10/The Egypt Chronicles - Embracing The Uncharted Territory of Life: A Journey of Allowing

 10.

On our way to Siwa

 8th March

International Women’s day and we are being driven to Siwa by the kindest man. A primary school teacher and director, he does these driving jobs to earn a few extra bucks so he can provide his family with a better life.

Having departed at 7 am, he keeps on asking if we need to stop, but we feel just fine and he is apparently really confident and resilient with his driving so it’s not before around 10.30 am that we stop at a roadside café where he usually stops for a coffee.

He insists on paying our coffees too and we accept with gratitude.

At this point we are not yet aware that this is part of local tradition, for a man to pay a lady’s way.

After this point, the roads get quite bad and Mr Khaled has to drive slower and swerve more potholes, so we eventually doze off a bit along the way.

We of course have a lot of time for conversations and it is a pleasure to get to know Mr Khaled and a bit more about Egypt through his life experiences. He becomes not only our driver but a friend. So much so that to this day (August 2021) he still sends a message now and then to know if we’re ok.

Once we are in the desert we see many trucks which Khaled explains are from the petrol pumps spread out in the desert - a great part of where the money comes from.

After one more stop at a shabby desert roadside café and shop as well as a security check by the military stationed at the entrance of Siwa, we arrive at a dusty, somewhat poor looking township, where donkey carts and motorbikes carry women fully clad in their burkas, tending to their small children as the men go about their business of daily life in a oasis town.

I cannot say I am completely pleased at what I see, as dusty environments are not really my thing but I surrender to the experience, let go of my pre-conceived idea of my likes and dislikes and decide to enjoy it all.

Albabenshaal is the name of the Hotel we are staying at, which is made of clay and wood, as are all of the buildings around here. And it feels so good to be inside of a building like this! So natural and peaceful. 

Khaled takes his leave as we arrange to be picked up and taken to Alexandria next Thursday.

We meet Salama, who will from now on be our host, a man in his forties, with a broad smile who has learnt English from practising with the many tourists that come this way. We are taken to our room, which is spacious and clean, with a private bathroom and two large beds. Lovely! We take a deep breath and land in this completely different here and now.

After a short rest, we come downstairs and Salama takes us in his rickety van to a beautiful place near a salt lake and natural pool for a sundown drink. There are so many date trees everywhere! It is one of the main businesses here - growing and transforming dates.

I am still not quite used to the dust everywhere but am working on it. Letting go. Allowing. Letting go. Allowing.

Again Salama pays for the drinks which we thankfully and gracefully receive. 

We have chosen to be served dinner at the hotel and we are brought half a chicken each! It is tasty though we can’t possibly work our way through the whole portion. We smile at the abundance, gratefully receiving it as it is.

We are asked about breakfast tomorrow morning. We don’t usually eat breakfast, but why not receive it? So we book for 8 am and arrange to be taken to the salt lakes after breakfast.

The day has been long and we are happy to retreat to our room, whilst the hustle and bustle of bikes and passers-by goes on into the night, eventually crowned by the mosque’s call for prayer, out of a loudspeaker which happens to be pretty near our room. We smile and gradually slip into a happy sleep, content with life’s offerings and at peace with all.

Thanks to the wonders of technology, at the same time as we are travelling to Siwa, I am also speaking about self-respect and respecting others on account of it being International Women's Day and me being a co-author of the book Breakthrough: Secrets of Growth, Happiness and Bouncebacks from Women across the World. Here is my short intervention on this day: CLICK TO VIEW

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Read the other Chronicles here:

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

9/The Egypt Chronicles - Embracing The Uncharted Territory of Life: A Journey of Allowing

9.

A Relaxed Day of Preparation

7th March

Saturday. We still have no specific plans for the day.

Brigitte is leaving us today. She is going on her own retreat to Mount Sinai. We might meet again when we come back to Cairo next weekend. Who knows.

We get in touch with our new friend Abeer to see if there is any news about our eventual trip to Siwa and then Alexandria.

In about two hour she has it all arranged! We are going with Mr Khaled, the driver that usually takes her sister there, for a touristic and well-being project she is developing. 

