On silence and (self) service

In conversation with Beatrix Ost—artist, writer, and ambassador of peace—

on harnessing the imagination as an instrument of change

There’s a lot that’s not to love. Dusk nurses trembling darkness; dawn wakes softly beneath the weight of imminent threat. From thirsty treetops, omnipresent forces cast shadows across stolen, sacred ground. En masse, we yearn for the taste of tomorrow, no longer able to be still in the savagery of today. With no Eve to blame for the brutality of ideologies that keep us imprisoned in cultural confinement, we ache for some kind of abstract goodness to believe in. No one’s lips are stained with the juices of forbidden fruits, but our collective consciousness has been stained with sacrilege. Redemption is ripe for the taking, but it must come from within. 

Japanese writer Osamu Dazai once said something that still haunts me: ‘This I want to believe implicitly: Man was born for love and revolution.’ The question that remains is how to navigate these rights of passage in a world where the freedom to revolt is a rarity, an untreasured liberty that gasps for air beneath the firm hold of corruption. Even so, this I want to believe implicitly: we were born to revive the love that has been left to perish. To do so, we need to stand together, but we must first learn to stand alone. 

One woman who walks the perpetual path of service to self—so as to serve the cosmos—is Beatrix Ost. An acclaimed artist, writer, and ambassador of peace, German-born Ost lives her life as if perched in the eye of an existential storm, sitting and observing in silence. Inspired by both the eclectic and elementary—waking in the morning, retiring at night—Ost produces art that is born in the overflow of moments, challenging all that has been previously established and surrendering to all that could potentially be. Committed to creating work that confronts and charms with its provocation, Ost understands that to make a mark that makes a difference, one must first properly meet the self, the stripped back version that rests beneath and behind that which has been symbolically stylised. 

You cannot map or predetermine your own perpetual becoming, but you also can’t claim your birthright of revolution until you learn to love and know the soul you came here to be. 

KATHRYN CARTER: You were born in Germany. Can you tell me about the town in which you were raised?

BEATRIX OST: I was raised on an estate near Munich after the war. [So] I saw a lot of hungry people, I saw despair, but I was not a part of it, because we [always] had food, and that was the most essential commodity you could have at the time: something to eat. 

A blessing. And what was the atmosphere in your home like when you were young?

BO: I grew up in a very artistic household with incredibly kind and wonderful and interesting parents. My father helped his Jewish friends escape to Argentina; he was a kind man, a very good person. My mother was too. It was a very interesting time, but I was always close to nature and close to humans. We were always surrounded by interesting people; it was a fantastic childhood. 

Sounds wonderful, despite the political environment at the time. And being around so many artistic people, what was your earliest memory of really noticing somebody’s style, do you think?

Well, my mother was more earthy—you know the dirndl dress? She would wear those really country outfits. But my aunties, [well] one of them had American soldiers staying with her for a time. And so she would come over in an officer’s military coat, and she would put a big bouquet of roses on the shoulder, and she would wear her little Tyrolean hat and high heels, and smoke those Marlboro cigarettes, and I was just fascinated! I did not want to be like my sister, who was into horses. No, I wanted to be just like those two sisters who came and visited, you know? That was my first very, very strong impression [of style]. 

Such an incredible experience of eclectic style so young. You have always said that you feel everything fits together, because every moment is laden with endless possibilities. Do you feel this sense of oneness with all things has helped you to manifest the magical quality of your universe? 

Yeah, I absolutely do. And you know what I also think? Curiosity is an incredibly satisfying kind of life machine [so to speak]. When you get up and you are curious, even with small things, everything is fuelled by curiosity. I am very curious about my surroundings, and I am very often [also] totally still. I don’t speak often, either, I am [just] very still. Just to be still and listen is very interesting, it’s very interesting. I [even] had a little brooch made, which the company I work for who makes jewellery in Laos sell.

Oh, ARTICLE22? 

