Ertugrul

This memory appeared interestingly after over 10 years.

I had had the privilege to visit the temple that some of the Turkish soldiers were treated and taken care of in, after their ship Ertugrul sank in a typhoon on September 16th, 1890 at the rocky shores of the Ooshima Island in Kushimoto, Wakayama, Japan.

532 soldiers had lost their lives and 69 could survive thanks to the search and rescue efforts carried out by the local people, the Japanese authorities and the German ship Volf and the Japanese ship Buci Maro.

I am and will always be deeply grateful to Lion Mr. Seiji Mukaiyama, a member of the Wakayama Lions Club for taking me to Kushimoto and Ooshima, to the Memorial Site for our soldiers, the Turkish Museum on the Island. Mr. Mukaiyama even introduced me to the mayor of the town in this visit. Thank you Mr. Mukaiyama. ありがとうございました.

It was very touching and heartwarming to see how the Japanese people are still so gently caring for our soldiers who are resting there with utmost respect for their memory.

That day will always be one of the most precious days of my life.

And I hope in the future I can visit the Ooshima Island and our soldiers again. May they rest in peace.

For Love and Peace

Most of you know that, in our before Covid life, I loved to travel. Seeing new places always intrigues and uplifts me, also makes me aware how we are all connected. I love that feeling of oneness. 

There have been only two places that have been to that left me with a different feeling of deep sadness. 

One was Sarajevo. In that beautiful city with its beautiful people, I experienced a different sadness that seemed to still linger in that city, and I had one of the most restless nights of my life without almost any sleep. My prayers are always with Sarajevo.

The second place was a museum. 

The Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum. 

I have been to Japan many times and my visit to Hiroshima was on my fourth or fifth visit to Japan. I had been to a Lions Club Convention in Fukuoka and after the convention, we were travelling in Japan with the Turkish Delegation. When we arrived in Hiroshima that day in July 2016, I was moved in general to visit to this city, and yet I was happy to be able to visit this city and in a way, I am not sure how to express this properly, but I was happy to be able to have the chance to to send love and blessings to this city that has been through great suffering. 

The city seemed to have a gentle energy and I was amazed at how peaceful and pleasant the city was given what it had been through.

Yet, what I would experience shortly would be drastically different.

We were to visit the Peace Memorial Museum. 

Shortly after we entered the Museum building and started to look at the exhibits, I stared to feel this strange rush of feelings. Feelings of pain, of sadness that seemed to overwhelm me. It took me a while to understand what I was feeling and experiencing. It felt like I was suffocating. 

I drank a little water and not to disturb anyone I decided to move a little faster. We were a group of almost 100 people, yet the feeling was getting stronger and stronger. I realized that I was not able to look at the images and exhibits any more. It was just too much. 

And I found myself almost runnig out of the building.

I still remember as I went down some stairs and outside, it felt as if I was running for my life. And I also still remember the relief that I felt as I was finally outside.

It took me a few minutes to collect myself, trying to understand what had just happenned.

After about five minutes, I looked at my phone to check the time. I had over half an hour before we were to get together with our group. And I spent the next half hour strolling in the Memorial Park in which the Museum was located. At one point, I found myself looking at the Atomic Bomb Dome from a distance, the only building that was left standing from the 1945 explosion, which was now a World Heritage Site. What I was feeling or rather experiencing at that point was more of an incomprehension. Incomprehentsion of what had taken place and how it could have. 

I love being in Japan. It is one of the places that I feel most peaceful and happy. The gentleness and kindness that I experience there, with people that know and that I do not know is so comforting, it is impossible not to miss that feeling.

On this anniversary day of one the most heartbreaking days of human history, my heart and soul wishes and prays for peace for all on our beautiful planet.

Monet, Japanese Gardens and a City Called Istanbul

I was in Fethiye when the Monet exhibition “Monet’s Garden” opened at the SSM Sakip Sabanci Museum in Istanbul.  I saw the exhibition twelve days later on a sunny and relatively warm Wednesday morning.  And I was not sure if this exhibition was about Monet’s paintings.  It seemed to be more about a man wanting to be known better.

