I remember when I was little, my parents never talked about God. I was basically raised in an atheistic environment. Well, maybe not exactly atheistic. I believe non-religious would be a more appropriate description. My mother always said that God was in nature. My father never shared what he really thought, but I think maybe he did believe in God. My parents were very ethical and I copied their ways, yet that ethics was not connected to any deity. We did right, because it felt right. We always did and we still try to do the right thing. In school as a little girl I was taught to believe in science....

We all know that our culture is very competitive, but are we really aware of details? Let’s look at some of them. One day we find ourselves not happy with just running. And we start to inquire about running competitions for non-professionals. Maybe even the whole classic marathon: 42 kilometers. We get bored with the same old grind three times a week and we want more. We want to compete. And we join running events. We will compete. That’s the spirit. We managed to turn our spare time into a struggle. Like the struggle of our job, which is inevitable, was not enough. I guess the running competitions...

One fine day I walked along a gravel road up the castle hill in the vicinity of my humble abode. The steep ascent really takes energy out of me, and I do not have an ounce to spare. I have inherited low blood pressure and I take tranquilizers. Both make ascents difficult. But I plod on since it is only about 300 feet of elevation gain (100 m). And so, I proceeded with difficulty until almost at the top I heard a noise in the bushes quite close to me. I stopped in terror thinking: ‘Is it a bear?’ There are a lot of bears in Slovenia, but I really doubted there would be one so close to a town. The...

One day I went for my usual walk in the forest, which proved unusual in the way it enveloped. I tend to exaggerate watching my step. That way maybe I do not watch nature so much. So, I decided to listen to the sounds of nature more. I normally concentrate on the chirping and singing of the birds, but this time the risen river after rain was so loud, I could barely hear the birds. The birds that have stayed at least, several of them have flown south already. The swallows desert us in autumn. No more chance of seeing a swallow-dive this time of the year. I saw it once in summer and it was magnificent....