We will stay until Thursday and then be driven to Alexandria, where Cécile gets us a nice room at the Hilton Alexandria Corniche for a fair price, as she has a connection with the lady that manages the SPA there: Mansoura. We will meet her once we get there.

Mr Thomas Williams comes and picks up the cash for our hotel and desert safari at Siwa and we are all set.

We decide to go for a swim in The Steigenberger El Tahir's swimming pool and have a relaxed day today, since we will be getting up early in the morning and travelling by car for 8 hours straight the following day.

We had only booked for the first two nights here at The Steigenberger but we booked for one more and now another, to avoid the hassle of packing and unpacking all the time. After all, we can afford it and it feels great!

After the busy days at the Conference and then yesterday with our day-long tour of Cairo, we now really feel the energies settling down, the whole intensity of all of the experiences lived so far, sinking in and it is so precious to be able to take this time to just be still and quiet, with no schedule, needs or wants.

We might have gone to the Bazar or the Egyptian Museum, but we decide to leave that for when we come back after Alexandria.

Right beside our Hotel there is a beautiful café with some delicious light meals and cakes and apparently it belongs to another Hotel - the Cleopatra. It turns out it is half the price of the Steigenberger so we have a look at the rooms and decide to book our last two nights in Egypt here.

Today has been a day of establishing our as of yet unplanned itinerary and simply taking in the sense of Egypt.

Funnily enough, it is no less intense than the days when we were moving about all the time. Actually, I consistently find that after a few very rich days, filled with experiences and people, I need a break in order to really receive all of it, otherwise its value is somehow dispersed amidst the piling up of more and more experiences and I don’t really fully acknowledge the more that each of them has brought me, if I don’t stop, step back and take my quiet time to breathe it in.

It is my balance between doing and being. And life has become so much richer as a consequence of this new rhythm, swaying out and in, in and out, integrating, perceiving and receiving much more than ever before, being present and giving the fruit of my receptivity with much more ease and grace, effortlessly available to share the bounty of each moment. When we finally go to bed this day, we are relaxed and also excited for our next adventures - though our sense of excitement is maybe different that regular. It is a soft serene smile. A warm welcome. An opening whilst staying Home within always.

See you tomorrow!

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Read the other Chronicles here:

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

 

 The Olive Saga

This year, whilst admiring the bounty of the trees in our garden it made all possible sense to honour it completely so it was easy to decide to take over the once done by someone else task, of picking the olives to get our own olive oil made. 

My dear friend Joana also felt the same way about her mum's olive trees, which were beautifully full and ripe and were not being picked by anyone else this year. So we joined forces and for the very first time decided it is our turn to tend to this generous harvest.

We asked our friends to come and lend us a hand and just like the trees' abundance so was the help we were offered. 

Logistics could have been an issue, as we needed a lot of bags, baskets, nets, olive picking forks, gloves, saws, cans and cars to transport it all... But none of this was missing since one way or another someone had what was needed. 

Meals were also a cause for organization, since picking olives and at the same time providing meals for over 10 people had to be synchronized so as not to take up precious time needed for the harvest and still be as delicious and loving as we always enjoy to provide. Yet, this too got itself organized in our natural flow, seamlessly and perfectly.

And so it was that with enthusiasm, inspiration, joy, love and endless gratitude we started out our 3 days of olive picking with a team of 3 (Pedro, Joana and I) that unfolded into 4, 5, 6 and then 10 on the first day, 6 on the second and 11 on the last day to pick what came to be over a ton of olives!

There were moments when it was a bit too hot, sometimes we felt exhausted but then we just bounced back into the flow of it and with each other's joy we pulled it through so that what we had initially thought to be no more than 600 kg turned into double!

Ah it felt so good to caress the olives, the branches, the leaves, to feel the land whispering life and the whole atmosphere of heartwarming enchantment, just like a team of human fairies tending to the elements of nature in order to keep the balance of giving and receiving in its dancing infinity.

On the 4th day we rested and on the 5th we gathered all of the dozens of bags brimming with happy olives into our cars, with Pedro taking the greater part in his pickup and off we went for our first experience at the olive press.

