I was reminded to write about food here because this morning we raided the huge fruit and vegie shop at the top of our road to top up our supplies.  It is always packed with customers and is very, very reasonable with prices. It is really enjoyable to be back in an old-fashioned fresh produce shop and see mounds of vegies and fruit piled up in all directions.

It’s why one of the things I’m really enjoying in North Cyprus is the food, because it’s back to basics. There are no mass-produced vegies and fruit here that have been fiddled with so they can last a long time between producer and consumer. Here all food is seasonal (apart from imported bananas and mangoes) and it comes au naturel – no washed and brushed spuds and carrots here, they come straight from the farmer and are covered in dirt. Very little is bagged up or packaged, you do it yourself. Nothing’s  sanitised for fussy consumers!

So, given the nature of seasonal produce,  we’ve just worked through a glut of juicy strawberries and cherries which tasted fantastic because they’re picked locally and sent straight to market. No freezing. No packaging.  Just fresh fruit which is full of flavour.  Now we’re heading into the tomato and apricot season. Tomatoes are down to 45 cents/kilo and they taste absolutely marvellous. As for the apricots – they are heavenly!  I used to find in Australia that they were pretty tasteless and dry, but here they are sweet and so utterly juicy.

Oranges and lemons are always dirt cheap because they’re grown locally in vast quantities. Cucumbers are the Lebanese variety and are in full swing at the moment. You go into the greengrocer’s and there are mounds of these small cucumbers at around 45 cents/kilo.

Because pomegranates are grown here and in Turkey, pomegranate molasses which costs a bomb in Turkey is dirt cheap here. And I came across naturally dried apricots which leave chemically dried apricots for dead. They are sweet and soft, not like leather, and it’s a pleasure to chew on them as a snack during the day.

When you go into supermarkets, there’s a big array of salads to take away, done freshly because there’s a demand for these products so there’s always a quick turnover. I buy tahini, humous, tzatziki (called cacik here and pronounced chachik), pickled cabbage, a tomato-chilli salsa and freshly-cooked beetroot from the local supermarket because the prices are so cheap it’s not worthwhile making your own at home.

I have to admit that there are vegies here which I can’t identify at all, they are quite strange to me.  But I’ve just come across a cookbook which I am to track down which is about Turkish-Cypriot cooking and identifies the different root and leafy, green vegies.  I’ve also found that local people will take to the mountains and paddocks to gather “weeds” which are, in fact, very nutritious and, of course, free.

And eating out is divine.  Food is fresh, cheap, beautifully presented and waiters and restaurant owners are always so friendly, helpful and cheerful.

We’ve both been geriatric gypsies over the past couple of decades but here in North Cyprus we feel we are finally at home – happy, relaxed and very, very comfortable with the energy here and the wonderful people we’ve met.

Yesterday we went to a Heart and Soul exhibition at the Acapulco Resort which is on the east side of Kyrenia.  We are now pretty much in summer, glorious sunny days, the Mediterranean is like a flat, glittering pool in the sunshine, but we also get the sea breeze so we had a pleasant drive through Kyrenia to the Acapulco Resort which is on the other side of Kyrenia to our apartment and is set right beside the sea.

To be very honest, the Resort is – to me, at least – Bling Central.  It’s huge: rows of hotel rooms one above the other and more in the new extension being built; flash swimming pool complete with rows of sun loungers; and security people in all directions. Not my idea of a holiday but it takes all sorts and I guess if you’re working all hours under the sun, sometimes all the want to do when you do go on holiday  is flake out  by a pool and sunbake.

Convention Centre hall

The Heart and Soul exhibition was in the Convention Centre, another huge part of the resort. It took us a long while marching around the inside to find the Centre, but the space where the exhibition was held was huge and felt lovely and airy. You can see the size of the hall where the exhibition was in the picture on the left. There were numerous such huge halls which we came across in our search for the exhibition, and it’s a reminder of the serious tourism sector operating here.  Interestingly, North Cyprus is a holiday haven for Turkish people as much as for people in other parts of Europe as it only takes an hour to reach here from the mainland.

The exhibition catered for both Turkish and English-speaking visitors, so some of the material was quite incomprehensible to me. It also catered for the hungry hordes – a sort of smorgasbord was on offer with a chef preparing plates of sandwiches and other savouries, along with yummy-looking garnishes, plus Nescafe and Turkish coffee. We’d had lunch before we went to the exhibition but it always interests me how much attention Turkish-Cypriots pay to presenting even simple food with flare and care.

As for the language barrier, I have become a fully paid-up  member of the Charades Club, as I have great fun acting out anything I need to communicate if someone can’t understand me. I have found a great joie de vivre among the locals here and they enjoy themselves and laugh their heads off when I do mime to describe what I’m trying to communicate. But there’s one thing that overcomes the language barrier – crystals!!! One of the things I absolutely adore about being in North Cyprus is that prices for rocks, stones and crystal jewellery are very, very reasonable. So I came away clutching a haul of an amethyst ring, a polished labradorite wand, and a spectacular fluorite tower which I could never have afforded in Australia.  The ring is a huge, faceted amethyst – a right knuckleduster which I waved menacingly at my husband, Bryan, to huge mirth among the stall holders – and that was $20. The polished labradorite wand was $12.50, and the fluorite tower was $40. I really dithered over asking the price of the fluorite piece because I thought it would be beyond my means. But I was relaly drawn to it and was so relieved when she told me the price.  I think in Australia I’d probably have paid close to $120 for the tower.

