Report of the trip to Istanbul and Ankara from October 31st to November 5th. Manuela

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We arrived at Ataturk airport with Tommaso at 2:00 a.m. and an hour later at the house/salita. There I met Huseyin and, from the first moment I thought I was in front of a small “Gandhi”, I recognized we were on the same path and perceived a strong feeling of friendship towards him.
The next day, after breakfast, we went on a short walk around the neighborhood and very quickly, we found ourselves in a small street where we met Canan, an artist and her friend Ismael.
They invited us to chai and, from the very first moment, a very light atmosphere was created. The sensation I had facing this woman, whom I had seen for the first time, was of Recognition and this experience helped to find my place in the Message and perceive its action. Although she didn’t speak much English and I didn’t speak much Turkish, thanks to our some glances and smiles, I experienced a very profound contact.
It seemed obvious to me that “passing the Message” does not mean to pass a doctrine but a lifestyle, a way of living. I saw that it is something lighter, something which passes through an atmosphere that is created and reaches far beyond words because it is developed from another center.
Tommaso invited them to the Salita, Sunday night for ceremonies and to share experiences with us.
At one in the afternoon we took a bus to Ankara, arriving at home at 7:00 p.m. Huseyin was there to welcome us. We started sharing with him the experiences of the day and we waited for Yuksel and Handan who also said they would pass by. I was very impressed with the force with which they expressed they were a community, we could see the ambit was a reference to them and that they wanted to create a good atmosphere for us. Handan asked if we wanted to do ceremonies and we did a Service and Well Being, in Turkish only. Personally, I felt a part of this community from the beginning because I recognized behind this different landscape from where we came, the same direction and the same meaning.
The next morning, as always when I am in Turkey, I woke up without any idea of what would happen during the day.
We went out with the idea to charge gas for the house and visit Babil café where, on the next day, we would do a book presentation. There we met Huseyin and Yuksel and after a while Hulya arrived. A very beautiful interchange ambit was also create here, inside this place which doesn’t seem to belong to this century but to the preceding one, when writers and artists met in cafes to interchange about their works.
The impression I have is that here things are fixed from another dynamic and, if at the beginning of the day, it seems that nothing happens, in the end, you realize how many things happened and how all of them relate with the intention of the Message.
At 7:00 p.m. we went with Eduardo, Tommaso and Huseyin to café Leman. It is a very modern, very Western place, with really loud music and young people who drink. We went there because every week there is a interchange table of young University students who meet there to practice foreign languages. In the beginning, I felt a little awkward in a situation which seemed unreal to me, but, thanks to the Message, I managed to center myself again and realize the opportunity the situation was offering me. We arrived with some materials with the description of the book in Turkish and, since we were foreigners, almost everyone approached to practice a different language with us. Of course, the first question was always “what are you doing here?” and this made our job a lot easier and opened the path to talk to them about the Message, of the intention of opening a Park in Turkey and about Silo’s work. This situation made me understand that wherever you go, you have the chance of “feeling at home”, if you have a clear direction and intention in what you’re doing. I spoke with many persons and, although nobody asked any questions, nor demonstrated a real interest in what I was commenting, I was very happy for this opportunity I had. Only one boy, who had talked to Eduardo for a long time, seemed to me to enter in the same frequency we were in; in fact, we saw him on the next day at the presentation in Babil Café.
At midnight we went to the bus station to pick up Christoph and Denis who were arriving from France. I was very happy to see them, and on entering the house with them I could feel the atmosphere had changed and we could count on new energies and strong intentions.
The next morning seemed to me a repetition of the days before: nobody had clear ideas about what to do and we all wanted to schedule things thinking they depended on us… almost forgetting how the Message works…
In the end we went out to Café Babil, ordered chai and started to distribute materials of the book presentation to those who were ver. I really liked to see that for us, the important thing wasn’t so much the peoples’ reaction but the enjoyment of talking about Silo and his work. We talked conscious that we had a great gift to offer and we could only hope to meet someone who was looking for it.
After eating and taking a small nap, we went back to Babil Café at 5:00 p.m. for the book presentation.
The development of the situation was what allowed me to definitely change the emotional climate and made me understand why I was there.
