the game of life

i found myself using the word minging the other day.  i can't remember the context, but i remember that it sprung forth unselfreflectively from my lips while conversing with a young girl from edinburgh.  after i had pronounced it i commented selfreflectively that it had been a while since that word had crossed my lips.  we were chopping garlic in the kitchen at the rainbow gathering, trying to get everything prepared so that we could have the food circle before dark.  later by the fire i told her that i wanted to hear more about her journey here by sea.  she had found the boat in italy, she said, but after a few days of sailing west, in the middle of the mediterranean, a massive storm overtook them.  a part of the front of the boat broke off.  the waves were eight metres high.  everyone feared for their lives.  everyone survived, and they got to the canaries, but on the next boat they found the skipper was crazy.  they embarked in las palmas de gran canaria, with the intention of accompaning the boat to the carribean, but due to the madness of the skipper, realised she had to get off in tenerife, and now here she was at the rainbow.  she did not furnish me with any details regarding the crazy madness of the skipper, simply saying that she had changed plans now, and had no intention of finding any more boats.   with her eyes she communicated something uncommunicable akin to fear.

at the marina in santa cruz, most people tell me that most of the boats have now already left to cross the atlantic.  the winds are usually favourable until late januray, february, but most people have already left in order to spend as much time as possible in the carribean before the hurricanes arrive in spring.  hearing this, i have opened up my plans and tell myself: perhaps i will find a lift across the atlantic, but if not i will be happy to spend the winter here in tenerife.   after wandering about the marina, speaking to the yacht-owners and investigating the new arrivals, i tell myself "i do not want another minute of my life to proceed without learning more German" and i stride straight to the municpal library, a great spacious modern building which stays open twenty-four hours a day, which is always filled with a great hushed studious atmosphere, propitious for learning.  countless students are seated at illuminated desks, pouring over books, filling their minds with knowledge.  i sit on the soft sofa in the corner and fill my mind with the word order and grammatical rules which govern the German language.  the task of learing a new lanuage is always invigorating, keeping the mind ever vigilant and alert, ever interested in the diverse mechanisms which are employed within a particular language to express the diverse ideas which float through our minds.

every night i sleep wonderfully well at el Palmetum, a hill sticking into the sea where the municpal authorities have planted countless palm tress from all over the world.  the space is divided into different continents: Africa, el Caribe, Asia, Sud America, and there are to be found wonderful diverse exemplars of the palm trees which pertain to each geographical region.  the first time i slept there i was overcome with the peaceful vibrations of nature all around me, namely the industrious birds who busied around the seeds of the trees all night and dropped them half-nibbled into my hammock.  in the morning i nibbled them too, but found them to be too bitter for me.  later somebody told me that the palmetum was constructed on top of a massive rubbish tip, and that the decomposing air secretions might make it not the most salubrious place to sleep, but, in spite of knowing this, i still love the birdsong in the morning.

on Christmas day i realised that i had lost most of my material possessions.  when i first left the rainbow and came to santa cruz, i thought that the main marina was near the darsena pesquera.  there, the only skipper i met was affable portuguese enrique, who planned to take a month or more to sail to brasil.  he said that he would be happy to take on extra crew, especially those who were prepared to contribute eight hundred euros towards food and boat oil.  he was affable.

on christmas day i walked along the beach of san andres, strumming my ukulele, striding through the waves and smiling at everyone i passed.  the beach was teeming with people, either lying in the sun, or swimming in the sea.  the sand on the beach has yellow colour - a sand colour one might say.  it is incongruous for tenerife, whose natural beaches are composed of honest grainy black sand, coming from the disintegration of the island's dark native volcanic rock.  somebody told me that the beach had been created by transporting sandy-coloured sand from the nearby Sahara.  after strumming and swimming and drying myself on the sand, i was on my way back when i sighted Stefano.  the last time i had met him had been at the rainbow - which had the aim of eating only raw food.  i had invited him to my dwelling - a ledge on the cliff where we had prepared and eaten olive oil curry powder chapattis over a fire - a pirate fire, as any fire was termed at that rainbow, which had the purpose of cooking food.  that night he told me that we live our life as actors, and that only by recognising our role as actors can we construct a role for ourselves which corresponds to our genuine
sentiments.
something about the idea living-as-acting
and having true genuine sentiments,
- being-true-to-oneself
- having a self that is capable of true
seemed incongruous to me
but it sounded convincing when stefano said it.


Stefano was with bobby, and nina, and kieran.  they had taken to calling me jungle jim.  jim came from its alligator alliteration with jungle, and from the spirit of jim morrison which accompanies stefano wherever he goes.  jungle came from jungle green, which was the colour i chose for myself the night we first met at the rainbow.   we had all chosen colours, and danced around, allowing our colours to express themselves through us, and interact.  stefano was royal blue, which somehow expressed itself through him regally strutting around upon an imaginary camel.  we all embarked upon a journey with him across the vast expanse of the Sahara.  i was jungle green, which permitted me to make organic wild gestures and give out lonely bird calls.  nina was sexy orange.  she slid around releasing her sparkling energy.  her parents, incidentally, had named her after their love for nina simone, something which we were all pleased to hear.  bobby was yellow, which corresponded well with the open simplicity of his sunniness.

as darkness drew near i invited them all back to the place where i was sleeping, in a barranco a little bit around the coast.  i didn't know how to describe this place.  i mentioned that there was a dead dog, lying with his face in a pool of water, his body covered by flies.  i said that on the way there were many piles of rubbish, among which they could find matresses on which to sleep.  it was only when i said that there was a lot of wood with which we could make a big bonfire, that the place began to appeal to them.  the dead dog had also disturbed me a little - he looked plump and fresh and i could not discern his cause of death, but the place where i was sleeping was not within smelling-distance of the dog, and there we all went.

we arrived a little bit after darkness had fallen.  it was then when i discovered that my rucksack, which i had hidden carefully under a bush, was no longer there.  it was strange.  there still seemed to be some kind of signifcant energy buzzing around the place where it used to be.   i was lucky that stefano and bobby and nina and kieran were with me.  they lent me some pieces of clothing, and we collected lots of wood, with which to keep the fire burning all night.   trying to improve on my initial description of that place, i told them that it was like the wild west.  there was a kind of frontier feeling.  it was the end of civilisation, beyond the fringe of an industrial zone, where the dry land rose to some pointed rocky peaks.  i told them that my only neighbours lived in a simple block of concrete, with whom i had tried to speak, but with whom i had never managed to establish a neighbourly "we live in the same place" connection. the first time i arrived there my eyes had been drawn to the darkness of the open doorway, where i seemed to feel eyes looking out at me.  but the door had soon closed.  even when i had got close, wanting to say "hola!",  "do you know if the water from the river is good to drink?" or maybe "do you know if these plants make a good infusion?" there was no response.  my companions began to feel unsure about sleeping there, but i reassured them.  i told them how good it felt to be there with them, singing songs, making chapattis and filling the air with our good-meaning energy.

the next morning they went off to continue their personal voyages.  i went up to the lonely concrete house, whose door i had seen open earlier that morning.  even though there was no response, i stayed there for a while speaking, just in case i was being listened to.