There were some challenges as many of the stallholders were Turkish or Turkish-Cypriots who didn’t speak English. Doing mime went a fair way but sometimes we hit an impenetrable barrier and had to just smile and wave at each other. I did have the interesting experience of getting a Tarot reading from a Turkish lady, who spoke not a word of English, but one of her friends interpreted for me.  It was fascinating seeing how she worked with the cards, quite a different way to any that I’ve seen before.  She provided me with some interesting information, told me that the book I’m writing would be successful, and that I was a powerful woman, much to my surprise. Big smiles and hugs all around when I left.

In another blog tomorrow I’m going to talk about the reading that Bryan had with a very, very intuitive, mediumistic lady from Scotland. So good was it that I broke my golden rule  not to have more than one reading and also had a second reading with her.  She was so accurate with both my husband and myself that we’re still sitting around in a state of shock. But more about this later.  I’ll wind up with a photo of the laboradorite wand I also brought home with me, once I’m going to work with in body and aura massage.

I must admit to you who read my blogs that I dithered before embarking on my previous post about wild, witchy, wise women. I worried about being outspoken and being angry, particularly as I believe in the power of peacefulness and as much as possible I work for compassion, tolerance and understanding.

And now I wonder why?  Quite a few women have agreed with my manifesto, it’s obviously struck a chord, only one has disagreed and that’s fine. There are 7.014 billion people on this earth and we all have different paths to tread in finding what is illuminated by the light of the soul.

I have simply come to the understanding and acceptance that my path is that of the rabble-rouser, the stirrer, the eccentric, the firer-upper, the one who walks the path less travelled through the written and spoken word. There’s no point not being what I’m meant to be because I’m then not authentic and people can tell when you’re trying to be someone you’re not. Again, I dithered about saying this but, looking back, it’s what I’ve always been and done. In astrological terms I have the Moon in Aquarius which means my emotional life is tied up with community, in emotional honesty, in being socially-minded, looking at creating new ways to conduct emotional relationships, and expressing myself in quite dramatic ways. I ain’t been called a Drama Queen for nothing!

I am saying this because a friend commented that she could feel the fire in my post. She also pointed out that, in astrological terms, the asteroid named Pallas Athene had just entered the first degree of Aries (fire) and it’s in my sixth house which is about my career – writing. So my writing is being fired up and passionate, around social justice with Athene standing for justice and being prepared to fight for that justice, and  I found it interesting as I don’t have a lot of fire energy. It’s very hard for me to stand up for myself or to get engaged in arguments, I find it draining. But, courtesy of my sun in Libra and my ascendant in Libra, I have a burning desire for social justice. And I suppose “burning” is the key word. It used to be that, if you gave me someone who was down and out, I’d be there to defend them and their choices.  Luckily I happened to read the phrase: “You can’t be the Pied Piper for the whole world” because I was burning out trying to save everyone (even those who didn’t want to be saved!).  And, although I had a difficult relationship with my father, his domineering and bullying behaviour towards me taught me to stand up for myself and fight back.

Nowadays I don’t try to save the world. We each have to work out our own path for salvation, in whatever way salvation means to you. To me it’s to be true to your nature. Someone who has a lot of water signs would probably find anger very threatening and strange. Someone who had a predominance of earth signs might find an airy spirituality difficult but find great spiritual sustenance from working with the earth in various ways or organising against actions which damage the earth. And not everyone wants to take the road less travelled. For some it would be very difficult and uncomfortable and, here’s the keyword, not right because it’s not in their nature. If you are happy with your life and contented with your lot, if you feel deeply that you’re living your heart’s desire, then why change?  Living your heart’s desire is what counts, but not a desire not to change because of inertia or fear. Change for change’s sake is a bit of a waste of energy. Change, if you’re feeling frustrated or truly dissatisfied, can fire up your life and revitalise you.

I, for example, have a great deal of air signs so I’m always thinking, planning and writing down my ideas.  I have a very logical side which also says to me that the ultimate goal is peace, but in working towards that goal, it’s not always wise to accept the actions of others which transgress social justice and the rights of people, whether it be women, people of colour, people of different sexuality, or people of different size, choice and lifestyle.

Which is why I get angry.  I get fired up by injustice. I also happen to believe that turning the other cheek mostly doesn’t work, it simply encourages those who undermine the rights of others to pursue further excesses. Anger is challenging but I also happen to believe that it is an emotion which we need to embrace and deal with, not shove under the carpet because anger makes us uncomfortable. I remember the first ever art workshop I did where I discovered I could create pretty decent art. The workshop leader told how he also had been at a workshop where they were first asked to create a painting about peace. Then they had to create a painting about anger. Guess which one had the most power?

