I left the city for a break one winter. The break was like a desperate escape from the fast paced city life. I went to a village not even on the map. It was a 2 hour drive from the Argaeus Volcano (Mount Erciyes, Kayseri, Turkey) towards the depth of the wheat fields. The village had no shopping malls, no highways upon highways, underpasses and overhead bridges. There were no cars and traffic and absolutely no sound. No lofty sky scraping city apartments. Miles upon miles were no homes, just fields, hills, streams and an empty road. There were no mobile signals, there was just the few simple village folk engaging in intriguing incidents , kids telling silly stories funny nevertheless and just pure closeness and the best human to human interaction.
There was no pretense, it was a place of honesty as everyone depended on each other for existence in such a tiny village. There was nothing there, just emptiness, stillness. No positive no negative, only neutrality, inexistence. There was no intense nature colour, bright or dark, just a neutral palette landscape. The experience was surreal. It was beyond good or bad, it was just peace of the void. It gave the mind a rest to intake nothing, a break and re-energized the soul to have no burden of grief or joy.
Nothing was green. There was no lush foliage for relaxing the eyes. It was just empty, bare trees, no leaf in sight. No green grass anywhere. No chirping of the birds. It was a different kind of relaxation. Instead of consuming all the greenery, it was like emptying out all the overwhelming feelings inside. Like shedding my own autumn leaves. Like having no feeling at all, not being filled with happiness or sadness, just having the blessing of feeling nihility and void. The emptiness was neutral chi in itself, a profoundly healing one, like a long fast and the most unique experience I had.
When was the last time you escaped the city to a quiet wilderness? Comment below.
