Eiche im Ohl

Willingen-Usseln (51.278480 | 8.696034)

Hospitality

A solitary oak tree growing above a layer of golden rock.

This tree attracts people. I can feel an almost magnetic force as I climb up the slope and approach the oak from below. It has dug its mighty roots into a terrace, a straight section of the steep slope, on which it sits enthroned as if on a pedestal, spreading its branches out like open arms, a welcoming gesture, stretching them towards the sky, even allowing some to grow back towards the ground in a wide arc. They form an umbrella. Space to rest, to arrive, to catch your breath after the climb.

This story also tells of the attraction of the tree. The woman who lives in the little house at the foot of the slope has grown old, 90 years old, and she realizes that her strength is waning. Death is approaching. "I want to go to the oak tree one more time," the old woman says to herself. Up there, without help. She sets off. She has to pause every few meters. She sits down on a small stool that she carries under her arm. Once at the top, she sits quietly for a while under the dome of branches. She looks out over the gently widening valley, which offers a view of many spherical hills, green in all colors at the front, fading into blue further back until they disappear into the nothingness of the horizon. She hears the babbling of the spring that supplies her house with water, the house that she is the third generation to live in and that nestles as a hermit on the hillside. The scent of the grasses and flowers in the surrounding meadows fills her nose. Then she makes the arduous descent. Her last visit to the tree. Two years later, she dies.

"That was my grandmother," says Renate Hill, 70, who is now the fifth generation to live in the cottage. "It was always the women who preserved this place and passed it on to those who followed." She not only has memories of the oak tree, not just the fresh spring water from the tap. It also has the same welcoming aura. She has had some of the rooms converted into a geoinfostube, where she is happy to welcome interested visitors; she has trained as a geopark guide specifically for this purpose. She points to a large round table with a glass top in the middle of the room. Stones and shards of clay are on display. "They bear witness to 400 million years of geological history, 4000 years of human history and" - she smiles - "400 years of family history." The house was built in 1844, but Hill traces it back to the time of the Thirty Years' War, when Mennonites and Amish came to the area. Religious refugees. They, too, were openly welcomed. Sometimes with ulterior motives on the part of the lords of the land: high taxes could be extorted from them - after all, they couldn't go back. Hill was born Bender, "I think that's a name with Mennonite origins." To trace her roots, she travels to the USA and Alsace.

"Most of the settlers in our area were looking for iron. And for gold." We stand by the oak tree and she shows me places on the surrounding hills where digging probably took place. You can recognize them by the dark green areas in the light green of the meadows. The early miners found what they were looking for. Gold lies just below the surface here; due to geological faults, it was not necessary to dig deep. Hill's male ancestors were smelters. After training in agriculture, she herself worked as a regional developer and her job involved taking soil samples, which is how she became interested in the treasures inside the earth.

And a fascination for gold. "When I was cleaning the filters on our well once, I discovered lots of shiny particles. These mini-nuggets are called tinsel. Not worth much. But isn't that great: we've been drinking gold water here for generations. Maybe," she says, her blue eyes sparkling mischievously, "that's why all the family members have grown so old."

Gold suits her, the generous hostess who, as soon as I have admired her lush apple trees, fills me up with a whole bag of plump red fruit. Gold symbolizes abundance and wealth in all cultures. It stands for the light that makes the core of our being shine. The ego-spirit of many people, on the other hand, constantly believes itself to be in lack: not loved enough by mother as a child, neglected at work, too little time, too little money, too little love. In this respect, gold can be a remedy, not materially but spiritually. It shows us the way to trust our own inner abundance.

Renate Hill remembers that the oak used to be a good host. Workers in the surrounding fields and meadows would come there at lunchtime to rest. They unpacked their sandwiches and made coffee in their grandparents' house. Perhaps this gave her an idea that makes her eyes sparkle with enthusiasm again as she talks about it: "I want to organize a dinner-in-white there. A festive banquet under the canopy of the oak tree. Long tables, white blankets, gold-edged service, candles everywhere, everyone dressed in white." The way she talks about it, I can tell she's going to make it happen. Second thought: I hope I get an invitation.

Author: Michael Gleich