Anger is a very powerful emotion. And because of that, an angry woman is also viewed as very challenging and outside the norm.  We women are supposed to be nurturing, kind, caring, peaceable, self-effacing, quiet and dressing in ways acceptable in society.  You might say that all this is in the past, yet a recent study in Australia found that women who were quiet in the business world were more  highly regarded than women who were very voluble. On other  hand, there was far more respect for men who talked a lot, and not for men who were quiet. Such double standards operate subtly and are designed to enforce in unspoken ways how women are supposed to behave which aren’t threatening, loud or vehement. 

(Synchronistically, the underlining in the above paragraph turned up out of the blue, I have no idea where it came from  or how it manifested, and it won’t go away, so I guess it’s there for a reason!)

An angry woman is a dangerous woman.  She’s outside the ballpark.  She’s threatening.  She is a menace to the status quo. Why – she might infect other women!  Well, to be very truthful, I do hope I infect a lot of women to be wild, witchy and wise (if it feels right) – the keyword is “wise”.   I am not talking about violence. Violence begets violence and all too often alienates people.  I believe that passive resistance and new, creative ways to organise for what you believe in are constructive and empower so many more people. Listen to what resonates for you in the way you need to be wild and witchy and then be your authentic self – not a creation of anyone else, not trying to live up to impossible community standards, just do and be what makes you feel comfortable, in tune with your self and truly, truly ALIVE!

Around the age of 27 years, I looked into the future and all I could see was myself taking the pill and no children.  I knew deeply from an early age that my life would lie outside the home and  domestic sphere. So I organised to get tubal ligation – to get my Fallopian tubes tied – so that I would no longer need contraception.

I also did this because I looked into the future and was fearful that women’s rights to control their own body were continually under relentless attack. I worried about a possible time when contraception would not be readily available. I did  not want to become pregnant nor did I want to be forced to have an abortion if I did fall pregnant. 

Why am I writing this now?  Because I recently visited the ancient site of Salamis, near Famagusta, in North Cyprus.  As you go in, all the statues of women – at the entrance and throughout the site – are headless.  Not by design but by the malicious actions of long-ago men who objected to the ancient worship of goddesses and who hated any depiction of women in roles of power. 

I found on my first visit to Salamis that I simply couldn’t bring myself to take photos because I was enraged by this wanton vandalisation and gross example of the misogyny inherent in a patriarchal system where a god is male and women considered inferior. I took this picture the second time I visited Salamis and I’m writing this now because I’ve been looking at the siege of women’s rights in the United States.  I saw on Facebook today that the Governor of Kansas has signed into law a statute which allows pharmacists and doctors to deny women access to contraception. Kansas has also passed legislation to make life for abortion clinics harder and to restrict the right to abortion.

This anti-women agenda is spreading like the plague around the United States and in other nations like Australia and the UK.  In Australia we have seen the vilest, most sexist language used against the first female Prime Minister. One shock jock even talked of stuffing her in a chaff bag, taking her to sea and throwing her overboard, presumably to drown.

I am mad, bad and utterly enraged at the hatred of women that is displayed by fundamentalist groups of all religious persuasions – whether Christian, Islamic, Hindu or whatever.  I am contemptuous of those who proclaim their support for the right to life yet support wars waged for the oil and armaments industries where innocent civilians are slaughtered by the so-called liberating troops of Western nations, euphemistically called “collateral damage”.  

I am fed up with the New Age crap about turning the other cheek, of change coming from within ourselves, eschewing anger and behaving in peaceful ways. it gets us nowhere, it only encourages the misogynists to greater excesses as they pursue new and meaner ways to make women as powerless as possible.  Well, bollocks to all that.

So here’s my manifesto. Feel free to pass it on and add anything you feel appropriate because we women need to assert FOREVER our power, our passion, our feistiness, our wisdom, our refusal to accept attacks on women, our determination to organisation and fight back against those who try to return us to the old paradigm of barefoot and pregnant because there ain’t no going back to the bad old days.

Wild, witchy, wise women assert:

*  We are powerful.

*  We are prepared to be very, very angry.

*  We are not nice, we are warriors.

*  We demand our wisdom be respected.

*  We refuse utterly to accept descriptions such as bitchy, tramps or sluts which are defined by patriarchy.

*  We assert the right to control our own bodies as and when we wish.

*  We have the right to demand contraception and abortion. FULL STOP.

*  We will not be nice and co-operative. We will FIGHT any attempts to deny women the full right to participate as equals in society.

*  We will make life an utter misery for any lawmakers who attempt to roll back the rights of women.

*  We will stand by, defend and support all women who are victimised by patriarchal forces. We cannot be divided from each other and ruled by misogynists.

*  We reject any attempts to co-opt us into a system which wants us to be quiet, docile and too nice for our own good.

*  We are not ladies. We are raucous, noisy, mouthy, feisty stirrers, troublemakers and drama queens. So suck it up if you don’t like it.

* We have the right to make choices in relation to family, work and sexuality and for those choices to be respected because are not owned by anyone.