"perhaps you have noticed me sleeping below?" i said, "well, my bag has disappeared and i wondered if you seen anyone yesterday, or if you know anything . . . "

Silence

"santo silencio" i commented.

"i only want everyone to be happy" i said after a while, to make my peaceful intentions clear.

then i heard a voice and perceived an old man climbing slowly up the hill.  he was wearing a suit several sizes too big for him and like me, he was conducting a conversation with himself.
when we began speaking he apologised that he was half deaf.  i asked him if he knew anything of my rucksack. an air of innocence surrounded his oversized suit as he told me that he hadn't seen anything and that he would never steal anything from a fellow poor man.  he invited me to look anywhere i wanted inside his humble abode.  the only thing i saw were his poor jeans hanging from nails on his poor walls.


"if you were God," isbrant invited me to consider, "if you had complete freedom to choose how to spend the whole of Eternity, what would you choose?"

how can Joy and Peace have any precious meaning for us, if they did not coexist with their opposites?

what if God - the Eternal One - choses to experience himself through millions of sparkling human beings, who all have to grapple with the intriguing mystery of inhabiting these finite material bodies?  the temptation to become attached to the materiality of our little lives makes things interesting.  and what if we realised that we are all God, manifested in our myriad individual ways?  we ourselves have chosen to come and play the game of living our human lives.

thoughts of this nature were prompted in isbrant after listening to a talk by cosmic philosopher alan watts.  it inspired him write a song which he entitled "the game of life", which he always sang with all his soul, sometimes closing his eyes, to better feel the song and other times looking at me with his clear wise sparkling eyes.  i soon found it pretty catchy.  he strums his ukulele, alternating between the chords of C and F in a kind of swingy reggae rhythm.  i wrote down the words in my notebook before i left the rainbow.  today i was sitting on a park bench - waiting for a particular shop to open - when i began strumming the song and getting enthusastic about it.  soon i was surrounded by a little group of children who looked at me with fascinated shy eyes.   after i finished each one came and handed over a few little coins.   it felt like propitious beginning to the playful busking chapter of my life.

the game of life

go
and feel it,
play the game,
the game of man.

go
and feel it,
play the game,
the game of man.

i am home
just where i am
i am who i want to be
sharing where i can
walking the road of happiness
love is everywhere
in my head in my soul
even in my selfishness
and in the mask i wear

We´re all One
we're all one
doing what we like to do
playing the game of man

We´re all One (do you feel it?)
we're all one
doing what we like to do
playing the game of man

we're  home
anywhere we go
never alone
always in the flow
everything is always changing
and that will never stop
still we're taught to fear this
as we grow up
but the baby and the dog and the elephant,
the flower and the bee -
we all feel that we're part of it
we flow eternally

We all Thrive
we all thrive
doing what we like to do
playing the game of life

We all Thrive (do you feel it?)
we all thrive
manifestations of One Universe
playing the game of life

other people's words

flicking through my old notebook, i come across these words:



Foxes have holes, birds of the air have nests but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.

Jesus,
quoted in Bruce Chatwin's The Songlines in an attempt to bolster his theory that nomadism is mankind's original and ideal activity

Accepting the suffering of being alive gives space to rejoicing in life and ALL that includes and is necessary for Beingness

email from Lavanya

Je realize je ne suis pas l'artiste mais L'Attrapeur de moments.  une attrapeuse.  L'ARTISTE de cette beauté est plus Grand que Moi, c'est la toile de vie, Moi j'occupe une petite place.  Mais j'espère l'occuper Grandement avec joie et aussi Souffrance.

Lavanya

Nimic Real nu poate fi amenintat.  Nimic irreal nu exista.  In aceasta consta pacea lui Dumnezeu.

Fiecare forma este facuta sa se dizolve.  

In ultima instanta, niciun lucru exterior nu conteaza prea mult.

Eckhart Tolle,
romanian translation of The Power of Now

All life we work but work is a bore.

If life's for livin', what's livin' for?

The Kinks

Lo que es decisivo aquí y determina el orden de rango no son las obras, sino - para emplear una vez más una vieja fórmula religiosa con un significado nuevo y más profundo - la creencia, la certeza fundamental que tiene un alma noble sobre sí misma, algo que no puede buscarse, no puede encontrarse, y quizás, tampoco puede perderse.  El alma noble se reverencia a sí misma.

Friedrich Nietzsche,

más allá del bien y el mal

. . . a sensuous nature still felt to be mysteriously animate and alive, filled with immanent powers.  In the words of the pre-Socrate philosopher Thalos: "all things are full of Gods"

There is no element of the landscape that is definitively void of expressive resonance and power.  Any movement may be a gesture, any sound may be a voice, a meaningful utterance

David Abram

The spell of the sensuous

 Perception is selection

Alan Wattts

Nous avons traversé les ténèbres de l'océan et l'immensité de la terre.  Nous avons enfin trouvé la fontaine de Jouvence.  Elle nous attendais patiemment, au coeur de nous-memes.

Jalal Ud Din Rumi

Ce que nous avons vécu est-il raisonable?  Non, ce n'est pas raisonnable.  Mais Dieu est-il raisonnable?  Le monde, l'existence, les rencontres de hasard, ce qui arrive ou n'arrive pas, tout cela est-il raisonnable?  La vérité, c'est que nous ne cherchons pas à comprendre mais a réduire les prodiges de la vie à la dimension de la coquille de noix où notre esprit a fait son nid

Henri Gougaud

Les sept plumes de l'aigle

- Chura, il y a un mystère ici.

Il m'a répondu: Oui. Un grand.

- C'est quoi, Chura?

Il s'est arreté au milieu de la nuit, il m'a regardé et il m'a dit: Le mystère?  C'est toi.

Henri Gougaud

Nabokov adds that "the initial shiver of inspiriation" for Lolita "was somehow prompted by a newspaper story about an ape in the Jardin des Plantes who, after months of coaxing by a scientist, produced the first drawing ever charcoaled by an animal:  this sketch showed the bars of the poor creature's cage.

from the introduction to Lolita

La libertad, Sancho, es uno de los más preciosos dones que a los hombres dieron los cielos, con ella no pueden igualarse los tesoros que encierra la tierra ni el mar encubre, por la libertad . . . se puede y debe aventurar la vida.

Miguel de Cervantes

Don Quijote

Si Dieu est éternel, il ne peut agir dans le monde que en se manifestant en certains moments particuliers, comme notre rencontre maintenant.

 words spoken to me by a man with shining eyes, who gave me a lift in the south of france

Do something pretty while you can

Don't be a fool

Reading the gospel to yourself is fine

Stuart Murdoch

la palma

  

  

  

  

  

isbrand had a camera on his phone by which he was able to capture some fleeting images of the clouds floating around the rocky peaks.  it made me want to head back down to santa cruz and buy a camera from one of the electrical stores and come back up and dedicate myself to looking marvelled through the lens and composing and capturing all the subtle little signs of beauty which float through the shifting clouds scenes seen from on high on a rocky peak.  the first time we climbed up to the ridge - having walked for two days through the cloud forest, carrying lots of water and resting frequently to lay down our heavy packs - we thought that we had arrived in Paradise.  all around us stretched a sea of white fluffy insubstantial clouds mystically rising and transforming, constantly in mystical movement.  it was awe-inspiring.  nos quedamos boquibiertos.  ma come può esistere tanta bellezza?  all day we were in a way breathless, inundated by beauty.  never had i felt flooded by so much beauty.  flooded.  it was very exciting.  each morning we watched the sun rise from its bed of clouds, flooding with golden light the rare atmosphere of the rocky volcanic world on high and isbrand would look at me with an expression of simple wonder and say:  another day in Paradise!

we decided to stay up there for as long as possible, which was made possible by the clouds rising one night and a light rain falling, which i caught in my outstretched tarp, refilling all our bottles of water with delicious pure water from the sky.  on day three our food supplies began to dwindle.  nevertheless, the prospect of heading back down to earth - the valley - the clouds - did not appeal to us in the slightest.  "let us stay up here and fast" the solution quickly came.  "instead of food, we shall nourish ourselves on sunlight and pure air!"   the ecstatic solution.

