Sabbatical

Several circumstances lead me to want to take time to reflect on topics that touch on remembering and memories.

Firstly, I was repeatedly confronted with the fact that memories of certain situations in the past of very close people (e.g. mother and daughter) differed so greatly from one another that a real discordance and perplexity arose in me.

What is the significance of our memories?

I also noticed that the interpretation of memories can change significantly over the years. For example, someone can experience their childhood at a young age as "beautiful and carefree".
Then, as a young adult, you see the cloudiness and difficulties of that same childhood and it can even suddenly be perceived as stressful.
In advanced adulthood, on the other hand, you have gained distance and developed compassion and perhaps also humility - and the same childhood brings back warm feelings in your memory.

Last but not least, I personally also really appreciate these days the magic of being in the "here & now".

All these thoughts and perceptions have led me to the desire to take a year of inner retreat from my work here.

So I wish you a joyful and fulfilling time full of "here & now" moments - in lightness and trust!

Yours Sophia Lange-Chin, Septembre 2024

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The ability to let go

The topic of dying and letting go has been on my mind for several months due to the fact that my grandmother, who was very close to me, passed away at Easter this year.
This topic is accompanied by questions about capacity (my grandmother became increasingly demented in the last years of her life) and the necessity or meaning of remembering and holding on to memories.
- What is it ultimately about?
Everyone will find her/his own answer to this question.
The Swiss end-of-life caregiver Elisabeth Würmli puts it this way:
"The culmination of life is death."

I bid farewell to the summer break and wish you months full of joy, spontaneity (very helpful in this year's weather conditions) and lightness!

Yours Sophia Lange-Chin, July 2024

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What counts for YOU in the end?

The greatest fear of a dying person is that he/she will not be remembered after death.
The most important thing is to "remember me" - to leave a trace.
These are the words of an American who found his calling in accompanying the dying.
That is why he always says to those entrusted to his care: "I will remember you!"
This would relax people immensely.

These thoughts are interesting for me.
I don't spontaneously feel the urge to be remembered "personally"/"as a person".
Not even after thinking about it for a while.
In turn, I also find that interesting, because: My passion is creating memories.
But my aim is to give order, to be able to let go and possibly to pass on "essences".
Both when I process my own memories and when I accompany others in sorting their memories and paying tribute to them.

What sentence would relax me in the dying process...?
"You did the best you could," I think.
For me, this sentence contains a forgiveness of what still has potential for development on the one hand, and an appreciation of my efforts and what went well on the other. - That would be more important to me than being remembered after my death.

Interesting...

Yours Sophia Lange-Chin, June 2024

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Being there

"It is important to tell the truth throughout your life.
That will make it easier to approach death."

"I think the most important thing when accompanying dying people, actually for every person - dying or living - is to simply be SPACE. Simply space.
SPACE like a big cradle that can hold everything.
The world is full of people who DO things for the dying person (doctors, nurses, relatives, caregivers...). But what they need is what most people don't give them: SPACE.
Simply being there.
We have to learn how to be SPACE - how to be.
Because if we can be SPACE, we can even be SPACE for ourselves. Even for our most difficult moment, for our despair, for our hopelessness, for our anger - for everything.
And if we are SPACE ourselves, we can be SPACE for these patients.
That is the difference we make in their living and dying.
BEING SPACE.
Space for us, space for them.
And when the patients feel that we REALLY are space, that we can really hold EVERYTHING - every feeling that comes - that is extremely reassuring."

Alcio Braz (psychotherapist and Zen master, Brazil)

in the movie "Being there", Switzerland 2020

Yours Sophia Lange-Chin, May 2024

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Transitions

Transitions carry us through life. 
And into the parting from it.
My grandmother passed away at the age of 99. 
Unfortunately, she was not granted a very gentle letting go of her body.
I am infinitely grateful that I was able to accompany her through it.
While clearing out her apartment, I realized that my dedication to documenting life and experiences was not accidently.

She, as well as other relatives in her line, also collected family history and wrote down their stories.
The question arose in my mind as to whether she could not let go easily because of her documentations, or because of what she had NOT documented.

Everyone has the right to decide what they want to share and leave behind for posterity and what not.
My grandmother took something with her.

And that also teaches me something.
I am infinitely grateful to her.
And glad that she is now free.
She seems to be more present than ever.

Yours Sophia Lange-Chin, April 2024

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Dreams

can call out to be visualized or written down.

When I was about 5 years old, I dreamed the same thing repeatedly.

