Note: While I was deeply affected by my time there, and am super excited to share my experience through a series of blog posts, I am in no way an expert on Morocco, nor Marrakesh. I spent three days there, did not do much research ahead of time, and stayed within the walls of the medina most of the time. This is the equivalent of someone writing about their experience in France, after having spent three days in Montmartre. So, I am only sharing here what I saw and felt in this limited amount of space and time.
*** With a couple changes of clothes in our bags, we were ready and more than just a little bit excited. I had always wanted to go to Marrakesh, and I thought that maybe I had blown my one chance thirty some years ago when I had turned down my parents’ invitation to join them. A teenager with priorities, I apparently had an important party to attend, that weekend. Really. So when I found us round trip tickets for 141€, we jumped on them fast. The flight to Marrakesh left at 6 am, and we had to check in at 4. The easiest and cheapest thing to do this seemed to make our way to Pisa in the late afternoon, then take a snooze at the airport, after having paid our respects to the Leaning Tower. To her credit, our friend Marta was rather vocal about not liking our plan of sleeping at the airport, but we were full of adventurous spirit, had hitchhiked in the countryside, caught planes barefoot, and driven a Fiat on Italian freeways, so what was a night at the airport? After walking through dreamlike night time Pisa, we made our way to the airport and found a couple of green plastic chairs to call home for the night. In a somewhat remote corner of the airport, they seemed fine enough, until a gentleman a few seats away decided to start listening to the TV on his iPhone, really loudly. A trip to the bathroom had me notice that there was an empty chapel nearby, and it was not long before we were laying down on the floor by the altar. Lights off, door closed and pretty darn comfy... before we were awakened rather abruptly by two security guards, informing us that the airport was closing. It was 1 am. Several of us, including the gentleman with the iPhone, made our way groggily outside, looking around for shelter. The grass seemed like a good option, but then we noticed the sprinklers. We settled in a closed restaurant’s covered area with tables and chairs, where a few people were gathered. It seemed that our trip had already started as most of our roommates looked Moroccan, and there was a very distinctly foreign flavor in the air. Because I was cold and I wanted some sense of privacy, I wrapped my scarf around my head and tried to sleep - when the iPod was once again loud, and there was no sleep to be had. When a man got up to ask firmly for it to be turned off, I knew that we weren’t the only ones with fragile nerves. We got up. It was not warm, we were tired. We tried the parking lot. Gates closed. Then, on a whim, one of us pressed the parking elevator button. When the door opened, we looked at each other with surprise, and before the elevator changed its mind, we stepped inside. It was brightly lit, but it was out of the cold. And it was private. For the next couple of hours, it was home. Sitting on the small floor, I could not help but think of what someone would see if they too, called the elevator. And that thought, combined with the lack of sleep, gave me a big fit of the giggles. Just when I thought I was over it, they would start again. We managed to catch a little bit of rest, and were not a second late when the airport re-opened, at 4 am. We vowed not to tell Marta. When we landed in Marrakesh, a few hours later and having slept in the plane, I was high. We were in Africa!!! Just like that, we were in Africa. The airport was beautiful, and as he had promised, Jan, our Airbnb host, was waiting for us. Jan (pronounced Ian) is from Belgium and after spending the last twenty years in and out of Morocco, he had bought his riad - where we would stay - and moved to Marrakech three years ago. Meeting Jan was the biggest blessing for this adventure, and what made our trip the wonderful thing that it became. Driving expertly through Marrakesh (which is much less crazy than driving in Italy), he talked to us about living there, and his life. I was drinking it all in. Finally, we parked right outside of the medina - the walled city - and walked the few steps home. Of these few very first moments, I only remember being happy out of my mind. Also, the orange-ish dirt of the walls. And the heat. Eyes wide open, we followed Jan through a small side steet, and when he opened the door to the house, it was as though we had entered yet another world. Quiet. Beauty. Exotic simplicity. Even though the house has no window at all to the outside (to keep the women hidden, is what he told us), it is designed in a way that it is very light and airy. Small and three stories high, the whole house is built around a tiny courtyard / living room, open to the sky. All three floors look down onto the courtyard, and its plants, mosaic, and typical tiled small pool of water. Downstairs are the kitchen, courtyard, another living room and a bedroom. On the second floor are all the bedrooms, with beautiful open doors