Dear Martin,
At the moment of your birth, in your maternal home village of Elm the sun broke through an opening in the nearby mountains known locally as Martin’s Gap. As you told us once, this was the reason your parents named you Martin, that, and the fact that your father was brought to thinking of Knight Martin, who is portrayed in the Basel Cathedral as cutting his cloak in two in order to share half of it with a beggar. What profoundly relevant connections to your own inner being are bespoken in these symbolic images!
In the talk you gave several months ago to the Jean Gebser Society in Bern, your radiant presence – as on so many other occasions – warmed our hearts and inspired us with enthusiasm for a lifestyle compatible with the earth and a planetary ethic. During the course of your talk, you cited an essential passage out of Jean Gebser’s essay, In search of a new consciousness (See also Jean Gebser’s main work The Ever-Present Origin, translated by Noel Barstad with Algis Mickunas, Ohio University Press, 1986 ), which seemed important to you, and which therefore we mention here again:
“…instead of striving for power emerges dedication and a genuine capacity for love;
instead of manipulation – a yielding to interconnecting forces;
instead of dualistic antagonisms – polarity, complementarity, transparence;
instead of prejudice – a renunciation of value judgements, and tolerance;
instead of expediency and goal-oriented thinking – a disinterested intentionality;
instead of hectivity – stillness and the capacity for silence:
instead of quantitative idling – qualitative, spiritual occurrence.”
A half hour before your accident, we received an e-mail message from you concerning the results of the previous Sunday’s parliamentary elections, in which despite your valient candidacy, you failed to secure a seat. Commenting on the results you answered, “It is good the way it is…and this leaves me free and unencumbered to continue working in other ways.” Yes, we are convinced that you will “continue working in other ways” and this gives us solace.
Adieu, golden solar brother, Martin