I noticed, oh,

00:40:01: it's annoying me that the drying rack of the dishes has this dishes in it,

00:40:07: because now I'm gonna have to put more dishes, and then it's gonna,

00:40:10: I'm gonna have to do it. So I noticed that this is already annoying me, before I start cooking. Yeah.

00:40:16: And so I can attend to that. And then I clear the space, and then I become

00:40:21: more calm. Just so the experience of the people will have of eating what I cook will be better.

00:40:27: And for me to cook it, to serve it will be better. So it's like,

00:40:31: it's a, it's a lesson I learned through the kitchen. But it's actually, it's actually

00:40:36: projecting into many areas of my life, even in communication with people, everything.

00:40:42: Yes, most participants are not aware that they feel your mood, your heart, they feel your energy,

00:40:57: they're eating from your gift, your energy. Most people don't notice this. But many people do.

00:41:12: And actually, we all feel this. We feel the energy of the people around us. And we drink,

00:41:23: we breathe, we eat anyone who is in our surrounding.

00:41:29: And this is a continuous process. And in a retreat, the cook is a really,

00:41:39: really important part of the whole setting. You cannot,

00:41:46: we made some experience with professional cooks, who came and just did their thing.

00:41:51: And maybe what came on the buffet was the same as what you put on the buffet.

00:41:56: But there was no connection, no heart connection. And it's completely different.

00:42:04: It changes, it changes meditation in the whole.

00:42:11: So one of the reasons why I really like to work with you is that you manage,

00:42:17: I know you for 14 years now. And for 14 years, you come here, and your heart is in your service.

00:42:26: And the last years, I've learned to know another side of you. Because after the crisis in Israel,

00:42:38: the first time I met you after October 7, you were like so disturbed, so messed up. And you came,

00:42:52: and I still felt your service, and then your disturbed mind, your lack of liberty.

00:43:02: And I was really touched that you were able to serve with this. You were not really there,

00:43:08: but you were really serving. And that touched me, and showed me something, that it's possible.

00:43:22: Also under extreme situation. I met you a few times in these last few years, and also shortly

00:43:32: after the conflict with Iran broke out. And there you were really, how to say, scared.

00:43:45: You were just messed up by fear, and uncertainty,

00:43:53: and agitation. And you were still there in the kitchen. That was really impressive.

00:44:08: It's touching for me to hear, because it makes me see myself from the outside,

00:44:15: and see that what's held me over the years, living such my own independent journey,

00:44:27: was the really profoundly deep belief, and knowing that the love is encompassing

00:44:36: everything. And for me, this is a knowing. And this is also what's helped me to maintain

00:44:46: a positive approach to life, even when I went through very, very hard times.

00:44:52: It's kind of like a gift, or a word superpower comes to my mind. But it's not a power,

00:44:58: it's more a place I can rest in. And I just think I was born with this.

00:45:03: I can't explain how I'm able to do this. But for me, coming to serve,

00:45:10: it doesn't matter what I'm going through. I always know that this

00:45:15: is the best thing I can do for myself, even if I'm in a very hard situation.

00:45:20: I often imagine if I'm a part of an environment that happens a disaster in,

00:45:25: I'll definitely be cooking for people. I will definitely be there cooking for the people,

00:45:31: using whatever I have, whatever ingredients I'm given, because I know it's kind of also my

00:45:37: lifeline. It helped me go through times where I was living life consciously without money.

00:45:44: I was just serving everywhere I went, just offering people to cook for them,

00:45:49: and touching their hearts through the food. And I know that no matter what happens, this is always

00:45:54: there for me. It's always a safe place to connect with this love that's encompassing everything.

00:46:06: So cooking is one of your traits. Your main trait is coaching, or guiding people, supporting people.

00:46:22: How are you coaching? What's your offer? Well,

00:46:29: I studied what's called holistic life coaching in a very good establishment in Israel.

00:46:37: My teacher, she was a master of the profession. I was very lucky and blessed to learn from her. And

00:46:45: I actually got to coaching because my whole life, I was in this position from a very young age.

00:46:51: I remember talking on the phone to my friends,

00:46:53: and being in this role of reflecting, and reflecting the positive sides of things,

00:46:58: and also being able to be with people in their hardship. And I actually arrived

00:47:03: to coaching the profession through my work with the Mayan natural time wisdom.