"how would real hunger-gatherers survive?" pondered isbrand.  he told me he had tried some of the berries on the bushes on the way up, and that he had been licking the water droplets from the leaves when we passed through the clouds.

"hunter gatherers would adapt to their surroundings" i told isbrand when we finally found ourselves down in the village of El Paso, "and would take advantage of any food source they could find."  i was carrying a big cardboard box full of brocolli, leeks, oranges, six cartons of milk and bags of rice and pasta, having gleaned the mere surface of what the supermarket was throwing out.

"it is not easy to lead a hunter-gatherer lifestyle nowadays" says isbrand, "to live outside the system"  he is referring to the "prohibido hacer fuego" and "prohibido acampar" signs.  "they make it almost obligatory that you work for money and pay for accommodation"

however, there are ways and means, and the wild sweet almond trees, the chestnut trees, the oranges and the avocados now ripe on la palma make the woods a very inviting place to stay.

sunrise on la palma

at the beginning of the world all was dark and unformed.  a nebulous mass of water vapour swirled around the flanks of the dark volcano.  the cold stars shone dimly from on high.  from my unconsciousness i emerged; i stirred in my hammock and saw that the eastern sky was aflame with bright red.  i quicky got up and went into the refuge. "isbrand" i called softly, "wake up!  you gotta see this sunrise"

El teide - the 3718m volcano tenerife - from across the sea which was a sea of clouds, gracefully rose into a sky of grandiose arabesque flaming red clouds.  from my 2,000m rocky perch on the old volcanic crest of la palma, i watched breathtaken as the red slowly mellowed into bright yellow.  the whole of the sky behind the volcano radiated a brighter and brighter yellow.  then everything stood still.  i thought: is that it?  has the sun risen?  why hasn't it assumed its familiar ball shape?  and then it came.  the flaming majestic fiery orb, inch by swift inch, rising steadily above the volcano, speading its good news of abundant warmth and light.

the world had begun.

upon the rainbow

tytti gave me her long black socks and headed back to madrid.  i came with her half way.  the long black socks were good for riding on the motorbike.  afterwards i used them for walking along the road, sticking my thumb out.  i walked, and no-one stopped, so i kept walking.  when i got to the village of rubieblos de moras, two days later, i met stefano in the supermarket.  he had just left the rainbow and was at that moment thinking about heading back to liverpool.  gabriel and maria had met him on the road and put him up for the night in maria's grandfather's house in the village - a big señorial house with wooden beams and a big wooden table covered with a great frying pan filled with steaming spanish tortilla when they invited me to lunch that day.  i had already seen maria that morning in the village.  she was sweeping the streets.   i thought about saying hello to her but for some reason didn't.   why would an attractive young girl be sweeping the streets like that? i had wondered.   round the table i found the opportunity to ask her and she told me that the police had entered her flat one night in valencia - following a phone call from her misanthropic neighbour complaining of her loudness .  the mysteriously violent police had attacked her in her flat.  she had bitten the police officer in self-defence and had thus received the two year penalty of sweeping the streets for four hours a day.  "i had no idea the spanish police could be so unscrupulous" i said.

after a few days at the rainbow i decided to continue my journey South.  i had already packed my rucksack and was on my way out when hadas - an isreali sister whose joy-of-life smile had already caught my attention - was standing on a log, making our heights equal, saying that if i were to stay a little more, she would be pleased to get to know me.  she actually stood higher than me on that log, which felt rather strange, but it was just the right height for me to put my arms around her waist.   i instantly knew that getting to know her would be very good idea, and helped her to move her tent down to the river where the yellow poplar leaves filled the air with the autumn wind, and the line of orange cliffs rose directly above us, echoing back the sounds of the polish brothers playing the glockenspiel in the morning.

one night we went up to the food circle and found everybody sitting around solemly.  a talking circle had spontaneously been called, to settle the issue of an elderly spanish man who had been accused of molesting young girls in a previous gathering by another man who had just arrived.   the talking circle is an important way of getting to know each other and sharing ideas - being in community - which had not taken place until this conflict arrived.  whoever held the talking stick had the sole right to talk, while everybody else in the circle listened.  anybody who tried to impose their voice over the one who held the talking stick was silenced by other people's call for "focus, focus!"
it was an excellent way to spend time together, sharing ideas and deciding how we really wanted to live together.  the hungry ones said "look everything has been said.  let us now eat", whereas the ones hungry for communication said "who cares about eating food now?  talking together is infinitely more important".
the rainbow gathering invites everyone to be who they are and so there are some people who come to spend their time smoking weed while camping in nature, but the rainbow's ideals are larger than that.   the frequent singing of the song "we are opening up in sweet surrender to the luminous love-light of the One" is not incidental.  the rainbow ideal is to form a temporary spiritually conscious society radically different from normal society by our combined commitment to Love.   to love Life, to love Mother Earth, to love one another and to love oneself.  it is an ideal it is not always achieved.  it must be renewed in each new moment.

the focus of the talking circle returned to the centre of what we were doing together.  many gave generalised comments, saying "well, it is my first time at a rainbow gathering, but i find the idea of sexual harrasement totally unacceptable.  anybody guilty of that should be excluded straightaway." others said, "aye, we all talk of love and unity, but underneath it all we are selfish and imperfect, let us now acknowledge it!"  others were more forgiving, saying, "we all form part of the same whole; another person's struggling is also our own.  if we are really a family, we should not immediately throw out anyone who does not conform to our ideals, but try and help him.  we all have our own personal journey of self-betterment to follow.  let us support each other,  let us not abandon the weak!

i was amazed by how many clear honest voices spoke out, encouraged by the set-up of the talking circle to share their deepest aspirations.  many comments focussed on cutting through the suspicion and prejudices to accept ourselves as we are, always focussing on self-improvement.  it was taking human interactions, human weaknesses back to the most elemental level and many said: "let us be realistic.  let us allow each other to be who we are.  let us focus much more on overcoming our own weaknesses rather than trying to erradicate those of others."