As a 25 years old, this dream became part of my first exhibition.

As well as other dreams that had stayed with me.

It was liberating for me to share the visualizations. Sharing them with the visitors was enriching.

It gave new perspectives - and lightness.

I would be happy to accompany you in giving shape to your dreams.

Yours Sophia Lange-Chin, March 2024

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Personal

My grandmother celebrated her 99th birthday.

Dementia is becoming more and more noticeable in her.

Even if she has forgotten my name or no longer understands that I am her granddaughter, we still laugh a lot.

In a way, we are closer than ever before.

The heart remembers.

Always.

Or as the title of the book, which I highly recommend, puts it:

"The heart does not become demented" (original in German: "Das Herz wird nicht dement" by Udo Baer and Gabi Schotte-Lange)

The other day my grandma asked me: "Now tell me: which of us is actually older?"

What ultimately remains of our memories?

Is there something that we "take with us"? Or something that "remains in the world"?

I think: Yes!

Thoughtfully, Yours Sophia Lange-Chin, February 2024

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A new beginning

A change can be felt. It's still crunching and cracking...

When will it finally click...

... liberating?

A good, potential-developing, meaningful & joyful, compassionate, HEALTHY in body, soul & spirit 2024!

Yours, Sophia Lange-Chin, January 2024

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Time of silence...

... of remembrance, contemplation and creation.

A Merry Christmas to you and your loved ones and a Happy New Year - 2024!

Yours, Sophia Lange-Chin, December 2023

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Life writes the most exciting stories

"Absolute security is a superstition. It is offered neither by nature nor by any culture. At the end of the day, it is just as dangerous to avoid danger as to expose yourself to it.

Life is either a daring adventure or nothing."

Helen Keller (1880-1968)

Sometimes, looking back, we are shocked by our own courage in a particular situation. We are grateful that nothing worse happened. We believe we had no other choice. We learnt a lot about ourselves in the process. Not just pleasant things.

I consider such experiences to be a treasure of human-ity.

All facets of being human are revealed in danger and/or pain.

Life writes the most exciting stories.

Human can grow from these stories.

Yours, Sophia Lange-Chin, November 2023

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When death comes



When death comes

like the hungry bear in autumn;

when death comes and takes all the bright coins

from his purse  to buy me,

and snaps the purse shut, (...)

I want to step through the door

full of curiosity, wondering

what is it going to be like,

that cottage of darkness?

And therefore I look upon everything

as a brotherhood and a sisterhood, (...)

and I think of each life as a flower, as common

as a field daisy, and as singular, (...)

and each body a lion of courage,

and something precious to the earth.

When it's over, I want to say all my life

I was a bride married to amazement.

I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms (...).

extract of "When the death comes" by Mary Oliver (1935-2019)

Yours Sophia Lange-Chin, Octobre 2023

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When memory hurts...

... then silence is golden.

That is also allowed.

Everything has its time.

Yours Sophia Lange-Chin, August/September 2023

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Calm after a storm

When life flows faster and richer than one thinks one can grasp, it is wonderful and healing to create space for a phase of reflection.

Like the calm after a storm, such a phase can be used to order and let go - and the fruits of the "storm" can be looked at, perceived and appreciated.

I would be happy to accompany you in this process.

Yours Sophia Lange-Chin, June/July 2023

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"Letting go of things does not mean getting rid of them.

Letting them go means LETTING them BE."

Jack Kornfield (*1945)

When pain keeps returning or doesn't want to go away....

Then we don't want to look, to feel, but simply to forget. Push the bad event (for example the death of a loved one) away from us. At first, we may successfully distract ourselves, but then wonder why the pain/event keeps coming back and weighing us down. In dreams, quiet moments or ordinary everyday situations.

The pain wants to be seen. It is like a helpless, crying child.

It wants to be taken lovingly in the arms.

Working and creating an artistic product out of a (painful) memory is such an embrace and a loving acceptance and appreciation.

I will be happy to support you in this!

Yours Sophia Lange-Chin, May 2023

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About the preciousness

of our memories



We are born into a world.

At some point in time.

Sometimes for decades we take what we experience for granted and for the only reality.

Little by little we discover other worlds and other realities.

Little by little we learn the reasons for which the different realities came into being. More and more layers are added, forming a denser and denser web of understanding and knowledge.

This is not always pleasant.

Whether pleasant or not: testimonies of people who recorded their experience in their time are infinitely precious for future generations.