I had seen Monet’s paintings in different parts of the world before.  At the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. In Paris.  Even in Japan, at the Ohare Museum of Art.  I had various books on Monet, including a huge one by Sandro Sproccati as well. Yet, on the day that I visited this exhibition, seven days after this French painter was born in Paris in 1840, I was realizing that when I am faced the energy of his paintings, he was becoming alive.

I have been to different museums around the world.  I had encounters with paintings that did take my breath away.  Pictures that moved me even days after I visited them.  I saw paintings that touched me beyond description when I saw them with my bare eyes even if I knew them so very well through books and the media.  J.M.W. Turner is one painter that I fell in love with after seeing his paintings in an exhibition in Zurich.  When standing in front of one of his paintings, it is impossible to resist the charm of the effect of the light. He is surely “the painter of light.” Seeing a Turner with your own eyes cannot compare in any way with seeing a Turner painting in a book or on paper or on screen.  There is something is his paintings that no camera seems to be able to capture.

With Monet, I had always loved his paintings, since I was a kid.  They were everywhere.  The water lilies especially.  Who would not love Monet? With the pastel colours, with the pinks and the greens, the purples with dashes of white and the shades of the sun?

Well, as I was looking at the paintings at the exhibition, which were brought to Turkey from the Musée Marmottan Monet in Paris, I was being faced with the fact that the Claude Monet that I thought I knew.  Here was a man infatuated with nature, with his garden.  A man who wanted to capture what he loved to be near and what he loved to see, but seems to be losing himself in what he was looking at when he is painting.

I cannot say the the paintings at the “Monet’s Garden” exhibition are even the best of Monet that I had seen.  For me, it was not one of those exhibitions where a painting really captures my heart and soul.  There were very few paintings that had a special light, a special energy for me.  It was more like feeling Monet’s heart, and may be more if his sad days than the happier ones.  Seeing his paintings as a part of big exhibitions in different museum, Monet had reflected feelings of serene joy and peaceful happiness for me. Until the day I visited the exhibition in Istanbul.

As I was looking at the painting one after the other, I felt the heart of a man who wanted to be remembered.  It was as if we were faced not with the energy of his paintings, but the energy of his own soul.  I looked and looked again to be impressed, and I was faced with the same message.  It was him not his paintings that wanted to be known.

So that evening, I found myself collecting all of the books that I have on Monet as well as the “Monet’s Garden” exhibition book, as well as book on Japanese Gardens, to understand this man as well as trying to understand what he might have wanted to bring into his wife with “The Japanese Bridge” which he depicted in so many of his painting in the ever growing fabulous garden of his.

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As I was driving back from the exhibition to my apartment in Arnavutkoy, I passed by  Japanese Garden in Baltalimani.  I remembered how frequently I think of Japan, how I love Kyoto and the gardens of the temples in that beautiful city.  I found myself wondering if Monet had ever made it to Japan and what was behind his admiration with the Far Eastern Culture.

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I love Japan.  There is no doubt about it.  My soul finds a hard to define peacefulness there.  Yet, I love Fethiye as well.  I feel strangely complete in this small city.  I cannot not come back. 

And then there is Istanbul.  A city full of people struggling. People fighting with themselves as well those that they love.   A city that makes us forget what we are made of.  I was born in Istanbul.  I was raised there.  I lived there.  It was all that I had before Fethiye.  I did not have a home town, another home city that I could go to or go back to . Neither did my mother or my late father have.  Istanbul was all that we had. And maybe it is still all that we have in this beautiful and complicated country of ours where our heart, mind and soul face its demons, joys, questions and triumphs.  It will continue to be a city that many of us run away from but also cannot help from coming back to.

The “Monet’s Garden” Exhibition will be on display until January 6^th, 2013 at the Sakip Sabanci Museum in.

A Time, A Place, Istanbul, Korea, Soldiers and More

At the end of last summer when I was in London for the last time, I was sure I was going to be in London for the Olympic Games this summer.  As it turned out I wasn’t.  Actually I even barely found the time to watch the games.  The Turkish team was represented by 114 athletes in 16 sports in London, 66 women and 48 men.  This was the game Turkey was represented by the highest number of women athletes.  This surely is a good sign.  However, the difficulties women are facing in Turkey are not diminishing.

