The places I had found on the Marmaris peninsula were great, but the next beach I found was truly incredible. After reaching the end of the peninsula, I drove east and checked out several places along the way. I passed through mountains, down into coves, up mountains again, down to the next cove, and along the coastline, but none of these places felt like my new home. After a couple of hours of driving, I grew tired. I headed to the next potential home spot, and the path led me through a forest on a slightly off-road forest road. Only a few kilometers away from my destination, I had no internet connection, which was a concern because at that point I desperately wanted to continue my music production courses and stay in touch with friends. But as soon as I reached the beach, I knew immediately that this would be my home for a long time. It was amazing! Located deep in nature at the other end of the forest, without any signs of human development, and the internet connection was perfect.

I thoroughly enjoyed my time at this beach and spent it doing many things I enjoyed: making music, playing the cajon, bo staff training, hiking, writing, reading, meditating, yoga, communicating with friends online, and having tea and nuts with the people who occasionally visited this magnificent beach.

Making tea and sharing nuts, thoughts, and stories was one of my favorite things to do. During my time at that beach, I was reading the books “A Psalm For The Wild-Built” and “A Prayer For The Crown-Shy” by Becky Chambers. I loved these books (like maybe all of her books). These books feature a monk who travels around in a tea wagon. In every settlement the monk encounters, he builds a tea place and people come to have tea that he mixes individually for them based on their emotional state. If they like, they may tell him about their lives and the things that are bothering them. The monk would listen to them wholeheartedly and be there for them, but he wouldn’t give much advice. I felt like that was exactly what I would like to do. Later that day, when I came back to the beach from a hike, I heard loud emotional Turkish music. There was a Turkish guy drinking beer and listening to that music. I waved and smiled, he waved me over, gave me a beer, and told me for hours about the trouble he had with his family. All via Google Translate. Although it was beer instead of tea, for that time, I felt like a tea monk, and it felt good.

One day, I hiked along the beautiful single trail that led in both directions along the coast. After an hour, I reached the next big cove. In that one, there were two small buildings and I was curious if anyone lived there. Down at the beach, I met Masoud and we had a great connection from the start. He had come from Iran, was traveling and hiking, and had attended the Rainbow gathering, an event I had also considered attending, but I had been in Bulgaria at the time of the gathering. Now he was living with a friend in a minimalistic hut of a Turkish guy at that beach and was enjoying life. In the hut, there was a poster of Don Quixote and his horse, Rosinate, which I found to be quite funny. We had a great time talking about everything, eating, and making music. He had been playing the setar since he was a little boy, and his playing was beautiful. I recorded some of it. Maybe I can put the recordings into an organic house song at some point. We also talked about how we could stay longer in Turkey than the 90 days we were allowed to. I had researched and had found that for a longer stay, one would need a Turkish address.

On another day, I met his friend Ali and we connected instantly as well. Every week, I would get new supplies from Datca, the next town, and sometimes I brought some things for my Iranian brothers as well. We had a lot of fun, deep conversations and one time when the Turkish owner of the hut was around, we helped collect olives. I love my Iranian brothers, and I hope to meet them again somewhere in the future. Perhaps in Iran at some point.

On another day, a group of about twenty hikers arrived at my home beach. I was relaxing and reading on the beach when one of them approached me and Rosinante. It turned out that he was German and Turkish and had recently moved to Datca, the nearest town to the beach. We talked about the beauty of Turkey and the beach where we were. I told him that I really enjoyed Turkey and would love to stay longer than the ninety days that I am allowed to. Without hesitation, he offered that I might use his address for my temporary residency (aka Ikamet) application. We went to his hiking group and talked to some other guys who were experienced with the process of obtaining a temporary residency in Turkey. They gave us a contact to another woman who was helping foreigners with the process of applying for an Ikamet. With the guys from the hiking group, we had a beautiful conversation about traveling, life, reality, Zen, yoga, and love.

