The Balkans and Italy

June of 2007

          My friend Rich had suggested last winter that he, Cesco, and myself take a trip through the Balkans to see if we could bring the sheng canopy over that so often unsettled region.
          This seemed like a good idea to me, which is one of the reasons I went with Merlina through eastern Germany and Poland in April: to bring the canopy as close as we could from the Baltic down south toward the Balkans. We brought it down and across the southern border of Poland, but I did not know how far had it extended into Slovakia and the Czech Republic.

          On June 2, Cesco arrived in England from Iceland, and myself from America. The next day, with Rich, we flew from Stansted to Ljubljana, Slovenia. At the suggestion of Rich and Don Croft, I had written to Meta Kumer several weeks earlier, to ask if she would like to get together with us when we came. She has done much to publicize orgonite in Slovenia, and has made and distributed many good orgonite devices in that area. She met us at the airport, and graciously opened her house to us during our stay in Ljubljana. She lives in a wonderful place, up in the mountains in the outskirts of the city, with a stupendous view, a garden, and an orchard, in which latter she gave us free access to pick cherries, strawberries, and raspberries. We could not have asked for a better hostess.

The place was special in other ways as well, for two quite positive lines of qi crossed in the yard under a tree, and a quite strong sheng being, in addition to a resident diva, were present nearby. On the mountain, higher up, was a latent vortex just waiting to be opened, to which task we attended the first thing next morning.
          So it seemed an auspicious start. On the 4th Meta drove us, opening latent vortices to the Slovenian coast on the Adriatic Sea (though she said that in Slovenia it should be called the Jadranskaya Sea). Besides the one near her home already noted, we gifted three other vortices: one in the forest on a mountain overlooking a Slovenian valley , one on a hill over the Adriatic (in a heavy cloudburst), and one on a mountain ridge with an imposing monastery on one end, and a statue of Saint Francis on the other.

          On the next day we took our leave from Meta and drove north into Austria, opening latent vortices as we went, intending to continue until we reached the boundary of the existing European sheng canopy . We reached Vienna by dinner time, and although that city was not beneath the sheng canopy , the latter was visible both to the north and to the east. So after our meal, we turned east, reaching Hungary by nightfall, and sleeping in the car (in the rain), close to a rest stop just over the border.

          We were now under the canopy, but gifted a latent vortex some way into Hungary, barely avoiding getting stuck in the mud after going a little off-road.

          Shortly before Budapest, we turned south again, entering the northern boundary of Serbia. I was surprised and pleased, to see a freeway in that country, though we found the tolls rather high. We of course had to leave the freeway to pursue vortices, and due to the unexpected appearance of rivers with no bridges, were not always successful in reaching them.
          I recall that in one small town, there was a pole with a stork nesting on a platform at the top, and on the base of the pole was written KLINTON in Cyrillic letters.
          Early in the evening, about an hour before dark, we were overdue for finding an accessible vortex. Finally I spotted one on a hill on the side of the freeway. Cesco and Rich stayed with the car on the side of the road, while I took off up the hill. Part way up were a number of orchards and vegetable gardens. Not wanting to seem an arrogant trespasser, I walked up to an elderly man hoeing one of the gardens. He was extremely pleased to see me. He shook my hand, and placed his hands on my shoulders. Even though we could neither of us understand a word the other spoke, he smiled, showed me his garden, and led me over to a small bench under a tree, and offered me a drink out of a bottle of liquor he had there. I had to refuse, so then he brought me some water. I think he would have been glad to keep me there till dark, but I had to excuse myself and he showed me to a trail up the hill. When I came down after opening the latent vortex, I was looking forward to greeting him again, but he had gone home for the night. Afterwards, I heard that Serbian hospitality is famous throughout the region.

Shy Serbian Turtle Near Vortex

          Next day we headed on south, and eventually entered Macedonia. We got the most for our money there, of anywhere on the trip. The car we rented could not be driven into Greece, but we wanted to bring the canopy as far south as possible, so we drove right down to the Greek border, and gifted a latent vortex not far by. Driving north again, and finding that we were once more in need of finding a latent vortex, not long before dusk, we stopped near one on a mountain next to the freeway. As I began climbing up, I happened to turn around and notice that a police car had stopped next to our rental car, and that the officer was speaking with Rich and Cesco. I hoped that they would still be there when I got back, but there was not a lot of light left, and so I kept climbing. Fortunately, I soon found a marked path and reached the vortex much more easily than I had anticipated. When I got back to the car, they had eaten dinner, and while I was consuming the leftovers, they told me that the officers had only been friendly, and were checking to see if there was any trouble.