I was in Seoul, Korea for the first time in June this year and as I was visiting the National Museum of Korea, I could not be but surprised that a special exhibition “Emperors In Istanbul, The Civilizations of Turkey” had opened in addition to the permanent collection.  I would be in Seoul for only two days and I found the chance to see very important historical artefacts from our history and from Istanbul.  Some of them I had seen for many times at the Topkapi Palace or Istanbul Archeology Museum, but so many more of them, I was seeing for the first time in Seoul. I was surprised, happy and also impressed by the way the exhibition was put together at this National Museum.

A few years ago I had found myself discovering the close relationship between Japan and Turkey through the tragic story of the Ottoman Ship Ertugrul.  And now I was discovering in quite coincidental ways the relationship between Korea and Turkey.  May be there only two important sites where Turkish soldiers are buried in the Far East.  One of them is in Japan and the other one is in Korea.  And in the last two years I find myself visiting our soldiers in both of them in the most unexpected ways.

 

Life seems to coordinate the paths and take me there.  This special exhibition on Turkey was organized to honour and celebrate the 55^th anniversary of the friendship and close diplomatic relations between Korea and Turkey since the Korean War, in which Turkey had provided military support to Korea from 1950 to 1953.  Over 1000 Turkish soldiers lost their lives in Korea in that War and are still resting there.

I had not planned to see this exhibition as I had not planned to visit the UN cemetery where our Turkish soldiers are resting in Busan in Korea, on the specific day that the soldiers who lost their lives in the Korean War are honoured and commemorated in Korea.  But I was there, in Busan, on June 25^th, 2012.  I was praying for them there when whole of Korea was praying for them as well. 

Life surely has its special order when it comes to times and places.

We might think that we go to a certain city or country because we want to or choose to.  The way I see it now, this is a much more complicated process.  A process we are not usually aware of. 

And exactly for that reason when we need to go to a place that we do not want, we start complaining.  Sometimes we plan to go a city for a business trip. Then we are told we cannot go.  We feel we have been cheated.  We sign up for a tour, then the trip is cancelled and we are dismal. We wanted something, it did not happen, and surely this must be something bad.  Right? 

The reasons we believe things are happening or not happening for might create heaven or hell for us.  We are out of the group for the business trip to Italy and we criticize ourselves for not being good enough to be chosen to go, or we start complaining about how thoughtless and unappreciative our manager, who is not taking as we the company group, is.  It is just not that simple.  Your manager might indeed in unappreciative of your efforts, but he or she still might be making the best decision for you.

When something does not seem to be happening as planned, there are two options.  Either we have to push harder and/or find a way to make it happen or it is not supposed to happen and/or we are supposed to give up or do something else.  Understanding which one we are faced with can make a great difference in our happiness and success.  As work with hundreds of different people in my coaching and consulting work, I realize that main bulk of the work that we do is about understanding this very concept.

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There is a time for everything, a time to go, a time to come.  There is time to know.  And sometimes the universe will want us to sit and wait and do nothing.  All are a gift, as life is.

I chose a card from the “Saints & Angels” Oracle Cards of Doreen Virtue.  The card of “Sweetness” came.  This message is from our Guardian Angels for this week.  The message is about noticing and enjoying life more.  It is about trusting that the support of the spiritual world will be with us if we choose to lower our defences.  Life does toughen us up at times, yet we need to connect with the sweetness of life, with our sweetness to enjoy life.  And our relationships need that sweetness to, through speaking with love, of love, through being kind and generous.

May your days be filled with love and light.

Have a great week.

Zeynep

Zeynep.Kocasinan@gmail.com

http://www.zeynepkocasinanenglish.blogspot.com/

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Quote of the Week:

“As you teach so will you learn.  If that is true, and it is true indeed, do not forget that what you teach is teaching you.”