When I went to Datca to get some supplies, I met with Vedat and the super friendly and helpful woman who was helping people to get an Ikamet. More on that topic in another post.

Vedat and I met every week in Datca and had a wonderful time together. We talked about everything, relaxed, had walks around Datca, and always had lunch at Baba Restaurant (find Baba Lokantası on Google Maps). I loved Baba! The food there was so authentic and delicious. Although I very rarely eat meat, I had Köfte! And the prices were incredibly cheap. For a big lunch for two people including deserts and unlimited bread and water we paid about six Euros. And visiting Baba reminded me of my favorite lunch restaurant back in Hamburg: Kardelen (find it on Google Maps)! I really enjoyed the time with Vedat, and after a few weeks, it felt a bit like home to come to Datca. When walking around in Datca, I also met other people that I had gotten to know on my home beach, and that made me feel connected to this place as well.

One evening, after sunset, I saw two dark objects swimming in the ocean, and after some time, the objects made it to the beach. They were two divers who had been hunting for fish. While having some tea and nuts together, we suddenly noticed a swordfish swimming not far away from the beach in the strong light of the moon. It was a magical sight, like a creature from a fairy tale. Although the divers had been in the water for already five hours, they headed back again for some night hunting.

On several occasions, I was visited by the forest department and military police. It was an interesting experience. I had a conversation with the forest department about the beach and the plans that some investors had for it. They wanted to build a hotel complex on it. The guys from the forest department were not happy about that and were trying to prevent these plans from happening.

The military police were searching for illegal immigrants that might have come via the surrounding Greek islands to Turkey. They always asked me if I had seen anyone. I had not, but I was thinking about what I would tell them if I had. When I told the captain of the police about the investor’s plans for the beach, he seemed not to be amused: he drew his gun, pointed at the ocean, and pretended to shoot.

To be continued…

After spending three weeks at the stunning beach on the Marmaris peninsula in Turkey, I was conflicted about whether to stay or go. On one hand, I was eager to embark on new adventures, but on the other, I felt like leaving would be like avoiding something. There was an intangible sense that something remained “on that beach” for me to discover or let go. Although I couldn’t quite put my finger on what it was, I felt that staying was the right thing to do.

Before heading to the Beglika festival in Bulgaria, I had a conversation about fasting with that lovely German family I met at the big lake. I had been curious about fasting for some time and that conversation and its longstanding cultural significance made me even more curious. During my time living on the first beach with Artha, I had experienced how eating less and changing my diet heightened my body awareness. I had felt more attuned to physical sensations and since then I was eating even healthier than before.

A couple of months ago, my attitude towards eating had shifted. It became more significant to me and I often found myself eagerly anticipating my next meal. At times, it felt like a craving. It may have been due to boredom or a lack of structure in my daily life. I began to ponder what it would be like to not eat. So I decided to try fasting for the first time in my life. My plan was to fast for three days and observe the changes in my perspective on eating.

Shortly before the start of my fasting, Artha told me that her life at the ashram was very intense and that she felt like changing every day. Although she still felt that deep and unconditional love between us, she felt her romantic love for me fading day by day. My heart skipped a beat. Was this what was left on that beach for me to let go? I had no doubt of that deep unconditional love and connection between us and I think that this made me feel very different about this change of our connection than I had felt in situations like that in the past. I did not feel anger, despair or fear, I was not deeply sad or depressed. I did feel that I was losing something and I felt passive. Leaving Bulgaria and Artha, Artha going to the ashram. All of that had changed our connection. But our connection had been changing all the time even when we had been together in Bulgaria.

I still felt that romantic love for Artha. If a fairy would have come by, I would have asked her to bring Artha to that beach. But I didn’t feel like my happiness was depending on her. A sense of freedom joined my feelings of loss. It was not a freedom from Artha but rather a liberation from a part of myself. The part that altered my being by clinging to and trying to preserve our romantic love, no matter what. That made me realize how strong this influence on me had been.