Yours Sophia Lange-Chin, April 2023



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genie (genius) in the bottle

In the fairy tale "The genie in the bottle" by the Brothers Grimm, the genie begs to be set free. He is freed, and promptly wants to go after his liberator's life. The ghost entices him with the promise that he will give him so much that he will always have enough in life.

The liberator is brave and dares to let the ghost out of the wrong place a second time.

He is given a rag. If he strokes a wound with one end of the rag, it heals immediately.

If he strokes steel or iron with the other end of the rag, it becomes silver.

Memories can be like ghosts in a bottle.

We can free them, pacify them and they will reward us richly - heal us, make us strong, ennoble us and en-rich us.

Yours Sophia Lange-Chin, March 2023

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Memories

I am very moved by the book "Die Ausgewanderten". The author W. G. Sebald is of Jewish descent and describes the stories of some relatives and acquaintances in four long stories. The life stories mainly describe the periods before and after the Second World War.

Sebald's language is beautiful and unusual - it has won several awards.

Nevertheless, it is not easy to read. The events of that time are hard to bear anyway. But to be able to trace the winding paths of individual people, what might have been going on inside them, is incredibly painful. The silent despair of what was experienced, the silent continuation of life without the possibility of expressing or sharing the pain, runs oppressively through the entire book.

Concretely disturbing experiences are hardly mentioned and almost only in passing.

The photos appear unreal - in part, as if from another planet. And yet many of them are not even 100 years old.

How will the readers of a book (eBooks...?) feel in 100 years when they see pictures from our present time?

May we learn from history and stories - may remembering history never be so painful that it must not be voiced or wants to be heard. May people be given and taken for granted space to remember, to share and to feel connected.

Yours Sophia Lange-Chin, February 2023

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Transition

A happy, meaningful and healthy New Year 2023 to you!

I recently got the opportunity to experience first-hand how much painful experiences open the doors for us to see old wounds anew. Pain is the body's or soul's cry for help that something is not connected harmoniously. How clever our bodies are and what a gift is the humans ability of BEING CONSCIOUS.

To look and learn, to discover new connections, to develop deeper compassion - what could be more meaningful...?

I am grateful.

Yours, Sophia Lange-Chin, January 2023

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Wishing a blessed Christmas time and a happy start into a lucky New Year 2023!

A special gift idea: A hand-drawn portrait!
Take a look at my portraits under "arise can".

Yours Sophia Lange-Chin, December 2022

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my recommendation

The online magazine "Mein Erbe tut Gutes" publishes articles worth reading and knowing, as well as touching articles on the topic of transience.

https://www.mein-erbe-tut-gutes.de/unser-magazin/

https://magazin.mein-erbe-tut-gutes.de

Yours Sophia Lange-Chin, November 2022

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Personal

Memories made visible fascinate me because one's own memories are something intangible and sometimes even changeable.

It can happen that memories blur over the years and even change so much that they are not recognisable as the same time or period for those involved.

One's perspective changes and widens in the course of life.

And that is a good thing.

When I look at my own sketches from earlier years and show them to others, I often discover something new in the old - and also something surprising.

Yours Sophia Lange-Chin, October 2022

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Truth and perception



Johann Wolfgang von Goethe expressed in a conversation in 1828:

"One must always repeat what is true, because error is also preached around us again and again, and not by individuals, but by the masses. In newspapers and encyclopedias, in schools and universities, everywhere error is on top, and it is comfortable and at ease in the feeling of the majority that is on its side."

This touches me very much, because I see in it a confirmation that also one's own perception/truth is valid and enduring - regardless of what others say.

To give expression and form to this - your - perception and memory means great happiness to me.

Yours Sophia Lange-Chin, September 2022

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If only we could remember...

A pair of unborn twins are talking in their mother's womb:

"Tell me, do you actually believe in life after birth?" asks one twin.

"Yes, definitely! In here we grow and are prepared for what's to come outside," answers the other twin.

"I think that's nonsense," says the first. "There can be no life after birth - what would that look like?!

"I don't quite know that either. But it will certainly be much brighter than here. And maybe we will walk around and eat with our mouths?!

"I've never heard such nonsense! Eating by mouth, what a crazy idea. After all, there is the umbilical cord that feeds us. And how are you going to walk around! The umbilical cord is much too short for that!"

"Yes, it can be done. It's just going to be a little different!

"You're crazy! No one has ever come back after birth. Life ends with birth. Period."

"I admit that no one knows what life will be like after birth. But I do know that we will see our mother then, and she will take care of us."

