Re-entering Sils Maria, I remember
a bookstore we’d passed on our way out and ask JL to stop the car when it reappears.
“The answer to your problems is
inside,” I whimsically say to him.
Without a decent space to park, he remains
with the car; Mazey and I venture inside.
Gesundheit has books, yes, but this
is more than a bookstore, we soon discover.
It is similar to a shop one might find in Sedona, Arizona. Rocks and minerals occupy one corner.
I ask Mazey, a German speaker, to
inquire of the proprietor which rocks are indigenous to the region.
AnneMarie overhears and responds in
English, an Australian accent, pointing to a box of blue and purple stones
unique to the Engadine.
“Choose one for yourself,” I say to
Mazey.
I do the same, a smooth pebble
that looks like a miniature abstract by Kandinsky.
While Mazey engages AnneMarie in
conversation, I wander to another section of the shop, to a collection of
handcrafted objects of all colors.
“What are these?” I interrupt.
“Ah.” AnneMarie glides over. “These are matrignons.”
“Excuse me?”
“They’re used for tachyon energy.”
“Tachy-what?”
“We are bombarded with waves,” says
AnneMarie. “Lightwaves from the sun,
radio waves from TV and wireless phones and computers. Many of these waves are harmful. The matrignon, using tachyon energy,
distinguishes between the two. If you
wear a matrignon, it dispels negative waves and accepts positive waves.”
“Do you think I need one?” I ask.
AnneMarie looks deep into my
eyes. “Yes, you do.”
“Do I choose one myself?”
“No, the matrignon chooses
you. It must be the correct matrignon
for you personally.”
“How?”
“Are you ready?”
“I’ve never been readier.”
AnneMarie steps away, returns
moments later with a crystal pendulum.
“I must consult the angels."
She
closes her eyes and swings her pendulum slowly in a circular motion over a
grouping of round and triangular shapes.
It’s
going to be the purple triangle, I think to myself.
The pendulum stops over
purple.
“This one,” she says.
Purple. The color chosen for me by my imaginary
friend. Ten years of
psychoanalysis? Pooh, to quote
Nietzsche’s curator.
“Of course.”
“And a strand to wear it with?”
asks AnneMarie.
“Please, you choose.”
AnneMarie
chooses a mauve string and slips the matrignon–a purple pyramid with an
upside-down triangle carved into its center–around my neck.
“You need to wear it here," she says, "just over your
sternum.”
“Mazey,” I say. “Are you in for this?”
“Yes. I think JL should do it, too. I’ll go talk to him.”
Is this really Mazey Sunshine, our rigid neuro-psychologist? JL should do this, too?
Minutes later, Mazey returns. I expect her to say that JL can’t be
bothered. But, instead, our road trip
cynic says he’ll come in if I swap places minding the car.
Ten minutes pass. They’re still inside. A parking space opens. I nail it and go back into the shop.
JL and Mazey are white-faced, like
they’ve seen a ghost.
“You wouldn’t believe what just
happened,” says Mazey, daze-like. “As
soon as JL walked into the shop, AnneMarie froze and grew quite alarmed. She told JL there are people who want to harm
him, and asked if he was aware of that.
JL said yes. She didn’t even need
to do her pendulum bit. First, she
picked up a round crystal, the size of a large coin, then she changed her mind
and picked up a crystal twice the size.
She said to JL, ‘You’re going to need this.’ She told him he has to wear it all the time,
even at night, and if he takes it off in bed, to sleep with it under his
pillow.”
I look at JL.
He expression says he is blown away.
“Can you believe this?” he whispers.
“Didn’t I tell you the answer to
all your problems is in here?”
JL pulls the huge talisman out
from under his shirt.
While I’m paying, I spot a small
silver bell adorned with an angel. It
reminds me of my angel from Sedona.
I ring the bell. “May I buy this?” I ask.
“No, no,” says AnneMarie. “It’s special.”
“I know. That’s why I’d like to buy it.”
“But it’s not for sale.” Period.
That’s the difference between
Sedona and Sils Maria. In Sedona, everything is for sale.
Otherwise, Sils Maria is to Europe what Sedona is to the United
States: Stunning natural beauty, for
sure. But Sils Maria is also a magical
place, if lesser known, where people come to recharge their batteries. The
Engadine Valley, we learn from AnneMarie, possesses a deep concentration of
electromagnetic energy that stimulates the mind and rejuvenates the soul.
Sound familiar?
But this being Switzerland, there
is no hype, no new age crystallization, no woo-woo.
This is old age (not new age) stuff.
People come, have been coming for centuries, to walk and take the
air. Simple as that.
The Swiss, a hushful bunch, would
not give a second thought to promoting or commercializing this low-profile
treasure. They don’t need the money–and
they don’t want the hordes. Sils Maria
could be twinned with Sedona.
And nobody knows it but us.
Well, Nietzsche figured it
out. Partly. He tapped into the energy and put it down to
walking.
All
truly great thoughts are conceived by walking.
So, Nietzsche believed his great thoughts were the result of
walking. But walking in Turin, Genoa,
and Nice did not produce Zarathustra. It
was trekking around the Engadine that
super-charged Nietzsche’s syphilis-tormented brain.
And here’s another point worth
mentioning, in the same vein: Sils Maria
does not make a huge fuss of Nietzsche the way Arles is consumed by Van Gogh or
Figueres is concentrated around Dali.
You’ve got Nietzsche Haus, open three hours a day, six days a week, no
fanfare, and no Nietzsche mugs in the souvenir shops—vintage cowbells,
instead.
Subtlety.
We climb into the car, cruise to
where Van Stein is laying final brushstrokes.
The artist is not ready, so our
threesome continues on to Waldhaus.
When Van Stein eventually returns,
I tell him, “Our neuro-psychologist has been totally blown away.”
“The pyramid rock? I should have gone, too.”
“No, Gesundheit.”
“But I didn’t sneeze.”
“The bookstore. It’s better if they
explain it over dinner. As Carl Jung once said, ‘Show me a sane man and I will cure him for you.’ Prepare yourself for The Transformation of Mazey Sunshine.”