A part of me wondered if it was okay to not feel deeply sad, depressed, or angry about Artha severing our romantic connection from her side. Could our love have never been as strong as I thought it was? Was it all just a fantasy or a dream? How could I not feel sad and depressed about losing it and not be upset and angry with the one who took it?

These feelings and thoughts reminded me of the emotions I had experienced after the death of my parents and grandparents. I had been deeply sad and overwhelmed with grief. It felt like losing them meant losing everything. My life and myself. It was all-consuming. As time went by, I realized that even though we wouldn’t be able to see or feel each other in the way we used to, we would always be connected through love and memories. This realization had helped me a lot to let go of that all-consuming sadness and despair. 

Back then, I had thought about whether it would be okay to stop being sad. I thought how could someone stop being sad about losing something that one loves so much? Wouldn’t that be wrong? Wouldn’t that be a betrayal of that love? Back then in Germany and now at that beach in Turkey, I deeply realized that being not sad, not depressed, not angry and not mad was perfectly fine and would not diminish any love I was feeling at all. I still wanted Artha to be happy and live the life she wanted to live at every moment. And for myself I still wanted the same. And as I would like to meet all people, when we see each other again, I will be open to everything there will be between us.

I was at peace with my feelings and thoughts, but there was still a nagging feeling in the back of my mind that I couldn’t quite shake. I felt that the opportunity to let go of this thing was within reach. To focus on it I decided that I would spend my three days of fasting with only meditating, slow walking and yoga, reading the Bankei lectures and sleeping.

The first day of my fasting started and I was feeling very good, calm and curious about what was up to come. I had no plan or structure for these days. I was just doing whatever came up and I did not much think about it. I did a lot of meditating and I never started a timer while doing so. I just sat down and started. When I felt like l laying down, I laid down. When I felt like walking or sitting again, I did that. When I felt hunger arise, I observed that and most of the time, I drank a tea. And I spent a whole lot of time just perceiving the beauty of nature. Doing that for more than some minutes was a pretty new thing for me and it felt wonderful and fulfilling.

At some point I got the impression, that it would not only be possible to trust my pure being (like I had described in the previous post), but that I could really do it. These upcoming thoughts in my mind felt not only less important, they felt obsolete. The commenting voice inside of my head felt like being a commentator of a live game. It was like this commentator told me what was going on and offered topics to think about, but all of that was already known inside of me. Several times I caught myself giggling about how weird that felt.

I started to think about if there were any necessary thoughts. I still don’t know but back then it felt like these arbitrarily arising thoughts that seemed to deliver only things that were already known were of no real use. But I felt like in contrast to these thoughts, the activity of pure thinking was useful. And this pure action of thinking felt much smoother now. Letting go of arising thoughts felt so easy and natural. It felt like my inner commentator had been used to mostly comment something like “hi upcoming thought, I let go of you” or “oh nice, I let go of that upcoming thought” when letting go of thoughts. Now he was mostly silent. The submerging of thoughts felt like a light was dimming itself down. 

Since I had started meditating about six years ago, I had often been longing for the end of a meditation session. Although I did not skip one day of meditating for more than a year, it was not unusual that I had to push myself to start a session. And while meditating, thoughts about quitting a session in early had been not unusual as well. All of this had changed during the time of my fasting. Meditating felt like kind of just having a good time. No part of me questioned that.

Not eating, no phone or iPad didn’t feel bad for those three days. In fact, everything felt very good for that short time. Everything felt very good, light and free. Especially my experiences regarding the unimportance of my inner commentator, the ease of letting go of arbitrarily arising thoughts and the ease of meditating felt super good. They felt so good that from my perspective, as I’m writing this four weeks later, it feels like I was at least partly “high on them” and “high on myself” for being able to experience them. Maybe those experiences and the way I clung to them were the things waiting for me to let go off on that beach.

But in the end it doesn’t matter. I’m happy for the experiences I made and I loved and still love my time at that beach. Everything of it. And I’m very thankful for that.