00:47:10: It's a tool that's also been the same time, more or less, when I met you, it came into my life.

00:47:15: I really like a gift, like it opened up, and it's something that I discovered is existing

00:47:21: within me. And I was consciously working with the dream spell calendar, the Tzolk'in calendar,

00:47:27: for eight years daily. And also studying people through their personal sign, personal astrology.

00:47:39: And after eight years, I was really demanded again and again by people to start teaching them,

00:47:45: and giving them map readings. And so I started doing that just when COVID started and stopped

00:47:51: all of my cooking work. So I said, Okay, so I just shift now to my more spiritual guiding part of me.

00:47:58: And I started offering map readings, and it was very successful, many people came to me. And

00:48:06: shortly after people started to ask me to guide them. And I started doing it.

00:48:12: And very quickly, I noticed that I don't have a structure to work from,

00:48:17: that I can come back to and keep. And then, like most of my life,

00:48:22: it was quite magically synchronized that I started hearing about this holistic coaching

00:48:28: training. It's a two year training, one year theoretical and one year practical.

00:48:34: And I decided to go for it. And there I got the

00:48:37: tools and also the possibility to be guided while practicing

00:48:45: and doing my practicum in this 100 hours with guidance. And so ever since I've been coaching,

00:48:53: and then I specialize in coaching couples and people that want to go into relationships.

00:48:58: And so since then, I've been guiding and coaching individuals,

00:49:04: couples and business owners to make a positive change in their life and their business and

00:49:08: their relationships. I put a big emphasis on work with conflicts within the family. This is

00:49:16: something I also combine the Mayan wisdom and the Mayan astrology as a tool for diagnosis.

00:49:22: And I've actually started in the last two years to teach Chinese medicine practitioners here

00:49:29: in Germany, in English, how to integrate the calendar, and as a tool for diagnosis,

00:49:38: very precise diagnosis for people that come to them, all you need is a birth date. And

00:49:43: as a teacher, because I've grounded this wisdom so much into me and into my life,

00:49:47: so I can teach it from a place that I'm vouching based on my own life experience.

00:49:53: So if anybody ever comes with a question, I can answer it from my own personal experience.

00:49:58: It's not from knowledge that I accumulated from learning. So

00:50:06: the coaching is developing. I'm pretty much showing up for what I'm being asked to do.

00:50:12: So the couples started approaching me in the last year and a half. So I've been starting to get more

00:50:17: and more couples, and I love coaching couples. I feel it's a very, very meaningful and important

00:50:24: work that I'm doing, and I see the change and the differences that it makes for the couples.

00:50:31: Also guiding parents regarding their children. This is something I really

00:50:35: find very deep importance in. And I also guide young people.

00:50:41: Already from the age of 17, I had people coming to me and 18 and 20 and 21,

00:50:45: and people starting to ask the big life questions, you know,

00:50:50: what am I meant to do? Where should I go? And this perspective of this tool of this calendar,

00:50:56: it gives such a beautiful insight on our strengths and our natural gifts that we

00:51:03: were born with and the challenges that we go through over our life and where we take

00:51:08: the energy to deal with them and where it leads us. So it gives me a big kind of guiding map to

00:51:18: approach a person that I know. I have some people that I'm coaching now for three, four years,

00:51:23: and I've seen them make the most incredible, unbelievable things happen in their lives.

00:51:28: And I must say that I give myself very, very little credit for it. My role is to

00:51:35: reflect and empower people and to reflect to them their own strengths. And I love it.

00:51:44: Since I'm an English speaker, so I also get online work from people, English speakers.

00:51:50: I have people in Germany that I work with and different places in the world. And I love it.

00:51:56: It's really... Did I hear you well that you said

00:52:04: people who want to start a relationship? That want to go into relationships. They

00:52:09: want to go into intimacy or into partnership and you guide this process. As well, yes.

00:52:16: How do they find you? Well, over the years, I put a lot of energy into social media,

00:52:25: mostly Facebook, but I also have a newsletter and I also work with Instagram and I have WhatsApp

00:52:32: groups and Facebook group. And I got quite a bit of exposure, especially at the beginning of my

00:52:39: way through this. But today, most people come to me from word to mouth, from recommendations.