Yes, ARTICLE22. They make this little brooch now, and it’s engraved with “practicing silence”. I had that made 25 years ago. I used to go to parties dressed to kill in New York, but I didn’t want to talk, I [just] wanted to see everything and listen. So I went in wearing the brooch [to point to], and I wouldn’t talk and I’d be a fascinated listener. I do this still today. It has to do with my curiosity—it is a tool, it is a really interesting tool, to just shut up. Because when you are [truly] listening, you are not preparing something clever to say; you are just there. And [so] you see what is going on around you, everything is of interest. And you see more because you are still. It is good.

It’s very enriching, isn’t it? To just kind of absorb your surroundings in that manner. Very nourishing, almost. 

Yes, it’s very enriching. Yes. 

You left Germany as a young adult to move to New York, quickly becoming an art and fashion icon. Today, you spend your time between Charlottesville, Virginia and NYC. Despite the years that have passed since living in Europe, do you still feel your ancestral roots help to keep you anchored in your present? 

Definitely; it also has to do with how I grew up. It was very brut, in a way—I never even used a phone until I was ten years old. Everything was given time to be absorbed, and it is magnificent for a child to grow up like that. To be given time to grow—your mind as well. It’s like it grows on solid earth, not being pushed around, like ‘Oh, you have to do this’ and ‘You have to do that.’ They [my parents] let me pretty much be myself. 

It’s really about freedom, isn’t it? It’s so important. 

Yes, freedom. And I was always acknowledged for my mind. My father thought I was very smart; whenever I said something my father would say, ‘Shh, everybody quiet. Beatrix has something to say.” I was [really] listened to, and [so] I have told many young women: ignore the negative but [deliver] praise when the mind [of your child] has produced something, be it so small, even if it is just ‘Mommy, look, there is a spider.’ Just go and look, because that is what makes your child confident. Your self-confidence [stems from knowing] that you have something to contribute. 

So true. I think we live in such a fast-paced world, and for that reason, parenting seems to have become so different; it’s about allowing that space. It’s not necessarily what you do, is it? It’s what you allow to happen. 

Yes, exactly. 

As well as art, you’ve also studied psychology and homeopathy—testament to your inquisitiveness. What role does your intuition play when it comes to the roads you choose to take in life? 

Very early, I was interested in health, because my mother was kind of the doctor in our house. Then I met this couple who were homeopaths in Munich, and I studied with them. Since then, I’ve used a pendulum, you know, on a string?

I am familiar with pendulums, yes. I use one too. 

You have one! I use mine to make decisions over whether or not I should do things, such as if I should have alcohol today or coffee. It all has to do with energy, about asking ‘Is my energy good with this?’ But, mostly, my decisions in life have always also just had to do with following curiosities. I was always so terribly curious. I wanted to know more about things. 

It’s so true what you say; we are all energy. 

Yes! We are all energy. And when you meet someone and it feels immediately good, often it comes from another life, from a life before. We have all been intertwined.

Speaking to style, you once said that you can’t just go out and think ‘Today I am very chic,’ adding that you have to have something inside of you that makes you convey who you are. To achieve this, you say that we must create ourselves with the world around us. Your words remind me of the sūtra of co-creation, which teaches us that, as conscious beings, we work with the cosmos to co-create our reality. This sūtra suggests that we do not have to accept the way we’ve been told things are—e.g. concepts such as life is hard. Even so, many still seem unwilling to fight against the system that sometimes keeps them small. How do you feel we can strengthen this sense of co-creative power within ourselves?

Well, I think everybody has this power. A small child has it, but then the child gets told: ‘Sit still, you’re too small, you never can wear that, not fast enough, I think you are better at this than that.’ We all get told, mostly told down, instead of being allowed to create ourselves in stillness. But I think that everyone has this marvel which unfolds when you just let life happen, and when you are reminded that you are a human being, that is the most astounding creation. You have to see the worth inside of you, the worth of who you are. You are so worthwhile. And life is so worthwhile, so wonderful, and [so] use it to the utmost, because you don’t know when it ends; you really only have the moment. 

