A hat, a cane, an umbrella…

The witch’s staff may be a broom, but she has two umbrellas for protection. In sunshine, she sits under them in the shade; in the rain, she stays dry.

Under these witch umbrellas, you can lie down on the ground, close your eyes, and simply listen. Sheltered and protected, you can spend a few minutes listening to the raindrops, the hum of the bees, or the laughter of children. Doing nothing also does something to us. By the way, in our Raven’s Nest, there’s a little witch umbrella for you to take home. There, you can spend a few minutes each day doing nothing or dreaming of summer.

Let the Drops Dance!

Under the umbrellas, the world turns and the rain falls upwards. Hugo Kükelhaus whispered the secret of the water spring bowl to the witches. “The eye sees, the ear hears, the nose smells, the skin feels, the fingers touch, the foot understands, the hand grasps, the brain thinks, the lungs breathe, the blood pulses, the body swings…”

Many of these things can happen to you at the water spring bowl. You just need to be patient. Those who seek quick results won’t experience the full potential. Instead, calmness and serenity will lead to the goal. If you manage to coax the little miracle of the sound bowl out, you’ll feel it throughout your entire body. The dance floor is open! May I have the honor?

Let’s bake it! From wheat to bread…

The most valuable witchcraft often involves the seemingly simple and small things that affect our daily lives, like bread. Sometimes, the witches whisper to their guests: “Sitting by the fire is easy, but making the fire is much harder. Eating bread is no magic, but making bread requires patience!”

We’ll show you how it’s done, step by step. Each golden spelt grain is ground with your muscle power into a fine flour. Mixed with witch water and a pinch of stone salt, we knead and roll the dough rhythmically, creating a delicious texture. And, as with all things magical, it requires a little patience to let the true magic unfold.
You’ll taste it: In this little loaf lies a big portion of your personality.

The magic of stories

Throughout the history of humankind, fire has held a captivating spell that we can scarcely escape. About 400,000 years ago, humans began systematically harnessing it. This development is considered one of the most significant evolutionary steps. The lightning bolt, often attributed to witches, showed us the way. With a deafening crack, it struck an ancient tree, splitting it in two with flames. What remained were charred coals and the knowledge of the precious existence of fire. The hot flames brought warmth, light, protection from predators, and made food easier to digest.

Today, it’s easy to create fire, but do you know how to start a fire without matches or a lighter? Perhaps you’re lucky, and the wise fire keeper waiting at the fire pit will share some insights on “Playing with Fire.” You’ve probably tried using the power of the sun and a magnifying glass as children, drawn to the thrill of the forbidden and the allure of experimentation.

But did you know how fire can also be sparked with the strike of stones and metals, tinder from dried tree fungi, or the friction of a fire stick? We invite you to reflect on these methods and revel in childhood memories. Can you recall a spine-tingling campfire story from your youth? Share the spark with us!

I don’t know anyone who doesn’t like cherries;

I could eat them every day. So sweet and yet a bit sour. Best when they’re fresh, says the farmer!

Many of us love these red fruits not only because they’re healthy but for another reason. That small round pit can be catapulted wonderfully through the air with a good puff of air and a rolled tongue. Did you know there’s even a World Championship for cherry pit spitting? Currently, the world record stands at 22.52 meters.

The witches couldn’t believe it, so they invited the world champion, and indeed, even in the Hexenwasser, he spat farther than anyone else. Where his pit landed, they built a giant cherry. How far can you get? If no one’s in your way, our meadows are your training ground. And when it’s not cherry season, there’s a consolation prize: almost all summer long, just below the beehive, you can enjoy the best cherry ice cream in the (mountain) world.

Every Cherry Pit Could Become Your Orchard!

An old saying goes: You should build a house, have a child, and plant a tree. The witches knew: “Whoever plants cherry trees will take root and eventually rest in their shade with a sweet taste.” A lovely thought, right? If you’re lucky, you might get this chance as a gift at the Cherry Cinema. Turning the round pit into a tree is a little piece of witchcraft. Not every pit has the ability to sprout. First, it needs cold stimuli,
then a lot of patience. And if you succeed, and the sprout turns into a young sapling, that’s when the real task begins.

Watering, fertilizing, warding off enemies, giving space, pruning, raking leaves… And despite all the love put into the cultivation, it’s not guaranteed that the new tree will bear fruit. What could it be worth? Cherry juice? Cherry jam, cherry cake? Mmm, yes. And perhaps you see the cherry pit as something to help train your willpower? If it works, the cherries will eventually share their happiness with us!

You are invited to interrupt your path in the cherry garden and take a moment to rest in the shade of the Salven cherries.

One drop is enough

Did You Know That a Whole World Hides Inside a Single Drop?

Pick a drop—ideally an early morning dewdrop—gently with your fingertip. Now turn your finger: the drop hangs heavy beneath it. Look closely, and you’ll see the entire world reflected within—only, everything is upside down! Water holds endless surprises for us.We invite you to experiment with us! Can water droplets jump? How can you sculpt the perfect riverbed out of clay? How many drops fit on a single cent coin? Let’s find out together! As a keepsake, you can even take home your very own artwork made from soap bubbles.