00:52:50: What did you learn so far from guiding people who get into a relationship and who want guidance in

00:52:56: that process? I think I can say that usually someone that feels he needs help to get into

00:53:05: a relationship is facing, obviously, some kind of self-esteem hardships, not being able to recognize

00:53:15: their own gifts, what they can bring and why they deserve to have a good relationship. So it's a lot

00:53:23: of work on that level. The next level is also to helping people, people that didn't grow up in an

00:53:29: environment that they saw healthy relationships, which is many of us, including myself.

00:53:36: So that's my own life experience too. Often don't have an example in their mind of what can a good

00:53:42: relationship for me look like? So I help people connect to this vision, to this idea of, OK,

00:53:48: so they know they want, but what do you want? What do you really, really, really want? If

00:53:53: I kind of push you to the wall and tell you now, you're going to tell me what you really,

00:53:58: really, really, really want with no conditions, if anything was possible. And just for this, for

00:54:03: people to go through this kind of to have someone take them on that path, it gives a lot of clarity.

00:54:08: And maybe the biggest thing I learned is when someone has clarity on their

00:54:14: own intention and the belief that it's possible that this intention can manifest,

00:54:20: it happens pretty much on its own. I don't need to do more than that. Maybe just remind them.

00:54:25: Is it about what we want? It's a mix of what we want and what we need and also how

00:54:35: we're able to foresee our future. Because we can wish many wishes,

00:54:40: but if when we take it down to the ground and we look at what's the life I see myself living,

00:54:46: eventually there's a lot of reproduction of past patterns and what I grew up in.

00:54:51: This is what people usually expect if they don't consciously work on it.

00:54:56: So I've discovered that bringing this clarity and helping people recognize their needs and

00:55:05: their wishes and where they are right now in regarding to their needs and wishes,

00:55:11: as long as they have a platform that they feel that they can take a step and then come back to

00:55:15: the safe place and reflect on it and get guidance and get empowerment, they keep going because they

00:55:21: came to me with their own will. I didn't create the will for them. So you're three weeks here and

00:55:39: then it's back to Israel? Then I'm actually going to Berlin to give a few days seminar,

00:55:45: continuing work with the Chinese medicine practitioners and then back to Israel, yes.

00:55:52: What can we in Germany learn from Israel? I think, well, there's so much to learn from

00:56:03: Israel, from Israelis, from all the people living on this land, not just Israelis,

00:56:08: not just Jews. It's a big question. I'll try to find a simple way to answer it.

00:56:17: But what comes to me is that we as Israelis, we grew up with conflict, but not a conflict

00:56:27: that's like very clearly, you know, I stand on this side and he stands on that side and

00:56:34: he's the enemy and I'm the good person and we're fighting. It's a very complex situation because it

00:56:40: involves religion and spirituality and history, modern history, ancient history. So many of us,

00:56:48: not all, obviously, but learned to live life with a very accepting that life is very complex.

00:56:58: There's no white, black and white, right, wrong of any kind that you can draw a direct

00:57:04: line through the whole of humanity and have it right. From my experience, Germany is the

00:57:14: country I spent most time in aside Israel. I've been in Israel when I was 22, 23 for 14 months.

00:57:20: And ever since I've come back plenty of times, I can't count how many. And I feel very much in

00:57:26: many ways, you know, as an Israeli, I'm kind of a German Israeli. Like there's this in Israel,

00:57:32: there is a way and not just in Israel of perceiving German Germans, you know,

00:57:36: very kind of in some way strict and efficient and orderly and not,

00:57:42: not easily crossing the lines of what's accepted and how it's meant to be done.

00:57:47: And I think if I could kind of infuse the German society with a spice of my choice,

00:57:55: it would be something to do with flexibility and being able to see that life is very complex and

00:58:03: there's no definite right and definite wrong. And I would, I would say this is something

00:58:12: that definitely we Israelis, we can teach not just Germans, but all Western societies that

00:58:18: are kind of living in a way that there is a fixed way of how things should be done and

00:58:23: how you should look like and how you should behave like. And it's hard to accept when

00:58:28: something is very different from you, even if it's tolerated, it's not necessarily accepted.

00:58:34: And I'm talking about the acceptance level, like profoundly accepting, it's just like this,

00:58:39: and it's different. And I just got to learn how to live with it, because it's just how it is. And

00:58:43: it's not going to change, even if I really wanted to change, I can't make it go away.

00:58:50: Yeah. Well, obviously not everybody understands that,

00:58:56: because some people are trying to bomb some other people away. Yeah, obviously.

