Alias Jones: Peace Love & Freedom

… sometimes very painful.

That pain is an option that we all pay dearly for.  And yet many of us (most?) choose it over and over again.

I’ve had some meaningful lessons these past couple of months in Love, and in Ego…  Some of it was on my part, and some of it was observing others.  I can’t say there’s any new headlines to report, but the subtleties have branched in may directions, and the root system is spreading and strengthening.  Beautiful, beautiful things…

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Love connects.

Ego separates.

Rumi says, “Call it Love, or emptiness… (they are the same) I only know what’s not there…”.  One student told me that “jealousy is just part of me”, but I assured her it was not.  Jealousy, guilt, fear, and many other things are simply aspects of Ego… learned habits, put into us by others… by our societies, cultures, traditions.  They are pain passed down from generation to generation.

Rumi’s “emptiness” is release of these things… this Ego.  When its gone, emptiness… And all we have is what we came into this world with… Love.

And that makes all the difference.

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I haven’t posted very much these past couple of months, and at some point I realized that this coincides with the experiences I’ve been having.  500 or more meaningful stories to tell, and I have shared many of them with a most interesting array of visitors and people I’ve met in this time.  They roll of the tongue so quickly that its tough to get them written here, and even moreso, the context within which the stories unfold and in which the stories are shared and become meaningful again probably squares the level of effort required to report them.  That’s frustrating to me.  And life is life…

But rest knowing that good things are happening and I’m finding beauty in every step, in every breath, in every seagull’s cackle, and hanging like fruit on every tree.  Its there if you look, and if you’re willing to accept it.  Love says, “Accept it.”

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Most of you know that I’ve now been on Kinali for 13 months, and that Belgin and I moved to this little island paradise together.  What I haven’t told you is that about two and a half months ago, we split and she moved back to Istanbul.

Its a difficult thing when someone you love and shared so much with - beautiful things - goes away.  I wish her well, and want all of her dreams to come true for her.

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Lots of changes happening, and we’ll get to some of them later.  But for now… Some photos…

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Sajede is a CS’er from Iran who stopped by for an afternoon island visit and decided to make a 3 or 4 day stay of it… Ahhh… Her eyes so easily confess her beautiful soul…

She loved the fluid freedom of the Marmara Sea…

Ange and Algis from Lithuania were also guests at The Hippie Pad… and also loved our little swimming hole…

Agne and Sajede with Meltem, Ozgul and Sema.  Ozgul rode the ferry with me from the mainland back to Kinaliada for much of the winter and spring as she returned from her English lessons, and me from mine.  She likes to practice, and decided to drop by with her friends one Sunday, and I’m so glad they did… I like new friends.

Meltem reads Agne’s coffee.  I read for Meltem and Ozgul…

My buddy Burak from Bursa comes to visit with his girlfriend Esra.  I met Burak in Turgutreis back in ‘07, and the good times continue…

They enjoyed their stay, brief as it was…

Some of Mama Esma’s grandchildren.  They’re back for the summer and you’ll be seeing more of them… a LOT more of them.  I’ll explain next post…

Life really is beautiful.  The pain really is optional.  Its a choice - and pain is often a very comfortable option because we’re so used to it, and told that its normal.

Ego or Love… Its a choice.

Peace. Love. Freedom.

~ Alias

… to meet some new friends, a few weeks ago.
Rezan and her brother Ugurcan allowed me to join them in their summer garden party at their family weekend home in Tuzla, about 40km or so east of Istanbul, and what a nice afternoon/evening it was.  The guests wandered in throughout the afternoon for drinks and light food, then dinner, then a garden cinema showing of a film in the evening.  Good times…

Here I am chatting with host/chef Ugurcan, with the Marmara sea in the background…

Our hostess-with-the-most-ess, Rezan…

The light is just right… I think I see a good photo opportunity in the making…

Ozlem and Mehtap allow me to take some photos… They turned out to be very good…

And of course…

The sea was very calm…

Ugurcan and Reguem and their girlfriends…

All really nice people…

Oguz and Ugurcan getting their BBQ on…

Rezan is dishing the salad, and everybody’s looking happy…

Yes… Good times…

Thanks to the hosts, Rezan and Ugurcan, and to the complete crew including Yuksel, Can and Cem.  All wonderful people..

That’s it for today.  More soon…

Peace. Love. Freedom.

~ Alias

Man… This is probably the longest pause between posts since I started this silly website.  I hope I didn’t worry anybody (elder sister is always worried about me… so you can just leave it to her). 

Everything has been going well, and I’ve been busy with lessons and, now that summer has come to Kinalida, I’ve been entertaining (and being entertained by…) guests at The Hippie Pad.

Much to report, but I’ll get to most of it later.  For now, I’ll just ease you back in the AliasJones summer groove by sharing a few photos.  Rest knowing that more will be coming…

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Yes… Its been a cats life…

Momma Gato and Yoda are doing just fine.