* We have the right to make choices about our lifestyle and bodies without being pressurised to be Barbie dolls or Stepford wives.

* We are proud of our age and refuse to be stuffed into girlie envelopes. Our faces with their lines, wrinkles and bearing the scars and victories of our lives are badges of honour which we wear with pride.

* We will seize freedom because it will never be granted to us as a gift – and that freedom is the right to live our own lives, as we choose; the right to choose our partners and family life according to the call of our hearts; the right to make our own reproductive choices; the right to be the size with which we are comfortable; the right to wear whatever nurtures our hearts regardless of our age; the right to demand, fight for and seize into our powerful hands  equal pay, equal opportunity, equal education and respect for the female qualities which make us so damned special.

Anything less is too little.  

As we move into new times of upheaval, change and new ways of living, it is time for all wild, witchy wise women to rise up and roar from the highest rooftops that we are done with being nice, we are Amazons, pretty damned good and  a mighty, mighty power to be reckoned with.

This morning I spent a few minutes viewing a really candid, thoughtful, challenging video by a guy called Philip Gould.  He made the video as he approached his own death in a few weeks, and described how his life had changed when  he found he had terminal cancer of the oesophagus because his final days were spent in living rather than dying.

I read about Mr Gould’s video in a newspaper article and kept it because, as I’m in my crone years, the concept of death looms somewhat closer on the horizon. It’s ironic when you think about it:  we know we’re going to die but we have absolutely no idea when. And the older I get, the more I am truly grateful that I’ve got through to 64 with much of me intact. Yes, I have a few health challenges and to my mortification I’m getting a bit deaf  (the vicissitudes of old age aren’t supposed to apply in my case, of course!) but I see a lot of people far worse off  so I’m pretty happy I’ve got as far as I have.

But of course, I can’t ignore the fact that I’ve lived the greater part of my life now. I’d really, really like to start each day by saying that I’ll treat it as the last day of my life and I’ll live it to the highest degree.  But the truth is that we don’t know whether each day will be the last, so we do tend to shove the whole idea of death under a convenient carpet and proceed through life as normal. At least, in his video, Mr Gould has shared his experiences and, hopefully, opened up a discussion about the inevitable progress towards our last breath.

Philip Gould – Lessons From The Dead Zone

I rather think we do this because death is such a mystery. We don’t see dead bodies much.  We don’t have people dying in homes as much as they used to. Death is sanitised, the dead are given make-up and prepped so they look pretty-please when people come to view the body of their loved one in a casket. If that’s what they do. I have never viewed any dead person in a casket as I preferred to remember them as they were alive.  I’ve washed my dead mother’s body, with the palliative care nurse to who turned out so compassionately on a truly brutal, wild, storm-riven night to take us through the post-death procedures. So I know what a dead body looks like. And one day, it’ll be me.

I don’t really know that we can consider death until we know it’s coming, to be very honest. Unless of course we pop our clogs through a sudden heart attack or accident and we have no forewarning. But when we do, things change. You are a person marked out from others because you know for certain that your life is coming to an end and they don’t. I know when my own mother was diagnosed with lung cancer, I really didn’t know what to say to her at first, but then she asked me for a hug and it broke the awkward moment.  I think the reason for this is that, in our society, we don’t talk much about death.  Everything’s geared to living longer, to extending our life span, and I rather think sometimes the medical profession takes it as a personal insult when people insist, most inconveniently, in turning up their toes.

Hopefully, people as brave as Philip Gould will speak out as he has done to show people that life doesn’t actually end when you know you’re going to die. It becomes brighter, lighter, with more clarity. You have the opportunity to make your peace with people, with your life, to express your love to family and friends, to set out your wishes for your Death Day Party (thanks to Harry Potter for this). Most of all, in thinking of death, remember this: no-one ever said on their death bed that they wish they’d spent more time at the office. Sort out your priorities now because, as I said earlier in this piece, you don’t know when you’re going to die. It’s not being morbid. It’s being realistic. Knowing you’re going to die sometime gives you the great opportunity to appreciate your life right now.

I have noticed when looking at Facebook in recent times that there are vast quantities of motivational messages – to be the best, not to let any day pass without achieving something, finding one’s purpose in life, being creative, and on and so on.

And I’ll be very honest that I’ve begun to find this absolutely exhausting and, in a way, quite depressing because I started to feel guilty if I wasn’t “living up to my potential” throughout each day. I happen to  I think life has its ups and downs and we aren’t going to feel motivated very hour, minute or second of the day. Some days you wake up, feel terrific and achieve a lot. Other days you wake up feeling slow, a bit muggy and not in the least motivated. It’s part of the flow of life. But all of the cheery Facebook motivational stuff is coming to mean to me to be on a treadmill of always being terribly upbeat, cheerful and on the ball twenty-four hours a day.