Do you feel as though your own feeling of self-worth has strengthened your confidence when it comes to the personal style you present to the world?

Yes, you create your own person and then you create the style that you feel comfortable with, one that allows you to feel good in your skin. It’s about being yourself, finding yourself. Who am I? What is my comfort? It’s not about what you are dictated with; nobody can dictate me on how I dress today. I am who I am today. This kind of power within [comes] because you believe in yourself, which is reflected in my ‘In your body is a good place to be’ [catchphrase]. This is your house, the only house you really have to take care of, [because] it is the only one you’ve got. So you have to be very kind and careful with it. 

Absolutely. Your body truly is your temple. 

Yes, exactly. 

French poet Charles Baudelaire once said that irregularity, the unexpected, and the astonishing, were all essential to, and characteristic of, beauty. He also stated that the blend of the grotesque and the tragic is agreeable to the spirit. ‘Imagine a canvas for a lyrical, magical farce, for a pantomime, and translate it into a serious novel,’ were his words. ‘Drown the whole thing in an abnormal, dreamy atmosphere … the region of pure poetry.’ Do you feel that the world would benefit if more of us learnt to work with the more startling and shocking aspects of life—the things out of our control—to metamorphose moments that feel brutal, transforming tragedies into something more beautiful?

I think that everything is sent to you, [including] drama and tragedy, as essences to learn from. All your life, you go through these wild times. I had a house that burnt down on the Hudson [for instance], with everything in it. Of course, I was devastated, but I learnt to lose. I learnt that things are not important as long as you have your body and your health and your mind. And nobody died in the fire, so it was an incredible teacher of thankfulness. All of this is brought to us in order to grow, in order to become, in order to learn compassion, to be kind. It’s all an endless stream of teaching. [So] when a tragedy happens, it doesn’t [ever] have to do with ‘why me?’  It’s all an experience, it’s a great experience, and it’s a gift. 

I agree completely. As somebody who has endured my own personal tragedies, I’ve learnt to look at every experience as something that has been sent to either bless or teach me. 

Yes, absolutely. When you see it as a teaching, then also the drama becomes something positive, because then you can say that you really learnt something and be grateful that nobody died. 

Hearing you speak of tragedies as gifts, I’m reminded of how you once spoke of the bitterness and sadness in your environment when you were young, given it was just after the war. Despite it being unbearable at times, you said you always walked through it all with a sense that there would be another door opening soon. Eventually, that door did open, and you embraced it by saying, in your own words: ‘Let me have that gift and make the best of it, let us look [at] what is inside, let me wrap it beautifully. It is something very worthwhile.’ Do you feel more of us would take better care of ourselves, our planet, and one another, if we all thought of life as a gift and not something we have to simply survive and endure?

Definitely; it’s not a dreadful thing, it’s a gift. [As an example,] I have a friend who has been in a wheelchair since she was twelve, and I just had dinner with her in New York. She told me that everything was about her illness and what was happening to her body, but that she did not dwell on it; she just goes on. This stand in life, it’s so incredible to see in her. She almost tricks her mind with this enormous, beautiful view on life. She truly is strong and beautiful and kind. There is really something amazing about her.

She has clearly become an inspiration, which has become a part of her journey, in a way. To lead by example, and to show other people who may be in her position that life does not end. It’s different, but it’s not over. 

Yes, exactly. And when you see that strength in her, you say to yourself, ‘I don’t know how she does it.’ It teaches you to appreciate life, to stop dreading things that are so small. 

Absolutely. It’s a part of the human condition, which brings me to my next question. Emily Brontë once wrote: ‘I wish I were a girl again, half savage and hardy, and free.’ I feel, in many ways, her words reflect the silencing of spirit that sometimes occurs as we grow older, the subconscious conditioning we experience as we mature into mindful and obedient adults. Do you feel society would benefit from more of us returning to our wild ways? 