You guys remember Nenad from last summer.  He’s a CS’er from Croatia and arrived last Saturday for “a couple of days”, but island gravity set in (about 2x what we’re usually accustomed to), and he just left this morning.  With any luck he’ll stop back through on his way out after visiting more southern lands…

I had a little get-together for some friends last weekend, and Lumi dropped in with another CS’er.  Island gravity grabbed her as well, so she stayed a few days.  Lumi is Romanian, but has lived in Germany the past 20 years.  Nenad and I enjoyed her company, and she LOVED the freedom of the Marmara Sea.

Nenad and I as we were waiting for the ferry to the big island to pay some utility bills and have lunch…  (Do you like my David Beckham t-shirt?  I found it on the beach a couple of summers ago in Turgutreis!  I’m so… uh… sporty… I guess…)

And back at The Hippie Pad, sunset on the patio awaited us…

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Beyond the entertaining and being entertained, I’ve had some important experiences come my way that relate directly to Peace, Love & Freedom, and I am learning quite a bit on some of the more subtle aspects of each, and how they are all not just inter-related, but intertwined.  If I find the words to accurately represent them, I’ll do my best to pass them along.

But for now, let’s hear two from Rumi that lead the same direction…

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Father Reason, by Mevlana Rumi

The Universe is a form of divine law,
Your reasonable father.

When you feel ungrateful to him,
The shapes of the world seem mean and ugly.

Make peace with that father, the elegant patterning,
And every experience will fill with immediacy.

Because I love this, I am never bored.
Beauty constantly wells up like the noise of springwater
in my ear.  Tree limbs rise and fall like ecstatic arms.
Leaf sounds talk together like poets
making fresh metaphors.

The green felt cover slips;
We get a flash of the mirror underneath.

The conventional opinion of the poetry
is that it shows great optimism for the future.
But Father Reason says, No need to announce the future.

The Now is it.  Your deepest need and desire
is satisfied by this moment’s energy
here in your hand.

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Beyond Love Stories, by Mevlana Rumi

Love comes with a knife,
Not some shy question,
And not with fears for its reputation.

I say these things disinterestedly.
Accept them in kind.

Love is a madman,
Working his wild schemes,
Tearing off his clothes,
Drinking poison, and now quietly
choosing annihilation.

A tiny spider tries to wrap
an enormous wasp.  Think of the spiderweb
woven across the cave where Muhammed slept.

There are love stories,
And there is obliteration into Love.

You have been walking the ocean’s edge,
Holding up your robes to keep them dry.

You must dive deeper under,
A thousand times deeper.

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Back soon… (!)

Peace.  Love.  Freedom.

~ Alias

I guess its about time that I give you a cat update.  You know I don’t even like cats.

(this was taken this morning…)

So… You’ll recall that Mama Gato had her first litter last summer… Uno, Dos and Tres (with 3 babies’ daddies…).  All are alive and well in the village, but they don’t come around here.  They found their own good things up the hill a bit.

Then this past March - 10th, I believe - Gato had her second load of kittens… This time four.  Two babies’ daddies, one of which was not involved in the first go-round.  So that’s four babies’ daddies total, but we’re not judging.

Here is a link to the first photos of the new batch…

Its a good thing we don’t judge, too, because there were more potential fathers involved.  You see… Momma Gato is - best that I can tell - the hottest chick cat on the island, or at least in this village.  And ALL they boys come by to give her her own fair share of attention, and she rewards them kindly.

Serious… No joke… I’ve seen a line formed.  To break the uncomfortable tension (mine, not theirs), I talk to them.  “Dude… uh… I haven’t see you around before.  Where are you from?”  Usually they look at me like, “Who are you?  The police?”, and then they go back to chomping on their cigars.  For the sheer number of male cats that drops by, there seems to be a great deal of order.  Interesting.

So this time the fathers were Baba Orangie and Baba Tres from the first go-round.  They’re best buds.

But being born a village kitten is no laughing matter and you have to grow up fast because life is tough.  We lost our first kitten when a feral male broke into the cat box and attacked one of the male kittens (eliminating future competition in the gene pool).  The injury was pretty severe, and the kitten died in Belgin’s hands two mornings later. He fought hard but the injury was too much.  Not easy.

So I devised a small kitten box with small kitten doors that would fit inside the bigger cat box, so that if a cat came in again, they could retreat to the smaller box for safety.  I even built a little high-security cell in the kitten box.  The design could be patented.

Early one morning about 2 weeks after then first incident, there was an early-dawn surprise attack from a couple of local dogs.  We heard the commotion outside and I ran straight out.  Belgin ran to the back window and saw a dog running off with a kitten in its mouth.  I found another in the garden.  The third was unaccounted for.

It seems the dogs were probably passing on the street and saw the kittens playing in the garden, and ran around the back way because they couldn’t get through the front gate.  Outside of the protection of the box, and at only about 6 weeks, they were pretty much defenseless.  I thought we lost them all.  But the one we tended to call Yoda came in the next morning - apparently she had been hiding somewhere.

The last survivor, now officially named Yoda I think, is in the last 3 photos of this story…  Cute and scary.