I remembered when I started writing this some comments by Elizabeth Gilbert in her book “Eat, Pray, Love”.  I really like this book, although I know some people are critical.  But it has a depth to it which I find nurturing spiritually and I enjoy her style of writing. She comments that Americans still have a Puritanical streak and are a nation where people work harder and longer and more stressful hours than anyone in the world today. Actually, I rather suspect that, since this book was written, Australian workers might have overtaken Americans in the work-driven stakes. And I don’t think Americans or Australians are on their own. In Western nations, more and more the work ethic (if you’re lucky enough to hold down a job, that is) is to be driven, spend long hours at work, and to be constantly open to e-mails and phone calls about work when you’re not at work.

It’s a badge of honour to be on the work treadmill, although I’d like to say here and now that I think it’s a badge of dishonour.  Surely this isn’t what life is about, to spend the greater part of your day at work (because the reality is that most of us go to a workplace for their employment), apart from your family, nose to the grindstone, and being too stuffed at the end of the day to do little more than flop in a chair and feel exhausted.

It’s what Ms Gilbert points out, that people feel they have to be on the go and that applies to social life too.  People spend billions on entertainment but not necessarily on the luxury of seeking pleasure. It’s as if entertainment is to ensure that you’re still on the go, albeit mindlessly. Pleasure is when you let go, go with the flow and really, really be in the moment of whatever it is you’re enjoying.

The Italians, as Ms Gilbert explains, have an expression called “bel far niente” which means “the beauty of doing nothing”.  To quote from the book: “The more exquisitely and delightfully you can do nothing, the higher your life’s achievement.”  All it needs is a talent for happiness.

Which brings me back to the whole motivational scenario.  It’s almost coming back to the Puritanical work ethic: “Thou shalt be creative/happy/spiritual” even if it kills any spontaneity in your inspirational life and sends a pall of self-critical gloom over you if you aren’t on the go spiritually or creatively.

This has further been brought home to me during the short time I’ve lived here in North Cyprus. People aren’t driven, at least, that’s they way it appears to me so far. They work long hours, true, but they’re laid-back and cheerful about their work. For example, if you go into an office and find people huddled in a corner not working but gossiping or exchanging jokes, the trick is not to expect instant service, but to understand that getting together and communicating is happy work so you need to wait until the conversation reaches its natural end. As you can imagine, it drives some rule-driven ex-pats right around the twist. I have not seen one person wearing an ear-phone and having to check in their position every half-an-hour or so as I used to see with the cleaners at the Coffs Harbour shopping centre we used to visit.

We were very amused, for example, when we were buying an outdoor setting and two English-speaking assistants from London sat down in the chairs that came with the setting to have a good natter and find out all about us.  They completely ignored customers hanging around for service, because they were deep into the pleasure of finding out who we were, how we came to be in North Cyprus, how they could help us in any way, and how did we like living in this country.  We have, by the way, become good friends with these two ladies, they are eventually coming to see us when our gear from Australia arrives and we’re properly settled in, and we exchange hugs and kisses on both cheeks when we meet at the shop.

As you drive around North Cyprus, you see groups of men sitting around tables intent on the serious business of drinking Turkish coffee, exchanging views, and hanging out with lifelong friends. If there are no customers in a shop, you’ll see the owners sitting outside having a natter with their fellow store-owner who also has no customers and so sits outside to socialise. As we were leaving a petrol station, a car driven by one of the workers at the station happened to have a rear-end collision with another car on the nearby road. So everyone downed tools, went over, stood around looking at the cars, bellowing suggestions to the driver who’d been hit and the driver who’d done the rear-ending, and a jolly good time was had by all. And I might point out, that here you have real service – someone fills the car for you, washes the windscreen (front and rear) and checks your tyres – so in this instance, if you hadn’t filled your car, you simply had to wait until the incident had run its course before people would come back to serve you. 

So this laid-back attitude is beginning to creep through my veins.  When we move, I always land in a new place expecting to set off running the moment we arrive. I can be driven with the best of  ‘em. In the case of North Cyprus, I’ve actually taken the time to acknowledge that – at my age of 64 – moving continents is tiring and stressful, BUT  a marvellous opportunity to slow right down, relax, observe the world in a peaceful manner, and enjoy what each day brings to me. I think, personally, that the best thing we can do is to accept we’re human, that we face challenges, that we can live each day the best we can, and we don’t need to do anything at all if we don’t feel like it. The world won’t end, people won’t fall off the clifftop, the seas won’t recede in shock. And you might regain an equilibrium and perspective that just being in this world is an absolute miracle in itself. You don’t need to do a thing to experience this miracle. Just be.

This evening I finally remembered to take a couple of pics of the stunning sunsets we can see from our apartment.  I love being back in the Northern Hemisphere because I’m far more in tune with what, for me, is the normal seasonal pattern – spring in March-May, summer in June-August, autumn in August-October, winter in November – February.  And the sun and moon appear to be in different positions, although I realise that it’s we who have changed our position on the planet. In Australia we’d look to our right to see the moon rising, here we look to our left to see the moon rising. And here in North Cyprus the sun moves around to the north, the west and then the south, whereas in Australia the sun  moves around to the south, then the west.

So now I also have the various seasonal celebrations the right way around, I also want to remind you that May 1st is Beltane, the cusp between winter and summer.  It’s a fire festival (which is why I thought the setting sun was pretty appropriate!) and it celebrates fertility, new beginnings, creativity, letting go of the old and embracing the new.  So perhaps between now and May 1st you might like to give consideration to what can be released from your life that you no longer need, and what is waiting to enter your life now that you are making space for the new. 

