Stories Told Through Symbols 🌿

I found myself at sea.

The boat tilted under the force of the waves, water crashing across the deck. Above me hung a menacing black sky.
And me? Barely more than a child—soaked through with salt water, shivering from cold and fear. I clung to the railing with all my strength so the waves wouldn’t sweep me overboard.

At the helm, a man fought each oncoming wave and shouted for me to throw him the rope. It lay in the middle of the deck, looking as if it had decided not to move an inch, no matter how the boat lurched from side to side.
But I still didn’t go for it. Not because I was a coward, but because I simply knew: the moment I took a step, a wave would sweep me off the deck. It had always been like that. And I was tired of repeating a story that led nowhere.

A mist rose above the sea, and from it emerged a figure in a black cloak with a hood  

… and when it lifted its head, there was no doubt. Death.

The way she looked sent a chill through me—no allegory, no symbol, just presence.

And suddenly I was standing beside her on a pier. So close I could have touched the staff in her hand. And in that closeness I realized something surprising: the fear was gone. Completely. Merging with her was quiet, peaceful, natural. We became one. Like finally sitting down after a long day and every part of your body sighs, “At last.”

I looked down from the pier at empty boats rocking on the water. People boarded them, folded their hands, called out to me, and I knew they were heading straight into the storm.
But I felt nothing. I was eternal, unchanging.

I spread black wings like an angel of death and accompanied the boats out to sea.

Then something shifted.
The boats were now filled with grass and flowers. Some had cracks that spurted little geysers of water. I jumped from one to another, flooded with joy—light, mischievous, almost childlike. As if someone had returned a part of me I’d set down somewhere along the way and suddenly found again.

And then it struck me: this isn’t an ending. It never was.
At sea, things change, flow, shift. Stagnant water goes foul—nothing here can stay still. Movement is the essence of everything.

The boats filled with people again. They had soil on their heads, and from it blades of grass were already sprouting for some. I watched seeds germinate and split open right before my eyes. Buds unfurled and glowed with every color. And I felt how deeply we need to return to nature—to the simplest, most honest layer of ourselves. Everything else had only been decoration in this story, and it was finally time to let it go.

To do more of what nourishes us. Less of what breaks us.
Not to hand our lives over to a system that never really knows what to do with us.

Because in each of us there is a small seed that wants to grow. And our only job is not to stand in its way.
And never stomp on the seeds of others just because they sprout faster than ours.

She no longer looked frightening—her dark cloak had turned green. I sat beside her on the pier and held her like an old friend. Suddenly I was a small child again, comforted in her arms.

And then I was sitting in one of the boats, heading into the storm… but it no longer scared me.
Inside, I felt calm.

Symbols

The ship, the sea, the storm

The sea is the unconscious—deep, endless, unpredictable.
The storm is inner struggle. Transformation.
The boat is my self, trying to stay above water.
The child—vulnerability and purity, the part of me that hasn’t given up hope and still searches for safety in the storm.

The rope — the sudden knowing: fighting won’t change anything. Sometimes the right choice isn’t “do more,” but “let go” and accept what is coming.

Empty boats

My fear of emptiness. That people live but aren’t truly alive. That something important passes us by while we focus on things that, in the end, mean nothing.
(Thankfully, I still have a little time… and I hope the universe is patient with small delays.)

Death

An ending that is not an ending. A crossing. A gatekeeper.
Perhaps a very patient guide who has witnessed so much human drama that nothing can disturb her anymore.

And when her cloak turns green?
Maybe life is just a long passage from one shore to the other—and we simply forget to look around on the way.

When I look around, sometimes it really does feel like we’re stuck in some kind of purgatory—a strange waiting room where everyone pretends they know what they’re doing.

But other times… I’m truly glad to be here.
Maybe more than it seems at first glance.