Cumartesi 29 silo'nun mensaji toplantısi

English-Turkish

Merhaba,
how are you?
as maybe you already know, I'm just arrived  from Italy
and I'd like to invite you for next saturday, 29th December, to the silo'nun mensaji weekly meeting at 7 p.m.
in Kazasker sokak 19, kat 2 Kadiköy, Istanbul

I really hope you can participate :-)

In attach the map with the adress of the "salita", where we will meet.
 I can also give you my turkish telephone number +905369931822

Greetings
Federica


Merhaba,
Nasilsiniz?

Belki biliyorsunuz, 25 Aralik'ta italya'dan istanbul'a geldim.
29 Aralik'ta Cumartesi gunu sizi Kadkoy Kazasker Sok. No 19 Kat 2 adresinde, aksam 7'de yapilacak Silo'nun Mesaji toplantisina davet ediyorum.

Umuyorum katilabilirisiniz :-)

Ekte Salita'ya ulasabilmeniz icin adresi ve haritayi gonderiyorum. Ayni zamanda bana +905369931822 numarali telefonda ulasabilirsiniz.

Selamlar,
federica

Sufi music in Istanbul.

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Even though three days have passed, I will tell you the visit we made to our musician Sufi friends. I’m sorry in advance because the report is long and not especially significant and furthermore, it can be difficult for those who don’t speak Spanish very well.

Our friend Janufi invited us, he is a Sufi musician and plays a flute called ney. He makes them from canes and once he invited us to his workshop some years ago. Eduardo is a kind of student of his and brought his ney in a black case, just in case, although in the end, he didn’t play it.

It was a group of musicians who travel the world giving concerts and celebrating their first anniversary. But we only found out after a while we were there because, in the beginning we didn’t know very well at what kind of celebration or whatever it was we were going to.

We went up a narrow staircase to the place they usually practice in. After taking off our shoes, we went into a room of about 30 meters, full of people. On its walls were hanging musical instruments of different times and places (see pictures).

There were a group of Italian women as well as characters who seemed to belong to a Central Asian adventure story. The atmosphere was friendly and we were always included and warmly treated. We were surprised since we were supposed to go to a concert, they put out tables and invites us to sorba (soup), soon followed by tavuk-pilav (rice with chicken) and finally hand-made sweets and tea.

Those attending did a round of testimonies related to the anniversary celebration. The group master, acted like chief of ceremonies, giving explanations and a warm welcome to each one of those present, sharing a good vibe, like they do when they tune the instruments, synchronizing one with the others.

After they invited us to pick up some pieces of paper, three for each person, which we could trade for presents that were numbered on a table. So we all received different presents, from a pen to a book in Spanish about Sufi mystics, as well as socks for a girl and a rosary. Since some of presents that destiny had in store for us did not really fit, there were trades and donations.

And the music began. A sweet and inspiring music. A women with mysterious beauty, dressed in white, sang from the middle of the room. Those attending, here and there, accompanied with their voices or some kind of instrument. I would be able to say where the notes took us to.

Different musicians coming from different places sang. Surprisingly and in our honor, they sang a Hungarian theme (from Magyaristan) and another one in Spanish. They gave us some music sheets so we could follow the songs.

In the end, we shared a prayer with our hands in front of our hearts, facing upwards.

We said good-bye and returned home happy and content.

Hugs. 
Alvaro.

Message meeting, Ankara

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Today we had our meeting at the Salita in Ankara.

The first one to arrive was Mehtap and we had chai together. Soon Zeynep and a new friend called Özlem came. Mehtap told her about the Message and Zeynep showed the book of the Parks and of the World March, which she looked at with great interest.

Later, Zehra arrived and we predisposed ourselves to do ceremonies. Zehra did the Service, and Yuksel joined later with the ceremony of Well Being, read by Mehtap. Everything happened in a good atmosphere.

Then we had chai, and Yusuf soon came and joined for the dinner cooked by Yuksel.

We said good-bye to everyone because tomorrow we are travelling to Istanbul.

Here are some pictures of events.

A big hug from all our friends from Ankara.

Today 8/12/2012

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Today ours was a world weekly meeting

First Emil arrived on time. He is a Hungarian-Polish monk who set up a Hare Krishna restaurant in Istanbul. He brought a big tray, of a kind of very consistent sweet he had made to feed all of the troops. There we were eating sweets and time passed and we really didn’t know who would be coming to the meeting. An hour later, Jöntürk arrived with a bunch of friends,  an African-Japanese girl, two wandering Dutch kids, two Iranians (one of them a refugee) and a very nice Mexican. Like Eduardo said, such an open and multi-cultural environment was a sign of the new world being born.