Well, I think people do that to themselves. They get more dreaded, but you don’t have to. I mean, I don’t have that. I have never been suppressed by anyone; I have never let that happen, I just wouldn’t. Because it’s not good for you. I wouldn’t exist if I weren’t myself. We have to always hold a rigour, an interest in the next thing. Be interested in the bouquet of gifts we have around us; be curious and thankful and compassionate. It is very enriching to look at [life] quietly. 

In a world riddled with environmental, political, cultural, and economical chaos and crisis, what is it that gives you hope and feeds your faith in humanity? 

I just remind myself: everything small you can do, do it. And I mean, the climate change drama... [Soon] we will have a completely different world; there will be riots about food and water supply. But I can only do what I can do now. I cannot just sit around and be sad; it’s not fruitful, it doesn’t do anything. [So] I sign petitions, I spread the word on the street. But I am not a large industry. I don’t have power, they do, and they are reckless. And it is horrendous.

Despite the horrendous nature of it all, I feel like you still place a lot of trust in the universe. I read, for instance, that you chose to purchase your country paradise in Virginia after consulting your pendulum and a map of the US?

Yes. After the house burnt down on the Hudson, we used my pendulum and a map of America to find our next place. 

And I read that when you visited the property, your mother said there were no sour meadows, that it was good earth.

No sour meadows she said, yes. 

Do you feel as though we’re always led to where we need to be, as you were by your pendulum to Virginia, when we place our faith in the universe and its energies, so to speak? When we trust as you did?

Yes, I do think so, [although] sometimes we can be led into an abyss. I bought the house on the Hudson without consulting my pendulum, and after it burnt down, I thought to myself, God, if only I had asked my pendulum. But everything, as I said before, is a teaching. It’s just what it is; life is a school of endless teachings. 

I consult my own pendulum often as well, but it’s not exactly a common way of seeking guidance. 

Yes, yes, absolutely. Nobody really uses the pendulum the way I do. 

Why do you think it is that we still have such a strong scepticism towards spiritual practices of this nature in the West?

Well, we all hang onto material reality. Everything has to be tangible, in the world of the senses and feeling. That reality leads us everywhere, and it always has to look a certain way or else it is no good. But you have to find a clever in-between [both worlds]. Personally, I like to ask my pendulum things. It’s a little bit like asking the gods for something, you know: what do they have to say? A couple of hundred years ago, everything had to do with energy, and everything had a spiritual meaning and a double and triple idea about [it]. But now everything is just material reality. 

I think the thing about spirit is that you can’t hold it and you can’t touch it. But it’s still there, you can still feel it, if you attune yourself to its guidance. 

Yes, exactly.

Speaking of being guided to do certain things, you once told a story about how your grandfather went out in a snowstorm unnoticed and sat down on a bench by a lake because he wanted to die.

Because he wanted to die, yes.

‘They found him, and he was very, very angry,’ you recalled, as he wanted to have a glamorous death. In a way, this story demonstrates the limited freedom we have today, in terms of the restrictions placed on our liberties by external forces who feel that they know best. In your opinion, do you think the world would benefit if more of us were left to our devices, so to speak, and allowed to follow our instincts uninterrupted?

Yes, absolutely—and specifically in relation to how our bodies are treated. Today, they keep prolonging people’s lives [by] shovelling them into hospitals, even cutting their bodies open. It’s like, for God’s sake, just let them lie down; if they have pain, give them painkillers, and let them go. I think [medical intervention] is an interruption, a disturbance to a life. Sometimes things have to be let go. 

Indeed. I think one of the hardest things to determine today is when to surrender and let go versus when to stand up and fight, with regards to personal issues as well as those that are more cultural and political. In relation to making real change in the world, how important is harnessing the imagination as an instrument of change?