A ritual is always a good way to honour festivals, so perhaps you might also like to create your own ritual to mark this particular procession of seasons.  You don’t have to do anything complex. As I’ve mentioned sunrise, the start of a new day and adventure in your life, you might like to honour the sun as it rises.  Or perhaps say a small prayer or invocation to yourself, or perhaps create a small space or altar with whatever items you feel appropriate and, as it’s a festival of fire, light candles or incense.  You can also write down on a piece of paper what you feel can now leave your life, and affirm what you are opening to in the future.  And if you aren’t certain of what you’re opening up to, you could simply use the following phraseology: “I am open to and embrace those new energies which the universe considers in my highest interests. Under grace, in a perfect way.”  Or however you feel you want to phrase your words. And then burn the paper, perhaps flushing them down the sink, or scattering them in  your garden or in a place of nature which nurtures you. 

Blessings to you in all you do.

The other day we went to check out a cafe in a lovely spot on a cliff overlooking the coast of North Cyprus close to Kyrenia.  It was a beautiful day, bright sunshine, and the view across the Mediterranean to the Taurus Mountains in Turkey was brilliant.

And what happened?  As soon as we sat down, just as another group of four turned up, the owner of the cafe turned on music.  I noticed this happen in another restaurant we visited – sat down and on came the music. There are many restaurants we don’t visit simply because there is either loud music playing, or there are huge television screens blaring out programmes.

Why have we become so scared of living with silence?  I say “with silence” and not “in silence” because I’m certainly not averse to conversation with others, I love a good natter with the best of them. But I love living with silence, to appreciate the ability to hear clearly birdsong, to appreciate the variations in the wind in this area, but most of all to enjoy the pleasure of silence. No noise. No radio. No TV. No music.

I’ve decided to follow this through into social media.  I don’t need to read constant Twitter updates. They’re like noise in words.  I simply don’t feel the need to have my time taken up with constant Tweets.  They aren’t necessary to my life.  They are, in fact, a distraction from my inner life, from creativity and from enjoying life on this lovely planet of ours without distraction.

Similarly, I do not possess an iPad,  iPhone or  iPod. I don’t want to be owned by a machine, to be beholden to constant phone conversations, or the latest apps or the latest music downloads.  To my mind, Apple may be innovative and astounding, but I don’t like their market monopoly, and I find it quite mind-boggling that people are so suckered by the lure of the latest gadget that they’re willing to queue for hours and days to get the latest i offering from Apple.

My conscious decision is to keep my computer in my workroom, to check on e-mails and Facebook in my workroom, and to have a simple mobile phone which is pre-paid so I’m not stuck on expensive and incomprehensible monthly phone plans. To me, it’s like being on a treadmill – you have all sorts of gadgets which cost squillions, which constantly need upgrading so you’ve got the most up-to-date gadget, which cost quids to maintain with contract and download costs so you need to work to be able to afford these money-guzzling monsters.

I have, of course, reached this position after years of listening to non-stop radio, playing non-stop music and feeling that I have to fill my life with sound.  Now I feel I’ve gradually been de-cluttering my noisy lifestyle addictions to prune back to a world where silence feels bliss and where I carefully consider what sounds I want in my life.

It’ s not everyone’s choice and I do wonder whether I’ve reached this stage of my life because I’m in my ‘sixties and somewhat out of the rat race.  I think I’m moving into an Aphrodite phase where I’m choosing what I love, what nurtures me, how I provide pleasure in my life, and not what other people think is trendy or necessary. But actually I don’t really care what others think.  I believe the sound of silence is very precious.  It brings us back to ourselves, to living with ourselves, to listening with ourselves, instead of being out there as a refuge from being with ourselves.

North Cyprus is an Islamic country and, if you live near a mosque, you hear the call to prayer five times throughout the day.

I’ve always loved the call to prayer, I find it devotional, mindful and soulful.  I remember hearing it when we lived in Nelson and the call to prayer rang out near the supermarket we were about to enter. A sour-faced looking woman beside us looked startled and asked what it was, another woman nearby told her it was the call to prayer, and I could see the first woman’s face start to tighten, so I said brightly: “It’s a lovely sound, isn’t it?” before she said anything negative. 

When we were living in Buyukkonuk, when we first arrived here, we were close to the village mosque and used to hear the call to prayer.  I still love it.  It reminds me to take a moment’s pause, to enter a quiet space, and simply to reflect on whatever comes to mind at the time.  It seems to me that hearing the call to prayer reminds one of the sacred in life on earth, and allows us to reconnect with the sacred, in whatever way it means to us.

I’ve also found that, since arriving here, I’m being drawn to quiet time, reflection and going within.  As we’re in a cramped flat, it’s rather hard to get some alone time, but that’s okay.  Just withdrawing from an outer life and sitting quietly for a few moments feels really good. And when we move into our new apartment, my workroom – which is at the back of the apartment – will be the ideal venue for meditation and quiet reflection.  I’ve also got a dinky little verandah off this room so I can also sit outside and connect with the sounds of nature, as we’re at the end of the block and beside a field full of grass and wildflowers.