to the courtyard, and on the third floor is the rooftop terrace, looking over the city, the hazy hot air, and several mosques. The best word I can use is enchanted. We were both under the spell. Jan invited us to sit down in the courtyard and headed to the kitchen to prepare a pot of traditional mint tea, which we sipped together. Bliss... He then showed us to our room, on the second floor. Intricately carved wooden doors, painted tiles, rich fabrics, heady scents, deep colors, lush plants, and everywhere Tadelakt, the traditional Moroccan way to work with concrete so that it becomes smooth, round, waterproof, and so luscious you just have to caress it as you walk by. Which we did a lot. Because one can only take so much magic in one gulp, we decided to take a quick nap before heading out with Jan. XOOXOX Having gone through a bit of inner remodeling, I sat on my balcony and waited for olive picking time. Luigi had said between 10 and 11, and it was almost ten. I was ready. By 11, I was both ready and thinking that maybe this was not going to happen. By the time he messaged me at 11:45, letting me know that it was about to start, I was starting to get a little nervous and wondered if I really wanted to do that. I mean, I had never picked olives... would ladders be involved? Would my body keep up? And mostly, would I make a fool of myself, in front of the whole crew? I had just gone through a good bout of uncomfortableness and the rewards had been big. What would one more bring? Maybe this whole chapter was about that, anyway. Sure, I could stay home and work - but had I not gotten a good lesson on the topic? I grabbed my water bottle and walked down to the olive grove, getting lost only once. No one was there, which gave me a chance to inspect the situation a little more closely. I had walked past olive groves often, while in Tuscany last month, but always with a charmed painter’s eye, never with any intent on walking myself down there myself. Totally different perspective, and I wasn’t sure I was up to this new one. It was steep. Really freaking steep. And deep. I could not even see where the grove stopped, actually. Waaaaay down there. One hour, I thought. I can give this one hour, then I need to get back and _________. Finally, Luigi arrived on his scooter, hopped off and said: Let’s go! Let’s go. Let’s go... how? Where is the crew? Where are the machines? That’s when he reached behind a small wall and grabbed a stick (which may give some of you a giggle), a long bamboo pole that had seen better days, and walked towards the first available tree. At that point, I decided to let go of anything and everything I may think I knew, and just be. Out of nowhere, a woman around my age and in much better physical shape showed up with a big green net, which she laid under the tree, like a huge sheet. As soon as the net was nice and flat, Luigi began whacking at the tree with the pole. Whack, whack, whack.... I could not believe my eyes. What?? THAT’s how you do it? All of a sudden, the big Costco bottle of olive oil that sits next to my stove started glowing in my mind, and nodding. Some olives were falling onto the net, leaves and all. Not millions, mind you. Some. Once that tree was deemed properly beat, the net was moved under the next tree. By that time, we were still at the very upper part of the grove, outside of the fence and actually on the road. I was still watching, feeling like a complete alien who had very little to offer. Then it was time to gather what had fallen and thinking I could maybe contribute a little without messing anything up, I squatted down to help separate the fruit from the leaves, and put the olives in a small bucket. Luigi’s mother Cristina joined in, and handed me a pair of gloves. That felt nice. I was in shock. There we were, four of us crouched over a net, separating olives from their leaves one handful at a time, and putting them in a bucket. My mind was having a full on chatter party, thinking about how crazy inefficient this was, how these people must hate their task, how surely there had to be a better way. That’s when I noticed that the woman next to me was humming a little song. Right there, squatted on the side of the road, she was singing. I looked up. She caught my eye, smiled at me and said: e bella la natura, vero? “Nature is beautiful, isn’t it?” She was happy. Just happy. Her mind was making no alternate plans and there was no resistance. She was simply tending to nature’s gifts. In grateful bliss. Wow. Her one sentence completely re-oriented me. This was no chore. This was not something to “get better at,” or ameliorate. This was just ... this. So I sank into it. My mind took a nap while I just felt the olives in my hand, saw the colors of the leaves and fed the little bucket. I could have sat there a long time. Surrendered. Because Life really likes to drive a good point home, I was pulled out of my olive induced meditation by the voice of a woman, speaking to Luigi. She was speaking in careful Italian, and with beautiful blondish red hair and a tank top, was obviously not from here. She wanted to know where the road to the beach was. When he told her, she responded that no, it was closed. He turned to me with a quizzical look, as I had just