So here we are now in the 12th week of this drama, and here’s the latest…

About ten days ago Belgin and I took Gato and Yoda to the Vet.  Momma had to be fixed… I just couldn’t take this anymore… Having to jump up and run outside every time I hear a kitten noise.  This ain’t living.  And cats just get weird when their in heat, man… Weird.  She climbs the curtains, runs outside, has sex, runs back in and rolls around on the floor for 10 minutes, then climbs the curtains, runs outside etc. etc… For a week at a time.

I mean… She even was doing this routine like two weeks ago.  I hear a noise like a cat war outside the door and walk out.  I wish I had a nickel for every time I opened the door and said, “Damn, Gato… In front of the kitten?”  No… This ain’t living.  So we did what we had to do.

So as we were preparing for the spay, Yoda comes home hobbling on 3 legs, with the right front paw tucked up under her.  She was getting nearly cat-fast and agile, but apparently she pushed her limits and I figured she’d broke a leg.  But the x-ray showed no break… Likely just a sprain.  She’s using it now at about 70% or so, and now that she’s back in the garden and getting to exercise it, I’m pretty sure she’ll be back to 100% soon.

Every morning I take the Village Cat Toy (the stick-with-the-string-tied-to-it-with-a-little-wood-chip-tied-to-the-string toy (you can get something like it for $15 at PetSmart, made in China)) and conduct speed and agility training in the garden for about an hour.  Its a good way to start the day.  Gato mostly observes, and attacks Yoda in between to show her some new moves.  It takes a village to raise a kitten that can survive in the village.

I took these two photos a couple of weeks ago…

So both Gato and Yoda are doing well.  Here’s another photo from this morning, after they returned from some off-site training.

Gato really is a wonderful mama… She has a lot of love for Yoda and takes great care to get her ready for the world, as fast as possible.  I’ll never forget in that first week when she was telling them…

“You have to grow up fast!  The first step is opening your eyes.  Until you open your eyes and see what’s around you, you’ll be helpless to adapt or respond.  Open those eyes!

Things aren’t as scary as they seem, but you have to be able to recognize the real dangers, and you have to know how they operate.  You can’t just pretend they don’t exist, but once you know how they operate you’re halfway there.  Then the magic is in understanding how to respond - You want to be able to think clearly, and move fast.  Fear won’t help you.  Recognizing where the danger is coming from will.  Wax on, wax off.”

Here in the village we learn lessons the hard way, but as you can see, life goes on and all is well at present.  (As I write, Gato is kicking Yoda’s butt in the bahce (garden)).

Yeah… Life is good.

Peace. Love. Freedom.

~ Alias

A Kinaliada sunset from a few days ago…

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I found this recently… liked it… thought I’d share…

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An Essay on Freedom - Author Unknown

I know not of any country where the government tells its citizens that they live in a terrible state and need to consider finding another country and government to live better. Even here in the United States we endure very expensive campaigns of propaganda to convince the masses what a wonderful country we live in and how well our democracy works. Why would we need constant reminders of the obvious truths?

I feel that wherever you go the system is exactly the same, not matter what you call the government, or social system. Any country that you and I could visit together has citizens that own nice cars and live in grand houses, any country. These nations also have many citizens that “have not!” The only major difference is the proportion of citizens related to those who have and those who have not. Each society works on the privilege system and there are those that have them and those that don’t.

I live in the United States of America and it is obvious that I live in a society that not only encourages keeping your mouth shut and willingly doing what you are told, without questioning it, these traits are also rewarded. Thinking for yourself, exercising your right to question, or say no, is not only discouraged, it rarely goes unpunished.

I live in a society where I have the right to conduct my affairs to the point, and in a manner, that I need never be confronted by the legal system. My failure to conduct my affairs in that manner presents a reality to the court. “I have not conducted my affairs in that manner or I would not be before the court.” My constitutional rights are not guaranteed, or I would not need to desperately know what they are and how to exercise them.

Any citizen of this planet lives in a society that deceives them and has acquired these expert skills from many centuries of applying these skills. Reality can often prove unpleasant, but not knowing can be even more confusing when you have no idea what you are really up against trying to survive and fit in.

Our nation’s founding fathers knew well the need to have a government that could not accuse it’s citizens of crimes except treason. Another citizen had to accuse you of crimes so that the courts could maintain an impartial system of equity, compensation, and justice and be an impartial witness for both parties. Now, our government not only accuses the citizens of crimes, it is a witness against them and then also decides whether the accused is innocent, or guilty. In earlier times, our present government had no standing, or jurisdiction, or authority, to accuse it’s citizens of crimes, only an injured party had that standing and right to seek that right to compensation before our court system. How things have changed, and how easily forgot, the ideals of our founding fathers, or the reasons for these ideals. A working system must keep our government honest and out of our affairs without a proper cause.

Nowhere has it ever been stated that freedom, liberty, and justice comes easily, in fact history shows that freedoms are won, and maintained by the greatest of efforts, and on many occasions, at the cost of life and limb. Maintaining these hard won liberties is not easy except through the diligence of those who know liberty and freedom, value liberty and freedom, and have been willing to sacrifice in order to maintain liberty, justice, and freedom, and not just for themselves but for all.

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Back soon with more…

Peace. Love. Freedom.

~ Alias