a few days later it was the celebration of the new moon and the last night of our month-long gathering.  everyone was sitting round the fire when pato the basque started up on his guitar, spontaneously improvising his inspired perception of the magic of the moment . . . es un momentico muy especial.  later he told me that he had never done anything like that before. hadas and i had already decided to leave that day, but for some reason hadn't been able and had returned to the fire for one more night.  i was awestuck by pato and his awesome quality of being fully in the moment, inventing spur of the moment poetry, springing from feeling the uncontainable forces of nature - the wind and the water and the fire - flowing through us, producing encounters of rare beauty, a smile here or a hug there.  everytime pato served at the food circle, whenever our eyes crossed, it was always his who lingered the longest, throwing out an immense avidity of observation "i will observe i will observe i will observe," his eyes said, "nothing will escape my attention."

so many rainbow encoutners have affirmed my loyalty to be true to my values, to be fully present in the moment, to be fully myself regardless of how that may differ from those who surround me.   stefano's joie de vivre has inspired me immensely.  his joie de vivre which makes him roll around the ground laughing uncontainably while tytti says: "i think he has ADHD", which causes us to jump up and down uncontainably upon encountering each other shouting, without apparent reason: "barmy army, barmy army!"
one night, stefano challenges my intellectual predisposition - which i now see as a potentially menacing trait to his pure free flow of feelings.  "why do you have to pay so much attention to the meaning of words?" he challenges me.  "if a word is useful in the moment to communicate your poetic attention, let it be" he says, "but if the word does not serve to communicate, let it drop and use other words."

"let your words come directly from your heart" says stefano.  "we are free, regardless of what the people in society say.  we have already chosen the circumstances in which our life will unroll.  everything has already been chosen by us - that is how free we are".

during the rainbow, i introduce myself as Corazón, although those familiar with common UK names doubt that it is my real name.  "it is easier for the spanish to remember" i say, "and i am able to feel  really connected to the meaning of that name"

el corazón is the heart.

the day everyone leaves,  a group of single travellers gather in the car park looking for a lift south.  there is a young man from germany named joshua who is travelling alone in his spacious van.  we all mill hopefully around his van.  at first he appears overwhelmed by the thought of us all travelling (illegally) in the back of his van, but after a certain point he gives up worrying and says "pile in!" and we all pile in and a spontaneous little rainbow caravan is formed, everyone squashed together singing songs and calling out "thanks joshua!" to joshua at the wheel.   that night we arrive at a beach near valencia.  joshua's destination is morocco but he is in no great hurry.  for a few days we keep up the rainbow spirit, forming a circle and singing before eating together.  hadas teaches me the song "agua de estrellas" which goes:


en tus ojos de agua infinita
se bañan las estrellitas mama

agua de luz, agua de estrellas
pachmama vienes del cielo

limpia limpia limpia corazón agua brillante
sana sana sana corazón agua bendita
calma calma calma corazón agua del cielo mama

it is a passionate eulogy to the sacred divinity of water. though it be the most terrestrial of elements, it comes from el cielo - the sky/ heaven.  water is light, is the stars, comes from on high - as pachamama - cleans, heals, calms our hearts, shining water, blessed water, water from the sky.

interfaith dialogue, spain

the fiery breath of autumn is chilling over the land.  tytti is spinning along the cold roads on her motorbike while i sit behind her, dressed up in all my clothes.  i even have tied my shorts and an old shirt round my ankles, to stop the cold wind from riding up my trousers.  i have engrained in me the image of spain as a land of perpetual sun and heat, but a times i surprise myself, seeing that it is also possible for the opposite to be true.  es que ya estamos en la época de lluvias, say the spaniards.  here is the cold and the rain and the chilly breath of autumn, turning the quivering poplars into yellow shooting flames along the valley bottoms.  tytti points upwards to draw my attention to the beauty of the ochre-orange rocks rising at the roadside.  she loves a lot to be in the mountains because in her native finland there are none.  i love a lot to be in the forest because the forest is magical.

the rain that evening makes us take refuge in an abandoned little stone hut.  we have bought wine and olives and cheese from the nearby village store, just before it closed, and prepare a pot of pasta over a fire in the corner.  the smoke rises up and disappears through a hole in the roof.  closeby is the railway that runs between madrid and cuenca.  the whistling sound of the approaching highspeed trains becomes audible through the whistle of the wind in the poplars, then it roars past ferociously and always makes us look at each other with surprised eyes.  tytti becomes determined to record the sound on her phone, but she never gets to the button in time.  it must be recorded right at the start of the far-off whistle.  it will be very good as part of a theatre production, tytti is sure. the next morning we find a fig tree outside the hut bearing many delicious soft sweet fruits, as well as an almond tree, laden with nuts, which we crack open slowly with stones, admiring the intricate structure of the shells, and how the precious nut always fits snugly inside.  it takes us more than two days to get from madrid to the rainbow gathering, on account of all the time spent sheltering from the wind and the rain, which would not make for a pleasant motorcycle journey. 

tytti should be attending her classes at la escuela de teatro in madrid, but when i tell her that i will travel to the rainbow gathering, in the mountains 300k kilometres to the east of madrid, she spontaneously decides that she will come too.  she is very interested in all the things i have told her about the rainbow, and wants to see it for herself.  we arrive just in time for the food circle.  stefano the liverpudlian suddenly comes bounding along behind us and him and i give yelps of delight, bounding along together and rolling about on the ground and exchanging a lot of excited energy.  around fifty people are already holding hands in a circle, singing songs of love and unity, when someone breaks off and makes the circle snake around the meadow, laughing and dancing until the circle coils around itself and everyone ends up in one big ball, and then the umming begins.  the umming the omming, the united vibration of everyone's outbreath rising all around us as each individual's voice harmonises with the whole.  afterwards everyone sits in a big circle again and the food is served. 

after the food circle a talking circle is organised, whose purpose is for the ones who had been to the rainbow before to describe to the ones who haven´t been before what the rainbow is all about.  when the talking stick comes to tytti, she says that it is her first time and that although she loves the displays of love and unity, she is a little unsure about some things because of her christian faith.  later, when it is jay's turn to talk - a spanish sexagenarian with long blonde hair and shining blue eyes - he looks at tytti and says he is sure that jesus would have been in the rainbow family if there had been one in his time.

tytti's strong christian faith is a topic which surfaces from time to time between us.  tytti is direct and sincere in everything she says, and this invites me to be the same.

"i have to confess that i don't like it," tytti says, "when i see these hindu symbols, and i don't want to to bow down and worship the earth or sing praises to any God other than the One Creator, whose son Jesus . . . "

 - yes, there is only One God -  i say - and i believe that He is present everywhere.  the God that animates the christian world view is the same Life Principal that pulsates throughout the Universe.  it is the non-sectarian Divine Mystery, spoken of by all religions and seekers of truth. 

when i was a child i had the same conviction as you do, handed down to me by my parents - that christianity held the only true answers to life, but my questioning mind has gradually led me to abandon that conviction.  now i have the impression that i have opened the window of a restricted room and am now outside where my vision of reality has been considerably extended.

"i have the same feeling!" laughs tytti "except that for me being a christian is like being outside, whereas any other belief is like having a restricted vision of truth"

- hmmmmm  - i say - but the muslims have the same conviction that their religious tradition is the sole truth.  i think it is more useful, especially in today's globalised society, to look for the things that unite people rather than divide them, the obvious things that no-one disputes.  why expect that everyone give the same importance to jesus as the christian tradition when they are capable of leading deep and meanginful lives without reference to him?  how can you be so sure that the christian worldview is the one that should belong to everyone?