been down there the day before. I shook my head, no, it was not closed. It was arduous and crazy steep, but it was not closed. I got up and told her I would take her there. As she and I walked, she asked me how long I had been living here and I felt funny answering “two days.” With my olive stained gloves on, and all that happened since I got here, it was confusing even to me to give that answer. She looked surprised and told me a little about her. I am from Stockholm and I am an actress, she said. And then... wait for it.... I am here with my writing teacher. To write. I want to write a one-woman play and perform it. Say what??? Here? In the middle of nowhere, she too was here to write? I saw Life give me a smile and a wink. Tell her, it said. Well, I am here to write, too. Except it seems I can’t. It seems I’m stuck. She stopped. I stopped. We looked at each other. What’s your name? she asked. I gave her my name and she laughed, saying that my last name was her favorite name, ever. She wrote it down. And then we arrived at the road to the beach. Which was open. We just needed to meet, that’s all, I said when she saw it. Yes, we did, she responded. And we will see each other again. We hugged. She headed down the kooky road to the water, and I walked back to “my” net, my insides re-arranged a little, once more. It was time to tend to the trees inside the fence, and I noticed that Luigi had hopped over the locked gate with a gunny sack and a bucket. As if I jumped fences every day, I did the same thing (no big whoop, I prefer it that way, god please don’t let me trip), and for the next hours, he, Cristina - who apparently had the key to the fence - the other woman whose name I didn’t catch, and I picked olives. It was amazing. No more whacking, these trees had released their gifts by themselves, over the past days. The olives had fallen onto an expertly set up system of netting, which all oriented downwards, to the bottom of the grove. Our job was to find little pools of olives and harvest them, or nudge them towards the next low point, where they would gather, like happy looking little bunny poops. We saw honey combs attached to trees, and I was shown where boars had dug the night before (not my favorite part). There was a small brook babbling nearby, the Mediterranean bright blue in the distance, and the quiet, sweet work of gathering these precious gifts. The further down we got, the more sacred it seemed. My gratitude bucket was filling up just as quickly as my olive sack. I was humbled that these people had allowed me to “help” them with this. I was proud to have pushed through the discomfort and my ego’s insistent warnings. And I was so glad that my body was keeping up. After a good while, we reached the bottom of what seemed to me like a giant pin ball machine of slanted netting, and after checking on the avocado trees, made the trek back up, with the bags on our shoulders. The sea was scintillating, that sea that has brought me so much home-ness since I was born, and I just paid attention to the next step. Later that evening, Cristina came by with a couple handful of olives for me to brine. They take 20 days to get ready, she said. So we will be able eat them before you leave. Indeed. XOXO About 6 minutes after I published my last blog post, I received a message from Luigi, asking me if I would like to join in on the next day’s olive picking expedition. Luigi and his family own the home where I am staying, as well as several olivetti (olives groves), and run a small delicious olive oil production. While I stared at the message for a bit wondering if he had possibly read my words, I could almost hear some top layer of emotional mud crackling away at the lure of some sense of community. I answered that yes I would love to, knowing that I was really responding to a much bigger invitation, one the universe was kindly extending, following my vulnerable exposition. Then, within the next 12 hours, a few things happened, most of them having to do with responses to the blog. First, I received quite a bit of emails from readers telling me that they could fully relate to the way I was feeling. Even though the topic shows up regularly in coaching sessions, the volume surprised me. Then, peppered through the responses, I was gifted some profoundly helpful nuggets of wisdom. I will share some of them with you now, because they are so rich and because they have been so impactful for me that I am thinking they may touch you also. The first one was on Facebook, by someone who knows me well. It simply said: ‘Perhaps look at the “shoulds” you have handed yourself.’ Well, this one annoyed me instantly, especially since I knew that I could not let it pass by unexamined. Then, this one: ‘Dear Laura, what you feel reminded me of something I read recently: "Once freed from the cage, an animal finds itself alone, unsure of what to do, separated from a life and things that it understands. The sudden uncertainty can be paralyzing.” As you say, in a few days, you'll know! You'll settle into the new rhythm, peacefulness will come back and words will flow’ Whew. And then, this: “I think our minds are so accustomed to dealing with stuff, solving problems, making deadlines, communicating with people, getting things done...that when we find ourselves in heaven, we don't know what to do. Especially as someone who wants to write! There's nothing worse for a writer, than tons of free time. I don't know why, but that's how it is with me. The greatest writers often wrote in the wee hours before their day jobs, or at night while the household slept, or on napkins, matchbook covers and so on. If I were you (always easy to say!)