Deep Blue Waters

It fascinates me I am at the same stage of my self-awareness as I am in my acclimating myself to Istanbul.  I have started to place less judgement.  I take it more as it is.  Less comparing.  I recently finished Care of the Soul by Thomas Moore and feel much of what I've been learning start to sink in.  I'm observing myself more than analyzing myself.  

       Moore says, 'When people observe the ways in which the soul is manifesting itself, they are enriched     rather than impoverished.  they receive back what is theirs,  the very thing they have assumed to be so horrible that it should be cut out and tossed away. When you regard the soul with an open mind you begin to find the messages that lie within the illness.  The corrections that can be found in remorse and other uncomfortable feelings, and the necessary changes requested by depression and anxiety.'

I realized it the most when I returned from my trip to America last week.  I was seeing things with a different perspective.  I want no part of contrasting my life here with my life there, or what I see, taste, or feel, either.  I want to feel the natural joy of each new gift I get from being here.  The old, dark, run down buildings with no windows next to the tall, brightly colored new ones.  The old, thick tangled vines running along rusted metal fences hanging with the weight of the budding purple flowers.  

I see myself with the scars and insecurities.  I see them next to my widening view of my world and my growing optimism.  I sense the affect I have on people I interact with and it feels good.  It feels like finding a bottle in the sand on the shore with a message inside.  Unexpected, unanticipated, uncalculated.  So much of my life I felt I had to take the helm and hold on tight.  I think my most magical memories are of times when I had to let go and let the ship drift on its own.

I walked for hours today.  At first I was looking for a little cafe called "Polka Cafe". I enjoy where it is situated on a small neighborhood street with local people going by, busy with their daily things.  The food is excellent and I can stay for hours writing.  The two young women who own the place leave me be unless I ask for something.  After I spent an hour walking the streets looking for this place I started to relax and just walk.  I ended up hungry at a little cafe with tables out on the sidewalk in the shade.  I took a seat and ordered.  A little girl, (almost 6 years old), who I later found to be Derin, (means deep, blue water in Turkish) interacted with me because I had ordered the same thing as she had.  She giggled and smiled at me when our dishes were both delivered and it started a conversation about what we were eating. (Her mother and grandmother helped fill in some English and Turkish translations when needed)  Her anne (mother) shared some of the food she was having called çiğ börek because I asked what it was.  It tasted very much like our northern Michigan pasty but is flat, and rectangle.  Derin shared so much of herself in the two hours we were there sitting with our tables side by side. I sat, ate, wrote and visited with her.

     In talking about caring for our soul Moore says, 'Consider who we are not and we may find who we are'.  He quotes Tuo Te Ching as saying, 'When twisted,  you will be upright; when hollowed out you will be full.'  He discusses how we need to embrace our melancholy so we can just be who we are and not try to eradicate our darker moods.  He says not to feel like we are trapped or held captive by them. Our soul needs all of us to be nurtured and powerful.

Even choosing this book as one I wanted to read is a mystery to me.  Some things just can't be explained and don't need to be.  This has been the piece of a puzzle I have been avoiding.  The piece that screams with mystery, Holy Spirit, spiritualism, humanness, instinct, intuition, passion….all those intangibles I hate because I can't hold them in my hand and manipulate them.  I can only let them be as they are, without labeling and measuring them.  It also screams darkness, fear, weakness, death, vulnerability,  eccentricity….more watery, slippery parts of me.  To connect this missing piece to the rest of my stainglass-self I have to identify with the soul outside myself.  Moore calls it "anima mundi-soul of the world". 

The woman draped in black with only her eyes showing.  The young man pulling a cart of garbage down the street.  The old man with one crutch slowly walking across the street with a bag of vegetables in his free hand.  The old lady in rags wrapped in scarves hunched over feeding the cats by the stone fence.  The taxi driver honking at anyone who might want a ride in the bumper to bumper traffic climbing up Moda Cadde (street).  The barber sitting in the barber's chair looking out the window hour after hour waiting for a customer.  The young lovers walking hand in hand with their feet a few inches off the cobblestones.  The little toddler running away from his grandpa in the park towards the doves eating bread crumbs.  The new buds on the trees.  Men sitting on their small stools outside a store drinking tea and laughing.

I think of the karate philosophy.  The more you learn the more you will know you are a beginner, a novice.  I can't just be humble about what I've learned and how far I've grown.  It has to be with a willingness and burning desire to continually learn and grow.  Exhausting?  YES.  Difficult?  YES.  So is cowering. Hiding myself.  Turning away from the unknown. Perfecting avoidance.  Excuse making.  Hurting and grieving alone.  I've always despised people who spend more time trying not to work than to just dig in and do an honest days work.  Well, I think I can now look at myself and try to be more honest about the work I have to do.  Not just for now, always.  I will always have ups and downs.

I picture in my mind a child being bullied on his neighborhood street corner.  He gets pushed down.  He gets up.  He gets pushed down again.  He struggles up again and again.  He soon learns to spread his legs apart for support and balance, knowing what will eventually come next.  He faces his fear and takes the next blow.  A little bit more prepared.  A little wiser.  He looks his foe in the eye.  Just his awareness and his pride from his courage strengthens him.

Life bullies us.  We don't need to be a bully to our soul.  We need to care for it as best we can.

       Moore also quoted The Gospel of Thomas near the end of his book.  'Recognize what is before your eyes, and what is hidden will be revealed to you.'  He also says in his book, 'Often care of the soul means not taking sides when there is a conflict at a deep level.  It may be necessary to stretch the heart wide enough to embrace contradiction and paradox…in fact, the conflict itself is creative and perhaps should never be healed.  By giving each figure its voice, we let the soul speak and show itself as it is, not as we wish it would be.' 

My foes come in so many sizes and shapes.  Some are ghosts.  Some are imagined.  Some are real.  But they appear and will continue to appear.  I have to face them and know I am who I am.  If I hide I won't see the beauty, the holy in life.  I will miss the gifts I hope for at every corner I turn.