"for me," says tytti, eyes beaming with the sincerity of conveying her deep inner truth, "I can say that in Jesus I have so much more than in all else I've met in this life so far. His absolute, complete, sublime love is not the same as a system of energy or beautiful spirituality. He is MORE.  And what value has societal usefullness of unity of beliefs, next to absolute truth, an almighty God?  I vote for love, respect and understanding among us all, absolutely, but existence and nature of God is not something one can reason by measuring it's usefullness."

- me talking about things being useful or not comes from my feeling that we are the creators of our experience, the creators of life.  life really would not be (for us) if we did not create it into existence with our perceptions and imaginations.  "i want life to be such and such a way" says the perceiver, and life is that way.  the christian says: "i want to invent a God, the Creator and Sustainer of Everything, who loves me and loves me and i will pray to Him" and it is so.  such a God exists for such a christian.  the misanthrope (to give an example of somebody i met recently) says: "pues, i live in a world full of bad people, liars and people who will trick me" and it is so.  the misanthrope lives in such a world.    given how free we are as human beings, it is time we asked ourselves:  okay, so we can create any world for ourselves, but which would be really useful?  i mean which would cause us to flourish, would cause all of us to flourish in unison.  would create harmony and peace and resonate most profoundly with what we love in our hearts. 

- looking at you now - i tell tytti - i can see that the reality of your relationship with Jesus fills you with conviction and constitutes your truth for you, and i totally respect that, but i think that you should also recognise that other people do not have the same personal experience of Jesus as you do.

tytti recognises this.  tytti professes that jesus is the undisputable centre of her meaningful life, and i recognise that this is true for her and that truth is a wonderful and all-encompassing thing.  

it all makes me think that words are poor purveyors of inner truth and the best thing is to feel inwardly, and the connections thereby produced will flow and know no bounds.  amen

crossing the pyrenées

i had forgotten what pure joy could be found in the Mountains.  travelling south through france, i found myself thinking about the pyrenees, getting close to the pyrenees, then hitch-hiking right into the heart of the pyrenees with a elderly woman who travelled eighty kilometres every day to submit herself to the healing powers of the thermal waters.  the woman in the tourist information centre that morning was very kind.  she printed out a section of the map which showed the path that crossed to spain.

after beatifully bathing in the cold waters of the mountain river i had so much energy, it took me rather by surprise.  barefoot, with my large rucksack which i hardly felt, i practically ran up the mountain, taking all the short cuts which lead directly to le refuge de benasque.  there (2,248m) next to a glacial lake i met aurelly and cyril with whom i had the following conversation:

"ah, qu'est-ce que c'est beau d'avoir du fromage et vin rouge"

- "ah, oui, tu sais que t'est bien en france.  meme quand les francais vont en montagne il amenent leur fromage et du rouge."

and later, offering my onion to the preparation of cous-cous, il y avait cyril que me disait: "j´aime bien les oignions comme ça.  on sent bien la peau de leur chair"  it was a celebration of onions of wine of cheese surrounded by the extatic rocky peaks of the pyrenees.  and when i went outside at night to pee, surrounded by the magnificent silence of the grand stars, i was overimpressed and i was silenced and humble.

bon anniversaire l'arche la tendresse

en effet c'était trop beau d'etre là à la fete des cinquante ans de l'arche à paris.  j'étais super content d'etre là.  on s'a rassemblé tout le monde à la place de l'hotel de ville.  apparament il y avait plus de cinque mil personnes.  5,000!  Wow, c'était immense.  on a tous marché par les rues jusqu'à la place de la république.  le soleil illuminait tous les bâtiments pales et élégants, et rehaussait la verdure des arbres.  il faisait assez chaud.  il y avait de la joie partout.  on chantait "joyeux anniversaires" et il y avait un groupe des musiciens qui jouait des instrument à vent qui créait un son assez semblable a celui des skatelites.  ça produisait beaucoup des sourires et quand l'on se souriait il s'établiait une grande connexion entre nous et le bonheur était palpable dans l'air.  c'était trop beau, dans le soleil, à paris, dans les rues, célébrant les cinquante ans de l'arche.
tout le monde a appris la dance qui apparait dans ce video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZbHkIN8QBs 

au milieu tous se sont abaissé pour écouter la voix de Jean Vanier qui a dit tout doux:
"j'ai découvert que les personnes avec un handicap mental était le peuple plus opprimé du monde,
et pourtant c'est un peuple extraordinaire"

après il est arrivé le moment ou Jean Vanier, assis sur l'estrade, nous a donné plus de mots.  il tirait notre attention sur le fait qu'on était réunis dans la Place de la République, l'endroit ou dans le temps le peuple français se sont rebellé contre la monarchie pour ouvrir une nouvelle voie de liberté, d'égalité et de fraternité.  puis il a dit que la lutte n'était pas terminé.  il nous fallait lutter encore.  lutter contre la normalité, qui dans notre société prenais la forme d'etre toujours en compétition avec les autres pour gagner chaqu'un.  ah, c'est ne pas beau ça.  selon Jean Vanier, etre pleinement humain signifie vouloir que tous gagnent en meme temps; etre (pleinement) humain veut dire se soucier pour les plus faibles, ceux qui se perdra sans espoir si l'on suivait le modèle "je veux gagner moi."  c'était un message très simple, que j'avais déjà entendu ailleurs, mais très touchant venant de la bouche de Jean Vanier, avec sa voix très ferme et résolue mais pourtant incarnant la douceur et la tendresse.  "tendresse" a été le dernier mot qu'il a prononcé, en disant "il faut qu'on accepte le défi de créer dans nous meme, et ainsi dans le monde, plus de joie, plus de justice, plus d'amour, et plus de tendresse"

back at l'arche

when i walked into gégé's room it was quite dark. gégé was sitting on his bed holding a sock studiously in his hand, swinging it to and fro, the way he does.  the first thing he did when i sat down next to him was to regard me studiously.  then reach out and touch my arm, then lean over so his head was touching mine - that really touched me.  it touched me because gégé was wont to not pay any attention to me, like when i would say "gégé, lift thy foot up" (to put on his sock) or: "gégé, bois de l'eau s'il te plait;  ça te fera du bien."   it will do thee good little brother.   aide-moi a t'aider.  help me to help you.   next minute after lifting him off the bed i notice that the caca had spilled from his nappy and become smeared on my trousers.  i am striding along the corrider, looking for towels for wiping dirty things, feeling good because what i am doing is essential.  little brother gégé, like a baby, he needs me.  i was going to write to finlay and encourage him: "maybe volunteering at a l'arche community would not be a bad idea at all if you are looking for a purpose and a direction and a groundedness concrete actions what i am doing is what needs to be done."   i thought again: what about volunteering at l'arche?  i liked all the little fond familiar détails that come from living together in community. familiar scenes like jean claude who slides into the living room in his wheelchair and reminds me to close the curtains now that night has fallen.  jean-claude, always paying attention to the détails.

an experience.

i could not stay at l'arche for long because of the non-essential daily practises arising from being part of an institution.  institutions - how can one avoid them?  i feel that maybe they are to be avoided.  the cupboard full of plastic containers full of chemical products to be applied liberally to all the floor surfaces before ticking the box on the sheet to say: oui, le sol a été bien lavé. 

