Zero point, we have at least one. Minnesota - New York. USA
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Winter’s medicine
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Last summer I spent in Egypt, in Luxor, West Bank, carving stone - working on my take on the Was sceptre in granite and alabaster. A pharaonic staff held by kings and gods to maintain the balance of the universe, while my own universe was about to collapse in the scorching heat of the Valley of the Kings and Queens.
Zero point.
My sister’s declining health had me in a brutal grip. I was locked in a polarised standby, where there was nothing at all I could do to change anything about her coming death - slowly, surely. All I could do was carve and polish stone to keep me sane and grounded (which barely worked).
Zero point.
Every day since her diagnosis three years ago, my heart broke over and over again. My dad died during that time, we had to sell the family estate, and she was struggling to find any alternative medicine beyond the destructive treatments offered by the pharma industry. Nothing really worked, and her cancer was steadily eating her from the inside while, simultaneously, chewing away my heart and soul.
Zero point.
Then that call came. She had passed - bless her heart - and again I was pulled into a stone-cold administrative process with notaries, lawyers, liars, and cruel inheritance laws and taxes.
Zero point.
Coming freshly out of Egypt, after many months of 40 to 50 degrees Celsius, my body went into shock from the cold November weather in Belgium. I was literally shaking on my knees, shivering, as I went through her belongings in her unheated apartment or when I picked her ashes from the crematorium.
Zero point.
As the process ran its course and I slowly got a grip on things, time accelerated and the holidays approached. Christmas markets, early dark nights, and a deep feeling of absolute loneliness loomed over me. While all my friends were preparing their holiday celebrations , it became clear that I would be alone - without my family—for the first time in my life.
Zero point.
Yet my body began to enjoy the colder days, and a deep craving for ice and snow started to emerge. At first I thought it might simply be a counterbalance to the months of intense heat, my system needing to cool down. But then it became clear: this was the calling of nature’s zero point - winter. Real winter. The silent stillness of ice. Seasonal death.
Zero point.
I needed a freezing-cold dark night of the soul. A total time-out in the core of absolute zero. Slipping into the abyss of my heart, descending into the deepest depths of my sadness, into the centre of the black hole of my inner galaxy - and staying there. Hibernating. Frozen. Suspended. Timeless. Dead. Absolute nothing. Yet feel it all and look at it from all sides.
Zero point.
While researching whether Arctic Lapland might be my destination, a friend in Minnesota called me out of the blue and mentioned that it was freezing in Minneapolis - Minnesnowta, as she called it.
That was my cue. I started packing.
I took a plane, and a few days later I found myself in my first winter storm in Minneapolis, with temperatures far below zero. Walking for hours across a frozen lake, packed into boots and a down jacket, shearling gloves on my hands, ice cracking under my feet - and a nervous system finally coming to rest.
Zero point.
Her family invited me to spend Christmas together. An all-American small-town Christmas by the fireplace, opening gifts. Truly one of the most heart-warming and healing experiences of my recent life. The universe provides. We also spent New Year’s together, and a few days later I continued my journey to NYC to visit my soul brother Will, his wife Katrina, and their daughter Bella. We drove to Beacon to visit Dia:Beacon, with exhibitions by Louise Bourgeois and Tehching Hsie, whose art reduces life to a single, one yearlong extreme constraints. Tehching Hsie has since become my favourite artist.
While in NYC, my jungle dieta friend Patrick invited me to stay with him, his girlfriend Keren, and their toddler son Kai in upstate New York, near Hudson. They wanted me to be present for a burial ceremony: they were about to put their first horse, Salomon, to sleep. He was suffering from an incurable illness, and nothing else could be done.
Zero point.
It was a very auspicious day. The vet arrived, a large grave was dug on their land, flowers, tobacco, and drums were prepared. A short while later, Salomon sank to his knees with dignity, and with tears in our eyes he was honoured and laid to rest in the ground in the most respectful way I ever witnessed such event.
Zero point.
The next morning, unannounced, heavy snow began to fall. The land was covered in a thick white blanket, bringing all life to a halt once more. It snowed heavily for two days. We sat by the fireplace, honouring Salomon and sharing family time.
Zero point.
I was not ready at all to fly back to Europe or Egypt, so I extended my stay for a few more days in cosy Hudson, New York - exploring the town, its shops, and its restaurants - but most of all I wanted to take my time to grieve more deeply, I wasn’t done. I needed simple solitude.
In town everyone kept telling me: Stay safe with the storm! On the news, warnings went out for the population to prepare for a massive winter system inbound. A serious blizzard was forecast to hit the east of the USA, bringing 40–50 cm of snow in 24 hours, with temperatures dropping to -17 Celsius and lower.
That was exactly what I was longing for. More Ice. More Snow. The eye of a Winter Storm for me to grieve and reach my Zero Point.
I rented a car, booked a cosy farmhouse on Airbnb in the countryside just outside town, stocked up on food, and waited. The storm came - and it was magnificent. Snow piling up fast, burying my car, covering the land in soft fluffy white Snow Medicine absorbing my loss and heart ache while I was buried deep in my mattress of my bed allowing generational flows of raw grief to flood through the gates of my vessel.
Zero point.
Most days were spent either lying on the couch by the window, my gaze dissolving into the fuzzy blizzard, or packing myself into winter gear and walking through the frozen land - marching through rising snow and howling wind, into dusk, and finally into the bitter cold of the dark night. Black nothing. Dark matter. Grieving deeper and deeper, grieving into the immense, stone-cold grace of death and its soothing dark blankets of surrender. Yearning, stretching through waves of tears, ancestral spirals, and the sound of my breath finally becoming quiet.
Zero point.
… Now I was done.
🖤
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