MELTEM ARIKAN

Full of seedlings... Yearning for blue roses This path Opens our weaknesses  Like a song That remains Full of roses And dead silence Being reborn With every century  That inks into A new chapter (Filiz Çelik)

I’m ok... You are ok... Love me, look at me, value me, attend to me, On being boss, on having power, on winning the race I don’t feed myself on that… If I feed myself on others... If I am nourishing material.. I know I’ve lost my soul… I haven’t lost any of my excitement while I’m living in Elan Valley. Everything is so new but at the same time, everything reminds me of my childhood. The smell of burning wood, the cold bathroom, buckets in the bathroom, the ‘voices’ coming from the wood burner. Silence and the sound of the radio which we bought had a couple of days ago… I was born in a house with a wood burner but after three years we moved into a flat which had central heating and a shower. But my dad, uncle, and their aunt lived in Keçiöğren when I was a child. Keçiören was a village far from the city centre. People there live in a cottage or in small apartment buildings with a maximum of three floors. They have big gardens with different fruit t...

I long to reach myself but I touch an invisible glass wall made of broken pieces I can’t connect with me I’m losing the ability to name what is real for me I have forgotten to notice birdsong I can hear the song of every individual bird  While I’m living in Elan Valley Andy was driving from Leamington to Elan Valley with me. I had car sickness because of too much excitement. I wanted to talk nonstop but I knew I was repeating myself. This excitement is too much for me to handle. For the first time in my life, I will be able to live in a cottage by myself in the middle of nowhere in Wales. We were not only driving to Elan Valley, but we were also driving into my dream. A dream for which I had waited so long… The weather is very pleasing. All the clouds in the sky were making art shows and celebrating my journey. Blue, white, grey, they were following us and changing their shape… The wind there, there to blow us gently along… And the sun joined my happiness wit...

My feeling is clear in my inside ragged on the outside I  see only the clear I  see to the heart  of essence I see only clear  I  lose myself easily  I force myself to clean disturbing memories  with the whisper of nature I want to... I need to... I'm ready to... I’m in Royal Leamington Spa now and I’m so excited. İn two days I'll be living in Elan Valley. New home, new area, new neighbour, new people, new routing, new discovery… It’s not easy for me to handle all these new things. As an Aspie woman, routine, ritual, and repetition are very important to me. They give my life structure. Within my routine, I always know what I need to do next. I’m easily upset by new routines or quick changes in my diary. Routines are very predictable and give me a sense of control. Unpredictability or unplanned days make me so anxious. I have a need to plan or script every moment so that I feel in control even if I’m not. Routines provide a ...

By denying our own personal pain, we have created the current world where the absence of love is called love. Today, perhaps what lies beneath the hypocritical life we have reached is denial. Denial of the need to confront the deadly fear we have for the pain we’ve engraved within ourselves. Pain and empathy are strongly related to each other and oppressing pain destroys empathy. The more we are open to pain, the more capable we are of feeling empathy. As long as we continue to refuse to understand the link between the denial of our own pain and its alliance with authority - rather than being an expression of internalized behavior – morality will be nothing more than etiquette.  It’s part of my Asperger nature that I always communicate well with nature and animals;  they are a catalyst to my work and my life.  I first rode a horse in Brecon whilst learning English back in 1994 and on returning to Turkey I got my own horse which I rode every day. Then in my novel...

Once you become alienated from your surroundings, slowly you’d become more introverted. You’d start searching for your desire to belong in Nature; starting on the mountains, spreading to the meadows, branching out the trees, and becoming a bridge between the melody of the culture you were not born to and yourself.  Nature determines the belonging on behalf of you and you take sanctuary in your new culture: not upsetting you; not betraying your trust; not making any surprises.  From then on, to belong would mean rhythm, and finds oneself in nature. When you can't find words, you learn the language of Nature. The wind, mountains,   rain, land… Everything started on Facebook. One night I was checking my Facebook page and one of my friends had shared information about the Elan Valley fellowship. Normally if it is some application there I always ignore it. It doesn’t matter what it is. But when I read about the fellowship and saw Elan Valley picture in spite of myself...