-          From  Course in Miracles

Affirmation of the Week:

From Louise L. Hay:  “The Law of Attraction brings only good into my life.”

MIHO GRANDAMA Arte della Lucce - An Exhibition or Much More?

I was in Japan again this May, to attend The Grand Sampai, Annual Ceremony and Meetings in Misono, The International Headquarters of The Shumei Foundation in Japan. This was my third year in a row to attend. I arrived in Japan on May 1st with directors of The Shumei Istanbul Center and two Turkish friends. Kyoto was our first stop. The next day, on May 2nd we were headed for The Miho Museum.

Miho has been a special place for me since I learned about The Japanese Organisation Shumei. I remember clearly the day that I watched the movie “The Museum on the Mountain.” I was amazed by the ingenuity of both the Founder of the museum, Mrs. Mihoko Koyama, known as Kaishusama in Shumei, and the famous Chinese-American architect I.M. Pei who was able to understand Kaishusama and was able to execute her desire to create a sacred place for beauty, art and spiritual healing and transformation.

The path to Miho Museum is an adventure in itself. First of all going to Shigaraki Mountains in the Shiga Region in Japan means going to the mountains and leaving the busy-ness behind.
After you reach the entrance area of the museum, a different adventure begins. Oh the path from the reception area of the museum to the main building... I was almost mesmerized by the view of this path when I watched the movie about the construction of the Miho Museum.

I know that my words will not be enough to express my feelings, especially since English is my second language. Even in Turkish, in my mother tongue this could be tough. Miho Museum is a place that both my soul and my body want to return to. I have been to this special place three times. I went there each time I was in Japan since I learned about its existence and every time departing has been tough. For the last three years I have been spending a day of my each year in Miho. I was there on May 2nd in 2009 and this year I was there on May 2nd as well. And I feel as if, if I was late to go for one more day, it would have been too late. Strange feeling. Strange, but true.

This museum has been built on an environmentally protected area in the mountains and surely it has achieved that intention of protecting what is valuable and beautiful both in nature and in art. I have been to many museums around the world; I have been impressed by many artists and museums as well, however, I have never fallen in love with a museum, never before Miho.
The Miho Museum is one of the places on this planet that I crave to visit, that I long to be on the grounds of. The buildings are amazing, the walk path, the tunnel that takes you to the museum is to die for, but it is not just about these pieces. There is something more. Maybe it is the intention of its founders to create a sacred space for the soul that would heal with love and beauty. Would I have a better idea if I had the chance to meet Mrs. Mihoko Koyama, Kaishusama, before she passed away in? I don’t know. What I know is that I am in Turkey now and I just cannot wait to go back.

Strange feeling.

The Miho Museum has a permanent collection and also each year a new exhibition welcomes its visitors. The first year I visited Miho there was a Yosa Buson Exhibition. Buson is a very famous Japanese poet, but in the exhibition a different facet of Buson was in front of our eyes. I had deeply appreciated that exhibition.

Last year what had impressed was the newly acquired Jibo Kannon, named Miho Jibo Kannon. This special tapestry piece had a different kind of energy. The figure of the child in the tapestry had given me a sense of hope, of growth and change. Yet, this year seeing Jibo Kannon for the second time, as a part of a new exhibition, Miho’s Merciful Mother Kannon, Jibo Kannon seems to speak to me on a lot more personal level.

This year’s spring exhibition, “MIHO GRANDAMA Arte della Luce” is a celebration for the 100th Birthday of Mrs. Mihoko Koyama, Kaishusama. This exhibition is fabulous displaying the best of the best from the Miho Collection. Yet, still it is not only why the exhibition is great. The energy of Kaishusama seems to be lingering in the exhibition rooms. I have always felt her presence and especially her intention for this museum when I have been in Miho. However, this time the feeling has something different and more. It is as if she let the veil down for us to see who she really is, through her letting Miho display what she loves, what she chose, what she cared for. And what she thought was necessary for others to see as well.

