Be aware pls: This Post is about Death: Following the Grimm Brothers on Gevatter Tod.
The latest Bob Dylan concert in Hamburg – according to some reviews I read in German media, showed an artist and song writer awarded with a Nobel Prize in Literature because of his lyrics: Haunted by the Black Rider.
A bit like the last Jonny Cash Songs that I love a lot before this great artist died (RIP).
Bob Dylan (Robert Zimmermann) has fascinated me since I had learnt to read and write in a Primary School in Huje in Holstein close to the small Country Town of Itzehoe with two Grammar Schools, one for Boys only and one for Girls only. One was the KKS and the other one was the AVS.
Kaiser Karl Schule and Auguste Victoria Schule.
The Princes were educated in the Castel of Ploen in Holstein.
The Kaiser Paar loved Ploen and the Lake much more than Berlin.
My dear father Johann Detlef (JDB) was my only teacher for four very long years from 1956 until 1960.
I was born in 1949, and my father Johann was released as a French Prisoner of War in 1947.
Hitler – the Nutcase and ex admirer of Joseph Stalin – both more or less soul mates and criminals and very bloddy idiots had shot himself in 1945.
The War was over – Nie wieder Krieg!
My Primary School in Huje.
The only medium except a blackboard and white chalk was a new radio with a green blinking eye.
I was only 7 years old and had the classroom for myself during Sundays and afternoons, Saturdays school ended around noon those days.
I lived with my parents and one brother and one sister in the school building and we had a big garden for ourselves.
Every six months a pig was slauhgtered and hanging on a ladder, while the meat and Liverwurst went into Weckglasses. The blood was directly cooked as Schwarz Sauer, translating sour Blood Soup.
The liver was fried and eaten the same evening.
The brain was fried with green onions and red onions, the favourite dish of my father, who spent 3 months in the Ukraine near Kiew, before the Red Army of Stalin managed to push the German War Maschine back into Germany.
This post is about Death (Gevatter Tod) on his black horse named Fury.
He is haunting people not ready to die.
Some people are ready to die awaiting Gevatter (Father) Death because of pain or just being too tired.
Some people have managed to trick Death when meeting on the Bridge between our world and the other side of the river, where the path to the peak of the mountain begins.
Later at the Gate waits an Angel with a Sword and burning Wings.
Like a Ring of Fire.
This post today is about the German Artist Immendorf, born in Bleckede at the river Elbe.
Bleckede is situated not too far from Hamburg and Berlin.
JÖRG IMMENDORFF ON THE BIBLE AND HIS ART WORK
The well known North German Artist was born in Bleckede at the River ELBE not far from Hamburg, where the Mouth of the River allows big conatiner ships to reach Hamburg Harbour.
At Hamburg Blankenese, a very rich and posh suburb of Hamburg not far from Pinneberg in Holstein, are some Loudspeakers installed greeting the big Container Ships entering the old Hansestadt of Hamburg.
The Hafen City has become a hub now for guests and tourists around the Globe.
The Harbour Festival attracts more people than the iconic Harbour Bridge in Sydney.
“But this only happens when a person opens himself. A blocked person, when he goes through the Sistine Chapel, cannot experience the beauty and depth, the bridge to the divine that comes from art.
And that applies not only to the artist, the creative person – the person is, regardless of where he stands, creative and an image of God. A memory of God. A spark of creation. Every spark of creation glimmers in the divine spark. The image remembers the original image, in every creation glimmers a divine spark. In the artwork he shines brighter, the Bible itself shines and spreads through its facet-rich transmission divine and human light.
So the Bible – the Word of God – is almost like a kind of handbook. It contains no material that has everything to do with what I have had to do in my life, so condensed as the Bible. The confrontation with God has to do with my personal situation, but furthermore: There is a general, even societal need for the divine. Because God – as the embodiment of creation and possibilities that he has given to people – stands today for a truly revolutionary call, namely the unfolding of humanity to promote.