00:59:03: Yeah. What is it we do not see or understand in Germany about Israel? I'm guessing,

00:59:16: I'm not sure this is 100% true, but I'm guessing that the Israeli society is made

00:59:21: out of people from cultures from all over the world. It's not uniform, it's not unanimous.

00:59:29: And inside the Israeli society, we have a high percent of Arabs that live amongst us. In my

00:59:35: town where I live, we're neighboring probably in the whole of Israel. It's one of the few

00:59:41: places that's really there is no separation between us and the neighboring Arab villages.

00:59:46: We live right next to each other, we drive next to each other,

00:59:49: we buy from each other. There's Arab shop owners in my town, I go shop in their town,

00:59:56: they're used to us coming to them, they're happy we come to them because we appreciate

01:00:02: their service and the way they do things, and the same vice versa. There's a lot of

01:00:06: cooperation already happening all the time, we don't need to talk about it because it's normal.

01:00:12: This is our life. And inside the society, there are many bridges

01:00:18: already built from the past and being built these days, between the different

01:00:28: peoples living in this land, not just Muslim and Jewish. Christian and many

01:00:33: different kinds of Christian and many different kinds of Jewish people.

01:00:38: The Jewish people and Israeli people is not one thing. And this is something that's hard

01:00:43: to grasp when you only see reality through the news. Well, 20% of Israelis are Arabs.

01:00:51: And that's excluding the West Bank and Gaza. And that's what I heard. Yeah,

01:00:57: this is what I'm familiar with.

01:01:00: So there's many. But on my visits, I didn't see very much contact. I remember once I asked you,

01:01:10: do you have Arab friends? Did your answer change?

01:01:14: Or is it the same? I wouldn't say I have Arab friends, no.

01:01:18: But I could say that the Arab people that I meet through my day,

01:01:23: I feel very connected to and very, I personally really appreciate the Arab culture. Yeah,

01:01:31: very much. Like I learned a lot, I think, as European Jews, we have so

01:01:36: much to learn from the kind of the native Middle Eastern people with which we live.

01:01:44: So making friends is a certain level. It demands from both sides a will and

01:01:51: the environment to actually make a deep bond because we don't have a place where

01:01:56: we can connect. But for example, my daughter, this might be interesting for our listeners.

01:02:01: When she was in kindergarten, we put her into one of I think two or three

01:02:10: Waldorf kindergartens that are mixed. Yeah. We would say Hebrew speakers and Arab speakers.

01:02:19: That was the distinction. And it was in the neighboring Arab town.

01:02:23: And she had a Jewish-Israeli and Arab-Israeli.

01:02:28: And they spoke the Arabic. Kindergarten teachers were speaking mostly Arabic, and Hebrew ones

01:02:36: speaking mostly Hebrew. And in that environment, I got to come close to some Arab-speaking Israelis.

01:02:47: And it was a very natural and loving and warm connection,

01:02:51: naturally in their society. I mean, I'm from European background. So my parents,

01:02:58: so we're less warm in our natural tendency towards other people.

01:03:03: But they are very warm. They have hospitality as one of the main values of their entire

01:03:08: society for generations. So they're very welcoming and very warm and very open.

01:03:13: And this is a very good feeling for me because it's not my nature. And so I

01:03:20: can assume that if we were going a long way together, we would have deepened the

01:03:24: connections. But they were warm and friendly for the time we were next to each other.

01:03:28: Otherwise, we don't have where to meet so much. Well,

01:03:37: thank you for... It's my pleasure. It's not the place to thank you for 14 years of cooperation.

01:03:54: But that gratefulness is definitely there. And I hope we have many more years.

01:04:07: Is there something you would like to add? Or you have a question?

01:04:16: I think mostly I feel to add to our listeners, especially participants of this group,

01:04:25: of your teaching, of this way that I really appreciate each and every one

01:04:33: of you for coming here and for choosing to incorporate this practice into your lives.

01:04:43: And that it's a really big blessing for me to come here every time and be a part of

01:04:49: this. And that I'm always really, really touched to see the transformations that

01:04:58: they go through here. And it's a big gift for me.

01:05:08: Well, thank you a lot. My pleasure. Thank you.

01:05:17: In two and a half hours, we start our next retreat with dinner. Yes. Looking forward to it.

01:05:31: Yeah, I'm looking forward to it. Three weeks. Thank you.