          We had no good place to stay, and since it was raining off and on, we decided to drive into the evening. Rich did most of the driving, and I appreciate all the stressful work he cheerfully did that night. We were under the sheng canopy now, and could drive without stopping to gift, so he drove all the way back to the Macedonian-Serbian border, over into Serbia, and up onto a road which our map said would take us to Montenegro. This road was a challenge, especially in the dark: part gravel and dirt, and what pavement there was, replete with potholes. We kept moving slowly up into the mountain and, somewhere about midnight, were stopped at a checkpoint, by Serb police.
          The police looked at our passports, assured us that it was simply a checkpoint, and let us go on. Just over the hill was another group of police, who stopped us again. Turns out we were at the de facto Serbian/Kosovo border, and the Serbians didn’t officially recognize Kosovo yet, so they did not mention that they were actually on border patrol. The Kosovo police were quite friendly, freely gave us plenty of information and advice, but. . . charged us 50 euros for additional auto insurance. We had either to pay it, or go back and around de facto Kosovo (which would have cost us much more). So we paid it, and drove on into the night. Eventually we stopped at the side of the road, and picked up a few hours sleep in the car. I found it curious how much new construction we saw in Kosovo, especially of new homes. Of course there had to have been considerable destruction in the recent conflict, but from whence was the new investment coming?

          Next morning (Thursday the 7th) we woke up just after daybreak, and drove (sleepily) through Kosovo, back into Serbia, and then over the border into Montenegro. We drove south,

along mountain roads, and stopped for lunch at an interesting

Greek Orthodox monastery named Moraca. Its chapel housed a quite respectable sheng being, and was situated on the edge of a high cliff over a river. Afterwards, we continued back to the mountain road, in the rain and behind slow trucks, down to the coast. At the coast, the weather turned sunny, and we found a latent vortex on a small mountain, just a few miles from the beach.

          It is generally easier to find and reach vortices near the coast. Finding them is easier there, partly because vortices seem to occur on higher ground in a given area, and the beach is higher than the water. But it is more than this -- I cannot ever recall sensing a vortex under water close to the coast. I do not know the reason for this just that it is so.

          We spent the night in the town of Kotor:

and had a good cheap meal at a restaurant in the old town (within the old city walls). This is a vacation port, with Plenty of tourists, but we luckily found a room to spend the night for 30 Euros (though some of us had to sleep on the floor).

          Fortified with a good nights sleep on Friday, we drove north into Croatia.

Little of special interest occurred that day, and we slept in the car again, at a road stop. Actually two of us slept in the car, as Cesco found a miniature house in the childrens play area, in which he could insert his sleeping bag (and self).

          We had covered a considerable distance in four days, and it seems appropriate to mention a certain change. When Cesco and I began opening latent vortices in Germany two years before, we had to to find a new vortex every 40 kilometers or so, in order to create, and keep advancing behind us, a new sheng canopy . On the trip to Thailand in February, and the trip to eastern Germany and Poland in April, I found that that minimum distance had increased to about 100 kilometers. In this Balkan trip we were gifting at about 100 kilometer intervals, and found that each morning the sheng canopy had passed us up and moved some distance ahead of us. It may be that the intensity of the sheng qi in the canopy had increased to the point that it now increases more easily: or it may be that there is more sheng qi now in the sky, even where the canopy has not yet spread, which makes extension faster. I simply do not know the reason - but the fact is certain: that it was less difficult now to extend the canopy than formerly.

          On our entire journey north through Croatia we were under the sheng canopy . It had moved down from Austria through that part of Slovenia near the sea coast (which we had gifted Monday with Meta), and west from Serbia, to cover all of Croatia. On Saturday we travelled north to the Slovenian border, thence to the Italian border, past Trieste, and turned south again.
          We bypassed Venice, Padua, and Florence, and spent the night sleeping outside in a farmers yard (with his permission) in a area somewhat north of Rome. The weather ever since Kotor had continued to be sunny, and I found it much better sleeping out on the soft ground than in a car seat.