...I'd forget about writing for now and just explore and enjoy, read, watch movies, eat, be on vacation! Writing is a terrible mistress!.. a joy and delight, but so persnickety, fitful, moody, petulant, evasive. Give her the cold shoulder for awhile and see if she comes muling back to you. Or give her twenty minutes a day, no more than that. Sensing she doesn't have all that much of your time to waste, she might start to spill. If not, good riddance. You can deal with her when you return to old redundant USA. (meanwhile, just take notes!)” All these words, their wisdom and the caring and thoughtfulness that were weaved through them, continued the crackling of the mud. By the time I went to sleep (in a huge fit of allergies), I was wide open. Let it come. I’m listening. I woke up raw and naked in my heart. The sun started peeking over the hill framed by the big glass door in my room, and within minutes, my bed was soaked in bright warm sunlight. I closed my eyes, and deeply accepted the gift. As I recounted this moment on the phone a bit later, a loved voice said: “this is the universe greeting you. It will be alright.” Walking onto the balcony and seeing my beloved sea down below, I suddenly knew, KNEW that I was supposed to be there, right now. I knew that all this beauty and warmth were there to support me in passing an emotional kidney stone. I just had to let go. So, while my mind continued to make a list of all the stuff I should be doing, my body just sat on a small chair on the balcony and did nothing. Pretty soon, my mind got bored and came to join us. The three of us just looked at the sea for a long time, quietly for the first time since I had gotten here. Doing nothing. Nothing productive, nothing that would further my work nor enhance the world. Nothing. Eventually, I felt compelled to get up and re-read one of the emails. The one that suggested that I didn’t write, that I just enjoyed. Then I went back to looking at the sea, moving strangely slowly. And that’s when my heart joined the party, and the tears came up. I owed it to someone, to something to be productive. Somehow, quietly, gradually and profoundly, I had bought into the agreement years ago that I owed it to ____________ to bust my butt. A lot, and without much of a break. I think it started after my marriage ended and I refused to go out and get a “real job.” With three young kids to feed, I did all kinds of pirouettes to keep us afloat, while seemingly unable to sell my time doing something that numbed my soul. And somehow, in doing so, I had signed a binding mental contract that said that if I chose to not suffer for the money I earned, then I would also never allow myself to fully rest. I had committed to a non-ending, exhausting debt. WHEW. Craziness. How did I miss that? How did I forget signing this mad contract? I don’t know. But all of a sudden, on this small blue balcony in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by Life’s beauty and my friends’ love, the darn thing showed back up out of a dark file cabinet and grudgingly handed me a pen with which to write an amendment. Instead, not feeling 100% sure of what I was doing, I slowly tore it up and sent its pieces floating over the water. Then I sat back down and waited to go pick olives. Which is a whole other story. Here's to feeling, here's to listening, and here's to healing. And here's to loving support, always. XOXO PS: This morning, I receive this:
“Wow. I’m getting touched. I’m getting triggered. I’m starting to feel something, and feel something that doesn’t really feel comfortable. And what this points to is the fact that transformation requires us to be okay with feeling our shadow….the transformation, and the embodiment of self, and fully embodied intuitive development isn’t going to come from just living in the love and light. It’s going to come from our strength and our willingness to sit in some of the shadow feelings and not shame ourselves or make ourselves wrong for being there and just give ourselves permission to have them and feel them….you are starting to tap into what was subconscious. It’s like a pocket of energy that got suppressed and is stored there in the body, maybe it’s been protected with a lot of different survival mechanisms, coping mechanisms, and now you’re in a container for healing…that healing is to move the energy out. It’s a block in the body. So the reason we don’t always feel good in healing is because sometimes in order to get to the other side of the channel in our body, to clear the pipeline, in order to get to freedom on the other side, is about going through the feeling and giving yourself complete empowerment and permission to feel it.” - Wendy DeRosa Share on Facebook Receive my blog posts straight into your inbox |
SCARED OF THE SACRED
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