I should say that North Cyprus is a very tolerant Islamic society.  There is no dress code and you see modern dress, some women wear a scarf and traditional clothing (outside of the main cities, it’s very rural and traditional), there is no observance of Ramadan, and if you want to wander around in light clothing (as British tourists do), there are no restrictions on dress.  In fact, when we were in Buyukkonuk and the villagers had turned to repair the thermostat in our water tank, I saw a young man looking (what Ithought) reflective  and I thought he was observing a quiet pause. Then he yelled out “Okay” and he’d been helping his father on the roof! There is no observance of the traditional Friday day of rest, instead Sunday is the day of rest here when all shops close except for the supermarkets.

I did read that a religious group had established itself in North Cyprus to spread a return to Islamic religious observances but, as the writer drily observed, they had so far had no success whatsoever! It’s what I love about North Cyprus – the tolerance, openness, friendliness and willingness to give a lending hand at the drop of a hat.

I love being here and I love the call to prayer.  I’m at peace.

In a moment of insanity a couple of weeks ago,  I decided to join a diet group here in North Cyprus.  I lasted one session and packed it in. Why?  Because I think it’s quite appalling to have your life and happiness ruled by whether you’ve lost one, two, three or more pounds. Yes, I’m bounteous and Reubenesque, but I’m very lucky to have a loving husband, terrific friends and to be happy to be alive.

We all sat around clapping in the diet class when our group leader read out weight losses and I’m afraid I decided then and there that life is too short, too important and too interesting to obsess over weight loss, the worship of thinness that characterises so much of present-day society and an obsession with food that teeters on paranoia. I’m lucky in that I was brought up in an era when home cooking prevailed, so I’ve seldom eaten junk food, and pretty much always cooked healthy tucker. But now I’m also resuming the fitness regime I worked out for myself in Bowraville and I’m enjoying getting active again, but pacing myself so I don’t get a flare-up of fibromyalgia and end up flat on my back with chronic fatigue again.

To be very honest, I’m also very happy to be in North Cyprus and leave behind the Western, grim addiction to the fitness industry. Here on this lovely island there’s a much more relaxed, laid-back attitude to life, there are very few gyms around (and what there are, are generally for visiting English people), very few unhappy looking joggers (except for visiting holidaymakers who still look unhappy jogging), and only the occasional lycra-clad cyclist peddling past with a look of smug, pained fanatical obsession on their face. It’s good to leave behind the Western addiction to the fitness industry and I don’t miss it one little bit.

Don’t get me wrong – when I criticise the phobia with thinness I’m not equating it with slender or slim people or women who are naturally thin.  I had a friend who was 5′ 6″, weighed 6.5 stone and ate like a horse. Luckily, she had a sensible doctor who asked her if this had been her metabolism all her life and, when she answered yes, simply told her that was natural and to see him again if things changed. 

I’m concerned with the focus on thinness when being thin is not natural for so many women and, more latterly, men.  Trying to force your body into an unnatural state and size is antithetical to your life purpose of being the best person you can with your natural size and shape, not one dictated by the diet industry, the pharmaceutical head honchos raking in profits, and the medical establishment blindly buying into the obesity myth.

 I’ve got nothing against being fit and eating healthily, and that’s mainly why I joined the diet group- to get support for exercise and getting fit.  I’ve been so knocked by the move to North Cyprus, then getting hit by the two dog bites which stuffed up my calf muscles, that I’ve simply focused on resting and recovering from what is a lot of upheaval and change at my age – 64.5 years old.

Nevertheless, I did start to feel the need for the exercise programme I’d been following in Bowraville, Australia, before we moved to North Cyprus. And as I thought a diet class might provide the moral support to keep on the path of getting fit, I joined up.  It was not to be, however, because it was mainly based on English food and because I feel that if you’re in

Me - luscious, loving life and damned happy!

North Cyprus you try to eat what the locals eat and to be adventurous, not to peer at the local hellim cheese and say you can’t eat it because of its fat content. Nor was there any talk of fitness, exercise and moving one’s body.

And since then I have been further incensed by two more reports put out by the fat-obsessed health industry.  I ask you – where would they be if they didn’t have obesity and fatness to bang on about?  They wouldn’t know how to fill in their time.

The first item concerned an absolutely whacko idea to stuff a pill (yes, another pill, the medical establishment’s solution for far too many health challenges) down so-called overweight women who are pregnant to ensure their babies aren’t  born “fat”.  Of course, no mention of the side effects of the pill on the growing child or the problems both mother and child might face later in life.  And as one commentator said, it’s another obsession with women’s reproductive rights which right now characterises the Loony Righteous Right in the US, Great Britain and Australia.