" Mother????? Surely you don't believe in a mother! Where is she, please?!"

"Well here - all around us. We are and live in her and through her. Without her, we couldn't be at all!"

"Nonsense! I've never noticed anything about a mother, so she doesn't exist."

"Yes there is, sometimes when we are very still you can hear her singing. Or feel her caressing our world."

by Henri Nouwen

Yours Sophia Lange-Chin, August 2022

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The Egg

Now I'll make myself really small

gonna be an ovum now

In her whole life she has

located in Mama.

Now she wanders through the canal.

All-One - was it your choice?

She settles in comfortably...

and is all-one in her world.

Suddenly surrounded by turbulent things,

which we sometimes sing songs about.

It wobbles, dances, swells, cramps...

until a seed pushes itself into me.

Suddenly my being is perfect

and now - now it's free swimming.

Cleavage, division, right here... that's how life comes into being.

And every cell that is now maturing is given All-It with it.

So are we - if we know -

those who don't miss the old.

In each cell is given

Peace, love - and life.

Perfection - it matures in me,

and that's what we're all here for.

Give everything - and always with love -

form, guide your instincts,

that the fruits become delicious

that are born of you.

(Net find:)

Elke "in happy, deep gratitude, peace and love",

November 2020

Yours Sophia Lange-Chin, July 2022

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The summer comes

in all its glory

"Bravery strengthens, stubbornness is fun and patience gives calm."

Hermann Hesse

Yours Sophia Lange-Chin, June 2022

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Everything is new in May

Build bridges, jump shadows - balance on the edges of plates.

Leave the familiar, trust in life - open to the unexpected.

Yours Sophia Lange-Chin, May 2022

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April, April -

he does what he wants...

... but we humans have the gift of consciousness - we have the choice.

Yours Sophia Lange-Chin, April 2022

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One thing is certain...

... the spring comes.

"The older I get, the more I trust the law,

after which the rose and lily bloom."

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Yours Sophia Lange-Chin, March 2022

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Inner cleansing is wonderful

It's perfect for spring.

Yours Sophia Lange-Chin, February 2022

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The new Year...

... is there and so much that seemed impossible has happened or happened.

Change is part of life.

May we always remember our roots.

Where we came from and why.

And where we want to go.

Yours Sophia Lange-Chin, January 2022

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Silence, Peace, Clarity

A blessed Christmas season and a happy new era - may our roots nourish and guide us.

Yours Sophia Lange-Chin, December 2021

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Why am I using so many quotes these days, I asked myself.

Possibly because the language sometimes fails me during this time - so the attempt at an answer.

My good wishes remain for you - from the bottom of my heart.

Yours Sophia Lange-Chin, November 2021

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Memories,

a growing skeleton of our personality

Whenever I am confronted with the unfamiliar and new, connections are made to what I have already experienced and images - memories - come up.

Even our children - even four years old - find references to familiar things.

The spirit searches for connections in order to be able to sort and organize.

Our wealth of experience grows out of our memories, like a tree that keeps branching out and branching out. All the leaves that sprout at the ends absorb the sunlight, generate oxygen, wither and wither - year after year.

Next spring, leaves will sprout on new branches.

The treetop is getting fuller and denser.

With this in mind, I wish you a happy autumn.

Yours Sophia Lange-Chin, October 2021

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"History is not what happened, history is what people remember."

(Jan Blokker)

This quote creates an interesting dissonance in me, which escapes me when I try to grasp it...

Appropriately, I would like to point out a valuable book for children that deals with death in a poetic way:

"The Tree of Remembrance" by Britta Teckentrup (published by arsEdition)

I wish you a happy and healthy start to autumn,

Yours sincerely Sophia Lange-Chin, September 2021

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Where do we come from?

Where are we going?

If you break down the lifespan of our earth (approx. 4.6 billion years) to 24 hours, then Homo habilis developed at the very last minute.

The Holocene - our current historical period (also called the post-glacial period), which encompasses the last 10,000 years - would correspond to the last quarter of a second.

The Industrial Age would correspond to the last two thousandths of a second.

Source: Wikipedia & ARTE "The Earth Destroyers:

How long will the earth hold out for humans?", 2019

Sometimes it is healing to place yourself in a larger relationship - to gain distance, to zoom out, so to speak.

Where do you want to go?

With best summer greetings and wishes,

Yours Sophia Lange-Chin, August 2021

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7 questions - interview

I gladly accepted the offer for an interview from etextera - agency for text and design. I would like to take this opportunity to thank you again for the pleasant cooperation.

