Discovering Lugano: A Hidden Gem for Spiritual Seekers

Published by Boris Seidl in Siddhartha · 20 July 2023
Tags: #Hesse, #hermannhesse, #lugano., #hessemuseum

For our third Ashram album we were inspired by Hesse's book Siddhartha. Actually we wanted to release our tribute album exactly on the hundredth anniversary (2022) of the novel Siddhartha, but that didn't work out.

Heikki from Finland came to Switzerland some days ago to produce promotional videos (reels) for Ashram. The idea came up to visit the Hesse Museum in Montagnola to shoot videos there, to make again the connection of Ashram and Hermann Hesse (in another blog article we already talked about his and his family's strong India connection).

Heikki was immediately impressed by the beauty of the city of Lugano and the whole landscape. The Italian flair can be felt everywhere. The old buildings have style, people greet you with a smile and there are flowers and palm trees everywhere. One could think that this is a walk through paradise.

Hesse certainly did not choose this unique place to live here for no reason.

Any artist who seeks peace and quiet and wants to be inspired by nature would no doubt want to live here.

In many of Hesse's works, he compares man to a tree. "No tree sees the other, each is alone." (quote Hermann Hesse)

Hermann Hesse had a strong preference for nature. This is also evident in his paintings. His residence in the beautiful southern Swiss town of Montagnola, above the lakeside city of Lugano, where Hermann Hesse was named an honorary citizen, again testifies to his personality and his sense of natural beauty. Another quote shows that Hesse had a very special relationship with nature and that it inspired his writings.

"The trees have always been the most haunting preachers for me. I revere them when they live in trunks and families, in forests and groves. And I adore them even more when they stand alone. They are like lonely people." (Quote Hermann Hesse)

At the Hesse Museum we had a very pleasant conversation with Nicoletta. She works there and told us, among other things, that she is traveling to South India (Kerala) with her mother in the fall. This was of course a certain coincidence and surprised us. Nicoletta was very nice and open-minded, gave us the contact of the museum director Marcel Henry and said that there might even be some cooperation possibility with our upcoming album. This surprised us and made us feel happy.

In summary, we can say that this was again a successful Hesse excursion. It has certainly not been the last visit.

We hope that with our videos from the trip we can give you a little impression of our upcoming music project.

If you are interested in more videos and our new reels, please visit our TikTok channel: https://www.tiktok.com/@ashrammusic

You can also find our music reels on Instagram or Facebook.

www.hessemontagnola.ch

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