laurent and i took a walk around the village this morning, past the fields with the horses and the big clumps of nettles.  the late september sun was shining wanly.  until lau-lau became anxious and wanted to head home.  he does not like straying too far from home, despite my encouragements: "regard là-bas lau-lau, qu'est-ce que c'est beau!  tu veux aller voir l'eau lau-lau?"

i am thinking of going to paris tomorrow.  on saturday there will be a big parade to celebrate 50 years of l'arche.  they say there will probably be more than three thousand people.  everyone is encouraged to wear colourful clothes - not black.  there will be music and food and, significantly, jean vanier, the founder of l'arche communities will be there to give some words.  ah oui, ça sera genial ça.

the way of the heart

thank you for this moment thank you for the sunlight thank you for my body thank you for my health thank you for my friends thank you for friendliness and kind people and sunlight and this experience of being now

Everyone was gathered for the Food Circle.   maybe not quite a thousand people but several hundred (difficult to estimate with all these people)    and it started to rain.  proper rain this time!  thunder and lightening.  kaachoooo - ooooo!   and soon - first slowly, then faster - everyone started to move, and make for the ’kitchen‘, which was the only nearby covered place - actually only a few plastic sheets strung up together between poles - but there everyone gathered, squashed up tight and soon someone began to strike up guitar chords and the bongo drums followed and everyone´s voices slowly, heartfully together intoned:

let the way of the heart

let the way of the heart

let the way of the heart

shine through

love, upon love, upon lo-o-ove, 

all hearts are beating as one.

light, upon light, upon li-i-iight, 

shining as bright as the sun.

it lasted for about half an hour (difficult to estimate) with everyone looking at each other sincerely with droplets of water dripping off their noses with everyone intoning the mantra let the way of the heart let the way of the heart until someone bellowed out lets change the song! which didn't actually happen; everyone wanted to let the way of the heart, until it became obvious that the rain was not letting up and somebody started to organise the serving of food from the big prepared pots: lentils and salad and some sprouted beans, people squeezing past each other holding either empty expectant bowls or bowls happily filled with food.  that is the way of the rainbow.  there is no incontrovertible leadership.  there are just people who decide to do things which they feel need to be done.  let us eat food, then.

the girl who was serving the lentils seemed somehow familiar and, slightly hesitant but more certain than uncertain, i said to her ´i seem to remember you from the orphanage in hampi in india when you sang the shiva shiva shiva shambol mantra the day you were leaving.  it was beautiful", and it was so.  it was her.


"ooooow, i miss those children sooo much," she said.

maybe it was that half-hour (difficult to estimate) singing in the rain session which fixed so firmly in my mind the let the way of the heart words.  in recent days my consciousness has been humming over them and leisurely analysing them. i find that the song-writer has done a good job of succinctly capturing the essence of this extra-ordinary experience which at times is succinctly called 'life'.

the heart it the essence
the way of the heart is important. it is a journey and a means
letting is important. it is a conscious act of allowing.
shining is an important action because light is also the essence.  (let their be light)
and through is imporant because it is an act of penetration and cutting through the non-essential things which can easily vie for our attention.

let the way of the heart shine through all these non-essential things.

Dear Marioara,

When I left you asked me to send you a christmas card but i have decided to write to you now when i still have your address written down - and locateable - and tell you a little bit about my journey.  Let me tell you first that the rainbow was such a beautiful gathering of people.  We were so happy to come together on that beautiful meadow and sing songs of joy and gratitude for the Mother Earth.   It is sometimes difficult to describe to others exactly what we do at rainbow, but I think you understood something of the spirit which brought us together.  

The internet service at your library was so appreciated by everyone, but, besides that, it was your friendliness and genuine welcome which made everyone feel good.  

Thank you for your concern about me crossing the Apuseni Mountains alone.  Many others I met along the way cautioned me about bears and the dangers of travelling alone.  I did actually become lost in the woods beyond Varful Vladeasa and became rather concerned myself about my own whereabouts and where I would come out, but in the end the sun came out and showed me good South.  

I must say that becoming a little bit lost is actually an experience that I welcome and almost actively seek.  Being safe and secure and comfortable is not an experience which I am looking for.  Perhaps it is difficult for me to describe to you exactly what I am looking for.  It involves the experience of exploring and not knowing what will happen and seeing what happens.  Thank you anyway for your friendliness and concern.

Now I have arrived in Hunedoara where the internet facility allows me to be connected to the world.  The librarian here told me that Bill Gates provided these computers in all these libraries across the region, which otherwise the municipal council would never have been able to afford.

So, with gratitude to the generosity of Bill Gates, I send you my greetings and gratefulness for your friendliness,

Carson

travelling with shokouh

it did not really warrant so much laughter on our part but that is what happened when the old man responsible for cleaning gulhane park in istanbul saw shokouh taking a photo of me perched on the stone lion and said ''sit together i will take one of both of you.  it will be beautiful''   beautiful it was as he carefully took aim with the camera and took a closeup of himself and his discerning eye.  we did not tell him we just said ''thank you.''    our laughter afterwards was caused by him but it was not directed at him.  ''thank you very much'' we said.  he was a very nice helpful man.  shokouh said he was adorable.  perhaps he was not used to using cameras.

perhaps there had been a tension in the air there, for how could such a little thing like him holding the camera the wrong way round and taking a photo of himelf, believing that he was taking a photo of us, make our laughter tumble out like that onto the street?  the cause.  shokouh asks me the definitions of words and i carefully provide them.  that is why she calls me mister dictionary.  actually it is mainly me who offers the definitions unbidden, according to my experience of standard english usage.  infantile.  if you were to describe someone as childish you would be referring to the immature, selfish characteristics that children sometimes display.  if shokouh knew this, she would probably not describe herself as childish, then, but child-like, which is a neutral term, simply meaning like a child, and possibly including such positive traits as innocence and trustfulness.  i explain to shokouh that words like defecate are used by almost nobody except me.  generally people use other expressions such as ''going for a poo'' or avoid the topic of poo altogether and simply talk about ''going to the toilet.''  when shokouh asks me what gracious means i realise that i don't know its exact definition, and when it comes to providing a definition for such words as colour and light, i have a good think but in the end have to admit that i am stumped.  probably the scientists are able to offer some description of what light is, but however hard i think about it i cannot escape the conclusion that it is a Total Mystery.   light is a relationship between the world and my eye and my brain.  it is a total mystery.

''look after her'' was the advice imparted to me by the irananians met at the rainbow.  of the hundred and fifty or so people there gathered, around forty of fifty were iranians.  it was surprising for shokouh to meet so many of her countryfolk, gathered here in neighbouring turkey.  for me meeting so many iranians was almost like travelling in iran, something which has been made impossible for me now that the law stipulates that any UK citizen entering iran must be accompanied by a guide everywhere they go.  i become familiar with the beautiful cadences of the farsi language, capable of communicating so much warmth and feeling.  citizens of iran have very limited travel opportunities, but the dedicated wayfarers and artists assembled at the rainbow do their best, taking their musical instruments and paintbrushes and soft vibrant energy round iraq, syria, lebanon, turkey, armenia and georgia.   could the annual peace in the middle east rainbow gathering take place in iran next year? perhaps if it was held in a very remote place. . . which are abundant in iran.  but if the authorities got any whiff of it. . . think of it: a hundred hippies hitching to the same spot.  not a chance says shokouh.

