“Stay out of their karma...”
Some people are neither peaceable nor open to forgiveness…for centuries on end.
“Stay out of their karma!”
Those unexpected words were conveyed with serious authority….
Another demarcation…
(like knowing who’s in your bundle or not)
This idea has saved me from so much trouble in life…
The words were spoken by a resident of Camp Chesterfield, a turn-of-the-century Spiritualist community that I was visiting for a time.
No one but I knew that I was there to take some quiet time over a decision about whether or not to move to Turkey.
The sharp remark…coming unbidden from a stranger…shocked me.
In essence, the blade of the knife making my decision for me…slicing through all my idyllic considerations.
I had been drawn there…the 1st clues emerging in childhood…
Cappadocia…scenes from an encyclopedia when I was 8 or 9 years old and trying, in my childhood zeal, to race through every book ever written…until I found myself arrested by the sight of the fabled fairy chimneys and compelling landscape.
I was 50 before I landed there in the flesh. Suddenly I was ‘home’. I spent a month in one village…Goreme. Many afternoons were spent seated on a bench next to the women at their open-air looms, where they patiently taught me their craft.
Within days, they had taken me to their bosom, inviting me home with them for the mid-day meal, presenting me with a pair of şalvar (baggy pants). They spoke only a handful of words of English, but by the third day, as I sat hip-to-hip alongside Perihan, the woman on the right, I realized we were communicating telepathically…jokes, questions, instruction, you name it.
We’d also jabber at each other in our respective languages and somehow we could understand each other. (Perihan was quite the lovable comic…and a stern teacher at the loom)
I’d had that experience once before with deaf Steve…
Whenever wool is placed in my hands, something ancient stirs inside. Wool reconnects me to something long-forgotten. It had happened on Cape Breton (where an afternoon’s visit turned into a 10 year sojourn) and it was unexpectedly re-enacted in Goreme...in exquisite deja vu detail…
a woman looking up from her work and patting the bench alongside her.
A sonorous male voice broke my concentration one morning as I sat with the women.
“Wool can become your meditation…
We are the people of the wool…the ‘suf’.” (the origin of the word Sufi)
And so another level of learning began. Ali was the owner of the carpet shop and he had been quietly observing…a sacred teacher.
I was in the land of the Sufis…the mystics that emerged with the early Christian monasteries that dotted the countryside. They adapted to the Muslim ways, but mysticism, being mysticism, exists beyond man’s control.
After that trip, I returned to my houseboat home to contemplate things. And then I went back and spent another month in each of my two favorite places.
Hay-on-Wye, Wales, the charming village of booksellers which is described in Death by Cheese
Death by CheeseDebra Robinson·September 4, 2024Read full story
…and then another fateful month in Goreme. My arrival was quietly noted and the word spread around the village while I was still walking the last dusty kilometre. A quiet glance of warning came from the weavers. It was enough.
Turkey lies at the crossroads of many cultures…and time periods. At once modern, yet biblical, with scenes of donkey carts and camels bearing burdens, sharing roads with cars from the ‘50s. It jostled the mind nicely…
In tourist season, you met and spent time with fascinating people from around the world. In the quiet season, the deeper qualities of the place and people came to the fore…(see Cappadocia Chapel)
The atmosphere is such that one could think freely… The simplicity and naturalness of life appealed… Add to that, the profound understanding of the people…It was compelling. There was much to learn and experience there.
The complexities of their society began to emerge. I had struck up a conversation with another merchant in the village…a sensitive, intelligent introduction to the history of the area. We would visit once or twice a week. And then I was subtly warned away from further contact. I later learned the reason…he was Kurdish.
As layers were peeled back, more was revealed. Much of it appealed. Much of it did not.
I was a bit mystified when I was approached by a young Turkish tour guide, leading a group of Japanese ladies. He was dressed all in white and I remember a banana tucked in his back pocket. After he got his group settled, he did not sit to eat with them. Instead, he approached me a bit shyly to ask if he could sit across from me and simply gaze into my eyes.
He shared his itinerary with me so we could meet again. The young man was a fruitarian who had broken his leg in a climbing accident the year before. He met an old man living on the mountain who took him under his wing. The old man, who had been a fruitarian for over 30 yrs. told him that his leg would heal quickly if he ate only fruit. (It did!)
This happened a number of times…
I was bathing in a hot springs pool when an old woman did the same. She caught sight of my eyes and, without a word, came and squatted at the edge of the pool and gazed deeply into my eyes for 5 minutes…wordless. It was a feral movement…like 2 species meeting for the 1st time, curious, sniffing. She, raw-boned, wrinkled and sunburnt, had a fierce aliveness about her that I will never forget. I gazed back into the eyes of what I can only describe as an ancient wise wolf-woman.
