Alvaro Orus's Testimony

Trip to Turkey

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It had been feeling for a while some kind of closure in Madrid. It wasn't just if I comunicated with people or not, but more that even though I went out and participated in different things, they all tasted like something known, repetitive and an act of searching for new things was growing inside me, which didn't complete itself with anything I had around me.  Gurdjeff used to say that the soul fed on new impressions and with this pretext I take long trips from time to time to feed on new information. I think he is very right in this sense, this presentation tour of the book of Silo's Message in Turkey fit perfectly.

But it had been a while since I had last travelled and it took a while to adapt. The trip, the food, hotels, heat produce some sort of vegetative instability. Added to spending pratically all day with people, the difficulties with the language... and finally the instability of the tour itself because we never knew what would happen the day after.

Finally, after two or three days, I adapted. I believed to have understood that living unstably, not knowing what to do, produce an emptiness of references and situations which brought me at first to give more importance to my touchiness and things like that, to my problems. In some moments I thought the trip would be too long.

Already since the first days in Istanbul the project of the tour constantly changed, what we would do, where we would go. In some moments it seemed that everything fell through. But we went on with what stayed, improvising solutions according to the changing circumstance. We contacted people, new opportunities arised.

A process took place which seems to me, more or less, happened in all the cities. In a first moment we didn't really know what to do or if we would do something. Then we see possibilities and start putting together a plan. We put it in march, slowly at first. Then we continue to do things but it seems like nothing will happen. It's a kind of slow accumulation. Once in a while some whirlwinds or sparks occur, moments where good things come together, people come close, enthusiasm, anecdotes, inspirations... We continue accumulating and finally, there is a general transformation of the situation, normally coinciding with the ceremonies at the end of the day, attend by our new friends.

I realized that, really, the good and bad things I believed happened to me personally, happened to the team as well and my uncertainities resolved themselves in enthusiasms because that is what happened in general. This fact, brought me to reflect on the limits of my capacity o choose, since everything that happens to me and my possibilities is refered to the ambit where I am moving in. In other words, you can hop on a ship or another, but once you're on, the possible movements you can do, refer to the boat.

Ceremonies were daily and very intense. To me, they had special sense for what we were doing. It is as if the Message makes itself known in Turkey to give possibilities to contact persons who are looking for it or who need it.

The persons participating for the first time where very different. People with a definite interest, to a man who was there selling carpets. In almost all cases, I saw people were moved, things arrived inside and there was a change, even though they could really explain it, we felt like brothers.

Eduardo put an image to describe what happened which fit right in. He said that we were light the ones in the movie "The Concert". It is an orchestra who goes on a crazy trip to celebrate a big concert in Paris. Thousands of problems and surreal situations happen to them, but at the end the do the concert and everything is solved in moving harmony.

Another think which impressed me was the relationship among ourselves. For my part, I already participated in many trips and this kind of relationship wth the others isn't easy or at least, some things don't fit. In this trip, it's not that there weren't difficulties, there were, but everything was solving itself. All the problems, I am aware of, were converted. Maybe it is due to the general sense of our trip. I value this very much because it talks to me about the levels we reach in our teams and groups. Personally I felt gratefully friendship and how my being welcomed once in every while the good will of the others.

For the rest, in the environment, it didn't seem to me there was the crisis we were living in Spain now. But there are other problems. There are conflicts among different groups, ethnic groups, parties and religions and we notice that everything is moving underneath, like a background tension. Somethimes there is the police pressure, the repression of the system and one can perceive fear when we left the personal ambit to do public demonstration. I think the people there know all these things well, but we, as you can imagine, go with our trademark light tone and sit at the same table of opposing factions as if nothing was happening and we were all friends.

Ours is a need.