On that warm, extremely sunny day in the ancient city of Ephesus near Selçuk, I was obsessively trying to take selfies while sitting on one of the highest block of seats.
I was trying to show off that gorgeous and exotic girl who came from our sacred land of Anatolia, with roots from Cappadocia on my father’s side and Kahramanmaraş on my mother’s side. I had never been to any of those cities at that point, though. So, there I was, visiting Selçuk for the first time with the intention of learning about the heritage of Kybele culture here and reactivating the strong, beautiful, virtuous qualities of the Amazons in my genes, those who came and passed through the land of Anatolia.
My vacation plan included visiting the ancient cities of Pergamon, Ephesus, and Hierapolis. I swear I could feel the soft yet compassionately burning female energy everywhere, in every reflection, in every touch of ancient stone, and in every look of a statue carving. I felt it in every single cell of my body, both inside and outside! I was surrounded by this mesmerizing energy, feeling like I was everything I could be. It was like I was some kind of queen who has conquered the world or a woman with a heart huge enough to heal all the planets and galaxies in the universe. I was a sacred mother with the most magical womb and yet the hottest goddess ever, mighty but still modest.
For me, it was pure heaven. I was vibrating on a higher frequency than I normally would. Yes, I wanted to wake up those “Amazon-like” qualities in me, but what was happening went beyond my imagination. During my journey, although only Hierapolis had a direct connection with Cleopatra, I always kept her in the back of my mind. I felt that I looked like her with my dark skin, dark hair, exotic energy, and love of any kind of pleasure. I had a passion to be seen and appreciated and the ambition to rule. I would do anything for just self-realization.
At that moment, I heard shouting inside the ancient theatre of Ephesus: “Cleopatra in Ephesus!” There were barely any people around due to the heat, so I was surprised! I turned my head and someone asked, “Hey, are you from Mesopotamia?”
I replied in Turkish; “No, I am from Istanbul.” He thought I must have come from Egypt, Iran, or Azerbaijan. We then started talking and he coaxed me out of my unending selfie trap, taking some better pictures of me instead. After we ate lunch together, I had to part with him, so I could continue my journey. I was confused, though. Clearly, there was strong evidence to show that my intention came true. The pressure was massive, however. What the hell was I going to do with the ten thousandth reincarnation of Isis (Cleopatra) reactivated in my genes?
To be honest, what I had to do in the end was just accept the gift. The more I resisted, the more that the crowded groups of far-eastern tourists would approach me and ask to take selfies with me, saying things like, “Hey! Cleopatra is here too.”
So I accepted and took the blessings in. I let myself feel gifted and became relaxed with that idea. I finally managed to build up enough courage to look at the me that existed before the Cleopatra experiences. What I realized has shocked me!
***
I had always been in love with my hair. It was somehow a shiny black, very long, and strong and healthy. It could easily be shaped into whatever I wanted it to be, and day and night, it always looked intensely attractive with three times more volume than an average woman’s hair. It was the reason why I received so many compliments and admiring glances from people every day for thirty years.
Last year, I was in northern India spending time with monks, meditating with them every day, and sharing their day-to-day life without any kind of a cross-gender interaction. I remember saying, “If enlightenment means removing all my hair, then screw that. I am not going to do that.”
Since then, a year and a half has passed. I kept walking on the path of love and awareness and brought Tantra and Sufism into my life. I never missed a chance to evolve my version of me, although it really hurt sometimes. I even became a breathwork therapist and touched the hearts of hundreds of beautiful people.
Now I know what it really means. It is not about removing the hair from your scalp. It is about dropping the idea of hair, the notion of being addicted to how shiny and awesome your hair looks. It means not thinking about how gorgeous you look, how attractive you are, and how much power you gain from all those visual belongings, which don’t even belong to you! It is about finding the real power of your soul beyond your superficial attributes.
There is something important here, though. You can never drop anything that you never had. In order to abandon any kind of identity, even ego, you need to have had it first. You need to make it a real experience. For example, you cannot lose your passion for money without actually tasting the kind of life you could have had with that money. Likewise, you cannot drop a sexual addiction without reaching a total satisfaction of body, mind and soul for at least once in your life. Unless it becomes an experience with awareness, you can never be free of it.
I was lucky. I was offered the experience of Cleopatra so I could drop my need to be seen, to be loved and admired. It was difficult at first to accept these miserable needs existed. And it became more difficult to accept that I was actually beyond these needs once I woke up to my true potential that was already lying within. If you can manage to open your heart to your most miserable sides, you will see that the cure, gift, and miracle grow out of exactly the same point. This is the point where you also experience complete freedom.
I’m sure your parents expressed their love by saying things like, “Oh my beautiful daughter” or “My handsome son” did they not? (But hey, at least they loved you.) You are therefore not entirely responsible for identifying yourself with how you look. Out parent are not guilty either, however. They did their best to raise us, but we have the choice to make the change right now for ourselves and for our children. Our ancestors and our children are all wired together through the collective consciousness, and all those experiences can be transferred from one generation to another. That is why we have the freedom to choose an experience with awareness in order to evolve.
Remember,
Make the choice to wake up to your true spiritual strength.
Just accept the situation as it is.
Open your heart to however it feels.
Put your intention with words from a pure heart.
And go beyond the illusion.
We are waiting for you in another dimension.