There we were talking for a long time and we didn’t really know if doing ceremonies was timely because there was no context. But finally, a good atmosphere of trust was created and everyone seemed willing to do the Well-Being ceremony when Jöntürk proposed it. Since there were so many different nationalities we didn’t know in which language to do it, until we saw the best idea was to do it in English, with simultaneous translation in farsi.

Since the experience was very good, we noticed people were thankfully surprised and it occurred easily in the affection among us. We believed that some would have stayed longer but it seemed that they already had other plans and they all left except for Emil who stayed for a good while talking about deep things with us.

One of the Iranians said he could help translating the book of the Message and introduce us to other Iranians living in different places in Turkey. We agreed to continue talking to some of the people.

A big hug,

Eduardo, Judith and Alvaro.

Message in Ankara - December 5th

 

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Today we went to the Ankara Book Fair. There we had a stand we shared with 2 other authors who signed their books. We put our materials and our super-micro-projector which showed videos.

The loudspeakers said that a Mr. Luyis Ignasyu Gomez Garcia was signing books. Some where interested in the content, other were attracted by the fact it was in Turkish and Spanish.

Some young people thanked enthusiastically Mr.  Gomez for the priviledge of signing their books. A member of Parliament, with his court of politicians and journalists also was suprised to see the book of the Message in two languages (we might have ended up on TV).

When we left, we had signed and sold 5 books. The Fair will last until the 9th. We are sending pictures of the event.

After we went to the weekly meeting.

Mehtap arrived first with a friend from work. Later Altug and Zehra arrived. We did ceremonies (service and well being) and again we used our super-micro-projector to watch "The Experience" with Turkish subtitles. This gave way to a very interesting exchange and with Altug's help translating, we could deepen.

After questions and answers that arose, the exchange became intense with tales of dreams and unusual experiences that were meaningful in our lives.
A big hug

Nacho, Alvaro y Maribel

News from Ankara and Istanbul (28 November - 3 December)

 

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Dear Friends,
Many things have happened since I wrote here the last  time, so I'll try to summarize them.

Last Tuesday Eduardo and I travelled to Ankara and we spent three days there. The "salita" was empty when we arrived (and cold :)), but very nice and clean, it is obviously taken care of. We informed all our friends that we are arriving and got to know that in the last few weeks there was no meeting of the message there. Next morning Yüksel came to see us for a short while, and in the the evening, as it was the day of the ceremony, he came back. Zehra and her daughter, Fatosh joind us as well. The others could not come. We did two very nice ceremonies a Service and a Well-being, officiated by Zehra in Turkish. After that, in an atmosphere inspired by the experiences which filled us with warm joy we had dinner together in the salita.Next day Aylin came to visit us. She can not come to the meetings on Wednesday because of her work. We were trying to communicate with her, using the little Turkish we know and with the help of google translator. We managed somehow, and had fun. I wish we could have a better communication though. In the evening we were invited to a dinner to the house of Yüksel's friend. Altug and one of his friends (Mercedes) joined us as well. Before the dinner Altug came over to the salita and had a long chat with Eduardo. Finally the five of us went to visit Yüksel's friends. We met two ladies, the little daugther of one of them and their nephew. We had a wonderful kurdish dinner, with traditional food from Urfa and had the chance to get a little insight of the life of a tranditional a family, especially women, living in a city environment.

We came back to Istanbul on Friday. By then Maribel, Alvaro and Nacho arrived from Spain. Gerardo and Dana were visiting Istanbul as well so we all had dinner together. Satuday we had the usual meeting but this time we asked some friend of ours if they could come and help us with translation. We wanted to have a little interchange about our themes and experiences with the Turkish friends, as this was a need experessed by them. We were many, the salita was full. Us foreigners (about 7) plus Ebru, Canan, Jöntürk, Yigit, Akgün (she translated for us), Pinar, Alp (he came for the first time and directly from the bookstore where he bought the Message!) and Gus (from France, Jöntürk's guest).  Eduardo gave a little introduction and then said, it was a good moment for people to ask if they have questions about the Message or else share experiences. Jöntürk had several questions and very interesting ones. The participants answered based on their personal experiences, which made it very clear that the message allows free and divers interpretations, and that the experiences can be translated in different ways.The conversation was interesting and I think it helped us to get into theme before doing the ceremony. I guess it is always an important question how to create the necessary athomosphere and consonance among participants. After a little explanation (as there were several people who participated for the first time), we did a Service, officiated by Eduardo (in Spanish) and Yigit (in Turkish).It was a deep exerpience for many of us. After the service some people had to leave, but with ones who stayed we did a Well-being for Jöntürk's friend who the night before died in a car accident. For me it was very strong, and of course I can only guess that maybe others had similar feelings. 

Maribel, Nacho and Alvaro left to Ankara yesterday and we are looking for this week's encounters and happenings in Istanbul.
Hugs, Judit