Woah! There sure were lots of people there! All waiting to hand in their olives too. The staff were in such a good mood, it was a pleasure to watch them work with precision and efficiency, no rush, just flow.

And so we waited, patiently, happily and gratefully for being at such an abundant place where the fruit of each one's orchards is transformed into golden green elixir. Like a huge alchemy production line where the land's grace is honoured every single moment.

We were number 6.... And the number was still at 83 so we left some of the olives in large crates, came home for lunch and then went back for more waiting. The straw bales seemed to me like the perfect place to sit and then lie for a short nap, feeling the serene breeze on my skin, the scent of the olives filling my nostrils... Hmmmm the soft comfort of a natural "bed", nothing else to do but enjoy the experience fully.

Our time eventually came to pour our olives into the big machine that sorts out the leaves and washes them before they can go into the olive press. 

Five big crates were filled, the cans and large bottles handed in and 24 hours later 150 litres of olive oil awaited us! 

Wow! Is all we could say and the peace in our hearts, coupled with the joy, love and gratitude overflowed with warm smiles of "Thank you!" and "We made it!".

Now, this olive oil is special. It is special not only because of all of the love we poured into it together whilst picking and tending to the whole process, but also because it is made from at least 3 qualities of olives from 2 different areas, so its colour, taste and consistency is very unique.

I continuously experience this magic of blending together and always it yields more than any kind of exclusive approach. A constant materialization of Human and Divine merged into a whole new landscape of possibilities that neither one could be without this blend. And so it is with friends, family, the land, life, all. When coming together as a new collective one, we always bring forth the most beautiful and bountiful loving miracles of creation.

Now back to the olive picking saga.... After collecting the olive oil there was still work to be done. Washing the bags and nets, collecting the branches off the grass, preparing them for cutting and later on in the year the trees will have to be pruned once again, so the sequence of bounty continues. 

And amidst all of this, the persimmon trees kept on yielding so much fruit, that my creative taste buds were delighted to come up with new ways of conserving them for other times of the year when there are none. And so it has been that amidst the olive experience, the persimmon one has blended also and still there are quinces to take care of, for these also are yielding on and on and I enjoy expressing my gratitude by receiving their generosity and transforming them into something edible all year round.

A tremendous gift of country life is the simple joy of silent appreciation, where the seasons cascade upon each other and provide a vastness of colours, tastes, scents, sounds and tactile feelings that warm the heart and the soul and remind us in each breath that we are this. We are all of this. 

Blissful grace. Blessed to be blessed by Life. By the Wholeness in All. This is my permanent state of Grateful Love. Joyfully experiencing Being Here, Now. 

So thank you! Thank you all of the friends who came to participate in this dance. Thank you to Mother Nature. Thank you to our Aliveness, to God, to the Human allowing, to everything and everyone here. Thank you!

My heart constantly beats I Love You and so I offer this to you too. 

A very special thank you to Joana who always dances these waltzes of bounty with me, and to Pedro who offers his love and precious help unconditionally, to Jenni and Pedro who said yes to the whole experience and came along for the full length of the 3 days, to my mum for providing the land and her beautiful presence and help, to Joana's mum for providing her land and help too. Thank you!

And Alice Van Royen who happened to come over with Julie in-between the persimmon saga, thank you for your super delicious suggestions! They sure got my imagination going rogue and a new persimmon jam, cakes, crumbles and upcoming Hoshigaki (Japanese Dried Persimmons) have since been produced or are underway. 

I have not yet mentioned that on the heaviest days of olive picking our SPA moment and what got our body back on track for the following day, were our dives into the nearby lake. There is such bliss to be experienced in this huge body of water that is thriving with life! Such a cleanser, booster and pacifier. I just can't get enough of these swims in my beloved lake so a big big thank you to you too! And to the sunrises and sunsets that kissed our eyesight with feelings of awe before the grandness colouring the skies. Thank youuuuuu!

Thank you to the Lagar de Azeite São Dorninho, Carvalhal Pequeno, for the excellent work too!

Encontrar-se em Casa

 O imenso nada tinha-se decidido. Haveria mais.