You can find out a little more about me here:

https://www.etextera.ch/news/814/106/7-Fragen-an-Sophia-Lange-Chin.html

I would like to reproduce one of the questions here in an unabridged version:

4. Do you have a recipe for dealing with difficult people?

"I think there are no such thing as 'difficult people', only people who behave difficultly. Also, one may perceive someone as difficult while another may perceive the same person as a blessing. In my experience and belief, people have strong feelings that other people in trigger us to do with ourselves.

If I feel uncomfortable in any way or even disturbed by a so-called "difficult person", I play with it and illuminate these personality traits for myself. It has already happened that I – sometimes only years later – went through a development process in which I recognized that I also carry these traits within me.

In this way I get to know the connections as to why people can behave in difficult ways.

The fruits: compassion, humility and gratitude.

In my experience, this inner process is a prerequisite for Nonviolent Communication. If this step is skipped, the knowledge of nonviolent communication stays in the head and suppresses feelings that are looking for a way uncontrolled in one way or another."

I hope you're doing well - wherever you are.

Yours Sophia Lange-Chin, July 2021

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shape the future vs.

create memories?

Is looking back, remembering, in contradiction to the preview - the shaping of the future?

If you think: "No!", then I look forward to hearing from you, because:

Based on our experiences and the lives we live, we are who we are.

Everything is always in development.

Man has the gift of reflecting, analyzing and balancing.

Man has the gift of change.

The deeper the understanding, the greater the potential for change in a temporarily desired direction.

"Preliminary", because one direction can also be changed, pulsates and breathes in the rhythm of the changing circumstances.

This is life.

This is how visions can arise and manifest themselves.

In anticipation of what is to come,

Yours, Sophia Lange-Chin, June 2021

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The way pushes itself under the feet of the walker

(Martin Walser)

... we look back at our footprints and remember what we encountered along the way, we recognize why we are where we are and what could influence our future path.

Yours Sophia Lange-Chin, May 2021

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Happy Easter time

in the power of spring

"Anyone who plants trees knowing that they will never sit in their shade has at least begun to understand the meaning of life."

Rabindranath Tagore

With this in mind: Happy Easter to all of you with the knowledge of the power of spring in your heart.

Yours Sophia Lange-Chin, April 2021

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memory

as higher truth?

Arthur Schnitzler (Austrian playwright and storyteller, 1862-1931) writes:

"As well known as it is that memory in innumerable instances falsifies our past impressions beyond recognition, it is very little noticed that it also has the innate gift of rectifying impressions. And so memory gives us a higher truth , which we could not be granted in the moments we actually experienced."

What an interesting thought.

Yours Sophia Lange-Chin, March 2021

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Let go and create space

Looking back to create space in us that is slumbering and buried.

My work is currently showing me again:

How much the unlived life catches up with us (also) in the end!

I'm thankfull.

Yours Sophia Lange-Chin, February 2021

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Collateral gain

There is a lot of talk about collateral damage.

But what collateral gains can you discover?

What a treasure lies in our knowledge gained through self-reflection!

It is my heart's desire to meet them with respect and to create a worthy setting for them - brings strength and joy.

Yours Sophia Lange-Chin, January 2021

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new beginning



Happy New Year 2021 to you all

full of healthy developments!

Especially in times of upheaval, it is strengthening to reflect on the essentials. The basis for this is a recollection, a weighing up of experiences of life lived up to now.

I would be happy to accompany you in arranging your experiences and bring your (inner) pictures, thoughts and stories into an appealing, artistic form.

You can also share such a work and playfully bridge times of physical distance. Perhaps this will even open new, undreamt-of doors.

Appointments are by arrangement.

It is possible to make an appointment via video telephony, so that all currently applicable rules are observed.

Yours Sophia Lange-Chin, January 2021

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Christmas and the turn of the year in special times



So much has been about health this year.

This topic will certainly continue to accompany us closely in the coming year.

So it is worth taking a look at the question of what constitutes health.

What is health without happiness and peace?

In the worst case, nothing more than a symptom-free shell?

What is happiness and peace without health?

A very big challenge for sure.

Still fulfilling.

With this in mind, I wish you all a Merry Christmas and hearts full of HAPPINESS, JOY and PEACE for the New Year 2021

- in health.

Yours Sophia Lange-Chin, December 2020

PS: Unfortunately, workshops will not take place until further notice.

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