FYI

Here are some things I have read, heard, or seen recently.

My body is not a machine, but a city of a billion inhabitants.
Rocks are at the bottom of the Great Chain of Being.
Some people can bend spoons with their minds.
On Children's Day in Turkey, all the flags come out. Thus, mine is the only balcony not dressed in red. Mine wears pink flowers instead.
They do not sell Matzah at Macro (favorite grocery store 1) or Migros (favorite grocery store 2), at least in my neck of the plowed-down and over-developed woods.
If you incorrectly type in your pin number multiple times, your phone will lock. Unless you have the card given to you when you purchased it (and who keeps anything these days? Pack rats are so passe) you will be banned from the joy that is text messaging. Forever.
I want to be the next Maureen Dowd. Make that Perez Hilton. Make that Joan Didion. Make that can't I get real pancakes in this country?
In the U.S., a Trojan is a condom, in ancient Greece is a warrior, in computerworld its a virus. My computer had thousands of them. Moral of the story: don't download music illegally.
Ultraviolence is a modern aesthetic. Think Tarantino. Think a slo-mo,exaggerated fountain of blood so graphic its spurting from the slushie machine at the 7/11. Think violence has become a narrative divorced from the pain and suffering it causes. Think a war can go on for five plus years because the beauty of mortar fire against the backdrop of skies that rocked the cradle of civilizaion is more aesthetically pleasing than Johnny with stars and stripes splayed over his coffin.
Tattoos are a way for people who don't want to bother figuring out who they are to stake their claim on individuality. I want one. But what? But where? Don't say butterfly on my back.

Sometimes I think I know nothing at all.

Transcendentialize Me

I did something I have never done in Istanbul.
Something I could've never expected or anticipated.
Drum roll, please.
Transcendental Meditation.
!
Allow me to digress into a moment melodramatic nostalgia, if you will.
In LA, spiritual practice and self-actualization practically comes knocking on your door. Despite LA's initial impression of a supercial fame whore, she (the city) has a a very strong undercurrent that cuts to the quick. There are a strong contingent of people seeking something real, even if the idea itself reeks of phoniness.

Anyway, I tried it all: yoga in its many manifestations (power, kundalini, Bikrams) guidance from a hand analyst, a channeler, and a chakra reader/healing bodyworker. Then there was the trip to Sedona to experience the energy vortexes and a plethora of mantras, affirmations, books, tapes, and books on tape. Finally, the capstone in my self-designed course on spiritual discovery: Vipassana meditation, a ten day course in the wilderness near Yosemite during which I meditated from sunrise to sunset and did not talk to anyone (well, accept my mother who thought I had been abducted by a strange cult.) Now it may sound as though I am rattling off a laundry list with a rather tongue in cheek attitude, but in all seriousness, these experiences were very meaningful. They were all part of an experiment, with myself as the guinea pig. Now that yoga studios are not ubiquitous and people make fun of me when I say things like I don't feel present today, it doesn't take precedence the way it used to.

In Istanbul, I had to to a little legwork to seek out the city's spiritual side. The metro let me off in an unknown part of the city. I felt like Dorothy entering an unknown realm(we're not in Istanbul anymore, toto). My friend Sarah and I made our way through the rush hour pedestrian traffic and, after getting lost only(which I consider a successful journey in this city) we saw it: Bright yellow letters amidst the ashen, pollution-caked walls of the city. A beacon of serenity in the chaos that is my life: transcendental meditation.
I discovered that transcendental meditation has been in Turkey for years. Yet somehow the two seem incongruous to me.

We entered and were ushered into a back room. I was told we were attending an information session, which turned out to be sitting in front of a televison and watching an informercial on an old vhf tape made circa 1985. 1-800-CALL-TM flashed at the bottom of the screen. I was initially intrigued by the actor's bad '80s haircuts and clothes. Did I really live through that? The video switched between testimonials from real people (with very bad hair) and scientific charts interpreted by the so-called TM experts. So it must be official. Just 20 minutes a day!
The information in the videos was much the same of what I've been exposed to in many of my aforementioned attempts at actualization: access to a boundless source of energy and creativity. A renewed sense of purpose and direction. Reversal of the aging process. The sense that you are refreshed and living your full potential.
The tapes told us everything about TM accept the technique itself. I asked if it was anything similar to what I'd learned in Vipassana meditation, and suddenly I felt like I was wearing a Sox hat at a Cubs game. "We don't like to mix techniques" the instructor told me. "Its like stepping into a boat and then putting one leg into another boat and trying to travel down the river. You just can't do it."
Uh huh. Interesting. So my legs are in about 15 boats.

I listened and found it fascinating, and therefore its hard to say why TM didn't appeal to me as much. Maybe it was the hefty price tag. Maybe its the energy of a different city. Maybe its that no one needs the East more than the West.
If anything, my reaction made me sad. Sad that I wasn't called to action the way I have been in the past. Sad about all the knowledge I once possessed that now seems to be relegated to the back of my mind, somewhere behind the Istanbul bus routes and all of my day to day worries. I remember the chakra reader telling me that I'd embarked on a spiritual path, and its not an easy one. It will be a long time before I see results. The channeler telling me I was in a five year cycle during which I was gathering all the important resources for what I would one day achieve. So perhaps results are not in. Perhaps I have yet to find out.