I have always said, it is forbidden to paint God. It would put my sense of scale over the power that carries such a primal force within itself. But one can occupy oneself as a painter with the foundations of the religious, with worries and longings, with breaks and bridges, with salvation and disaster. So I see my occupation with the Bible: No artistic reproduction of individual scenes, but rather visionary presentations of the great whole. They point beyond themselves, how the person points beyond himself.
I only need to look into the night sky, similar to the Egyptians. The Egyptians built along the night sky wonderful, gigantic, God-like creations. Not against the night sky, but with it.
In this harmonious relationship arises a premonition, a supposition. And a kind of hope. Let us not forget the principle of hope, only because there are no scientifically blessed things. Otherwise there would be no concept of faith. And not love. And what would we be without these three?”
(Jörg Immendorff)
KEY PASSAGES FOR YOUR PROJECT:
“Every spark of creation glimmers in the divine spark” – The Seelenvogel as that divine spark
“The Bible itself shines and spreads…divine and human light” – Why he chose to illustrate the Bible. The Mother of all Books and Narrations or Stories.
“It is forbidden to paint God” – Yet he tries through the Seelenvogel figures.
“Visionary presentations of the great whole” – Not literal Bible illustration, but spiritual essence.
“They point beyond themselves, how the person points beyond himself” – The reaching figures on the cover.
“Not against the night sky, but with it” – Harmony with mortality, not fighting it.
“Faith…Love…what would we be without these three?” – His answer facing ALS – a deadly nerve disease.
This is profound theological reflection from a dying artist.
Here is now my Seelenvogel project’s foundation.
In higher education, we often speak of legacy in terms of scholarship, curriculum, and institutional memory. But what if legacy also had wings?
The Seelenvogel—Soul Bird—emerges from the poetic and artistic tradition of Jörg Immendorff as a symbol of spiritual transformation, liminal awareness, and the quiet architecture of belonging. This bilingual glossary invites educators, students, and storytellers to explore legacy not just as content, but as a living ritual—one that moves between languages, between margins, and between generations.
Each term is a doorway into deeper reflection, designed to support multilingual classrooms, poetic scaffolding, and AI-integrated learning environments. Whether used in a seminar, a keepsake archive, or a digital ritual, these entries offer a shared vocabulary for those who teach, learn, and remember in flight.
Here’s a WordPress-ready version of your Seelenvogel bilingual glossary, formatted in clean HTML for easy pasting into your blog editor. It’s designed to align with your higher education themes—bridging poetic symbolism, legacy pedagogy, and multilingual clarity.
(As you can guess here: Yes, this was suggested by Microsoft AI Copilot as well.)
My Seelenvogel Legacy Glossary / Vermächtnis des Seelenvogels / Angeregt durch die Immendorf Bible).
Thank you so much, my dear friend Joerg Immendorf: You have enriched my life so much by your paintings in the Bible!
My dear Reader: Pls be aware, I am not a member of any church.
A seeker?
Asylum Seeker?
Music is the Languge, for sure:
The Seekers via Youtube – Voices like Angels up there.