Eventually I found that my green eyes signified something to them... It was not unusual to be stopped by others with the same sober request. They would often ask me to interpret their dreams or ask for help with a sickness. Everywhere I was treated with great respect.
I was beginning to realize that this was a multi-layered experience…and that I would have to be a lot more discerning if I were to stay. Spiritualism held some of those keys.
‘Stay out of their karma…’
I didn’t understand the remark or the idea… What karma? What does that have to do with anything?
She was, to the best of my understanding, suggesting a national karma…
I hadn’t connected those dots yet, though perhaps I should have…
It was in Turkey that I learned that America was considered the great satan and the whore of babylon…
What?! Why would anyone think that about the great US of A?
It took a bit of time, but I realized that their experience of America was shaped by Madonna, Brittany Spears, rap, heavy metal music and Hollywood movies…all the decadent features. We were well and embarassingly known for our rampant drug and alcohol use…and our crime-ridden anything-goes culture.
Freedom and the pursuit of happiness in their debased forms…
But, boots on the ground, American female travellers were already regarded as the easiest to have sex with…world-wide.
(Ali observed that western women proudly withheld their hearts in relationships, while giving their most precious gift of their bodies so recklessly and indiscriminately…)
Upside-down world to him…
Americans were a threat to their well-ordered, conservative culture, bringing them down with our every self-centered incursion.
For my part, I had an almost universally good experience in my times there. I felt deeply at home in Cappadocia, where I had a number of important spiritual experiences.
Cappadocian ChapelDebra Robinson·August 3, 2025Read full story
I had an easy rapport with the people and the culture in many ways.
It was refreshing to be around a culture that was not besotted and damaged with alcohol. People there were bright, alive and clear. It was not unusual for people to speak 4 or 5 languages well. They could size you up in ways you wouldn’t expect. They had depth of soul and spirit. For a small taste of the experience…
Clean Heart...Debra Robinson·August 3, 2025Read full story
Cave of DreamsDebra Robinson·August 3, 2025Read full story
While I loved the place, the culture and the people, I couldn’t come to peace about moving there… The more questions I asked, the more complex the picture became…
I was out of my depth…
and about to be called to the next chaper of life 4 miles down the road from the Spiritualist camp…where a more fitting education was about to unfold.
“If god has never interrupted your plans, you have probably not made his acquaintance…”
In time, I understood the wisdom of that advice… Turkey is a place that I can visit…but not a place I should attach myself…for many reasons.
What does it mean to ‘stay out of their karma’?
There is a complex history there on national, familial and personal levels….that has nothing to do with me. I should not get caught in the crosshairs.
The same holds true for many situations…and this is where it becomes helpful for us…
What responsibility do I have towards difficulties, tragedies, traumas and wars that take place outside of my ability to make a difference?
When I worked on the survivors of the rape and concentration camps after the war in the 90’s in the former Yugoslavia…there came a point where I had to step aside in a similar way.
Stay out of their karma….
They are jonesing for their next conflicts. They still have not learned.
There are pockets throughout the world of unrest and war between peoples. They are not solveable on forums.
My grandparents on all sides emigrated to America to avoid wars. Peacable people…who left everything and started over.
Some people are neither peaceable nor open to forgiveness…for centuries on end.
We have no part in these things. Those cancers should not spread.
They will either learn…or they won’t.
They will live with the consequences of their choices.
Know what belongs to you…and what doesn’t. We should not be caught up in conflicts that have nothing to do with us.
Don’t eat yourself alive for something that is none of your business…that you didn’t break and that you can’t mend. That is for them to figure out.
This applies broadly to individuals, to groups and to nations.
Being constantly upset and whipped into innumerable frenzies can only confuse and debilitate a person. Know your part, do your part, leave the rest alone.
It is not necessary to be a part of every concern or conversation. Nor is it necessary to have an opinion about everything…or chase the latest tidbit of news or research.
Get the broad outline, stay mildly abreast of the situation, but don’t lose your center or your life to it.
Passivity of mind is the enemy here… Engage the life that is under your care intelligently while you are still alive.
Don’t be led, Pavlovian-style, sniffing feverishly from one upset to the next. (They all smell the same after awhile…)
Now this is my take on things, based on experience…rather than belief. Everything is energy. What you do with that energy is up to you… Prayer has more to do with things than people might imagine… (not the kind of rote, unintelligent prayer)
The connected kind...
I sometimes suggest to people that they turn their upset into prayers. Don’t let it gnaw away at you for no good purpose. Direct the energy…
We are part of a larger universe and we are equipped to interact on those levels.
In quantum mechanics, we have the observer effect, where measuring a system changes its state simply by observation. Your mind and your emotions can accomplish more good on those levels than all the wasted hand-wringing, blaming and despair…
Get intelligent about those potentials… You’ll be glad you did…
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