The Jibo Kannon was the last piece of the exhibition. Impressed as I was last year, this year The Kannon seemed at home and ever more shining. As I was looking at the details of the tapestry, listening to the sound of the music in the room and looking at the flower display chosen for The Kannon, I realized that The Kannon was talking to me. “Kid, when you grow, a whole world will open up to you. We are protecting you. Smile and be patient. When the time comes, you will grow. Take your time to grow. Smile....” I found myself looking into my bag to find a pen and paper, and started to write these words on the Miho notebook I had just bought. The words continued “Ask and God will give you. There is always light.” It was as if golden light was sparkling from the tapestry as I was trying to write these words down in my notebook. “Be patient and you will know. Come back when you feel like it. Allow yourself time to grow.”
Yes, there had been questions in my mind. As I always seemed to do. And my questions were heard and answered in quite an unexpected manner. And not because I was told to smile, I just could not help but smile as I left the exhibition rooms of Grandama.

The Grandama exhibition had other messages for me as well through Kaishusama’s selections. And also through the curators of the exhibition. These people have been excellent channels whom I feel have put their hearts and soul to reflect who Kaishusama really is and what she wants to conveys with the Miho Grandama Exhibition.

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You could tell me that The Miho is just a museum; I would have to tell you to look again...

Fethiye with Snow on the Mountains

I came to Fethiye last night after about a month. It is interesting to see that there is still snow on the mountains. Last night the streets were wet in Dalaman when I arrived and Fethiye was much cooler than I expected. I missed this lovely piece of the world. No matter how much I like travelling, I love coming back home. My zodiac sign is Gemini and maybe like the air elemen this sign belongs to I love travelling and flying to different places of the world. I like change, trying new things and meeting new people. Yet may be because I was born on the first day of the sign, there are some astrologists who consider that day the second day of the month of Gemini, on May 22 I see myself display some Taurian qualities at strange times. Of course if you ask a Kabalistic Astrologist, he or she may say that is only natural since I am born in the sign of Taurus according to Kabalistic Astrology, which takes into consideration both signs, one determined by the sun and the other by the moon.

I was not going to talk about astrology, where did this come from now? Well, today is May 22 and it is my birthday. Birthdays definitely change their meaning as the years pass, at least for me. For the last few years I feel like I am at the completion of a project at the end of each age. Not better or worse, but as if one adventure ended and a new one will begin. As I have been studying various energy healing techniques over the years, I am becoming more and more sensitive to the energy that seems to welcome us at our birthdays. A new energy, a new package of possibilities arrives at our doorstep on our birthday and stay with us for about a year. Of course as the end of our birth year approaches, the energy of the coming year can be felt a little as well. As there is a specific energy available for us each and every day, there is a different energy available for us starting with our birthdays every year. There are 22 main energy times with many many variations. Therefore you will probably experience some similar energies over your life time, yet some you may experience 3-4 times and some maybe only once.

Maybe that is one of the reasons all teachings ancient and new talk about the importance ‘being in the now’ and ‘experiencing today’. The same energy may never be available to you again. And this is a good thing. Life continuously brings us new opportunities and changes. As I look ten years back today, I would have never ever imaged myself sitting in front of my computer on a cloudy but wonderful Fethiye morning writing an article for the Land of Lights newspaper in Fethiye. I was a person of plans, so I indeed had many plans and programs, and they did not turn out to be as I planned. Yet, I am also thankful that they did turn out the way they actually did.

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When I was in Japan, I had the chance to stay at the home of a wonderful family while I was visiting the headquarters of Shumei, Misono, and The Miho Museum in the Shigaraki Mountains. The family had two wonderful kids, Haruka-Chan, age 6, and Chisato-Chan, age 3.

And if I remember correctly on the third day of my stay in their home, we discovered that their mother, Sachiko-San was born on the same day as I. The same day, May 22nd, 1970.

It was a nice surprise, and I was not surprised at the same time. I had felt very close to this joyful, happy, loving and caring woman from the first moment I saw her. Maybe it was from seeing the piano in their home, or it was her smile, or her natural and peaceful care. In her approach to life, there is joy, there is happiness and love, all very natural and true. Today I cannot help but think of my ‘twin sister’ in Moriyama, Japan. I wish you a very happy birthday Sachiko-San. And hope to see you soon in Turkey or in Japan.