          Next day was slow, due to traffic congestion and road repair. In the evening we tried an experiment when opening a latent vortex on a hill, just before dark. But to explain the experiment necessitates a little background.
          Manfred, who writes in the German forum, wrote me about the beginning of May concerning a discovery he had made. He made some TBs , placing them above a CB while the resin cured. He found that these TBs had a special effect: positive qi swirls up above them similar to the way it comes up from a CB. He said he would send me some photographs when he could. A week or so later I received the photographs, and from them it seemed to me that indeed he was correct. I repeated his experiment in my shop and obtained similar results. I made 12 TBs in a muffin tin, and cured them by resting the muffin tin on top of the pipes of a CB (my first one, constructed 4 years previously). The five which were above the space encircled by the pipes were all special: the others were not.
          It then occurred to me that perhaps these special TBs could be used to charge water. I placed one of them several inches under a wooden plate, poured two glasses of water, placing one to the side, and one on top of the wooden plate. After some hours I found that the water in the glass over the TB was charged, as if it had been charged over a CB . The other on the side was not charged.
          This all occurred shortly before the Balkan trip. I also wanted to do a couple more experiments as well: one was to see if a single special TB could change a sha line in the ground to a positive one, the way a carefully placed circle of 6 TBs will do; the other was to see if opening a latent vortex with a special TB would produce any unusual results.
          We did the first experiment on a sha line at Metas place, and found that the single special TB failed to change it to positive.
          We did the second experiment that night in southern Italy. I used three special TBs , which I had brought with me from home, in the critical points of the vortex. We slept near the vortex that night, and next morning sheng qi was swirling up into the sky strongly. But several days later, on our trip back up north, I had a chance to view the opened vortex once again, and though working properly, it did not seem better than vortices opened by ordinarily charged TB .

          The morning after opening that latent vortex we headed on south. The sheng canopy was not over southern Italy the day before, but now had proceeded ahead of us to the south, even over Sicily. I felt that to bring the canopy as far south as possible during this trip, we should cross into Sicily, and gift a latent vortex near its southernmost coast. This would stretch it far into the Mediterranean at that longitude, since the southern coast of Sicily is more south than the northern tip of Tunisia, in North Africa.
          We crossed by ferry, and made it about 2/3rds of the way through the island before nightfall. By then, the sheng canopy had likely been over Sicily for 12 hours or more. Consequently, we could not check to see how the sky above the island had been before the advent of the canopy. But we could feel the trees, and lesser plants, and without exception, their elementals all expressed painful stress. We slept on the ground that night, in a camp site. Next morning the trees felt somewhat better, but were still under very palpable stress.
          For a good part of the trip south through Sicily, both Cesco and I could feel a strong latent vortex far to the south. Mount Etna, which is a volcano in the northern half of the island, felt quite negative driving past it, but I felt that it was not the right time for us to try to do anything about it. The latent vortex far to the south also felt quite negative, and this I had a clear feeling that we should treat.
          So next morning we proceeded south and eventually found the vortex. It was on the coast, and on one of the southernmost points of the island. There was one especially strong critical point where it surfaced, and about this point we placed a circle of 6 TBs, in the manner one uses to change a sha line to a positive one. Almost immediately, a very tall sheng being appeared on the spot. Before and after we had gifted the vortex, Cesco had felt a huge sha being out in the sea,not too far away from the shore,

to whose presence I can attest.
          We walked back to the car, and began to backtrack. When we had found the correct road north, Cesco directed my attention to the trees. In the upper branches, you could feel a huge expression of relief, and thanks. The feeling was so strong, it made one want to weep. And this was within 20 minutes of opening the vortex. This feeling in the trees persisted strongly for some time, relaxing to just a positive feeling by the time we had returned half way up the island. Here are sylphs celebrating:


          Our trip back north up Italy to Slovenia was without special incident, although it took us more than two full days of steady driving. Our good weather finally deserted us when we crossed the mountains west of Ljubljana, and we drove into the capital through heavy thunder and lightning. Meta met us in the city, and took us to her house for one more night of Slovenian hospitality (including an excellent soup made from her garden and some apricot knödel). Here is a photo of a hole in the clouds above her CB :

The sheng canopy now covers all of western and central Europe, with the possible exception of parts of Spain and southern France.