When I was young, in the ‘fifties, no-one took any notice if a child was chubby as it was expected that weight would reach normal proportions when a young person hit their ‘teen years and started a growth spurt.  There was no ritual humiliation of weighing kids and solemnly pronouncing them a healthy weight or that dreadful word, obese. Nor did social workers threaten to take children away from their parents if they weren’t following a state-sanctioned diet programme. Nor were there unrealistic notions of what is a healthy or unhealthy weight for kids.

The next item which incensed me was the sudden notion that the BMI index, the holy grail of the fat phobic industries, was wrong and people were actually – shock, horror – fatter than shown by the index. Now you might be interested to know that the BMI is not based on any health science or anything like that.  The book that debunks the BMI myth is currently in one of the boxes of our goods headed from Australia to North Cyprus. So here’s what the website, “Adios Barbie – the body image site for every body”, says:

“Though the BMI has long been touted by medical and athletic communities as the greatest tool of measurement to determine someone’s health, stricter academic scrutiny and authentic scientific study is finding that the BMI as a gauge of health is flawed. Contrary to what you have probably heard several times over, the BMI is not an accurate indicator of how “overweight” you are. And it’s certainly not a viable indicator of your health.

In July of 2009, Keith Devlin of the National Public Radio shared with the world 10 reasons why the BMI is bogus. Urging listeners and readers to take the BMI—and their next meal—with a grain of salt, he patiently explained that, at its core, the BMI was a nonsensical, physiologically inaccurate formula created by mathematician Lambert Adolphe Jacques Quetelet in the early 19^th century. Quetelet’s method to create a measurement was calculated by dividing one’s weight in kilograms by the square of their height in meters.

Although it may seem scientifically sound at first blush, the methodology creates no distinction between the weight of muscle versus the weight of fat, despite the fact that fat takes up roughly four times the space of muscle. In other words, there can be quite a difference in your weight and size based on your body type. By failing to evaluate the two body features separately, the BMI delivers faulty results that make being classified as overweight a virtual certainty. And though BMI has some level of success with whole groups of people, its use to determine how healthy one adult can be is questionable at best.”

The BMI was later changed on a quite ad hoc basis, which resulted in almost half the US population suddenly finding that they were overweight overnight, when previously they’d been categorised as a healthy weight.

Passion and POWER!

I have found it interesting that, since the women’s liberation movement and its successor, feminism, hit the scene, more and more pressure has been put on women to be think, to take up less space and to lose their sense of identity because they’re told their bodies aren’t perfect unless they’re thin. It seems to me that it’s a very subtle way to control women, undermine their self-confidence and – in the long run – keep them in their place of being Barbie dolls instead of grown-up women, not girls.

If you look around (and I do this quite often when I’m sitting in cafes looking at the world passing by), you’ll see that people come in all sorts of shapes and sizes, it’s the nature of the human race. Some are sturdy, some are short, some are thin, some tall, some bulky and, yes, some are fat.  Of course I acknowledge that it’s not good to eat fatty, fried food and to have a diet which doesn’t include fresh fruit and vegetables. I’s not good to be unfit and take no exercise and be a couch potato.

But it also has to be recognised that all too often low-income people eat crap food because it’s cheap and they can’t afford good quality tucker which is more expensive. In recent years too people are so knackered after working the long hours demanded of them these days, or working two or more jobs to make ends meet, that all they want is to sit in front of  TV and be utterly mindless. And if you’re unemployed,  you’re likely to get depressed and, perhaps, stuff food down yourself to provide some emotional compensation and consolation. Whether we like it or not, life happens and judging people solely by their weight is senseless, insensitive and judgmental.  Remember that old saying: “Walk a mile in my shoes” before you start criticising someone or sitting in judgment on them.

But you’ll find that people who do eat a good, healthy diet and who are active don’t fit into the stereotypical picture of the BMI index.  All that’s happening with this index is that people are getting stuffed into weight boxes which don’t fit or suit them, and they’re forgetting what their natural size and shape is. I think, for example, that it’s crazy that those luscious lovelies of yesterday, like Marilyn Monroe or Jane Russell or Rita Hayworth would now be categorised as obese.

I think what also gets up my nose is the way in which  the term “obesity epidemic” and “obese” and “morbidly” obese are slung around leading to so many people who aren’t thin or who don’t fit into the straitjacket peddled by the diet industry being pilloried, insulted, treated with scorn as greedy or weak-willed and subject to verbal abuse and disdain which wouldn’t be acceptable if the insults were directed at a person’s sexuality, race or religion.

I also look around women my age and see regularly women who would be characterised as obese but who are the natural weight for their age. Women do tend to put on weight as they get older, particularly after the menopause, and it’s – a word we don’t here too often – NATURAL and part of ageing! And these women  are leading happy, productive and fulfilling lives which aren’t stunted by diets, thinness and so on, and they look absolutely GREAT!

The criteria for good health is eating good food; really appreciating good food and not obsessing over every item that goes into your mouth and calculating the calories so it’s a misery eating; making good choices about what you put in your body; enjoying the sensuousness of food; and moving your body because that’s what bodies are supposed to do.  Above all, being happy, having many laughs every day, loving your body because it’s doing a good job carrying you through life, have good friends and love in your life, and loving being alive is the best and brightest way to live your life.