We arrived there, a little before five and we were very prepared, with many books of the Message, the book of the Parks and some materials in Turkish. As we suspected, nobody was there.
So we went out to the street with Christophe and Denis to distribute some naterials and we found ourselves in a situation which seemed to me very much like “Milan”, nobody stopped and when they realized we wanted to give them materials, they lowered their eyes and changed direction. How strange I thought, very different from the situations I lived in during the presentation tour last summer!!!
We went back to the Café, a bit down, and sat with the others. Little by little the situation changed: all the friends of the Ankara community started arriving.:
Zehra came, after a while Aylin and Hülya, Yalcin and finally Handan who came with a “new” friend. So, in a short time the situation transformed itself and started taking a different form.
Since we had an “invited person” we could start the presentation. It was carried out by Christophe and Denis in French with Hulya translating into Turkish. A very moving atmosphere was created, with our new friend asking questions and the “old” people of the community very connected in trying to give her not only an answer but also an experience.
At the end of the presentation, which lasted for quite a while, another one of Handan’s friends came, as well as the boy we had met yesterday night at Café Leman. They sat with us having chai and quickly entered the atmosphere.
To end the presentation in the best of ways, Handan proposed to do some ceremonies. She asked permission to the owner of the café and invited him to participate. It was very unusual being seated in a circle, almost 15 people, in a public situation in Turkey, when generally “ours” are scared of only distributing some materials on the street…! But in this circumstance everything seemed normal and natural… there were three new friends in the circle: two of Handan’s friends and the owner of the Café. The boy we had met the day before sat a little to the side saying he preferred to watch once before participating. Handan did a Service which completely changed the frequency of everyone who was there and helped everyone let go of inhibitions and make askings for Well Being. Huseyin did the Well Being ceremony which completed the change in atmosphere and invited everyone to join in the final hugs. There we saw people being moved and “feeling” themselves, we saw the owner’s face transforming and we saw him put the card saying “Here it tells how the non-meaning of life can be converted into meaning and fulfillment” on the door of the café, saying that from that moment on, the purpose of that café would be to follow that principle. We also saw the other new friend, who didn’t want to participate in the beginning, approach without censure and participate in the ceremony and the final hugs.
We were floating in the air thanks to these emotions and went back home full of joy and force.
The next morning we left for Istanbul with Eduardo and Tommaso. During the trip, Eduardo was sending sms to friends informing them that at six we were having ceremonies in the salita. Before arriving, he received an sms from a girl, Joana, who said she was a friend of Isabel Torres from Rome and that she was in Istanbul with her boyfriend and wanted to meet him. We arranged to meet at the bus station and we went together to the Salita. On arriving, I felt I was in a very unusual situation: we were two Italians, one Spaniard and two Brazilians in the Salita of Silo’s Message in Istanbul!!!
When we started to talk I found out the only contact they had with us was during a Well Being ceremony in a friend’s house in Brazil years ago… and again I recognized in this situation something familiar without understanding what it was… an hour later Elena arrived, an Italian girl who lives in Berlin and who Eduardo met through couchsurfing and who participated in a meeting last week and a friend of hers from Istanbul, Murat. The situation was animated and everyone started speaking freely, creating a very joyful atmosphere of sharing.
Silo’s Message was something new to everyone but the ambit that was created made me think there was something uniting us that we didn’t know yet.
The ceremony we shared increased the experience of this different “frequency” which can unite persons who never saw each other before.
After the ceremonies, the situation was even more animated because Jonturk came with a friend from Alaska who lived half of his life in the States and the other half in Spain. A while later and Ana, Eduardo’s daughter who now lives in Istanbul, also came. In the end we were two Italians, two Spaniards, two Brazilians, two Turks and a boy from Alaska who was there for the first time!!
In this circumstance I lived an experience of mundialization and I perceived the great difference there is between Ankara and Istanbul, because yes, one can talk of trying to divulge the Message in Turkey thinking about the situation taking form in Ankara, but the same does not go for Istanbul, because Istanbul is not Turkey, but a point of union between the most different ethnic groups and cultures of the whole world.
Taking part in this experience made me think that if we manage to open a Park close to Istanbul, it will not be the Turkish Park but the Park of the world!!!
 Thank you very much and a very big hug to all,
Manuela