Saying goodbye to my friends for my summer break! It's the perfect time. It's far too hot to do anything.

🌞🌞🌞🌞

Walks in the woods sound like a good idea to me.

Instagram's algorithms will let you all see this:
An excerpt from Intuition 🌿 (2023), color-enhanced.

😇

That's how wrinkles form. And I think it's beautiful. ✨️ The special effect of my smile is that it is always a little crooked.😁 My upper teeth are super straight and close together, but my upper jaw is not straight like most people's.

That's because I had braces as a teenager, but not until the end of the procedure. My orthodontist told me that everyone would laugh at me because of it. But actually, I have only received positive reactions to my smile my entire life.🌞

🧒🔍 I think wrinkles are very beautiful - also on women. Some people only smile with their mouths because they want to avoid wrinkles. I think a smiling face that also includes the eyes looks more natural and friendly. It strengthens the facial muscles and contributes to a healthy and lively expression.

Wrinkles are a part of life and often tell a story of joy and lived moments. An authentic smile that reaches the eyes can increase well-being and promote positive interactions.

😊🍀 Instead of worrying about wrinkles, it might be better to focus on a happy and fulfilled life, which is reflected in a genuine and warm smile.

Dakota, nine years ago today. Dakota was almost 3 and I was 29. Dakota hasn't changed much, but I'm different now. I find that time can be really confusing. Nine years isn't really a lot, but somehow it is.

Sometimes it just rains all summer long 🤷‍♂️

Catching fireflies in a maize field 🌌✨️

🙃💭 At the intersection between 'Peace Linden' and 'Wall Street'. A wall serves as a fortification and protection. It is a means of fulfilling the need for peace. But if everyone isolates themselves, there can be no exchange and mutual understanding. The needs of one party can change, and those who do not identify with others could feel justified in using their strengths to their advantage.

🌤🌱😎 I think that what I am doing on Instagram and other social media is very important. People's connection to nature has diminished greatly over the course of industrialization and urbanization. This is also reflected in the media landscape, where nature has become increasingly less important over the last 200 years. While people are losing this connection, we are losing more and more species, and with the loss of this diversity we are putting our livelihoods at great risk. I impart knowledge and perspectives, and give nature an emotional closeness.🍀🐞

You can find more information on my website (link in profile). There you will also find more data on the species presented and my artwork. Since I do everything myself, there is a lot of work involved. I appreciate your moral support. 💚💛🧡

I am a great ape! 🐵🍌

Even in my childhood I was interested in the systematic classification of living things. I was given a set of a few thousand information cards. There was a picture on the front and information on the back. There was also a large index card box. I sorted all living things according to their relationship. Humans and their ancestors were listed in a separate family, which was next to the great apes. However, this made no sense to me. The fact that chimpanzees are more closely related to humans than to orangutans told me that they must at least be in the same family, or each should have their own family.

When I was at school, humans were not considered great apes. The idea that humans are just apes is still met with a lot of rejection today. But not in science, where, based on genetic research, humans are listed in a common family, the great apes (Hominidae), together with the orangutan, gorilla and chimpanzee species.

Many people, even those who are inclined towards scientific explanations of evolution, have a problem with this because they see it as a threat to the uniqueness and specialness of humans.

I often argued with my mother that humans are animals. She - who studied biology - was strictly against this. She said that humans have unique characteristics and abilities and that the mind is something that separates us from animals. A widely held view - still today. I do not share this. Humans are animals and, like every animal species, humans have special abilities. The mental abilities that were once only attributed to humans have long been observed in other animal species - albeit in different ways: self-knowledge, logic, language, culture, grief and more. But the idea that animals are similar to us in their perception and thinking is a tough pill for humanity to swallow.

Relaxed Saturday 🫠🌞

Our grandparents visited me and my little brother in the children's home. Both loved animals and fed me lots of books and cakes. My grandmother was an artist and painted animal portraits with make-up on paper. She was a cousin of the German painter Rudolf Kortokraks. That's probably where my artistic streak came from. Both were politically active. My grandfather had a great sense of humor and was the son of the German founding father and humanist Dr. Werner Hilpert. Despite this, we grew up in simple living conditions. My brother and I lived in children's homes for about three years in total. My mother was homeless for 9 years. Life cannot be put into categories. The first children's home was privately financed and offered a little luxury (e.g. computer room, sauna, excursions, supplies), but we were always used as advertising figures (e.g. newspaper reports on company XY, which sponsors the children's home with a toy race track, etc.). The second children's home, where the photos were taken, was much simpler and was only able to afford modern equipment such as new furniture and computers - a few years after the fall of the Berlin Wall - thanks to a generous donation from the Lions Club. Instead, we often went out into nature together to pick mushrooms and berries and learned to haggle at every opportunity. Many of the residents of the children's home were mentally handicapped. Then I made friends and learned early on what the true qualities of being human are. It is being human.