I didn\u2019t want to come to Turkiye. Of course I want to be in the intensified version of the Traveler energy and the unique opportunity for spiritual growth that these trips offer. But I\u2019d prefer to go to Italy as we did for two years in a row. <\/p>\n
Yeah, I know Turkiye is the cradle of civilization and all that, but I\u2019m too big for a cradle now and I\u2019d rather be in the king-size bed of civilization. Or someplace where the dynamism of chaos is still reacting chemically with the opposite polarity of order and creating art and fire and explosions (like Italy or the USA), rather than being at some kind of vantage point viewing past explosions, where the polarities have already retreated to their corners like exhausted boxers.<\/p>\n
But I\u2019m surprised at how much I\u2019m loving Turkiye. I thought it would be stuck in cycles of boring religious\/authoritarian polarity pole-dancing like most of the Middle East. Or just a museum. But actually being immersed the country is a whole different set of sensations. <\/p>\n
There is an orderliness to the consciousness here that\u2019s warm, soothing and loving. So far my experience of orderly societies is that they are cold, and the order is imposed and somewhat unnatural. Places like Germany or Singapore come to mind. But in Turkiye I\u2019m experiencing a warm orderliness. There is a genuine love of order that isn\u2019t stultifying or repressive. The only way I can describe it is warm. I\u2019m sleeping really well here and part of my consciousness feels comforted and calmed.<\/p>\n
Something has been preserved here in the meeting point of so many different religions, civilizations and social orders. They\u2019ve all been sifted and the most refined aspects of those civilizations has seeped into the present moment. There is an eastern otherworldliness and intense spiritual devotion that is still bubbling up from the unconscious. It feels like I\u2019m inside of the mind\/heart of Rumi or the Sufis or the early Christian mystics, their heat still warming me like some kind of nuclear core. And there is a taste of western freedom\u2014not license, not feral turbulence\u2014 that allows that heat to surface without pushing it down. That heat comes out in a genuine graciousness and warmth in the people here.<\/p>\n
Today we took a sunny boat ride around the Bosphorus, the international waters that divide\/unite Asia and Europe. Palaces, mosques, castles and moguls\u2019 homes drifted by on the shores, each with its own story that contributes to a history so vast and untrackable that the mind just says \u201chistory\u201d without the ability to take sides, or judge, or ascribe any kind of meaning to it. It all melds together in something called eternal human behavior, allowing the part of me that\u2019s above all the behavior to come forward and be noticed as a kind of timeless observer. History minus time is evidence of eternality. <\/p>\n
It\u2019s not the feeling of an \u201ceternal city\u201d like Rome, or the galactic, monumental spectacle of Egypt, where there is still the beginning, middle and end of a single strand of story that preserves drama. This is an anti-drama, a cacophony of characters that renders the plot of the drama into nonsense. Extremely relaxing.<\/p>\n
Our very knowledgeable guide gave a mini-seminar on the history of coffee in Turkey. Even this single substance has gone through so many changes of character and played so many different roles in this society\u2014as a drink for the upper classes; or the lower classes; as highly prized and at one point reviled and banned to eliminate coffee houses as breeding grounds of political dissent; and even as a requirement for soldiers with a minimum daily dose to of keep them energized. It\u2019s no longer an individual thing with its own distinct meaning, but another bit of scenery floating by in the distance on the Bosphorus.<\/p>\n
Then we ate a multi-course lunch with very tasteful and interesting seasoning for chicken and lamb\u2014and bread and rice and wheat, and more wheat and more bread. Everybody over 45 or so here seems to have a big carb belly. Then we went to Istanbul\u2019s famous Spice Bazaar, where the kaleidoscope of colors, flavors and textures brought the other senses into the poetry of Turkiye\u2019s warm, ungraspable, orderly flow.<\/p>\n
Speaking of flow, at lunch we were given a change of plans. Instead of checking our big bags on the plane on our flight to Van on Friday, which could have been havoc in such a big group, a luggage truck will transport them across the long distance to Van, which will take a day, meaning we have to give up our bags in the morning on Thursday and just live out of our carry-ons for about 36 hours. These unexpected turns are one of the Master\u2019s tricks that make these trips into spiritual journeys instead of ordinary touristic business ventures, amplifying leaving-behind over arriving-at, in the Traveler\u2019s delicious flow of letting-go.<\/p>\n