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Welcome to my blog! Here I share my thoughts about photography in general and my pictures in particular, and sometimes also about the world as it is… or could be.

Just Published: Qigong – A Journey of Discovery

'Qigong – A Journey of Discovery' by Gabriele Golissa as paperback and e-book.Besides my passions for skies and photography I am also very interested in health-related issues. On my quest of finding a healthy lifestyle, I stumbled upon Qigong—the ancient Chinese method to health—a while ago. Since then I not only practice Qigong, but I also learned a lot about its theoretical background and also about the Chinese culture. I traveled to Beijing and found it, despite all the issues people are facing there, an absolutely fascinating and inspiring place. For me, everything that has to do with Qigong was and is a journey of discovery. I have already shared some of my photographs from my travels to Beijing here in this blog. And somewhere along the way, a little book with some of my photographs and also a lot of information about the world of Qigong emerged. You can take a look here.

Water

Kunming Lake at the Summer Palace in Beijing's northwest.

“Nothing in the world is softer or weaker than water
Yet nothing is better at overcoming the hard and strong
This is because nothing can replace it.”
Laozi, Daodejing, chapter 78

Walls

A photograph of the silhouette of the Great Wall against the mountains north of Beijing.

The Great Wall of China (長城/长城, Chángchéng, literally: “long wall”) is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and, as a structure, is widely seen as a masterpiece of human achievement. With a length of about 20,000 kilometres (12,500 miles) it protected China from invasions from the north and also allowed border controls and duties on imported goods. Construction started before the Common Era, but most of the wall existing today is from the Ming dynasty (明朝, Míng cháo) (1368–1644 CE).

Walls are often necessary for safety and protection. I grew up in Germany where the Berlin Wall for a long time seemed an eternal symbol of as well as a real border between two rival systems. It also served to keep people inside East Berlin and from escaping to West Berlin. But when the Eastern bloc crumbled, the Berlin Wall crumbled as well and a divided country became one again. I had hoped the unification of Germany would only be the beginning of mankind realizing that we do better working together than fighting each other.

The present, however, sees new walls being talked of or even being constructed. “Fortress Europe”. Border fences in Israel. And of course the Mexico–United States border wall. Will they really solve the problem? And what is the problem anyways? Maybe it helps to step back a little and take a larger perspective. While the route of the Great Wall of China is still preserved today, many of its individual parts are crumbling. It is now one of China’s major tourist attractions.