Daily Super High

Flashback - The Divine Air

Ice sharks reach sexual maturity at the age of one hundred and fifty. They grow to the size of great white sharks at a snail's pace. There is an assumption that specimens that already existed in the Columbus era are refusing to be explored in the Arctic Ocean. Harpoon points were found in a bowhead whale that was forcibly put on ice in this millennium, revealing that the animal had escaped its hunters in the 19th century. Although bowhead whales have hardly any natural enemies, "their survival program is always on alert" (David A. Sinclair).

*

"Whenever it hurts, I go one step further." Isabelle Lehn

In the 1980s, dropout Doris Steinbrecher vagabonds through Asia and Oceania. In a haze of late hippies and early ravers, she moves along a transcontinental party trail. The master student of Yoga-Master Fürchtegott Hölzenbein keeps her head above water with beach yoga, some say b... yoga. Doris now belongs to the easy-flow faction. Sun and beach, moon and stars. Sex on acid. Joints for breakfast. Paradise to go. No summit assault in the Himalayas. No retreats. No monastery retreat. No religious theatrics. No contemplation beyond the inspiring meditation. Doris explores backpacker hot-spots and indulges in sun-downer romance. Every evening offers a furious natural spectacle. One minute the horizon is turning colors, you hardly dare say what colors, it's so kitschy, the next minute the stars are shining so brightly that Doris feels drawn into space.

In a frenzy of exhilarated senses, she imagines herself under the sky of another star. A mix of spiritual stretching and diving keeps her in shape. In the lodge of a hotel on Pulau Mabul - a tropical dream off the north-eastern tip of Borneo - she meets Australian Jon. Surrounded by movie sets, the chance couple strive for an adequate performance.

The reef edge of the coastline drops away steeply. It is frequented by schools of batfish and barracuda. Doris dives into the underwater world of the Celebes Sea, a sea on the edge of the Pacific. The peripheral ocean spreads out in a basin that reaches depths of over six thousand meters in places. Turtles pass by the enchanted woman. The living fossils show indifference to the careful touches of their fins floating like wings in the water.

Jon is no longer at her side when Doris assesses the situation at a yoga retreat in Honolulu. An old charismatic Yogi from Kenya towers over the events on site. He overcomes Doris' resistance. On a course of distasteful routines, he seduces the new woman, who doesn't recognize that her latent world-weariness and her manifest melancholy indicate a flash of her homesickness. The aged guru's sexual supernova takes place under all signs of final tension. He dies happy. It was only after his death that Doris realized that she had been impregnated by the old fart. She finds acceptance in a highly effective community. Doris knows the combination of business acumen and spirituality from home. Her father, the barely literate self-made millionaire and soul berserker Anton Steinbrecher, embodies the duality of rough materialism and crashing esotericism.Keno is born in the care of smart women. During his first years of life, he looks forward to a bright future in Hawaii. But then the wheel turns. During an flying visit to the world-famous ashram in Poona, Doris meets the Swabian dropout Raimund Freitag. Doris and Raimund could easily have met in their original surroundings in northern Württemberg; there are countless points of contact. These range from a discotheque in Calmbach to excursion destinations on the Dobel and in Neuenbürg to a drug cave in Mühlacker. Both react rather cautiously to the ashram boss Chandra Mohan Jain aka Acharya Rajneesh aka Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh (Osho from 1989). They decide to return to Germany at the drop of a hat.