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As I got together with a friend late last night, I got good news and bad news at the same time. ... I learned that one of my precious friends in Fethiye, Rose, lost her beloved daughter. It is hard to find the words... I just want to send Rose my love and wish her strength and patience...

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This week I would like to end by sharing a short section from Michael Gelb’s famous book How To Think Like Leonardo Da Vinci:

“You can witness an ironic testament to Leonardo’s lament when you next visit the Louvre. As you approach the Mona Lisa, you will see a number of signs, written in large letters and different languages, reading: “No Flash Photography, Please.” As you attempt to take in the subtleties of this most mysterious of all paintings, you’ll find yourself almost blinded by the stroboscopic effect of the nonstop camera flashes of the Philistines who never bother to stop and actually look at the painting.”

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May your days be filled with love and light,
Zeynep.

I'm Back Home

After being away in Japan with no cell phone connections for over two weeks have been an interesting experience for me. I have been traveling to various cities and centers and now that I am back I find not that easy to be here in Istanbul totally yet. This may take a few days. May be partly due to the jet-lag, my soul might need to catch up with my body which seems to be traveling at a faster pace. The traveling schedule was also quite full which in a way required me to be in Japan totally with mind, body and soul. I am trying to digest what I really experienced. There was a lot about spirituality, a lot about friendship and connecting with Japan and Japanese people. Once again I felt I was deeply connected with this land of Islands.

My first trip to Japan was last year, and everything had felt strangely familiar during that trip also. This time there is no doubt. With people I meet in Japan, I kept on having this lovely strange feeling of meeting old acquaintances, in every city I went to, one after the other. I do not question it any more, I just welcome and appreciate.

This time in Japan I had the opportunity to visit many temples and shrines in different parts of the country. Tokyo was a lot less chaotic than I expected. Yokohama was really fresh like the breeze called Hamakaze Yokohama is famous for.

There is an amazing attention to details in Japan. People carry this energy of loving whatever that they are doing. The love may not come naturally, but they seem to be able to add that love and care that seems to make a great difference.

In general there are also amazing similarities between the Turkish and the Japanese cultures. The futon beds on the floor remind me of the floor-beds I have seen in rural areas all around Turkey. Use of home slippers is quite a common tradition in Turkey as well as in Japan. And there are many more similarities. Yet, I could not help but think that there is a lot more to learn about dedication, respect, care and attention to life, to people and to details in Japan.

I believe I still need to allow some time to let my soul to completely arrive back home. So this week I will share more pictures with you than words, hoping that they speak louder.

I send my love to you all and hope to see you soon.

Zeynep

With Love from Japan

Here I am in Japan.

Yesterday, on May 4th, I gave my speech in front of about ten thousand people at Meishusama Hall in Misono in Shigaraki Mountains.

Japan is so different and so very familiar in many ways.

I have been on a very busy schedule since we arrived and will keep on travelling to various different locations.

I would like to say many things, however I will probably need to wait to write about them until I come back to Turkey.

I would like to say that there is a lot of love and respect for Turkey.

I send you a picture taken in front of the Meishusama Hall where I gave my speech, and send all of you love and light.

Ah, one more interesting note, yesterday as I was walking to the Hall for the rehearsal of the speech at 7 am with my friends Chikako and Satoru Nakano, I saw an ad for a photography exhibition. If I recall correctly the title of the exhibition was ‘The Hallowed Land of Light’. Some of the pictures in the exhibition were taken in where I was, in Misono in the Shigaraki Mountais. I could not help myself from thinking about our wonderful Land of Lights, the wonderful area of Fethiye and its environs and our Land of Lights newspaper.

In my speech in one section I talked about coincidences and how they show us maybe more than we realize and about the messages that they store for us. I am thankful that they are happening wherever I am around the world.

I wish you all many happy coincidences and miracles.
With love and light from Japan.
Z.

Suggested Reading:
I would like to suggest to google or read about Japan this week, to discover this wonderful land for yourself.