Ela fazia parte do mais que viera adiante ao encontro de saber-se.

No início foi estranho. Estranho saber-se tudo e ainda assim ser apenas uma parte. Ah mas era tão belo. Uma história de amor tão maravilhosa, esta de vir a saber a infinitude do mais.

Até mesmo esquecer, ela tinha aceite. Fingir-se perdida. E descobrir-se através da sua perdição. De volta a saber-se. 

O jogo de perder-se houver produzido um outro: Buscar. E lá foi ela, ultrapassando as fronteiras da perceção em busca. Inicialmente, estava ciente de estar a buscar-se para lá do seu estado perdido, explorando as intermináveis alamedas da impossibilidade. Mas a dado momento, até isso ela esqueceu. E buscar tornou-se um jogo em si mesmo.

E que divertido era! Buscar e nunca encontrar o âmago do que se buscava, mas encontrando tanto por entre os desvios da busca. Tornou-se a sua demanda. A demanda do Buscar, e apenas isso. 

Erguiam-se cordilheiras incríveis diante de si e assim que chegava a um pico, logo outro se assomava diante de si, essencial de alcançar. Ela adorava.

Ainda assim, acabou por tornar-se extenuante e eis que começou a lamentar-se. O seu lamento tornou-se um ingrediente adicional a todo o divertimento da busca. 

Buscou e buscou. Por eons de tempo, para lá do espaço do saber existente.

E o todo do nada expandiu-se e cresceu e a história de amor foi-se tornando as multiplicidades da experiência, incessantemente, rolando como uma onda de volta à infinitude da sua Fonte. 

Tinha que haver um momento, um moment único no interminável buscar que o cessasse, com certeza. Ela tinha esta noção. Lá no fundo de si. Mas adiar este momento era mais aliciante que alcançá-lo, pelo divertimento do mais que a impelia adiante. 

Quando enfim chegara o seu tempo de aceitar que nada havia a buscar, ela suspirou. Apesar da diversão do buscar, não houvera até agora beatitude maior do que deixar ir o que fora para poder regozijar-se no seu ficar. 

Agora podia permitir que tudo o que ela e os zilhões de outros buscadores tinham criado, pudesse vir ao seu encontro, na rendição do seu ficar. E ficar tornou-se tão divertido quanto buscar havia sido. Ainda assim com outro gosto. Uma paz que proferia volumes de amor e que tinha o poder para abraçar todos os multiversos com que ela tinha brincado até então.

Conforme observava outras facetas de inteireza a chegar a este mesmo lugar onde a busca cessa, vislumbrou reações diversas. A maioria recusava-se a aceitar terminar a busca. Achavam-se na iminência de serem tidos como ignorantes por terem buscado tanto tempo apenas para concluir que não havia nada para buscar e que tudo o que houvera sempre estivera sempre aqui mesmo, no lugar do seu Ser. Por isso continuavam a fingir-se perdidos, mas com o ingrediente adicional de saberem que chegara o momento de se saberem encontrados. 

Outros havia que se asseguravam de não verem o momento da chegada ao lugar de onde tinham partido inicialmente. Parecia demasiado aborrecida a hipótese de prescindir dessa necessidade incansável de buscar. 

Fingir-se não ser inteiro, completo e eterno era um jogo ainda mais aliciante do que a busca em si mesma. 

Não obstante… Não obstante ela podia sorrir um sorriso de compaixão imensa, sabendo que todos se encontrariam no ficar e se renderiam a estar e apenas nesse então poderiam dar-se conta do quão magníficos se haviam tornado como resultado de se terem fingido não sabedores. 

Ficou. Sentada no seu novo espaço de descobrir-se no seu ficar e irradiou contentamento. Amando. Apenas amando ser o que ela não soubera ser e que nunca poderia alcançar na sua imensidão total, mesmo que tivesse continuado a buscar. 

 

Apenas agora conseguia ver que a alegria da descoberta era afinal uma viagem sem fim. Como poderia ter pensado que seria aborrecido largar a busca e encontrar-se em Casa?