Change starts with seeing with real eyes, seeing everything as it is. Do not make it wishy-washy. For instance, with regards to climate change, the water is rising, and yet people still buy houses in Florida in flood zones. What are they thinking? Change starts with seeing the reality. We have destroyed the environment. People need to see that we have done that, and not [just] listen to the industry. 

That is so true. We can’t move forward if we can’t first get our bearings. Big industry may not be contributing much to positive change at this time, but thankfully many businesses that are based in more sustainable practices are beginning to blossom. Once such business is the brand you work for, ARTICLE22, a label that focuses on making positive change by selling jewellery that is handmade in Laos from shrapnel. Given the growing global determination to deliver ourselves from the evils of adversities we’re currently facing, do you feel as though the label’s ethos is leading by example, in terms of the practical ways in which we can neutralise horror with intentions that are honest and heartfelt? 

Yes, absolutely. We help the Laotian people to clear UXO (unexploded ordnance) from their contaminated land—it is one of the most bombarded places on Earth, ever. And we are helping them. It is a completely fair-trade business, but it’s just growing very slowly. But if everyone were to operate in this way, what a difference it could make. 

Very wise words. I think we live in such a world of immediate gratification, it can make it difficult for people to consider they may have to wait for something to develop and grow. It’s unfortunate that the waiting game puts a lot of people off. Because when you think about it, an oak tree doesn’t grow overnight. A lot of us have just forgotten how to be patient. 

Yes, patience is so important. But now, growing things like this is also urgent. There are people today who do their part, but of course it should be done en masse, to make a larger impact. We can do a lot with very little, and we can lead by example. 

You recently closed an exhibition—displayed at Second Street Gallery in Charlottesville—entitled Illuminations & Illusions that explored these issues in more depth. ‘We and our sciences are guilty of desecrating the roses we love, all of nature,’ you say in your artist statement. What was your intention with this body of work? 

To show what is happening now and not to look at it [climate change] as a lie. I cannot lie; an artist has some prophecy. I see all these people in their Gucci dresses standing at parties as if there is no tomorrow, and outside there is a limousine waiting for one person. It’s all bullshit. ‘You are a destructive person,’ I want to say. It has to be said. I wanted to show that everything is important, to point to what is really going on today. 

To call it for what it is: we need more of that—and the strength you display with your unapologetic honesty is a true testament to your authentic nature. Speaking to your personal philosophy, you say that provocation is always a part of the game and that your way of being yourself is to challenge the established network of symbols we seem to be surrounded by, always. By painting and dressing with what you call ‘playful order with a feel for disorder,’ you are, in a way, constantly embodying both chaos and calm. Do you feel that the self-mastery of inner balance, at an individual level, is paramount to our progress not only as singular souls but also as a species?

We have to master ourselves, yes. We have to be at home in ourselves in order to do anything. We have to love ourselves in order to love others. I don’t have a plan; I never had a plan. I am only fulfilling what is asked of me. Because if I understand myself first and foremost, I become compassionate to others, and then I can understand others. I have always been open to learning; I have been in that school of life for a long time. 

So true. I love hearing you speak to service because I think so much of the joy that comes from life—I am now learning myself—is about not just being here to do stuff and to own stuff, but to be of service. Life isn’t just about pleasure; it’s about purpose too. 

It is, yes. Especially now, since the world has given us so much [to do]. Now is the time that we serve nature; nature is tired and exhausted by our doing. In order to save ourselves, we have to learn to serve. 

Rumi once said: ‘Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself.’ Keeping this sentiment in mind, do you feel as though revolution begins with the evolution of self? 

Absolutely, absolutely. As I said, you have to begin with yourself. In all humbleness, but [always] learning, learning, learning. Only then you can understand what is going on around you. It is so important that you learn it with yourself, first. And honour yourself, you know?

Amen.

This article first appeared on JANE magazine