Have we made you glustig (that’s Tyrolean for ‘curious’)?

If you already feel the urge to explore, start your own research expedition in your garden. Look closely—pinecones, daisies, ferns, lady’s mantle leaves, tree bark, snail shells, earthworms, and even the spiral of a spider’s web share fascinating similarities with the shapes of water. Prepare to be amazed!

The magic of everyday

Water is the elixir of life. We are made of it, we drink it, we bathe and swim in it, we regulate it, and we are now aware of its scarcity and value. At the Blaues Wunder, water wants to touch you, surprise you, and throw you off balance. We invite you to forget everything you think you know about water and approach it without expectation. Then, as you meander along the riverbed, you might discover what an artist water truly is, or you may find out, by playing the water sound bowl, how every tone can be made to draw its own picture. If you try to hold onto the water, it slips away.

As Leonardo da Vinci wrote in his Codex Leicester:
“Nature begins with the cause and ends with the experience: Let us take the opposite path: starting with experience and from it, investigating the cause.”

Let’s embark on this journey together, beginning with the experience of water itself.

We grow with the bees

Did you know that we owe the bees more than just their delicious honey? They shape words that come naturally to us. In a beehive, it’s dark—pitch dark. It seems the word ‘stockdunkel’ (pitch dark) might have been invented by the bees. They want to show us that there is a kind of ‘seeing’ that doesn’t depend on light. In the darkness, we hear, smell, taste, and touch better. In our small dark corridor inside the bee house, you can embark on a sensory adventure. What do you rely on—buzzing, or your feelers?

The words ‘wachsen’ (to grow) and ‘erwachsen werden’ (to become an adult) also have their roots with the bees. Bees don’t just grow through their experiences and age. They sweat wax flakes from their glands and then shape them into their honeycombs. ‘Wax’ as a symbol of ‘warmth’. Without warmth, there is no growth, no becoming an adult.

For a small contribution, you can roll a piece of wax into a candle in the bee house and take home the scent and light of the bee house. Every time you light your candle
at home and the sweet scent of honey fills the air, let it remind you of your time at Hexenwasser.

Shall We Start to Swarm Together?

A little dance, a loving kiss, and then off to the next adventure. Sometimes, don’t you wish you could trade places with the bees? But their job is far from easy. With their ‘waggle dance’, for example, the bees communicate where to find nectar-rich flowers, how far away they are, and how abundant the supply is. The bees’ language and sense of orientation are truly impressive. In a bee flight show right outside the bee house, the bees demonstrate their departures and arrivals on a small board in front of the hive entrance. You’ll receive opera glasses and marvel at the power, strength, and wisdom of the bees.

The bees swarm, work, and care for their entire environment. Regularly, they come together and buzz as one. Just like us, when we coordinate well with each other. We can observe how large groups of animals—such as flocks of birds, schools of fish, and especially insect species—coordinate their behaviour so that the entire group thrives. A colony or a hive finds solutions to problems that would be unimaginable for individual creatures. Up to 50,000 bees can live in a hive, and they have developed methods to settle disagreements and find the best solutions for the group. This is called swarm intelligence, and it can be useful to us humans as well.

The beehive is like a mind that is open on all sides. What the bees do is essentially the same thing that the mind inside does, as Rudolf Steiner said in 1923.

When we speak, phrases like “What’s going on” roll off our tongues so easily.

In reality, though, we sit more and more often these days. Instead of asking for a standpoint, we could be asking about our sitting point. Or even cursing, “Ugh, I’m sitting in such an awkward position.” The Hexenwasser witches knew long ago: We feel good when we walk. Sometimes, they would take the farmers’ shoes away when they had back pain. This forced them to walk barefoot across the cool, damp morning meadow.

Every morning. For 14 days. After that, almost always, the pain was gone. And when you saw them walking, they moved as gracefully and delicately as never before. Create your own picture of the barefoot path. You can even draw it in the sand with your feet. Walking can be so exciting and varied. And on the barefoot route, there are endless little treasures to discover.

Barefoot Walking, Barefoot Thinking

Lifting, Carrying, and Placing. In this three-step process, we take a step – a step forward, a step backward, or step aside. This is what barefoot walking in Hexenwasser is all about. The simplest experiment: Stand with your legs closed and try to take a step forward, but not in your usual way, with a swing of the leg—do it millimeter by millimeter, in slow motion. Lift, Carry, Place. We observe attentively what happens with and through us as we place one foot in front of the other.

How we temporarily lose our balance and our center of gravity shifts forward. Walking is a continuous cycle of falling and catching ourselves, securing and unsecuring, activity and passivity, exertion and letting go. When we consciously focus on this automated movement process and forget everything else, we call it ‘barefoot thinking’.

The witches described it this way: Prejudices are the shoes, and assumptions are the socks or stockings. When you take them off, thinking becomes liberated, and new ideas emerge. However you approach it, barefoot walking becomes a journey of discovery, a walk through your own body.