''look after her'' the iranians impressed upon me as we set off on the road to istanbul.

''i didn't feel safe'' said shokouh.

''otostoplu?  çok tehlikeli,'' say the turks on the street, ''otobus alın''

well, it is certainly a less comfortable and secure way of travelling but if we listened to everyone's dangerous, get-the-bus advice we would never have made the acquaintance of the angelic police officer on holiday from antalya who took us into the nearby town for us to stock up on fruit and vegetables and helped shokouh sort out the problems with her turkish sim card so she could call home and pacify her worried parents who haven't heard from their daughter for three days it is her first time outside the country.

how can you know someone enough to really want to meet with them without ever having met them? the question was posed to me more than once.  i am also surprised by how strongly we could feel our connection through computers, but somehow my initial request two years ago to surf shokouh's couch in tehran - when i still thought i would be cycling through tehran - made us instantly want to gradually communcate more and after facebook befriending and lots of skype chatting and me talking about coming to iran one day we have finally managed to meet in turkey.

like shokouh, i felt the nervousness of the man who took us along the road towards beyşehir as evening stole over the land.  it was nice of him to offer to host us.  it can be a tricky situation for the hitchhiker who stands on the road giving an open invitation for others to offer their help.  when their attention becomes unwanted the hitchhikers must pay attention and grab the right moment to say ''no.  leave us alone now''

''why don't you come home with me, drink some çay and have a wash?''

''very kind of you, but we actually love to sleep in the woods.  if you could just drop us here.  we can find a nice place to sleep near here and continue our journey tomorrow''

''okay, let me drive you.  i know a good place where you can sleep''

''no really, we can walk from here, there is no problem, you don't need to drive us . . .''

the man driving us does not know what he is doing.  every evening he drives from his workplace in seydişehir to his home in behşehir.  tonight he meets two intrepid young travellers and feels attracted to their slowly iterated desire to sleep in the woods.  slowly iterated because in turkish.  i do not understand everything, yet i annunciate calmly.  the tension is palpable in the air as we bump along a dirt track through the dark woods and finally find a flat place to camp.  he lights another cigarette and i think: ''when will he leave us alone? when will the cut off point be?'' we begin to gather wood for a fire.  at one point shokouh says: ''don't go far away from me carson.''  she feels his eyes on her.  she opens a packet of crisps and he sits on our camping mat next to her.  he begins to remove the twigs and leaves from her hair and then to hold out crisps for her to take straight in her mouth.  our polite conversation has now reached saturation point.   i have found out all the simple information my simple turkish can grasp:  he is a mechanic.  he is thirty five years old.  he lives alone.  he is not working tomorrow.  ''just make some çay and tell him we want to go to sleep'' says shokouh in english.  ''yes'' i say, ''but he says he doesn't want çay.''  i tell shokouh to come and sit at the other side of me and i am the only one who sips çay as the flames flicker thinly in our dark woods.  finally his sensitivity receptors inside him register something and he says:  ''sizi rahatsiz ediyormuyum?''    am i disturbing you?
sorry?
''rahatsiz. . . '' it takes a while for the meaning of his disturbing turkish word to sink in.

''yes.  we want to be alone now''

''tamam,'' he says stiffly, and walks off.  presently we hear his car engine rolling away through the woods and although nothing actually happened shokouh says that it will take a while for her to feel comfortable with unknown men again.

it is only after such uncomfortable encounters that the angelic nature of the policeman and the shining open hearted love of the rainbow family can be seen in perspective.  it is only after a day walking through the bazaars of istanbul looking for gifts for shokouh's family members that the deep peace of the pine forests and rocky hills near antalya are recalled with such fondness.  we are stray cats in istanbul.  we walk around and make friends with the cats in the street.  shokouh has the brainwave of staying in a hostel where we can shower and wash our clothes and leave our stuff in the room enabling us to walk around unencumbered during the day.  we find a place called stray cat hostel, a few minutes from the bospherous and the ferry crossing to kadaköy where we walk along the pier to the lighthouse and see the sky getting dark and orange behind the mosque-shaped skyline of the city.  shokouh tells me about the difficulty of having parents who expect a certain lifestyle of their daughter and i wonder about the rare wise approach of bringing a child into the world and loving them to the extent of according them the freedom to be themselves.

in the end we have succeeded in our bazaar search for natural green henna powder.  we have played our last game of backgammon and eaten our last balık ekmek fresh grilled fish salad sandwich by the boshporous.  i have spent the day walking around the streets barefeet due the heat and now at the airport i promise to shokouh that i recognise the importance of wearing footwear for protection.  it could have been her obstinacy in removing from my foot at the airport with a needle the tiny shard of glass which caused her to miss her 22:30 flight back to tehran.  it could likewise have been her full immersion in the artistic moment of covering my arm with her henna design.  it was certainly our unawareness that a half ten flight means that you have to check in at least an hour before.  ''shokouh it really doesn't matter about the glass shokouh it doesn't matter about finishing the henna you had better run your flight is leaving soon . . . ''

ah, the gates have already closed.

the taxi driver who took us to the nearest park that night didn't want to see us sleeping in the park and so he invited us back to his twentyfirst floor apartment to snatch a few hours sleep before heading out to work again the next day.

we arrive at the airport the next evening in plenty of time, but the plenty time is soon consumed in covering my other arm in another elaborate henna design and writing mohamed from iraq's name on his arm with henna and speaking to the woman from denmark waiting for her flight, and suddenly ''shokouh, you really better go now''

gasp: ''i have put my shirt and my headscarf in my airport luggage.  they won't let me enter tehran airport without them!''
''take my shirt,'' i say, ''and use my trousers as a headscarf'' and i run to the toilet to change out of my colourful cotton indian trousers, which made a no problem headscarf, shokouh later told me.

that night i walked along the big road out of istanbul and slept soundly in my hammock in some dark pine trees near a mosque.  i somehow felt that it was a safe place because it was close to the mosque.  in the morning i discovered that my camera and my knife had disappeared from my bags.  it is another reminder that the present moment is all that really matters.  some photos curiously can seem to be important - like the one of shokouh with her eyes closed and long black hair flowing beautifully in the wind as we sped down the rocky mountain road on the back of the pick-up truck, or the priceless close-up of the park cleaner in istanbul - but the simple experience of being alive now is infinitely more special.

travelling in turkey

there is something about this place that reminds me of sandend and sunnyside beach.

''no way'' says finlay,  ''does it ever get as hot as this in scotland?''

well no, but there is something about the scene- the path winding along the wild coast, the expanse of sea and sand . . . your first experience of the world - your early impressions of life - will always stay embedded in your memory bank.

finlay was just off the back of a month and a half of stravaiging around thrace - the 'european' part of turkey west of istanbul.  reputedly the friendliest.  ''being a foreigner here is like carrying a V.I.P badge everywhere you go,'' i observe and, right on cue, a group of youngsters hail us from across the street.