Como um inspirar e expirar, havia momentos de nada e momentos de tudo - com o silêncio a providenciar o chão para infinitas possibilidades. 

Sabia agora que não havia outro lugar onde ir. Nada para buscar. Estava tudo simplesmente a acontecer ao mesmo tempo. Aqui. Cada momento uma inteireza em si mesma. 

Dava-lhe vontade de rir, olhar para trás e ver-se a fingir ser limitada com tanto afinco que não lhe poderiam ter dito que ela era tudo o que é. E o seu riso ecoou pelas vastas planícies do esquecimento, soando um chamado de recordação para todos os seus companheiros buscadores.

Quem sabe o que este ressoar poderá gerar.

Um suspiro. Uma respiração. Uma serena batida de coração. Tudo está perfeitamente bem em toda a criação.

 

Texto por T. C. Aeelah

Finding Oneself Home

 In the immense nothingness it had been decided. There was to be more. 

She was part of that more that came forth into knowing itself.

At first it was strange. Strange to know herself to be all and yet to be only a part. Oh but it was so beautiful. Such a love affair to come to knowing the infinities of more.

She had even agreed to forget. To pretend to get lost. And to discover herself through her lostness. Back into knowing.

The game of lostness had produced another one: Seeking. So she went out across the borders of perception and sought. Initially she was aware of seeking herself out of lostness through the endless landscapes of impossibility. Then she even forgot that. And seeking became a game in itself.

And it was so much fun! Seeking and never finding the core of what was being sought and yet finding so much in-between. It became her quest. The quest of Seeking in and for its own sake.

Incredible mountain ranges rose before her and no sooner had she reached one peak, then another would make itself essential to reach. And she enjoyed it so much. 

Though at some point it became tiring and she started complaining, which was only one more ingredient to add to the fun. 

On and on she sought. For eons of time, beyond the space of existent knowing.

And the wholeness of nothing expanded and grew and lhe love affair just kept on becoming the multitudes of experience rolling back into the infinity of its Source.

There had to be a moment, one unique moment in the endless seeking that ceased it, of course.

She knew this also. Deep down inside. And yet she kept on postponing it for the fun of more.

When her time to realize there was nothing to seek came, she sighed. Despite the fun of seeking there had so far been no greater bliss than the one of letting it go so that she could now bask in just staying. 

Now she could allow all that she and the zillions of other seekers had created to come to her, in the surrender of her staying. And staying became no less fun than seeking, yet it had a different flavour to it. A peace that spoke volumes of love and that had the power to embrace the whole of the multiverses she had been playing with so far.

As she observed other facets of wholeness coming to this same place of ceasing the search she saw different reactions. Most refused to accept to call the search off. They felt it would make them seem ignorant to have been searching for so long only to come to the conclusion there was nothing to search for and all there ever had been was right here in the place of their being. So they kept on pretending to be lost but with the added ingredient of knowing it was time to know themselves found.

Others made sure they did not see the moment of arriving where they had first ventured out from. It seemed too dull a prospect, the one of no longer having a burning need to seek.

Pretending not to be whole, complete and eternal was a game even more entertaining than the search itself.

And yet… Yet she could smile a smile of such profound compassion, knowing that all were to realize the staying and surrender to it and only then could they too find out how magnificent they had become as a result of pretending not to know.

She sat in her new space of discovering staying and radiated bliss. Loving. Just loving being that which she had not known and couldn’t ever grasp the far reaches of, even if she had kept on seeking. 

Only now could she fathom that the joy of discovery was an endless journey. How could she have ever thought it would be dull to drop the search and find herself Home? 

Like an ebb and flow, there were moments of nothing and moments of all - silence providing the ground for infinite possibilities.

She knew now that there was nowhere else to go. Nothing else to seek. It was just all happening at once. Here. Each moment a wholeness.

It made her laugh to look back at herself pretending to be limited with so much zest she could not have been told she was all there is. And her laugh echoed across the vast lands of forgetfulness and sounded a call of remembering to her fellow seekers.

Who knows what that might bring forth.

A sigh. A breath. A serene heartbeat. All is perfectly well in all of creation.

 

Text by T. C. Aeelah