Krutenberg

Medebach-Titmaringhausen (51.252753 | 8.625783)

Border and transition

The sky is merciful on this May day. Clouds let in enough sunshine to keep us warm and provide enough shade to keep us comfortable on the hike up the Krutenberg. There are six of us. Some know the place well, two are newcomers. We take a "perception walk": experiencing the familiar anew with sharpened senses and familiarizing ourselves with the new. Everyone walks in silence, within sight of the others. Up the hill, along lush green meadows, strolling to the highest point. At the sound of a bell, we break the silence. Taking a seat on a group of benches with a wide view of the countryside, everyone tells the others what they have noticed. Claudia begins: "It's so quiet up here. Except for the birds. They make a lot of noise. But it has a calming effect on me, this noise. Another thing I've noticed is the abundance of things you can eat. I feel like I'm walking through a garden. Raspberries, elderberries, dandelions, nettles, wild berries. Lots of game too, which you can see from the tracks. As if nature is providing me with food."

The name Krutenberg is said to come from Krautberg. Many different herbs grow here. I feel the same way as she does: the special form of this guided walk allows me to recognize qualities that I might otherwise have carelessly passed by. I realize what a forest can give. Abundance and diversity. Protection and vision. Living silence. And for those who know their way around, it provides a rich menu: salad as an appetizer, meat as a main course, mixed berries for dessert.

Food for the imagination too. Sabine says: "For me, this is a place of transition. I feel safe in the light of the forest, but I can already see through the trees into the distance. A vastness that inspires respect. These endless hills and mountains in front of us seem like waves to me, like a view of the sea from the shore. I wouldn't be surprised if a few dolphins jumped out of the water." In faraway places like this, new images and new ideas come to me too. Like the question: do I want to go back down to the valley, back to the village in the noisy world? Or can't I just stay up here and feed on what the forest has to offer? A completely different life becomes conceivable in the distance between down there and up there, in the remoteness of the hill.

"I hit myself in the windbreak there," reports Christoph. "This contradiction between death and life touched me. I lay in the soft grass with all the dead tree trunks around me. It crackled and crackled and crawled and crackled around me. Insects, wings flapping, a crow flew away. A supposedly dead forest with so much life in it." We recognize our humanity in nature, which is why we feel so comfortable in it. In the forest community, blossoming and withering are good neighbors. The fluid transition from Werden to decay inspires me to understand death as part of life. Instead of trying to separate it and make it invisible so that it can be better suppressed.

"My favorite place is a tree stump," says Sabine. "There's a thick layer of moss on it, like a soft, green cushion to sit on. I sat there for a while surrounded by birdsong and wind and forgot to think. Lost in thought, as they say." A nice description of meditative practice, I think. The Buddhists call our restless mind a monkey mind, which is constantly running around in the branches of our thoughts. A tree stump in the great outdoors is the right place for my restless mind to relax. Outer stillness nourishes the inner stillness. At a distance from the thicket of thoughts, I feel closer to myself than usual.

After observing nature, the "Vertellekes" come up, as they say in the Sauerland. Stories that the locals associate with the mountain. "This is border country. Here used to be Kurköln, back there Waldeck. Two different rulers. And always disputes. The landscape is the same, but believe it or not, people have different ways of thinking on either side. In the pub, for example: here it's usual for someone to always throw a round. Over there, everyone pays for their own beer. Different area, different customs." - "Yes, exactly. You're talking to someone who mentions three people until you suddenly realize it's about one and the same person. Because everyone here has three names. One refers to the house they live in, then their normal name and another nickname. Someone knows their way around!" Listening to these stories, my view of the Krutenberg and the surrounding landscape expands once again. I sense the close connection between the land and the people.

Mountains separate. As a child, I found it very strange that people in a village "übern Berch" had a completely different Low German expression for the same thing. Naturally, I assumed that ours was the only correct one. Sitting on our bench, we throw words back and forth. What do you call someone from outside? "Bjuterling," says one from Oberhundem. "Buiterling is what it's called," says one from Medebach. No, explains one from Attendorn, "it's clearly called Büterling."

Mountains connect - at least those who live in the same valley.

Author: Michael Gleich