''hoş geldiniz!'' (welcome!)  the phrase on everybody's lips just waiting to issue forth upon the sighting of a V.I.P foreigner.

they want to take a photo of us on their mobile phones then we part with effusive well-wishes.  round the corner the men in the çay shop pour on us their welcome then insist (in tones that really brook no dissent) that we join them for çay and finlay says that his days often progressed in this fashion- simialar to a pubcrawl.  he would advance from one street to the next, from one çay shop to the next.

finlay has learnt a thing or two from the turks about backgammon strategy, including taking moves instantly - hardly stopping to think for an instant - and taking outrageous risks which not infrequently pay off.  as we are playing a small group of men gather round and give us catagorical advice on how we should play.  older men who are now retired and spend their days at the çay cafe take it in turns to talk to us.  we are privvy to an elaborate commentary on the mystery of the numeral zero from an old mathematics teacher, whose hastily scrawled equations now adorn my notebook.  finlay has mastered the basics of the turkish language and seems to be slowly following the commentary, but i only grasp the notion that the number zero is indeed a mystery.

i copy out the list of the most frequently asked questions which finlay has compiled, viz:
nerelisin?  where are you from? 
nasılsın?  how are you? 
oruç tutuyormusun?  are you observing the ramazam daytime fast?  
nasıl türkçe ogrendim?  how did you learn turkish?  
ne iş yapıyorsun?  what is your job? 
iskoçyada kaç para?  how much money (do you earn) in scotland?  
yalnızsın mı?  are you alone?  
evlimisin?  are you married?  
kardeşin var mı?  brothers or sisters?  
kaç tane?  how many?  
çay içermisin?  do you want some çay?  
yemegi yedin?  have you eaten? repeated like a litany at each new encounter, the best way to language learn; turkey: one big langauge school, with conversation practise readily available anywhere.

i feel that even a couple of days spent with finlay sufficed to significantly consolidate my smattering.  i think i absorbed passively some of his turkish language passion and intonation.

communication wasn't easy, however, yesterday when i was washing at the tap by lake burdur and the man from the van produced a bar of white soap.  ''cleanliness is the next to godliness'' was the nub of the message i perceived.  ''allah loves his children to be clean:   it would be better if you shaved your armpits and pubic hair . . . easier to clean'' it was one of those recurring situations wherein i listen attentively to my interlocutor and they end up opening up their heart to me and giving me their telephone number and wanting me to become a muslim.

''are you a christian?  you know jesus was a prophet but mohammed was the last prophet (the last prophet he was) and the message of the koran is Allah's message to humanıity and must absolutely be obeyed if you want to go to heaven.''
all this is very slowly explained to me, sitting in the shade of a tree on some cushions.  two sticks are produced.  the long stick represents heaven and is placed alongside the short stick, which represents hell.
''now, you are a good man, i can see'' abdullah tells me ''which would you choose . . . the short stick - pain (he produces his lighter and makes as if to burn his finger), or the long stick - a big smile, everlasting bliss with Allah (most of these words i have to imagine but they aren't hard to imagine because the discourse is an old one.)  at one point abdullah phones his friend who speaks english and confirms to me abdullah's message:  the koran says it, and therefore we must observe it, if we want to go to heaven: praying five times a day, journeying to mecca, no eating of pigs (dirty) or drinking of alcohol or having sex outwith wedlock, or smoking of tobacco . . . ''well, on this small point i fail'' admits abdullah as he rolls himself another cigarette.

''so, it is obvious you will choose heaven, isn't it?  repeat after me these arabic words, and you will become a muslim''

''well,'' i search for the few turkish words at my disposal, ''i think what is in a book is not as important as listening to allah in my heart.  for me, this moment now is all of life''

abdullah shakes his head and i have to take my present moment presence back to my camp in the woods and make çay over a fire and look up at the moon and cogitate about humanity's curious issues with the perception of Reality.





all of the written above verily took place in turkey in the summer of the year of our lord two thousand and fourteen.

O mohammad, did you have any idea what a big complicated ball of mental human experiences you were setting in motion when you wrote that book?

may Peace be upon all of us.

searching for the magic, romania

i met tom - who is a wizard.  we celebrated his 43rd birthday in a bar in cluj.  tom doesn't like the word itinerant but he does like the word nomad.  "what do you say to people," i asked tom, "when they ask you why you don't have a job and a family and a house (a settled life)?"

"nah, people don't really ask me that" tom mused.

a few days later he picked up the thread of our thinking, "there is a big difference between being lost and not being lost, even though externally the situation is the same.   the difference is inner.  people don't question where i am going because i know where i am going.  people can see that."

i realise that i have a tendency to listen to the people and try to enter their world - to see their way of seeing, and agree with them.

tom intimated to me one night that he has tendencies towards wizardry, and i received this information with an:   "aa, so tom is a wizard"

i could not agree, however, with the hungarian driver who gave me a lift.  he began by saying that this northern part of transylvania had been 'stolen' from hungary by the romanians.
''the problem with romania is that it is infested with gypsies,'' he said.
''and in the rest of europe it is the black people . . .they can come to visit for holidays but not to live''
''but . . .europe is a good place to live,'' i said.  ''what gives you the right to live in hungary and not other people?''
''because my ancestors fought for this land''

ancestoral ties.   the survival of the strongest.  the earth's limited resouırces.  the growing population.

''but would it not be better to share the resources of the planet and live together peacefully''

''i will fight till my death to protect my homeland from outsiders'' my liftgiver said and laughed like a schoolboy.

unconsciousness.  unlove.  the challenge of being human.

''i think that fighting for resources belongs to a more primitive stage of human evolution whıch we should go beyond.  for me it is an obvious choice to choose to share and live together in peace.''

to which he did not respond.

i thanked him for the lift and prayed for his soul.


''so,'' i asked tom. ''basically you have spent the last twenty years going from rainbow to rainbow?''

''yep,'' came his quick unequivocal response.


when hitching with tom it was interesting to hear his response to the question, which i also often find myself answering, ''what are rainbow gatherings''

i had been saying things like, ''it is people who live together in nature for a month; we form a temporary community; we love to live together simply in nature, cooking over a fire, singing songs of gladness for life''

tom got to the heart of the matter: ''the fire in the centre symbolises the Heart.  when we stand in a circle holding hands round the fire, we are connecting all of our hearts.  we are all part of the One Heart.  there are no boundaries between anyone.  we all come together as One''

it was all about looking for the right spot for the rainbow.  even though certain essential features were found - clean water source, etc - we were looking for what tom called the wow factor.  the magic energy that the rocks released and made the trees stretch beautifully to the heavens and that would make people say: wow, i love this place!

despite the searching for the rainbow, for weeks now i have been on the brink of leaving for turkey.   the road is whispering sweet follow-me messages.  there is also a rainbow in turkey at the moment.  there is also the maybe of meeting with friend shokouh from iran. and brother finlay has been walking around turkey for the past month.

but, until today, i haven't hit the road.  one thing or another has led me elsewhere.  the day i left gabriela's flat in bucharest the daily message on his calender read, "dace nu stii unde vrei sa te duci, orice drum te va duce acolo" (if you don't know where you want to go, any road will take you there).  it was attributed to a chinese proverb.  it seemed a meaningful message to me that day, when i decided to head out to the apuseni mountains, and meet with tom.  when i told this to ioana, she said that she understood better why i move around the way i do.