A Cure to The Soul: Bon Iver, Biking and Heckenbeck Fields

Heckenbeck, Niedersachsen, Germany (my own photo)

I can't believe it's been two huge years since I spent one of the best summer in my life in Heckenbeck. 

Nope, it wasn't a summer romance; neither a trip full of partying nights over nights; or anything like visiting Disneyland. 

It was a month of my life during which I actually was able to stop the time ; during which I didn't ever think of either the past or the future, but just the moment. 

Now when I look back; I can see better how precious it was; how hard it is usually to achieve.

You're probably asking yourself "where the heck is Heckenbeck?" or maybe you have already googled it. 

It is a small small village surrounded by fields over fields in the Niedersachsen district of Germany. 

The reason I was there was volunteering at an international art workcamp in which we were supposed to prepare an entertaining show to the local inhabitants. 

We were provided by a guest house with a theater stage inside. It was a very old house where you could go through rooms into rooms (which is uncommon among the modern apartments). We had it all to ourselves. We had three rooms upstairs which we split up among guys-girls and the team-leaders. 

So, if you are a person who's into luxury, or aren't willing to give up on your privacy for the time; this wouldn't be very appealing to you. 

But I am not one of those and I am incredibly glad that I wasn't in a luxurious five-star hotel that's identical with all those others out there and that I lived in an actual traditional house where I could feel that athmosphere; where I could smell the scent of that oldness and hear the rain patting on the wooden window-frame every single morning when I woke up. 

Downstairs, we had a dining room, kitchen and a back garden. They were all beautiful to spent time at. When it rained, we stayed inside with the hot drinks; when it was warm, we ate outside at that heavenly garden. I remember one time, on a rainy morning, when we were inside; we saw from the window that some hourse-riding people were passing by the house heading down to the fields. Some of them had their kids with them and some didn't but you could see how exciting they were... It is such a lovely image to remember. It makes me sad thinking about lonely big city kids trapped into their computers.

Heckenbeck is small, yes; but it is not isolated. It is surrounded by bigger towns and cities. We drove by bikes until Kreinsen or Bad Gandersheim (which is a student town full of cafes and hangout options) about 20 minutes to get to the supermarket. But it's never made me feel disturbed, nor have I felt any lazy to bike there everytime to shop or to find a proper coffeeshop. Because the roads that I passed by were so pretty that I could ride through them again again even though I had no destination in the end. 

There was a thousand shade of green everywhere; tones and tones of tree-tunnels and secret paths. During all those bike rides; I actually felt like I could breathe for the fist time in a while. I actually felt that my lungs were filled with oxygen and that I was alive. That I was awake.

It was so healing, refreshing and peaceful that it almost healed my soul. Especially if you have the right music. I'm more of an indie / folk person and I think that it's the perfect genre for travelling as well. Everytime I listen to Skinny Love by Bon Iver, the fields of Heckenbeck comes to my mind as it was one of the songs I appreciated the most at the time. 

If we consider the fact that I had had a year full of stress and emotional breakdown; it was the best thing that could happen to me in that summer; a time to listen to myself, follow the wind, lose myself to the music, breathe and most of all; live it up. 

That brings me to the conclusion that one should never underastimate the need of nature in human-beings. Whether some are nature-lovers and others not; the fact that we need it inevitably can't be denied. We are a part of nature; thats how we were made. 

All those concrete buildings have done nothing but draining us; both psyhcologically and physically. I, personally have always charged the batteries of myself with nature; I would get drained to death if I was away from it for good. One of the things that can express it so well is this poem by George Byron that a friend of mine let me know about a short time ago;

"There is a pleasure in the pathless woods, 

There is a rapture on the lonely shore, 

There is society, where none intrudes, 

By the deep sea, and music in its roar: 

I love not man the less, but nature more."

Of course, it is not solely the place that makes the experiences so magical. It is also the people and the coincidences and you yourself that make somewhere memorable. I know for example, that without some certain decisions and acts of mine; the trip wouldn't have turned out as it has. 

But, Isn't that what travelling is about? It makes you feel lots of different things and gives you endless different thoughts all at the same time. It is, ironically, this beautiful chaos that actually makes us able to listen to our own inner voice. 

Random house in Heckenbeck (my own photo)

Me and my workcamper friends biking thrıugh the fields of Heckenbeck