| Deutsch | English | Definition (DE) | Definition (EN) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Seelenvogel | Soul Bird | Symbol für das menschliche Streben nach Freiheit, Erinnerung und spiritueller Wandlung. | A symbol of the human longing for freedom, remembrance, and spiritual transformation. |
| Zwischenraum | Liminal Space | Der Übergangsbereich zwischen Welten, Zeiten oder Zuständen – ein Ort des Wandels. | The threshold between worlds, times, or states—a space of transformation. |
| Flügelschlag | Wingbeat | Poetisches Maß für Bewegung, Rhythmus oder die stille Kraft des Voranschreitens. | A poetic measure of movement, rhythm, or the quiet force of forward motion. |
| Randnotiz | Marginal Note | Eine persönliche, oft verborgene Reflexion am Rande eines Textes oder einer Erinnerung. | A personal, often hidden reflection in the margins of a text or memory. |
| Vermächtnisgerüst | Legacy Scaffold | Die symbolische Struktur, auf der Erinnerungen, Rituale und Geschichten aufgebaut werden. | The symbolic framework upon which memories, rituals, and stories are built. |
| Gefährte | Companion | Ein Wesen oder Gedanke, das uns auf inneren oder äußeren Reisen begleitet. | A being or thought that accompanies us on inner or outer journeys. |
| Erinnerungsflug | Flight of Memory | Die Bewegung durch Zeit und Gefühl, getragen von Bildern, Klängen und innerem Wissen. | A movement through time and feeling, carried by images, sounds, and inner knowing. |
| Strophe | Stanza | Eine poetische Einheit, oft als Flügelschlag des Ausdrucks verstanden. | A poetic unit, often understood as a wingbeat of expression. |
| Gebetspause | Prayerful Pause | Ein Moment der Stille, des Innehaltens – offen für das Heilige oder das Unaussprechliche. | A moment of stillness and pause—open to the sacred or the unspeakable. |
| Dazwischenwächter | Sentinel of the In-Between | Hüter jener Räume, die nicht ganz hier und nicht ganz dort sind – Orte der Verwandlung. | Guardian of those spaces that are neither here nor there—places of transformation. |
Would you like a short introductory paragraph or closing reflection to frame this glossary within your blog’s higher education theme—perhaps linking it to legacy pedagogy, poetic literacy, or AI-integrated learning? I’d be glad to help you shape that next layer. (Asked by AI Microsoft Copilot)
Street Art in Miami QLD Australia | Credit phb
Writer and Blogger Peter Hanns Bloecker, Director of Studies and retired since 2015 living mostly at the Gold Coast in QLD Australia.
Born in Holstein, in the True North of Germany between the Horizons in Osterstedt / Landkreis RD.
Updated Tue 28 Oct 2025.
1#
From IZ to OZ
Car registrations in Germany are Letters and Numbers telling the Reader where the car is registered:
B – Berlin
HH – Hansestadt Hamburg
IZ – Itzehoe, Landkreis Holstein
About Car Regos in North Germany – Letters plus Numbers
Our Car Rego was (The 1st ever Volkswagen Green Beetle):
IZ V 19 in Huje.
There were only two cars in our village, a brown Mercedes D 190 and our VW Beetle (The Car of the only Teacher there, as mentioned above my dear DAD).
We were 5 in the car: Three children on the back bench of the VW Beetle.
Later my DAD hand crafted a caravan, that could be pulled by his 2nd Volkswagen.
So only 999 cars those days had a rego from IZ V 1 to IZ V 999.
Later two letters were added like …. IZ VP 999.
Ring of Fire via Youtube (Cash)
More Cash via Youtube walking the Line
And last not least: Why Music is the Language
Rather a Hammer than a Nail. Yes, I would …
And last now my parody after you have shed your tears because of this last video above (Which I really love):
I’d rather be a noodle than a steak
Yes I would, if I could, I surely would
I’d rather slurp in silence than chew loud
Yes I would, if I could, I surely would
Away I’d fly from traffic jams and screens
To mountain peaks with Wi-Fi-free
I’d trade my phone for feathers and a breeze
And binge on memes beneath some trees
Beneath some trees
Hmmmm Hmmmm
I’d rather be a llama than a drone
Yes I would, if I could, I surely would
I’d rather hum than hear my ringtone moan
Yes I would, if I could, I surely would
Oh, city life, you pixelated beast
You stole my soul and charged for lease
But I shall rise, a condor with a plan
To ghost the grid and start a stand!
And start a stand …
Hmmmm Hmmmm Hmmm
Guitar
Em G
I’d rather be a sparrow than a snail
Em
Yes I would, if I could, I surely would
C G
Away, I’d rather sail away
C G
Like a swan that’s here and gone